Larry Tsai visited from D.C., and stopped by with Ted and Dan and Madeline.
Bree now gets up on her knees in classic crawl position, getting ready to go. Her preferred mode of moving remains the GI Jane belly-to-the-floor crawl though. She’s fast!
Bree pulled herself to standing! We often put Bree in a box as a child safety measure, but today, Bree (fascinated by sisters playing with Legos) pulled herself from sitting to standing. Thankfully she hasn’t figured out how to climb out yet, but it looks like the days of safety-box-to-the-rescue are coming to an end.
Bree is such a quiet and calm baby. This evening after dinner, Anya and Liya played hide-and-seek with Jan while he held Sabriya. One good hiding place Jan found was the first floor bath, behind a partially drawn shower curtain. Anya and Liya walked by the open bathroom door several times. Held by Jan, Bree was completely silent, and she spent the time examining her novel location. To make things easier for Anya and Liya, Jan finally set Bree down on the floor of the bathroom, where she crawled around silently for another few minutes. Her older sisters raced back and forth past the open door many more times, never hearing or noticing their little sister on the floor. Jan finally had to call out several times before Anya finally looked in the bathroom and was stunned to see Bree on the floor. “Liya! I found Sabriya!” It took Anya just a bit longer to find daddy.
6/5 Anya brought Jan to school for the kindergarten’s annual Dad’s Day Celebration. The kids sang several songs and read poems, then ate ice cream. Jan couldn’t remember another time he’d had ice cream at 9:30 in the morning.
Liya’s dance recital! We (including Grandma and Siri) all went up to Shoreline to watch. In the morning, Liya hadn’t wanted to go, but Angela cajoled her into going. Liya said she’d go and change into her costume, but just to watch the other girls dance. Angela asked Liya why she didn’t want to dance, and Liya said she was worried she’d be on stage and look out and not see anyone she knew. To make her feel better, we sat in the very front row. Her class was 9th out of 13 performing this afternoon. (One of 10 performances this weekend for All That Dance!) Liya’s class came on stage in yellow costumes for their tap dance to “Ain’t Nobody Here but Us Chickens”. She looked beautiful with her hair up in a bun. As she walked on stage, we called out her name. She looked around for us, and when she saw us, she stopped and her mouth dropped open. She seemed happy to see us. She went on to do a great job dancing. Tap tap tap clickety tap!
Nailing those transitions. Bree has been able to sit by herself for a few months now. She also has been able to stand for more than a few months, as long as she is clinging (for dear life!) to the railing. We have been fortunate in that, while Bree has figured out how to get from sitting to lying down, she has not figured out how to get from lying down to sitting… Until today. When Bree went from lying down, to plank (one which would have made my personal trainer proud!), to sitting.
And then from sitting to pulling herself up to standing.
And then from standing to cruising towards those oh-so-fascinating choking hazards (aka Polly Pockets).
All in the space of 10 minutes. AAAAAAAAAACK!
Jan set up a new hammock this afternoon, which Anya and Liya immediately took over. For some reason, Bree seemed terrified of it.
Father’s dinner at the WAC. Jan had a massage, nap, and time to read a book beforehand—perfect!
Anya’s favorite jokes these days:
“What’s the opposite of Antarctica?”
“Uncle Arctica.”
“How are an apple and an orange alike.”
“They both don’t wear glasses.”
Bree Milestones
“All Done!”: Bree’s sign language repertoire grows. Today, when we asked, “All done?” Bree stuck her arms up in the air and waved both hands up & down twice: “All done!”
Another new milestone for today–when Angela went to pick Bree up from her afternoon nap, Angela found Bree sitting up in her crib for the first time…time to lower the crib mattress, our first time since Bree came home!
Bree managed to feed herself a bit of food with a spoon this evening. Anya and Liya were staying at Mom’s for the night, so we just had Sabriya with us at dinnertime. We tried the Volunteer Park Cafe for the first time, and it was great. Bree’s been a bitsick the lastfew days, so she was feeling a little cranky, but still had enough interest to try eating with the spoon.
Tonight at bedtime Anya read Jan a story instead of the other way around. She read, “The Case of Natty Nat”, the first chapter of the first Encyclopedia Brown book.
This afternoon Anya and Liya drew a line of sidewalk chalk smiley faces that stretched for most of the block.
Marlee and Brooke arrived in Seattle. The weather was a bit hot for the end of June, and Angela’s feverish, and the girls are a bit obstreperous, but other than that the day was fine. Anya and Liya joined Jan on the late afternoon trip to the airport. We got back to the house around 6:00, and enjoyed a walk through the village to Bing’s, where we had a nice dinner. Anya had fun playing the “Line [Drawing] Game” over dinner with Brooke, who remembered playing the same game in her grade school art class.