After months of training, you started clapping your hands today, the day before your birthday party! You keep doing it every once in a while, you stand holding a toy then let go of the toy and clap your hands for a little bit. So cute! This whole week you were almost doing it right, you kept one hand opened flat while the other hand was half closed, and today you figured it out. I don’t think you will clap your hands when we sing happy birthday during your party tomorrow, just because you will be surprised by all those people singing and clapping their hands at the same time, but we’ll see.
Author: Luciana Misura
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That’s the ocean
We took you to the beach today, to see the sunset. We got there around 17h30 and you were mesmerized by the waves and the sound they make. You were a little scared too. Daddy took you near the water and waited until the waves came close, and dipped your hand in the water. You started crying! It got dark fast and we came home, we have to take you to the beach during the day when it’s warmer.
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Walking all over the place
Every day you walk more and more. You have been walking around the living room, kitchen and trying to go to the porch all the time. You are doing very well, more confident and secure at each step. You will be walking around fine during your birthday party on Saturday.
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Your first international trip
This was your 6th plane trip (Seattle/Detroit, Seattle/NY, Seattle/Nashville, Seattle/Austin, Austin/NY were the previous ones) but it was the longest flight: 1h40min from Austin to Atlanta then 10h30min from Atlanta to Rio.
We got to the Austin airport a bit late and the check in crew was sooooo bad that they took about 30min to check us in – you started out OK and got restless halfway through their mess, I had to walk around the check in area with you while your Dad waited for them to finish. We finally passed through security (they made you take your shoes off, ridiculous!) and we quickly ate lunch before boarding.
You were so wired during this first flight – you loved looking out of the window and wanted to grab the hair of the passenger sitting in front of me at all costs (and you are strong, I was wrestling you the whole time, but I was able to keep you from pulling that lady’s hair). There was a little boy behind us that was about your size (he was 18 months) that was crying a lot and you were looking at him every once in a while. Finally we were able to strap you to the carseat and you stayed there, but you were kicking your legs hard and hitting the seat in front of you, I was holding your feet as much as I could but there was no room between your feet and the chair, since the carseat takes up all the space (which is not a lot already).
We arrived in Atlanta, went to the gate for the next flight and only had time to change your diaper and feed you one jar of baby food before they started boarding the plane. You were pointing at all the people in the waiting area, they thought it was really funny that you kept pointing at them.
We sat close to some nice Brazilians who immediately started talking to you, and the flight attendant noticed how happy you were. You wanted to stay on my lap and not in the carseat, so we departed with you on my lap. When dinner was served, we put you in the carseat after some crying. We gave you lots of new toys and some of my pasta. Then we played a game in the touch screen (the only thing that worked were the games, and my screen didn’t even load any games, all the screens in our area were not working, horrible Delta) and you wanted to play too. Finally I nursed you to sleep and we were able to put you in the carseat again, and you slept from 1 AM to 5 AM. They served breakfast after 5 but you didn’t want to eat anything, just nurse. Daddy walked you around the cabin for a while, you met another baby who was a few months older than you and you were both smiling at each other. We finally landed, went through immigration, got a gift for grandpa because it was Father’s Day in Brazil in the Duty Free, got our bags, went though Customs and then saw vovó and vovô waiting for us outside. I felt like we had just finished a marathon!
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A bunch of steps
We had our friends Cecilia and Jeff come over for dinner and while we were all chatting you decided to walk around. We didn’t count, but you probably walked at least 20 steps! Maybe you will give up on crawling and walk more now?
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Another tooth!
We just noticed another tooth cut through, this time is the top right tooth in the front. You were making a funny noise with your mouth and we wondered if you were banging your teeth together, and found the new tooth coming out.
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Where’s the …?
I have been trying to make you pick up certain objects when I ask “where is the …?” Today I asked “where is the bear book?” and you crawled all the way to the shelf and picked up your soft bear book! Yesterday I asked where your frog was and you picked it up from the toy bin. Good job!
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Clapping
We have been teaching you how to clap your hands, practicing for your birthday party in Brazil. You are definitely improving, but you can’t quite bring your hands together with the palms open flat yet. You keep trying to clap them together but you usually end up with one hand on top of the other, or one open hand while the other is closed. You love when we sing happy birthday to you and clap our hands, or clap your hands with ours.
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Walking
You have been taking a few steps here and there for a while, but you always prefer to crawl. Tonight you actually surprised us walking back and forth from mommy to daddy while playing in your room. You were walking about 5-6 steps from mommy to the table, then 5-6 steps from table to daddy, and so on. When you had to walk farther, you just crawled instead. But it was a lot more walking than we ever saw you doing, so we were cheering and congratulating you; and of course having you repeat it a bunch of times.