Felicia: Three Months

Felicia is three months, and she is incredibly interactive. She is very smiley and chatty.

Her siblings love her, especially Trixie, who asks to hold her at least once a day. You can see that Felicia tolerates these brief moments of sisterly affection.

Felix knows that Felicia looks more like him than her other siblings, and he loves to talk about that. Sometime in the last month he asked me to take a picture of them together, and even though I don't think this picture of Felicia is very much like any of Felix's baby pictures, I thought the two of them look a lot alike here. Felix likes to interact with Felicia and usually precedes her name with the adjective "silly," because he says she makes funny faces.

We went on a hike to Stewart Falls sometime in the last month. I carried Felicia in the Ergo. On the way to the falls I carried her on my chest, and she did great. I fed her at the top, and then I put her on my back for the journey down. She was cranky toward the end, and when I took her off my back to feed her I realized she was a little cold. Next time we'll put socks on her feet and make sure we don't forget the hat.

Felicia is on the verge of rolling over from her back and is very wiggly. I often plop her in this little non-working swing in the kitchen, and now I have to strap her in it because she squirms her way up and out of it if I don't.

The bald spot in the back has stretched around from ear to ear because she has gotten better at sleeping in the last month. (But I fear that will end once she's rolling off her back. I'm pretty sure we'll have to stop swaddling her in the next month. It's not going to be fun.) Her eyes are brown, and I don't think they will change much anymore. She has an adorable little chin, and my mom says she looks a lot like I did as a baby.

She has discovered her fists for sucking, and it is adorable to watch.

I need to take more pictures of her with the actual camera instead of my very sub-par phone.

Felix is Five

When the Primary sang to Felix a couple of weeks ago, the leader who announced birthdays said, "And you may not believe it, but Felix is going to be five!" Felix very quickly added, "Yeah, you can't believe it because I look like a three-year-old!" Most of his clothes are size 3T, some are still 2T. He still rides in a car seat and isn't even tall enough for a booster. He's just a scrawny guy.

In the last year, Felix got tubes in his ears, 

became a big brother again, and

finished three-year-old preschool and started four-year-old preschool.

Felix loves to be outside, and usually enjoys going on walks in the gardens and going on hikes. This summer while Eric was out of town, Felix frequently took it upon himself to go cut flowers for me and put them in vases (something Eric usually does). He loves hugs and kisses and is a very affectionate child.

He has a great sense of humor and has a terrific belly laugh. He also has a terrific temper and is working on learning to handle his emotions.

 Felix favorites:

• color: golden
• movie: Planes: Fire and Rescue
• food: probably pizza
• places: the dinosaur museum, the Bean Museum
• music: I Am the Tiger (Eye of the Tiger); Lord of the Rings soundtrack; 1812 Overture; Slave March; New World Symphony; Gethsemane

Felix has become quite the social butterfly and constantly wants to play with friends. Although there are many kids his age on our street, he usually asks me if he can play with their older siblings. We frequently have conversations like this:

Felix: Can I play with Justin? [Age 8.]

Me: Don't you want to play with Paul? [Justin's four-year-old brother]

Felix: No, I want to play with Justin.

We do this with other sibling combos including: Ricky (6)/Ella (5); McKenzie (8)/Archie (4); Presley (6)/Bridger (5). I am working on getting him to accept the fact that he is not as old as he'd like to be. But I also understand where he's coming from. I always thought my older brother's friends were just awesome.

Right now, Felix starts many conversations with, "You know what? Guess what." He leaves no room between the question and the statement.

Sometimes he can be really helpful. I usually will not let him go play with friends without first doing some chores, so he'll approach me with, "Mom, what's my job?" When I give him a job, half the time he's okay with it, and about half the time he balks that it's too hard or he can't do it by himself.

With Ike in school all day now (instead of just half days like last year), Felix and Trixie have become better buddies. She still is not very good at playing with other kids, but Felix is becoming more patient with her and learning better how he can play with her without her ruining his schemes.

For Felix's birthday we grabbed a pizza and headed for a picnic near the dinosaur museum. On the way, Eric asked Felix what music he'd like to listen to, and he declared without hesitation, "New World Symphony." His one gift request was for a fidget spinner, and we obliged. When we had our family party for him, he chose rice and lentils for our meal.

One of our family traditions is to go to Cold Stone the Monday after a birthday to get ice cream (using a buy-one-get-one coupon). The birthday person gets to choose one flavor and mix-in, and Eric and I get to choose the other. The kids always want cotton candy ice cream, much to mine and Eric's dismay. This time Eric told Felix that he should try the green cotton candy ice cream (actually pistachio), and Felix said he preferred it to the blue. Eric can outsmart a five-year-old! Now, if only we could teach him that gummy bears are a terrible mix-in for ice cream.