My Family, My Life: Updates

Calli

She is doing really well with her cast. She has had it on for eight days now. She has adapted to using her left hand for eating, writing and coloring. She can still dress herself, put on her shoes, seat herself in a chair. I am hard pressed to find anything she can't do with one arm that she could with two. She has even surprised me by deciding to potty train. I thought when her arm broke all the work we were doing was just going to go right out the window and we'd have to just wait until her cast came off. But Calli had other plans. She loves wearing her big girl underwear and virtually trained herself in just a day. She just woke up and decided she wanted to start going #2 in the toilet and has been doing just that. That was always the struggle with her. We have had only one minor accident in the last three and a half days and I am really proud of her and relieved that it's finally been so easy.

We haven't been able to get out and do too much with her arm, but we've seen a few friends this week and gone to the store. Calli loves to go to Target and get popcorn and an icee when we're done shopping. It is my bribe to her so she won't act up. On Fridays we've still been able to do storytime at the library so that is nice. She is having to miss her dance class for this period, but they are going to hold her spot for her so I am grateful for that. And she will be starting soccer still as well; she'll just join the team a few weeks late.

Calli has also been doing really well with learning her numbers and letters. She has been able to kind of write her name for awhile now. She gets the letters a little out of place (Cllia) but we are working on that. She can also recognize all those letters and a few others. She can recognize her numbers up to six. We've been working out of some workbooks with tracing her letters and numbers. She also loves to draw. The only thing she draws is pictures of our family, so I have about a million papers with four egg people. My favorite is when she draws a bunch of people in different marker colors and points them out as "Grandma" and "Grandpa" and "Aunties".

Serena

My little baby is growing up! She has started to sit up in small spurts, but doesn't have enough balance to really do it continuously. Just this morning she started doing the army crawl. So now she is mobile I guess. Scary. It is so cute to see because Calli never did the army crawl, just started the normal crawl at six months. So I am wondering now when she will start getting all the way up on her knees and hands and doing the real crawl. But I think she has accomplished a pretty big feat now and am very proud of her. I took a little video of it on the camera earlier as well.

Now we are just on tooth watch 2008. Nothing yet, but I am enjoying the one hundred percent gummy smile still. The teeth are cute, but there is nothing like these gummy smiles and giggles.

The Family

We are all doing great. We took a trip to the zoo on Sunday and had a blast. We had been couped up in the house on Saturday because with Calli's arm, there is not much to get out and do. I was worried going to the zoo when it was too hot out would make her sweat and itch. But we went in the morning when they first opened up and it wasn't too hot out yet. It turned out to be perfect timing because it wasn't super crowded yet and all the animals were out for the morning, having just woken up and enjoying the fact that it wasn't a hundred degrees yet. So we got to see everything. We also rode the train they have there just outside the zoo and Calli loved it. She really loves trains. Even Serena seemed to enjoy the bumpy ride.

We also got a new stroller. I saw it on sale at Target and couldn't pass it up. It has a regular stroller spot for Serena in the front and a bench in the back for your "big kid". The older one can either sit on the bench or stand on the platform beneath. It is a really great option for families with a two-three year old and an infant. Calli loves it the most. She loves going for walks now and riding in the stroller. I think she feels a bit more included being able to sit in it as well. I had wanted a double stroller, but the problem with those is the big kid usually wants in and out and it's such a hassle. With this stroller she can just hop on and off herself and it's not a big ordeal. I wish we had this thing a month ago, it would have come in handy on our trips to Sea World.

That's about it from our corner of the world. Here are some pictures:

Sisterly love