Girls, girls, girls

This is how her head looked before I let her tip over, right in front of me, as I helped her work on learning how to cruise, and even in my grasp I let her smash her wee noggin on a pointy cornered toy. I am full of the awesome!



In other news, Hannah had her updated testing for Early Intervention, and now rates at eight months in gross and fine motor skills, but a whopping fifteen months in language, out ahead of her actual fourteen months. That's my daughter! She rated high because she has words besides mama and dada, namely book and baba. She is working on boo for balloon. Her greatest accomplishment, however, is that she can sign milk to us and nearly bursts with joy every time we see her squeeze her imaginary teat. I was rocking her to sleep two nights ago and she would nestle in to my neck, sit up and dramatically sign for milk, take two swigs and stop to snuggle, then lather, rinse and repeat. When she tired of milk on demand, she sat up very purposefully looked me in the eye and stuck a finger to my mouth. I guessed she wanted me to sing (questionable choice) and when I did the babykins jumped with joy that she had yet again successfully pulled my puppet strings. I cried and she smiled joyously. Everyone went to bed happy, except Claire.

This one is full of sass right now, so I look back longingly at this view, taken a short two weeks ago, when she was full of good cheer and not too many screams. It seems she is not enjoying her best friend at preschool right now, and she gets amped up beyond all reason at things of little consequence. And, she is three and a half. While I was enjoying Hannah's expanding communication skills, I found Claire had crawled out into the hall outside her bedroom to spy on the activities in the house that go on after bedtime, and she fell asleep on the cold, hard floor. I kept hearing the breathing and thinking Lord Honey had the monitor turned up extra loud, only to find it was a different child, snoring away in a different place altogether. We seem to be going through a slightly more difficult stage, where she wants to do more but doesn't know how to get there. And it all kinda pisses her off, some.

I am in fluster to get all my regular things done so my life doesn't come apart at the seams while I am away, pack for all of us for a week away, and get all who are girls inoculated against the H1N1 menace. Busy, busy, busy.