Citizenship and Feijoas

We finally got around to getting some photos taken for Ross' Canadian citizenship application. We went to the same photographer who did Madeleine's photos. She was a couple months younger than Ross, and far less photogenic (see July 2011 post entitled "Our Week" for a reminder). Ross was incredibly calm and cooperative for the photo shoot. Thankfully he was more interested in the camera and lights than his crying sister hanging onto my leg. He looks like a little boy ready for his first day of school! He certainly is growing up quickly - he started rolling over this week and weighed in at 16lb 12oz. Although who knows how much of that weight is poo, considering he hasn't gone in 16 days now. Shocking, I know, but a good conversation for Mommy-types. He's pretty happy in spite of it, so I'm not too concerned; I just really hope I'm home when he does finally go.

It's feijoa season here in New Zealand. Feijoas are a fruit I had never heard of until moving here. They are a bit odd (Steve thinks they're awful) - very aromatic and a bit gritty in texture. But lots of people have feijoa trees in their yards, and we often end up being given big bags of them. Fortunately, I have come to love them and Madeleine likes them too.

You cut them in half and then scoop out the flesh to eat it....

... just like this! 

4 months!

Ross is 4 months old today! Some recent changes include: hair that lies a bit flatter, serious attempts to roll over, and laughing so hard he has tears in his eyes. He won't be weighed and measured until next week, so the stats will have to wait, but he's fitting this 6-9 month top from Grandma Georgia very nicely! 

His eyes remain a beautiful deep blue, but some days I think I see flecks of brown starting, so I'm not entirely convinced they won't still change colour.

He is a wonderful napper during the day, although a bit less reliable at night. He sometimes sleeps a blissful 10 hours, other times he wakes up every 4 hours.

While Ross works on the art of wriggling in circles and rolling over, Madeleine discusses the day's events with Daddy on the phone. She is obsessed with the phone these days, so it now lives on top of the fridge (which is quickly getting crowded with all the other things we need to keep out of her reach) in order to prevent calls to Timbuktoo or emergency services. She loves talking to Daddy though and acts out all her stories, so it's always very clear to me what she's trying to say, but sometimes not so clear to Daddy. 

May is the month of birthday parties for all her little friends from our antenatal group. We got her all dressed up like a ballerina for this one party, and then she threw a fit when we tried to take her picture (because, of course, SHE wanted to take the picture). Here is the best we could get - all the others she was blurry and lying on the floor in what Steve calls her "hippy protest" - a non-violent form of protest against all unjust parenting acts. 

Happy Birthday, Madeleine!

Our little girl is two! We celebrated with chocolate cupcakes, angel food cake, pickles, olives, diggers, dolls, balloons, and skype.  

Ross was not too impressed with the Happy Birthday hat we put on him, but he put up with it very well. The first of many things he'll do to make his sister happy, I'm sure.

Madeleine was not impressed with the hat either actually, but had so much fun opening all her cards that she forgot about it for a few minutes.

Grandma and Grandpa Gibson gave her a little doctor's kit for her dolls, and she has had so much fun using it. However, Ross has quickly become the preferred patient.

They also gave her some really cute new clothes, but this hat was the only item she was willing to try on that day.

One of the things Grandma and Grandpa Hoffmann gave her were some little toy diggers, which she is very proud of, and here she is holding one up for Ross to see.

She loved blowing out candles, so we gave her lots of opportunities. First, on chocolate cupcakes, which she actually ate very little of...

... then on angel food cake (can you spot Ross in the background mess of the room?! Still putting up with the hat)...

... which she ate slightly more of!

And then on her absolute favourite these days - pickles and olives! She calls pickles "tupitees" and olives are indicated by a noise that is something like a duck and a roar combined - not sure how to spell it, but clearly they embody some very cool things in her mind.

Being a birthday girl is hard work! She fell asleep on me while we were skyping with my sister and stayed there for nearly an hour.

No, this isn't Ross' hairdo for Madeleine's birthday, this is his everyday, completely un-styled hairdo. It really is impressive and his hair stands a good 2-3 inches on the top. He looks like a different child when his hair is wet or he has a hat on.

