April 29

Eli had his 15-month checkup today, and he did great!

His favorite part of the appointment was playing with the toys in the waiting room. (Yes, I brought all four children to the appointment. Yes, it was crowded. Yes, I would have preferred to leave the others at home. But you've gotta do what you've gotta do, and they did fine.)

Eli's stats from the checkup:

weight: 20 pounds, 13 ounces (25th percentile)

height: 30.25 inches (25th percentile, up from 5th percentile 3 months ago!)

head circumference: 18.75 inches (75th percentile)

So he's growing well! Developmentally he is just fine... except for gross motor. I'm not really worried, because all of my full-term babies were late with gross motor skills, and Eli was five weeks early. Technically his gross motor development warrants a referral to see if he qualifies for therapy, but we are going to re-test in 5 weeks and see if it is just a prematurity thing. My guess is that five weeks from now, he'll be just fine.

I have a Mom's Night Out tomorrow night that involves a photo scavenger hunt, so I borrowed a selfie stick from my dad. Of course we had to try it out in the van:

This is my traveling circus! I love that you can actually see all four kids' faces in this picture!

Eli fell asleep in the van on the way home, and I left the van doors and the door to the garage open and let him snooze there while I made lunch for the kids. He wasn't quite ready to be awake when he woke up, so I wrapped him on my back with the carry of the day: Back Torso Carry with a long wrap.

Torso carries make me feel like a serious babywearer. They're completely strapless, and yet totally secure. (I also used the selfie stick for this photo.)

Once the little ones went down for naps, we got to work with school. Caleb practiced his spelling words by writing them in sugar.

It was really cool! I have seen people do this before with salt, but the only salt I have is good Mediterranean Sea Salt, and I wasn't about to waste that on spelling practice. Sugar is much cheaper, so we used it. Same thing, right?

Well. 

I quickly figured out why people prefer to use salt: Caleb just kept licking his fingers and asking to eat the sugar. Still, we got a fair amount of practice in, and he later aced his spelling test. Once Caleb was finished, Daisy practiced her lower-case letters in the sugar. I call that a win!

It was Friday movie night, and we watched The Chipmunk Adventure, circa 1987. The kids found it at the library, and they were so into it!

After the movie was over, we still had a good hour of sunlight, so we took a family bike ride.

It was Caleb's first full bike ride on his own, without the Tagalong or training wheels. He rocked it!

Chris rode with Eli in the baby seat,

And the girls in the trailer.

(I offered to pull the trailer, but he chose to do it himself. What a gentleman! Still, I felt like kind of a wimp as I rode completely unencumbered while he handled 3/4 of our children.)

The whole family! It's always been a challenge for us to do family bike rides because I've always been too pregnant to cycle, or staying home with a little one who is too smile to wear a helmet. I am so excited for this season of life, when we can have adventures like this together!