Happy Christmas!

For Christmas we had Grandpa John visiting. Here we are at our Julbord (Christmas Eve dinner). As usual, Iain snarfed up the sill (pickled herring) with great abandon. That boy can EAT!


We open about 1/2 our gifts on Christmas Eve, so here's the kids opening gifts at night: Ria loving her hat, her jammies, and her farm.

...and Iain helping set up the farm

Daddy and Ria posing for Grandpa John

Iain in motion trying to figure out his Meccano Erector set. Its a bit beyond his abilities, but he loves it ;-).

Another Daddy and Ria shot.

You can't quite see him, but Iain is the dude in the penguin jammies playing with his remote control ATV.

Finally, Grandpa John and the kids watch to see if Santa will make it down the course they made for him (computer game).

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! God Jul och Gott Nytt Ar!

Potty Time!

On 23 December, Ria and I carried out all her "day diaper" paraphernalia to leave them for the "diaper fairies".

In the morning, Ria found that Fairy Amiya (the left one, looks a little like her friend Amiya) and Fairy Ria had stayed behind to help her put her poos in the toilet. (Mommy had spent quite a bit of time the previous night making flower fairies while Daddy wrapped all the gifts.)

Results?
Well, she's kind of potty trained.... With reminders, her pee is 100% contained. Her poo....well.... we're working on it. It's kinda-sorta working. Mostly. ;-). Another week or 2 will no doubt get things more consistent on that end. So to speak.

Tomorrow we send her to school with undies. Wheee!

Early December 2009

Early in December we got to see Aunti Julia as she passed through for a conference.

Kids playing happily together building with the Quattros. (Isin't it great how on blogs you can make it look like your kids never fight!)

And finally, a video: Here's Iain helping Ria spin on the "Dizzy Disc" (those who tend toward dizziness might not want to watch). They're saying "I'm a-watching a movie, I'm a watching a movie, I'm a watching a movie...OW OW OW". The "OW"s are supposed to occur while whapping your head on your forehead. Can you guess which kid came up with that one? ;-)

Halloween and November 2009 pictures

So, I'm giving up on post-dating ;-) Here's some pictures from Halloween and November last year.

Our friends Chris and Wonder-Woman Sarah went trick or treating with William the Convict, Ria the Bumblebee and Iain the Dinosaur. Yep, Iain has finally given up on his Tomtebobarnen costume that he used for the last 4 years.

Early November found William in Toronto for the sorrowful event of Irene's funeral. Nonetheless it was joyful to have the 4 siblings together with John.

Ria looking cute in her hat.

One day Iain had a day off school, but Ria didn't, so he and I had a lovely hike.

Kids making faces for the camera always makes a good shot:

As does any image of the intrepid explorers, off to investigate the wilds of our house.

School photos

Oooh! I haven't put up Iain's 1st grade photo! Darn cute:


He looks so little....until you look at his Kinder photo, and then he looks so BIG!

Oh, it looks like I never posted his Kinder photo....here's last years photo:


There, see!!!

Kids are doing great. Ria leaves her glasses on now and often actually looks through the bifocal bit. She's running faster, and is finally able to walk in shoes that aren't strapped to her feet (flip flops, dress-up shoes), so gross motor is kicking butt.....and her speech is improving by leaps and bounds!

Skyping away the week

I got me a camera for my laptop, so I'm a-skyping.

Here's me and the kids in a little snapshot, skype-view:

Fancy eyes, birthdays, and books.

Hi Everyone!

Check out our new face:
Yep. Our Little Miss has joined the world of the bespeckled.

I had mentioned earlier that we were going to look into Ria's tendancy to go a bit too crosseyed when looking at things close. We've looked into it. We caught it early enough, she still has 3D vision (although not so strong, we may need to do some vision therapy down the line). The crossing is due to prescription issues (technically "accomodative esotropia", differing from William's "congenital esotropia" which required eye surgeries to straighten his eyes). She technically also has some "ambylopia" (lazy eye), but we don't need to do any eye patching for it because the eye that crosses mostly is also the stronger of her 2 eyes. For the crossing she's got bifocals: "-1" at the top (nearsighted), and "+3" at the bottom (a farsighted prescription). Assuming we can get her to reliably wear the things for near vision, the "+3" will force her to accomodate by un-crossing her eyes. With such a minor prescription as "-1", the eye doctor would never have given her glasses if it weren't for the need to fix the eye crossing before she loses 3D vision.

