Time for another update

We've been busy! I've kept meaning to come back and post an update, so now I have to make a big one.

I went back to work on July 6. Mr. FloridaWife has evolved from a stay-at-home Dad to a work-from-home Dad. He's been doing more and more freelance work in his areas of expertise, which is great. So, we have my mother coming to care for our children Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and we got a nanny for Tuesdays and Thursdays. Have you all heard about sittercity.com? We found our nanny on there. A couple of weeks and 85 applications later, we settled on "Katie" who comes to us with lots of pre-school experience with two year olds. She came to her interview with her lesson plans, etc. I really wanted someone with her kind of background. She's got infant experience too from when she used to be nanny for a family some years ago. So, it's all working out.

Theresa is a big girl! She's just over three months old, and I suspect that she's nearing 15 pounds. She is such an adorable baby girl. She's easy to put to sleep, she's very calm, and she wakes up only about two times per night to feed, and then she falls right back to sleep. This is much different than Raffaele who at this stage wouldn't fall asleep until 11:00pm and who would wake up often (and stay awake) throughout the night. Theresa has been going to sleep at 8:00pm regularly and doesn't wake up for her first feeding until about midnight.

Raffaele has been wonderful with his little sister. If her pacifier falls out, he helps her put it back in. I've always encouraged him to help us with her. I'll say, "come on, Raffaele, we have to go help Baby!" He'll come running with me. I sit down to feed her, and in the beginning Raffaele would get upset that HE couldn't wear the breastfeeding pillow while I fed her, but now he accepts that I have to be the one with the pillow. So, he sits on the bed with me while I feed her, and we're all happy.

Raffaele's vocabulary has continued to expand. He finally said "Daddy" at the beginning of May (just as he was approaching age two). I know! It took a while for him to say "Daddy!" His first multi-word sentence began around age two when he first said, "MaMEE, WhereAreYou?" He soon continued with other sentences like "Where'd-It-Go?" and "WhatHappened?" I've thought about this, and I didn't realize how often I was asking these questions, that this is the vocabulary that he picked up. Also, he may not actually verbalize a lot of words, but when I pull out his word books and ask him to point to certain objects, he'll point to them. SO, he knows WHAT they are.

Raffaele can count to ten, except he trips over the four. He also recognizes a lot of the letters of the alphabet. He knows a lot of his shapes, but octagon and pentagon confuse him, but that's understandable. At least he knows circle, rectangle, star, crescent, square, heart, etc.

Theresa was baptized July 11. It was a beautiful day made even more beautiful by the fact that she wore my dress. We had a little party afterwards.