Area Baby Takes First Steps On First Birthday

Milestoneville, USA:  No kidding.  There was one this morning, when she stood up and took a step while rotating herself toward the couch in order to grab on.  That was her very first.  Then later, after supper, she was playing on the floor with balloons and took a step and a half before grabbing onto Dad.  She's been working up to this for a couple of days: lots of pushing up from a squatting position to stand up, then holding the pose for several seconds before plopping back down or reaching out for something to hang on to.  It's just so cool that the official first steps happened on her birthday.  Av's first steps, out on the front walk, happened on her 11-month anniversary.

It was a good day.  Mostly.  El had some...ahem...bowel trouble this morning, but took a long leisurely nap afterward and woke up in an awesome mood, just in time for the party.  It was nice enough to play outside for a bit, so she got to swing and slide and crawl through her tunnel.  Av made a wish for her and blew out her candle. (I'm not telling what the wish was. It's a cool one, trust me.)  Av also helped her open her present (a pull wagon with blocks in it) and helped her play with it.  By which I mean Av played with it and complained loudly when El knocked down the structures she was trying to build with the blocks.  El later played Manny Pacquiao with her helium balloons, coached by GW.  That was super cute.  It's hard to believe that she's a year old already.  Everybody says that, I know.  But truly, it feels like she was born a few weeks ago.

The night before this day last year, I gave GW his birthday present, twelve days late.  It was a DVD, the second season of Life On Mars, which I'd ordered from the BBC online and it was on back order and arrived way later than expected.  Anyway I wrapped it and gave it to him after Av went to bed and we joked that I could finally go into labor now since his birthday present came (El's due date was GW's birthday, 1-16, hence the joke).  That night I woke up at 2:30am with contractions.  The midwives came within an hour or so, and at 5:59am our second little girl made her entrance.

Loves her swing.

Big Sis is so pretty.

Av made a wish for El, and blew out her candle for her.

Yeah, I made the cake.  And the cookies.  Sure, you can have my autograph.

Yay!

Sis helped her open her present.

So I'm Having Trouble Writing....

It's not that I don't have inspiration.  But as they say, it's been busy lately, what with the holidays and the recovery from the holidays and all.  It does usually take me a good month to get back into some kind of normal groove after all that.  And because there's also a lot of weird stuff going on with various people in our lives, I'm thinking about and working on things like trusting my instincts about people and about how people treat me and my family.  The kids have still been doing noteworthy stuff, every single day.  We are fast approaching El's first birthday and Av's fifth, both of which are really big for me, so there's a lot to do to get ready for both. 

So more later....