Monday, December 12, 2011

Chilren's Museums, Grandpa, First Word, Cast #2, Thanksgiving & Abby @ 18 months

Exploring at Port Discovery
























Playing with Grandpa

















Exploring at the Pittsburgh Children's Museum

The original puppets from Mr. Rogers Land of Make Believe

In the cyclone room

Thanksgiving in Ohio


Our first experience with Play-Doh



We have had another busy update session and, again, I am delayed in my updates.
We recently became members of Port Discovery (a children's museum) in Baltimore.  You are hereby on notice that if you come to visit us and we are looking for something to do, we are taking you there.  It is a three story museum with an enclosed climbing structure in the middle (think a full sized version of Chutes + Ladders).  They have a little play diner, water room, toddler room, play food, play train, and on and on.  We have already been twice and the kids love it.
We had a visit from Grandpa when he had to come down to DC for work.  It was a short but sweet visit.  We took the kids to a playground near BWI where the planes come in for landing right over the park.  It is a good playground with the added enjoyment of getting to see the kids get excited each time a plane comes in.
We also made our annual trek to Ohio for the family Thanksgiving.  As part of our membership at Port Discovery we get free admission to lots of other museums across the country.  One of them is the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh.  Since we have to take a break on long drives for the kids, we stopped at there to run off some energy.  Pittsburgh's museum is excellent.  As an unexpected treat for mommy and daddy, Mr. Rogers is from the Pittsburgh area and was a major player in the formation of their museum.  So all of the original puppets from the Land of Make Believe are housed in the museum. 
We had another excellent visit with the family in Ohio.  Lots of great food, family, games and laughter.  We are already looking forward to next year.
Sadly, after we returned from Ohio, Abby had another mishap.  After their bath every night the kids run around upstairs and play.  Abby was running into Corin's room and somehow her feet got tangled up and she fell.  She cried but ultimately calmed down for bed.  The next morning it was clear that she was having trouble walking and that something was wrong with her foot.  Kristi took her to the doctor and it turned out she had broken a bone in her foot which required her getting her second cast.  The whole experience was upsetting but somehow Abby comes out of these situations better off than anyone else.  She didn't complain about having the cast on and just adapted to hobbling around.  Her cast came off yesterday and now she is just in a little walking boot for a couple off weeks.  It still causes her to hobble around a bit, but at least she can take it off at night and take a full bath.
Abby had her 18 month check-up today and she is doing great.  She weighed in at 23 pounds, 9 ounces (40th %) and 32 1/2 inches tall (75th % height).  Her head circumference also comes in at a perfectly average 50th %.  The doc says she is in tip-top shape and growing beautifully.  Abby also recently spoke her first actual word: "Baby".  We play a little peek-a-boo game saying "Where's the baby?  There she is!"  Abby has started playing along hiding her eyes and saying "Baby".  We caught one of the episodes on video below (which I had to split into two videos to get to upload correctly).

"Baby" Parts 1 + 2