Clara and Lucia turn 1!

On Friday (July 26), Clara and Lucia turned 1.  It was fun to have Grammie and Grampa Diehl here to celebrate with us.  They came on Tuesday night and were able to stay until Sunday.  Seems like they had a good time with the girls.  Here are some of the recent photos of birthday activities.

Lucia and the joy of ribbon.

Clara in motion with a new butterfly toy.

The girls are opening a present from Grammie and Grampa - they loved tearing into the paper and chewing on the bath/pool butterflies. 

We gave the girls some more books - they were just as excited as you would imagine.  Actually, the wrapping paper made the whole experience worth it for them. 

Click, Clack, Moo:  Cows that Type.  This is one of our favorites.  We have yet to see if they approve.

Here is their cute birthday cake, with Ben and Jerry's of course, possibly a nod to their Vermont heritage or just the fact that their parents love ice cream.

My mother made the cake and I think Stacey provided the decoration.

A behind-the-scenes moment.  Thanks so careful planning, girls were completely surprised.

These hats were first worn by Stacey and me at our baby shower.  Stacey made sure to put them in a safe place to save for birthdays.

They stayed on their heads for a fairly short time.

Grammie with two squirmy kids.

Grammie and Grampa with the girls before they had to head home.

Unrelated to the birthday, the girls discovered, and enjoyed, a stack of magazines that Stacey had in the living room.

I love that Lucia is reading the edition of the Washingtonian that features "Great Dates."  Something completely irrelevant for anyone in this household for a while.

Few new photos

With some prodding from Stacey, I am posting a few updates to the blog.  Of course there are lots of things I am hoping to post, but somehow things seem busier to me these days.

In the mornings, or when the girls wake up from naps we will sometimes put them in the same crib.  They seem to like that.  It also might buy us a little time to get things ready for the next activity!

Clara is pushing down on the mesh bumper we got for their cribs.  We found that they both frequently slept with their arms and legs hanging out between the bars.  This was supposed to keep them in their cribs and it also is breathable, so it is safer than old bumpers.  Anyway, now they find it enjoyable to sprawl out with their arms and legs resting on top of the bumper, while still poking through the slats in the crib.  It really looks pretty comfortable, although not what it was designed for.

 

Lots of times they are all business.  This is in their play room.  We now have an octagonal fence to contain them.  It seems like it will work well for a while.  I am sure they will be pulling themselves up to standing position using the fence very soon.

We are working on the concept of sharing, but it is hard when there are limited resources, such as only one shoe box.  They both have pretty good grips on it!

Mobility!

This afternoon, when I came home from work, I found that Clara and Lucia had made a major  forward advancement (pun intended).  For the past week or so they have been trying different techniques to move themselves around the floor.  Clara is especially adept at turning herself in place (Grandma Dalea has nicknamed her Spinner) and both of them have been rolling and pushing themselves backwards until they get stuck under furniture.

I was so surprised to see Lucia's breakthrough when I was sitting on the living room floor and she propelled herself into the kitchen with a pretty good crawl and started pushing the high chairs around.  Granted, our house if pretty small and the kitchen table is only 10 feet from the rug where we were sitting, but this is a big development since we have been able to count on setting them down and having them be in the same place for a while.  Clara was doing it too, getting her knees under her to start to move forward.

Luckily, two days ago we put in a playyard (basically an indoor fence) in our  play room so they can be contained there.  I also made a trip out to our shed to put in a gate in their doorway to make sure they don't escape while we are changing diapers.

It is fun to see them making advances every day, both in their motor skills and their interactions with us.  Also alarming.

A slightly awkward moment for Lucia.

Lucia with a better command of the situation.

Clara giving it a try.  She ended up stuck under the chair in the background.

Here she is halfway under. 

Maggie looking very pleased about the crawling development.  This is just the start.

Following five years in our shed, the baby gate is making its debut. 

Social Worker Visit

This evening we had a visit from our social worker, who we started working with since early last summer when updated our home study.  We are required to submit photos and reports to the state of Maryland and Chinese government after the one month, three months, six months, one year, two years, three years and five years.

Our social worker visits (we had four last summer) have been really nice.  Some of the early ones were extensive when she was collecting information for the home study report she had to send to China.  It was a nice opportunity for us to think about our lives and how the girls would shape our futures (and vice versa, presumably).

Even though things are going really well, there is still some tension around having someone come to the house to check in on us.  She does not seem judgmental at all, so there is no reason to be nervous, but somehow it felt important to make a good impression.

It turned out to be a good opportunity for us to show her all the girls' tricks.  They are raising their hands above their heads when their grandma calls out to them "big girls."   They clap when we do, stick their tongues out and make a kissing noise when we do.  All very charming.

I think we passed the inspection - now we have to start preparing for our three-month visit.  We can't sit back and rely on the "big girl" routine when she comes back in September.  We're going to have to raise the bar a little bit.  Maybe we shouldn't have shown all the tricks this time - it might have been better to ration them.

Clara and Lucia Wrestle

Here is a little video of Clara and Lucia in a wrestling match from when we were in Nanchang.  As with all good encounters between siblings, eventually some tears are involved:  Clara and Lucia video

Clara is on the left.

Afternoon trip to the park

Clara and Lucia have been having a good time with Grandma Dalea and, thankfully, they are on a good schedule now and seem to be solidly convinced of which is day and which is night.

This afternoon I took the girls for a stroll after their afternoon nap while Stacey and Dalea ran some errands.  The girls love their stroller and the bucket swings at the neighborhood park.

