Anna and Alexis

I keep notes about what to write in these posts and I try to keep up the pace of posting monthly about the kids, but my long winded nature makes it the kind of task I postpone until I have a good solid block of time, like on a plane.

Anna’s ability to comprehend and extrapolate is a source of constant amusement and awe. It’s impressive to see how just in the 3 months since her birthday her comprehension, her ability to follow conversational instructions has evolved. Because of our perpetual binky battles we now have her put her own binkies away in a cabinet each morning. Recently Leigha came to get her one morning and had to step out of the room, and as she was walking out she heard Anna putting her binkies away without even being told. A few weeks ago we were having a new television delivered, and we were telling Anna that at big truck was going to bring the new TV. As we drove out to some function we passed a UPS truck on our street and Anna pointed at the truck and commented “Big truck, new TV!”

Leigha’s mom visits us frequently which provides an interesting glimpse into how Anna’s mind works. We have a name for every room in the house that Anna is used to hearing, except for the office and guest bedroom. The only room that differs from its conversational name is the family room which Anna dubbed “downstairs”. On a recent Mimi visit, Anna also dubbed the guest room Mimi’s room, because of her leading occupancy. In the same conversation, Anna referred to our bedroom as “Mommy’s room”, which meant no room was named after myself. Renee asked Anna “where’s daddy’s room?” to which she responded by pointing at the office.

Anna has for a while now mimicked my shutterbug tendencies, but moreso recently. She has a tinkerbell toy camera that on pushing the pseudo-shutter button goes through a series of three voice remarks and on the fourth push fires a tiny light and makes a shutter release noise. I’d like to get her a real (but not valuable) camera that I can let her lose with and see what kinds of pictures she ends up with. For now she insists on bringing her camera when she sees me brining mine, or interesting, sometimes when we’re going somewhere and even though she doesn’t see mine. We went to the zoo last weekend and while I had meant to bring my camera I had forgotten to prepare it and as we were getting down the driveway she asked where her camera was, so I ran inside and got both of ours. In the same zoo trip we saw some monkeys climbing on rope bridges between raised platforms and she was very quick to remind it to “be careful monkey” clearly sensing the precariousness of the monkey’s present course.

Anna had a good time at the zoo and she got to see every animal she had listed to be of interest, except for giraffe. I though the National Zoo had giraffes at the elephant house but they clearly weren’t inside and outside there was construction, so I’m not sure what happened. It’s a shame because I think she would have gotten a real thrill out of seeing a real giraffe up close. We did however see seals, which weren’t on her list, and she was pretty mesmerized by the seals. That was the last thing we did before she started losing it and we had to head for home. But later in the pool she told me she was going to swim like a seal and started diving into the water (although despite her best efforts, almost entirely unlike a seal).

A few weeks prior we made a trip out to Frying Pan park, which is a nearby county park that has a working farm on it (and hey, it’s free). She calls the farm the ‘e-i-e-i-o’, as per the song. It was a pretty bitter, cold day, especially for April, but Anna didn’t seem to mind, or notice, and was enthralled with the horses, chickens, the baby pigs, and lambs and the cows too. She really couldn’t get enough. One of the other things I think we first saw on that trip was Anna’s impersonation of walking like a duck, it’s she bends forward a ways and sticks her arms straight back and starts to waddle around and quack, very memorable.

Anna for a brief period had a fledgling interest in Spanish. She would ask Leigha what certain things were in Spanish, the problem is that the words she knows, simple English words, don’t always map to simple spanish words. Cheeks for example, don’t translate to a word that’s within her grasp. But we have been focusing on body parts and numbers and she gets a kick out of that. The Spanish isn’t coming along as well as I’d like but I’m still hoping we can get there. Her English on the other hand is moving along well. She had her friend Matthew over a few weeks ago and Leigha reports that they even started having little conversations, along the lines of:

Matthew: Anna! Matthew chase.
Anna: Ok! Anna run.

