Tessie 2.5, Caden 3 months

How quickly the time passes.
Caden is 3 months old, so he can already hold a grudge against me for not documenting his life as I have for his sister...Caden is already so different from the last blog entry; in size (already 14 pounds)and personality. He is much more aware of what is going on around him. He smiles, laughs, and jabbers a bit. He turns his head toward things that interest him- mostly his big sister. I swear he loves her more than anyone else. He is aware of his hands and feet. He reaches for toys when he is laying on the playmat and is rolling onto his side. He has transitioned to sleeping in his own crib in the room that he and Tessie share. So far, his record (and mine) for continuous sleep is 5 hours at night, but mostly 3 1/2 - 4 hours.
Tessie doesn't even seem to notice Caden in her room. She has stopped napping so she's pretty wiped out by nightfall. She is a big girl now. She has been doing a great job with potty, wearing big girl underpants at home and keeping a dry diaper most of the time. She is still going to daycare and has been going into the pre-school room with the 3 yr olds from time to time. She will probably be in there full time in the next couple of months. Our daughter is quite patriotic. Part of her bedtime routine requires that I sing the national anthem (it's a long story) and she sleeps with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the US (another long story).
We have been very busy since the last entry. My college roomates from NY visited Columbus Day Weekend so we took them around New England style by taking them apple/pumpkin picking at a local farm. They had hay rides, food, and entertainment. We were lucky to have had such great weather. Caden was Christened on October 26th- with about 10 other children. He slept through most of the ceremony. Tessie got together with friends for costume parties before Halloween- Tessie was a penguin and Caden was a fish. Since she doesn't really eat candy, we didn't bother with trick-or-treating. We had a couple of campfires in the backyard. Stephen and I were more excited than the kids to roast hotdogs and marshmallows over the flames. We also went to the Albany area to visit family. Tessie had a blast with her cousins and Oma Renate.
These next couple of months are going to be exciting with Tessie. She is at the age where she understands the holidays better although I was able to convince her that Halloween was a holiday to give away candy for now. She has already seen Santa at the mall and looks forward to when he comes to our grey house. She has been a very good girl this year...

It's a BOY!

On August 18th we welcomed the arrival of Caden Alexander. He weighed in at 9 lbs. 12 oz. Tessie has been the best big sister that Caden could ask for. She loves him so much and is a good helper to all of us. It has been great staying at home with them. We have spent a lot of time at the park and with friends and family at home. Tessie is still going to daycare to stay social. That gives Caden one or two days to relax with minimal distraction. He still sleeps a lot, but I still need to be on my toes because Tessie does not. For now I mostly pay attention to Tessie unless Caden really needs me. He's not old enough to understand neglect the way Tessie does with us splitting our time between two now.
Tessie is an absolute hoot to be around. She is just so cool. The way she is able to talk and hold a conversation, she cracks us up. It's fun to watch the way she thinks, takes in the world, and remembers experiences. For instance, she recently named her Mr. Potatohead "Chip". She explains "Like the music". We have a CD with a song called "Potato Chips". Very imaginative. She is going through a phase that she loves the "Do Re Mi" movie (aka The Sound of Music) but only the musical scenes with the children. Thank goodness for DVDs and scene selection. She is still working on potty training, using the potty about 3 times a day. Tessie loves learning already- is she a teacher's daughter or what? She knows all of the letters in the alphabet and some corresponding words. N for Nana, U for Uncle, T for Tessie, C for Caden, L for Library. She can recognize and spell her name out loud and draw a T. I swear I have not pushed her at all. She is just a sponge with an amazing memory. She is 2 though, and is gaining "independent" thoughts. She is testing her limits, but overall means well. Again, I can't say enough about how fun she is and how proud I am of her already.
Caden is growing so fast everyday. He is stronger and more alert to the world around him. He has been smiling and laughing; at what I have no idea, but it's amusing. He rolls with whatever we are up to- whether apple picking or going for walks to the park, or even just tolerating being held by his overly loving big sister. Caden looks more like Tessie as he gets older.

