You are invited

All readers of this blog are invited to the open house birthday party for Lexi on her birthday next month - on August 9. If you can make it to Nairobi, of course. Drop by if you're in the neighborhood! There will be lots of Swiss/French food (the party's theme is Switzerland in honor of Lexi's birthplace and the country's national day, which is on August 1)!

The official invitation:

Our daughter, the alien

An update on the noises Lexi is making these days:

Lexi is becoming more talkative, but it’s all still just baby babble. Sometimes it’s just squeaks and squawks and beeps that sound to me like noises that an alien would make. She makes these alien-like sounds when she’s very energetic and excited, and it’s usually accompanied by a lot of fast crawling.

More often now she will make noises to us like she’s actually conversing with us. Her noises have good inflection and sound like she’s forming real sentences. Trouble is, we just can’t understand what she’s saying in order to respond.

Lexi and her new cousin

Lexi has a new cousin! My sister, Miriam, gave birth to a girl on the 15th. Her name is Nora. Miriam and Andy posted some pictures on their web site and I showed them to Lexi. She got VERY excited - lots of happy chatter and pointing and clapping. I am not sure if she recognized Miriam and Andy and the proud big sister, Olivia, but I think she might have.

Then we went to look at my brother's blog. On it is a picture of Lexi's other cousin with 2 second cousins. She also got VERY excited by that picture as well. Imagine how she will be when she sees them in person?? (Not sure when that will be, but it will happen....)

Lexi had a play date on Thursday. Stephen took her and Jane over to another family's house. They have 4 kids once of whom is 2 weeks younger than Lexi. It sounds like they had a great time - in the swing, chasing the cats, etc. I feel like I missed out.

A pointed observation

These days Lexi is doing a lot of pointing - extending her arm and pointing at something with an outstretched index finger. Neither Sarah nor I taught her how to point with her finger in this way, but perhaps she learned, either by explicit instruction or from simple observation, from Jane, our house help, who spends a lot of time with her outside, pointing with her own outstretched arm to birds, airplanes, the wind blowing through the trees, etc., helping a curious Lexi learn about the world.

So there is a lot of curiosity on Lexi's part, but much of the time, we can't figure out why her eye and finger are drawn to a particular thing, but we look in that direction too and acknowledge what she's pointing at. Sometimes it is something interesting and worth pointing at, and other times it's just the light fixture or the bookshelf or just pointing in some indeterminate direction. As always, it's another thing that is interesting to watch a baby do as she discovers and learns about the world.

Being Sick

Well, Lexi pretty much made it 11 months without getting sick. She has had minor runny noses in the past, but nothing really of note. On her 11 month birthday, though, she was definitely sick - diaherra, vomiting...yuck! Of course, the only person that she has vomited on has been Mom - go figure. We have been to the doctor and gotten a variety of medicine, most of which she refuses to take. She has taken some but not at the dosage she is supposed to. The vomiting has finally stopped and she has started to eat again, so we take that as a good sign. She has managed to pretty much sleep as normal which is good.

Temper tantrums and a new friend

Lexi can throw a temper tantrum! If you take something away from her or sometimes, for reasons we can't even fathom, she starts wailing away. If she is in your arms, she twists her body every which way. If she was on the floor crawling, she puts her forehead on the ground and just sobs. We anticipate many more months of this to come....

Last night we went to a 4th of July party. The host's youngest son is 2 weeks younger than Lexi but quite a bit smaller. After Lexi warmed up to the environment, at one point, she came over to Max and either tried to kiss him or bite him on this head! Either way, Max felt attacked and promptly cried. But it was interesting to see Lexi want to touch him. They also had a doll with a pacifier in its mouth. I didn't see it, but Stephen reported that Lexi was taking the pacifier out of the doll's mouth and putting it in her own. She only gets her pacifier at home when she is sleeping.