Now ALL the girls in the house have bifocals!

In non-medical topics:
Here's Iain's 6-year old photo (what a ham!):

And Ria's 3-year photo (in her cool new glasses):

Ria had a mini-birthday party with 2 pre-school buddies:

And here's the boys of the house, doing what boys do once little girls go to bed!

Well, that's the news that's fit to print ;-). Have a Happy Halloween!

Good Evening!

A Thought:

Any rule worth having is worth breaking.

(I've sworn off wine and beer on weekdays as a weight loss strategy. I'm breaking my rule and having a glass of wine. Bad Mommy!)

So, some lovely pictures, like I promised:

Ria's 1st "school" picture:

Iain's birthday party picture....we exploded diet coke with mentos. FUN!

Ria's 1st day at MVPNS (the parent participation preschool)....she looks JAZZZED! With her friend Mary Rose.
Iain quietly hiding in a tree at our camping trip to big basin. Don't know why i picked such a somber photo, but he looks sweet ;-)

Happy September

Yo!

Ok, photos NEXT time....just going to chat a bit while wjr plays with his new Playstayshun 3 ;-).

Iain's in 1st grade, and Ria is starting 2 separate preschools (2.5-3 hours each day). Iain is LOVING 1st grade (they get their OWN DESKS!!!!). Almost no problems so far. We noticed over vacation that Iain does best on days where there is a LOT of physical activity, as though a lack of such causes him to spiral down into the place where he lacks any flexibility or ability to accept that other viewpoints exist. In 1st grade (due to a decision by the district to lengthen the school day for grades 1-3 to allow one bus route) he has ***3*** recesses a day (one at the end of the day). I think the recesses are partly to thank for the problem-free 1st 2 weeks of school (the other part is probably a mix between 1 year older and all the stuff we were doing over the summer). WHEEE!

Ria has been to only 1 of her 2 preschools so far (the one I don't work at....the co-op starts on Tuesday), and she LOVES school and is very proud that she has her own place to go everyday.

Physically, Ria is doing well. Not yet out of the woods, but great improvements all around. Her speech is improving A LOT. She believes in the whole concept of questions and answers maybe 60% of the time, and her enunciation is improving. She frequently goes on binges of refusing to use words for an hour or 2 at a time, but I'm at least imagining that they are reducing in length. Her gross motor skill are improving greatly too....she moves more gracefully, as though she lives "in" her body, rather than at odds with it. She truly seems more comfortable in space and gravity. The severe pronation she developed in her gait wasn't improving with increased foot strength, and she quickly deformed the mere $60 off the shelf orthotics we got her, so she's now in custom made "all foot orthotics" (AFO's) to fix that. She honestly seems to like the way they feel on her feet (YAY!), so we only had to fight about them for the 1st day or 2. Her "core strength" is improving, but still pretty bad, so me and her PT (physical therapist) are going to focus a bit more on that, specifically lower back strength. As for new issues, in October we've got an optometrist appointment as she seems to go cross-eyed when focusing on things in the near field (like books). She seems to be still seeing double (at least a month ago she was pointing about 3/4 inch to the right of what she was trying to point at), so it is unlikely that she is blocking the input from one eye (this is what William does as he has strabismus, i.e., no 3-D vision), at least yet. Her eyes LOOK straight when she looks at mid-field or distant objects, so most likely we'll get this all fixed with just a set of glasses. Finally, in addition to the developmental leaps she's making in the areas we're focusing on, she is (unfortunately) also catching up on some of the more annoying developmental steps that she missed between 18 months and 2.5 years. The whining feature has been turned back on, and the "NO!" explosions are back. Blech!!!

Its funny, in late January when we started our trip to the Aspergers diagnosis, we felt like Iain's issues were going to be so much more overwhelming to deal with (in the current approach people take to it, with therapist appts, etc.) than anything Ria could dish out, but Ria has just blown him away with her more straightforward physical problems. Iain is doing GREAT, and Ria's list of difficulties just seems to get longer and longer. All of it, though, is movement towards the positive. They're BOTH going to get glasses eventually, so getting them at age 3 is just moving the curve up a bit. Speech therapy should be over by December, and the orthotics will hopefully just be a year or 2. Her issues will all have melted away before she hits Kindergarten, whereas Iain's only showed up then.

