walkers

So we didn't write last week. Whoops. Especially since that was the week that Aderyn decided to become a full fledged walker and almost abandon all crawling. Crawling is only used when she needs to race to the door if someone is going outside.

Paela has had a number of playdates lately. She enjoys the social stuff, as long as it is a one-on-one interaction. As a side effect of her excitement for playdates, she has picked up the names of the week, even though she doesn't understand the order. We would let her know days before the playdate -- in order to prepare her for the experience -- that she would see her friend Alice on "Friday." Now she likes to ask what day it is and talk about what is supposed to happen on other days -- "We go to church on Sunday," or "It's not called 'windsday,' Daddy... today is Friday and that's the day I see my friend Alice."

Last weekend, we went to the Bedford Day Parade and tried to convince Paela to pick up candy thrown from the cars. Last year, I thought that this was a natural response to the combination of free candy and children, but Paela needed a little bit of instruction as to the correct response to thrown candy. By the end of the parade, she was getting the hang of trying to move fast enough to get some before the other kids grabbed it all.

I agreed to a commission painting. It was a different idea from my usual style, but someone requested that I paint their family crest in exchange for their moped. This commission was the first painting I've done in about three years and reminded me of the methodical practice and calming feelings I have towards painting... at least when things have been planned out ahead. However, my time at nights has been severely divided. Job postings for the next school year have become due and I've been trying to get those ready, which split my evenings. Now that the painting is finished, I will spend most of my nights managing time for class prep and for applications. Yippee.

Rebecca tried to make it to a book club one evening, but failed. The girls were making such a terrible fuss about going (and staying) to sleep, that she just had to stay home. Where was I? See the above paragraph. Part of the problem now is that both girls have nasty colds and can't breathe at night.

Aderyn made an intriguing discovery this week. We have never been able to get her to drink water, without holding an open-faced cup to her lips -- and this makes a large mess -- because she doesn't drink out of the sippy cups we have given to her. She has a very concave and rigid palette, which causes her discomfort when using some of the more standard drinking apparatuses: sippy cups, bottles, breasts. But this week, when her cousin Cameron was at our house, she managed to steal his sippy cup and instantly showed success! [shh...don't tell Cameron she's using the cup he left behind yesterday until we get her one just it tomorrow! -bec]

Paela started "gymnastics" last week and loves every second of it. She's been talking all week about how she gets to go back on Monday.