We're back, and we had an AMAZING vacation. I have over 80 edited pictures.. trouble is in deciding which ones to post.
Pierson said his first word during vacation: MAMA! We were all at the dinner table, so EVERYONE serves as my witness that he did, in fact, say Mama to get my attention. :) I was feeding him his bananas, but I guess I wasn't fast enough. Brooke first said Dada, so the fact that I got Pierson's first word makes my heart happy.
Pierson is crawling EVERYWHERE. He keeps me on my toes, because he constantly gravitates towards the things he's not allowed to touch / eat/ climb on/ get into. But aside from that, I have to say that it is quite a relief to be able to enjoy this newly contented little person who is no longer fussy now that he realizes he can actually get around the entire house without me. He's past that "I'm highly annoyed here" stage where he's old enough to realize there's stuff to get into, but not mobile enough to reach it.
He started crawling at 8 months 5 days, (2-3 "steps") but now is SUPER mobile. He'll be 9 months old in 10 days... Brooke was crawling backwards at 9.5 months, (just looked that up in her baby book) but she never was really into crawling. She liked cruising later on, and generally got around the room by "crab crawling." (dragging one leg.. it was funny :))
Brooke is one hilarious little girl. No, she really is. It's funny to think about the fact that this time last year she was only sporadically speaking, just getting by with what she HAD to say. But NOW.. well, now she's a constant little chatter box. It's funny to read the e-newsletters I get talking about her development, and they'll say "by now your child is likely speaking in 4-6 word sentences." 4-6? Maybe on a quiet day! She talks about how you or I would, only she omits a necessary word or two. :-D
Speaking of which, the other night I was putting her to bed, and she disobeyed me for the umpteenth time about SOMETHING. (I forget now, and it's not important. She was really testing her boundaries that day. :)) But before I could reprimand her, she got a stern look on her face, and said, "Brooke Avery! What you do?!" I tried to stifle my laughter, but I cracked up, so NOW she thinks it's hilarious to say it over and over. :) Oh, to see yourself imitated by your child.. file it under "You know you're a parent when.."
Brooke is not generally into story telling. That is, she doesn't generally MAKE UP things, and pass them off as "this really happened." Nor does she tend to go off on imaginative tangents saying things that aren't really true. So, when she woke up Friday morning at the beach house, telling all of us, "I woke up and saw TWO HANDS on the wall. They coming to get me! They tickle me on my back" (complete with hand gestures) it had us scratching our heads. We went over all the possible scenarios with her of what she actually saw, but she kept telling us "no," and stuck to her story. Creepy? (But hey, we adults have vivid dreams all the time, why can't a nearly 3 year old?)
Yesterday, my theory on men and cleaning was only further proved as I watched my husband spend over 10 minutes meticulously dusting our TV stand. I know the magazines tell you that more and more men are helping out with household chores these days, of course, very few of whom I actually KNOW of in real life, but the magazines SAY they exist. But, I do believe that men can actually be better cleaners than women if they want / decide to. (a theory I first developed many, many years ago after witnessing my Dad vacuum a single room for over 20 minutes) It's because they don't multitask. They focus on one job, and one job only, so they just plain do it better. I've never SEEN our TV stand look so sparkling clean, aside from maybe when it was brand new. That's not to say that I don't ever dust--I do--but generally, unless they're BOTH sleeping, I'm dusting while keeping an eye on two small children and also doing 15 other things. This is why I also think men are (generally speaking) better drivers than women. If a man has a car crash, it's never caused by doing their makeup or fixing their hair in the mirror. Unless, of course, men are trying to multitask while driving, which is just a recipe for disaster, because they're not as efficient at multitasking as we are. (Don't get me started on being a passenger while my husband tries to multitask AND drive. Ay yi yi.)
THEN, my husband did one better, and cleaned my Explorer so thoroughly that I would feel comfortable licking any interior surface. Now you can't tell we had two small children in it for a collective 15 hours, or that we kicked it into 4 wheel drive and took it up the beach several times during our vacation.
More later. Next post will include pictures, I promise. :)
I can't say much. Phil is SO much more the clean-freak than I am. To the point where he does most of it (and I do the dishes and laundry) as those are the two things that he doesn't feel the need to "redo" after I've done them.
Ethan is one of those men that the magazines talk about. He is also super clean...he turned ME into a neat freak after we got married. And he multitasks while driving...but that's all in the job. :) (Radio, MDT, cell phone, and looking out for suspects all at once...makes my head spin!)
