Summertime with my girls

Summer is just flying by with all our activities.  Claudia did a course of swim lessons and we're practicing every day that we can in our own pool.  She is still a bit apprehensive of getting her face and ears wet, but she does it sometimes, like bobbing her face under and humming to blow bubbles out her nose.  She can do a "blast off" from our arms to the side of the pool, doing the doggie paddle a few seconds to get there.  Neely has been helping us out almost every day to coordinate appointments, errands, and lessons!  In addition, I started a new part-time job as a medical receptionist, so my mom and dad are watching the girls while I do that.  We're very thankful to have so much family support.  We made our first trek of the season over to Alta Lake and Glen was able to golf for the first time since his skiing accident.  We also took Claudia to Slide Waters in Chelan and she went down her first "big kid" slide (in my lap).  We also participated in the 4th of July parade of golf carts.  It sounds kind of silly, but it was actually pretty fun.  We hope to make it out to Eastern Washington a couple more times this summer.

Teagan is into everything these days.  She is pulling up on furniture and crawling everywhere.  She has been getting into the Tupperware drawer and trying to bang on the computer.  She has 4 teeth now and has struggled a bit with teething.  She has a rash on her face and gets uncharacteristically clingy and sleepless for a few days around a new one erupting.  With that exception, she is now sleeping through the night.  She generally sleeps 9pm-5am (8 hours), has a bottle, and then goes back down for 3 or 4 more hours.  Nice.  She is also a good eater and we've switched over to mostly finger foods because she wants to do it herself rather than having us spoon feed her purees.

Australia Trip

Teagan has grown leaps and bounds since my last post.  She is now 7 months old and has done a lot in the last month.  First of all, she has made her first overseas trip to Australia.  We went for 3 weeks in May.  The girls did fairly well on the long airplane trip and managed to sleep a bit on the red eye flight over, although struggled a bit more on the way back when we started out during the day and then had to layover in LAX from 3-8am.  Glen had a conference in Sydney (and we stayed with Adrian & Jo), then a job interview in Melbourne, and then we were up in Brisbane for the rest of the trip to stay with Nana & Poppy and catch up with friends and family.  The Banks family is spread out among Queensland and New South Wales, so we were so thankful for everyone that flew and drove in to see us.

Teagan got her first two teeth at 6-1/2 months.  They actually bothered her quite a bit coming in.  She rarely cries, but she's a talker.  I think she's just competing with Claudia.  She says "mum mum" a lot, but we've also heard a couple "da das".  She is busy.  She wants to mouth and grab everything.  And, she's crawling!  She scooted backwards for about a month, but as soon as we got back from Australia, she was in full on crawl mode.  She is super excited about food and will pretty much eat anything, either mashed food on a spoon, or even better, small pieces that she can feed herself.  She smiles and laughs a lot.  She especially likes her big sister and will do a big chuckle if Claudia does peek-a-boo or anything silly.  She is just such a happy easy baby.
 
I'm behind on posting her statistics, but here are the girls stats from their most recent appointments at the pediatrician.  Keep in mind that Teagan is probably a couple pounds heavier since then!
Teagan, 6-month:
17 pounds (62%)
16-3/4 inches (76%)
25 cms (96%) - a big head like her mommy
Claudia, 4-years:
33 lbs, 4 oz. (34%)
39-3/4 inches (49%)

Little Dancer

Glen is slowly recovering from his accident.  He is now out of the sling, can drive a car, and is doing physical therapy to get his range of motion back.  He still can't lift more than one pound for another six weeks, so he's still quite limited on what he can do, but he's been back at work for a month now.  We had a good stretch of sunny and warmer weather in March (and on Easter!) and were able to get out and do some fun things.  Just simple pleasures, like going for walks or to the park.

On to the girls.  Claudia is really into dancing these days.  She wants me to put on hip-hop/top 40 music so she can freestyle.  She also started a ballet class at the community center.  Her other interests lately are dinosaurs, camping, and swimming.  We went to the dinosaur exhibits at the UW Burke Museum and the Seattle Science Center.  She is looking forward to trying camping for the first time this summer, but we will try in Grandpa & Grandma's backyard first.  And Neely & Emilio have been taking her swimming at an indoor community pool by their house, and our outdoor pool opens in May.

Teagan is a joy.  She loves toys and always wants to hold or grab something.  She's noisy -- high pitched squeals, deep belly laughs, and lots of experimentation with sounds.  And watch out, she is already trying to crawl.  She can turn 360 degrees on her belly, scoots backwards on her belly, and sometimes tries to get up on her knees.  She's a week away from being 6 months, so that's early to crawl.  Yikes!  We started her on solid food around 4 months, but she made such a huge mess that I only did it randomly.  She is getting a bit better, so now I'm feeding her oatmeal or veggies about every other day and she's also getting Cheerios and other small finger foods.  Her dexterity is coming along and she can sometimes get the food in her mouth by herself.  Claudia loves to help feed Teagan.

