Sentence update; pool time; recall

I just wanted to touch on three things today: for starters, that Max is starting to speak in sentences. Two weeks ago, he came out with his first two sentences. First, when Holly and Leo came to pick us up at gymnastics, she stopped by to say hi, and then went back to the car to get the lunch that she had brought. Max couldn't see her and said "Where'd Mommy go?". His second sentence came in bed the next morning when I was arguing with Holly over whether she or I should have the first shower of the day. Max looked at me and said "Daddy go have shower". Excited again, but sad that I'd been tag-teamed. And also that I probably smelled.

The next thing I wanted to mention was that Holly got to take Max to swimming for the first time in months and months on Remembrance Day. Holly and I have had a lot of brutal classes in the pool with Max, so it was finally nice to repay her for all of her rough times with a pleasant experience in the pool with a munchkin who wanted to be there. Leo really enjoyed his first trip to the pool - he spent all his time with me in the ring sling and had so much to look at. He was very content to chew/suck/slurp on his hands and my hands and arm until Mommy and Max were all changed. I suppose we're going to consider getting him in the pool as early as February or March...although that might be a little tricky logistically as Max is not old enough to go parentless in the pool. I still think it will be worth it though.

The last thing I wanted to touch on was a parent's powers of recall. Back when I used to work on a survey of children where we talked to parents about their children's developmental milestones and experiences, I always found it weird that a person would have recall issues surrounding things like first steps, first time sitting up, first time crawling etc. Now, I realize it's a lot harder to hold on to those things in your memory than I thought. Granted, my memory is nothing to write home about, but I just figured that those milestones would just pop out at you and be indelibly etched on my brain. It turns out that because a) the milestones keep right on coming, b) there's a whole second set of them to note when #2 comes along and c) family=brain clutter, it's pretty hard to keep track of all of that stuff. I always felt like the blog would serve as a nice posterity piece for the kids to have and read, but I never realized that I'd want to look back at it for information...less than 2 years after starting it :) We've already consulted it to see how the swaddle-stopping went for Max and when Max got moved into his crib...things that have helped us move Leo to the next phase.

Tonight, Max took the first step in decorating his room. He has taken to reading some of our magazines and for some reason, latched on to this picture from one of my Sports Illustrateds from last month. We asked him if he wanted to put it on his wall and boy did he get excited. It will be interesting to see how long it stays there without getting ripped or something.


While I'm at it, I might as well post a video of what it looks like when Leo is under his mobile. Apparently, Holly indirectly convinced multiple parents in her play group to get the same mobile. Maybe the company will send us some coupons.