Eyeballs, and other new words

Cora is at that age when she is gaining new words exponentially. We love it.
Case in points: Eyeballs.

One Sunday afternoon, we were trying to capture of our girls dressed in matchy-matchy dresses (a la our good friend Jessica).

This is how it started:

 At some point, I said, "Cora, don't touch Quinn in the eyeballs".

 Cora started repeating "Eyeballs" and touching both of her eyeballs. Her look clearly said that she'd never thought of eyes as eyeballs before. She was fascinated.

Other words we've learned this week:
Chainsaw.
Frontloader.
Fact.
Big truck.
Froggie, ribbet.
Horse.
Peacock.
Piggies.


She's constantly saying, "Here you go, baby" with a highpitched end to her "baby".
This morning I heard her tell Sharon, "I did good job".

I'm not sure where she got her propensity to be a chatterbox :)

Quinn: 3 Months

I'm late! 

Quinn is 3 (technically 3.5) months old, and she's growing. 

Some things that Quinn is doing: 

She's really good at grasping her toys.

She babbles constantly, and she is a good repeater. She especially repeats after Cora. 

She holds her head-up steady when we hold her. 

She's grasping her toes now, and she has mastered finding her hands. 

She can take her paci in and out of her mouth easily. 

She reaches up to grab dangling toys.

She scooted off the back of her mat this week, which means that there'll be no more laying her on my desk while I work. 

She HATES being on her belly. 

She cries so seldom that when she does, it is an event. 

Quinn seems to have no problem soothing herself. In fact, when she's upset, the best way to calm her is to lay her on her changing pad (which we carry around like a blanket - it's her favorite place to lay), put her on the ottoman, and rock the ottoman back and forth. To calm herself, she holds her hand about 2 inches in front of her face and stares at it until she falls asleep. It's very peaceful to watch. 

I can't believe it's only been 3 months that we've had Quinn. I thought having two babies would be total chaos. We're busy, but seldom stressed. 

Quinn was the perfect addition to our family.

Living in Utopia

Honestly, we are.

It is a great weekend at the Messal house!

Cora had an upset tummy on Thursday, so I had the pleasure of keeping a not-actually-sick-but-ineligible-for-daycare child home with me on Friday. On those days, I always have a moment when I feel stressed - I feel like I should be working. Then I remember that those days don't happen very often. I can count on one hand the number of days that my child has been ineligible for daycare, and I can't actually remember the last time she had a fever. Other than a couple of minor bouts with croup, I can't think of her actually being sick at all. No RSV, strep, flu, pnemonia... and those are all short-term illnesses. I won't even list the major illnesses that we can be thankful we haven't had! We're lucky that they're so healthy. And, I was lucky to get an extra day with her this week, especially since she even seemed to feel pretty darn good and was able to go about our errands, squeezing in a trip to the park and an evening play date with friends (after I was certain her troubles the day before were a fluke).

Last night, we had dinner at our friends' house, and brought the girls home a little after bedtime. Cora didn't fall asleep in the truck with Landon, so he carried her in awake. As is our routine, he came to the kitchen to get some milk for her, then headed up the stairs. As he turned to carry her up, Cora started reaching and screaming for me.

There are plenty of reasons why I didn't just grab her and carry her up to put her to bed myself. Landon is in class 4 nights a week during bedtime, and frankly, we both like putting her to bed so I try to leave it for him on the weekends. Plus, I don't want her to get so used to me putting her to bed that she won't relax for anyone else. Her screams weren't all that personal; if I had of been carrying her up and Landon had of been in the kitchen, Cora would have started screaming for him. And, when she is super sleepy (like she was last night) a good tantrum is a given, so this was almost inevitable.

