And We're Off...

Well, it's official: Lucas is a crawler. His inch worm style belly crawl has given way to a more traditional hands and knees crawl, although for whatever reason he keeps his left leg tucked under his butt, letting the right leg do all the work. It's actually very similar to what we called Ellie's "limp crawl" when she first started out this phase. I think in the next day or two he'll realize that he can get around more quickly using both legs. For the time being though, it's getting him where he needs to go (which is no where in particular) and it's giving us something to chuckle at. Even though he can get around fairly easily, he is still not in much of a rush (he usually takes a few sitting breaks along the way) and he's very easily distracted.
Mike Mangos and Lucas

Our little guy has also been trying his hand (haha) at a few finger foods this past week. He has been eating Puffs and Cheerios for a while, but now we introduced sweet potato, avocado, banana, pear and other soft foods, all of which he gobbles up. We have also given him some meat (chicken and turkey) that he also enjoyed. This boy is not going to be a picky eater at all - he seems to love everything. I am trying not to count my chickens though.

Ellie has officially begun the countdown to her third birthday. Ever since she went to her friend Mateo's birthday party in February, she has been ridiculously excited about her own birthday. For months now she has been talking about the kind of cake she'd like (currently she wants both cake AND cupcakes because she can't decide), where she wants her party (at the playground) and who she'd like to be there (pretty much just Sara Jane - who will be on vacation and not at her party. urgh). She tells everyone that will listen that her birthday is "June Firtith."

We have been using this opportunity to try to teach her about months, seasons and days, but we also marked everything by "the next birthday" - meaning we listed all the birthdays that had to pass before it was hers (it's Mommy's birthday, then Tom and Scott's then - blah, blah - Oma's and then Ellie's). Well, now that we've passed Oma's birthday, she knows that her birthday is on the horizon and the excitement has ramped up a notch. If that's even possible. Almost daily we get a "Is it my birthday today?!" It's getting to the point where I am starting to feel a lot of pressure about making this birthday amazingly fun. How can it possibly live up to these expectations?! I know that she'll probably be thrilled just to get to eat some cake, but this child is REALLY excited about her birthday and we want it to be as exciting for her as she thinks it will be. Guess we'll find out in two more weeks!