We bought Connie a special blanket. It’s called a Taggie and has little tags all over it. I guess babies like to chew on tags so the blanket is designed to have lots of them. Connie loves it!
She takes it everywhere – though it doesn’t get in the way of some thumb time.
Mmmm….
We’re back in Dallas for a few days to get Connie checked out. She is doing fabulously! She still has “chubby cheekers” and is the picture of health. She has met all of her developmental milestones except for grabbing her own feet – though she can now roll over both tummy to back and back to tummy so the doctor was impressed.
Our little girl remains not so little. Her latest stats:
What was most interesting to us about these numbers was that Dougie, who we tend to think of as being quite small, was only slightly smaller at his 4 month check-up. I guess boys are generally expected to be a bit bigger but Connie is only a pound more than he was and he started at a lot less.
Dougie at 4 Months
Connie at 4 Months
We’re heading back to Calgary tomorrow after a few more visits with friends. It was a shorter trip than we had originally planned but we’re sure the dogs will be happy to have us home.
Connie is clearly an over achiever – a few days before turning 4 months and she learned to roll from back to front.
She loves doing it as well. She’s constantly flipping herself over now. She is still on her quest for the elusive full revolution, but she’s working on that.
Connie and I were bound and determined to make at least one of Dougie’s ski lessons. His last day was not only a spectacular day but we were also almost over our colds. So, the family packed up and, armed with our camera, headed to Canada Olympic Park.
After getting themselves ready, the boys hit the slopes for a few practice runs.
A little bit of pre-class stretching and they were off.
Dougie is attempting to jump straight up in the air in his skis (unsuccessfully)
They didn’t even bother with the bronze run this week and went straight to the silver. After a run or two on that, they move on to the gold run. Connie and I had to walk up to that one.
Gold run is a bit steeper
If I look cute, can we go home?
Dougie did manage to graduate. He even got full marks in a few areas! He’s done with skiing now for the year but we’ll definitely sign up again in the fall.
Next time, this:
Daddy can do that with him too.
Connie should not be able to sit up. And, under most circumstances, she can’t. However, yesterday, she did.
It’s hard to tell but she isn’t leaning on the back of the couch at all. I still haven’t worked out how she did it.
Some people express their love with flowers, or chocolates, or even a nice card. Dougie shows his love by sharing his truck sticker.
We had our appointment with a local doctor yesterday. He gave Connie a good once over and declared that she had a perfect head shape. He noted that, at this age, most kids have a flat spot but that she has no indication of that at all. He said the only way to know for sure if the sutures were closed would be to do a CAT scan. That is a lot of radiation though and we would like to avoid it if it isn’t necessary. He would like us to come back in a month so we can re-measure her head and make sure that everything continues to grow correctly. Assuming her head continues to look as nice as it does, we won’t do any testing and she won’t need surgery.
YAY!!
Our little Connie has found her thumb. Unlike Dougie, who only didn’t it occasionally, Connie can’t resist an opportunity to see how her thumb tastes.
It’s taken her a while to master the art of just the thumb
Occasionally, it’s still whatever fingers are available.
But when she gets it right…
…she really gets it right.
Longtime readers of this blog will recall Dougie’s athletic exploits on grass (soccer) and water (swimming). However, both of these surfaces are in short supply during the typical Calgary winter. Therefore — what else could we do but throw Dougie on a pair of skis and see what happens?
We signed him up for ski lessons at Canada Olympic Park — the facility that hosted both the Jamaican bobsled team and British ski jumper Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards during the 1988 Olympics. Seemed like the perfect place for a skier of Dougie’s calibre. COP is now a fantastic ski center for beginner skiers — tons and tons of little kids (and their parents) learning firsthand about gravity. It also happens to be 10 minutes from our house in Calgary — much closer than the big ski hills near Banff.
The report? According to Dougie, skiing is something of an acquired taste. His balance is pretty good, but he gets quite frustrated at his lack of control — particularly at the bottom of the ski hill where the ground is flat and he has trouble moving around. Luckily he hasn’t fallen too much, but he certainly relies on Dad to pull / push him along.
(Dad, incidentally, got roped in as this is a “parent participation” class — and Dad had not set foot on the slopes in 12 years… perhaps the bunny slopes were a good reintroduction!)
At any rate — he’s making progress. Couple of photos from the last couple of weeks…
In the ski lodge before starting. Check out the skis — 85 cm. Never seen them that small!
In his ski boots, just before starting the lesson. Note the beautiful blue sky — we’ve had some gorgeous weather here.
“Dad… how did these things get on my feet?”
Going up the “magic carpet” ski lift. Kim pointed out to me that the angle of this photo makes it look like we’re going down a double-black-diamond — trust me, that’s an optical illusion (or a bad photographer)
Unfortunately, because Kim and Connie weren’t able to come out, we don’t have any “action shots” of Dougie in motion (as you can imagine, I had my hands full catching Dougie). But he’s doing OK — one more lesson next week!
Incidentally — we have been getting the occasional snowfall in Calgary (who’d'a thunk it??) — which makes for some white & fluffy puppies. (In case you can’t tell from the photo — this is Oliver and Maggie snuggled together — gotta stay warm somehow!)
And I’ll bet you never thought you could stuff 2 dogs (combined weight 215 lbs) into a single dog crate…! (yes, look closely, once again Oliver and Maggie are a bit close for comfort here)
Resolution for February — get more pictures of Bailey and Claire…