It’s cute, like little cavepeople or tarzans. She’s also doing better on the phone. Again, Leigha reports that she and Mimi had a conversation where Mimi asked her questions about her day or what she was doing and Anna answered her (and even correctly). Previously when you’d ask her what she ate today, for example, she’d list foods, just not necessarily ones she actually ate. Recently she’s been very accurate in what kinds of things she’s eaten or done in the 1 day time period. Going back more than a day gets you sketchy results. “What did you do yesterday” is not a reliably answered questions, although sometimes she does get it. But two days after we went to the zoo, I asked her what animals we saw at the zoo, and she listed giraffe in the list. When I ask her what she did at school, for a short while her first item in her list of activities was “Anna cry” which probably reads a bit more tragic than it conveys from her. She says it with a smile and sort of an empirical detachment from the observation. We’ve also been working on Anna’s letters. She’s pretty curious about them and likes to point at a letter and either tell you what she thinks it is, or ask what letter it is. Letters she knows she is pretty accurate with, except a lot of letters look like “K” to her. She basically knows the letters from her cereal boxes “K”, “I”, “X”, and additionally, “A”, “B”, “O”, and recently added “E”; she knows “N” but sometimes confuses it with “M” due to visual similarities. There are a few others she knows, or knows with less accuracy, like “X”, or “D”. Leigha walked her through a picture of all the letter and I seem to recall she counted in the 10-12 range of letters she got right, so it’s progress.

The other thing we’ve learned, or suspect, during breakfast is that Anna seems ambidextrous. I wouldn’t expect it to be a lasting thing but she doesn’t particularly show a preference for any specific hand while she eats her cereal. I’ll be curious to see how long it takes for her to develop dominance but I know there was a few days I thought she was a lefty because she ate cereal left handed for a few days, and I mentioned it to Leigha, but the next day or a couple days after she was eating right-handed again. I’d like to do some reading about when that sort of preference develops and if there’s any benefit to encouraging her to continue using both, either subtly or overtly.

Anna can be a rascal and lately she’s been overtly testing limits. When told not to do something she will frequently do something that is similar but not exactly what she was told to desist doing. For example, on an occasion before we started storing her binkies (and largely the source of the rule) she was laying in her bed in the middle of the day playing with her binks and seized upon a moment of parental distraction to put one in her mouth. The short-lived indulgence ended with a stern warning to not put the binkies in her mouth. The response was to, instead, touch tbe binky to her cheek. When this was observed but unpunished, she touched it to her lips. As we watched her sternly, she impishly stuck out her tongue and touched it to the pacifier while very carefully watching our reactions with a sly grin. These sorts of encounters are very thrilling for me, especially in retrospect, at the time I probably wasn’t amused, or at most impressed with her chutzpah but when I think about the pieces of social awareness at work, and the pace at which she achieves them, I can’t help but relish the progress. Other times are less innocently cute, sometimes she’ll just respond with an inappropriately rude “No!” and we try to deal with these swiftly and correctly, although occasionally that becomes a matter of subjective discretion.

Anna and Lexi are also very special to watch together. When Lexi starts crying, Anna will frequently fall in line, start following directions better, be more tolerant of not getting her way. If we’re busy she’ll frequently go to her sister and ask “What’s matter, Lexi?” or sing to her. She will look for a pacifier to give her sister, or let us know that Lexi is upset. Once in a while she’ll offer her own evaluation of the source of frustration “Lexi hungry”, she might suggest. She’s still very tender with her sister and except for the occasional contention over the Bumbo there is harmony and symbiosis.

Lexi is growing of course, and Leigha and I both get giggly over her developing personality. She’s also growing to be very mellow and understanding although she’s not afraid to let us have it when she goes too long without some personal attention time. She’s been smiling easier and on occasion squawking a laugh or some other noise for no reason. She loves being held so she can work out her legs and it almost always puts a big goofy smile on her face. She’s not a big fan of the camera and we’ve been keeping up on the monthly family and individual picture of her, although I don’t find it as easy to capture her personality as I think it was with Anna, or I may just be more picky nowadays. Like her sister, belly time is pure torture and she screams like a banshee so Leigha tries hard to entertain her. The ball popper will keep her quiet for a little bit of time but she gets bored of it after a couple of rounds and belly time doesn’t last much longer after that. She’s still a wonderful sleeper, at night and even during the day she’ll take some solid naps. Lexi still sleeps at night in her papasan by our bed, partially for our convenience, and partially because she’s the pukiest baby we’ve ever seen, and we think sleeping more vertical helps her keep her food down. Leigha has been working on getting her to nap during the day in her crib and that seems to be progressing apace.

That’s pretty much all the news to date. Leigha is looking forward the end of the school year and hopefully the next update won’t take quite as long.

