Big Steps

As you can see from these videos, the kiddos have taken some big steps lately—they’re walking. Of course, right now, they are mainly stumbling around like they just left a Colgate party at 2am and had a few too many, but I guess that’s why they call them “toddlers” and not “walkers.” They are getting better every day, although I think only Piper has actually discovered that she can use walking as a method of transportation. Fletch, on the other hand, is still at the stage where he thinks taking a few steps is just a cool trick to make Eric and I go crazy with clapping and excitement, as you can hear in these videos.

In addition to walking, here are some other fun things they are doing lately:


--Piper loves to share things with you. When she’s eating, she’ll hold a bite of food out for you to eat and giggles when you eat it out of her hand.

--Piper also loves to play games. Sometimes when she’s sharing her food, she’ll pull her hand away as you go for the food and then cracks up laughing after she’s tricked you.

--Fletch loves to give kisses. If I call him from across the room and ask for kisses, he scurries over and plants big fat, wet smooches all over my face. --They both love to “read” their books and will sit and look at them for minute at a time. They also love to be read to. Few things are better than when Piper brings me a book and crawls into my lap so I can read it to her.

--One of their favorite books is “Doggies.” Fletch loves to make the Nnnnnn sound from the book. Piper loves the page that says, “Nine dogs on a moonlit night…OOOooooooo.” Whenever we read that page, she makes the howling sound before I’ve even finished the sentence. They also love “Mama’s Home.” I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve read this over the past few weeks.

--Fletch can point to his head when asked. He also responds correctly when you ask him what noise a cow makes, and occasionally when asked what noise a sheep makes.

--Both of them can give high-fives, clap, and point. They especially love to clap when they are done eating. I think they are applauding my fine cooking. Piper also is into waving lately. Fletch waves every so often, but not as much.

--They both just got their second haircut. Their hair grows so fast.

--They are eating three good meals per day as well as a wake-up cup of milk, two mid-day cups of milk with crackers, and a bedtime cup of milk.

--Both of them love to eat and, so far, are only occasionally picky. Every once in a while, they’ll decide they don’t want their veggies or a dish we’ve made them before, but for the most part, they’ll eat just about anything.

--We’re occasionally trying utensils with them. Fletch isn’t so great at understanding what they are for, but it looks like Piper is quickly catching onto the spoon.

--They are still taking two 90-minute to 2-hour naps per day at 10am and 2:30pm. They go to sleep at 6:45pm each night. Piper sleeps right through most nights until 6am. Fletch has been waking a lot lately but hopefully he’ll go back to sleeping through soon.

--Fletch’s favorite toy is his ball. He loves to throw it around and chase after it. Piper still loves anything orange, particularly the Ernie puzzles pieces from the puzzles that were mine as a toddler.

--They don’t really say any words with regularity, but Piper babbles a lot. I think she might be saying words but we just can’t understand them yet. Fletch doesn’t babble as continuously as Piper but it seems like he tries to say a lot of individual words after hearing Eric and me say them. The other night, he kept trying to say “banana.”

As you can see, they are doing a lot and changing every day. I can’t wait for them to be walking full-time and think that will be any day now. In the meantime, I’m going to rest my legs before I have to start chasing two toddlers in two different directions.