No, I didn't...

Friends

Sorry about the delay - wrote this a week ago, but neglected to promote from draft to final.

Most of the time, Daniel just amazes us with how he has picked up language or phrases and uses them in the correct context. It's just plain old fun to watch him string ideas and phrases together.

Though for the last couple of days, he's been in a mode where he'll deny something repeatedly, and no amount of logic, proof or argument will change his mind. "Daniel, did you poop?" "No, I didn't" (you can smell him 8 feet away). "Daniel, did you hit Rachel?" "No, I didn't" (she's bawling). I'm sure this ability to deny the patently obvious is completely normal and will pass.

Daniel started playschool on Friday, and he seemed to enjoy it, but we really haven't heard too much about his day. He made "an art", but he doesn't talk about the other kids or his teachers much. Still, he seemed to enjoy his day, and I'm sure we'll hear more as time goes on. Something in our PC caught fire the other day in the middle of videoconferencing with Farmor and Grandpa, and D was quite shaken and worried that the PC had crashed while Farmor was "inside" it. It must have just been some dust, because it was smoky, but everything is working fine now.

Rachel may have finally crossed a barrier to crawling -> she's been pushing herself backwards, but in the last couple of days, she has pulled her legs under her and "lounged" forward to get where she wants to be. It's not smooth, but it seems to work. There's also a hint of a first tooth.

Anida has been helping our friends Harrison and Gretchen at the Palissades wine festival this weekend, so Eric's been getting a taste of parenting 24/7. It's gone reasonably well, though it certainly is a full-time job juggling the two of them, and they've missed mama a lot. Sunday, Grandma Babe comes to visit for the week, and it's also the annual PKD walk, so Eric and the kids will have walked in it by the time this is posted.

And that's about it for now. Hope everyone is well.

Love, Daniel, Rachel, Eric and Anida

Welcome to our new blog

Friends, Family

We're glad you chose to follow us over here to our new blog. The name obviously refers to the age difference between the kids.

All of the posts from the "old'" blogs are here, and there is still some tweaking to do, but if we wait to be "done", we'll never launch the site. I'll eventually add back the photo albums, and my goal is to introduce "tags" to classify the posts.

What? The editor speaks in first-person on this blog? Yeah, the whole writing as Rachel or Daniel is done for now. That was cute at first, but got kind of strained after a while. Other "new" rules involve not using our last name or those of our friends.

But enough rules. On with the updates.

Daniel is starting playschool these days. It's a drawn out process of getting started. Because he's going on both Fridays and Mondays, there have been two open sessions and two orientation sessions, but this coming Friday we finally start "for real". He seems to really enjoy school so far - with no separation anxiety, and a big smile on his face at the end. We introduced potty training for real in the last couple of weeks, and there have been some victories where he's voluntarily told us in advance, but also a number of missed chances. So it's a work in progress.

Rachel is in the process of realizing the permanence of things - particularly mama. Until recently, she'd get upset if mama left her sight, but she's starting to realize that things that disappear from her vision come back. This has allowed Anida to start going to the gym, because Rachel can now stay in the daycare there. The goal of crawling is tantalizingly close - Rachel will push up on her arms, thereby sliding backwards, but just in the last week or so, she's started pulling her legs under her like she's going to crawl. Right now, nothing makes her happier than pulling up to standing with a little help. She gets this big "look what I can do" grin on her face.

And that'll have to do for an initial post. Please do check back - there will be regular updates here at 21monthsapart.

Love Daniel, Rachel, Anida and Eric.

HONK HONK. You're killing me, lady...

So, it was bound to happen, wasn't it?

I was playing at the local playground, and I grabbed ahold of a steering wheel on the play structure and the title of this post is what came out of my mouth. The parents are now on notice that I'll pick up just about anything and repeat it.
Yeah.

So, since last time, I've been down to Houston, to visit my other cousins Kayla, Brayden and Chloe. Oh, and that's also aunt Teresa and aunt Erin in the picture. Grandma Babe is taking the picture, so we can't see her, but she now has a webcam, so I get to talk to her on the computer all the time.

This fall, I am going to go to playschool twice a week for a half-day. I got to go to the open house for that last week, and I'm really excited to finally start. I'm in a class called "young three's", and I'm the youngest one there, but not by much. My teachers, Ms. Pat, Sandy and Sue all seem nice. I think there are 4 other boys and 7 girls. More on this in a future post, I'm sure.

After getting back from Houston, we started potty-training around here. It has been a mixed success so far. I've gone a few times, made a few messes and have not-quite-gotten the idea that I need to use the potty every time. I do love the reward system though and may be too smart for it. It currently stands at "every time I go in the potty, I get a matchbox car" (from the stash of 100s of cars we found when we moved in). So, often, I go, get a car, then want to go again immediately to get another one. I guess the old adage "you get what you measure" is true.

In other news, I took a trip back to my foot doctor to follow-up. They are very happy with my walking and running, and say it's completely normal. We're good.

I'm still a fireman sometimes, and I went back to the firefighter's museum yesterday, but most of the time I want to be a garbageman. On wednesdays, I help move the garbage to the curb, and if I'm lucky, I'm home when the truck shows up. I told the real garbage man of my ambition to be like him, and he really liked that.

And that's about it for now.
Love, D.

Back again...

Friends

Do I have stories to tell, or what? This is me at a random beach in Iceland.

After 2 weeks of touring Norway, Sweden and Iceland, I'm back home, and all is well. Not too much jetlag - though it's taken the editors a few days to catch up enough to make this posting. Between all of the shutterbugs, there's probably about 1000 pictures of the vacation, so that needs to be trimmed down, and I'll probably add a link to an online album -> stay tuned for that.

I had such a good time with the family - the whole gang, but possible my cousins more than anyone. It's very confusing when they're not here anymore. I've been asking for them and farmor almost every day.



So we flew to Norway via Iceland, and that was pretty uneventful - a delay in Minneapolis caused us to be about 4 hours late, but no big deal. After a few days of hanging out in Oslo, we went down to Stugan.



The weather wasn't all that great this year, so swimming was pretty limited, but Grandpa took us out on the boat and he even let me drive for a little while. That was fun. I got to play with crabs and shells again this year, and we went for a hike too. Last year when I was there, I wasn't walking yet, so this was a pretty different experience.



Lest I forget - we went with the Pasta family too, and they were much better about posting the play-by-play on their blog, so check that out if you're curious. After 4-5 days at Stugan, we moved on to Stockholm via train, which I thought was pretty exciting. In Stockholm, I got to see a "real pirate ship" at the Vasa museum, and got to ride a boat through the archipelago and see a moose.



From Stockholm, we flew to Iceland and stayed in an apartment in Reykjavik. We had a car so we got to see parts of the southwest of the country. What a beautiful place. Very dramatic landscape - geysirs and waterfalls, and that black beach that you see above - we just randomly stopped along the side of the road.



I was a great little traveller - even when the days got long, I was a trooper. I was a pro on the planes, and just in general about the easiest 2-year-old you could want to bring to Europe.

I've had a bit of a vocabulary explosion again. I've said a lot of funny things on this trip, not all of which anyone remembers, but I was a hoot.
More pictures coming, and probably more stories, but the editors now have to move on to get Rachel's blog updated too.

Love, D.