Next Steps: Crawling and College(?)

Every day now Solvi performs new feats of physical advancement and Olie just continues to say the darnedest things. Which is my way of saying it's time for another update.

Let's start with Olie for a change. Ever since Dad let it slip that someday Oliver would go to college, our poor boy, who at this point has no concept that he might ever want to leave his parents, has been obsessing. Seemingly comforting statements like “it's a LONG time away” have no effect. So last week as I was getting Olie up for school, he raised his disheveled head (I love morning hair!) from the pillow and asked, "Mom, what comes after college?"
"Well you get your first apartment and job."
Dead silence.
So I add, "or, some people come back to live at home."
"Yeh, I'm going to do that!" No hesitation there.
Then smart Mom that I am (sometimes) I seized the opportunity to finally put this anxiety to rest once and for all. "You know, Oliver, there are many colleges in New York, so you could go to college and still live at home."
"Yeh, I'm going to do that."
I thought that that settled it, but a few days later on the way to school, "Mom, can Jack and Owen go to college in New York too?"

The fact checker lives. At school Oliver's class is studying dinosaurs, so the teachers buried plastic dinos in the sand in the sensory table (Oliver's favorite spot). Oliver unearthed a small fin backed reptile the other day and announced to Gena, “Actually Dimetridon lived BEFORE the dinosaurs. He's just a reptile.”

Here's another gem. A couple days ago as I'm lying on the floor of Oliver's room he commands. "Mom, you be dead."
"Oh great," I think, "What grand concept are we wrestling with now?" "Why?" I ask hesitantly.
"So I can dig you up and put you in the Museum of Natural History." Phew.

The future paleontologist

And as for Solvi Dear. First let me say that there is just something about this baby. I'm going to start counting the times that people come up to me and say how cute she is. Not just happen to be sitting next to me on the subway and say the obligatory, "Cute baby." But actually go out of their way to comment. This morning on a 20 minute commute to dance class: twice.

Our little rolling wonder is now desperate to get vertical. She's all but abandoned her signature rollomotion for a more precision creeping technique (pulling herself along, belly still on floor). She's quite fast. No longer can we just leave her because she can now pull up to at least her knees and sometimes all the way to standing, and unfortunately, her preferred method of descent is to pitch backwards from standing (hopefully) into awaiting arms. She's also starting to “cruise,” making the first few hesitant steps from her cube to the coffee table. Solvi also sits pretty well on her own, though can't get to a sitting position herself and is still likely to careen back. In fact this has become a favorite game.

On the culinary front, Solvi has also advanced to the wonderful world of finger foods and is quite adept at using her pincher grip to shovel Cheerios into her mouth. She even very generously likes to feed some to me as well.

Verbally Solvi's favorite sounds are still, "da, da, da" and "ma, ma, ma." They don't seem to stand for us yet, but I swear that "ma, ma, ma" is reserved for a distress call. Like when she’s crawling down the hall and can’t get to me fast enough, “mamamama!”

"Reading"

It's amazing to watch two children develop side by side and note the differences as well as the similarities. One example is the way they read. From a very early age, Olie delighted in reading, his eyes carefully perusing the pictures. With Olie I remember having to guide his finger to any fluffy or scratchy parts. Solvi's fingers on the other hand seek these out immediately. In fact for Solvi reading seems to be an entirely tactile experience. So little does she seem to care for pictures that unless a book has flaps to manipulate or different textures to touch, she totally disinterested. The one exception is books with pictures of babies or, better yet, mirrors! Apparently Solvi thinks she's just as charming as the rest of us do, and she loves to kiss herself in the mirror. Speaking of similarities, Chad and I also catch Olie watching himself "perform" in a mirror or TV reflection quite often. I'm afraid they get this from me.

Happy New Year!

