Author: Pam

Sometimes when Daddy gets home he is too brain dead to play creatively, this isn’t much of a problem for K and L. L will listen to stories all day and K is just happy to be with Daddy.

K has had the strength to sit for short periods of time, but she couldn’t be trusted not to throw herself backwards. This past week seems to be the turning point; she is sitting nice and straight, and leaning forwards instead of backwards.

Now it is apple blossom time. We don’t live close to the orchards but the town is full of ornamental apple trees.

K had a frustrating day yesterday and I was getting a little tired of her song too. She wanted to play with things in front of her just out of her reach; forward motion is a little hard to do. After looking at the last bunch of pictures that we have taken it seems like we all are doing some moving and exploring.

K is getting stronger and better at sitting. I went to get the camera for this shot; she is sitting right up in the chair. She was trying to reach L’s dominoes on the floor, I didn’t get that shot because I was having some technical difficulties and when I next looked up…

…this is what I saw. This position has become a common occurrence for K, I guess she is done with the rocking chair for now.

Rolling is still a helpful option, but even rolling has it’s disadvantages.

Sunday was a beautiful day, although a bit windy. Lowell took the day off of work, we went for a walk and enjoyed the sunshine. Yesterday we played outside too.

The same group that filmed Planet Earth has a new series out called Life. It focuses on the different kinds of living things in the world: birds, mammals, amphibians. We just recently watched a whole episode on insects. L is examining this tree for bugs.

L is pretty proud of his perch. I gave him a little help getting to the first branch and he did the rest himself. He wanted to go higher, but I explained there was a reason little boys can only reach so high; falling often happens when you climb trees.

A question; this is one of my favourite trees around here, what is it called?

Yesterday was a beautiful day, today it is raining; typical spring weather I guess. I was reminded by a friend of the flora to take pictures of the blooms that I won’t be seeing in Manitoba, thought that I would share them with you.

This flowering tree which smells wonderful also comes in pink/purple.

If these aren’t magnolias I would really like to know what they are called.

I’m glad that we are having one last spring in Massachusetts. I know that autumn is the peak tourist season in New England, but spring is nice to live in New England. Every day there are more buds and blooms to discover. It isn’t a Manitoba spring where everything bursts overnight a New England spring can afford to take her time. Saturday was a beautiful day which Lowell had to spend in his office; L, K and I went for a visit to feed the ducks.

We had a great time soaking in the sunshine, but too quickly it was over and Lowell had to get back to his paper.

Easter Sunday Lowell took some time off after lunch to have an Easter Egg hunt; L of course had a great time. The Easter bunny also delivered some packages in the mail. I took out the chocolate for the hunt, but rewrapped the package, ’cause mail and unwrapping are fun things.

I have introduced K to cereal; on her first attempts she enjoyed chewing the spoon, but she didn’t swallow anything. I waited another week and she has got it now. L is fascinated with all of K’s milestones, one step closer to actually playing with him.

One thing that he is still not sure about is her mobility. It’s fun to cheer for her when she rolls over, but sometimes I need to “Get her out of here!”. Rolling and swiveling are useful, but sometimes you want what is directly in front of you. She’s got the right idea, now if all of her body parts would co-operate with her.

K is starting to roll and swivel on her belly to reach things. Sometimes she gets her self in a tight spot, like in between the table and chair legs. She was pretty frustrated, but being the good mom that I am I took a picture before I rescued her.

Thanks to Diane and Aunty Ivy for their hardwork; the kids had tons of compliments at church today. L put his sweater on this morning and checked himself out in the mirror; “I look like a teacher” he said. Not sure where he got his idea of what a teacher looks like.

We made a trip to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City yesterday. It was a day of trains and dinosaurs. We planned this trip with L in mind, but I have to say that I had a good time at the museum too. We started with the lizards and snakes exhibit since it is a temporary exhibit that we had to see during specific times.

This is a chameleon, but there were geckos, gila monsters, iguanas, and a few snakes. After some lunch we headed to the top floor to see the dinosaurs that L had been so patiently waiting to see at this “dinosaur museum”.

The apatosaurus is BIG even without muscles and skin. It was amazing to hear L name the dinosaurs just from their skeletons. If you look you can see L on Lowell’s shoulders for scale reference. Both Lowell and I had wondered if L would really get anything out of skeletal forms of dinosaurs, but we heard enough Oh Man’s to guess that he was having a good time.

In case you didn’t know this is the Tyrannosaurus Rex. After the dinosaur hall we worked our way down the museum’s floors. The museum has halls of peoples and animals. Even though the animals are only stuffed they are portrayed so realistically that it was almost nicer to see these displays then the real animals in a zoo.

There is also a 94 foot replica of a blue whale suspended from the ceiling in the ocean hall. It awed me. We haven’t see blue whales on our whale watching trips but the humpbacks and fin whales aren’t that much smaller and yet there is still so much animal that a person doesn’t see from the surface.

