Category Archives: LTB
Estelle’s first birthday party at school
Estelle and Phoebe go to a “nido”, a nursery school, down the street from us where the twins of my OBGYN also attend. It’s very cute, full of kiddos from 6 months to 3 years. They do activities, music classes and have a cook who makes fresh breakfast, snacks and lunch every day. Everything is in Italian and these two are the only Americans, which is alternately cute and tricky (especially when the poor teachers are trying to explain special supplies I’m supposed to buy for class projects…) Everyone is loving and kind, taking good care of our girls every morning while Paul and I work. They also throw a little party for you when you turn one…
Phoebe & Estelle’s Updates
They’re getting bigger all the time! Here’s what’s new with the smallest members of the household.
- Phoebe now weighs 13 kilos, which is about 28 1/2 pounds. She’s just under one meter in height (81 centimeters) and at the 50% percentile for her age in both categories.
- Estelle weighs in at 8 kilos, about 17 1/2 pounds, putting her in the 18th percentile for her age. Don’t let those rosy round cheeks fool you. She’s a petite little lady so far.
- Unfortunately they’ve both been fighting The World’s Worst Cold for several weeks now, off an on but mostly on. There are antibiotics involved, plus homeopathic remedies, eye drops, cough syrup…you name it. We’ll head back to the pediatrician this week to see about some new, hopefully healthier steps to take.
- In happier news, Estelle is crawling like a professional now. On all fours, which is something that Phoebe never really did. (Here’s was more of a monkey crawl.) She’s also pulling herself up on everything and even started using the walker this weekend. Won’t be long now…
- Phoebe has started picking up a few Italian words at school. She started with “mio” which is mine. Thankfully, she’s expanding her repertoire these days. She doesn’t quite know what each word means yet but enjoys rolling them around. Wandering around the house, you can hear her saying: cosi (like this), capito (I understand), braccia (hug).
- Estelle is getting very agile with her hands. I’ll post a video soon but in the meantime, take my word for it that she claps, waves ciao ciao, uses the “phone” which is her hand, and my favorite, Itsy Bitsy Spider. Now she’s working on blowing kisses.
- Before every nap and bedtime, we read books together. For a while we were on a (terrible) jag where we were somehow talked into reading 4, 5, 8 books. We’ve been able to limit the reads to 2 or 3 and I have to say, it’s an improvement. Currently the favorites (aka those that Paul & I have memorized and Phoebe can also recite) are: Madeline and the Cats of Rome, Green Eggs in Ham (in Italian), I’m Going to Be a Big Sister, Olivia, Olivia and the Babies, Dinner with Olivia. We ordered new books for Christmas. Thank you in advance Amazon.UK!
- Phoebe’s biggest news happened ages ago, actually in August. She’s no longer wearing diapers and doing a great job. Initially she had a treat for each trip to the loo (one M&M) plus a sticker chart for those tricky number twos. After earning enough stickers, she got a “good prize”. These days I like to think that changing one less set of diapers per day is reward enough, at least for Paul and me.
Estelle’s updates
In keeping with my super slow reporting lately, I’ve got two milestones and two videos. But one of them is from August. Yep.
Anyway, here goes:
Okay, it doesn’t look like she is doing much clapping here but this was the first time she did any clapping at all, following Phoebe. Now she’s an excellent clapper. Video to come. Probably in several months…sorry.
Estelle is on a roll
While on vacation in Puglia Estelle learned to roll over!
Plus she’s just cute.
Filed under LTB
The Rome Report 