The girls get pretty relaxed in the stroller.  I love Clara's posture. 

Lucia from above

Clara from above.

Grandma Dalea is in town

Stacey's mother, Dalea, came to visit yesterday.  I don't want to put words in her mouth, but I think she is enjoying the kids and I know they are very entertained.

Before she came for the visit she sent along two 4th of July outfits for the girls.  Of course, they are adorable and were quite appropriate for our neighborhood 4th of July Parade this morning.  By the way, the parade is really mostly kids who have decorated their bikes or Radio Flyer wagons with red, white and blue.  They also have balloon animals, face painting, etc.  It is like a small town gathering, which is fun.

Here is Dalea with the girls by a Silver Spring fire truck (and Maggie serving as body guard).

Here is another with the girls about to fall asleep with the parade forming in the background.  This all might be more exciting for them in the coming years!

Mistaken identity

We are lucky that the girls are sleeping a fair amount these days, including a full night and two daytime naps.  Pretty luxurious, and a relief from the challenges of getting them adjusted to the time difference.

I am finding that I do not sleep nearly as deeply as I did before, and that my dreams have become much more vivid and peculiar.  This was probably most pronounced during the height of sleep deprivation.  This week I had an odd dream that I was meeting with some colleagues from the ombudsman professional association, in my old high school, when there was a terrible hail storm (by coincidence, a town in New Mexico got 1 foot of hail last night, which is approximately the magnitude of the storm in my dream).  In my dream all of the ice on the roof became an avalanche and crashed down onto a lower part of the school.  People were panicked and I was calm until I realized the girls were in a daycare below.  Anyway, it turns out they were fine in my dream and in real life.

Even stranger than the dream was a sleepwalking incident that happened last week.  We have not been sleeping with the girls in our bed at all.  Our pediatrician feels strongly about not doing so at their age, but we had not planned on it anyway.  Probably based on the physician's words, I had it in my mind that it would be really bad to have the girls in our bed, so I have woken up a couple of times really worried that Stacey might have put one or both in the bed.

I had this feeling last week and sat up to feel around to make sure neither girl was in the bed with us.  I even stood up and walked beside the bed to check.  Now, although we do not co-sleep with our daughters, Maggie actually does sleep at the foot of our bed.  As I was feeling around I ran my hand along Maggie's head and thought it must be one of the girl's thick, curly hair.  I did think it seemed a bit long as I felt her long ears.  Then I touched Maggie's leg and to continue to justify my experience decided that Clara or Lucia must have on a really soft sweater.  Maybe it's when I reached her paws that reality set in that it was the pooch.

It was so bizarre.  I have had other times in the past when I have sleep walked, but it has been a long time and it always worries me that I could do something like stand up next to the bed and convince myself that the dog is one of the girls.

It's also interesting to think about what things stick in my head as dire warnings.  I wouldn't have thought about the co-sleeping comment again, but it was obviously something that stayed with me.

Raspberries from China

This is a video from the first week we were with the girls.  It was shortly before bedtime and as you can see, Clara and Lucia were finding very different ways to wind-down.  Clara is blowing fewer raspberries now than a couple of weeks ago.  Please don't feel obligated to watch the whole thing - it goes on a long time!

Raspberries from China

Better nights, rough afternoon

We have been very lucky (hope I'm not jinxing anything) that the girls have been sleeping really well for the past few nights.  We are working hard to keep them on a very consistent schedule and it seems to be working.

This afternoon was a rough one though.  The day after we returned from China we brought them to the doctor and they tried hard to draw blood, but were unsuccessful.  That was really hard.  Well, today was our return appointment to try again.  The poor girls knew what was coming when we went into the examination room.

It was brutal.  Lucia went first while I held her.  Since they couldn't find a vein they started going for arteries. It was awful.  After trying a few times the physician gave up.  She was inconsolable.  Stacey took her turn holding Clara who screamed even harder.  Eventually they got it to work for Clara.  Meanwhile I was holding Lucia who had begun to relax.

After getting the sample from Clara, the doctor turned to me and said, "What if we give it one more try with Lucia?"  Stacey and I looked at each other and kind of said yes, but I realized that having watched the procedure with Clara I was getting light-headed.  I said to the doctor that we could give it another try, but I thought I needed a minute.  One of the techs looked at me and started to get worried.  She took Lucia from me in case I had fallen over.  I thank my father for this trait.  Anyway, I wasn't in too bad shape and Clara and I took a break in the waiting area while they did round two with Lucia.

Ironically, Stacey is the one who has the hardest time with anything medical.  Knowing this, after the doctor gave up on Lucia the first time, I offered to hold Clara too since I thought it might be easier for me than for Stacey.  She reminded me later that a few years ago when she was having surgery, and about to go into the operating room, that she asked the surgeon exactly what she would be doing during the procedure.  I nearly passed out that time too.  I guess there is a pattern.

Here is a photo of the girls that I took just before we gave them a bottle tonight before bed.  The bibs came with some outfits we purchased in China.  We thought they were pretty silly when we bought them, but it turns out they have actually worked perfectly for absorbing the overflow from the bottles.  Their vigorous eating can be messy.  If you look carefully, you can see their band aids - poor kids.

Clara and Lucia - Hilarity at Dinner

Here is a video we took tonight (7/1) of Stacey feeding the girls.  At some point Stacey made a sound or gesture that they thought was hilarious and it continued on through the meal.  They are good eaters.

Clara and Lucia at dinner

Clara is on the left, Lucia on the right.