Sunday in the Park

Madeline's steps get stronger every day. We spent a beautiful afternoon last weekend in the park, practicing walking, playing football, swinging like Superman, and sliding.

Wonderful Wizards

In the past week there's been a class cookout, a field trip to the Burke Farm Pumpkin Patch, and a "potty cake" to celebrate the fact that all of the Wizards are now officially potty trained. Ms. Nathalie hung pull ups from the ceiling and bestowed upon the last hold-out's mother the "potty cake" mold—a horseshoe shape to be frosted in white and filled with tootsie rolls for an afternoon treat. The kids, as one can imagine, thought this hilarious, as did the parents.

Abra's annual field trip to the pumpkin patch was great. Patrick is now going down the big slides all by himself, and it was so much fun to watch him run up the hill to the top of the line with his little carpet piece tucked under his arm. Patrick takes sliding so seriously it seems like his job—I watched him go down one of the big slides probably 35 times. On the hayride, no one was particularly scared, but everyone certainly enjoyed screaming at the top of their lungs. And watching all of the Wizards compare and share lunches during "the picnic part" was a real treat.

They are an unusually sweet group of kids, teachers, and parents. I got a little sniffly yesterday thinking that they can't be together, like this, forever.

Baby Steps

We watched in amazement as Madeline took her first steps on Sept 27, but in the past two days she has been almost constantly on the move—on her feet! With the new teeth and new form of locomotion she seems almost like a different kid, and certainly is looking less like a 'baby' every day. Madeline is quite pleased with her new abilities, and keeps careful attention on her feet as she propels herself around the house. Lest we all get too impressed though, Patrick is ready to remind us "I'm really good at walking too."

I still love Madeline's incredibly purposeful crawl, and hope she'll hang onto that for a little while longer. Every morning she can't wait to crawl down the hallway into Patrick's room to wake him up. She giggles and squeals the entire way, and can barely contain her delight when she catches her first glimpse of her beloved big brother.

Weekend at Home

The weather was fantastic, and we spent a lovely, busy weekend in Alexandria with Gran T last weekend, hitting playgroup, a "petting zoo" birthday party, a UVA/Princeton lacrosse exhibition game (in which our much-adored neighbor David played with his Alexandria little-league lacrosse team during halftime), and co-hosting the Wizards' barbecue on Sunday. The highlights of the weekend included refereeing a Patrick/Madeline wrestling match, watching all of Patrick's classmates tackle the Wizard dads in a crazy game of backyard football, and seeing a guinea pig wearing a cowboy hat riding a miniature horse named Captain Jack Sparrow.