All in all, we are SOOOOOO much more calm about life than we were 3 months ago. Iain's social skills therapy and Occupational therapy have obviously been helping him, as he is just so much more capable of dealing with unexpected situations. ...and we think we know all of Ria's problems at this point, and progress is being made on all fronts (except the cross-eyed thing, and that's just a month away). We're even starting to make dents in the insurance and paper piles!

OH!
and, Iain turns **6** on Tuesday!!! Whee! We've got a small party planned, and will be exploding 2-liter bottles of diet coke with Mentos (and will be trying Altoids too). This should be way more fun than the non-celebration of OUR birthdays back when we were WAY too overwhelmed this spring!

That's the update.....we'll post a few pictues from our trip to RI/NH/Toronto and our camping trip to Big Basin.....uh....soonish ;-) Just don't hold your breath!

Take care,
Mona and William

Catching up: Our Spring and Summer Visitors

So, in addition to the medical "joys" of the spring, we had LOTS and LOTS of visitors this year! Here's a recap.....But 1st: a darn cute picture of Ria:

First, in late February, Mormor came to visit. We forgot to take a group picture, but this one sums up the visit: Ria attached herself to Mormor and pretty much didn't let go!

Then Eva and I visited Morfar in Chicago for a few days in early March:

Then Alastair, Bev, and cousin Rowan visited later in March:

Then Grandmother was here in early April:

School ended in early June, and 2 days later Iain lost his first baby tooth:

Then in mid/late June, Grandpa John and Julia were here:

Then in early July, my cousin Per, his wife Lena, and their kids Klara and Johan came to visit from Sweden:

Any mention of their visit is incomplete without a reference to how Ria attached herself to Klara for the whole visit. When Ria finally realized that they had left, she cried for 45 minutes for her lost Klara.

A few days later, Yassal, and her girls Nabila and Yasmin stopped by (visiting from Sweden) for a playdate at Rachel's and Josephine's place. (Well, Sven's place too, but he was at work ;-).

And, finally, Jo handed down to Ria some essential fairy gear, and we now have "Fairy Girl", rather than Ria, some days:


A million fabulous pictures aren't here, but at least I'm up to date before our trip east next week!

Update on Stuff

Yo. Pardon if you're reading this and not yet aware of our last few months....

Ria just had her post-surgery (ear tubes/grommets) hearing test today: Excepting the measurement at 500 Hz (which is suspect due to the weight of the ear plug headphone thingies she was wearing during the hearing test), she improved 5-10 dB in her right ear, and 15-30 dB in her left ear, bringing both ears into the expected normal range for young children. Desperate levels of relief were felt by both parents realizing that no permanent damage had occurred.

She is speaking more clearly every day, with longer and more gramatically correct sentences and sharper consonants. We're still doing the intense speech evaluation next week, since those take SO LONG to schedule, but we expect that the round of summer speech therapy that we have already scheduled is probably all she'll need. WHEEE!

We also had a physical therapy appointment today for the 1st time since the surgery, and the PT was VERY IMPRESSED with her improvements in muscle strength and her general initiative in performing the activities/exercises. She is still likely to fall when running, and terrified if she doesn't have strong contact with a stable surface, but its only been 3 weeks....we'll be hitting the park a lot this summer, and doing our PT exercises, and she's going to be moving (and speaking) like a different child by the end of the summer.

Iain is doing fabulously. He faced his 1st swim lesson this week with aplomb, though now he is retroactively freaking out and not wanting to ever take a swim lesson again. He was happy during the lesson, so I'm sure we'll get him back in the pool. Tomorrow he has his 1st social skills group for the summer and on Friday he has his 1st Occupational Therapy appt.

(For those out of the loop, Iain has been diagnosed with mild Aspergers, and Ria's eustachian tubes have probably not ever been particularly open so that her ear drums were always sucked inwards causing thick fluid in her middle ear, hence the ear tubes/grommets.)