Yesterday was a beautiful day in New York City 20 degrees Celsius. We stayed at the museum until it closed at 5:45 but at that point we felt that we had spent the whole day underground. That wasn’t quite true but almost. We went outside and walked along the edge of Central Park until we found a place to have some supper. We grabbed slices of New York style pizza and headed back to Grand Central Station by subway.

We drove, rode the train, the subway and walked. At the end of the day we were foot sore, hot, tired and ready to head home, but all in all it was a great day.

I was a bit torn if I should post today after Lowell just did (from the university) regarding updates about our family, but it has been awhile and L and K have achieved some skills that I wanted to let you know about too.

Alright the update on K; after a week of a whiny, complaining little girl I think that she has figured out how to do what she has been wanting to. These days she wants to sit upright, not semi reclined, which means that she spends more time on her nose than with the toys that she is trying to grab. Sitting her in the high chair has helped a little. It also lets her be where the action is.

She has been rolling over front to back and back to front periodically this past week, I think that those were mostly accidental. Friday she rolled back to front 3 times in a row intentionally. Yesterday L was playing with some trucks beside K, she was turning on her side and putting her feet on his trailer; “What’s she doing?” L said rather confused. Lowell said “I think she wants to load her feet onto your trailer.” Then she rolled right over into and onto the trucks. “What’s she doing?” L said rather annoyed.

A personal favourite to me is that K found her feet during her diaper change today. I think it is so cute when babies chew on their chubby little toes.

It’s been rainy and dreary here the last few days, so we have been inside more than L would like. Thankfully there are such a thing as indoor picnics.

Lowell is trying to finish a paper so we didn’t do anything as a family yesterday, but last Saturday we did the New England thing and had a pancake breakfast at a local Sugar Shack.

While K has been having a developmental growth spurt L is as well. He is still a fan of letters and busy spelling words with both his bath tub letters and magnetic letters. He makes up words and then tries to sound them out. This is tricky as there are often very few vowels in his string of 10 letters. If he runs out of the letters he “needs” then he writes more on paper. He was very proud of himself when I told him to put PEN, JET and then JAM together and he successfully sounded out the words so that he could recognize them. He is very thrilled with his new reading skills. I guess he has been using these skills in the church nursery. Sarah (one of the workers) asked L if he had read that word and he give her a look as if to say “Of course what else do you do with words!” Lowell and I like that L is interested in letters on his own and that his reading skills haven’t come because we have been pushing him. Learning is hard work; one evening he fell asleep on the couch and didn’t even care that K was kicking him in the head.

Yesterday was K’s 4 month well baby visit and first round of immunizations. She is growing well: 13lbs 9oz and 26 1/4 inches. That puts her at the 50th percentile in weight and the 97th percentile in height. Once again it looks like we have a child that it will be hard to find pants for. In comparison to L at that age she is the same height but leaner by about 3lbs. She handled her immunizations well, but it was a bit harder of a day. There wasn’t much playing going on; she spent lots of time just watching the world go on around her.

She can hold her head up very well, especially when there is something interesting to look at.

K still loves faces and people. She is busy charming strangers around us with her smile and then when they start talking to her the smiles only get bigger. I’ve recently introduced some board books to her and true to her character she liked the kitten book with pictures of their faces. She was quite content to look at it on her own, but L had fun showing it to her.

She is not rolling over yet, but when on her back she is pulling her self over onto her side and when on her tummy she is pushing with her foot and trying to crank her head around. I am sure that it is just a matter of time. She likes sitting up in the corner of the couch or rocking chair, though that is almost too reclined for her; she wants to sit straight up.

Although she likes her bouncy chair and the rattles that hang down in front of her when she is in it, she gets so frustrated that she can’t get the rattles into her mouth. She complains and scolds the animal rattles until someone listens and gives her something that she can chew on.

In church on Sunday one of the ladies there was going on and on about how much character she has already, in contrast to other babies her age who just have the generic baby face. She thought K was beautiful and I couldn’t argue with that. She is so much fun, so precious, we like our baby. In typical Friesen fashion Lowell has summed it up by saying “We aren’t taking her back”.

Two weeks ago everything was closed in anticipation of the Great Snowstorm that was coming; we only got a light dusting. This Wednesday it actually did snow and the schools were closed, so no play center for us today.

One thing about Massachusetts it has great snowman snow. This snow was heavy, wet and sticky.

This started out as a great snowman, but L added some antlers and now it is a great snowmoose. The bad thing about this snow is that it is wet and soaks through everything. A person needs insulated rubber boots rather than snow boots in this weather.

K eventually woke up and although L wasn’t ready to go inside I think that he had run out of energy for outside. He is still trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue, but with less enthusiasm. K detests her snowsuit, so we had timed our time outside with her nap. When she woke up she wasn’t impressed but the world was strange enough that she tolerated it for a few more minutes while I coaxed L inside with hot chocolate and a promise to read the book “Snowmen at Night” by Caralyn Buehner.

Christmas 2008, L got a book “Snowmen at Christmas” by the same author, that book is quite cute, this book is no exception. If you have ever wondered why your snowmen does not look the same the next day you should read “Snowmen at Night” to find out what your snowmen does while you are sleeping.