Frankenstein in a Sun Hat

Marin started walking, what, a week ago. That video of her up, down and all around was the start of it. She hasn't quit. She walks slower than she crawls, but if she wants to get somewhere, she puts in the effort - rolls onto her feet, sticks her butt up in the air and springs to attention. She's a walker now. Still a drunken walker, but a walker nonetheless. Actually, the "drunken sailor" image doesn't quite do it justice. She's a Frankenstein walker. Straight legs, stiff knees, swaying side-to-side. But she's proud of what she's doing ... Oh so proud! And she's still doing laps. Practicing, as we call it.

Tonight I was playing around with Marin and Silje trying to get them to wear a hat of Ailey's. Hat on ... hat off. Hat on ... hat off. That's how it goes with babies, right? Then Marin decided wearing the hat was what she wanted to do. Forget sharing with her sister, or even her mom. Wear the hat, walk laps. Sheesh. What's cuter than a baby in a too-big hat?!

And a video of it, of course:

Ailey's Sleeping Bag

Ailey's bedtime is 8:00pm, but lately (the past month or so) she hasn't been falling asleep right away like she's almost always done. That means we've spent the past month or so tweeking rules and the way her room is set-up to at least get her to stay in bed until she does fall asleep.

The #1 rule remains the same: Stay in bed! But now we've added
#2: Don't turn on your room light
#3: No going into Mom and Dad's room
#4: No shaking pom-poms - they're too loud
#5: Turn off your new bedside lamp when you're done reading
(We don't actually have these rules printed up or anything, and if we ask Ailey what the rule is at bedtime she repeats only #1. The others have been repeated a few times though.)

The new bedside lamp was to encourage her to stay in bed and read instead of getting out of bed, turning on her room light, and sitting in her chair to read books. It's worked for rules 1-4, if not for helping her fall asleep sooner. Ailey has always been well occupied by books, so usually she falls asleep reading, books everywhere. I find books surrounding her and even under her.

But sometimes she finds other creative ways to fall asleep. Like snuggling up on her bear chair (see "Sleepy Ailey" post from 12/16/08). Or sleeping in my bed (we didn't hear a thing!). And twice now we've found her snuggled into her pillowcase. The first time I went in to check on her and saw this position I think I actually laughed out loud. Good thing she's a hard sleeper. It wasn't until the next day that she was telling me about her new "sleeping bag". Last night we found her in her "sleeping bag" again and remembered to take a picture.

A Vicki Dress

Ailey, Marin and Silje have clothes. And then they have "Aunt Vicki clothes". Aunt Vicki loves to find fantastic clothes for the girls, usually dresses. Ailey LOVES her Aunt Vicki Dresses. Today we went to our neighbor's birthday party. When I told Ailey she could wear a party dress she immediately picked one of the dresses she got for Christmas: the ultimate Vicki Dress! It's a great dress for twirling, so we took a video of Ailey twirling and curtsying. Don't forget to watch the video, Aunt Vicki!

If At First She Don't Succeed ...

... Marin will Try and Try Again! Holy Cow, this girl is hilarious. Today Marin decided, in the space of about 60 seconds, that she could stand up and walk. Since Christmas Day she has "officially" been taking steps. ("Cruising" has been going on for a long time.) After a few days of obligingly walking when we would stand her up and let go, she lost interest and would usually just fall to her knees and crawl where ever. However, today something clicked and now she can't get enough of her new skill - or skills - stand up, walk, fall down, stand up, walk, fall down, stand up ... over and over and over....

I was doing my usual torture of standing her up and trying to coax her into taking those few steps. She was having fun with it, then we both all of a sudden realized she had just stood up on her own, i.e. not using furniture or a person to push up on. She was very proud, as she always is when she stands-no-hands, and she continued for about the next 15 minutes to "practice" standing up, then walking. She did this obsessive thing when she first learned to sit herself up. I think I have a video of that comedy too - sit-up, hands-and-knees, sit-up, hands-and-knees, over and over and over....

This latest Marin comedy had Ailey and me cracking up - imagine the "drunken sailor" and you'll get the picture. Better yet, watch the video: (a 3 minute video, but how better to see how repetitive and obsessive it was!)

Even funnier was at the end of those 15 mintues of "practice", when she was so tired out all she could do was stand up, fall down, stand up, fall down. After a bit of rest and some dinner she was able to perform for Andy when he got home. Good girl!

And not to leave Silje out, she is a super-fast crawler so we were expecting her to keep doing that for a while longer. But maybe Marin has inspired her, or maybe it's just her time too, because the past couple days she has been taking a few steps of her own: (a short 5 second video)

Jumping Beans

These babies make me laugh! I think they were excited about the New Year....