Life is starting to feel much more calm around here. Life is good, children are happy, parents are sleeping better now that Ria doesn't have constant ear pain waking her up for 1.5 hours every night, and the tomato plants are growing nicely.

for the fun bits: here's a video of Iain reading to Ria:

And here's Ria singing "Baa Baa Black Sheep" after her surgery. Now we know she's been singing "Baa baa fall asleep, a-ni-mal" all this time! What a revelation!

Post-dated posts alert!

I got you a few more post dated posts!

late January: http://aker-ruck.blogspot.com/2009/01/plumpus-and-umpus.html
and
early February: http://aker-ruck.blogspot.com/2009/02/early-february.html

enjoy!

Early February

Last October we got Iain a proper twin sized bed, and rearranged his room. This is the bed he keeps until he moves out of the house ;-). You can't see the trundle pulled out, but under is another twin mattress, for the pleasure of our guests (and his future sleep-overs). AND, when you pull the trundle out, there's a space under/behind the bed to play "mousie" in....ah, the joy!


We've actually massively re-done Ria's room too, she's out of the crib now, but the pictures I took are already out of date, as we had to move her bed AWAY from the bookshelf, as she was waking herself up 3 times a night to get some "reading" in. Here is the first of MANY photos of Ria falling asleep with a book on her face. Yep, she's OUR kid!

Here's a gang (with stars on their bellies) putting in some new solar powered LED walkway lights.

Not the best photo technically, but they're so cute holding hands!

And, some videos ;-). First we have children cackling while rolling massive therapy balls up and down the stairs. Iain can really make that girl laugh!

And, finally, Ria doing her "funny walk".

Post-dated post notice!

Not VERY post-dated, but check out the 2 posts I just stuck in behind the last one, dated in January.

http://aker-ruck.blogspot.com/2009/01/sleeping-hiking-dancing.html
and
http://aker-ruck.blogspot.com/2009/01/some-new-year-sibling-fun.html

mona

Ugh.

(There's a little voice in my head saying i shouldn't post anything until i get those January pictures up, but i'm ignoring it!)

Ugh. We've had the stomach flu. The one with the 24 hour vomit-fest. Rather, Ria and then Iain have had it. Somehow, in the effluvia-crazed celebration I have managed to avoid it (though i got a cold sore). Right now, however, William is camping out by the toilet. I guess someone had to skip it so that she could clean what feels like every single surface in the house, in some cases 3 times (that was the upstairs bathroom....I only had to scrub Ria's wall and crib rails once, don't know what i'm complaining about!). I was getting all excited this evening, after disassembling both toilets to clean the last vestiges out, about how it was all over, when William informed me that he was feeling kinda queasy.

*sigh*

The Plumpus and the Umpus

A few videos and a picture.....

First we have Iain (with a slightly stuffed nose), demonstrating the use of and describing his new hot glue gun instrument.

Next we have Ria playing the piano, one of those low-brow non-hot glue gun project instruments.

Finally, and most cutely, here is Iain as an Autumn leaf at his class's tree show. There's an overly long video too, and if you visit us here at our house i'll play it for you!

Sleeping, Hiking, Dancing

A few more cute pictures from January:

Ria falling asleep on the couch after a bath:

A family hike:
And Ria mid-twirl with her flashing slippers:

Some New Year Sibling Fun

Ria got a cool playdough octopus set, that both kids adore:

Iain built the full menagerie from the set:

Ria also enjoyed the box, of course:

And here they play with gifts from Christmases past.....Iain showing Ria how to color in the shapes.

Playing with Christmas gifts in the New Year

For Christmas, some of the special gifts Ria received from family and friends were a new dolly (this one is "Baby Dolly", to differentiate it from "Dolly"), and a stroller to push the dollies in. Oh, my, but she's a girl! (By the way, she refuses to wear a jacket outside unless it has a hood to pull up over her head. I don't know why. Our little red riding hood!)


Iain's big gift from William and I was a new bike, as he has outgrown his 12" frame bike. This one is a 16" frame, and we had it delivered with the chain/cranks/pedals removed so that he is starting with it as a balance bike. At first he was quite disturbed, but on his 2nd day trying, after a few adjustments to seat height, he started getting the hang of it.

