Milestones.

Rachel has largely been a mute child up until this point. She mostly growls and screams. If you were to see her older sisters interact with her, this fact might not surprise you. They seem to think that because she can't talk herself, intelligible speech is wasted on her. We're trying to retrain them. In any case, this week, Rachel started saying "mama" with some regularity. AND, she waves hello and goodbye. Now we just have to work on her weight problem.



We had a major breakthrough with Lily this week. She has been waking up early in the morning with a bang. By bang I mean with blood-curdling, relentless screams for mommy(or daddy, depending on who was nicer to her the night before). We tried to explain to her that when she wakes up, if no one else is awake (as is always the case) she needs to go into the playroom and play quietly until someone else wakes up and can feed her breakfast. We didn't think that was too unreasonable a request for a 2 1/2 year old. Next morning: no change in behavior. So Tim decided to take her out to the garage and fasten her in her car seat until she stopped screaming. She has woken up like a lark ever since. Genius Tim.



Anna is just plain smart. She is constantly sounding out words wherever we go and has taken an interest in math. We think it's great that she is already identifying and magnifying her talents. Now, if we can only get her to put her skills to use by reading to her baby sister instead of growling...