Same same, but different

Same place, same outfit, a few months difference.

Art time

Tegan has been an art machine lately, she asks all the time to paint and color.  Liam likes to chew on the markers and pretend to help.

Red is the color of choice right now

We made our own crayons

Collaboration - Liam doesn't realize his markers always have lids on them

Halloween

We had a little Doc McStuffins and a tiny Superman at our house this year for Halloween.  We trick-or-treated a few expat houses in the neighborhood and then went via cab to each of our friends to trick-or-treat at their houses.  They certainly made Tegan's night!

As Doc would say, a slight case of mixupitis

Tegan turns 3

Whoa, 3!  Tegan is smart, loving and feisty.  She can be shy but after a few minutes to assess a new situation or a person she is ready to go.  She is great at pretending - need a banana to feed that toy monkey but don't have one?, no worries, she'll pick one off that tree over on the other side of the living room for you or pop over the the grocery store in the hallway.  She loves loves loves people, wants to visit, talk, play.  The motivator to get her shoes on as we leave the house is "we can't go see _____ if you don't have any shoes on".  Usually works, but as we say in our house, "sometimes yes, sometimes no".


Likes:
Books
Liam - she loves on him all the time
Cooking and playing restaurant
Helping anyone do just about anything
Apple juice
Doc McStuffins
Babies - her stuffed animals and dolls
Preschool
Painting
Doing things all by herself
Playing soccer
Helping Liam walk, eat, learn words, etc., etc.


Dislikes:
Wearing clothes
Washing her hair
"Tidying" up (who does?)
Wearing shoes

11 months

Likes:
Mom holding and carrying him around
Tegan
Balloons
Fruit
Balls
Walking around furniture or with a helping hand
Pulling toys off the shelves
Playing keep away, especially if he is what is being kept away from someone
Taking a few falling steps into your arms

Dislikes:
Wearing hats
Waking up alone
Sleeping on his own all night - prefers to join mom and dad around 3am
Diaper changes

Family photo

At Swayambhu

Can I do it by myself?

Often Tegan asserts "I do it myself" her reasoning being that "I'm a big girl now, I'm this big" holding her hand up to her forehead, but on our vacation in Thailand last week she asked if she could go into a store and buy m&ms all by herself.  Obviously we said yes.

In she goes

Oops, doesn't know where to find them

Found them!  Took a gamble and tried the crispy kind

Almost forgot her change

The ladies working at the store sure got a kick out of it and Tegan was beaming.  

Pulled out the good camera!

Sunday funday around here.

10 months

Likes:
Clapping hands
Clapping other people's hands
Climbing stairs
Water bottles
Standing and walking holding onto furniture
Crawling to the floor pillows and laying down
Fruit
Putting everything and anything in his mouth
Pulling all the books off the shelf
Balls
Sticking his leg straight up while nursing and falling asleep
Tegan

Dislikes:
Sleeping for longer than 2-3 hours
Sleeping past 5:30am
When he's stopped from crawling into the bathroom

Some other details:  Liam has 7 teeth and is eating new things all the time.  He nurses 4-5 times a day and often at night.  He's a welcome visitor for me and all the other folks he passes when he comes to school to eat.  He's around 35th percentile weight, 50th percentile height but a good sized noggin without a lot of hair :)  After sleeping with us for most of the summer he's back to sleeping most of the night in his crib but when 3:30ish rolls around he likes to hang out with us (and sometimes Tegan joins us for a full bed!). Liam is often on the go, it's hard to get a picture of him in focus these days.  He stands on his own for a few seconds but mostly just squats right down when he realizes no one is holding him up.  Liam is a pretty happy-go-lucky kid and a lot of fun to play with.

2 1/2 years

(2.5 hit late April, I'm late of course).  Baby Tegan is no more.  This girl is full on "big girl" as she often tells us (though pulls the "me a baby" line when convenient).  She is full of energy, caring, wild, loving and never ceases to puts smiles on our faces.  Some of what she's up to:

Likes:
Liam
Dad especially but mom is creeping back into the running
Playing baby (things that have served as a baby: water bottles, remotes, phones.  All patted and rocked in true mom-fashion)
Playing with water
Mickey and Minnie Mouse
Hanging out with our friends (squeals of delight when she sees them!)
Doing things herself
Peanut butter by the spoonful
Trying to join us in our bed in the middle of the night (and basically sleep on Jeremiah's face)
Apple juice (and accompanying dance)
Mango juice (and accompanying dance)
Pancakes
Jumping, often down stairs
Joking around
Disney movies
Her nannies
Going out to eat
Bargaining for taxis and helping us directing them to our house ("300?  No 200.  Otay?  Otay.  Vroom vroom;" "Left left, right right")
Electronics
Rain
Going to the library
Books
Putting her own hair in a ponytail (you can imagine how well that works)
Chapstick and sunscreen

Bargaining (you offer 1 cookie, she'll counter you with a request for a least 1 more)

Dislikes:
People messing with her hair - either washing, cutting or putting up in clips
Keeping her shoes on
Not getting her own way
Stopping watching movies
Eating foods she doesn't remember she likes
Returning books to the library
When Liam plays with a toy that is hers that she never liked
Changing her clothes
Going to bed too early

She talks a lot!  She spend a lot of time surrounded by adults who speak to her in both English and Nepali so she understands a fair bit of what her nanny says to her in Nepali though she doesn't speak it much.  We even saw her do the head bobble Nepali people do to say yes/okay the other day.

