A little artist

About a year ago, we got an easel for Adelaida. It has a chalk board on one side, dry erase board on the other side, and a roll of paper on the top that she can paint on. She has used the chalk side, but I've been wary of letting her paint until recently. But a few weeks ago, I cut up an old shirt to make a smock, rolled out the paper, and introduced Adelaida to finger painting. She loves it!

The first time she cautiously dipped one finger in the paint, she immediately held her finger up and asked me to clean it. I'm sure she has painted at school, but she was not very happy at having paint on her finger at home.



Eventually she realized she could wipe her finger off on the paper, and soon she discovered she could make hand prints!


She was having a blast and was kept occupied with the painting for quite a long time.

I pulled out the paints again this week, and she immediately covered her hand in paint and smeared it all over the paper. Eventually her eye itched and she rubbed it with a blue hand. Fortunately, it cleans very easily!

Starting Solids

Estella and Cordelia have entered a new phase -- one in which they are no longer solely dependent on me for nutrition, they are developing their tastes and learning how their mouths work, and their diapers are starting to stink!

Last weekend, I pulled out the baby spoons, bibs, and booster chairs, defrosted some frozen pumpkin, and started feeding the babies!


They both did really well, although the first few feedings took a long time for them to eat very small amounts of food. And I forgot how messy babies are when they eat!

Cordelia looks at her daddy, wondering what this weird thing against her mouth is.


Cordelia's first bite


Estella prefers the pumpkin on her chin to in her mouth


Cordelia likes pumpkin and eagerly opens her mouth whenever the spoon is near!


Estella knows she is supposed to put something in her mouth when we are feeding her ... is it her bib? her hand?


Adelaida wasn't sure what to think of her baby sisters eating "real food." The first time I fed them, she scolded me, "No, Momma! Babies only eat milk from Momma's breast!" (which is what we've been telling her since they were born, to keep her from feeding the babies grapes and crackers and pasta and such). Eventually, I was able to explain to her that her sisters are growing up and they can now eat pumpkin, but only if Momma or Daddy feed it to them. She was confused again when I introduced the babies to banana, but I think she understands now that they will be getting more foods in the coming months.

Adelaida is Three!

Time really does fly when you are having fun, and our little girl is certainly fun! We celebrated Adelaida's third birthday this week and I started reminiscing about the past three years with her.

It seems like just three days ago that I held my baby girl for the first time, marveling at her little tiny hand wrapped around my finger. She was so precious and so tiny and all I wanted to do was hold her and protect her and love her!





And the next thing I knew, she was smiling at me and laughing and eating butternut squash and crawling toward the dogs' water bowl and saying "da-da" and suddenly she wasn't an infant any more.





And wasn't it just two days ago that Adelaida was taking her first steps and feeding herself and saying more and more words like "ball" and "puppy" and "hippopotamus" and asking me to read her twenty books every day and developing real independent interests and melting my heart with her smiles?!

But still she grew up so fast, and yesterday (wasn't it just yesterday?) she stopped wearing diapers and didn't need a bib anymore and started singing the most adorable songs at naptime and said "I'm independent!" and her words became phrases and phrases became sentences and sentences became whole stories!







And today Adelaida is a smart, kind, confident three-year-old who loves her baby sisters and adores her daddy and still has a beautiful smile and an infectious laugh. She is strong-willed and independent but when faced with choices, she generally makes good decisions. I am so proud of the big girl she has become.









Adelaida is also getting bigger -- or is Pink Panther just getting shorter? Here are some of the traditional pink panther pictures of Adelaida over the past three years:

two months old


nine months old


one and a half years old


two years old


three years old

Cordelia and Estella grow up ... five months old!

My little girls are growing up! Cordelia and Estella celebrate their five-month birthday today, with a nice quiet stay-at-home day. They continue to grow, both physically and developmentally, and are both just fascinated by their big sister.

newborn Cordelia
 

one-month-old Cordelia
 

two-month-old Cordelia
 

three-month-old Cordelia


four-month-old Cordelia


I tried to get a picture of Cordelia with her legs straight out, but she insisted on lifting them up. She loves to chew on her hands and drools A LOT! Holding Cordelia on my lap while I eat has become quite a challenge, since she has started grabbing everything in her reach. Cordelia doesn't roll over very often, but is still surprisingly mobile. She inches across the floor and rotates just by kicking her legs up and then putting them down in a slightly different place. She is a happy, content baby and has the sweetest smile.

Cordelia at five months, with Pink Panther


Cordelia at five months



newborn Estella
  

one-month-old Estella
  

two-month-old Estella
  

three-month-old Estella


four-month-old Estella


Estella gets more and more mobile every day. She has become quite a pro at rolling from her back to her stomach, then likes to "body surf" on her stomach by lifting her arms and legs up. She is a sweet, easy baby as long as she is well rested, but quickly has a meltdown if she gets over-tired. Estella is getting more vocal and the best way to describe her vocalization is that it is a very loud SQUAWK! She talks in her crib, she talks to the toys hanging above her on the playmat, and sometimes she talks to nothing in particular.

