Update on the Kids

Wow. I'm sorry it's been so long!

First, Micah. He is doing great! Over the holidays we weren't able to do the whole "crying it out" thing for a number of reasons like sickness or travel. However, in January when we were going to be home for a while and everyone was feeling good, we took a few nights to let him cry when he woke up at night. He was pretty textbook about it; he cried for about forty-five minutes the first night, then about thirty, then about fifteen, and now he almost never wakes up. (He's been having some cold/allergy problems, and things are always different then...) Typically, though, we put him down around 7:30 at night, and then I wake him up at 9:00 and fee him again before I go to bed. Then he sleeps through the night! I can usually hear him stirring a little before 7:00, but he entertains himself for a while. Alexis will also usually wake up around the same time and entertain herself for a little while, so most days I don't have to get up until sometime between 7:00 and 7:30. It's been a HUGE difference in my life to get a full night of sleep!

Micah continues to be a really relaxed kid. He almost never cries without a very specific reason, and of course, like most babies, he's all smiles these days! He started to sit up right at six months, and after two weeks he likes to spend a huge part of his day sitting up and playing with his toys. The other day he started to do a "mini-crawl" with his little legs pushing his body along. It wasn't quite a real crawl, but I think he's going to start doing that soon. He's getting so big! It's funny to watch him do the swimming motion on his stomach, with his arms and legs flailing like he can get somewhere. Yesterday he got up on his hands and knees for the first time, which was really cool to see. Because of all of this, the bald patch on the back of his head is starting to go away, but he still has a glorious mohawk.

He's been battling a cold and allergies on and off since Christmas, but he's been pratty happy almost the entire time and doesn't get too upset unless his nose is being sunctioned a lot or he has some sort of bad coughing fit. He loves to look around at everything and gets really determined to get one of his toys; this is what made him do the mini-crawl before. It's so cool to watch him want something and then go get it! Even though he can't quite crawl, he's amazing at turning his body and rolling and getting to where he wants to be using that method. He likes to grab at the loops on the rug and just began to to enjoy playing peek-a-boo.

He loves eating solid foods and usually has two servings of cereal and 2-3 jars of fruits or veggies each day. He's still nursing exclusively, but I'm trying to give him a sippy cup a lot so that he can get used to drinking from that. He hasn't really gotten it yet, but that's okay. He'll figure it out at some point. No teeth yet, either. His doctor thought he's get some by the time he's about seven months, but he thought that he would have teeth around four months, too. Alexis didn't get teeth until pretty far after her first birthday, and he might be the same.

Alexis is a little ball of fury. I can't believe how grown-up she's getting. The other day in the car on the way home from the train, she just started talking about her day and it was like a monologue! Her language skills are getting really great. She's also around kids more than she used to be. I started going to a MOPS group, and she plays with other kids in a class. Micah is also watched, which is nice for me because I get a two hour break from my kids every other week. :) She ALWAYS wants to play, which is a bit exhausting at times, but we have lots of fun. She's also trying to push boundaries and see how far she can go with things, but I think she's learning that we don't listen to whining and don't allow tantrums. Hopefully she still feels free to express her feelings while at the same time learning how to express them appropriately, but that's a difficult thing for kids. She has a little bedtime routine now and always wants to do three different things before going to bed: I Got You (the game where Jason sits in the middle and she runs in a circle around him saying, "I got you" over and over), rolling, and somersaults. Then she gets into bed and we read a book to her, and then she reads a few pages to us. About a week ago I think she started to make the connection that each individual word on the page meant something and was read separately, and that was really neat to see.

Alexis is very into stickers and making little crafts. I put a bunch of rice into a plastic bin for her, and she loves to play in it and pour and scoop and generally make a mess out of it. She's also wonderful with Micah and understands that there are certain things he can and can't have and is getting better about sharing with him as well. Having an almost three-year-old is a handful, but she is so much fun and so interactive and just an enjoyable kid.