Kids... and words

Holy cow, it's been a while since I've posted here.  8 months to be exact.  No time for catch up, here's what's going on right now.



Zae is 18 months old.  Still perfect.  Has just started getting serious about talking in the past couple of weeks.  She had plenty of words here and there, but is just now embracing verbal communication.  A list of commonly heard Zae words and phrases:
Bottle (bah-woe) -- uses one to go to sleep every night, a habit we'll break at some point but aren't messing with for now since she's still the only one of the three kids who sleeps all night every night in her own bed.
Eat it!  (will eat lots of anything)
Open
Up
All done
No!  (was "Mo!" until recently, now more like "now")
Yeah!
Mama
Daddy
Papa
Mazie
Athena
Wiley (Why-yee... just lost him a few weeks ago.  Zae adored him.)
Stop it (bop it!)  -- said frequently to big sisters
Baby (look, there's one in the mirror!)

Meanwhile, Athena turns FIVE tomorrow.  She is amazing... strong, fierce, loving, and curious.  We're all so excited for her to start kindergarten.  Recent quote: "I want to LEARN!"  She's been starting to read and is THRILLED to begin cracking the puzzle of letters and words, and has also been enthusiastic about math and numbers.  Not that I compare my kids... but watching Zae's language evolution has reminded me how remarkably articulate Athena was from a very young age.  At five, she speaks incredibly clearly and confidently to friends and strangers (aka new friends).  For this reason, I have deliberately NOT corrected the few words she mispronounces: my favorite is "veginning" (beginning).  She'll probably yell at me when she reads it for the first time.  Or yell at her teacher and insist that it's spelled wrong.


Mazie is a grown up.  Practically.  She flew home from Washington by herself today, after spending 4 days there on her own with Nanny and Papa (the other 2 and I also went for a week and came home without her).


As a rising 3rd grader, she is officially halfway done with elementary school.  She also knows lots of words.  A new one: fascinator, the name for the fancy hats that she and Auntie Catherine modeled on her WA trip.

Zaeby Facts: 10 months

The Zaeby here.  Here's what you need to know about me right now:

1. I am 10 months and almost 2 weeks old.
2. I am very mobile.  I've been crawling for over 3 months, pull up to standing on anything I can find, and can stand pretty well for 30 seconds or so.  If you hold my hands (or even just one of them), I will walk walk walk.  I haven't really tried taking a step on my own yet, but that's not far off.  I'm working up to it.
3. I have an enormous appetite and will eat absolutely anything you put in front of me.  It's hard to even say what my favorite foods are since I really will gobble up just about anything.  I routinely eat more for dinner than my sister Athena.
4. I wave "hi" and "bye bye," do the sign for "more," and give kisses.  I love to babble and am making lots of different sounds... da da da, dla dla dla, ma ma ma ma, ba ba ba ba ba.
5. I am silly.  I like to scrunch up my face and snort -- apparently my Aunt Jen used to do this when she was a baby, and Grandpa and Nana called it her "Snuffalupagus."
6. I routinely sleep 12 or more hours at night in my own crib.  Neither of my big sisters did that... really ever.  
7. I stopped nursing when I was a little over 8 months old.  When I was 6 months old, I started having some formula along with Mama's milk since I hadn't gained enough weight since my 4 month checkup.  Unlike my sisters, I've sucked my fingers since I was little and stopped nursing for comfort pretty early, so I guess my lower demand led mama to have lower supply, and eventually I just switched over to bottles.  While Mama was a little sad to be done nursing for the last time, there are definitely upsides.  It certainly made it easy for all of us when Mom went to Ghana for 9 days in November.  I am happy and healthy.
8. I love my big sisters.  Athena plays fun games and roughhouses with me, which I actually like (usually).  Mazie is gentle and adoring.  They both make me smile and laugh.  I'm pretty lucky.
9. I still have blond hair and blue eyes.  I look a lot like baby pictures of Mazie, but people have also said I look like my Papa Steve. 
10. I am a fabulous, sweet, smiley, social baby, and everybody loves me.

Athena is 4

Though I am apparently too busy to document it, the children continue to grow up.  Here I take a few minutes to pay tribute to my fierce, fiery middle child.

