We've kind of been back and forth between indoor and outdoor play of late. Here we were saying good-bye to one of our last moving boxes, which had morphed into a toy, but was finally just too bedraggled to keep around. We had lots of fun with it though, proving once again that no matter how much you spend on toys, the free box is tops. There is one more left now and it's on its last legs, as it is caving in, having most recently served as a diving platform (feet first only of course) for both boys.

Outside, we were thrilled to discover clusters of crocuses in bloom when we went out last week. I think being snowed on just makes them more vibrant. Daniel even got in on the excitement repeating "purple, purple" after Edward and I took an inventory of color. Now he points at a lot of things (purple and otherwise) and says "purple" but still, it's fun to hear these emerging words. He's also saying "thank you" or a version of it that sounds like "day-doo!" I remember Ed doing this and it's no less cute the second time around! The other recent addition to the vocabulary is "milk." He's been signing milk for some time now, but over the weekend he was squeezing his hand for the sign and started saying something like "mek, mek." It took us a couple of beats to realize what was happening, but we were pretty excited once we caught on.

Things kind of went downhill for Daniel as the weekend drew to a close however. He had a cough/congestion and was not sleeping well. We did two nights of this before I decided he should see the doctor on Tuesday. I was waiting for the nurse to return my call and schedule an appointment when Daniel's teacher called to report that he had refused to eat breakfast so they took his temp (what other reason could there be for him not eating?) and it was over 100. At the doctor, no surprise, they discovered an ear infection and prescribed Augmentin since he'd been on Amoxicilin so recently. Let's hope this knocks it out. We really don't want to start a pattern of one after another. The only silver lining is that this happened now and not two weeks from now when we're headed out to Phoenix!

The boys got a surprise package in the mail last week. Gram sent two new books--hooray! One is poems and the other is classic fairy tales like "Little Red Riding Hood," "The Three Little Pigs," and "The Gingerbread Man." Edward loves them! And we're quite pleased as well as each story is relatively short and he's satisfied with two or three before bed. Everybody wins.



We are only 10 days away from our Walk for Babies with the March of Dimes, and I have to say there is virtually no chance that the boys will make it with us for the whole route. I've been out with the stroller a few times in the last week, and I must report that 60 pounds of boy really slows the pace and strains the back/legs/etc. (Daniel weighed in at 27 pounds at the doctor yesterday and Edward usually measures 33 when he plays on our bathroom scale.) Edward can walk some, but I would say it is likely that they will spend the bulk of the walk in the park with Gram and PopPop, weather permitting. Not a bad trade for either pair.