Walking and Talking

It's official.  Ruben took his first steps.  I can't pinpoint the exact day he took his first step but by this past Saturday 9.10.11 he was pretty good with one to two steps.  Yesterday he took four steps, so we're bracing ourselves.  I'm amazed by this kid's strength.  This morning while I was getting dressed he took a breakfast tray with handles that are nearly the width of his arm span and dead lifted it nearly to standing.  He didn't quite make it, but standing in the middle of the room without a breakfast tray is easy-peasy.  Papa and Dad played with both kids in the backyard on Saturday, and they taught Ruben how to walk behind a little pushcar.  He can get that little car moving even in the grass although he has to be careful when he transitions from grass to driveway.  He doesn't know his own strength.

Tooth #2 came in last week as well and his first top tooth is aching to come out.  This weekend his entire gum was practically black and blue in the outline of a tooth.  Either he banged it against something or his gum is rebelling against this new invader.

Did I mention he also really likes to climb up the slide?

On another front, June's vocab has sky-rocketed and she's experimenting with language in new and humorous ways.  This morning it was sprinkling so I was singing "It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring. He went to bed, and he bumped his head and he couldn't get up in the morning." June looks at me with all seriousness and says, "Papa not get out of bed.  He still sleeping." Sorry Papa.  That makes you the old man.  

We're also getting whole stories of her life now.  If you ask her what she did today she'll tell you.  The story is about 60% understandable if you spent most of the day with her and about 20% understandable if you didn't.  Some of the misunderstanding comes from her actual speech which is not terribly understandable at times, but a lot of it comes from perspective.  Why she chooses certain moments of the day to highlight is beyond me.  Life from the perspective of a two year old is very different than the perspective of a 28 year old.  

We are also entering the stage of life where June has memorized every book we read.  We read a board book tonight called Planes (a gift to Ruben from the Fay cousins).  I can't remember reading this to June in the recent past - maybe a month ago at best.  One page talks about a plane that writes messages in the sky.  I skipped reading the message the plane had written, but before I finished turning to the next page, June had stopped me and said, "drink milk" which is exactly what the plane wrote in the sky.  Yikes! What a memory.  When we read her Rhyme Bible, she can finish nearly every sentence of her favorite stories.  Her favorites, by the way, are the "baby ones" that include "take the baby from the water, Moses" and "Clip Clop, Baby Jesus" - the Jesus one is told from the perspective of the fuzzy brown donkey, hence the clip clop. She also has to find her own story in the bible which can be quite a process and she is only allowed the privilege on nights when we are feeling patient.