I will start with Casey...
She went thru a period this Fall when she was sort of afraid of the dark. It was nothing drastic but if she wanted to go to her room to get something she insisted I come with her to turn the lights on first. This Halloween was a fun one for Casey. She was excited about getting dressed up and enjoyed trick or treating much more this year. She also got to eat some candy which she enjoyed. Casey was a lion and so was Julia. Casey started a little gymnastics class this Fall. She is the youngest one in her class by far as the other kids are all 4 or 5. It is the first "drop off" class we have done, meaning I sit out in the lobby and watch and do not participate. She cried the first day for me and was not very well behaved the first two classes. She would get up and wander around when the teachers were explaining things or when she got bored of what they were doing. But she learned to listen quietly and do as she was told. This is all stuff I was hoping for as a small precursor to going to school next year. Gymnastics has now just ended and she goes to a little dance class instead. The dance teacher here at Taft runs it in the dance studio and about 6 other little girls from Taft attend it. Casey loves to wear her leotard and run around with "her buddies". Casey continues to amaze me with how smart she seems to be, she has an incredible memory. We were driving in the car and a Rolling Stones song came on, she said from the backseat "Just like when Eddie's phone rings". Eddie had that same song as his ringer which amazed me that she put it together. We recently got 'Curious George Goes To The Hospital' out of the library and I have read it to Casey every night for a week or so. It is quite a long book in terms of other books we usually read. The other night she decided to recite it to me. With a little prompting here and there she completely recited the 47 page book to me. I'd say she knew 90% of the book by heart. She is becoming a real rule enforcer with Julia which is funny. She is always telling her what to do and things like "no Julia, we don't bring toys to the dining hall". She is very slow getting ready to get out of the door. We have to tell her 100 times to please get her shoes and socks on. When we went to Florida over Christmas break Casey picked up right where she left off in the summer with her swimming. She worked on it while we were there and swam across the pool by herself for the first time ever. We have always tried to encourage her to try and take a breath and then keep swimming and she finally picked up on the concept and was able to make it across the pool. It was not pretty, but she made it and we are so happy for her. Also, Christmas was so fun this year. Casey loved it and was interested in learning all the songs and traditions. It was fun for us to get that childish spirit back and share it with our kids.
Now for Julia's update...
Julia is at such a fun age. She is developing so fast and makes us laugh all the time. She has a lot of teeth right now, the four front ones on top and bottom as well as 3 of her 4 molars. The fourth is probably on its way. The molars have been giving her some trouble. The past month she has woken up crying in the middle of the night about once a week. It is hard to deal with once you get used to sleeping thru the night. She loves her blanky and has a Pavlovian response when she sees it her thumb goes into her mouth immediately. Julia began walking on November 14th, just 10 days after her first birthday. She was very wobbly at first but made progress every day. Now she is working on running and motors around the house. She used to fall on her head a lot when she was crawling at that continued when she first started walking. She always seemed to land on the exact same place on her forehead and went thru several months where there was always some stage of a bruise. Now she has a permanent dent on the spot. The worst one was when she slipped in the tub and an enormous egg came up immediately. Luckily she is not hitting her head nearly as much these days. She finally learned sign language, after what felt like a whole year of trying to teach it to her. She signs for more, water and food. She has started talking and tries to say many words. A lot of words she drops the first letter or letters, so sock for instance is "ock" and clock is also "ock". She says words like shoes, cheese, moon, spoon, balloon, baby, sock, clock, bear, ball, kick, hockey, pee pee, poo poo, eye, up, teeth, book, cold, hot, close. Lately she has begun to say when she is going poop by saying "poo poo". This is a good first step in toilet training as she is recognizing the action. Once we even got her to the toilet in time to do it there. It is fun that she is trying to say so many things. She also says Dada, Mama and Casey. She is learning so many things too, she picked up ice the other day and said cold. She puts her hand on warm food or near the heater and says hot. When she sees Santa she says "anta". She likes to play ring around the rosy with me and Casey and can say "ashes, ashes, down". She is interested in the phone ("hone") and puts it to her ear and says 'uh-lo'. She loves taking tubs and showers (see the video below to see her excitement in the shower). She is a tough kid but also very lovable and cuddly some times. She blows kisses, gives us kisses and hugs, when we hold her and say 'rest' she will lay her head down on our chest. She also hugs and kisses Casey a lot too, it is so sweet. IN general the girls play well together. Casey gets frustrated and annoyed when Julia comes and gets into the middle of what she is doing. It happens a lot b/c Julia is always very interested in whatever Casey is doing. I try to balance having Casey learn patience and learn to share with Julia but also trying to respect her need to work on things independently and have her own space. It is fun to see the girls develop a sort of relationship. The other morning I went into their bedroom and they were in their respective cribs, laughing together as they played a "game" where they would duck down and say "down" then pop up and look at each other. Then they would jump up and down holding on to their crib rails. They were having so much fun and doing it together it really made me smile.
Oh and by the way....if you are still reading our news is that we are having a third baby! I am 17 weeks pregnant and will be due July 5th. I've been feeling good, better and less tired the last few weeks.