At this point he's figured out the balancing bit, but he doesn't quite get the bit where you run along the ground, so he needs to start from a slight rise or hill. Have a look at our balancing boy!

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year from the Aker-Ruck clan!


I have a single New Years Resolution: erm, instead of holding off on new posts until i finish up all my back dated posts....I will instead continue on in the present, and when i do a back-dated post i'll let you all know about it with a currently dated post. Eventually I'll get the half done post from Vancouver done, and the 2 birthday posts, and the 2 or 3 posts with really cute pictures and videos from Kindergarten, and the halloweeen posts done! ARGH!

On New Years Eve, I asked Iain what he liked best about 2008, and he said that he liked school best! (So far, so good ;-). He is very excited to be going back to school tomorrow.

Have a lovely 2009!

late night thoughts

W is in bed, sick, asleep, and the munchkins are following suit, just not quite so sick, merely a nagging cough here and there.

Sometimes it almost feels overwhelming to watch Iain and Ria, asleep. I try to imagine the dreams in their heads. Ria is running away, wherever she is, exploring the far reaches of wherever she can get to before I catch up with her. I'm sure she's saying "No, Mamma. No!" Iain is building something, possibly with white PVC sprinkler system pipe (3/4", to be precise, $9 can buy you alot of joy at the hardware store. The extra $10 for the pipe cutter is worth it, by the way.) Possibly a cast iron bridge, or a dome....or maybe he's dreaming that Rachel has built up that stack of newspapers she's promised him so that we can build the newspaper geodesic dome he is hankering to try after watching a PBS Building Big show. (I'm actually dreading the weekend when the stack comes home, shamefully. Its going to take HOURS.)

Their beautiful little child bodies sleep peacefully, their minds exploding and their bodies growing. I wonder who they will be in 1 year, 10 years, 30 years. I wonder who *I* will be, when I grow up. I do know, however, that tomorrow morning they will wake bright and early, and explode with more energy than any 32 or 43 pound being has a right to own. ...and my poor 40 year old body will cry for more caffeine, while watching them, alternately exasperated and amazed.

I'd best get to bed ;-). Just finished Terry Pratchett's "Nation". Wonderful!

(i'll undoubtedly re-classify this as a draft tomorrow night, when i plan to do a little more catch-up on the back dated blog photos, and give it back to y'all once i've caught up....)

Park date with David and Lisa

My old high school buddy, David Bailey, and I shamefully almost never see eachother, even though he lives nearby. We claim young children as our excuse. We did manage it this year, however! The pod on the left is us, and on the right is Dave, his wife Lisa, their son Kelton, and the daughter of a friend of theirs. Their new little twins, Weston and Brennan, were sleeping in their stroller ;-)

1st Day of Kindergarten

My baby boy is in Kindergarten! Check out his nifty lunchbox ;-).

His backpack makes him look so little!

(Hey, look! only 2 months behind!)

Calm before the storm of Kindergarten

Following Tor's visit, we had a few calm weeks before the the leap into our crazy autumn. In just a few short weeks Iain will start Kindergarten and we'll enter the whirling storms of Elementary School.

For now, though, Ria naps:

Ria learns to build...UP. as Iain cheers her on:


Finally, Ria gets a new bed decoration, and the kids celebrate.

Cousin Tor visits!

Iain and Ria's oldest cousin, Tor, visisted in August. He flew on the airplane all by himself, and we all had a wonderful time.

Iain and Tor at the Jungle

Tor and Ria
At the playground:
Thinking big thoughts:
At the Childrens discovery museum

Iain and Tor hiking at Castle Rock State Park


And a family visit portrait!

Home again!

Back home, and the kids enjoy playing on their own turf.

Bubba Iain makes a comfy chair!

And below, you can see how Ria has finally taken to the joy of playdough!
Note the mixed color chunk of playdough she started with on the left, and the resulting new color she made from it. She spent a good 30 minutes saying "ISH" (for "squish"), as she melded the colors quite evenly. Iain named the new color "sink".

England IVb - London with Uncle Tom and Sarah

Finally, on our last day in London (and England), we met up with Uncle Tom and Sarah.

William and Sarah help Ria along as we walk along a London canal looking for an interesting place to eat.

