Firsts

We've been having a few firsts around here lately. So without further ado...

On Friday, November 30th, Paxton Marshall ate a piece of banana in his mesh feeder for the first time. He was very excited about it and loved every bit of it. (By the way, if you have a little one, you should totally get a mesh feeder- babies love 'em!)

On Saturday, December 1st, Paxton Marshall ate a piece of cantaloupe. Again, in love with it. He's pretty good at self-feeding. He's had a little piece each day again since.

On Sunday, December 2nd, Gavin Charles zipped up his jacket completely by himself. He didn't have ANY help from anyone. He just walked in the room with a zipped jacket and said, "Mom, look what I did!" We couldn't believe it. I mean, he's been trying to figure it out for months (and he could do it if we started it), but we didn't think he'd get it by himself this early on. And it wasn't a fluke either. He's done it several times each day since.

On Tuesday, December 4th, Vivian Grace washed her hair for the first time without screaming her f-ing head off. Vivian has never liked washing her hair. Okay, that's an understatement- she HATES it! She screams like you are sawing her arm off with a nail file- terrifying, slow, and painful. Wes has been working with her over the last several months to try and figure out a way to calm bath time down a bit. Not only did Miss V not scream (at all- she has been slowly calming down with the screaming over the last couple of weeks), but she washed her hair herself! Wes said it's a combination of independence (telling her she can do it herself), encouragement (calling her a big girl and expressing his pride for her), and some new soap from Grandma that she's in love with. Whatever works!

On Wednesday, December 5th, Paxton Marshall engaged in real army-crawling for the first time. He's been trying to crawl for a while (a full post to come), getting up on all fours, pushing himself backwards while on all fours, rocking while on all fours (which he did for the first time on Thanksgiving), and moving either one arm or one leg while on all fours without any coordination with his other limbs. Well yesterday, he definitely army-crawled (crawled/scooted without lifting his belly off the ground) forward several times. It's only a matter of days now til we see some real crawling. Stay tuned...

On Thursday, December 6th, Gavin Charles wrote the letter A. I know, this shouldn't be that big of a deal for a 3.5 year old, but for Gavin, this is a big deal. You see, Vivian has been experimenting with writing letters for months now. She identifies letters, asks us to teach her how to write them, and then attempts to copy. She does this a lot. She also loves tracing letters, especially when those letters spell out her name. But Gavin, well, he's a different story. He couldn't care less about anything related to letters. We offer to teach him and encourage him to write, but he just doesn't give a shit. In fact, when I went to our first parent-teacher conference last week, their assessments supported this point. For example, when asked to name all 26 letters by pointing to them on a sheet of paper, Vivian knew 22 out of 26 with no problem. And even the four that she didn't get were really close to correct (for ex: she thought the Q was an O and that the K was an X). When Gavin was asked to do this, he apparently asked his teacher, "Why?" and then proceeded to complain about the task a few times while incorrectly identifying letters (he only named 8 out of 26). So when Gavin brought me this piece of paper last night and said, "Look Mommy, I made an A!", I was in complete disbelief! I said, "Can you write any other letters?" "No, just an A," he responded. I'll take it!

We've definitely had a few firsts this week. I wonder if next week will be this productive...