Rhiannon at 11 month; Joaquin at 4 years

Rhiannon took about 2 weeks of hesitant steps and, at 10.5 months, began walking all over the place.  Now that she can move herself, she has no patience for being indoors.  If I open the door, she is making her way outside while Joaquin is in begging to watch another show of some kind.  His favorite right now is Pinky  Dinky Doo and even when he's not watching the show, we are playing Pinky Dinky Doo on our own.  In these instances, he insists we call him Tyler, I get to be Pinky, and Rhiannon is Mr. Guinea Pig. This show emphasizes language and story structure, so our already verbose 4 year old has added great words like decay, tenacity, unique, gracious, and cacaphony correctly to his repertoire. 

Joaquin has also been very interested in death and what killing means lately and has lots of questions and ideas about it.  A convergence of factors, starting with a Lola on Gideon's side dying and us going to the wake and really reaching a height with my own Grandmother dying and me being sad about it.  He sits behind me, pulls me back so I am 'leaning' on him and says, "I am holding you so you aren't sad about Great Grandma Anathlee."  It is very sweet, which is great because the moods change in such an extreme way.  He has a memory like an elephant, so doesn't release things and he is extremely particular.  With just about every new toy, we can expect a total melt down as the toy does not act in some way that he imagined it. 

What we are not seeing from Joaquin is jealousy towards his sister...which is great, because his sister is totally jealous.  If there is something going on, she wants to be a part of it.  If I am holding Joaquin, she will literally try push herself between us.  If that doesn't work, she'll want to eat to get in as close as possible.  She's also gotten a bit clingy and now needs some warm up time in strange places or with strange people.  Still an easy going, laid back baby, but not as much as Joaquin.  She definitely has an opinion as to what she is doing and will share it. 

Summer is in full blast here and we are in the middle of birthdays and about to start evening concerts.  It's delicious and things really seem to be in place.