The Quotable Annika

--"Band On and On" 
--trash buzzinator
Her take on "Band on the Run" and "garbage disposal," respectively

--"I tried to sleep late, but the birds wake up SO EARLY!"
Explanation, delivered with large sigh, as to why she's up at 6:00 a.m. on a Sauce morning

--"Am I middle-handed?"
Thoughtful query, studying her outstretched hands in the mirror, some days after a discussion of Daddy being left-handed and me being right-handed.

--"An. It's short for Annika. I like to call myself that sometimes."
Casual explanation for something she's written all over a piece of paper.

Month-by-month: April

R goes on leave
Once Grandma went back home, R took his scheduled four-week leave, and almost went batty. Heh. Lukas needed a lot more holding than Annika did at the same age, which meant that R didn't get to some of the household projects he had been hoping to do (like repair and refinish the deck) -- but he did do a lot of other things (mostly research and planning). It was a good chance to hang with the baby, and a needed break from work, but by the end, he was more than ready to get back to the routine!

Solid foods
A bad run of bad nights sleepwise for Lukas (and thus for me) prompted us to try solid foods a month or so early, on the theory that if we fed him enough, he'd go back to his newborn sleeping patterns. That didn't exactly pan out, but he did like the rice cereal, so we kept that in his diet when we remembered to.

The bouncer thingy saves the day
Finally, finally we discovered a baby product that Lukas likes: the bouncer thingy that Amanda bought off of our registry. He loves to jump two-footed in it, and will stay in there (safe, interested, occupied) for quite awhile -- including for nearly an hour while the rest of us lounged around in the hot tub one summery weekend afternoon. This is how I'm able to get dinner going, or clean up, or do ANYTHING else, so: Yay!

First pool day
We had a week of really warm weather -- actually hot, in the 90s -- so we decided to fire up the pool heater and enjoy. Annika LOVES the water, and continues to work on her skills (she'll dunk underwater now, and put her face in, and she's really fast at dogpaddling -- she might not need that floaty suit by the end of the summer!). Lukas had his first pool experience, sitting in a baby floaty thing with a little sun canopy, a swim diaper on, and me in attendance, and he really seemed to dig it; he was all big eyes and gently exploring little hands.

Baby skills
This month, Lukas was really working on purposeful movements (learning to control those flailing hands), muh-muh-muh sounds, and hilarious baby-raptor roaring sounds. He laughs a lot (including in his sleep sometimes), and is fascinated by the old baby monitor (it lights up when it registers sounds, and it gets a lot of interference, so the lights are always flashing -- he loves the thing). The first time he saw it, he leaned waaay over me, making this sound like "caaaaaaaah" ... and tried to grab it to put it in his mouth.

Big-girl skills
Annika is reading out words she knows whenever she sees them (e.g. "now" and "the"); she bursts into our room every morning with a book for us to read (adorable, but sometimes brutal when the summer light wakes her up at 6:00 on a weekend ... oi). She's working on math concepts. She can follow really complex directions and make up complex stories. She can play board games by the rules. She is finally becoming amenable to reason when we won't let her have or do something she wants -- she understands a bargain or a deal, and can accept explanations as to why the answer is sometimes no. That doesn't mean she never flips out or that it works all the time ... but it's real progress and it makes so many things easier.

Yo Gabba Gabba gets company
There's a new TV obsession these days: Pee-Wee's Playhouse. Gabba isn't over and done with by any means -- but Pee-Wee (which failed to make an impression a year ago) is hilarious to her now, and it's been the go-to entertainment for some weeks.

Month-by-Month: March

Lukas rolls!
On March 8, Lukas did his first documented back-to-front roll. He followed that with a few more tricks, such as front-to-back rolling, chewing on his own arm like it's a corncob, and working out of a swaddle in ten seconds or less. Mobility can't be far behind ... Also, we tried the Bumbo near the end of March, and it went OK -- he didn't fight it, and it did help him develop head/neck control, but it wasn't nearly the miracle baby item that it was for Annika. He would just lean forward and chew on it with all his might, instead of using it as a base from which to observe the world like she did. Oh well!

Four-month checkup
Aside from the shots (to which he reacted as if he'd been betrayed, poor kid), the four-month checkup went smashingly. He's now 25 inches long -- keeping that 60th percentile for height thing going.

Cousin B.'s 11th birthday party
R and Annika went to this one by themselves -- it was at a kids' party venue with bouncy houses and the like, so not really the scene for a baby -- but she absolutely loved it. She palled around with Cousin A. and a friend of hers most of the time, and came home full of talk about winning prizes and playing games. A red ball that she (or Daddy) won quickly became part of the in-house arsenal of things we have to keep telling her not to throw indoors.

Annika starts dance class
As you might remember, we tried the dance class that shares campus space with Annika's school, about a year ago. She didn't like it and apparently sat on the floor and watched, declining to participate. But a few months ago, she started to say she wanted to go again -- "Really for real. I'm not tricking you!" We put her off for awhile, but she was so persistent that we decided to give it another try. And this time, it was a huge hit. She loved it, loved it, loved it, and begged me to sign her up, so I did. It's not cheap, but it is super low-key and convenient (they walk the kids over from school for the midmorning session, once a week), and they wear normal clothes and rented shoes, which couldn't be easier! Thursdays are now her absolute favorite days -- dance in the morning, Soccer Shots in the afternoon.

Mihira and Metalia
Mihira is the name of a girl in Annika's class, but we don't know where Metalia came from -- and both are names she often uses for imaginary students in the imaginary classes she teaches, imaginary sisters (sometimes older, sometimes younger) that she plays with, and imaginary pets she takes care of. She also tried to get us to actually change her own name to Mihira, but we declined.

Crafty St. Paddy's
I am rediscovering so many of the lost crafts of my youth ... for St. Patrick's Day, we wanted to make some sort of shamrock. I drew one on a piece of cardboard, and we cut up green tissue paper into a couple hundred 2x2" squares, which we twisted around the eraser ends of pencils and glued to the cardboard. It looked like a parade float or a putting green ... good times.

Grandma the Nanny, for my return to work
I had to go back to work on March 26, so it was Grandma to the rescue, giving up her spring break and a couple of weeks of paid work to take care of Lukas. Fortunately for everyone, it was the kind of job Grandma likes best -- holding the baby literally all day long, and then marching to Annika's orders until the junior set is at last corralled into bed. We really couldn't have managed the transition without her, and we are HUGELY grateful for it. The kids were happy and well-cared-for, R and I had a third adult to manage the chaos, and I even got fresh coffee to go in the mornings -- as hard as it was to go back, it was doable with Grandma on the job. Thank you, Grandma!