The shot with me in it didn't turn out well, but this one was lovely! Unfortunately, Ria had just hit meltdown, and couldn't be included in the photo. Luckily we'd already got that cute one above with her walking with Sarah and William.

Outside the cafe was the end of one of London's canals..... heh.

England IVa - London w/ David and Delphine

Next we visited David, Delphine, and their little guy Adrien (~ 6 months older than Ria) in London. We blew it and didn't get any photos with David and Delphine, but we got the kids!

Here's the 3 of them building a fort of some type.

Just a cute photo of the 2 boys. Iain really enjoyed playing with Adrien.....just by being a boy, he interacted the way that, I think, Iain wishes Ria would play. You know, the usual run around screaming in circles that boys do. The boys had fun together.

Ria with Bert stuck to her chin

We visited Highgate cemetary, and not too far in we paid homage to this particular resident.

David took this cute video of Iain and Ria walking through the cemetary. 1st Iain takes Ria's hand to help her walk along, then he makes silly noises with his fingers & lips, and if you can see it, Ria copies him and starts doing bub-bub-bub with her fingers and lips too. Then the minute Iain sees that there's a video being taken, he becomes the big guy, too cool to hold his sister's hand. Heh!

Finally, while Ria and Adrien napped, Iain and Daddy built this masterpiece!

England IIIb - Winchcombe still

As for the visit to Guiseley, there are many lovely pictures on Adeline's blog. See her 4 posts from our visit at:
http://martoomanypictures.blogspot.com/2008/07/blog-post_25.html
http://martoomanypictures.blogspot.com/2008/07/winchcombe-visit.html
http://martoomanypictures.blogspot.com/2008/07/visit-to-cotswolds-july-2008.html
and
http://martoomanypictures.blogspot.com/2008/07/last-day.html

The joy of the BALL PIT!

Ria strikes an acrobatic ball pit pose.

Iain winks!
And we're on our way to London.

England IIIa - Winchcombe with Grandmother

Of course, I SAY I'll do fewer picture, but I'm not really capable of that! Between me, and Adeline, and the arrival of lovely SUNSHINE, many photos were taken. This will span 2 posts!

Hanging in the back yard with Grandmother:


At the miniature village at Bourton-on-the-Water:

(this is Iain and Ria in the periscope mirror....its supposed to be turned around so you can see them as monsters in the little village ;-)


A pint and a tea...
and then back to Winchcombe, where Ria indulges in her tendancy to channel Imelda Marcos. Even better when the shoes are BIG and PINK!

A Visit to Guiseley - England II

Oh, goodness.

The last time I put up a bunch of posts in 1 day, the goal was to be able to put up pictures from Iain's 1st day of school....that was 6 weeks ago, and I'm still nowhere near there!

I'm going to have to change my posting style so that I get these things up faster. Its pitiful to still be in July! I'm generally of the "more photos is better" brigade, but I'm going to try to err towards fewer photos, and more timely. But in the meantime, I still have to get from July to October! Engand, Tor's visit, start of school, Vancouver, and Iain's birthday. Lots missing!

That said....after visiting Miles and Margaret, we were off to Guiseley to meet our littlest cousin Rowan! Oh, what a cutie! And we got to see his parents, Alastair and Bev, too!

We appeared to have taken very few pictures in Guiseley, but A&B took lots of LOVELY pictures that are on on Rowan's blog. So, be sure to visit http://rowanspages.blogspot.com/2008/07/visit-from-william-mona-iain-and-ria.html
to see great pictures of our visit to Guiseley.

Here is Iain, Ria and I looking at some ducks:

while cousin Rowan slept in his stroller:


Here is a picture Iain took of Ria and Rowan trying to get out of their baby cage!


And here is the lovely group photo Alastair took just as we were leaving....No, Ria is NOT picking her nose, she is saying "shhhhhh". ;-)

England 1: Visiting with Miles and Margaret

Off to England we go!

The flight over went pretty seamlessly....at least, as seamlessly as a flight can go when its 10 hours long, you are travelling with a 21 month old and a 4.75 year old (Iain was a dream, Ria was a handful), and your kids have slept HARDLY AT ALL before arriving in London at 7am England time (11pm California time). Ria got a 45 minute nap in, and 1.5 hours of night sleep. Iain got in just that 1.5 hours of night sleep.

