Crawling!

We had another mostly happily uneventful week this week, free of sickness, and full of togetherness. Friday, Aidan brought home a Valentine from school, complete in its own (heart-covered) mail-box. (SO cute!) During the week we also continued our tradition of reading "I Stink" and "The Lorax" every night, as we have for at least the last week and a half: Aidan has memorized the whole "I stink" book and large segments of "The Lorax" - his memory and reading are amazing!


This weekend I got a lot more work done, getting through most of the next chapter revision, while Alex again took over with the kids. On Saturday, they trained down to FAO Schwarz where they watched the professional giant piano dancers and had our favorite burgers at Five Guys. Then, back home, Aidan watched Monsters Inc. for the first time! (He loved that the monsters were scared of the kids!) On Saturday, Aidan watched Monsters Inc. again, and then we all did a Costco trip.


Here are some highlights from the week:


AIDAN quotes:
- Wednesday: "I'm NEVER going to get out of the trash can!"
- Friday: "WALK to me, Kiana! Jump up and give me a kiss!"
- Sunday:
Me: "Aidan, After the WonderPets, I need you to help me take out two trash, and then we'll have PIZZA!"
Aidan: [claps twice] "I WANTED to take out the trash!!!"


KIANA:
- Kiana started really crawling TODAY! This morning, Aidan was drawing a giant mural on some newsprint on the floor while she was playing with a hammer on the rug. When she realized what he was doing, she crawled right over to see what was going on! She has definitely strengthened her core muscles and now keeps her stomach completely off the floor. She still tends to drag her left leg underneath her, as she likes to move forward, and then move back into a sitting position, and this makes it an easy switch, but she is definitely crawling not just scooting!!
- This week, we worked on making Laurie part of Kiana's world by seeing her all week long. On Monday and Tuesday, we hung out with Laurie while she babysat Rowan and Wesley; on Wednesday and Friday, Laurie babysat Kiana for a couple of hours mid-day and picked up Aidan; and on Thursday, Kiana and I bumped into Laurie at Gideon's bakery and we walked to playgroup together. It's been great! Kiana is playing really well with Laurie and has hardly cried at all, and I think we have (barely) introduced them in time to minimize having a really hard time because of (impending) stranger anxiety. (yay!) It's also helped me get more work done and have a break, which has been wonderful.
- Towards the end of the week, Kiana has had a really bad bout of teething: she had a sleep strike for most naps and was up hourly at night for a few nights in a row. It's been rough! Fortunately, a combination of baby Tylenol/Motrin/Orajel andwalking around in the Ergo with Mommy or Daddy has mostly worked in the long run. I'm looking forward to actually seeing the teeth that are causing all of this pain!!