Saturday, August 30, 2008

More Signing!

Jonah did the sign for music to a theme song from NPR this morning! He kind of stuck his little finger out when he did it.

He likes NPR, but Ani says she doesn't like Diane Rehm because she's "too naughty." Weirdo.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

The Bank of Anneke, Jonah Keeps on Truckin' and More!

So Anneke has a new piggy bank. (A metal can wrapped in paper, covered in stickers and the yet-to-be-found pig to paste on the top.) We were having a discussion this afternoon about money and how I bought a toy for them even though we didn't have a lot of money for toys right now.

Her reply: "I have a lot of money. If you run out, you can just have some of mine." This after we've filled her 'piggy' bank with about a dozen pennies, two nickles and a dime.

Anneke also took a spill on her bike this afternoon. Handle bars twisted with her sprawled face first over it all. The brim of the helmet (thank goodness I insisted) caught the brunt of it, but she had a little skinned up spot. I parked Jonah's stroller, moved her bike out of the parking lot and picked her up to effect the planned-for dash up to the house. After a quick glance at her forehead and a few comforting words, I attempted to remove her helmet. She's still crying pretty loudly - about 45 seconds have now passed - and she immediately yells even louder, "No, Daddy. I want to ride my bike some more." I set her down and she calmly walks over to the bike and hops back on. It's nothing serious but there's definitely a skinned-up spot in the center of her forehead. She remains unphased. Wow.

As I type this, Jonah is on the other side of the room standing up, sitting down and taking a few steps at a time. This afternoon he took 8 at a stretch.

I also just learned this afternoon that he enjoys flying by the seat of his pants or rather being suspended by the suspenders Grandma Spoelma gave him for his first birthday party last weekend. I hope that they're well-sewn.

His other new trick is a kind of dancing whenever even the slightest muzak is heard in the distance that involves bouncing, a little bit of a hip-hop hand bounce, and then shaking his head side-to-side in a kind of crazy, happilly emphatic denial of whatever anyone else might think of his antics.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

First Steps!

I can't believe I haven't posted this, but Jonah took his first steps on July 24! He has only done it once or twice since then, though. I think he's pretty happy crawling and climbing on everything.

Head wound

Ani was a flower girl in Ruth's and B's wedding ("When Ruth and B get married, Daddy is going to be UNCLE Daddy!" Um, not quite. . .) which was beautiful.

On Monday we went to Henry and Anne's house for supper after the beach. Jonah had been playing in their outdoor stone fountain and had gotten the grass around it wet. When Ani went running up to it, her feet went right out from under her and she hit her forehead on the corner of the fountain.

Kevin picked her up and rushed her inside to the sink so we could get a better look at it. It was gaping open. On the opinion of two doctors and one nurse, we took her to the ER at Holland Hospital. Kevin held her in the back seat while I drove. She cried for a bit, but then almost fell asleep in the car on the way there.

When we got there, no one was waiting, so we were seen very quickly. The nurse took a peek at the wound -- there was no doubt she needed stitches. We waited for a few minutes in the waiting room for the nurse. She gave Kevin a gauze pad soaked in anesthetic ointment of some kind to hold on her head. He held it there for 45 minutes or so. While we waited for the pain-killers to kick in, we told Ani what the doctor was going to do. She said, "Oh, that is fine if they want to give me a shot. I give my babies shots all the time and they don't hurt."

The doctor came in and asked her to lay down on the table. Kevin was at her feet and I was at her head. He gave her a series of shots in the wound and gave her seven stitches. She never even flinched. In fact, she spent the whole time talking about the time that her friend Rose came over and on and on.

We got her home that night and she never complained about it once. The only thing she didn't like was when I took the bandage off to replace it in the morning.

She had the stitches removed on Friday which "didn't hurt AT ALL." About three hours later, she fell on the stairs and opened the wound up again. It started bleeding all over again, but thankfully not as badly. I called urgent care and they said that they wouldn't be able to sew it up again now anyway, so all I could do was to control the bleeding. Ani was pretty unfazed: "Hey, look! My hair is getting all red again! Dat so silly!"