27 Months

We are officially on vacation. A month ago, I finished teaching (for a year, anyway) and Tessie had her last full week of daycare. She will still keep going one day a week to stay social and not be stuck with me (and the new baby) all the time. I can't believe it's only about 2 weeks until Tessie is going to be a big sister. She is going to be so good at it. She loves it when her little friends come over with their baby siblings. She loves to kiss the babies and tickle their feet. Let's hope she is willing to do the same with ours. She has already learned to love being a little helper by carrying groceries into the house, putting things away, getting the telephone (and usually bringing it to me) when it rings.
We have cut back on traveling far lately. We did make one last trip to Long Island to visit with my college pals. Tessie visited my school for a day, too. The students I work with wanted to designate Tessie as the class mascot. They love it when she visits. We visited with family down the Cape for a day. We went to New Hampshire for a five days with Grampa. Tessie really enjoyed the beach by the lake this year, although the weather didn't cooperate much. She loved jumping off the dock and swimming with her "Super-Suit" (aka coverall bathing suit with floatation devices around her chest giving the appearance of heroic superpowers). She has been able to go on a boat during day trips to Maine with friends and on Boston Harbor with family (Thanks, Steve and Jeanne). Now she asks to go on a boat every day. She truly enjoys being on the water.
Tessie is very chatty and active. She talks in complete sentences. She connects people to things going on around her. For example: "Sink dripping. Grampa come fix it.", "Telephone ringing. Call Nana Sally.", "Daddy drive in truck. Go to work/shopping/Nana's house." Most of the time she is able to tell us with her words exactly what she is thinking. Her new word of choice is "scary". Anything that is unusual right now, is scary. She sings songs a lot. She loves music and dancing.
She loves it when friends and family come over to visit. She has a good friend from daycare named Merideth that she adores and they actually play very well together- especially for a couple of 2-year olds. We still get together with friends from the Library, but not as often. That will change now that we will be home and looking for fun and exciting things to do.

We had another ultrasound for the new baby. He/She is growing big just as his/her big sister was. They technician estimated at 33 weeks that the baby was already about 5lbs 4oz- a little above average. At my last appointment they estimate more than 8 lbs. The baby is active, wriggling around for the limited space in my belly. Less than 2 weeks (maybe) until we get to meet the little one...

Happy 2nd Birthday!

Tessie is such a love in our lives. I know I keep saying it, but she is just sooo much fun to be around. She is talking even more. I have estimated that she has well over 350 words in her vocabulary. She is stringing together sentences and talking more about experiences rather than just objects. I love sneezing and hearing her little voice say “Bless you, Mama”. Her memory for people is much better, now asking for people by name Uncle (Dave), Papa (Grampa), Nana, Aunt Terri, Uncle Cookie, Kris, etc. She even inquires about them when they are not around (object permanence for you psychologists out there). We have been talking to her about the baby that is coming to live with us. I found a couple of good books about it that we have been reading to her.
We had our ultrasound on March 10th. We did not find out the gender. We did find out that the baby’s due date seems pretty accurate according to the measurements. All in all, healthy is what we are looking for, and it’s what we’ve got so far. Who could ask for more than that?

Back to Tessie-
Sitting on the potty… with results, shall we say? She is using it at daycare and at home about 4 times a day. Now that the weather seems to have broken and we have gotten our final snow storm (famous last words) we are getting much more time outside. Tessie is enjoying experiences like going to the 2 playgrounds near us…driving us crazy because there is no hiding what she wants now that she talks (“Mama, go for walk park/playground” or “Simon Park”) but not understanding conditions that make it less fun (cold, rainy, dark out, 5 minutes from bedtime).
Tessie got a toddler bed (“Happy Birthday Bed” as she calls it) as an early birthday present from us. She transitioned to it no problem and still hasn’t figured out that she can just get out of bed to find us if she wants. She still lays there waiting for one of us to come get her. It’s only a matter of time, I’m sure.
She had a great birthday, although she fell asleep at her own party! She loves playing with all of her new toys, which makes it a little harder to leave home in the morning. She has made some friends at daycare and talks about them often. We have even gotten to know some of the parents, which is nice.
Hope everyone is enjoying the coming of Spring.

(The photos are out of order. Sorry, I don't know how to fix it.)

