Leaps and Bounds

Aurelia's growth is astonishing. Her evolution is constant and her capacity to understand is boundless. Just three weeks ago she said her first two-word phrase. Now she consistently strings together several words that are almost sentences. It is hard to wrap my head around such persistent forward progress.

• Momma book read . . . please
• Big girl milk please - she prefers her milk out of some short juice glasses we bought for her
• Relia room book, read it
• Dirty diaper . . . poo . . . change it - she has started telling us when she has a poopy diaper
• Highchair yogurt sprinkles - her breakfast (which follows at least 2 "snacks" of fruit and/or toast) usually starts with yogurt sprinkled with flax seeds, cereal, cinnamon or all of the above.
• Momma open it please
• Momma water ice please. Hold it, table. - she wants my water glass and she'd like to take it to her table thank you very much
• Messy face, wipe it, paper towel

Some of our favorite Reli "words" have disappeared as she has learned the correct pronunciation. Peas has become pwease. Hih-muhn has become Cih-mon (cinnamon). Die has become Kai (the little monster she sleeps with). Hide has become EyeTside (outside). Hu has become shoe. One mispronunciation she is hanging onto is Mee-duh for music. I love it. It has a hand motion that goes along with it - sort of a conducting motion with her right arm above her head. Her own little chant request that we turn on some music. More has acquired two syllables, southern style - Mow-er.

Two weeks ago she started adding the word "it" to her other words. "Off it", "read it", "hold it", "move it", "eat it", "drink it", "push it", "clean it", "wipe it", "open it", "kiss it". Listening to her, I cannot believe she is only 18 months old.

Aurelia is not much for nicknames. Up until this week she always referred to herself as Relia. If you say "that's Reli's chair" she would say "Relia." While we all call Koruna, Runa, Aurelia calls her Kah-una. I am sure next week it will be the full Koruna.

A very familiar and lovely sight, the girls eating together.

A happy girl after running at the lake with Momma and Dada.

Reli playing dress-up in her Honey's bathroom.

Admiring herself in Honey's mirror.

A rare family photo from many moons ago.

Aurelia, loving on Momma and the baby.

The mommas and the soon to be new additions.

(This picture was from about 6 weeks ago,

we are marginally, um, more round of belly now).

Two little girls working on cutting their molars. They look so much like sisters.

Berry with Reli and Runa.

Here are a few photos from the Kaplans' last minute grand adventure to Club Med in Florida in June.

Some days Reli asks that we put many bows in her hair.

This was one of those days:

Dancing in the kitchen before work.

Reli Eating Beets:

Our big girl starts school at the end of August at Mariposa Montessori. We are really hoping that she likes it. She will have a few weeks to adjust before her new baby sister arrives. Wow, life is changing quickly around here. We are all growing by leaps and bounds.

Is it really May already?

Just a few pictures of what we have been up to lately. . .

Feeding the swans at Town Lake

Aurelia and Honey on the swing

Can we please call Koruna?

Drawing on the magnetic board from her Aunt Berry, Uncle Ian and Koruna

One of the many uses Aurelia has found for the Easter basket from her Grandma Becky & Papasita

Trying to put on her shirt, or shirt hair as I like to think of it

A family outing to Lowe's required a hard hat

What a marvelous sight. . . . Sigh.

Time Flies

Aurelia is quite the conversationalist these days. She can say so many words and can understand so much of what we say. It is incredible. She has really transformed over this past month and a half. Here is a video from a few weeks ago.

What a happy girl:

Many of you know that Aurelia took a spill 3 weeks ago and broke her right elbow. She is such a tough little girl. After she got her cast on, she barely noticed that her little wing was broken.

Here she is putting on her brave face in the emergency room.

It didn't take Aurelia long to be her happy self, despite her cast.

While we were in the emergency room, I promised her she could get a tattoo on her cast, just like her Uncle Ian and Aunt Berry. Her Uncle Ian came through and drew a beautiful bird on our Reli Bird's broken wing. Whitney captured this gorgeous photo of her in the Ingram's kitchen:

Here are the artists drawing together:

Mama and her Reli Bird

She loves, LOVES to "blow" bubbles. Really she just takes the wand in and out of the bubbles bottle and takes the lid on and off. When we say "blow" she blows through her nose. Poor thing! She will catch on soon enough.

Today was a big event - we got to take off her cast. Her doctor said it would be less traumatic if we did it at home. She was pretty scared as the cast came off. When she first straightened her little arm, we were worried it was too soon because she cried. It turns out she was just surprised and did not understand what was happening. Now she has full use of her right arm again and she is raring to go!

This was taken this morning just before her unveiling.

We spent most of this morning outside swinging, sliding and playing with ping pong balls. She is such an outdoor girl.

Here she getting ready to eat dinner - no cast!

One last bit of news. Team Kaplan is expecting a new member soon! More details to come . . .

