Thumb-Sucker

I think I mentioned before that we have our first thumb-sucker. I tried really hard to get her to take a pacifier. I tried 3 different kinds/shapes doing all sorts of things they said on the internet might work. I could have maybe bought some more kinds to try, but after all the bottles we went through I was a little burnt out.

I looked through my camera and actually don't have that many photos showing Leah sucking her thumb, even though I think it's kind of sweet when she finds her thumb, so I took this one on purpose:

Just a little blurry:

And just a little suspicious:

One thing that is nice is that she never loses it in the car seat or crib, so I'm not groping around in the dark trying to find something to soothe her.

Softball

Amelie's playing coach-pitch softball. I wanted her to play this summer with James, but it's worked out well with her playing in the Fall. The weather is much better than it was for the summer season, that's for sure.

I made a video of her getting a hit (and batting in a run) at her last game (there's 1 more left in the season). I forgot to turn the camera sideways, though! Sorry about that! (In my defense, I was holding Leah and trying to poke the phone camera part through the chain link fence.)

The pictures didn't come with baseball cards showing her height/weight/position (remember those?) maybe because they just rotate them through all of the positions at this level. Amelie's favorite is 2nd base.

James enjoys watching the games and playing with the other younger sibs.

I like the "good game" ritual afterward.

Doctor Visits

Tuesday was very, very busy! It was the big move-in day at the new shelter, plus curriculum night at Amelie's school, plus I'd scheduled James and Leah's well-child checks forever ago for that evening, since our doctor's office does evening appointments one day a week, but you have to book them way out in advance (before the grand move-in had been rescheduled or we'd gotten notice about curriculum night).

Anyway, Sam took Amelie to Ridgeway to learn about Individually Guided Education, and I took James and Leah to the doctor. I'll ask Sam if he took any pictures to make his own post! Ha!

James went first and everyone was very impressed with his spelling and drawing abilities :)

The doctor gave him the pen to test him copying some shapes for her and writing his name (right there on the exam table paper), but then she left the pen in the room while we were waiting on shots.

Vital statistics: 39.2 pounds (39th percentile); 3 feet, 5 inches tall (17th percentile)

He was so disappointed that he didn't weigh 40 pounds, since we said he could move to the booster seat if Dr. Swofford said he could at the appointment. I'm hoping that this spurs him to eat a better supper! Anyway, he'll go back with Leah at her 1-year appointment so he can get his kindergarten shots, and we said we'd weigh again then and he'll probably be able to.

Things James can do right now:

• Dress himself
• Do a summersault
• Stand & hop on one foot & kick a ball & hit a baseball 
• Draw a person with many details
• Write his first and last name
• Sound out some 3-letter consonant-vowel-consonant words
• Stay dry all night
• I don't know how high he can count - I'm pretty sure it's well up over 20*
• Knows our address, the first & last names of his parents & siblings & we've been practicing our phone number
• Still hanging on to some baby speech sounds, but uses many complex sentences and can carry on a conversation and tell a story intelligible to strangers.

Link to his 4-year checkup for comparison: http://babybuffaloe.blogspot.com/2016/09/doctors-visit.html *Okay, so when I looked at last year's doctor visit, he counted to 25, so I'm assuming he can still do that! Haha!

Next it was Leah's turn. The nurse took our picture (also pre-shots):

Vital statistics: 14 pounds, 11 ounces (19th percentile); 2 feet, 1 inch long (12th percentile), head circumference: 42.5 cm (53rd percentile)

Things Leah can do right now:

• Sitting up some (not super stable) 
• Army crawling! (I thought this came after sitting)
• Using a palmer and sometimes a pincer grasp (mostly to eat)
• Babbling lots of "Dadadada"
• Has doubled her birth weight and is trying new foods
• Definitely prefers familiar people and has some stranger danger (this seems early to me, too)
• Likes to bang her spoon on the table and splash in the bath
• I hadn't noticed if she's passing things from one hand to the other - I think so, but I need to pay attention and make sure - she does grab things with each hand and bring them to her mouth

Here's a link to her 4-month checkup for comparison: http://babybuffaloe.blogspot.com/2017/07/4-month-doctors-visit.html

6 Month Photo Shoot

We're getting professional photos made in a few days, but I took several quick pictures of Leah on the morning she turned 6 months old.