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Skiing accident

So we had a bit of a tough time in February.  Glen hit a tree while skiing at Crystal Mountain.  He dislocated his shoulder and broke the glenoid region of his scapula (the top of his shoulder blade).  He also had some bruises and abrasions on his face and leg.  But, he was wearing a helmet and we are thankful it wasn't worse.  His accident was on 2/13 and he had surgery on 2/20 to screw the bone back together because it was displaced 4mm.  He's still on pain medication, but slowly recovering.  He hopes to be back at work part-time soon, but for now we're just getting even cozier together as a family.  He is just trying to stay comfortable, rest while he can, and painfully do his physical therapy.  He can't lift anything (like a baby!) or drive for 6 weeks, so I'm a bit overwhelmed taking care of everyone.  We're very grateful to have family nearby.  My parents and both my sisters have been taking the girls off and on throughout this whole experience.  The girls seem to be loving all the extra attention, although I imagine they're feeling the stress too by being shuffled to different places all the time.

Now to the girls.  Teagan is now 4 months old and here are her statistics:
Weight: 14 lbs. 5 oz (50%)
Length: 25-1/4 in. (75%)
She is still a delight and we're enjoying her big smiles and occasional laughs.  She still has a good head of brown hair, although it's falling out and little blond ones are peeking through.  We thought her eyes might turn brown, but they're still blue, so we'll see.  As she gets older, she is looking more and more like me so that's fun because Claudia definitely looks more like Glen.  Teagan had another appointment for her hip dysplasia, this time an X-ray, and they decided it had corrected itself and that no intervention was necessary.  Whew!

Claudia and I tend to butt heads, so some days are a challenge.  She wants to be with me at all times though, so among the arguing, we still have lots of good times.  We've been reading "Where the Sidewalk Ends" every night at bedtime.  She loves the silly poems.  She is so creative and likes to make up songs and do anything she can to make us laugh.  At preschool she is quite serious and a rule follower, so it's fun that she has a different personality at home and can really play up and experiment with language and all the ideas going on in her head.  She has also been out to the farm (Gina's house) twice now and got to go horseback riding and play with the dog.  Lucky girl!

Miss personality

Teagan's personality is really coming out.  She has started laughing out loud, rolling over (back to tummy; she actually prefers to be on her tummy), and really inspecting toys.  She also like suck on everything: toys, bibs, her hands, or even the side of my arm.  She is a much louder kid than Claudia was.  She is always "talking" and making all sorts of crazy sounds.  She is using the Bumbo to sit up, bats toys while on her activity mat, and actually likes to play on her belly.  We moved her up to medium flow bottle nipples so she is drinking faster and more at a time (3-4 oz).  This has also led to lots of spit up on her and me.  It can strike anytime, even an hour or two after she ate.  I don't really understand it.  I have her on a new brand of binkies (MAM) that she likes better, so I'm trying to use those to keep the spit up down, but it's not always successful.  Teagan is fascinated with Claudia.  She follows her every move around the room.  Claudia also loves being a big sister and is always trying to find ways for them to play together, like building a blanket fort and having Teagan come inside with her.  She has told me that Teagan is her best friend and she likes to sing songs about how much she loves her.  On the flip side, she sometimes accuses Teagan of stealing her toys or tattles on her for hitting.  It's always so silly to me that I laugh, but Claudia is actually serious and then she gets mad at me when I don't take her side.

Quarter birthday

Teagan is now 3 months old and she is turning out to be quite the talker.  She makes lots of squeals and coos.  She kicks her feet a lot and likes to suck on the side of her hand or my arm.  She started spitting up more and drooling a bit too, so we've had to pull out the bibs.  She had her first cold recently, which luckily was mild, but all the same, it sure is irritating for a baby to not be able to breathe through her nose.  We're not used to fussy babies, so it was very hard to listen to all the crying and frustrating to not be able to take away her discomfort (or mine!)

Claudia is super into writing right now and it's really clicked that letters make words and words make stories.  So she wants me to spell words for her to write and she has been writing her own mini-books.  She tends to write her words mirror image (backwards), so we will keep working on the correct orientation.  She likes to help us with shopping by writing her own grocery list and referring to it while we're at the shop to make sure we get everything.

We all had a great Christmas and New Year's celebration.  We started with a quiet Christmas Eve of just us, and on Christmas Day my parents hosted a lovely party for everyone.  Then for our New Year's, us, Neely & Emilio, and my parents all went out to Alta Lake.  Glen & I got to go skiing at Loup Loup twice.  It was cold, sunny, and no wind.  Absolutely perfect.  We had so much fun.  There was also over a foot of dry snow on the golf course, so Claudia got to go sledding for the first time.  She also made snow angels and a snowman.

Right after the holidays, my grandparents (my mom's parents) have had some health setbacks.  Grandma fell and although she didn't break anything, she was still in pain and needed a lot of assistance so she moved in with my parents to recover.  Since she's my Grandpa's primary caretaker, they decided it was time to move Grandpa into a dementia special care facility.  It's a quality place and he's doing quite well there, but of course it's hugely sad for everyone.  After Grandpa got settled, then Grandma started to get disoriented and slur her speech, and it was discovered she had acute hyponatremia (low blood sodium) and needed to be hospitalized for a few days.  It's a potentially very serious condition, but thankfully easily treated with electrolyte replacement if caught in time.  They tracked it back to a blood pressure medicine she had just started.  So it's been a very stressful and emotionally challenging time for everyone involved, especially my mom.  Grandma is currently living with my parents because she still requires a lot of care.

Christmas Eve at home.

 

Christmas Day throwing confetti around.

Snow!

A video of Claudia sledding!

Hanging out at home with my girls.