Athena Lee turned four in August.  For her birthday, her marching orders were that we needed to have a party with all of her friends and all of Mazie's friends, and that there needed to be cake, ice cream, popsicles, and a "surprise dessert" (Mazie and I made her chocolate covered strawberries).  She is a girl who knows what she wants, and is getting better at using her vast vocabulary to make requests.  Ahya, who has been on the losing end of more than one meltdown induced by improper preparation of yogurt (vanilla first, mixed in, THEN honey, ON TOP NO MIXING!!) or similar missteps, recently suggested that Athena should right a book about the right way to do things.  "But I don't know how to write!" was Athena's response.  Too bad, because the book would be a long one....
While her convictions can be challenging at times, I am so grateful for her spirit and strength.  This one will not be a pushover.  Dear Athena, here are some of the things I love about you:

• Your sense of adventure.  I love how eager you are for new experiences, and how much you pay attention to details.  On our way up to Vail this weekend, you exclaimed that we were on the road to Winter Park (I-70) and were going the wrong way!  We eventually were able to show you the exit for WP, and to explain that we were going straight to get to Vail.  In the car you like to ask how we get to where we're going, and insist that we tell you all the road we're going to take to get there.  We've also started taking the bus to school together -- it's only about 10 blocks, but you love the adventure of walking to the bus stop, getting on, watching for the fire station and pulling the cord to let the driver know to stop.  

• Your independence.  In September you started your third year of preschool at Patchwork (3 days/week this year), and you could not be happier to be back in your space.  In all the time you've been going there, I honestly can't remember one day when you cried when we left you.  You are so in your element out in a world where you have a cubby and friends and teachers and endless activities and choices you get to make about how to spend your time.  I am so grateful we found such a great fit for you (and so close to home!).  More generally, you love being out in the world and surrounded by people.  Sometimes I'll pick you up at the end of the day and you'll ask where we're going... if I tell you we're going home, you tell me you don't WANT to go home!  You are an extrovert: you seem to draw your energy from being around other people.

• Your affection.  While you rarely seem to need me during the day, you do insist that I "tuggle" with you every night at bedtime.  You've gotten better at letting Dad be the one to tuggle with you when you wake up during the night and come to our bed (which still happens every night), but I am still your most requested parent, and I love that even as you get bigger, you do still need me to hold you sometimes.  I also love to watch your relationship with your sisters evolve and grow.  You and Mazie have been close your whole life... you have rough patches here and there, but usually play well together, with the types and complexity of your play growing as you get older.  What has been really wonderful in the last few weeks has been watching your relationship with Zae blossom.  From before she was born, you have been incredibly excited about being a big sister and very loving to her, but you've also struggled to show that love in a way that she can enjoy and appreciate.  Since she didn't interact much as an infant, you interacted for her, grabbing her and making her "hit" herself, for example.  Another example: when Ahya was first getting Zae to laugh a few months ago, you wanted her to laugh at you, too, and tried to accomplish this by yelling at her to LAUGH!!!!  But with Zae getting more mobile and engaged, you recently turned a corner: sitting on the kitchen floor, you made up a game involving throwing a toy and then racing her to it.  You won every time, but she was completely entertained and squealed and laughed at each new toss.  It was so wonderful to watch, and the game has now evolved so that you'll even let her win sometimes.  I am so excited to watch you continue to play and grow together.

I love you, Miss Athena.  You are our tiger, and our goddess.

Zae is on the Move

With a week to go before we hit the 7 month mark, Baby Zae is officially a crawler.  She's had all the pieces for a couple of weeks (sit, lean forward onto hands, move a knee, move a hand), and in the past day or so she's gotten pretty good at putting all of them together to move herself with direction and purpose.  Wasting no time, her primary purpose so far has been getting herself to a spot where she can pull up to standing.  I fear walking is not far off....

This is from a couple of days ago, right before she really took off.

And here is her standing up...
This is the first time I found her doing it in her crib.  The lights were off and she was fussing so I went in to get her and when I reached down in the dark I could tell something funny was going on.  Flipped the light on and found her like this... so naturally I went and grabbed my phone to take a picture, and then picked her up.

Here's one from today.  She's pretty happy with herself in this one.

Mazie is 7

Last month, Mazie turned 7.  She celebrated with a swimming party at the Lafayette Rec Center, followed by dinner, presents, and cake at our house, with 9 of her closest friends and cousins.

Mazie James, this might have been your best year yet.  You LOVED first grade and had an amazing teacher who loved and appreciated your smart, funny, caring soul.  She called you a leader, remarking on how you had a clear sense of who you were and how you wanted to be in the world, and how your classmates admired and respected that and followed your example.  Here's one email she sent us this year:
"Oh my gosh,  Mazie has kept me in stitches with her writing in her Let's Chat journal.  She reads these funny entries to me with such inflection. It really brightens my day and of course, makes me laugh.  What a wonderful (and funny, kind, clever, caring, reflective, smart-the list could go on and on....) person you are raising!"