All in all, it was a fun birthday for Madeleine, especially since Steve took two days off of work to make it a four-day birthday weekend. Even though our families are far away, we are thankful for skype, which lets them share in the celebrations.  We didn't have a party with all her little friends, but her birthday was topped off with an evening visit to her favourite friend Jac, who lives just a short walk away. Every time we go for a walk, she asks if we are going to see Jac, so this time she was very excited to take him some of her birthday cake.

April Update

Steve's big presentation is finally over, and we all enjoyed having a weekend together without him having to do work. 

Yesterday we went to the annual WW1 Airshow (Madeleine especially loved it) and today we went to the Chocolate Fish Cafe for a yummy lunch on the waterfront.

Madeleine has been in a much more agreeable mood lately. Last weekend, she and I did some intense potty-training, and she is doing really well. She loves wearing her "unnies" and has quickly adopted the view that the nappies are just for Ross (and her dolls, of course). We are so proud of her, and she is very noticeably proud of herself as well.

Here are a few more recent pictures of the kids...

 Ross rocking out to his rattle while wearing his CBC onesie.

Since Madeleine no longer uses her highchair, I thought I would try putting Ross in there while M and I were in the kitchen one day. He just sat there, slumped to one side since he's still a bit too young to sit up, but I got him to smile for the camera by tickling his feet.

Another 'cuddle on the couch' picture - although neither of them were very excited about it!

Ross with rather tame-looking hair for once.

Steve and Madeleine having a cozy pyjama morning and sporting their matching resistor colour coded socks, knit by my Mom.

3 months!

The weeks are flying by and all of a sudden our little baby is already 3 months old and our little girl is almost two years old! Last week was wonderful... fun-filled sunny mornings at various playgroups, long midday naps enjoyed by all of us (except Steve, of course), and good spirits all around. But not every week can be like that; this week it's rainy, both kids have a cold, and Madeleine has been refusing to nap and very moody.  One second she's asking for cheese, the next she's crying and pushing it away because I've already started to cut a piece for her, and then she starts eating it as the tears roll down her cheeks. She is certainly good entertainment for Ross.

He weighed in yesterday at 15lb 3oz and 63 cm long. His weight gain has slowed down a bit and he's dropped from 91st percentile to 75th. Although this seemed odd to me at first, apparently it can be normal around this age for weight gain to plateau. He has started noticing his hands and holding onto toys (when Madeleine is kind enough to let him have one) and he loves watching his big sister.

We did some baking this week, to help pass the rainy days, and M got completely covered in the dry ingredients when she decided flour is actually quite yummy to eat.

Other rainy day activities for Madeleine have included: wearing a frilly tutu dress, taking everything out of my wallet at least once, and cuddling with Ross on the couch.

Ross is still a happy, smiley little boy, with really wild hair. It's thinning and lightening a bit, but not really falling out at all. His eyes are still a deep blue, and he's generally quite happy on his tummy, although I haven't been that good at remembering to give him "tummy time".  Aside from this week, when he's been very congested at night, he's still waking just once in the early morning to eat. He often sleeps a couple of hours at a time during the day, which is wonderful since Madeleine was a cat-napper for her first year.

Steve has been hard at work these days, often putting in extra hours in the evenings and on weekends. He's preparing for some visitors from the US at the end of the month, who are interested in the spectrograph he built for his PhD. It's been a good motivator to get a few relevant chapters of his thesis done, and he's already received some really positive feedback.

Life Goes On

We said some tearful goodbyes to my Mom and Dad last Friday. It's definitely harder to say goodbye when we've seen how much Madeleine (and Ross!) loved having them around. She has said "Papa?" a few times this week when she hears a noise outside that sounds like Grandpa coming home on his bike. And she found some strands of wool the other day, from Grammie's knitting and said "Mama." She loves identifying what belongs to whom these days. As I hung the laundry on the line this morning, she was watching carefully and with each article of clothing she would yell out to whom it belonged - "Baby Ross! Daddy!  Maanna!" (Maana is how she says Madeleine, which really makes me feel bad for giving her such a long name.)