I've felt sympathy before when I've seen situations on TV where children were being taken from their parents. But as Landon reached the top of the stairs, I felt a sudden pain of empahty. In that moment last night, I thought of mothers who have had to let go of a screaming child, not confident that they would get the child back again. Even in the predictability of Cora's tantrum last night, it was tough to have her reach for me and me  not respond by cuddling her. But to be UNABLE to respond... the idea was overwhelming. I stood looking out our kitchen window for a minute, thanking God to be born into my geography, family, and point in history, then given this sweet husband and these two healthy little girls, with the ability to buy them (too many cute) pairs of shoes and a pass to the fancy pool this summer.

Utopia is what it is.

Some pics from today.

That's Cora and Landon walking in the distance.

Our passes practically come with a "naptime guarantee".

I was hanging in the only chair I could find in the shade.

There's a rap spoof called "Dad's Life".

Landon could easily be in the video with the t-shirt not matching his board-shorts and his little homey hanging on his shoulders.

My little brown berry!

She looks like she got too much sun here, but this is before we even went to the pool.

I don't know what I'd do with a fair-skinned child.

Fourth Generation Friends

And three of those generations are together here!

The Gullett's were vacationing on Hilton Head, so they were able to come up for an afternoon.
Cora and Catie had a GREAT time together, and I can't wait til they are big enough to talk and interact even more. I see pen pals in our future!

 Nelson and dad called each other before the visit to discuss proper attire for good grandfathers.

 Then they pushed these little girls all over our yard.

 Cora decided she should help push Catie.

 Now they're servicing the car.

 Betsy holding Quinn. Catie didn't seem to mind - I think she liked the baby!

 Catie is a smiley little thing. I didn't get a pic, but Catie is a dog person. Pearl loved Catie, and Catie loved Pearl.

Catie's Grandpa Worth and Cora's Grandma Iris were raised together. They lived a few blocks away, and have story after story of Grandma spending the night with Worth's sister Janis (still one of my grandma's 2 best friends). Then, my Mom is best friends with Cathy Gullett's sister Chris, and Mom has always been treated like the 4th Goble child. I was raised with Nelson Worth & Nick. Now, Cora and Quinn have Catie, and will soon have a new Ratliff baby. That's a long friendship!

Heading to the beach on Friday with Mia and Poops.

Quick pics again

A few pics from yesterday. I took these with my Iphone and threw them up on the blog.

The Parisian outfit is from Aunt Heather. I won't lie - she knew she was cute when wearing it. I almost NEVER fuss over not getting her clothes dirty, but yesterday we had lasagna at the Groeber's house, and I stripped my child down so that she wouldn't get this outfit dirty. Aunt Heather we love it!

Chatterboxes

We have two little chatterboxes at our house. Cora is talking constantly now, and sometimes, we even know what she is saying.
"I gotcha!"
"Here ya go"
"That's a big truck"
And, she started something new this week. She says "Yep" all the time.
It's cute when she answers a question like "Do you want some toast?" with "Yep!".
But it's hilarious when she is crying about something (which is frequent, since she's 20 months and trying to manage her emotions), and then we ask her a question like "Do you want lovey?" and the word that comes out of her mouth is "Yep!".


And Quinn chatters every chance she gets. She talks to us. She talks to her hands. She talks to the dangling duck on her gym. She talks to her rattle. She talks to the TV. She talks to Cora.

She loves Cora. And, Cora loves her.

A few out takes from the past couple of weeks.

 Quinn looks bigger than Cora here! Cora is still healthy and growing, but the older she gets, the more petite she seems. I'm not sure why. At her last appointment she was still above 50% in every area.

 This is Cora's T-shirt from London. It's from my friend Gordon and his wife Anne. They go international several times a year, and I often find a momento from their travels on my desk at work. We aren't wishing time away, but it will be nice when our kids are old enough to see things and we can start traveling more again. Until then... we'll happily display our London t-shirts and Italian bibs!

I love these pictures. Quinn looks so fascinated by her big sister. Plus, that happy little look reflects Quinn's constant pleased disposition. It's difficult to capture on camera.