Recent breakthroughs

October and early November have been busy for the Updyke family with Sheila and Mon's wedding, visits from Gram and Gramp Updyke, Uncle Chris, and Uncle Jack, as well as Randall and Erik. There were also trips to Stone Barns farm, the Intrepid aircraft carrier, Halloween, and of course, Oliver's 3rd birthday.

Olie and Solvi both had checkups last week; him for 3 years, her for 6 months. At 35 lbs, 39 inches, Olie is over 100% for height and at 75% for weight. Solvi's skewing a bit the other way: 80% weight, 70% height at 18 lbs, 26 inches. Unlike her stoic brother, Solvi does cry when she gets her shots, though both kids are really model patients. In fact for his first dental exam a few weeks ago, Olie sat right down in the dentist chair and before the hygienist could prompt him, opened his mouth as wide as he could. But I digress...As you can see, throughout these months there have been many developments and delightful moments. Not to mention breakthroughs...

Not the least of which is Solvi's teeth, the first of which appeared today! One of the lower front ones and it's right on time according to family history - Olie also got his first tooth right when he turned 6 mos too. Teething is making poor Solvi very cranky. Aka she whimpers ever so softly now and then. That's a comparative meltdown. It's also making sleeping a bit more difficult for our girl and her mom, and this is a problem, because if there is one area where Solvi is not prefect, it's sleep. Unlike her brother who can sleep thru all the noises that New York has to offer, Solvi appears to have the unfortunate combination of being a very light sleeper (she gets that from Mom) and being a total social butterfly (as was her Dad as a baby too, so I'm told). The result is that whenever Solvi hears a peep (and our creaky floors qualify), she's instantly WIDE awake, pushing up and looking around to scope out the action. In the day time, Solvi's extremely extraverted nature completely charms. Often she provokes comments from complete strangers who've stated that they've "never seen a more alert, engaged baby." At night, it's not so charming. Luckily day always roles around, and there's that beamish grin again making sure all's forgiven.


Solvi's tooth sure has a sense of timing, arriving just as we were starting solids. Solvi's first foray with rice cereal didn't go so well (unless of course we wanted to try out for America's funniest home videos). She spit most of it out and made many a grimace. Day 2 went more smoothly. Though at first she wouldn't open her mouth, by the end she was doing much better, leaving her mouth open long enough after I extracted her thumb to get food in. By day three she was a professional, opening mouth and lurching at spoon. Now we're ready for oatmeal....

First meal. What do I do with this spoon thing?!

Olie helps with clean up

Solvi's also developing nicely in other areas. For several weeks now she's been rolling all over the place. Sometimes we'll look up from dinner and Solvi will be missing. Luckily a quick search usually finds her under the coffee table. She's really quite adept at this form of locomotion. Once spotting a desired item or person, she can roll over and over across the room to get right to it. Over the past few days, Solvi has been raising her chest and bum off the floor more and more. We're bracing ourselves for crawling. Solvi also sits well when placed in that position - so she's using Olie's high chair to eat. (He sits in the "big boy" chair now.) Besides excelling in gross motor operations, Solvi's fine motor skills are very advanced. She's absolutely loves bubbles and will track and try and grab them right out of the air. She can also pick up a button from you shirt and "catch" a ball when it's rolled to her across the table. The other night she completely grabbed a bottle out of my hands and proceeded to feed herself. This girl knows what she wants and knows how to get it!

Emotionally Solvi continues to be very happy, laughing easily, especially at the antics of her older brother. Despite her placid, happy demeanor, she can be demanding if you take a toy away or leave the room when she thinks she's going to be fed. She's goes right from smiles to full on cry when upset, but luckily goes just as easily back again. And finally, this week Solvi started speaking in consonants - "ba, ba" and "da, da, da". We don't think this is the real "Dada," yet but it's still very cute.

Olie LOVED the chickens at Stone Barns

Meanwhile, Oliver. Oh Oliver, whether he says something amazing, or runs all day long, or is even downright defiant, he still has us running to keep up. Despite being identified by his fabulous teacher as a "high energy, large motor" kid, Oliver is doing well in school. It's so cute to see him develop into his own independent person, coming home with new songs and experiences that we don't know. Here's a link to see pictures of Olie in action at school http://picasaweb.google.com/gena.columbus/MwfClass?authkey=g8_iuQ2ouWM#. In school, Oliver's developed a very good little friend named Jack. Oliver's total physical opposite, Jack is short, stocky and dark, but this Mutt and Jeff team loves each other. Going to the park the other day, they engaged in a lengthy and involved conversation about trucks, which they both love. Olie has a favorite fire truck at school which he finds at the beginning of each day. The other morning we arrived after Jack, who spotting me putting Olie's coat in his cubby asked, "Where's Olivah?" "On the other side I answered." "Oh good," he said, "I saved his fire truck for him." Oliver is working hard to navigate the close social situation. Though I can practically see the gears grinding in his little head when he does so, it's great to hear him use language and put into action some of the social skills he's clearly learned in school.

Olie and Jack Mambo during dance class

Large motor, high energy activities with Uncle Jack

Olie's imagination continues to flurish, something his teacher, Gena, especially noted, stating that it made him "really fun to teach." Oliver has started a band at home with Solvi and I. Solvi plays the maracas, I play whatever, and Oliver is the lead singer and band master. Sometimes the songs are from school, often they're made up on the spot. Then the other day Oliver was making a safari compostion out of some animal stickers when I heard him remark, "Hey stegosaurus doesn't belong in the field. Oh well he can go there anyway." Today, we were playing farm and along with water and hay, he gave the cow another troff of "savory sweets."

When not using his imagination, Olie can be quite literal (perhaps like his Mom, "The Fact Checker"). About a month ago Chad was reading a counting book to him. They came across a page with 8 ducks. Chad said, 'Eight little ducks go, "quack, quack, quack"'. "No, Dad," said Olie. 'Only 3 ducks go "quack, quack."' "Why?" "Because only 3 ducks have their beaks open." Sure enough on close inspection of the picture, he was right.

Dressed for Halloween

Oliver is also playing with the idea of favorites now. His favorite color is blue, a fact that we are frequently reminded of. For Halloween, Olie only picked candy that was wrapped in blue. His favorite airplanes at the Intrepid? Yep, blue angels. Favorite Bob the Builder character: Lofty the BLUE crane. You get the idea.

Birthday activity #1 - a visit to Gus the Polar Bear at the Central Park Zoo

Smiley Solvi with Dad

Decorating hats at Olie's 3rd Birthday Party - with school friends in Central Park

The Intrepid