Solvi Arrives!!!!!

Olie's little sister made her debut into the world two weeks ago on May 6, 2008! Not to be outdone by her big, big bro, Solvi weighed in at an impressive 8 lbs 2 oz. 20 inches long. She was 13 days late, finally arriving just in time (by 1 day!) to save Mom from another scheduled c-section. After 25 hours of labor (which I now understand to be the most euphemistic term on the planet..."pergatory" would be a more apt description), Solvi entered our little family. Thanks to Mom and baby's good health, we were able to leave the hospital the next day - although it was touch and go there for a while as we waited for Solvi to pee. She finally did at 6pm day 2. We now have a new expression in our family, "Solvi time" as our little one clearly prefers to keep everyone in suspense as long as possible.



So far Solvi has been most worth the wait! An excellent baby, she eats like champ, sleeps for good stretches during the night, hardly ever cries, and is generally mild mannered and good natured. As you may know, newborns often lose weight in the first day or 2, so Solvi left the hospital at 7lbs 12oz. Babies are expected to regain the weight in 2 weeks, but our little champ soared past her birth weight after a week, weighing in at 8lbs 6oz as of last Monday. I have to say, I do think Solvi knew what she was doing waiting a little longer in Mom. She seems so much more developed than most newborns and can even already hold her head up! Grampa Hand concurs, saying that Solvi has an excellent chart. He notes that she will be "uncommonly pretty" (we take smart for granted). I'm not sure if that's the astrologer or the grandpa speaking.





Finally, though he's clearly adjusting to having to share Mommy, Oliver is proving to be a most attentive and helpful big brother. He coo's over his baby sister and says "Oh" to her. He is very good at burping her and is sure to remind me if I forget. He also spends time at night having me change, burp and feed his own baby doll. "Waaaa!" he'll say, "Baby needs to be changed..." and so on.



In other Olie developments, our boy growing in leaps and bounds. He is totally able to express himself in complex paragraphs now. In late March he also completed his first composition, a collage with a boat, water, cloud, bird and light house. Likewise he now arranges his sticker in compositions. The other day, he put a ladder on a fire truck sticker to make it more specifically " a ladder truck." He also drew his first representational animal while my Mom was taking care of all of us last week. We watched in amazement as he drew several horizontal stripes and pronounced "tiger." He then drew some legs sticking down (Ok so there were ten of them instead of four) and a circle for the head. Oliver has also mastered several hit tunes like "Itsy Bitsy Spider" which he performs with all the hand gestures, but our favorite his Olie's rendition of "Low Bridge," which he often sings to his animals at night. And let's just say that when it comes to dinosaurs, only Gramma Martha knows more than he. He will gleefully explain the difference between a brachiosaurus and an apatosaurus or a diceratops, triceratops, protoceratops, and styracosaurus.