Fourth Year and Fourth Month Update

Henry just turned 4 ½ yesterday. (Yep St. Patrick’s Day is his half birthday!) It is such a surreal feeling to think that I have a 4-½ year old. I don’t know why but to me 4 seems so much older than 3, like a little kid instead of a toddler. Anyways since my kids are growing up so fast I thought I would do a little update on them.

As of today Henry is 4 ½ years old and Anastazia is 4 ½ months old. They are starting to get along a lot better lately. It’s like the more that Anastazia can interact with Henry; the more he likes having her around. Now she turns her head to him when she hears his voice, she smiles whenever he is talking, and she tries to “talk” to him. The love she has for him already is so cute to see. Of course Henry loves the attention she gives him.

I think every day he loves her a little more. I can’t wait to see their relationship flourish as they grow up together. It’s funny though because just a few weeks ago Henry told me that he wished he had a little brother. He said he would have more fun playing with a little brother than with his sister. But when I pointed out to him that if he had a brother he would want to play with all of his toys all the time whereas his sister will have a lot of her own toys he decided that his sister wasn’t so bad after all. Like I said though, he does love her. It’s been an adjustment for him since he is so spoiled. But there are times where he melts my heart. He will tell me things like “me and my sister are never going to be apart. We are going to be together forever.” And then I will ask him how he knows and he will say, “God told me.”

Side note, Henry says some really unique things lately. He is so intuitive I swear. That is a story for another time, and it may be too controversial to mention here. But who knows maybe I will share those stories soon.

Okay so back to the kids. Henry now weighs 40 pounds and is 47 inches tall. He is outgoing, energetic, witty, and intelligent. He is not shy. Honestly he talks to anyone. He even orders for himself at restaurants. He has so much energy. He is running around from sun up to sun down. He is seriously funny. He cracks me up sometimes with the things he says. He is also so smart. He really pays attention to everything. He loves to use big words and give us the definitions of the words. For example he will be holding Anastazia and he will say, “My arm is getting tired because she has a lot of mass.” And then I will ask him what mass is and he says “it’s like how much she weighs, it means she is really heavy.” Or the other day we were playing with his Bionicles and he was jumping his all over the place and said “oh no this obstacle is trapping me!” So I ask him what an obstacle is and he says “something that gets in your way.” He also loves to think of rhyming words and opposites. He has always been really good at shapes and likes to think of random objects and what their shape is. For example on time he told me “our brain is the shape of a semi-circle.” He is working on counting to 50. He is really good at reading his numbers. His letter recognition skills are improving greatly as well. He has been able to spell and type his name for a while now but he is practicing writing it recently.

He loves building. Magnetic blocks are his favorite. He really has no interest in drawing. He doesn’t have the patience for it and when he does draw it’s just a quick scribble. He is getting into Legos recently too. It is so interesting to see how his mind works. He can come up with the craziest shapes to build out of blocks. When it comes to building things his imagination is limitless. He is really into robots right now too. Lego Bionicles are his favorite. His favorite color is always changing but right now he says it’s black. Some of his favorite foods are: rice, bananas, apples, cucumbers, eggs, potatoes, pasta, pizza, and cheese. He loves to drink water, lemonade, and sprite. He would live outside if he could, and he does most days that it’s warm enough. If I could describe him in one word right now it would be imagination.  

Anastazia turned 4 months old on March 5^th. She had her 4-month checkup on the 16^th. She weighs 13 pounds 15 ounces (although I am pretty sure that was off an ounce or two because when she stopped moving the scale tipped to the left so it definitely was not even). She is 25 ½ inches long. This was surprising to the doctor so she was measured twice just to be sure. I had been measuring her at home but wasn’t sure if I was doing it right because that seemed really long. But it was confirmed at the doctor’s office that she is indeed that long. Which puts her in 80^th percentile for height at the moment. She is in the 40^th percentile for weight now but that makes sense because she is growing so tall. Her doctor is not concerned about her weight. She is in great health. She has gotten the green light to start solids because she holds her head up so well and puts everything in her mouth, but we aren’t going to start just yet.

She is such a little bundle of energy. She can sit very well with her back supported and without support she stays steady for a few seconds. She is constantly wiggling and kicking. When she is laying on the ground she kicks and wiggles herself over from her back to her tummy (this has only happened a few times because she doesn’t spend the majority of her time on the floor.) Then when she is on her tummy she can get over on to her back again. She loves to be standing with support. She bounces up and down on her legs and can support her weight with her legs. She is also a talker. She loves to talk while we are talking and is pretty loud (if you have seen my videos on Instagram you know what I mean). It is honestly so funny. She loves to play with her toys. Like I said everything goes into her mouth. We love wooden toys and her Sophie the Giraffe toys. Fun fact about our Sophie the Giraffe, MTV gave it to us when Henry was a baby and we went to film the reunion show in LA. We still have it and it has now been passed down to Anastazia.

At night she sleeps 4-6 hour stretches. This is really good for me because Henry never slept for more than 2-hour stretches when he was little. Yes she is still breastfeeding exclusively. I exclusively breastfed Henry until he was 18 months old and I was in high school and 15 years old at the time so I most definitely plan on breastfeeding Anastazia at least to 12 or 18 months. She is very smiley but it is hard to get her to laugh. She only giggles a little when we tickle her. She has given us a good belly laugh a handful of times and we can never quite get it on film. She is quite the character miss Anastazia. We are all so glad to have her in our lives.

Now that my brief update turned into two pages I guess I have probably said enough! If you have made it this far, thank you for caring and reading. I really appreciate all the support I get from this online community. Seriously thank you. I hope you have a great day!

XO

Izabella

PS I posted some more gorgeous pictures taken by my fave, Lori Romney, on the post below this one. You simply must see them!