From The Normans: Lions, Trees, Stairs, and Leaves

It's been a nice week here. Something seems to have clicked with Dexter, and he's been chipper and polite and generally pleasant to hang out with all week. Except after watching videos on his IPad. Which we have since disallowed, because grumpy = no fun. Erin has been testing the limits of her standing skills and will, if she finds herself in the middle of the floor with nothing to hold on to, take three or four steps before falling back to the ground. She's currently got a cold and cannot breathe through her nose, which means she's not been sleeping very well. But she's still fun to hang out with.

We had really nice weather one day this week so I raked up our paltry supply of leaves in to a tiny pile for Dex to jump in to. Our maple trees JUST turned this week, and the pear trees haven't really turned yet, and I dunno what happened to the oak tree leaves. Today we had lots more leaves and John raked and blew and sucked up a bunch of them. We played in them a little bit, but it was way warmer a few days ago.

Wednesday for swimming the sun was BRIGHT. Not a damn cloud in the sky. And the sun shines in the window differently now that the time has changed. Yet another reason for me to shake my fist and growl at the time change thing. All that combined meant that Dexter did not swim. Erin swam. She had a lovely time for an hour, swimming in the deep end and walking in the shallow end and playing with the fountains. But Dex? Nah. So we decided maybe it was time for a little intervention. The whole family went to the pool at 9AM today, armed with M&M's. And I don't know if it was all the million other kids, or that there was just a skim of clouds that made the sun spots not quite so bright. Whatever the reason, Dexter was fantastic. No M&M's needed. He swam all over the pool. Underwater. Directly under the sun spots. It was fun, and I was proud of him. I think we're planning on going again in the morning if the sun is shining bright.

We went this afternoon to tag a tree and to play at the farm a bit. It's been a fun day. I am tired.

Here's a video of Erin climbing the stairs. All you have to do is ask "Do you want to go upstairs?" and she drops everything and books it for the steps.

Here's a video of Erin walking behind her lion walker. She finally figured it out yesterday. You still have to stand her up behind it, or she will just crawl and push it in front of her.

And here a few billion pictures