Summertime

Oli had a brief summer vacation because his school was closed for two weeks.  He got to hang out with his grandparents and cousins, turned 4 and a half, had a 4th of July block party, went camping, and took tennis classes, swimming classes and Chinese classes.

Cousins pile up on Tia Carmen

Javi stole most of the stars

Oli may not have learned much, but he was the class mascot/clown

Hot dogs!

Pool time!

Eli at 16 months

We missed Eli's 15 month check up.  This is what happens to second children.  We didn't even realize we had missed it until Jorge called the pediatrician's office to ask a question and they told him we should have brought her in a month ago.  Better late than never, so we took her in a month late for her 15 month check up.

Don't forget about me!  And my mangoes!

She's 20 lbs 3.5 oz in weight, 30 1/8 inches in height and 18 1/4 inches in head circumference.  Firmly in the 30th percentile for weight and height, around 60th percentile for head circumference.  So she's small, but not as tiny as we had feared.

Eli has decided to start the Terrible Two tantrums early.  When she gets frustrated, she will lie on the floor and scream and cry for a while.

Waaaaaaah!

At the doctor's office for the check up, the nurse took Eli's temperature and it turned out she had a fever.  The pediatrician noticed a small red spot in the back of her throat and promptly diagnosed hand, foot and mouth disease.  Sure enough, 2 days of fever followed, and then blisters on her tongue and mouth and rashes on her feet and hands.  Very little eating and drinking had us worried for a couple of days, but she is mostly back to normal now.

Unfortunately, Oli got sick too.  On the up side, he has been enjoying the popsicles, ice cream and juice that we are letting him have because of his sore throat.  However, his rash has been more widespread, with large blisters on his feet leading to extreme itchiness.  He fell asleep tonight with his feet in a bucket of cold water to alleviate the itchiness.

We can be pretty darn cute when we want

Walking and Writing

It's been so long since we posted we have some huge developments to report on.

Last time we posted, Eli was barely crawling.  Well, she started taking a few tentative steps a couple of weeks ago.

She also says a handful of words, like "bye", "Mama", "agua", "uh-oh", "Papa", "gracia", "de na".  She started daycare a month ago and seems to have adjusted, except that lately she has been refusing to take a second nap at daycare (but still takes two naps at home).

Oli has been in preschool since last fall and has made lots of friends.  He knows the names of all the kids and all the teachers.  He's known the letters in the alphabet for over a year and started to be able to read simple words a few months ago, but today he surprised us by writing out an entire 4 syllable word:

Mariposa (butterfly)

He sounded out the word and wrote each letter by himself.  He only made one mistake by writing a 'c' instead of an 's', so I corrected him.  We were building a butterfly house for our cocoons and he decided to label it.  Here is what he named the caterpillars: Oli, Eli, Mami, Papi, Tia Carmen.

Oli and friends on a hike

9 months!

Eli has now been in the world as long as she was in the belly!

9 month check-up: 17 lbs, 4.5 oz, 27.5 inches in length, no shots!

She's just starting to wave and is crawling backwards.  No teeth, lots of smiling and babbling.  Separation anxiety from Mami.  Enjoys a variety of foods, including fish and spinach (!) but is kind of lazy about feeding herself.  Prefers to be spoon fed.

Today, Eli showed us she knows how to play peek-a-boo.  She had grabbed her sleep sack as I was getting her ready for bed and put it over her face.  I asked, "Donde esta Eli? [Where's Eli?]" and she moved the sleep sack out of the way and laughed!  Then she put it over her face again and we went back and forth a few more times.

At the 9 month check-up, we discovered that her growth has slowed down a bit.  She's still growing, but not as quickly as she had been.  The pediatrician thinks that maybe we caught her before a growth spurt, so we'll see how much she grows between now and her 1-year checkup.  

Expo Line adventure with Tia Carmen and Uncle James

An unexpected visit resulted in a trip down the Expo Line for burgers and a Space Shuttle. Oli thinks the Expo Line is way faster than the Gold Line but the trains are older. He noticed that it spends more time on the street next to cars. He said "but this is not a Street Car, it's a train!"  He pointed out that the wheels of the Expo Line trains do not have connecting rods (pedales, he called them).  Very observant.

We ate burgers at Five Guys and then walked to the California Science Center to see the shuttle. On the way back Oli helped us buy groceries at Ralphs.

not quite how you hold burger.

not quite how you eat a cookie.

Eli 0.5

Eli turned 6 months old yesterday!  We go for her check-up on Friday, so no stats at this time.

She can now roll over from back to front and vice versa, but she's not very interested in rolling most of the time.  She can sit on her own and play with toys for a few minutes at a time, but can still topple over easily, so we can't leave her alone when she is sitting.

Since she is constantly sucking on her fingers and toes and can pick up toys now, we started to let her play with food a few days ago, just soft fruits and veggies.  She seemed to enjoy sucking on them and would occasionally spit up pieces so we didn't think she was swallowing anything, until this morning's poop.  There was, shall we say, evidence of food.

The proof is in the poop!

Eli is sleeping much better after CIO.  The two nights after the initial CIO post, she cried less and less until she didn't even cry on the third night after that.  There were a couple of set backs (too much noise, or put to bed too late) when she cried a bit more again, but overall, she doesn't cry or cries for less than a minute most nights now.  Soooo much better than before.  I can actually get some stuff done before I go to bed now, as opposed to having to hold Eli for an hour or an hour and a half every night.

Happier and better rested now!

CIO, nights 3 and 4

CIO Night 3:
Eli cried for 7 minutes before falling asleep at bedtime.  She woke up half an hour later and cried for 15 minutes before going back to sleep.  I thought things were going so well...  She woke up later and I fed her a couple of times, but then the dreaded 3 AM hour rolled around.  Eli woke up at around 3:20 and made some noises for a while.  I fed her, she stayed awake.  At 3:50 I put her in her crib and CIO started again.  She cried for an hour and a half before falling asleep and Oli woke up, invaded our bed and would not let us sleep either (as if anyone could sleep through Eli's crying anyway -- anyone except for Jorge, who can sleep through anything).  We had to boot Oli out and eventually everyone fell asleep again.  Until Oli woke up and invaded our bed again at 6:30.

CIO Night 4:
Eli started crying before I even put her down.  She knew what was coming.  She cried for 44 minutes before going to sleep at bedtime.  It would have been less, but Oli was making too much noise while refusing to get ready for bed and woke her up at least a couple of times.  Let's see what happens at 3 AM.

Conclusion:  Oli needs to be cried out too, but we can't keep him in his bed any longer, since he's not in a crib.  I'm sleep-training Eli so she goes back to sleep on her own, but I'm still feeding her multiple times at night (can't have her get skinnier than she already is).  Maybe that is too confusing for her.

Some cute videos of Eli that Carmen took: