I want to go on the date too...

Friends.

Almost three weeks without an update? Sorry. There was a business trip in there, and Anida's camera was/is out of commission again (never buy Canon compact cameras), but that's just not right.

Especially since it's been a really packed couple of weeks. The quote in the title came from Daniel on Friday night. The playschool hosts once-per-month date nights, and dropped off the kids and went to a nice dinner. Despite a last-minute desire to join us, they had a great time and were still playing at full speed when we picked them up 3 hours later, so we'll be doing that again.

Daniel's big thing lately has been imaginary play. He'll declare that he is a Lion/Tiger/Monkey/Scuba Diver/Mailman/garbage man and will roleplay with his toys. Then he asks that you join him: "You're a mama scuba diver" or "Rachel's a baby lion". It's good fun, and it's just remarkable to follow his fantasies. He's also really good at drawing parallels between things and coming up with accurate conclusions.

Oh, and if we didn't know it before, we need to be careful about what we say around him. The other day, Rachel was crying because she slipped and her pride was hurt, and he said "Oh, get over yourself Rachel...."





Yes, it is a video. Doubleclicking on the link or on the picture should launch it. It's from January 4 or so, so her walking is a lot more stable and now she'll stand herself up.

Rachel, well - she's been walking exclusively for the last couple of weeks. She's walk, slip and then crawl over to a wall to push herself up, but then about a week ago, she figured out how to stand up on her own. So now there's no stopping her. She'll walk up the stair from the playroom to the kitchen without falling, tries to run (and falls) and does an adorable little dance if music is playing. Basically, she has a role model to live up to, so she hasn't stopped building on the walking skill at all.

She walks with her arms slightly raised, and if Daniel is playing with something, she'll walk straight into it, and usually destroy whatever he's built in legos or his train track. She's earned her nickname of "Godzilla" - she lurches over and just knocks it over. But she does it with style...
Oh, and Daniel can now dress and undress himself (mostly, buttons are hard). He's learned how to spit out toothpaste (spitting is harder than you'd think) rather than swallowing it. And he now has a little automatic sensor on his faucet, so he can wash his own hands without any help. In his own words "I'm not little" and "I'm not big" but "I'm a little bit big".

Reid turned 2 and had a barnyard-themed party to which Daniel went as a horse, Anida as cow and Rachel was a pig in a pink dress. Next weekend, we'll have a one-year-old party for Rachel. It's amazing that it's already been a year.

Hope all is well with everyone. I'll try to get another posting out next week.


Love, R.E.A.D.