She loves Liam - she talks to him, brings him toys, shows him things and can't wait for "him get bigger" so they can really play.  There are moments that she doesn't want us to hold him so we can really play with her but for the most part she is very understanding.

Tegan is a blast to be with and we are so lucky to have her spunkiness in our lives.

Daddy date

Jeremiah took Tegan and Liam (and Corduroy) out to Chez Caroline restaurant this weekend while I went out with some girlfriends. Loved this picture he sent me.

 

6 months

Likes:
Grabbing faces
Chewing on anything and everything
His nanny
Going to bed early (4-5pm - 3-4am would be his ideal I think)
Watching when people eat
Turning shyly away from attention
Putting his feet in the pool
Saying dadadadada and general babbling
Banging his hand on things
Wicked eye rubs when he's sleepy
Trying to crawl

Dislikes:
Not being able to crawl
Mom leaving the room
Being on his own for any length of time

Other things of note: Still wakes up every few hours at night. Likes to join us in bed around 3am until wake up time. He can sit for short periods on his own but still topples. Had a great 6 month check up, weight percentile went down but he seems quite content with the amount of nursing he's doing. He comes to visit school 3 times a day to nurse which is great for us. We'll start him on solids when we get to the states for summer break.

5 months

Getting this one in under the wire as Liam's just about to be 6 months!!

Likes:

His toes

Rolling to his tummy to do superman pose

Sleeping on his stomach, finally got him in the crib too!

Standing, still very wobbly - think Scarecrow from Wizard of Oz

Our curtains

Watching people eat - he practices moving his mouth

Mom when he's tired

His nanny

Dad to play - he gets the best giggles and laughs

 

Dislikes:

Sleeping in (hello 4am)

Too much tummy time (though he always gets himself to his tummy when you put him down)

 

Tegan says

I am constantly amazed at the things Tegan says these days.

I want to do it by myself
Like yester-time?
Mommy! Green and green! it matches, same same
We better bring some wipes
I let Liam use my towel, him like it, he say nice it
My tummy talking
I want you put this back away up here far away
Liam - you supposed hold my finger when we on the road, okay?
I ate a cookie, now it's in my tummy.  You can't take it out.  Through my belly button you can!

4 months

Likes:

Smiling

Playing with his feet (the didis like to say he's doing "namaste")

Being loved on by Tegan

Standing

Nursing marathons

Being "thrown" up in the air

Baths

 

Dislikes:

Playing on his own for too long

Windy days

(Posted with love from our vacation in France)

 

Carnival

Saturday was a carnival at school, complete with acrobats, cotton candy and games. It was a beautiful day until closing time when the clouds rolled in and 15 minutes later the ground was covered in hail!

 

Holi - the kid-friendly version

Holi was today, and since going out with little kids is not a good idea we decided after doing the real-deal ourselves we'd do a kid-friendly version. Tegan loved the water guns and putting the dye on her fingers only to go straight to the bucket to wash them off again. Side note: she did not love when we came home covered in dye, she hid for a few minutes from us. Later after we washed our faces she said "you wash your monster face off?"

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sleep

We're not getting a lot of it the last few days. Liam sleeps in the crook of my arm most nights; he has a 3-4 hour stretch first thing (sometimes this is just next to me and not on me) and then every 2 hours after. Lately wake ups get a little more frequent as we approach his regular 5:30-6:30 morning awake time and the last couple nights we must have been in a growth spurt because I'm pretty sure he was awake to eat more than he was asleep. I'm thinking fondly to his 2nd month where he had 4-6 hour stretch, waking 2 times a night.

Jeremiah is in charge of Tegan at night now since I'm pinned down with Liam (nights were always my thing before, I'm a light sleeper so would be awake anyway). She's hit or miss, has some good spells sleeping through the night or only waking to use the bathroom; other nights have a few wake ups and Jeremiah sometimes sleeps with her so everyone gets some sleep. She dropped her nap when Liam was born so getting her to sleep is usually pretty easy. She goes to bed around 7-8 (Liam is more 6-7) and wakes around 6-7.

Liam practicing napping on his own, he made it 15 minutes

They sure are cute when they sleep though.