March has left us and at an alarming speed. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been back at work for a full two weeks and Lexi was born four weeks before then. I think it’s fair to say that life with two children has us exhausted. I have previously said to people who asked how it was going that it was more than twice as much work, but after getting some puzzled looks and reconsidering, I realize that my assessment was completely inaccurate. The part that it took me nearly a month to come to grips with is that it’s just more work. Somehow I was just completely and delusionally unprepared for the additional work that a second child would entail. I can now honestly say that I think it’s less than twice the work, the problem is that we were already at 70% capacity, so yes, going from 70% exhausted to 100% exhausted felt like twice as much work when it was not. Part of the problem is the seemingly endless doctors appointments that we’ve had: Lexi’s check up, Lexi’s sonogram, Leigha’s accupuncture, neurologist, and physical therapy all take their toll in terms of time and energy. Progress on Leigha’s recovery has been very encouraging to her physical therapists and to us as well.

The month started off with Anna’s birthday parties. We did a little one for her when her grandmother was here on the actual day of her birthday but the official party was scheduled for the following week. All of Anna’s friends except Bella were able to make it and she really ate up all the attention. Leigha decorated with Sesame Street balloons and we thank the attendee volunteers who gave their time and energy towards helping us make the party a fun for Anna and all her friends.

Lexi is a champ herself. I feel like she’s already developing her little personality. She sleeps better than we could have hoped and is a good eater. A better way to describe Lexi is that she has very strong wake/sleep inertia. It is a challenge to move her from one state to the other. Getting her to sleep at night is mildly difficult, but once she’s out she’s out for the night. Similarly, she’s slow to wake in the morning. She lays there making squawking and short screeches as she tries to move herself from asleep to awake. During the day she catnaps lightly but she moves between the two inconsistently and without much conviction. Lately she’s started to give smiles, although I think we’re still in the phase where the smiles seem to be provokable, the success rate is so low that I almost wonder if it’s just coincidence. Her smiles are adorable but fleeting and so I’ve had no success (or opportunity, frankly) to capture them for your enjoyment.

Anna is for the most part fond of her sister. Jealousy that we expected to deal with never materialized and only on rare occasion has Anna had a problem sharing. She’s still excited to hold her sister, and invites Lexi to lay in her newly converted toddler bed with her. When Lexi cries, wakes up, or falls asleep Anna is very excited to report the latest status. When Lexi loses her binky Anna is enthusiastic (sometimes overly so) about retuning it to her mouth - even when Lexi’s not particularly interested. She gives her sister good night kisses and she is surprisingly gentle with her, although sometimes she does forget. She’s never even made Lexi cry a single time that I’m aware of.

Anna’s also stretching her independence. She likes to try to set the rules and is still fairly demanding. One of her new behaviors is yelling at me to “STOP!” while making an exaggerated police man stop motion. Usually it’s easy to tell what she wants to do independently, but sometimes nothing will be happening and she’ll halt me, leaving me confused as to how exactly I’ve displeased her majesty. it is a tough balance to decide when to give her latitude to try things on her own, and occasionally when she doesn’t get her freedom she’s makes her displeasure well known. But she’s not afraid to repeat herself in case you didn’t catch her subtle hint the first time.

The biggest hit of March was Easter egg activities. Anna went on three Easter egg hunts that I know of, including one with the neighbors that she probably did the best at. The other two easter egg hunts were of the open-field eggs-a-scattered variety. It mostly reminds me of a fight scene from some epic war movie where all the combatants (played here by 2 year olds) storm the field in a frenzy. Our little soldier is more of the timid variety, she mostly wanders aimlessly and has to be instructed to pick up each individual egg instead of getting the gist and doing it herself. She did better with our neighbor’s egg hunt but I think she just doesn’t get (or care about) the scarcity problem.

Painting easter eggs was a blast for Anna and she was really into that. She did a wonderful job and her hard work netted me some delicious deviled eggs, so who am I to complain? Leigha and Anna took the egg shells and made art work from them a second time, so she got some extra mileage out of her hard work as well.

April is moving right along with Leigha and Anna returning to Winwood and Lexi making her debut there. Leigha is glad to rejoin her class, Anna is transitioning back to school with only minimal complaints and Lexi hasn’t complained at all.

Today is Anna’s 2nd birthday and I also want to update on Alexis and Leigha as well. I’ll give Anna’s birthday the attention it deserves but I feel compelled to write in chronological order so look for that towards the end.

