Milestones and progress

The past month has been one of major milestones reached – on all parts. So many… where to start.

IRENE
Irene has had a great few months. She is really doing well at school and has discovered her deep love of reading. I am not talking little picture books, I am talking chapter books… big ones. This girls will sit down and in an hour and a half finish a Junie B Jones or Judy Blume book. We have her hooked on Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. The reality is, we can’t get new books in the house fast enough. Yes, I know, there are worse problems to have!

Also, after almost 3 months of being convinced her front tooth was going to fall out at any moment, Irene FINALLY lost her front tooth:

PETER AND MELISSA
We have had a good but busy month. The project I have been working on since last May finally launched. This was a total labor of love, and took up all of my “free” time and much of my not-so-free time. If you are at all interested, you can see the two video I produced at: http://youtu.be/X-GXO_urMow and http://youtu.be/jZkHpNnXLB0. Peter is working on a new game that will be launching soon, so he has been busy too. Lucky dog even got another business trip to Argentina out of the deal. That trip almost killed me with the solo parenting for 5 nights, but I did survive.

The big news for us is we actually took a kid free vacation. Yep- my parents did us a solid by taking both kids for three nights to allow Peter and I to finally take our trip to Carmel – a trip we were supposed to take in October of 2010 to celebrate our 7th anniversary. It was hard to leave Sam overnight for the first time with someone other than Peter… but somehow I managed to make it through! Perhaps these helped:

Aside from cocktails at sunset, we enjoyed hiking, eating, sleeping, and most of all each others company. It was really nice to spend time together, have uninterrupted conversations, and do whatever it was we felt like doing. Bottom line- it was a little slice of heaven.

SAM
Mr. Man has also had a productive month. It amazes me every day how much he is growing and developing. It seems every day he discovers some new trait or skill. Here are just some of the highlights:

Standing: Sam has mastered the art of standing without holding on to anything. Sometimes, he stands with a toy in his hands, looks around for one of us and then claps his hands – like he is giving himself a standing ovation. It is just a matter of time before I start writing about how Sam has started to walk!
Talking: His vocabulary is growing every day. Right now his English words are: bye, ball, up, down, done, mama, dada, doggy and diaper. His spanish words are: gato (cat), pañal (diaper), arete (earring), oreja (ear), galleta (cookie), and nariz (nose). Here is a little video of him practicing saying “mom” and “mama”:
Pointing: His favorite thing to do is point to his nose. No idea why, but it is damn cute!
Ball play: Sam loves to play with balls of all sizes from a huge yoga ball down to a small juggling balls. He loves to catch them, throw them and hand them to people. And yes- he even likes to play with those balls.
Drinking: This is the one development that is anything but cute. Since Sam was in the hospital in December, he will not take a bottle, sippy sup, straw cup, etc from me, Peter, my parents and sometimes Miriam (the nanny he is with one day a week). He is happy to take a bottle from Lupita (the nanny he is with 2-3 days a week). What this means is I can’t wean him and unless he is with Lupita, Sam is not getting the medicine to help him poop! We have tried everything, and so far, nothing has worked (open to any suggestions you might have).