David has two teeth on the bottom! I know because he bites me all the time!!! I don't think he will get to wean himself at 10 months the way Isabelle did. Funny how different two kids from the same family can be. For instance with teething, (we HOPE it's just from teething!) David slobbers waaayyy more than Isabelle did. He's a mess! If we don't put a bib on his we have to change his clothes a couple times a day. And he chews on everything... his fingers, our fingers, my hair, shirts-- whatever is within reach. On the other hand, he doesn't run a fever, get a runny nose or wake up at night the way that Isabelle did, so that's good.


Have I mentioned how cute David is? Here's a nice shot with him and his handsome Daddy... Speaking of shots, David had to get one the other day, and got weighed at his visit. He weighs an even 20lbs! We were happy about that because we've slowed down on the introduction of food. Our pediatrition said to go ahead and start at 6 months, but after some time we decided his little system doesn't seem quite ready. He's on cereal and seems to like fruits, but peas are no good and carrots make him hurl. ( Amy, you can appreciate that.)

Isabelle on the other hand, eats anything except for mushrooms. I think it's a texture thing. Tonight she ate asparagus! What 2 year old likes asparagus?! She likes raw green peppers too. She likes most fruits as well, and has a healthy sweet tooth. We know she's ours because she loves chocolate.

She also loves visitors and is looking forward to Jen and Kevin coming to dinner on Tuesday. Today she told us, "no pudding for Jen!" which is something she remembers from Jen's last visit, like 3 weeks ago. Funny, the things they remember...

When I was a little girl and would have bad dreams, I would carefully make my way over the sea of alligators that covered my floor and ask my Mom if I could get in bed with her. She always let me snuggle in... sleepily murmering "it's ok honey, go back to sleep and dream about angels and sweet things..." These are the things you carry over to parenthood.

So now when Isabelle wakes from nap or in the morning I always ask her "How was your nap? Did you dream about angels and sweet things?" Usually she doesn't really say anything about what she dreamt about; she's usually more interested in snack.

Lately she's been having bad dreams and waking up at night, and last night she had a particularly restless night. I think John went to check her a couple more times than ususal. This morning when I got up with her, I said " Good morning Isabelle. Did you have bad dreams last night? What did you dream about?" She looked at me sweetly as we snuggled up with her cup of warm milk and said "Angels..."

Almost nothin' sweeter than that...

Oh yeah, here are some pictures of our day flying the kite. We all went out a day or two after the post I made about the flowers.

I am such a parent now. I have this game with Isabelle, which I started to call 'Japanese Smack Down.' Here's the gist of it, one day I was carrying Isabelle, and I came over to the couch, leaned over, grunted, and dropped her down. Well, she enjoyed that immensely, and ran right back with her arms up. So I plopped her down on the couch again. But this time I didn't grunt, as I held her a little more carefully. After she landed, she looked at me and grunted. So I grunted back, and next time I picked her up for a drop onto the couch, I gave an exaggerated grunt. As this went on, I eventually started to perform a few Sumo moves, i.e. clapping my hands, bowing, and slapping each hand on the corresponding knee.

So after another 10 drops to the couch, I added some Japanese words. I really don't know many, but that didn't matter to Isabelle, as long as I said them with the appropriate Sumo wrestler accented voice. Most of the words I know are for sushi, and konnichiwa, domo arigato, and itashimashite. So as I was exclaiming these fish in Japanese, Isabelle would just giggle, and ask me to "do again! do again!"

The next day, she comes up to me with her arms up, and asks, "Hamachi?" So that is what the game is now called. Yellow Tail Tuna in Japanese, "Hamachi"

The other day Isabelle was climbing up on the arm of the couch, and falling onto the cushions, and exclaiming to herself, "Hamachi!" And here is where the parent part comes back into it. She was having a great time, since she can do this just about any time. But what was I thinking? She's gonna miss the couch and crack her head open on the floor.

David went to the doctor for his 6 month wellness check. He's doing great. Still growing, up to 18.5 lbs (8.4 kilo), and 27.5 inches (70 cm). He had to get 4 more shot though, so he was a little grumpy for a day afterwards. We also started him on his fisrt solid food. Strained Sweet Peas, that old baby standby. He doesn't really like peas too much. Squash and pears are winners though.

David also has his first tooth! He's been very grumpy the last few days, and needs to be held a lot, which we remembered with Isabelle ment teeth or cold. Gladly, David has a little tooth coming up, front center, lower jaw.

It's funny how focused kids get. This afternoon I took the kids to the park, and I brought along the new parafoil kite Aunt DeDee gave us. When they were here, everyone was at the park, and Isabelle loved looking at the kite she saw there. So DeDee bought us a very similar, if not the same, kite. But we haven't had any breezey days yet. Rainy and windy, but not really kite flying days, unless your name is Benjamin.

All was going well as we walked down the pathway to the park, and we are just getting into the first stages of Spring. Along the pathway we saw a few flowers starting to bloom, and a lot of Dandelions, which Isabelle then proceeded to pick, every one she saw! Then she wasn't happy with only having yellow blooms, and she saw the periwinkle and needed the nice contrast to her bouquet. Of course, once she had those, she needed the 'nosemary'. Suddenly, going to the park to fly a kite wasn't the goal anymore.


I eventually got her to the park, and had the kite flying in a few minutes. Isabelle smiled when she saw it, and said' "Kite, kite!" But then she wanted to get some of the pink flowers off of the wild cherry trees. She couldn't reach them, but they were more important than this wonderful kite 40 ft up in the air. I even attached the 8 ft. streamer tail! She couldn't care less about the kite anymore.

I let her play around the park for a while, and she must have collected 50 dandelions, many just a raisin of their former self. But she wanted to bring them all home to Mommy. So I figure she had enough flowers, and I needed to get David home to sleep warm and cozy, instead of cool and breezy, and off we went. Very slowly.
" Come on Isabelle. Let's bring those flowers home"

shuffle, shuffle, shuffle

" Come on Isabelle."

scuff, scuff, scuff

"Isabelle, please don't drag your shoes on the cement. We need to get David home, and start your dinner."

She start walking normally. And then,

"Flower!" she says as she runs over to yet another dandelion which must have sprung up in the last 15 minutes, 'cause I'm sure she scoured this field on the way to the park. Of course, by this time, she can't actually pick up any more flowers, as her hands are full of the afternoon collection already. With both hands clasping dozens of flowers, (most of the periwinkle has shriveled up and fallen to the wayside by now) she bends over, and extends one, then two, pinky fingers to grab the precious golden weed. A few of the other flowers are lost off the top, and I hear,
"Oh No!"

She spends a few minutes getting all the flowers back into her hands, and looked over the green lawn for more.
" Come on Isabelle. Let's go home. We need to leave some flowers for other people to enjoy."

shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, scuff, scuff, scuff