At the hospital on Friday morning we were restless and eager to get home as soon as possible. The roads were nominally bad but they didn’t seem unduly dangerous looking through the room window. However, Anna had been home two whole days without spending a significant amount of time with us and we knew she’d be starting to get flustered. Getting discharged took an extremely long time, considering we woke up around 6am. We went through the parade of people you have to see, nurses, hospital folks, Leigha’s doctor, pediatrician, discharge review. They tested Alexis for jaundice and the number was borderline, so they had to order a blood test (which came back slightly high as well). We basically didn’t get out of there until around noon, which was much later than we’d hoped, but everyone was doing the best they could.

When we got home Anna was napping which gave us a chance to unpack and settle in and read the rules to Lexi.  When Anna woke up we let her spend more time with Lexi and Anna was extremely excited. She handled it so much better than we even imaged she would. She couldn’t get enough of tickling the baby, holding the baby or constantly alerting us to the present state of the baby (”Baby sleeping!”, “Baby crying!” “Wake up baby”). Anna is excelling as a big sister and we couldn’t be prouder of her adaptability.

The next two days I had to take Lexi to the Loudoun hospital to get her billyruben checked out and on the second day it was within tolerance so that was the end of that.

On Tuesday Renee left and we got to spend some time to ourselves before the next batch of relatives arrived. On Wednesday morning we decided to go do some grocery shopping so we’d have everything we needed for the next several days. When we pulled into the Wegman’s parking lot Leigha started complaining that her vision was very blurry and started having sharp pains in her belly. I was alarmed but Leigha thought it was a fluke but she felt bad enough that we went back home, and called her doctor as we drove. Her doctor thought the blurriness was concerning but not necessarily related to the delivery but suggested she see an opthemologist as soon as possible, so we made an appointment for the following day and I instructed Leigha to get some rest. I also checked our medical reference books regarding blurriness of vision and commented to Leigha the things that would cause additional alarm. About an hour later Leigha yelled to me that her half of her face wasn’t responding to her desires - facial paralysis - and we went into high alert mode. We loaded up the kids, threw some snacks and books into the car and started hauling ass. The neighbors who were our primary Anna holder (when we did the delivery planning) weren’t home, we drove to another neighbor who we knew would help but they weren’t home either (I’m glad these people don’t use their garages because I didn’t even have to slow down, let alone park and knock). We kept going and made a beeline for the emergency room. I mentally granted myself ambulance powers, turned on my hazard lights and drove as quickly as safely possible (by my count I ran 3 red lights safely, and broke committed more than a handful of moving violations). We pulled into the ER and the same lady that had been there the previous two days during my jaundice visits recognized her, I told her I thought Leigha was having a stroke and she got a wheelchair and got Leigha to see someone urgently.

Meanwhile I had to go park the car in the boondocks and “ran” to back to the ER carrying a car seat with Lexi, a diaper bag and Anna slung over my shoulder (which she was enjoying immensely). I “ran” for all of 20 feet before I was completely winded and hustled the rest of the day. It was a cold, windy day and the walk felt like the longest slowest walk I’d ever taken in my life. When we got inside we sat with Leigha and kept her company. Based on the nurse’s line of questioning I could tell she wasn’t alarmed by Leigha’s condition, which was both a relief and frustrating because it left us panicking and wondering what the hell was happening. We discussed options about what to do with Anna and after a few phone calls the best option was to drive Anna over to the school Leigha works (and Anna attends, normally) and they agreed to hang on to her until we or someone else could go pick her up. It was a short distance but the 15 minute round trip left my nerves frayed. Anna was a champ again the whole time, both at the hospital and about me dropping her off way out of routine at school.

I got back to the hospital and we spent a fair amount of time just sitting in the triage room with no information and nothing to do but analyze our situation. We decided Leigha wasn’t having a stroke, it just didn’t make sense. Once we had time to put the pieces together we’d realized something had been happening since the day she came home from the hospital. She thought that things felt colder on the right side of her tongue than the left. The day after her left eye started twiching and getting blurry. A stroke seemed like it would be more sudden without the slow ramp up in symptoms over the course of 5 days. When we finally saw an ER nurse and an ER doctor they gave us the diagnosis: Bell’s palsy - something we’d never heard of before. I was relieved to have a diagnosis, and one for something that was neither (typically) permanent nor life threatening. We got discharged around 3pm and we went to pick Anna up at her school and Leigha wanted to personally thank her coworkers for helping us out in our time of distress. The feeling you get when you realize there is a whole slew of people you can count on to pitch in when life takes a turn was, for me, such a warm and comforting feeling and one that made me feel truly lucky.

