On the Move!

It's been a busy few weeks around here, hence the severe lack of blog updates. I can only plead extreme exhaustion and the inability to be more than two places at once (since, as everyone knows, moms always have to be in at LEAST two places at one time ;). The reason for my lack of energy is the fact that Max and Molly are both fully mobile! Max finally started walking again last week, much to our relief. After a week and a half had passed and Max was showing no interest in walking (not to mention the fact that the knees of his pants were starting to wear out after all the crawling around), we were about ready to drag him back to the hospital to make sure everything was ok. But, Max suddenly decided that crawling was for babies and just started walking around. He was pretty shaky at first and walked with a major limp, but he gets better every day. Now he's walking and running around at almost full speed with only a minor limp. We're back to our regularly scheduled evening walks, much to Max's delight (and Molly enjoys the catnap she gets while riding around in her sling).

Max is learning new things every day and is just a funny little guy. He's talking a lot and putting more and more words together. After a month of being stuck in a cast, he got very good at asking for things. Most of his sentences consist of asking for "more" of something ("more dee dee," "more cookie," "more walk"). Dad called me at work the other day and Max wanted to say hi. When he got on the phone, he promptly asked me for "Up! Cookie! Peese!" Apparently he wanted to be lifted up so he could reach the cupboard where we keep the cookies -- he must have figured that Mom was just the softie to hear his request. ;) He's happy that we're able to resume our walks to the park and has discovered the joy of going down the kiddie slides ("Whee!"). He's also very interested in sticks ("stihs"), pinecones ("minemones"), and flowers ("flahs"). We came home for a walk the other day and I noticed that Max's nose and upper lip were yellow. He hadn't had anything yellow for dinner (plus, I had washed his face), so I thought maybe he had somehow colored on his face earlier in the day when he was playing with his crayons. Upon further inspection I realized that the yellow was actually dandelion pollen. Max had been smelling the "flowers" at the park and apparently he likes butter!

Molly agrees with Max that crawling is for babies -- namely, her! Last week Molly started to abandon her (amazingly speedy) army crawl for some "proper" crawling on her hands and knees. She does more regular crawling and less army crawling every day, although if she really wants to get somewhere in a hurry (like over to Mom when she comes home from work), she plops down on her belly and army crawls like crazy. Molly is such a cute crawler -- she looks like a little wind-up toy as she moves around the house. Molly is starting to figure out that she can pull herself up -- she has yet to really pull herself up on anything, but when she was in the crib the other day, she put her little hands on the rail, pulled herself on to her knees, and peered over the railing at us (obviously, we lowered the crib as soon as we saw her do that).

Molly has been much less crabby than she was, which may be a combination of recontinued Zantac, a better nap schedule, and cooperative teeth. She still isn't sleeping well at night, so we need to work on that. Once I get her daytime nap schedule in place, we'll work on the night wakings. Molly continues to be the perfect pesky little sister and drives Max nuts by trying to get into whatever he is doing. He has a special whiney "NoOoOoo" that is reserved especially for his sister. We've had to teach him to take his books up on the couch to look at so that Molly can't maul him while he "reads" (Molly thinks books are good for chewing). Her latest (terribly cute) accomplishment is clapping. Unlike Max's initial cool, one-handed clap, Molly does the classic splay-fingered baby clap. Molly has her 9-month well-baby checkup later this week, so stay tuned to see how much the little chunk weighs (we need a "Guess Molly's Current Weight" pool ;).