Hellobee

It seems like we blinked and another year passed by. Somehow, we find ourselves with a six-month-old and, unbelievably, a two-year-old. I never fully appreciated the saying, “The days are long, but the years are short” until I became a parent. Although some part of me thinks the days are passing too quickly, it is so much fun watching the kids grow. I love watching Panda hit his milestones and Lion evolve into a tiny human being, learning to express his emotions, growing his communication skills and explore imaginative play. Best of all, watching Panda and Lion play and grow together warms my heart.

Lion insists on holding hands with Panda constantly. 

P A N D A ‘ S   S I X   M O N T H   U P D A T E

Our little Panda cub turned six months old and is still the happiest little guy. He fusses only when he’s hungry and pretty much only cries when he’s tired and is having a hard time falling asleep. He smiles at every person he sees, can play independently, and loves his big brother more than anything in the world. In addition to playing with his brother, Panda adores kisses; it’s a guaranteed smile. I also think that he is just starting to become ticklish. He’s also grown a lot since birth. Born at 36 weeks, he started at around the 5^th percentile for height and weight. Fast forward six months and he is at the 62^nd percentile for height and 42^nd percentile for weight. Our pediatrician couldn’t stop commenting on how quickly he caught up during his last well-visit.

Panda hanging out with our traveling koala.

Teeth: Panda currently has two teeth and it appears that his top teeth may be coming in soon.

Eating: We are now two months into the (modified) baby-led weaning journey with Panda. Like Lion, once he gets started eating something, we can’t stop feeding him fast enough. He can pick up Cheerios and puffs on his own, but we do use a spoon for many foods, like rice. He’s had a variety of fruits and vegetables as well as chicken, fish, beans and lentils. Last weekend, we gave him small amounts of cheese, but that didn’t seem to agree with him particularly well. Unlike Lion, Panda is not great about biting into his food and chewing it. He seems to gag much more easily, so we’ve resorted to tearing his meat into small pieces before giving it to him. He does better with soft fruits and vegetables, like well-cooked squash or peaches.

Not actually the biggest fan of tummy time, he’s thrilled to be able to sit up now.

Sleeping: The four-month sleep regression never left and Panda is now waking up between 5 and 5:30 each morning. If I can sneak into the kids’ room while Lion is still sleeping and pop a pacifier into Panda’s mouth, he will usually fall asleep. The tricky part is that if Lion is awake, he will pop his head up and want to get up and play. That’s right, in the last two weeks, we moved Panda into Lion’s room. It’s been mostly successful, but I am a little concerned that Panda is starting to wake Lion up.

Overall, I can’t really complain, though, because Panda falls asleep very easily at night. In general, we haven’t relied on sleep crutches like a pacifier or bottle for bedtime (two crutches that Lion was completely dependent upon). We can put him down fully awake and he will babble for a few minutes before drifting off to sleep. More recently, Panda has been completely exhausted by the time we put him down at 7 and will fall asleep drinking a bottle, so we are considering moving his bedtime closer to 6:30 to see if that helps him sleep in a bit later.

The playmat is still a huge hit because Panda loves to reach for the hanging animals.

Favorite activities: There is no question that Panda’s favorite activity is playing with Lion. He loves pretty much any attention from his big brother, but he seems to enjoy Lion’s noises and shrieking the most. Although Panda smiles a lot, full-blown laughter is more of a rarity—unless he and Lion are shrieking or copying each other’s noises, that is. He still loves reaching for just about everything and, of course, exploring each object with his mouth.

What do you mean koalas are not for eating?

Milestones: In his five-month update, I mentioned that Panda was able to roll both ways. After a couple of weeks of rolling, he seemed to get bored of this development and just stopped. He will still turn to his side to reach for Lion when his brother lays down near him but does not seem interested in actually flipping himself over. He has, however, hit a new milestone and can sit independently. He is clearly very proud of his newfound ability to sit up and gets a huge grin whenever we sit him down on the floor.

L I O N ‘ S   T W O   Y EA R   U P D A T E

Meanwhile, Lion has become an extremely active toddler who is also very verbal. His communication skills have really improved over the last six months and I am astounded by how many words he knows, his ability to speak in full sentences, and how well he communicates with us. He is a sweet boy who absolutely adores his little brother and is always looking for ways to take care of Panda. Lion constantly wants to give Panda hugs and kisses, hold hands, and share his toys. At a recent parent-teacher conference at his daycare, his teacher told me that Lion is “generous with hugs” and “good at sharing”—so it seems that this behavior translates to others, as well.

Trying out cheesecake for the first time. I think Lion was actually more impressed with the candle than the cake.

