One and Eighteen

Natalia turned one month old on Thanksgiving, and Annika is 18 months old today. 

Scott and I think they are both amazing.

Natalia is easygoing and laid back so far. She likes attention in the middle of the night, but is easy enough the rest of the time to make up for it. She's looking around and following things with her eyes more and more. She loves to be held, especially by her daddy. She smiled at me for the first time on Saturday, but I'm still waiting for a repeat performance.

Natalia has long legs, fingers and toes, and feet that are almost too big for all of her outfits. She has lots of hair and doesn't look anything like Annika did as a baby -- she's totally her own person. 

 She's a good little traveler and so we have been able to get out and go a lot of places with her.

We enjoyed our first Thanksgiving together!

Annika is learning to be a great big sister.

She is fascinated by Natalia, who she usually calls "the baby," but sometimes calls "Na Na" or "Na Mino." She loves to help hold her and also likes to give Natalia a pacifier, blow her nose, and find her eyes. Annika's had a fever for the past few days so she hasn't been able to go near Natalia. She misses her sister a lot, and keeps asking "Where's the baby?" 

Annika is a lot of fun right now. Her language and her understanding of the world are developing rapidly. She is currently obsessed with Elmo (she has one Elmo video and asks to watch it at least 50 times a day), twinkle twinkle little star, bananas, cookies (I'm trying to convince her that triscuit "cookies" are yummy), buses, the "ay ay ay" song, and playgrounds.  

 She is very curious and is really starting to understand how the world works. Today at dinner she accidentally dropped her food on the floor and said, "oh no!" She then started singing "clean up, clean up" while I picked it up.

She is independent, determined, and has quite a temper (wonder where she got that from), but she is easy to cheer up and is generally a really happy kid.

I love these girls!

Baby's First Videos!

Natalia Jan Sampson Flandro was born on October 24th! 

She weighed 8 pounds 12 oz and was 22.5 inches long. 

Here's a video of Natalia and me in the hospital, taken by my friend Diana. 

I was happy to see Annika again after spending a few days in the hospital and was 
so excited (and anxious) for Annika and Natalia to meet. Scott recorded their first encounter.

Sixteen Months!

Annika turned 16 months last week, and since this will likely be her last month as an only child, I want to remember what she's like now. I had a four-day weekend for Rosh Hashanah and it was great to be able to spend so much time with her. For most of the weekend I was sick and ended up lying in her room while she played, but I loved watching her and seeing how much she has grown and changed.

She's a big kid -- at her last checkup she was above the 95th percentile for height and weight. She will eat almost anything, although bananas are definitely her favorite food. She is done with bottles. She now can play for hours on end. She's really active and loves moving around, running, and dancing. She's always busy, doing something like stacking and unstacking blocks, moving items from one container to another, etc. She likes to look at books, but usually doesn't want to sit still long enough to hear one read to her. Annika also loves climbing. She will pull off the cushion from a chair in her room and use it as a step to help her reach the chair so she can stand on it.

Annika hasn't added many new words in the past month, but she continues to babble and talk all the time. She clearly has ideas she is trying to express, and I often wish I could understand what she's saying. She has started saying "gracias" and "dame" (give it to me) and is making connections between English and Spanish. At a restaurant she overheard someone ask for water, and she immediately said, "agua!" She'll also say "bye" if you say adios. She asks questions a lot ("What that?" "Where daddy?") and is obsessed with telling the dog "no." Her comprehension has grown so much -- she answers questions about what she wants accurately and can follow simple and indirect commands. A lot of this she has learned from daycare, which she loves. I've been working 10-11 hour days, and although she's always happy to see me when I pick her up, she is still reluctant to leave nearly every day. Her babysitter is a fabulous person; a local newspaper wrote a profile of her here.

My favorite development over the past month has been seeing Annika's imagination develop. She has pretended to talk on the phone for the past few months, but last week she took the phone, babbled into it, and then held it up to Lucky's ear and pretended that Lucky was talking on the phone. She also loves to pretend that her animals are eating or drinking and often burps them when she's done. Here she is giving her monkey agua:

She has a toy car that she can sit on. When I wasn't feeling well, I asked her if she wanted to ride on her car. She said, "no, doggy" and then put her stuffed dog on the car and pulled it around her room saying, "whee, whee!"

I was able to take her to the Brooklyn Children's Museum last weekend and was pleasantly surprised by how much she enjoyed it. She played for three hours and still didn't want to leave -- she actually climbed back up the stairs and ran back inside through the automatic doors when I tried to take her home.

 She was pretty proud of the block towers she built.

She loved playing with the water in a stream exhibit and watching the turtles and fish.

 At first she was scared of the sand and wouldn't touch it, but after awhile she loved it and refused to leave. 

Scott is looking forward to our new arrival, and I'm definitely looking forward to not being pregnant anymore (although trying to lose weight and get back in shape is not that appealing, either). I don't think Annika has much of a sense of what's coming, although she does tap my stomach and say "baby," and will give it a kiss sometimes. It's hard to believe she won't be the baby soon!

Predictions

Scott: RJSF (boy): 8 lbs 3 ounces, October 12

Jenn: RJSF (boy), 8 lbs 7 ounces, October 7

You???

Lunch Time

Some things Annika loves: "agua," eating (or trying to eat) with utensils, talking, and telling her dog "no."

Hi!

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At the Playground

We're so glad the weather is finally getting nice! After work yesterday Scott and I met up for an early dinner and then took Annika to the playground. This was the first time she really seemed to enjoy it. I'm sure we'll be back many times over the coming months...

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