Christmas Day w/ Bob the Builder characters

Christmas Baby on Sheila and Mon's porch

New truck on the beach

Quiet moment with Dad

Hurray 2009 is finally here! Well, along with the rest of the world, I will say that 2008 was no picnic. In fact it will forever go down in our family history books, is "the year when the only good thing that happened was Solvi!" Which, in hindsight, makes it a very good year!!

Not to be too corny, but times like these really do remind you of the minor miracles that kids bring to your life every day. Over the week of Christmas, Solvi delightful many a visiting relative (inc. Auntie Steph, Mom Gramma Birds, Brian, My Dad, Lisa, Auntie She and Mon, Jessie, Great Gram and Gramps Bonnell and even the Blake cousins) with her new talent: inch worming! Now she's a double threat movementwise, rolling into position and then inching across the last few feet for the final toy tackle. She's also pulling her body up from the belly position til just her legs remain on the floor.

Olie LOVED Christmas and was very happy with his lego Bob the Builder characters. (Today, New Years Day, he stuck lego animals, planets, and even buildings on their "heads" and they all had a party in their "party hats.") He was also unusually cooperative on Christmas Eve. While on a walk to Coast Guard, the conversation went something like this:
"Mom, I'm being VERY good today."
"Yes, you ARE being very good."
"Yes, because I know SANTA is coming."
(Meet Santa, my new best friend. Too bad he only comes once a year. Next new best friend: Easter Bunny.)

Olie had a great time with all his relatives and esp. with Tilly and Audrey, but Solvi found all the "new" faces (infants aren't known for their long term memory) a bit overwhelming. Used to be that Solvi had an adorable habit of beaming at every new face on the subway or street and then demurely turning her face away to hide it in Mom's neck, only to turn back to stranger, then Mom, repeat, and so on. They say babies do this when they're overwhelmed. Now she's moved on to a new phase of stranger interaction. She doesn't turn away, she just cries. Until she got re-acquainted, Solvi protested with tears when held by nearly everyone. Much better to remain with Mama where she could safely, and astutely, study each "new" face. Luckily for all her admirers, she was very soon her old self again.

Happy Holidays!

Dec. 2008 and we’re getting ready for Solvi’s first and Oliver’s fourth Christmas. True to the spirit of the time, we’re actually having a white Christmas, much Oliver’s delight. This is really the first year that Olie has really gotten into spirit of things. He shouts with excitement every time we see a Christmas tree, or lights, or Santa. His enthusiasm is infectious and makes the holiday that much more fun for Chad and I as well. (Except that we are reeeaallly sick of listening to his dinosaur Christmas Carols CD.) Oliver composed his first letter to Santa this year which included many blue things as well as many Bob the Builder characters. He was also generous enough to include requests for Solvi and even a “squeaky rooster” for Bella.

Solvi is of course oblivious to Christmas but may have given her mother the best holiday gift of all by uttering “mamamamama” for the first time 2 days ago. Sure it’s just vocalizing, the expansion of her “bababababa/dadadadada” repertoire, but I’ll take it just the same. Along with her charming consonant-plus-A babbles, Solvi has added another less attractive sound. It’s hard to describe really, except to say that she sounds possessed. If we didn’t know that she was a total angel, we might worry that her head would start spinning around. It’s quite humorous really.

Though she does push her butt back over her legs more and more now, Solvi is not crawling yet. This hardly inhibits her from getting where she wants though. In fact so adept is she at navigating the horizontal plane that we call her the “Rolling Ninja”. Just when we think she’s stuck for sure, a quick kung fu move, and she on her way again. The other day while I was engrossed in a down to the wire Ebay bidding battle for Olie’s Christmas present, Solvi managed to roll out of the living room, down the hall, around the corner and past the kitchen, before I found her.

On the culinary front, Solvi is now enjoying 3 solid meals a day. With each bite she opens her mouth wide like a baby bird (revealing her second bottom, front tooth which joined the first only one week later). When she’s done she locks her lips tight as a clam. So far so good, except that she appears to be intolerant to bananas and avocados (apparently they have a similar protein), which cause her to break out in a red rash. Next month: finger foods.