I asked James to come over to see if he could make Leah smile.

 Silly brother.

I have a hairbrained plan for a comparison photo in this shirt/dress - I have pictures of Leah in it at various ages (though I didn't start out thinking of it and purposefully take pictures starting when Leah was a newborn, the fun way my friend Amanda did -- it just happens to be a very versatile dress/shirt and then I remembered Amanda had done a cool project like that and I decided to continue). Also, I need to dig up pictures of Amelie as a baby to see if we have a good one to compare her to Leah in the same clothes.

Birthday Interview

James and I started his birthday interview yesterday morning and finished it this morning.  

1. How old are you? Five
2. What is your favorite color? Pink and Orange 
3. What is your favorite toy? Don't know. What toys do you like to play with the best? I don't know. What are you typing?!?! [I read him what I was typing.] A Hatichimal!
4. What is your favorite game? Mario Smash Brothers. And I invented a new Rock, Paper, Scissors
5. What is your favorite song? Nothing. What do you like to sing? Nothing! At school? Nothing! At church? Nothing! In the car?  Take It All Back
6. What is your favorite animal? Cat 
7. What is your favorite book? Star Wars
8. What is your favorite movie? Leap 
9. What is your favorite TV show? Slug Terra
10. What is your favorite thing to eat? Cheesy Rice Cakes
11. Where is your favorite place to go? Nothing! Subway! And I'm going to go away! [this is where we stopped for the day] 
12. Who is your best friend? Clara*
13. What is something you learned last year? Don't know. Did you learn anything at school? 7 plus 7 is I don't know, but I know what 5 plus 5 is! 10! 
14. What is something you'll learn now that you're 5? Math 
15. What is your favorite part of preschool? Eating snack
16. What is hard for you to do? The monkey bars and hmmm jump roping and ummmm juggling. Well, maybe you'll learn how to do that now that you're five :) 
17. What is your favorite thing to do? Play Mario. We already added that in though ... Play with the baby
18. What do you like about Me (Mama)? That you're nice. Anything else? No
19. What do you like about Dada? That he lets us play
20. What do you like about Amelie? Nothing! Does she ever do anything nice for you? She let me have her stickers, that's nice
21. What do you like about Leah? She's nice to me and she loves me
22. What do you like about yourself? That I get to play Mario. What makes you a good person? That I'm nice to baby Leah
23. What do you want to be when you grow up? Nothing! [after further prodding] a briefcase. [Amelie said, "He means a lawyer."]  

During his birthday interview last year, James said his best friends were all of the kids at Ready, Set, Learn except for Clara! 

We had a rehearsal dinner and wedding for a friend of mine this Friday and Saturday and Sam's playing at both church services today (plus Nana Jana is out of town) so we'll have James's party next weekend. He's asked several times a day every day since Friday if today is his party, though. 

Banana Time!

Leah has been very, very interested in the food we've been eating for a while now. She will grab for our food and acts generally offended if other folks are eating but she's not part of the meal.

Here are some pictures and one very long, slightly gross video of her chowing down on a banana.

Probably it would have been a neater job if I hadn't been trying to make the tape with one hand while helping her out:

We waited til 5.75 months, but as you can see from the video, she was raring to go, and we just jumped right in with table foods. She's also had tastes of avocado, roasted carrot, mashed sweet potato and pulled pork.

I suspected that the big kids would think it was a lot of fun when she started to eat, and I was right. James thinks it's unfair somehow that his and Amelie's first food was a sweet potato and Leah's was an avocado :)