Riding Lessons

For Kyle's 1st Christmas, we bought him "Sammy the Snail" (photo at right is Kyle at 6 months!)

He has now decided that it is time for Hannah to start riding him too! Hannah has had incredible neck control since birth, and when lying on her back she strains her neck forward to sit up. So it shouldn't be a surprise that she is getting close to being able to sit up on her own. The Boppy pillow offers decent support for her and she really is propped up happily when in the bath tub, and Sammy does a very good job of helping her to sit as well.

Thankfully, Kyle has only focused on teaching Hannah how to squeeze Sammy's antennae to turn on his theme song "You are my Sunshine" and he hasn't been trying to teach her how to rock yet - which can get quite vigorous.

4-month Check-up

This morning I reminded Kyle that we were taking Hannah to the doctor today. After I asked him what their doctor's name is and was told "Pretty Doctor Young", he asked me if Hannah needed medicine and I said that she would need some shots. He said "no shots! hurt" It's so sweet to see him looking out for his sister, but I reassured him that she needed the shots so she wouldn't get sick.

Our biggest concern (and only) for this check-up is her lack of healthy sleep habits at night. Because Hannah's weight gain has significantly slowed according to the growth charts (she's "only" 13 pounds 15.6 ounces) and because her sleep patterns have regressed, Dr Young suggested that we try some rice cereal in the evenings to see if we can help to satisfy her little tummy through the night. Our big girl is also 25" tall (75th percentile) so who knows, she may be taller than her mother! The "best" part of the visit is that a few of the vaccinations are now combined, so she needed only two shots instead of four. Poor Hannah fell asleep waiting for the nurse to come, so she was very rudely awakened with the pricks.

The above photo is of Kyle reading Hannah a story before his nap, I was told that I wasn't allowed to sit on the futon with them!

Happy 4-month Birthday!

Wow, where have the past 4 months gone? It's amazing how quickly our little girl is growing up. She's been talking, smiling and laughing for 3 months now, but these days it is so much more interactive. Here's a little taste of her babble (saying "hi") for those of you who have not yet seen it, I'll try to capture some laughs soon too.



I have Hannah's 4-month check up on Thursday, so we'll find out then how much she has grown in the last two months. Hopefully her shots will be less traumatic than last time.

Zoo Buddies

It's been two months since our last trip to the San Francisco Zoo, so we decided to take advantage of the long holiday weekend and plan a fun activity for Kyle, in addition to all of the to-do list around the house. We actually managed to mix things up a little this time, and instead of starting with the gorillas, we headed to the opposite end of the zoo to watch the Grizzly Bear feeding at 10:30. It was definitely neat to see the two grizzly sisters charging across the enclosure and jumping into their pond to hunt for fish. (Kyle and Hannah are both sitting on the grizzly bear statue above)

We also skipped the steam train ride this time, and instead rode on the carousel. "Round and round and up and down" as Kyle says, we had to make sure we picked one of the non-stationary animals to enjoy the full effect.

Kyle's been so articulate over the past month, it's fun to take him to the zoo now, and to have him ask for what he wants to see next (as long as he doesn't have us trekking from one end to the other and back again!) This time he wanted to see elephants, but unfortunately the SF Zoo no longer has any. So we'll be making a trip to the Oakland Zoo soon to visit their pachyderms.

Our next big, planned family outing is to preview the new California Academy of Sciences building on September 19th - look forward to an exciting review after that. But I'm sure we'll have more news and photos before then.

Beach Babes

The heat wave this week drove us to the beach this morning, along with a few other of Kyle's 2-year old friends. Little Miss Hannah had a fantastic time, watching all of the activity around her and of course always smiling :)



(This is testing out the video feature of my "Little" camera - hopefully more to follow soon!)

Rub-a-dub-dub, Two Babes in a Tub

The first time that we put Hannah's baby tub into the full sized tub, Kyle decided that he wanted to use it for his bath once we had taken her out. Well, tonight, he decided that he couldn't wait for her to finish, and that he actually wanted to get into the tub with her. Somehow they both managed to fit! Hannah surprisingly did more splashing than Kyle, probably trying to stand her ground before they both go into the big tub together...

Just call me "Pigpen"

This was how Kyle spent nearly every day at the lake,
usually requiring at least two baths each day!