What a Cutie!

Daniel finally started crawling forward. Granted, it's an army crawl, but he's exercising those abs and practicing getting up off his tummy. He's a real machine when we put him on the floor and he sees something he wants (usually David's toys or the vertical blinds).



One day David got out some toys in the family room. Daniel saw them and crawled over to investigate. We've told David if he doesn't want Daniel to play with his toys then he needs to pick them up and move them, so when Daniel came over, David dutifully picked up the toys and moved over several feet. Daniel followed, so he moved again, and pretty soon they were on the other side of the house, and although I found it quite funny, David was getting rather annoyed. :)

I also had the fun opportunity to drive down to Charleston, SC to visit my brother Preston and his family for Easter weekend. The drive is 4 hours. Not too bad, but both ways Daniel reached his limit around 3.5 hours. I arrived Thursday afternoon, and David had lots of fun playing in the back yard with his cousins. He especially liked the treehouse Preston built, and the trampoline. Friday we went to downtown Charleston. You'd think after all those trips growing up to show visitors that I'd be sick of it, but on the contrary, I absolutely love going there. For the most part I can't tell all the streets and alleyways apart, so every visit is like seeing it for the first time all over again. Every visit I also think about how much I'd love to get a particular painting of the ocean waves pounding the Battery, or one of the Gullah sweetgrass baskets. Someday I will. We ended our downtown tour with a visit to the waterfront park and let the kids wade in the Pineapple Fountain. David thought it was a blast, and got thoroughly soaked.



That night Preston and Suzy also committed to watching some friends' kids for a date-night swap, so we had three more boys ages 6(?), 3, and 6 months, on top of Preston and Suzy's 6-,4-,and 2-y/o kids and my 3-y/o and 7-month-old. Needless to say, we had a zoo. It was fun though. We built a bonfire in the back yard and roasted hotdogs and marshmallows and drank hot cocoa. The kids ran around wildly for hours and hours. Little Benjamin, the other baby, was having a rough night though and was inconsolable as far as Suzy and I could tell. Nothing either of us did seemed to keep him happy. David came in while he was fussing, sat by him and pat his head and rubbed his back and said, "It's okay baby, it's okay." And to our amazement, the little lad calmed down and went to sleep! David really has such a tender heart. He's just as concerned with Daniel and takes good care of him.

When I got home Saturday afternoon I put Daniel down in the family room to play and enjoy being out of the carseat. Nathan and I were talking in the kitchen, and soon became aware that Daniel was chuckling about something. We peeked around the corner and saw him playing with one of those plastic links that came with his Little Einstein play gym. He would hold it for a bit, then drop it on the floor and laugh as it wobbled around before settling on the floor. He did it over and over and chuckled all the way. We caught the tail end of it on video: