Sisterly love

These pictures says it all.....best friends forever.

XOXOXOXOXO

Despite a continuous string of ear infections, Zoe doesn't let anything interfere with trying to catch up with her big sister. Here she spends probably 15-20 minutes continuously somersaulting, obviously inspired by her sister's mad gymnastics skills. She had such a blast, as did we watching her tumble again and again.

When I take her to Hannah's class at MegaGym up in San Rafael, I spend the 45 minutes trying to distract her and keep her from storming the gymnastics floor. She really cannot wait to get up there! Here she is, surrounded by all the big girls getting their stamps after class, on April 3rd.

Thanks Coach Trevor!

Hannah's Increasingly Prolific

Since the beginning of the year, Hannah has become more and more focused on her artwork. Nearly every day, she spends a significant chunk of time focused on perfecting her drawing and writing skills, creating people, flowers, big smiley faces with braces, and words. The collage below is a small selection of the kinds of drawings she was most heavily focused on creating in January and February (and many more are stashed in rolls around our very disorganized house). She has since moved onto to doing her "work" in a big spiral bound notebook that I finally relinquished to her (she definitely needed it more than I did!). It was probably one of those 350 page notebooks that I'd used for a couple dozen To Do lists. Over March, she filled every single remaining page with more drawings, and even some notes regarding playdates and such to friends at school. I think it makes a strong case against the "death of paper" due to technology advances. And I'm excited about a return to real letter writing! That said, she does also love making rainbow boxes and faces on daddy's iPad with Little Fingers...

Zoe's 15-Month (& 100th!) Dr. appt

At her 15-month check-up last week, Zoe weighed in at 21 lbs 6 oz, which according to Dr. Piel, looked like an uptick in her weight, although she's still hovering around the 28th percentile. One would think the increase in her whole milk consumption (thanks to eliminating nursing), plus the whole milk+formula+oatmeal concoction 2x/day, would be helping to boost her caloric intake. But she is a very active girl, who spends lots of time running around and roughhousing with Hannah. So perhaps she is just burning those calories as they come? As the charts below indicate, my BabyConnect app (which literally has every data point of her entire life chronicled) indicates she's pretty much remained flat around that 25-30th percentile for weight since 9 months.


Her height at 31 inches puts her in the 67th percentile, which has also been fairly consistent despite her modest girth. This also made Dr. Piel confident that she is indeed getting the proper nutrition. That said, we had learned at her one year appointment in November that her hemoglobin levels were low, indicating inadequate iron (her test read 10.7, with anything north of 11.0 considered OK). Since we couldn't convince her to eat liver, clams, oysters, spinach, legumes, kidneys, or brussel sprouts, we've been giving her a daily multivitamin (Polyvisol with Iron) and it seems to have helped. The dark circles under her eyes have lessened, and her hemoglobin test came back at 11.3!

Despite all that pretty decent news, she did have another cold at the time of her appointment, and as expected, we discovered she also now had her third ear infection. So a course of Amoxicillin was prescribed -- 10 mg per day for ten days. However, a return visit to the doctor today (day eight), showed that her right ear, while improving, was still not better... AND now her left ear was infected too. This is a first as her previous two infections have always been limited to her right ear. So now we must start a more potent course of antibiotics (Augmentin, which tends to cause diarrhea and nausea....greaaaat). This explained why she was up screaming for over and hour in the middle of the night last night! She is rarely up in the night anymore, unless something is really off.

I must say Zoe has had a pretty rough time of it -- she seems to get sick at the slightest provocation. Since her first cold at only 15 days old, and many more colds since, then pneumonia at 10 months, her first ear infection on her first birthday (Nov. 6th), another ear infection over Christmas, and now her third times two (her left ear had been fine last week, but this cold will not relent)... I feel terrible for her! The doctor says the second kid is always more sickly than the first since #1 brings home all those germs from preschool. On the bright side, I will give Zoe credit for being a very good-natured patient. For all her issues -- the runny noses and clogged up ears, not to mention freakin' pneumonia! -- I'd almost never suspect she was ever suffering since she never really indicates her pain. No ear tugging, no obvious complaining. Sure, when she's overtired or hungry she can certainly get fussy. But compared to her sister, who makes a pretty dramatic stink about the tiniest ow-ie, Zoe is a pretty tough cookie.

