Swing...

Spring is here! We gave Lorelei this swing for het first birthday and it has been up ever since, but it has been cold, snowy and rainy outside, so we haven't had a lot of opportunity to use it. Well, now we do and Lorelei loves that thing. Everytime we put on het shoes and coat she walks to the backdoor pointing at the swing saying "dee... dee..." (dee, in Dutch spelled die, means "that one..."). As you can see she enjoys it a lot!

Lorelei's vocabulary is also building, although there are no "real" words yet. She is pointing at stuff and for some things she has a different "word". Cat, for example, sounds something like "athsj", and like I said, that one sounds like "dee" and this one sounds like "ishj". And if there is no specific word and we guess right she laughs really loud and reaches for us or for whatever it is she wants. So, she can make herself understood quite well now.... I am sure that soon enough there will be some "real" words coming out of her mouth :-).


For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Cutie...

I keep repeating myself, but my little girl is such a cutie... Here I am sitting on the couch, sipping my coffee and observing her on my daddy day. It does not get too much better than that! Anyway, she was playing with all sorts of stuff, getting on and off the chair and everything. And then suddenly she went for her dollhouse. It is not a small dollhouse, especially for someone her size, but she pulled it out by herself and started playing with it for quite a while and all I could think was.....: What a cutie...!


For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Milestone: Walking!

Lorelei is walking. That is, she is doing more than one step before collapsing onto her knees. Today she walked all the way from the coffee table into the kitchen (which is not that far, but it is at least 10+ steps! :-)). I have to apologize for the image quality, but it was kind of hard to keep an eye on her, try to walk backwards, encourage her, and take a picture at the same time. I hope we'll have some better pictures soon. In fact, I might try to get a movie posted into this post.

Update: Well, that worked, here is the video:



Tobias started walking on a day when he was staying with my parents, so we were not there.... My parents were here yesterday, so I am not 100% sure if Lorelei did not do the same thing, but I am sure of one thing: she walked today! If she did start yesterday, she started walking at the exact same age as Tobias.... one day before she turned 16 months. If she started today, she would be exactly one day later than Tobias :-). I guess I should ask my parents, but I am not sure they'd give me a straight answer. Especially my mom was a bit worried when Tobias took his first real steps at their house, without any one of us present. So, I guess I'll wait and maybe ask a few month down the road :-).

Regardless, this is one major milestone!


For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Swimming Pool

Tobias loves swimming. Lisa would take him to baby swimming and he would just love it. During vacations we would take Tobias to Rotterdam where they have a huge swimming pool with water slides and all kinds of other stuff. Lorelei is not as fond of swimming as Tobias was, but once she is in the water she'll laugh and splash and play. Lisa took Lorelei to the baby swimming too, but Lorelei is currently experiencing some eczema so we were advised not to put her in the water as often. So, we're not bathing her as often and Lisa is not taking her to baby swimming anymore. During the winter-break we did go to the huge swimming pool and we did take Lorelei there. And, she loved it! She was so cute kind of crawling around in the water, playing with a ball, splashing the water. And, going down the slide with Tobias!




For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Couch Potato

I wrote before that Lorelei is able to climb on the couch. Well, at that time she was able with a little bit of help from her daddy, but now she is able! She climbs up and down, up and down, up and down. It is not the up and down that's scares me, it is the sideways.... sometimes she hangs quite far over the side of the sofa ready to fall, or not? Anyway, it freaks me out.

What's even worse is that now she can do it by herself she does not need us anymore and she does not call us either, she'll just do it whenever.... Like last week when Lisa was cooking and Tobias was watching some TV. Lisa went into the living room and saw Lorelei sitting kind of like this, staring at the TV, like a true American Couch Potato!

This picture was taken in my attendance. I think she is watching Ice Age 3 :-).


For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Playing by herself

Lorelei is very clingy a lot of the times and she loves attention, but at the same time she can play by herself very well too. Sometimes we'll be sitting around the fire (see background :-)) and Lorelei will just kind of wander off. We'll hear some "da da" or "dis!" and sometimes other noises, but she'll just be playing by herself. One of her favorite places is her (or actually Tobias') kitchen. She'll take everything off the shelves and out of the fridge and the oven and inspect, taste and then toss every single item in there. She does the same thing when we pull out her toy basket. As you can see here we put her basket out and she systematically took out pretty much every single item. What is interesting is that she sometimes plays with the same item for quite a while, though. For example her balls. She'll push and roll them around the entire living room, chasing after them after every push.... or she will play for with a single noise-making-toy with buttons, like her phone or her sing-and-learn turtle.... It is so nice to watch her do that.

I guess we can ditch the TV because we have live entertainment :-).


For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Eating...

Lorelei is a pretty good eater. She pretty much eats everything we give her and she eats it in rather large amounts too... I mean, you could give her a banana, a pear and a tangarine and she'd eat them all. She loves bread too and of course her cereal. We fed her all her food for quite some time, but now we are gradually getting her into eating some of the stuff herself.

The first step was taken by having her eat pieces of bread and pieces of fruit by herself. Granted, she is not using utensils yet, she is doing quite a good job actually. She used to toss stuff around and it would end up on the floor and all over her clothes, but now you can put a plate in front of her and she'll pick up the pieces and put them in her mouth one by one and quite neatly. She does get stuff on her hands and face, but she will also finish her plate in seemingly no time at all.

At dinner time she'll just eat what we eat, and like I said, quite a lot of it. And if you think that satisfies her? Well, I guess it does, but not enough. She knows exactly where the bananas are, and she'll start pointing and saying "dis dis". We know that means she wants one of those :-). If I would have to guess what her favorite food is these days I would say: bananas... :-).

Oh, did I mention she can be quite cute when she eats by herself...


For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn