Fun in the Park

Checkups and Kindergarten Roundup

This morning Carley had her 15 month checkup and Lindsey her five year checkup.  Carley is 23 lbs 6 oz and is right on track height and weight wise, still right at the 50th percentile.  Her head circumference, though, has shot up to the 90th.  We were thinking her head looked a little big lately!  And other than eczema, she's perfectly healthy and right on track developmentally.

Lindsey at 36.5 lbs and 41 inches was at the 10th percentile for weight and the 25th for height but the doctor pointed out that the growth charts they had were not multi-racial so she was probably more in the middle for Asians.  She was also pronounced perfectly healthy and right on track developmentally.

Then in the afternoon Lindsey and I went to her Kindergarten "roundup" where we got to meet the kindergarten teachers, see the classrooms and best of all, play in the playground.  Afterwards Lindsey and I had a nice mother-daughter lunch date at a restaurant that overlooks the local municipal airport.  So we got to watch airplanes and helicopters take off and land while we ate.

Tonight we weighed Sam since it had been a while.  We were shocked to see he now weighs 29.5 lbs.  It will still be a little while before Carley catches him.

Lindsey was a little bit nervous while waiting for the Roundup to start

Sam at almost 30 pounds

A Very Scary Moment

This morning I sent the kids to their room to get dressed and suddenly heard a loud bang and then screaming.  I immediately ran into their room and saw that their chest of drawers had fallen over.  Blain had also run in and was trying to lift the chest up.  I didn't see the kids at all.  I was in a complete panic fearing the worse.  I started to try and help Blain lift up the chest but he yelled that he had it, just get the kids out. 

By some complete miracle neither one was seriously injured.  Lindsey got a bump on the head and Sam a bruise on his cheek.  Sam had opened the bottom drawer to climb up to the get his socks from the second to the top drawer.  He had been trying to pull it open when Lindsey had grabbed him to pull him down and the whole chest had come down.  I still can't believe they weren't really hurt and am very, very grateful we didn't have to make a trip to the hospital today.

Happy Birthday, Lindsey!

Lindsey turned the big Five today.  We celebrated by having lunch at Chuckie Cheeses.  Then in the afternoon all the kids got a haircut at a neighborhood hair salon.  It was during nap time so Sammy actually fell asleep while he was getting his haircut and I had to help hold his head up.  All that fun at Chuckie's must have worn him out.  I know it wore out Blain and myself.

Trying to Wear Out an Almost Five Year Old

Spring is on it's way and the weather was beautiful so I took Lindsey on a walk in a futile attempt to wear her out. She also tried a little "bewd" watching along the way.

Fun Weekend

My Aunt and her new husband from Germany are visiting my mother so we met them for dinner both Friday and Saturday nights.  We see my German side of the family only rarely so it was great to spend some time with them.  Then on Sunday we went to see Disney on Ice.  The kids and I loved the show and it even got a thumbs up from Blain.  We were really lucky that we ran into some old coworkers of Blain who work there that were able to upgrade our tickets so we had great seats (Thanks, guys!).  Lindsey liked the "Lion King" part the best and Sam, of course, loved the "Cars" portion.  He told Blain that this was the "real" Lightening.  Carley seemed to enjoy the "Little Mermaid" part the best.  That and the dot ice cream.

Tante Liesel and Uncle Sepp

Party of Eight

The REAL Lightening

Mmm, there's nothin' better than Dot ice cream

Skiing for the Second Time

I took Lindsey for her second ski lesson yesterday.  Her teacher said on her ski school report card, "Happy, Happy, Athletic".  She told me that Lindsey was very enthusiastic and just wanted to go fast.  That if she keeps it up she'll be an olympic ski racer some day.  I guess we'll see.

Carley at Fifteen Months

Carley just turned 15 months old on March 2nd.  She's the typical busy baby  - walking, chattering, likes to carry things (about anything will do), opinionated and very sweet and affectionate.  And VERY attached to her bottle.  She's all along refused to use a Binky so the bottle is a big source of comfort for her. 

In fact, I'm actually embarrassed to admit this, but she only slept through the night 2 nights ago for the first time (unfortunately she didn't repeat this last night).  She wants a bottle or 2 in the middle of the night and is very vocal about demanding it.  For the longest time we were in denial about the comfort factor and convinced ourselves she was really hungry.  But at some point we had to admit she did not have a physical need for a bottle but an emotional one and not having a good night sleep night after night takes it's toll.

We finally did what our doctor had suggested almost a year ago - tough love which we started a week ago.  We endured five nights of lots of crying and Carley feeling oh so sorry for herself.  She got lots of cuddling and lullabies but no bottle.  On the sixth night she slept straight through!  My baby is growing up.

Falling asleep today in her highchair

Drama at the Dentist Part 2

A couple of days ago, Lindsey had to go back to the dentist to get a cavity taken care of.  Unfortunately Lindsey did not cooperate at all and had to be sedated to get the filling done.  If you've seen the youtube video of the little boy who's father video taped him on the way home from the dentist after he had been sedated, then you know about how Lindsey was afterwards.

Where did baby Lindsey go?

Last week I registered Lindsey for Kindergarten for next fall.  Since we don't have a birth certificate for her, I used her U.S. citizenship certificate to prove her birthday which has a picture of her taken in China when we got her at nine months old.  In 2 weeks she'll be turning five.  I looked at her baby picture and thought how did my first baby become such a big girl?