Of course spending the afternoon at the hospital was more than just unplanned, it left our other visitors an hour away at Washington-Reagan airport without a ride to our house. I was tied up having just returned from the hospital getting Anna down for a nap and getting us fed, since we hadn’t eaten all day. The had to take a cab from the airport during rush hour, at significant expense but they were more than understanding, of course. They were more worried about Leigha than the cost of the cab, and they were very sympathetic to our earlier afternoon stress. We got them settled in and they got to spend some time seeing how much Anna had grown and seeing our new family member. After the drama in the afternoon it was nice to have someone around to entertain Anna and keep an eye on Lexi while we took some time to decompress.

This catches us up to today, Anna’s birthday. Normally on Saturdays Anna and I go to her swim class bright and early. I’m not sure if it’s just the overstimulation of having all these people in the house but I really couldn’t talk her into going. Usually it’s the kind of thing she looks forward to for days, and even the night before she was expressing her enthusiasm for the morning ritual. But when I got her out of bed she wasn’t interested in donning her bathing suit getting her swim diaper on. I wasn’t sure whether to force her knowing she’d enjoy it once we got there, or let her choose her own fate. I decided that there was no sense forcing her (of course, an hour later she was asking about going swimming, and by then it was too late to change course). At 10:30am she had a playdate scheduled with her friend and next door neighbor Kirsten. Leigha nominated me for drop-off duty so I took her over there. Anna doesn’t spend a whole lot of time outside the house without either of us around. School is the exception but Leigha is always in the building. She’d been over to the neighbor’s for playdate’s before so it was just a matter of coaxing her into relaxing and sneaking out. When I went back an hour later and rang the door bell she came running around the corner grinning and banging on a drum. She dragged me inside and showed me all the fun they’d been having. Karen gave Anna a very nice birthday present and we came home.

During Anna’s absence we decided to present her with her birthday gift in assembled, usable form, as opposed to “here’s a box with a picture of your gift.” When we got her in the house everyone was ready with cameras to see her reaction and share in her pleasure. If this thing busted, we were going to bust big. Anna absolutely loved the little house we got her. It’s a little plastic structure about 4 feet tall with a door and 3 windows. I had put her favorite book into the window sill / flower boxes and Leigha had put a little chair inside for her to sit on and she was so overjoyed the excitement was contagious. She walked in and out of the house several times and was just giddy. It’s hard to describe with words but I’ll put up a video that Leigha recorded as soon as I have a chance.

That was the only gift we had gotten her but she opened Kirsten’s gift of puzzles which she loves and started playing with immediately. About that time she was getting pooped so we put her down for her nap. When she woke up the first place she went was back down to her little house to play with it some more. This was a good time to get the cake her Nona had made her so we put two little candles in it, got all the cameras ready and sang happy birthday to her. She blew out the candles with some help and we enjoyed her cake (Anna is still a ridiculously picky eater, she wouldn’t touch the stuff). Once we all had our fill she opened up the birthday presents from her Nona and Nono. It was a giant ball and Duplo blocks. She couldn’t really decide which of those she would play with first so she alternated for a while.

It’s hard to believe how much our girl has changed in a single year. A year ago her only words were “mama”, “dada”, and “ball.” Now she’s talking in nearly complete sentences. I can give her fairly complex instructions and she can do them (when it suits her). She can count to 20 in English and 10 in Spanish. A year ago she couldn’t walk, now she can go up and down the stairs fully upright holding on to the handrail (albeit slowly). It’s absolutely astonishing and we both feel like the year has flown by so quickly. Anna is the best big sister we could have ever hoped for and she has personality and charisma out the wazoo. We couldn’t be prouder of our toddler and we’re excited about the new things we already know we’ll be working on this year: potty training and Spanish, and I’m even more excited about the surprises we have no idea are in store. I love you, monkey!

On a different note, I’ve already made several changes for the site. The primary website address is now http://kids.averbuj.com/ although http://anna.averbuj.com/ and http://alexis.averbuj.com/ also take you to exactly the same stuff. If you prefer to use the kids names instead of the generic version that’s fine, just don’t tell me which of my kids you don’t love, you bastard. I haven’t decided what to do with the picture galleries yet. I created a separate one just for Lexi because I wanted there to be a place to see just the new Lexi pictures but having separate Lexi and Anna galleries isn’t going to make sense moving forward. So use the “My Pictures” link in the navigation to get to the right set of pictures. Hopefully I’ll be able to get more videos of the kids up soon. They deserve all your love and adolation.

