Backhoes for Spring

Reed wanted to draw a backhoe for Spring the other day. Over and over he'd say, "Reed draws a backhoe for Spring". It was very sweet!

You can see, all the marks on the sidewalk. Most of them were backhoes, a few were rainbows.


As ever, Spring enjoyed watching Reed. She'll be drawing her own backhoes soon enough I'm sure!

Going mobile

Spring crawled across the living room floor this evening! She got up on her hands and knees, and I started to tell Gerry how yesterday she had taken a couple of crawling "steps" when she proceeded to demonstrate just how far she could actually go!! And what was so worthy of crawling all that way? Brother's ball of course! Reed was not thrilled with Spring playing with it, but we convinced him that we should let her keep it since she had crawled for the first time ever, just to get it! The thing that made me laugh is that some college friends of ours keep a blog about their kids who are about the same ages and Reed and Spring and they recently made a post about their kids' difficulty in sharing the exact same type of ball!

And in other Spring development news, she can also get herself from lying down to sitting up. And she wants to pull herself up to standing whenever she can. And Reed development, he's finally getting mine and yours figured out as well as me and you, though the word "I" still seems to be problematic. He usually says "my" instead of "I".

And now, photo highlights from the last few weeks.

Reed tried to bring me a flower, but shook it a bit too much. I actually got a picture as the flower was falling.
Fortunately, Daddy went and cut another flower for Reed to bring to me!

Long time blog readers will remember that last summer, I ruined one of the great joys of childhood for Reed, running through the sprinkler. If you did not read that particular post, it's pretty funny and worth a read if I do say so myself. Anyway, you'll all be happy to know, that this year, we got the sprinkler set up, free of incident and Reed loved it!

Spring was happy to hang out with her Daddy and I and observe Reed going through the sprinkler.

Reed needed to walk around with his bear (the bear's name is Cheesy Grilled Bear, so named because he often likes to make a dish of the same name with the bear). We put it in his mei tai and we carried his bear around wearing nothing else but his diaper. Part of what I love about this picture is the look on Spring's face. She always watches Reed so intently!

Best Mother's Day ever!

I've had a wonderful weekend and a fantastic Mother's Day!!

Yesterday, we spent the morning deep cleaning the house, then after Spring's morning nap, we went to an arts and crafts fair nearby. We saw lots of moms and kids we know, and it was a gorgeous day! Gerry said I should pick out a Mother's Day present for myself, so I happily bought myself a beautiful new sling.

Our friend Kathryn was there and snapped a couple of pictures of Reed and Spring.

I baked some oatmeal raspberry muffins last night so I got to have delicious muffins for breakfast, then Gerry took Reed to Starbucks to get mommy a soy latte. Not as tasty as a cow's milk latte, but I'm going dairy-free for Spring and it seems to be agreeing with her. On a side note, Reed calls Starbucks, the "chocolate milk house" because when we take him there, we let him get chocolate milk. It cracks me up! Anyway, when they returned from Starbucks, Gerry asked Reed if he has something to say to me. Reed said, "Happy Mother's Day mommy!" Talk about melting a mommy's heart. I scooped him up and gave him a bunch of kisses and hugs and he laughed. When I put him back down, he said it again, and we went through the routine a couple more times. It was so sweet I almost cried!

Mid-day, we had a bbq with some families from a parenting forum I'm part of. It was a really fun way to celebrate Mother's Day and once again, the weather was gorgeous! Then this evening, we went out to a great vegetarian restaurant that's fairly new here in town. We came home and gave Spring a nice relaxing bath in the sink while Reed splashed in the other half of the sink beside me. And to top off the day, Gerry made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Seriously, I don't think life gets much better than this!!!

Six month photos

We had a six month photo session for Spring last week with our photographer friend, Kathryn. She gave us a few pictures as a sneak peak. I'll post more when we get the rest!









And of course, we couldn't let Spring have all the modeling fun!

Dada

Today, for the first time, Spring said, Dada(dadada)!! Oddly enough, I'd been just a touch concerned about her verbal development. At four months, she should have been blowing raspberries, at five months she should have been make vowel-consanent combinations (like ah-goo) and at six months, she should have started repetitive syllables (like da da da). But it wasn't till about two weeks ago that she started blowing raspberries, and then two days ago, she started saying ya ya ya ya. It's been my experience with Reed and talking to other moms, that babies seem like they can only learn one thing at a time. Spring was focused for a long time on learning to crawl, or at least get up on her hands and knees. Now that she seems to have the hands and knees thing mastered, she's playing catch up on the last two months of verbal development!

Last summer, Reed started pretending when he was playing. He'd "feed" his stuffed animalsl, put them down for naps, etc. We've had a new development in the realm of pretend where now, he pretends to be somebody or something else and he'll also tell Gerry and I that we are being something else. Okay, so this doesn't seem so cool while I'm typing it, but you'll have to believe me that it's a fun new development!