Teeth: Lion currently has twelve teeth fully in: his eight middle teeth plus four molars. His canines are currently coming in, but it seems like these teeth take forever to come in!

Eating: While Lion has always generally been a good eater, Mr. Dolphin has commented that he is “the worst kind of picky.” Lion is actually pretty good about trying just about anything but is entirely unpredictable when it comes to the food he actually wants to eat on a particular day. I have found that if I send the same lunch two days in a row, it will come back the second day, even if it’s a food he loves. Lion definitely likes variety.

He’s a pretty healthy eater and some of his favorite foods are broccoli, chicken with yogurt sauce (tzatziki or yogurt and garlic sauce), plain Greek yogurt, vegetable soup (or, really, soup of any kind), congee, seaweed, fresh fruit, and Thai-style omelets.

Dinner can sometimes be more of a struggle than other meals and at times we actually have to bribe him with books to get him to eat his dinner.

Enjoying a Saturday morning brunch with his animals. The dolphin was one of his first favorites.

Sleeping: Just before we moved Panda into Lion’s room, Lion started sleeping in until 6 AM. Of course, that has gone out the window now. But what is great is that Lion was thrilled when we moved Panda into his room and their cribs are right next to each other. Sometimes, when we hear Panda babbling in the morning and Lion is up too, we can hear Lion singing to him and saying, “It’s okay Panda! I’m here!”

In the last month, Lion started having some anxiety about us closing the door after we say goodnight. We now leave the door to his room open a few inches. Additionally, Lion now wants to bring a board book with him when we put him in his crib; he really enjoys picking out the book he’s going to take with him for the night. After Mr. Dolphin puts him down, I often peek in on the monitor and see Lion reading to himself until he falls asleep.

Our shy Lion loves to explore the playground before it gets too crowded.

Favorite activities: I would say that Lion has three favorite activities: “Cook with Mama,” playing with Panda, and reading.

Lion is obsessed with cooking and, for his second birthday, we got him a play kitchen. When he visits a friend’s house, he always makes a beeline for the play kitchen. Recently, when we got rid of some appliances and furniture in our home, we had a big donation pile in our living room which Lion turned into a play kitchen. He pretended that the drawers of a plastic stackable drawer system were his oven and a popcorn popper was a blender. So, we finally caved and purchased a wooden play kitchen off Craigslist, painted it and stuck it in our living room. Lion has been enjoying it non-stop ever since, constantly telling me that the food in the oven is not ready yet. Of course, having his own kitchen hasn’t stopped him from wanting to cook in the big kitchen and I’m happy to share in the cooking fun. He’s gotten pretty good at actually being useful and can pour ingredients into a bowl independently and mix them up or can sauté vegetables in our Instant-Pot.

Panda’s adoration for Lion is clearly not a one-way street and Lion is thrilled to teach his little brother, play with him, and sing to him. He loves to hold Panda’s hand and is always encouraging Panda to play with him.

Undoubtedly, Lion’s favorite activity is reading. We check out forty books from the library at a time and he’ll go through them all in a week. He’s happy to re-read them, too, and we often go a few weeks before returning them. He can sit for more than an hour reading and always asks, “Read it again?” or pleads “One more book?”

Other activities Lion enjoys immensely: riding the train at a nearby park, playing with his Thomas trains, making forts, identifying animals, and building with blocks or Magnatiles. He also likes to sing and knows all or most of the words to about six songs and fragments of many others.

A quiet spot to draw amidst the crowded street fair.

Milestones: Lion can almost count to fifteen: “One, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten! Eleven, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen.” For some reason, two and twelve get left out. We also recently discovered, to our surprise, that he can almost count to ten in Spanish. Again, dos (and one or two other numbers) gets left out. For whatever reason, Lion seems to have something against the number two.

Lion now speaks in complete sentences which has been so much fun to watch. He had a huge language explosion beginning at around eighteen months, with full sentences (as opposed to two or three-word sentences) really blossoming over the last two months.

He is also learning to identify and express his feelings much better. Instead of getting frustrated and pushing when someone is in his way, he now says “excuse me” or will tell someone “I don’t like that” if they are bothering him.

Finally, we haven’t started full-blown potty training, but for the last six months or so he has enjoyed using the potty. He doesn’t always tell us when he needs to go (or doesn’t tell us in time) but he claps his hands and gets very excited when he does go. He uses the potty between one and three times each day and the daycare usually gives him a sticker when he is successful. He is very proud of his gold, pink, and blue stars.

Lion giving Panda a hug. Either that or trying (unsuccessfully, of course) to pick Panda up.