Now we are four

My mom bought the girls matching dresses. Clara is growing so quickly that I don’t think she’ll fit in hers for much longer. And since they don’t wear dresses very often, and don’t have many things that “match,” we took a few photos after we got home from a birthday party this evening.

The girls and I spent a few days in Vermont while Ian took a trip to NYC. We visited beautiful Crystal Lake, swam in some ponds and a river, and hung out with the cows. Back home, we’ve been enjoying the warm weather by swimming at our local pool. And last weekend we attended a reunion in which members of the pool staff from years past got together (and everyone brought their kids). It was great to see everyone, particularly those who we hadn’t seen since the ’90s lifeguarding days.

Both girls love summer. Amelia wants to be outside all the time. Almost as soon as she gets up in the morning she starts asking whether we can go “outside.” And she never wants to come in once we are out. The other day it was pouring rain but she still spent about two hours splashing around in the puddles.

Clara continues to sleep through the night on most nights (except last night, when she ate at 3 am. I think she’s in a growth spurt again). In fact we almost can’t keep her awake long enough to give the kids separate bathtimes/bedtimes. Right now they are overlapping because Amelia’s bathtime starts around 6:30 pm and Clara’s around 7 pm. We were trying to keep Clara up longer so she wouldn’t wake up too early, but we decided it wasn’t worth it. And luckily she has been sleeping until about 6 am. Last night she got both a leg and an arm out of the Miracle Blanket so tonight I decided to try her in a sleep sack. I’m not convinced she will be happier with her arms free, but we’ll see.

Amelia practicing her smiles for the camera while Clara stares at Dada.

In the past week or so Amelia has become very chatty. I think she is enjoying being able to use words to express herself. She often narrates her activities as she is doing them, and she is getting pretty good at being able to tell Ian how her day was when he gets home from work. Often, Amelia will have pretend conversations with my dad (Babu) whether she is holding a phone or not — these conversations are always punctuated with lots of kisses.

Yesterday, while we were waiting for Ian to come home from work, I took about 15 minutes of footage of Amelia and I chatting. I did some very rough cropping to get it down to 10 minutes so I could post it to YouTube. So it’s long and not very pretty, but it shows her verbal skills and a little of her “I am almost two” attitude.

As I mentioned earlier this week, Amelia can sing the ABC song. It’s tough to get a video of her doing it because she always wants to “see” the screen. However, I managed to capture her singing part of the song with me using iPhone’s Voice Memos feature.

Amelia sings her ABCs

Also, I recently downloaded the Hipstamatic app for the iPhone and Amelia likes taking photos with it. This is one she took while we were on our way to Oka Park Beach. Not bad for a 20-month old, huh? (most of the photos I take using the app are blurry just like hers).

I played my first ultimate game on Tuesday night. I brought Clara to the game and she was an angel. She slept through the first half and then was happy to be passed from player to player on the sideline while I was on the field during the second half. And then when we got home she slept for almost 7 hours (from about 9 pm to 4 am). It was great to play, even though I am out of shape and haven’t thrown a disc since last fall. Good preparation for the Jazz Fest tournament, which is coming up more quickly than I would like.

When I was younger I always thought I would stop playing ultimate once I had kids. I didn’t want to be the woman on the sidelines breastfeeding her kid in between points. Why? I’m not sure what my reasoning was but I think I was worried about having to split my focus between the game and my kids. I’m still not sure I’m going to be able to handle it well enough to play competitive ultimate. But I would like the girls to be able to see us play the sport to which we devoted more than 10 years. So, if all goes well at the tournament next weekend it is likely I’ll be playing at Nationals this August.

Here are a couple of videos of the girls. The first is a random mashup and the second is bedtime in Amelia’s room.

Amelia’s phrase of the week is “do it” although it sounds like “do dit.” She likes to say “Mimi do dit” or “Mama do dit” to clarify whether she wants to do it herself or she wants me to help her. She also love saying the word “snack,” which sounds like “nack.” And she can now sing the ABC song. We read one of our ABC books a couple of times in the past few days and I sang the ABC song once or twice. Now she knows it and can sing most of the letters and point them out in the book.

Almost every morning when Amelia wakes up she asks to see baby Clara (who she calls Baby Caca right now, because she can’t pronounce L or R). She will then ask to hold her. Sometimes if Amelia wants attention from Mama so she will say “Hugamama.” Then she will point to Clara and say “Baby Caca” and then point at Ian or whoever else is in the room and say their name, indicating that she wants the other person to hold Clara. If no one is there, she will ask me if I can put Clara in her bed so that Amelia can get a hug.

Amelia’s vocabulary is expanding rapidly these days and she now uses verbs regularly such as “bring baby” or “carry mama” or “run Mimi.” This morning she said “Dada upastairs shirt” because Ian had gone upstairs to get a shirt. And when he was having a shower and the water stopped running she said “shower stop.” She babbles constantly to herself but most of the time if you listen closely you can actually figure out what she is saying. I also think she can count. She knows her numbers in French and English but above and beyond that, I believe she actually understands that different numbers mean different things. If you ask her how many cookies she wants, for example, and give her an option of one, two or three, she will choose three. Today I asked her if she wanted one more cookie and she looked at me, thought for a second, and then said “two cookies?”

She can put on and take off her shoes, her rain boots, and her socks. I recently have taken to giving her a cutting board and some veggies or fruit to chop up to help me when I am cooking. She will happily stand on a chair next to me and cut food up and then hand it to me to put into whatever I am making (usually it is soup). Today while waiting for my Dad to get here she kept repeating over and over “Babu, where are you?”

Clara is also pure joy. She is very vocal (in a good way – she likes to talk to us). And she smiles all the time. This morning she woke up at 5 am and after I fed her she just stared at me and smiled. And then she started cooing. All the sleep experts say not to engage with your child during the night so that they learn that nighttime is for sleeping. But I couldn’t ignore Clara while she was beaming away at me. Plus even though 5 am seems early, Clara had just slept 6 hours straight (7:30 pm – 1:30 am) and then another 3 hours so I was feeling pretty rested. For the past week or so she has been doing at least one 4-5 hour stretch in the evening. Amelia was sleeping 7-8 hours by about 2 months of age so we’ll see if Clara follows suit.

Clara is very strong and has been holding her head up on her own since she was about a week or two. She also enjoys tummy time and can easily turn her head from side to side while it is lifted. We swaddle her when she naps or sleeps at night because it seems to make her more comfortable. But when she wants to she can easily get herself out of the swaddle. And somehow she always manages to kick her feet out of the Miracle Blanket. I actually prefer swaddling to the Miracle Blanket this time around. We have some very large swaddling blankets that have been great so far. Plus I believe they are more breathable than the Miracle Blanket.

Shoes: Little Soles

Dress: Stella McCartney for Gap Kids