For now, a dance party picture can speak for us. This one was from the day we told the Ingrams:

Snow Day and other Adventures

It snowed in Austin last night and we awoke this morning to a fresh blanket of white powder outside. This is Aurelia's first snow. Her first taste of the magical flakes that fall from the sky and transform the world of yesterday into a world shrouded in soft mystery. Snow makes things look so peaceful and quiet. We took her out to enjoy it.

One of the lovely women I work with made a gorgeous hat for Aurelia. She loves it! The night I brought it home she could not stay away from the mirror. I have a feeling she knows how cute she is.

A fun interaction with some of Reli and some of her words.

Two ponytails are Reli's signature hair style these days.

And some days are two bow days.

An 80 degree day last weekend prompted a Kaplan-Ingram walk in the greenbelt.

Birthday cake is a wonderful thing.

She was skeptical at first, but the icing won her over.

I am sorry, but skirt hair is some of the best fun a girl can have.

Thank you, Honey for the awesome skirt!

Said skirt, worn appropriately, with accompanying cuteness.

What cute birthday clothes. Thanks Honey!

Sneaking up on herself in the mirror.

Grandma Becky and Papasita brought the girls rocking chairs with their names on them.

Reli LOVES hers!

They also got her a zebra walker/scooter for her birthday, which she loves to push around.

Some of her words these days are: pease (please), tay-too (thank you), neh-neh (necklace), ying (earring), buda-buda-buda (blueberries), more, heppah (help), hope-ah (open), cheese.

Bye-bye!

One Year

It is incredible to look back on the past year and to gratefully acknowledge the wonder that Aurelia Ayn has brought into our lives. She came into this world after many months and weeks of anticipation. We could hardly imagine then who she might be. Now we know her lovely smile, her beautiful laugh and the generous way in which she shares them both with us and everyone around her.

She found her voice and learned her strength in new ways each and every one of the 365 days she has been alive in this world. Her first word was Momma (I think it was the first word she really meant). Now she says Dada, met (milk), nana (banana), down, bah (ball, or anything else that she wants and cannot pronounce), medi (medicine), hi-cha (high chair), mum-mum (a cracker, aptly named mum-mum), night-night, and her favorite word lately, bye-bye.

Aurelia says bye-bye to everything. When she drops something on the ground, she looks at you first and then says "bye-bye" as she drops it. She says bye-bye when dada leaves the room, even for a minute. She says bye-bye in her high chair to her food or drink when she is done with it as she holds it over the edge of her tray before sending it falling to the floor.

For a few weeks now she has said down as she raises and lowers herself while holding onto her singles bar or pull-up mirror. Sometimes she also says something like up. Funny enough, she lowers her voice to say down and raises it to say up - like her Momma, Dada, Aunt Whitney and beloved singles bar do. They learn so fast and pick up on such small details.

Aurelia loves to point, even before she is sure what she is pointing to. She just wants to make sure she has your attention. When she meets someone for the first time, or greets a stranger in the grocery store, she reaches up to the bow in her hair and pulls it out, despite the grimace on her face as she rips out several strands of her own hair. Apparently she is demonstrating her own form of courtesy, as it is almost always with strangers and consistently when she is saying hello for the first time - a tip of the hat, Reli style.

Our Aurelia has always been strong, ever since those first few days in the hospital. She could stand on her own two feet only 2 weeks after she was born, and long before we were ready. She has shown signs of being able to walk on her own for some time now, but really saved the moment of taking her first few consecutive steps. She would take a step now and then, but really wasn't ready to walk until a couple of days ago when Aunt Whitney provided her just the right amount of encouragement. That Aunt Whitney is soooo good! So here is Reli, proudly walking just days before her first birthday. . .

I look back at the picture at the top of this blog and wonder at the fact that it was taken only one week after Aurelia was born. That tiny head, that tiny body, so dependent on her father and mother. Jonathan and I, poised looking into the future, not knowing what was in store, but thinking ambitious thoughts for our amazing daughter. We could not have pictured her as she is now. She is so unique, so different from us, but so similar at the same time. It is amazing what can happen in one single year.

In addition to all of the changes Aurelia has gone through, there are the changes she has brought about in me and Jonathan. We have become decision makers, role models, care givers, dietitians, nurses, teachers, body guards, task masters, photographers. We became parents.

One year. It is amazing how much can change in one year, if you welcome the change and let it grow into your every day. I am so grateful for this year. Thank you Aurelia, for becoming who you are and for teaching me about who I am and who I need to be. Happiest of birthdays my darling daughter. I love you more than you may ever know.

An Epic Family Visit

We got a special treat in late December when the Long Beach Kaplans came to visit. The epic part of the visit was that their chosen mode of transport to get from Southern California to Austin was an RV. We really appreciated the opportunity to spend some good hang time together.

The whole crew: Josh, Stef, Kayla and Ben. They brought their friend Noah who is a good kid and a highly-entertaining beep-beep player.

Two beautiful and special peeps: Reli and her cousin Kayla.


Uncle Josh and Reli sharing a blanket on the swing on a cold cold morning.