Estella at five months, with Pink Panther


Estella at five months


Here are my two beautiful, happy five-month-old girls!

A Colts fan and a Broncos fan were laying on a blanket together...

I laid the babies down on a blanket this afternoon and walked away to fold laundry. After a few minutes, I heard one baby laughing and one baby crying, so went to check on them. I swear I heard Estella point to Cordelia and say "oh-and-thirteen, oh-and-thirteen!"



The taunting starts so young!

Boots? Check. Gloves? Check. Adorable coat and hat? Check.

Today was a snow day -- not just a snowy day, but a real, can't-go-anywhere, roads-are-closed Snow Day. Dale couldn't go to work, Adelaida couldn't go to school, and I couldn't leave the house, even if I had wanted to. So, we let Adelaida sleep in, Dale cooked French toast for breakfast, and then Dale and Adelaida bundled up and made their way outside to play in the snow.

We knew that Adelaida wouldn't stay outside long if she got too cold, so we dressed her in tights, sweat pants, a long-sleeve shirt, a sweat shirt, a thick coat, boots, gloves, and a hat. I think she had more fun getting dressed up than playing out in the snow!


I also made sure Dale was dressed appropriately, and the two were ready to go outside!


My role during this adventure was to take photographs, which I did by stepping outside, taking a few photos, then running back inside to stay warm. The babies were awake, so I laid them down on a blanket while I snapped photos of Adelaida and Dale playing outside. At first Adelaida was happiest in Dale's arms.


Eventually, she ventured onto the snow. Dale took her onto a shallow area so she wouldn't be totally overwhelmed by the snow, and she did great!


I checked on the babies and found Estella pushing Cordelia with her feet. Cordelia didn't seem to mind!


Dale threw a snowball, which Adelaida thought was hilarious!


Dale set Adelaida down on a great big snow drift. Lots of fun!


I checked on the babies and found that Estella had rolled over onto her tummy, and was kicking Cordelia in the face and neck ... and Cordelia didn't seem to mind. I moved Estella so that she wouldn't hurt her sister.


Dale got the sled out.


And they decided to sled down the hill!






I checked on the babies again and found that Cordelia was using Estella's pajamas to roll herself onto Estella. Estella didn't seem to mind.


After the sledding adventure, Adelaida was ready to come back inside to warm up. We spent the rest of the day playing with the kids, completing some tasks around the house, and generally enjoying the snow day. Unfortunately, the roads are being cleared and the snow is slowing down, so it looks like we won't have this great excuse to stay home tomorrow.

Our little preschooler

Last month, Adelaida's teachers asked me if I was ready to move her up from the 2.5- to 3-year-old class to the preschool class. I was expecting this move around January, but was happy to consider moving her earlier. Dale and I discussed it, and after a week of Adelaida being sick and some delays at school, she moved to the preschool class two weeks ago.

The preschool class differs from the toddler classes in several ways. First, the toddler classes are pretty finely divided by age, so all the kids in the class are the same age, to within about six months. The preschool classes have kids age three to five, so there is a much broader age range. Second, while the toddler classes have Montessori stations, the kids really just use those stations to play during their free time; the preschool classes have set times that the kids do real Montessori work. Third, the student-to-teacher ratio is much larger in the preschool classes, which results in the kids doing a lot more things by themselves. And finally, the preschool classes get to use the big kid playground rather than the little kid playground!

The first two days in the preschool class, Adelaida wasn't very excited about it. She didn't have problems when Dale dropped her off or anything, but for the first few days she told me that she didn't want to go to the new classroom; she wanted to stay in her old classroom. By day three, she was asking to go to school even on non-school days! She loves the new class, and the "work" she does at school. I had Adelaida home with me yesterday and, after telling her that she couldn't go to school but would be going back to school tomorrow, she announced that it was work time and she wanted to do some work. I had looked at some of the stations in her class and noted some that I could do with Adelaida at home, so yesterday morning Adelaida practiced transferring dry beans from one bowl to another with a spoon (and counting the spoonfuls, up to 53!), pouring rice from one cup to another (a huge mess and we won't be doing that one again without preparing an area that we can clean up easily!), and sorting pictures of animals from largest to smallest. She was occupied, practicing great skills, and happy -- what more could I ask for?

This morning, she announced that she wanted to go to school today. I love it that my daughter loves school!

One other new feature of the preschool class is that Adelaida has homework, a few sheets of homework each week, with a week to finish them. She got her first homework last week and it was due on Monday -- four sheets of paper, two practicing the letter "L" and two practicing the number 12 (the class's letter and number of the week last week). She did one or two sheets each day and did much better than I expected. And after those four sheets were finished, she asked me for more homework! I didn't know what to give her, so yesterday I bought a preschool workbook that she can work on after her weekly homework is done.

Here are samples of her first homework.

Letter recognition, big L and little l.


Practice writing the number twelve. The teacher assured me that it is OK if she can't trace the numbers yet, she will get there eventually.


Adelaida doing her first homework!