Alexis Victoria was born yesterday Feb 20 at 3:12pm weighing 7 lbd 5.5 oz and measuring 19.5″ long. The process was interesting in how it differed from Anna’s arrival nearly 2 years ago.

Like last time we got to the hospital early. Leigha knew what was coming and the two things she least looked forward to (the breaking of the membrane and the epidural) turned out fine where as the things we’d completely forgotten about were the only things that didn’t go perfectly.

The nurse doing her IV while pleasant and friendly, was not the most graceful or gentle IV inserter. At nearly the same time, the lab guy shows up with every intention of assaulting the other arm while the first one is enduring its trauma. The lab guy was all business and completely unsympathetic to my request to wait until the nurse was done with the IV. The nurse with the IV happened to need to take.a break to let the fluid drain out of her hand so they did end up taking turns, but I don’t know what would have happened if he was unwilling to wait his turn. I imagine the conversation would have ended up going something like: “Unless you want to walk out of this room smelling of vomit you will probably want to wait.”

The epidural came a little late and there was some confusion because most of the anesthesiologists were occupied but we ended up with a great lady who was fantastic and Leigha didn’t suffer one bit.

We sat around mostly bored through the morning and in the afternoon we were starting to think that this kid was trying to beat her sister’s record.

At around 3 Leigha said she was starting to feel pressure so we got the nurse and the nurse got the doctor who told her it would be faster to push the baby than redose and talked her into pushing and a few minutes later we’d met our new kin. It happened so quickly, in fact, that the doctor only had one glove on when the head was out. He was holding her head with gloved hand and with the other handed the glove to the nurse and asked her to put it him. Alexis started crying before her legs were out and as soon as her exit was complete I snapped her very first picture. I put the camera down, cut the cord, and picked up the video camera to get some footage of Alexis and Leigha as they were recouperating. The doctor offered Leigha the baby but she said they should clean Alexis up first and she would hold her afterward. They cleaned her up, weighed her, and measured her before getting back to Leigha. In the meantime the doctor was cleaning Leigha up, and there was a nursing student observing so he went into very specific detail about all the little bits. It was actually lost on me because I was caught up in what Alexis was doing, but when I turned around he was explaining the various features of the placenta.

During the labor Leigha and I entered into a friendly wager as to how much the baby would weigh. She guessed 7 lbs 12 oz, and I guessed 7 lbs 6 oz. The baby weighed in at 7 lbs 5.5 oz and when announced I raised my arms in celebration and announced my victory, unintentionally with too much enthusiasm. Once the hoopla died down, Leigha put in her order for food while she waited to regain the feeling in her left leg. We spent some time with Alexis, and Leigha nursed her in between my picture taking frenzy.

Just as we were wrapping up in the Labor & Delivery room and getting ready to move to the recovery room Leigha’s mom arrived with Anna in tow. We relocated and Anna was pretty pleased with the baby although we’re pretty sure she has no idea she is a permanent visitor nor that she will be bunking with this peanut. They left around 8pm and Leigha and I were pooped and we were winding down as possible in between the endless nurse and staff visits. They took Alexis for her bath around 10:30 so I crashed pretty much the moment that finished.

I’ve started adjusting this website to add equal representation to Alexis. I’ll be making adjustments over the next few weeks but right now you can find current and future pictures of Alexis here.

As I type this we are sitting in the labor and delivery room at Fair 0aks hospital. We had an earky start this morning and everything has gone well. The part that we were most worriex about, the epidural, went smashingly and the parts we had forgotten about entirely were problematic but only slightly so. At present time Leigha is well anesthized and comfortable, but hungry. At last check she was 3cm dialated and 80% effaced.

In other news Anna had been fighting some sniffles leading up to yesterday and when I got home from work she was running a fairly high fever and being generally pathetic. We haven’t seen her today bit the report is that she seems to be feeling better. The timing is unfortunate but knowing she’s feeling better relieves me of the unenviable decision between spending time with my (as yet unarrived) daughter or comforting the one I’ve known for quite a bit longer.

One anecdote worth relating is that Leigha told me that yesterday even while sick and lethargic she consistently affirmed when asked if she still wanted to go to story time at the library and true to her word stayed awake but unparticipatory the whole time.

Anna remembers the darndest things, even after surprisingly small exposure. She only rode the merry-go-round at the mall once but when we went back she sure as heck knew what it was. Consider the counter example of how long I’ve been trying to get her to count to 10. It seems like it took quite a bit of trying to get her to remember her colors but as soon as we walk by the Costco food counter she knows for sure that’s where we get smoothies (she loves smoothies!).