I'm so sorry, Zoe, that I've not been able to keep you healthy..! Hopefully, in the near term, no major damage will come of it -- judging from her constant babbling, and the new words she's starting to pick up every day, her hearing seems to be OK for now at least. And in the long term, you'll be that much more resistant to all the other illnesses the world will undoubtedly hurl your way! Not that I want to talk about hurling right now seeing as all this post-nasal drip has led to a very trigger-happy gag-reflex, which Zoe has never been prone to doing (also unlike her sister, the Princess of Puke!).

Please, get well soon, Zoe! xoxoxox

Daredevil Zoe

Zoe has made it abundantly clear that she is just as fearless and thrill-seeking as Hannah has always been. Here she is at Blackie's Pasture conquering the slide solo as daddy looks on, obviously confident she's got it mastered.

Woo hoo!!!!
So, when are you guys going to take me to some real mountains???

Hannah Warhol

Hannah's prolific pop art period dates from

January 12, 2012 - January 20, 2012

The artist's personal favorite?

Upper middle square...

Medium: Left & Right Hands on "Little Fingers" for iPad 2

New Shoes, Same ATTITUDE!

Check out H & Z's new kicks!

Thanks Mommy!

Zoe likes the feel...

Hannah helps her get started

Shoes, shades... we got it made!

Hey Papparazi, can you get us some milk, please?

To Rows 15 and 17 A, B & C... WE ARE TRULY SORRY

December 29th, 2011... ORD to SFO

Ahhhh.. what a serenely pacific and beautiful view... ...what happened next was a blur... but the blur was caught on camera. "This is your Virgin America Flight Crew, please sit back and enjoy."

...EXCUSE ME, ROW 16: KINDLY REFRAIN FROM HANDSTANDS."

Freezing? That doesn't stop Zoe!

One would NOT know from these pictures just how cold it is.
Zoe is just rarin' to go! She doesn't seem to mind.
We better get the pictures before the IL chill sets in!

Things Your 13 Month Child Can Do That You Can't...

Zoe already knows how to get past the key-lock on Mommy's iPhone. She presses fervently on the home button, until the camera icon comes up, which does the trick, and then she's in... At this point she inhales, eyes wide, big smile, sits up straight, and looks around to see if Mommy has noticed that she got through, shrieks with excitement if she discovers she's in fact been "made," and clutches the iPhone with both hands to her chest, knowing all too well she is only a couple random taps away from an email, or YouTube, or something pretty cool, and has only a few seconds before Mommy comes in to snatch it away...

Zoe also knows how to take snapshots of Mommy's screen, like the one above. Mommy is impressed. Mommy and Daddy still can't figure out how to do that!

Shoveling Snow with Boppa

When Hannah and Zoe woke up this morning, there was SNOW on the ground!

Boppa trudged out to shovel the walk ways, and before long, he had some help!

Hannah was very excited about having a special task of snow shoveling,

and she told Boppa she would shovel all of the driveway behind the house.

Hannah made fast progress! She was concentrated and focused on her work.

A heavy shovel is no problem for Hannah!

Almost finished!

"Hey Daddy, I'm ready for more snow to fall so I can shovel some more!"

"Hey Boppa, come here and see how much I helped shovel!"

"Hey Boppa, you missed a spot!"

"I LOVE SHOVELING WITH YOU BOPPA!"

A job well done!

Boppa Reads with Zoe

Zoe's favorite thing to do at 13 months old is sit on Boppa's lap,
point at animals, listen to Boppa make animal noises, and turn pages!
"I love you Boppa! LET'S READ IT AGAIN!"

HWL & ZWL: SFO to ORD

Zoe's first plane ride

from sunny San Francisco to shivery Chicago

sure was exciting! There were plenty of interesting

things to read tucked into the seat-back,
Upside down A is one of the time-tested classics!

AND... Guess What!
Hannah, the travel-wisened pro,

didn't have any ear problems this time!

...and take-off was fun! Wooooooaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

After a long day of travel...

on cars, buses, airplanes, more buses, different cars...
during the day and during the night,

from warm to cold, from excited to exhausted...
Zoe, what could possibly make you stop crying,
stop thinking about so much strangeness?
Well, how about comfort, love, and glowing warmth?
This is the Christmas tree

Memaw and Boppa prepared for you and Hannah...
Zoe, you raised your arms up and with a big smile,

you said,"ooooooooooooooooooh!"

and then you were happy!

Merry Christmas, Chicago!

Zoe loves her Refreshing Water

Zoe's Room With a View

Not too shabby for a nap-time backdrop...

I can see Mt. Tam from my bedroom window...

Hannah & Zoe's Holiday Card Photo Shoot

Thanks for taking all these wonderful photos, Mommy!
We can't decide which collages we love the most - we love them all!