The Kiddos' First Pool Experience

Written by Jodi

Yesterday (June 1) we headed to the Canterberry Crossing neighborhood pool for a dip--the first for the babies! Grandpa Bill and Todd had been working in the back yard all day and needed a good cool down. We dressed the babes in their new swimming duds from their Aunt Mirta, who had just visited from Brazil a couple of weeks ago.

I had Zara in my arms and Todd had Roman--and typcial of moms and dads everywhere, I was careful with Z and Dad took the manly approach, dipping Roman into the water all the way up to his chest immediately! This did not go well for the poor little guy, as he panicked!

Zara tends to be a big splasher in the bath tub and the pool was no different! She loved it. I think it helped to ease her in little by little.

It was so nice to see Baby Z enjoying her self so much! Just exactly the kind of thing I was dreaming of when we were in the hospital with her. Grandpa Bill took some video footage as well of our time yesterday. They are all pretty brief, all posted on http://www.youtube.com/user/jodimhorner. Here is a favorite:

Play & Learn

I'm still figuring out how to do the posting for this blog--it isn't completely intuitive! Above are a few photos that show what we're up to these days. Roman and Zara are working on eating off the spoon. Roman is good at his technique but not so patient in the process! Zara's technique improves almost daily, which is great.

As many of you know, since being in the hospital, Zara is working on "catching up" at some things like crawling and rolling. She is doing better by the day at these things, too! We have a therapist, Amy, at the house Thursday mornings for an hour. In just three weeks Zara has gone from being only on her tummy to rolling all over the room and scooting backward onto her knees. Along with mobility has come increased verbalization, something Amy said we could probably expect. Zara is full of sputtering noises (we put a bib on her a lot!) and has made lots of vowel sounds too. Roman is babbling up a storm with both vowel and consonant sounds!

The photo with the ball shows Todd working on "tummy time" by making it fun using the exercise ball.

Roman is pretty much crawling! I'd say he all-out crawls but he's sort of a 5-steps-then-lie down-to-rest crawler right now. Or he'll roll to his destination at times. I have to keep a close eye on him, he really likes media cords! (They both do, actually.)

Zara recently received a great gift for any little girl--a tiara! (Oh how I wanted one when I was little!) Appropriately, her "fairy" Godmother, Jennifer Peppers, gave it to her at our recent small-group Bible study gathering.

Roman is pretty laid back about things and Daddy takes full advantage of this, putting odd items on him, sort of playing "dress up, " I guess! Not sure what he was dressed as in this photo but it was cute. (The thing on his head is a cupper that was used by the respiratory therapists in the hospital to loosen Zara's phlegm in the lungs.)

Roman (Romey) and Zara (Zizi)

Roman Davidson Horner & Zara Sharon Horner
Born: September 14, 2007

I've been posting photos of the kids on MySpace, Facebook, Carepages, posting videos on Youtube, and emailing things individually to folks! Seems like a lot of interfaces to keep up on so I am trying a blog. You don't have to be a member to check in on it. You can subscribe to this blog so you'll know when there's something new.