This weekend we took Anna’s Christmas card pictures, and Leigha just submitted the order for the Christmas cards. As usual the actual chosen pictures are a closely guarded secret, but I’m including one of the rejected pictures that I liked most. We took over 100 pictures this year, and there were 28 pictures in the running which is unusually high percentage for us. Anna was extremely cooperative and her ham skills are not going to waste.

Look for your cards in the mail a few weeks from now.

It’s time for another update! I’m working on getting what little Halloween pictures we took online. Around Halloween the whole family was sick and on the big night Anna was passed out on Leigha before the first trick-or-treaters even came by. The only thing that saved us was that Leigha saw and took us to a Reston Town Center trick-or-treat event a couple of weekends before, when we were all healthy. We got Anna dressed up in her Dorothy costume and took her down there in the middle of the day and took a few pictures.

When we first started trick-or-treating, we weren’t really sure what to do with Anna. We would walk into the shops (they were participating) they would hand me or Leigha candy, we would put it in Anna’s basket and say thank you. That worked for a while but then Anna started refusing to go into the shops. We tried a few shops before we realized it wasn’t a fluke and she was really over it. Then I had an idea and suggested we carry Anna into the shop. That worked. Then the final brainstorm, have Anna put the candy into her basket. Anna is all about putting items into containers, she’s fascinated. That did the trick. After we got her to start putting the candy in her basket (and celebrating when she did), we started encouraging to take the candy from the store’s container and put it into her own. This she understood! She is an expert at this! We have video of the first successful candy acquisition and I’ll post it soon.

Then we all got sick. Anna was pretty tired and pathetic for a long while. Leigha took her to the doctor who prescribed some nasty antibiotic. Maybe it was just mixed wrong, but the solution was supersaturated with whatever granular compound existed before adding water. It would dry almost instantly upon contact with the air and turn into gritty sand. Sometimes it would turn to grit inside the syringe! Nasty. When we finished that she was starting to get better but a few days after the “gritecillin” ran out she started getting worse again. This time at the doctor they said (basically) it’s just a cold, deal. She started running fevers and after a few days of fevers I was getting fed up so we took her again and got a sinus infection diagnosis and a different antibiotic prescribed. This one worked better (she’s done with it now) but she’s still got some cold symptoms, although not the fevers which were the real drag.

Onto cuter things. Anna has been quite the drawer lately. Earlier this month Leigha got her a pack of kid-safe markers. She likes to draw with each one before she’s done. She picks one up, draws a line or a squiggle, puts the cap back on, and repeats with the next one. She is very thorough and insists on using each one. Just recently Leigha got her a little table with drawers that has a chalkboard top. So now Anna can draw whenever she wants without having to requisition paper, although she still enjoys drawing with pens in a pinch. The drawers were put to use to organize Anna’s toys. One for blocks, one for balls, one for puppets, and one for “Little People.” She got the hang of the system right away and knows that the Little People are in the blue drawer and goes and pulls it out, takes it to the middle of the room, and unpacks it to play. She will also re-pack it when instructed (or when she wants to move the party). Getting the drawer back into its home is a trickier proposition that will require more coordination.

Speaking of colors, she’s gotten to be quite the champ at recognizing her colors. I’ve been working with her on this for a long time, originally I was just trying to teach her red, blue, green, yellow. At first she just didn’t get it. She knew what the right choices were but hardly ever guessed the right one. Now she’s very accurate, although interesting some more than others. She never gets purple or orange wrong, those are 100%. She’s pretty accurate with green and yellow. Red and blue are little dodgy. It makes me wonder if this is a developmental thing, much like when they are young the toys are white/black/red for physiological reasons. It certainly doesn’t map to the color blindness profiles.

During the period that Anna was running fevers, we decided to let her have her binky because she was pretty pitiful and it brought her a lot of comfort. The downside, as you can guess, is that now we’re having trouble getting her to detach. It took Leigha a few days of suffering to get her to not constantly beg for it, but even now when she has a major tantrum she’ll start pining for it. Speaking of tantrums, the latest cause of tantrums is changing clothes / diapers. Hopefully this one won’t last long, fortunately the other tantrums (sitting in her chair, shoes, TV) we’ve gotten past pretty quickly. This one is especially frustrating because it isn’t really negotiable.

