Week 4: Enjoying Summer!

So all of my weeks are blending together now because we have been quite busy enjoying our summer with friends and family.  Our ginormous pool in the back has been getting a work out almost every day ;D!  Both girls enjoy getting in there and they are quick to invite everyone into the pool as soon as they get here.  Our primos (Gia, Devynne, and Jr.) came over on Thursday and then on Friday our other four primas came over (Sierra, Hayley, Emma, and Ava) with Tio Joe.  Hayley had a soccer tournament this weekend down here so we got to hang out with cousins all weekend long.  Amaya and Alejandra were in heaven!  They each had someone to play with and love on all day long!  Our girls partied hard this weekend and every night they would go right to bed because they were exhausted from so much excitement!

Amaya picked up some more confidence this week and has been venturing out without me by her side.  Mark can put her to bed with only minor crying now, which is amazing!  He can also pick her up at any given time without a fuss now, which is a HUGE improvement!  The girls are still working on how to play with each other in the same room...forget trying to play together for now ;).  Amaya's expressive speech is getting so much better.  She is babbling and will babble on and on like she is talking.  She still gets all of our names confused (mama, nana, papa, dada, hana) but she definitely gets her point across. She knows how to shake her head "no" and she still relies on signing the word for "more" when she wants something.  Today we were working on teaching her a word for "agua."  Alejandra is the best teacher when it comes to Amaya.  Amaya will mimic everything Alejandra does.  When Alejandra said "agua," Amaya said "a, a" or something like it :S.  You'll also notice that I am referring to her as Amaya more know and that is because she finally is understanding that this is her name :D!  We still say Fernanda sometimes and it is hard to just drop this name 100%.  It was the name given to her by her biological family and so it is a very significant part of who she is.  She went by this name for 15 months of her life and at a time when her family changed, we felt it wasn't right to change her name as well.  We left it as a little piece of comfort for her, but now she is more attached and familiar with us so we have been transitioning her name to Amaya.  Her name has been a little bit confusing for family and friends so hopefully this clears up our reasoning for referring to her as Fernanda for so long.  Alejandra still refers to her as "Amaya Fernanda" almost all the time, which seems so perfect!

Alejandra Sofia has been going through a bit of a tough time.  She is used to having her primas all to herself and now with a baby in the house she has to split that attention.  She had a tough time this weekend with sharing her primas attention and was acting out in negative ways to get them to notice her.  My heart aches for her as I see her struggling with this.  We've been continuing with her classes (gymnastics, swim, and preschool) and giving her positive feedback on how wonderful it is to be a big girl and have all of these special things she gets to do.  She is hypersensitive to Amaya and will yell as soon as Amaya gets close to her and run away.  Amaya has scratched and hit Alejandra a few times so we can understand her reaction.  The new plan is to play games together as a family so we can model a few different games they can play together.  Thank goodness for summer vacation and all the time it is giving me to be here at home and work through all of this!

This has been our life this past week in 3 paragraphs!  Full of lots of laughter and happiness, along with a few tears along the way.  Have a great week!

Week 3: Hi!

This past week was full of more family memories for our 2 girls!  We celebrated our prima Sierra's 15th birthday and Amaya got to meet more new friends and family.  She did well given her new surroundings and was excited to be in the mix with the family.  She is becoming a better walker and we are having less falling and tripping accidents.  We treated her for parasites again with a medication and it gave her a lot of gas.  I found a great pro and prebiotic specific for infant and toddlers and it seemed to be working for about 3 days.  Yesterday, she had diarrhea again so we'll see if today gets any better...fingers crossed and hoping we have found the answer!  She has 2 molars coming in on the bottom and they bother her on and off.  The rest of her lab results came back and they all were normal...YEAH!  She has started picking up words here and there...her newest words are "hi!" and "by" with a hand wave.  She loves to do this when we are out and about and getting a response from people.  She also loves to make dog and cat sounds "gua, gua" and "miau, miau."  Her confidence is amazing and she is getting more and more sure of herself, her family, and her role in the family.  She is laughing more and more every day.  She now lets her abuelita and dad pick her up without any crying even when I am in the room.  Her tantrums have gotten very minimal.  She still will let out a little whine when things don't go her way, but it is a normal toddler response.  She is an amazing sleeper and will sleep 12 hours at a time...thank goodness!  This kid LOVES the pool and is trying so hard to swim all on her own, it cracks us up!  We will be enrolling her in swim class next week because we notice she loves it so much.  Her relationship with her big sister is improving as they both learn about each other's personality.  She loves to copy whatever Alejandra is doing, which is both good and bad :)!

Our little Alejandra is back to preschool, gymnastics, and swimming.  She got an ear infection which kept her out of the pool for about a week.  I've spent at least 1 day at the doctor's office almost every week since we've been home.  I'm hoping for one week of no doctor's visits...thank goodness for medical insurance!  Alejandra has been going through some growing pains lately as she learns to share space with her baby sister.  She is seeking attention through negative behavior so we are working at trying to instill more self-confidence in her so she feels secure and starts to change her behavior.  She has been having a fun summer so far and has enjoyed playing with her primas and friends so much!  She was able to spend a few days with her Papa and Grandee and she was/is SO sad that they left....she had such a great time with them who could blame her?

We are finally starting to feel like things are coming together for us here at home.  We are extremely busy but it is summer after all and thankfully we have this time to be together with our friends and family.  Until next week...