Wow, it’s been a while since we’ve posted. It turns out that life with two kids is busier than with just one. Also, we had an illness sweep through the house leaving us all congested and miserable for several weeks. And then we had some sort of stomach virus sneak in and render half of us weak and barfy.

Maya in the bluebonnets – 28 months old

At any rate, a while back we managed to get both kids dressed up and out to a bluebonnet patch for the annual photos. Maya is still resistant to having her photo taken, and she’s downright appalled by the notion of holding her brother up while we take pictures of both of them, so regardless of how mind-blowingly adorable it would be to have them looking like they like each other for a photo, we’ll all have to settle for mild and fleeting tolerance instead.

I swear they actually like each other

It was a lightly windy day when we took these photos, and let me just tell you, Ian is not impressed with the wind. A breeze blows through and he waggles and gasps like it’s taking his breath away. Suffice it to say, we only managed to get a few photos of the boy where he’s not flailing or looking angry.

Ian in the bluebonnets – 3 1/2 months old

These photos were taken at the end of last month. Ian would have been around 3-3.5 months old. In real time, he’s about four and a half months old. At his last well check, he was in the 50th percentile for weight and the 25th percentile for height and hitting all his developmental milestones. His doctor commented that we were going to have a hard time convincing anyone that he had been born six weeks early. He’s still not sleeping through the night, though we have transitioned him to his own room. It’s probably a good idea, though we won’t be totally sold till we’re no longer trudging across the house to take care of him a couple times a night.

Maya’s doing really well. For a girl who probably didn’t say but maybe eight or ten words at her second birthday, you’d never know it. Her vocabulary is growing at an insane rate and her pronunciation is getting better all the time. Pronouns are still a little tricky (That’s bothering Maya. Maya running away! Maya **needs** a cookie.), but plurals and past tense are used correctly.

Maya hamming it up

Her mis-pronunciations are fantastic, and I’m really sad that they’re rapidly disappearing. Here are a few of our favorites:
oddenon = elephant
jawopp = giraffe
oddodaddo = caterpillar (she still says this one, but it too is fading fast)
hangenbangen = hamburger
stwawbee = strawberry
yeddo = yellow

Most of her Rs and Ls still come out as Ws. She misses the Ses at the beginning of words a lot of the time leading to some great phrasing. Recently she had a “cab on her cwape” (a scab on her scrape). She had been asking if she could have drinks of “Daddy’s hoda” but even that comes out sounding more like “Daddy’s soda” now.

Her hair is great in these photos, right? Totally not my doing. Inept mom confession number 46: I can’t do little girl hair. I can get a serviceable pony-tail in there and with a few barrettes to catch the stray hair, but that’s about it. We actually stopped by nanny Anna’s place and got her to put Maya’s hair up before we went out for photos. Thanks Anna!!

We’re getting ready to take our first long car trip with both the kids (driving to Dallas). That should be interesting. Maya’s pretty good at entertaining herself, and at least right now, the car generally puts Ian to sleep, so maybe it won’t be too bad. I bet our hotel neighbors are going to **love** us and our screaming baby at 3am.

We have a ton of photos we’d still like to post that are older than these. We have several sets from when I was still pregnant with Ian that would be fun to post. Hopefully, we’ll be able to work those in over the coming months.