Almost 22 months

It is almost March and the countdown to Tessie’s 2nd Birthday has begun. She is learning more everyday. It seems like every phase she goes through in life I feel like it is my favorite so far, but right now, Tessie is so fun to be around. She is learning so much every day. It makes me realize why many people have told me to cherish the time with her. Just when I feel like I know her so well, she surprises me be doing and saying more. There is no freezing time to enjoy it, or turning the clock back to remember how it was. I’m just going with the flow rather than mourning the baby that has become more and more independent each day. As many of you know by now, Tessie will be a big sister in August, so the pressure to lay still in my arms on her is going to be lessened when we welcome a new baby to our home. She has been very good about being gentle with smaller babies – like when her friend Katarina came to visit for a weekend and at daycare when she visits the infant room.
So right now she is still interested in the Signing Time Videos and Elmo along with all of the Sesame Street characters. Her Uncle Donald gave her some dolls of the characters for her 1st birthday and she carries them around the house with her. She knows all their names and requests to sleep with Ernie and Bert every night. She even likes to line them all up, sitting them all down on
the couch and sings to them. I think she's pretending to be a teacher like she is at daycare or something! It's so cute... At daycare they have been teaching her how to “march” and crawl around like animals. They have really been doing a great job with her. She also got a little plastic kitchen and she loves to “make tea” for guests. It’s her way of breaking bread and opening up. She tends to be shy for the first 15 minutes when people show up, but forget it after that. You have a friend for life if you’ll just have tea, draw, and read with her.
Tessie is talking much more- even making broken sentences. She knows most of her colors, sings the Alphabet (with about half of the letters and her name is part of the song sometimes, too), and she can count to 10 (but she skips 5 most of the time). I am very glad to report that she has some of the most important words in her vocabulary (please, thank-you, sorry, bless you) and knows when to use them.
At daycare they have started to sit Tessie on the potty, so I have done the same at home. Not a lot of pressure, but she just sits there for about 15 minutes once or twice a day while I read books to her. She seems to like it. She is letting us know almost as soon as her diaper is wet or loaded -sorry to disgust those of you who haven’t been through the process, but it’s a proud moment. We hope that she’ll be trained by the time her baby brother/sister arrives.
We have been enjoying the snow and still try to get outside as much as possible. We still look forward to spring when we can enjoy the swing set more. Not that a little snow has stopped us. She actually in the past couple of weeks started using the big girl swing (while we have snow to cushion the fall if she lets go) and she loves it. We don’t push her very high, but she just giggles away and likes to throw her head back and swing. We have been getting her out this past week while I was on vacation too. We visited with family, had friends visit, and spent a day in Boston going to the New England Aquarium and for Dim Sum in Chinatown with good friends.
Hope you all are doing well, we will continue to update the blog as much as possible although I know it’s already becoming less frequent. We have an ultrasound on March 10th…We still haven’t decided whether to find out the gender of the new baby or not…Healthy is what we want the most.

Almost 20 months

Happy New Year! I hope that 2007 treated everyone well.
First off, I know that I am late with this update. I wanted to include photos from Christmas so I thought I would just put it off by a couple of weeks. November and December have been very busy. Tessie is learning more and more words, so I won’t be reporting on that anymore because I can’t keep up with her growing signing and speaking dictionary. She has gotten I lot more signs since we found these “Signing Time” videos that we rent from the local library.
She has developed some serious interests lately, too. One in a furry, red, Sesame Street Character…I think Elmo is growing on us, too. She has also become very passionate about her art. She loves coloring with crayons (and watching mommy and daddy doodle a bit) and painting which is fun on special occasions. She loves to wash her hands in the sink all by herself. I do standby to control soap and faucets.
She also has become a more “independent thinker” in the respect that we think something needs to happen (eat/sleep/clean-up), and she thinks something else. I guess that’s expected at this age. She has also been showing more interest in the potty. She is able to say and sign it, then pull down her pants and sit on the potty. Unfortunately, this usually happens when she is already finished and she is still wearing her diaper. It’s a good start though. Tessie has also learned jumping both feet at the same time, so she now has added that to her repertoire of ways to get around the house. She especially enjoys jumping off of things like her (kid’s) armchair and potty. Her new favorite song/dance is the hokey pokey and it’s very cute to watch her twirl around with her little pointer fingers in the air. She has also learned how to walk around on her tippy-toes like a little ballerina…also very cute to watch. It’s like she knows that she is entertaining us…Such a ham.
Since I have been sending these emails for a while I thought that, like many people in the world, I should just start a blog. I confess that this is a copycat idea from friends who have done the same for their children, namely Viola and (the newest) lovely Sophia. I will continue to email the Tessie Fan Club to let you know when I have updated the blog. I have posted the previous updates, so it’s pretty neat to take a step back and look at how Tessie has changed. With practice I hope to be able to learn how to add more photos and videos.
You’ll also get to see more photos here, too, like out-takes from our Christmas Card photo shoot. Thanks to Grampa, and the new camera he gave me for Christmas you will be overwhelmed with even more pictures. Hope you enjoyed the blog update. Let me know what you think.