Among other things she’s obsessed with lately (aside from constantly asking “what’s this?”) is taking baths. She’s quite the fan and we’re using it as a tool to teach her how to undress herself. Maybe she just misses the pool since we closed it. We’ll see next month when we start attending the swimming classes for which Leigha signed us up. Anna is also doing a great job dancing along to her videos (She does best at the Wiggles choreography) and singing the alphabet song and other songs she’s learning in school. The other day she was cracking herself up singing “Ring Around the Rosie”.

When it comes to food Anna is still picky as ever. She still eats basically the same things: yogurt, cheese, chicken nuggets, but we’ve introduced more fiber-rich foods to her to help with her digestive problems so she’s eating bran crackers and popcorn which both are supposed to help. She still has quite then penchant for popsicles although she’s not nearly as obsessed with ice as she once was.

It seems a good time to announce more widely that at some point in February our family will grow once more with a new girl. Negotiations are currently underway on the name for the new baby, and the situation is grim. Family insiders report that if an agreement is not reached soon we may face a strike. Last time name negotiations broke down garbage was not taken out for a week!

Anna’s vocabulary has been growing by leaps and bounds, more than is reasonable to document. She learns and repeats words all day long, although most frustrating is the ever-popular “no.” She has been exercising this one pretty regularly much to our chagrin.

We are currently fighting a respiratory illness for what seems like the fourth week. Last time Anna’s doctors put her on amoxicillin for 10 days which helped slightly. A few days after the prescription ran out the symptoms started getting worse so now we’re on a stronger antibiotic for 14 days. Anna isn’t particularly suffering, except at night when she has trouble getting a good night’s sleep.

Leigha recently took Anna to Cox Farms, pictures, some of which you’ll find among the 30 newly uploaded pictures in the gallery. Pretty soon we’ll start shopping for Anna’s halloween costume, although I’m not sure if I’m at liberty to divulge the exact nature of this year’s selection. I can definitively confirm that my recurring UPS delivery man (Pablo) with package (Anna) suggestion continues to be ridiculed unnecessarily.

We have been video taping Anna probably about once a month, maybe once every other month. I haven’t been processing the tapes which is why you haven’t been seeing the results. This weekend we’ll probably have another brief taping session to get her latest antics on tape.

Anna is growing both bolder in private and more shy in public. She is doing more dancing when she hears music, especially doing the choreography along with her favorite video (Laurie Berkner). In public she has started gravitating towards our legs when she is feeling shy, although she tends to relax after a few short minutes of being around the new person and no longer being showered with attention.

Sorry for the long overdue update. Check out the pictures!

Alert readers (reader?) may have noticed that I haven’t posted about Anna’s vocabulary recently. She’s picked up a lot of words, and many she has improved. Her pronounciation of “ucky” is now much closer to “puppy”, with actual p’s and everything. But the reason I haven’t done it is because my daughter is wily. She will use a word for a day, or sometimes just once, and never utter it again. One day we were playing in her room when I accidentaly roused Alphabug. “Do-do-do-do. Hi, I’m Alphabug!” it announced. Anna was sitting near it and repeated “alphabug”. That’s pretty exciting, it’s a three syllable word. I couldn’t get her to perform the same feat for Leigha after the thousand times I prompted the eventually-annoying message.

Similarly, Leigha has told that Anna one day said “outside” clear as day, but hasn’t since. I’m trying to think of a particular word she might have picked up for a day, but I can’t think of one, it’s hard enough to remember the words she does use on a daily basis. One word that she uses which is completely adorable is “shoes.” She pronounces it a lot more like “shoosh” while lifting her little foot up and overtly suggesting you attach one to her extremity. She has a similar fondness for socks, and today Leigha tells me Anna became obsessed watching Leigha paint her own toes. She kept insisting and even kept rubbing the closed nail polish bottle on her own feet in hope of magical paint osmosis. Leigha did end up painting her toe nails, which I need to get need to capture for posterity.

Click through to see a video of Anna at the beach in Florida after the jump.

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Leigha and Renee took Anna to the beach a week ago while I was traveling on business. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting it to go super well considering the luck we had when we took her to the beach in Florida. However, apparently it went much better the second time around. Perhaps it was the company but Anna apparently enjoyed the beach quite a bit. Leigha said she showed her how to get water and throw it on the sand so she could build stuff with the sand. And they went for a walk along the water with Anna picking up shells (and rocks) and putting them in her little bucket. She wasn’t perfectly behaved, I’m told, but she did enjoy the beach much more than I expected.