The Rankin Zoo 

I have been terrible with the blog. Sorry about that. Here are some updates.

Coral
Coral finished up her first year of preschool. She had a week (or was it two?) and has started a two week summer session. There are a handful of kids in her new class that were in her old one but it’s mostly new kids. I asked her the other day how her new friends were and she said, “they’re not my friends yet - I’m not used to them.”

The outdoor pool opened and she’s really enjoying that. At Aunt Carole’s house she cruises around the entire pool on her noodle. At the pool by our house she has discovered that she can touch the bottom in the shallow end (she must be a foot taller than she was last summer!). She tried on her snorkel gear the other day and like it - but she has to get more used to it before I think she could really snorkel. Her swimming is coming along. I suspect that by the end of summer she’ll be swimming like a fish.

Recently (today) Coral joined the world of Twitter. She has noticed me tweeting before so I asked her if she wanted to try it. I told her how you could use Twitter to tell people what you’re doing during the day. When I asked her if she wanted to try it her response (I didn’t make this up) was, “No. I don’t understand it.” I think that’s what I said the first time someone told me about Twitter! I’m not sure I get it now either.

Coral still really loves her sister. She’s not too rough with her. If we take Pearl away Coral usually responds, “don’t take her, she’s MINE!”

Pearl
Pearl is 7 months old now! A couple of weeks ago she got her first tooth and now has two cute little bottom teeth. She’s still a smiling machine. She loves to spit and blow raspberries a lot. Her hair is getting longer and it’s still red. She is super chubby. She can’t sit up or roll over yet but she holds herself up well on her tummy and she really likes to stand if you hold her hands. She sits/stands in the exersaucer and really seems to enjoy it. She’s still sleeping in our bed but is a good sleeper and hardly ever cries.

She’s scheduled to have surgery in a couple of weeks to correct her strabismus. It’s supposed to be a pretty routine procedure so we’re trying to not worry about it too much - but of course we’re a little worried. If it’s successful it will be nice to have her eyes lined up.

I’m sure there are many details I’m forgetting - but that’s all I have right now.

Brian’s post the other day about things they won’t remember about their kids growing up has inspired me to try something new. Like Brian, we keep this blog as much for us (and our poor memories) as we do for the people who come and read it. When Coral was younger we did a better job of keeping track of when she reached certain milestones. As Coral has gotten older, and with PJ, we haven’t been doing that as much.

So, I’m going to try and make a monthly milestones post which talks about how the kids are developing and what they’re up to. I’ll do my best to try and not brag about the kids!

This first one will probably be much longer than future ones because I’ll try to cover where we are right now.

Coral
Coral is 3.5 years old now. She occasionally takes an afternoon nap but those are becoming more and more rare - maybe once a week right now. Coral is in school three mornings a week and really enjoys it. She is also taking a gym class and a ballet class and she enjoys those as well. She recently learned how to buckle herself into her car seat, although she can’t unbuckle herself yet (probably good). She’s starting to sound out small words and can consistently write: Coral, Mom, Dad, and PJ. She can sometimes write cat and dog. She can write all of her letters although she tends to do J and Z backwards and sometimes claims she can’t write a V because it looks too much like a U.

Pearl
Pearl is 4 months old. She has pretty good neck control although it can be shaky when she’s tired. She’s able to sit propped up but otherwise can’t yet sit on her own. She has been smiling and laughing for quite a while now. She’s starting to grab things, mostly with her right hand, especially when in her bouncy seat on or her play mat. Her hair is still red but there’s still not much of it. Parts seem to have grown some but other parts have disappeared. At her last checkup, 2 days ago, she weighed 14 pounds 5 ounces. For the past couple of weeks she has been sticking her tongue out a lot and drooling more - so we suspect some teeth at some point but so far we haven’t seen any. She’s not on a consistent sleep schedule but it’s getting close. I suspect that as the second kid she won’t have quite the same rigorous schedule that we were able to keep with Coral. She enjoys her pacifier but not to the extent that Coral did, which is probably good.