Madeleine loves to run along The Promenade walkway near our house - Grammie took her out on a particularly windy day when this picture was taken. M pumps her arms and waddles along, moving as fast as she can. 

She regularly asks to hold Ross on her lap, and he smiles up at her and is very patient and tolerant of all her pats and brushes and kisses.

She started trying to climb onto the coffee table and sit or stand on it, so we quickly inverted it to make a little seat for her. She loves sitting in it and playing with toys or reading books. She is also really taken with cutting things lately, and loved this wooden toy pizza from the Toy Library. Her other current interests are helicopters ("helio") and diggers ("digga").

Ross has been very smiley and chatty lately, and has the most adorable giggle fits when we talk with him. He has transitioned to the cot very well, and sleeps from about 8pm until 4 or 5am, eats, and then sleeps another couple of hours.

Lately, Madeleine has wanted to 'burp' Baby Ross, and wants to hold him on her shoulder. He's more than half her size now though, so it's a bit awkward, but she loves it.

And then she gets tired of it, and wants him off.

She was reading "Tales From the Arabian Nights" to him the other day, carefully pointing at the words and pictures.

Our first week on our own has actually gone really well, and I am reminded once again of how much I love being at home with my kids. I feel so blessed to have had so much help for the early weeks, and am sure that is why things are going so smoothly now. Plus, Steve has made some great progress on his thesis in the last few months, so he is starting to see the light at the end of the PhD tunnel. 

At our Plunket visit earlier this week, the kids weighed in at 30lbs for Madeleine, and a few ounces short of 15lbs for Ross. He is quite long, so he doesn't seem nearly as chubby as M did as a baby. Ross moving to the cot meant that Madeleine moved to a big bed this past weekend. After a few nights of popping in and out of bed at bedtime, and falling asleep on the floor one night, she now seems quite content to stay in bed. She's also starting to use the potty, and asking to go now and then. Our little girl is growing up!

2 months!

Here is Ross at 2 months, looking well-rested after a week of sleeping from 8:30pm to 5:30am. I felt pretty rested too, although I definitely don't expect these long nights to last! We saw the Plunket Nurse for the first time about a week ago, and Ross was 13lb and 12oz, and 61cm long. He's certainly growing quickly and I have to be sure to regularly go through all the clothes we've received or else I'm sure he'll outgrow things before he's even worn them. 

Mom, Dad and I took the kids for a hike to Butterfly Creek, in the hills behind our house. 

Part of the trail overlooks Wellington Harbour, and it was a lovely sunny day. We have had one of the sunniest, driest summers that Wellington has seen in a long time. Everyone who talks to Mom and Dad about their visit comments on how lucky they've been to have this weather, since usually our summers are rather short and unpredictable.

Madeleine loved the chance to get out of the carrier and stretch. Here she is doing some stretches with Grammie. Either that, or they were singing "The Grand Old Duke of York" for the hundredth time.

This past Sunday was Ross' baptism at our church, St. Alban's. We got some family pictures before the service...

It was a lovely service with our new vicar presiding and one of our neighbours and friends, Carolyn, giving Ross his baptism candle. Ross slept through the entire service, and Madeleine struggled to stay interested and quickly squirmed out of Steve's arms.

She was pretty excited to get outside and run around.

Just hanging out on the couch...

Comparing foot size with Daddy...

Ross continues to love his baths, unlike Madeleine, who took months to enjoy the water. And fortunately, Madeleine loves sharing her big bath with him, and only rarely tries to splash him.

Daddy and Ross reading his card from Grandma and Grandpa Gibson...

Only another ten days with my Mom and Dad here... so we are working through the list of 'things to do before they leave' and I'm counting my days of unlimited help! Madeleine will certainly miss them as well... this morning, in the kitchen, she said very clearly "I want Papa." Her first clear sentence and it's all about Grandpa.