It’s been a very busy spring in the Hunt family. Since the last post, Balin and Athena have both had many great adventures.
We’ve had lots of visitors, lots of travel, lots of work, lots of trying to fit all of life in. The kids have mostly enjoyed the craziness. Watching Balin and Athena interact together has been a joy. Athena wants to follow her brother everywhere, and Balin likes this most of the time. Today, he gave her big hugs when we went to pick him up at his daycare. He also proudly told some of his classmates that this was “his Athena.” (One of his friends there also has a new baby sister named Athena.)
Both kids have grown so much and Balin recently humored me by posing with all of his old shoes. We may not continue to keep every pair, as they wear out quickly when he plays outside so much these days.
As you might imagine, mealtime within out family is never dull. Balin is very expressive and has learned that he can make us laugh with funny faces and word play. Meanwhile, Athena is learning to feed herself and definitely tries to tell us what she wants – “OH-NA!” usually means “I want what you’re having despite how much of it I might already have on my own plate.”
At the beginning of April, Balin had both his tonsils and adenoids removed as they were extremely enlarged. The recovery from this was really tough and lengthened by the double ear infections that he got during his recovery. We really began to wonder when we would get our Balin back. The recovery period was filled with many movies, popsicles, and homemade snow.
Unfortunately, the weather turned very hot and the AC was not turned on in our building while we were all spending extra hours at home trying to help Balin through this time. Athena really wanted to play with her brother, but we were eventually able to distract her with a big new fan.
We’re happy that Balin has finally returned to his old self and he again prefers to drive cars and trains to most other activities.
This spring we did make it to a Rocknocernos concert, a neighborhood egg hunt, and Athena took a trip to Texas to meet some of her mom’s oldest friends.
Last week week we learned that Athena is allergic to peanuts and eggs. The doc thinks this is why she has had so much eczema for the past several months. Athena has never eaten nuts, and we now have epipens ready for some time in the future if she accidentally does. We are also now trying to remove all traces of egg and nut from her diet in hopes that this will help her skin. Hopefully, Athena will grow out of the egg allergy as many kids do, but peanuts will likely be an issue for the rest of her life.
A more fun update is that today Athena had her 15-month check-up, and her latest stats are weight 22.25 pounds (40th %tile) and height 31 inches (60th %tile). We finally turned her car seat around last weekend and on the first car ride she promptly fell asleep. However, she is now having fun facing forward and playing and chatting with Balin.
For those of you who want to see the kids grow, you can find new pics added to the picasa album. We also have lots of video clips of the kids now and we know that they will make you smile if we ever find the time to post a few…
April 28th, 2010 at 8:49 pm
Wonderful photos. I like her jacket. Maybe we can visit when I finish school in August.