May has been a very busy and fun month; we are sorry for not keeping you more up to date along the way, but Keith doesn’t have the same amount of time after Victoria’s birth as he had after Austin’s for blogging. Nothing personal, it is just that other things are going on in life.
Austin is doing great…as would be expected. He finished his first year of preschool earlier this week. We are so proud of how big a boy he has become. Sure he has some of Daddy’s anxiety issues, but he remains bright, inquisitive, polite, and happy. He will be attending the same school next year, the only difference being how often he will be there. This past year, Austin went to school twice weekly (Tuesdays and Thursdays) from 9:00 to 11:30. Next year he will move up to the next level in the preschool and will be attending three times weekly (Monday, Wednesday and Friday…still 2.5 hours per day).
Austin has also made a LOT of progress in swim lessons this month as well. When Keith started to take Austin to swim lessons after Victoria was born, Austin would wave to Keith every 45-60 seconds…incessantly…throughout the course of the 25 minute session. At first Keith was flattered, but then he discovered that Austin had been doing the same thing with Christine for months as well. Since that time Keith has been trying his best to extricate himself from Austin as much as possible during swim lessons, with very little success. Every time that Keith would drop Austin off to swim lessons to leave him there alone (rather than remaining in view, as had been the case previously), Austin would cry until Keith returned, only to wave every 15-30 seconds until the class was over.
Well…we are happy to say that ice cream saved the day. As the weather has now become increasingly more pleasant, it seemed that a nice reward for the whole family (should Austin not cry in swim class and follow all instructions as presented by his instructor) would be for all of us to go to the local ice cream stand for some cones…but only if Austin was the epitome of a well behaved “big boy”. For an entire week, Christine and Keith prepped Austin for the day that he would have to be a “big boy” and not cry when Daddy dropped him off to swim lessons so that he could go to get some ice cream. Like M&Ms with potty-training, the ice cream motivator delivered HUGE results, with Austin being a bigger boy and exceeding our greatest expectations. On the day of reckoning, Keith left Austin for 15 minutes, Austin did not cry, Keith returned, Austin only needed to wave one time and the same thing happened the next week (without a motivator necessary). It seems that we have cleared that hurdle…for now, but we are sure that something else will inevitably come to light in the coming months.
This month, Austin also had an opportunity to go fishing for the first time, reeling in 2 pickerel and a blue gill. The pickerel are toothy creatures, so Keith wasn’t going to let Austin handle one, but when there was a blue gill on the line, Keith was thinking this would be the perfect opportunity to take the “child holding onto fishing line with little fish on the end”-picture. Well, as you can see in the photo album, the picture was not meant to be as Austin had snagged the fish in the fin, so it didn’t seem fair to hang it by its little flipper just for a photo-op. So…we will have to wait until next time to take a pic like that.
Oh yeah, and in case you were curious….yes, Austin is still a huge fan of NASCAR. Every weekend, he sits down to watch about an hour (or more) of racing, from the starting of the engines to the checkered flag. The boy flat out LOVES racing. As a result, Keith and Christine have learned more about NASCAR than we ever intended to know, and even found ourselves watching it the other night after Austin had gone to bed. Granted, there was absolutely nothing else on the television, but still…NASCAR?
As for Victoria…she is doing great, and as you can see by the pictures and videos that we have posted, she is growing bigger by the week. She is intermittently sleeping through the night, approx. 50% of the time. On a good night, she will fall asleep at about 9:00 pm and sleep until 5:00 am. On a bad night she will wake up at 2:00 am, but then she sleeps until 8:00 am. Overall, we really cannot complain…except for the fact that she is a noisy sleeper and Keith has been exiled to sleep in the guest room so as to not wake up Victoria in the mornings with the alarm clock that goes off at 5:00 am.
Victoria is also smiling a lot more, but she is still a bit reserved in dispensing the smiles…she prefers, instead, to offer up this sly grin where she curls up one side of her mouth only (think Dick Clark, post-stroke, but without all the plastic surgery). She has become much happier overall though…probably because we have gotten better as parents of reading her signals and helping her sleep and eat when she needs to. It is just funny how much different she is than Austin when he was a boy. For instance, Keith was trying for 6-7 weeks to find a good rhythm when bouncing with Victoria to help soothe her, but couldn’t figure it out. No matter what, she would just wail and wail for 2 hours every night before she would eventually feed around 11:00 pm and fall asleep while breast feeding.
Now, we understand her more. First, she doesn’t like to be bounced, but prefers to be swayed from side to side with only a very gentle bounce along the way, but the bounce is not likely necessary to get the job done (it is probably a leftover behavior stuck in Keith, more than something needed by Victoria). Additionally, we realized that when she gets that fussy at night, she is getting tired…we just “top her off” and put her down; it works like a charm. Heck, the other night she was finicky, Christine fed her thinking she was getting tired, but then Victoria had her eyes wide open after feeding. Taking a gamble, Christine put Victoria down in the bassinet awake at 9:30 pm, only to have her fall asleep quietly and wake up at 6:00 am the next morning. Not bad, right?
Additionally…much earlier this month…Victoria had her 8 week follow-up with the pediatrician, to receive a glowing report. She had a clean bill of health with a length/height of 23.25 inches and weighing in at 11 pounds. 14 ounces, and doesn’t need to return to the doctor’s office until she is 4 months old!
And Keith and Christine? Well…Christine has begun to pick some kids up for her early intervention physical therapy case-load and has returned to the YMCA in her role as a spinning instructor. Keith has purchased (and since modified) a new mountain bike to ride to work in an effort to get in better shape and win a weight loss competition with a colleague at work. At the end of the day, we both remain incredibly busy and sleep deprived…but, most importantly, we are as thrilled as can be with our happy and healthy family.