Springtime

It feels more like the first week of summer than the first week of spring here.  I kept waiting for another cold snap, but the only "cool" days for a month now have been highs in the 60s with the rest of the month 70s/80s.  I am loving the weather now that I have allergy medicine!  It's also been nice since the time change to be able to have time for long walks again with the boys after work.

Malcolm is cutting his first teeth.  First one was top outside right, and two days ago I felt another one breaking through, top outside left.  Unless some other teeth come through quickly, we'll have a little vampire baby.  (At least that would make him trendy.)  He has said his first syllables in the last few days, and they are "da-da-da."  So Mike's already the favorite!  He is surprisingly agile from his stationary sitting position, reaching out to grab everything in sight, although he can't really scoot anywhere to get it yet.  I've noticed him roll front to back once or twice, but he doesn't know he can do it so if he gets stuck on his tummy, it's like the opposite of a turtle flipped on its back.  He loves to jump in the exersaucer and he watches absolutely everything that Michael does.

Michael is still having fun with letters and words.  I don't have a good picture but the first thing he does in the morning is run over to the refrigerator and start arranging letters.  Sometimes he pulls them out to independently make words like "box" or "hot" but not usually - it's mostly just random letters in long Scrabble-like lines.  He can recognize, I would estimate, easily around 50-60 sight words but even though he knows the phonics sounds I don't think he really sounds anything out, just has learned them.  He also is learning new signs (for "seasons" and "outside") since Mike got another set of Signing Time DVDs.  Still working on sentences longer than two words.  I have had a few mini-conversations with him that did not consist of just him repeating, though.   My favorite one was when I told him we could get doughnuts for the St. Patrick's Day parade and he thought a moment and then said "Y chicken? Y french fries?"  (Just like he never says "yes," only "si," he never says "and," only "y.")  So anyway.  Chicken and french fries.  For the record, that's not what we serve for breakfast around here!!

I'm going to crib a couple of pictures from Theresa's Facebook page from St. Patrick's Day.  Malcolm tried to eat Theresa (as is his custom for people he likes :) and later he sat in a restaurant high chair for the first time.  Michael was so happy to see Amanda and T that night after not seeing them for awhile, he actually kept yelling (and signing) "Happy!"  It was pretty neat.