You are an athlete and an entertainer.  This summer you are loving being on swim team, and you've also loved your jazz dance class and your role as Bert Healy in Annie recently!  In each of these endeavors, your enthusiasm and commitment are wonderful to watch.

You are incredibly kind and playful with both of your little sisters, and have graciously accepted your role as the oldest and often least paid-attention-to child.  Your independence and ability to entertain yourself (the reading skills you've developed this year are really helpful here) are such a huge help to us as we work to meet the needs of all three of our kids, but I'm also hoping to work on strategies for getting to give you more undivided attention, for my sake as much as for yours: you are so much fun to be around and I miss getting to focus on just you!  I love you, my big kid.  You're a special one.

Zae is 5 months old

It's the 5 month naked baby shot!

So far Baby Zae is keeping up with her sisters milestone-wise.  At 5 months, she rolls easily from front to back to front and does a great baby push-up.  The day after her 5 month birthday, Papa sat her up at a park (we were visiting them in Bellingham) and lo and behold, she stayed upright!  So she's a sitter now too.

She likes to talk to us, smiling and squealing, but is also calm and quiet a lot of the time.  She's easy going, sweet, and cuddly.  She's also getting more curious and is increasingly able to operate her little arms and hands to grab toys and bring them to her mouth.  She still sucks on her two first fingers -- either hand will do these days.

On our trip she got to meet Uncle Ty and Aunt Sara -- we celebrated Ty's birthday, and then went up to Bellingham for the 2nd Annual Camp Nanny Papa!  

Now we're home for three days before driving up to the cottage.  Phew!  

Also, here are some of Zae's stats from doctor's appointments that I never posted:

2 months:

Weight: 11 lbs 6 oz (45th percentile)

Length: 22 in (67th percentile)

Head: 37.5 cm (22nd percentile)

4 months:

Weight: 13 lbs 9 oz (27th percentile)

Length: 24.5 in (38th percentile)

Head: 39 cm (8th percentile)

Baby Zae is still perfect.

Sure enough, almost four months into her life the Zaeby is still a dream child.  She is sweet, content, increasingly good at self-soothing, and transitions fairly easily among her (still mostly family) caregivers.

One handy new trick is sucking her fingers.  For a while it mostly took a lot of luck for her hand to wind up close enough to her mouth for this to be accomplished, but in the past 2 weeks or so she's become a pro at manoeuvring the pointer and middle finger (almost always of her right hand) into position.


Also, on Nana's birthday (May 17) she rolled over (front to back... and then back again) for the first time.

Like Mazie at her age, she seems to have developed a strong preference for being able to see out into the world... the Ergo carrier doesn't work as well anymore, but she's pretty consistently calmed by being carried facing forward.  She has also become increasingly interactive, giving lots of big smiles and starting to show an interest in toys.  Her big sisters have really enjoyed this.  Mazie has been fairly adoring and content with even the "cute blob" phase, but Athena has seemed eager to be able to play a bit more.  It won't be long.

Zae also had her first big adventure recently: we rode on an airplane to North Carolina!  It was a great trip.  Ahya came with us, and we stayed with the Smiths for a week while I met with Duke friends and colleagues and then attended the RWJ Health and Society Scholars Annual Meeting in Chapel Hill.  It was a great meeting, and I was so grateful to Ahya for being Zae's constant "attendant" for the entire trip.  Ahya was actually one of about four grandmothers milling around the conference with young babies, touring around Chapel Hill and then popping in so their mommies could feed them and send them on their way.

During the week we also squeezed in a trip to Greensboro to see the Archers (neighbors from my childhood days in New Jersey)...

and lunch at Fearrington Village with Great Uncle Dave and Great Aunt Geni.

It was wonderful to spend time with Matt, Allison, Tobin, Evan, and Lauren, and so sweet of them to share their new home with us for a week.  The kids were very enamoured with Zae and each doted on her in their own way.  Lauren was particularly amusing... one of the first things she did was to grab one of Zae's hands and (to her credit, fairly gently) do a "You're hitting yourself!  You're hitting yourself!" routine.  This would have been funny on its own, but it happens to be EXACTLY WHAT ATHENA DOES with Zae (see above note about wanting her to be more interactive).  Lauren also has "fast running shoes" like Athena and seemed to have a similar energy and passion overall.  It will be interesting to see how they interact during our trip to Maine in July!

Speaking of Athena, she had a dance performance this weekend.  Here is the lovely ballerina.

Zae has moments when she looks like Athena, but her similarity with Mazie seems especially strong these days.  Case in point:

Zae (age 3.5 mos) vs Mazie (5 mos)