KARISSA UPDATE
Karissa turned 6 months old a week or so ago. She was 26-and-1/4 inches long (75%) and 15 pounds, 13 ounces (50%), so she's very normal and maybe a tad on the long side.
On March 17th, we finally felt her first tooth protruding through her bottom gum. Ever since then we've had the headaches that follow that - the profuse drooling, the teething pain and crying, etc. Then just a few days ago, we actually felt her second tooth coming in. She is eating solids now (supplementally she's having oatmeal cereal) and in perfect health. She turns herself over, both ways, and now sits up for a few ticks on her own.
One thing that has come along is that the shape of her head has not developed just so. If you look at her face-on you wouldn't notice a thing. At different angles, however, you'll notice one side flatter than anot
her. Karissa never took to laying on her belly. She was essentially born with congestion. The day we brought her home she had a snorting head full of snot, and laying on her belly only made her gurgle and gag and that was not an option for much longer. She spent so much time on her back because of that she never really took to tummy time. And when I say she never took to it - she would spend 10 seconds on her belly and roar her indifference. The result is some slightly misshapen parts of her head. Now the thing is, she's still very young and at the point where it's the easiest to treat. She'll wear a band (you've seen the kids and probably called it a 'helmet', like we do, but they call it a 'band') for about 2-3 months. The older kids get, and the more their skull hardens, it takes considerably longer. So, we've made a quick decision to address this while she is young and it's easiest to manage. She'll thank us later. It's chiefly cosmetic, to be honest. There's nothing wrong with her head and it has nothing to do with the development of the brain. Basically, when she's older, if she wanted to put her hair up in a ponytail, or if her hair was short and she got out of the pool, it would be noticeable. Not really otherwise. So, we'll go ahead and do that now and just help her head look as perfect as her face.While visiting the Cranial Technologies in Dallas, the technician held Karissa and examined her, holding her on her lap with Karissa's back to her. Karissa was darting her head and eyes over her shoulder left and right, staring the tech up and down. The tech seemed amazed at how alert she was, talking about how uncommon it was for a 6-month-old to be THAT alert and curious. We've thought the same thing for some time, but found it interesting that someone who sees different babies all day every day to mention the same unsolicited. Karissa notices and motions and laughs at our dog Maggie. She's even taken to a Baby Einstein video "Neighborhood Animals".
Right now Karissa's most outgoing personality trait is her nighttime wake-up call. When she's awake you won't hear crying necessarily. You'll hear thumps. Like someone is banging on the front door thumps. What she does is lift her feet in front of her face while laying down, then slam her feet down. The resulting thwump! can be heard at the other end of the house. And yes, it will be heard over a monitor in the middle of the night. So, a nickname of "Thumper" or something similar hasn't officially taken place, but it may not be long.
KOLE UPDATE
Not much to update on the potty training front. He has and will produce some poop on the potty, but it has no regularity (in reference to his potty appearances, not his BMs). He is experimenting with big-boy underwear. The idea, according to the books and magazine articles, is that when he wets or poops in them, he'll get a different and much more comfortable experience than with a diaper. Well ... maybe in theory. In reality, Kole can go just as long in a peed-on and pooped-in underwear as he can in a diaper. No difference and no deterrence.
Kole knows his colors and most of the alphabet on site. He cheerfully sits in his car
seat now pointing out all the cars ... "orange car! Red truck! White car!" etc. He's also starting to express himself in more complete sentences and thoughts, not just one- or two-word commands. "Mommy - cahab juice peese!" (can I have juice please); "uh guh out-SIIIDE, uh wuh red firetruck!". And so on. He uses bigger more complex words. He'll actually be doing something like drawing with a Crayola and say "learn at school", referring to his mother's-day-out school he still goes to twice a week.Speaking of school, we finally got a report this week that he was disciplined for his behavior. It seems that there's some box of some kind in the classroom that he has taken a shine to climbing on top of. He was told more than once not to get on the box, and he finally had to do a Timeout after doing it again. Each day he gets a little report card mentioning what happened that day and it has three things for Behavior that could potentially be circled: Great, Good or Acted Out. On the day of the Timeout he actually got a Good behavior, but he has got a Acted Out once before. It seems that when other kids come to play with him or maybe attempt to share a toy, or even take it from him, his reaction is to push or shove. He didn't learn it here, but it appears to be an easy thing to pick up from any school activity or play date with other little friends he sees with Kathy's friends or even at church. One time a couple of months ago I took him to the indoor playground at a nearby Chick-Fil-A and watched a kid shove Kole, just to get him out of the way so he could slide down a slide. I had words with the kid afterwards. But, I guess Kole has been exposed to shoving and now he partakes of the act from time to time.
He rides his tricycle and now propels himself with the pedals, after several months of Fred Flintstone footwork. He's active, he's happy, he's healthy, and for the most part he's a very, very good boy and the joy of our lives.
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