Then we cleared customs, took the airport train to Paddington station, then a cab to Euston station, then waited 2 hours for our train to Lancaster. It was during this chunk of time that we determined that Ria is a "happy drunk" when she is utterly sleep deprived. Iain is more of a somewhat maudlin, but on the happy side, dude when exhaused. All in all, less painful than we had feared!

During the ~3 hour train ride, Ria (thank heavens!) napped the whole way. (She tried mightily to stay awake, but lasted maybe 3 minutes). Iain gave in for about 10 minutes, but other than that didn't sleep. We got to Lancaster, got picked up at the train station by William's Uncle Miles, and the children proceeded to STAY AWAKE until 7 & 8 pm, respectively (I think...), happily playing and eating and running around and smelling flowers. Their resolve to stay awake when anything remotely interesting is happening around them is truly astounding!

Iain had only 1 bad night while acclimating....Ria had 5 bad nights (this can also be read as: Mona had 5 bad nights). But the days were wonderful!

1st up: Miles' and Margaret's house in Brookhouse, near Lancaster. On our 2nd day, William's dad John, along with Alastair, Bev, and little Rowan, showed up, as well as John's and Miles' cousin Cherry.

Here's Cherry:
Margaret turns out to have "baby magnetism", Ria LOVED Margaret, and would turn to her for a snuggle and a kiss when she got an owie, despite the fact that her not-nearly-so-beloved Mommy was standing right there!

I stole this lovely group photo from Alastair's blog, as I didn't have the forethought to get a group photo myself. Top row: John, Bev, Alastair, Rowan, Cherry, Margaret & Miles. Bottom row: us.

On one end of the table: John, Miles and William.

On the other end of the table (well, tecnically also the next night ;-), is Ria with her best buddy, Margaret, who she had by this time christened "MarMaMa".

Silly Crochet Projects

Doesn't everyone need a crocheted Cthulhu?

Ria is 21 months!

With Eric and Cynthia's camera in hand, we can take Ria's 21 month photos!

I have no clue how tall/heavy she is.....no pediatrician visit until 24 months! ...and now that i have 2 kids, I'm just WAY too forgetful to do those tiny little 1 minute tasks like weigh/measure. 2nd child syndrome. Definately 30-ish pounds, though, and into the 2T clothes, so tall still.

-16 teeth still, 4 to go, but those are still months out. I love the bits inbetween the teething spurts.
-WALKING!!!
-Speaking in 1-word sentances, a noun or a preposition. Generally she labels something, or states what she just did with something ("in", "out", "up", "down"). Pronunciation is good for us, and some other parents, but general folk won't have a clue what she's saying.
-Iain and William have decided that she needs long hair, now that she no longer massages all her food into it. So, this time I just cut her bangs and left the rest. She hates having it put up or held back (hairbands or clips), so it just flops around in her face, mostly.

She's still happy, and he LOVES her Bubba ("Brother")! When she wakes in the morning, and we pull her out of her crib, she shouts "BUBBA", and tries to get out her door to go wake him. We don't let her wake him until 7, though. Unfortunately, she is still up notably before then, most days.

Summer Days at home, & the camera breaks again

The summer is here, and we have a quiet month at home (well, we went camping, but, you know what I mean!). Here is another bath-time, with Ria all poised to make a big stomping splash!

Daddy getting his exercise:

AND! a video thereof:

Right about ......HERE..... you should insert a quiet little [crash]. It wasn't as loud as it should have been, but it indicated that Ria had gotten just that one millimeter taller required to be able to reach the camera stash spot. Possibly the strap was hanging down a bit. In any case, down it came. And, off to Canon it goes (again). Needless to say, it won't be back in time to document our trip to England. Poot! Luckily, Eric and Cynthia lent us their compact digital camera, so we won't be camera-free in the meantime ;-).

Here is Iain and Ribbit (the robot, which he got from Uncle Andy....Ria got a robot from Auntie Eva) having fun at the Childrens Discovery Museum:

Guess who forgot to put the baby gate back up across the laundry room door! Ria LOVES the drier...after this photo she spent DAYS trying to get over/through/under that gate to get back into her cool hidey hole.



SNUG FEST!!