News and notes about the two demon children

Item! Mia started school yesterday, and it was much like last year: the instant she saw all the people, she didn't know me. "Daddy Who?" is her mantra. There are far too many other people to worship her, after all! Her teachers were very happy to see her (they did see her at Open House last week, but this was different) and she had a grand day, apparently, much like she always does. As I mentioned here, we're hoping that being around the kids will make her more willing to work in her gait trainer. Her PT returns tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes. We're also hoping that her continued improvement with language gets a boost from being back at school. She can count the students now, after all. Who doesn't like to count the students?

Item! Norah is slowly working her way toward full mobility. Yesterday afternoon I was sitting with Mia in my lap on the chair and Norah was playing on the floor. She enjoys emptying the toy box, throwing the toys everywhere, but not actually playing with any of them. She had done this quite a bit in the morning, so when she started doing it again in the afternoon, I pointed out to her that she had quite a few toys scattered around and perhaps she should play with those. She took a Lego™ piece out and stood calmly for a few seconds gnawing on it. She was in the middle of the floor with no means of support, and she very slowly took about 4 steps sideways toward me. Usually, when she takes steps, it's because we're sitting on the floor and we put her a few steps away from us and she takes a few steps and then crashes into our arms. But yesterday I wasn't anywhere near her and she was trying to walk and stay erect without crashing into my arms - because, you know, I wasn't anywhere near her. After her fourth step she shuffled a bit and then sat down, but it was very cool to see her doing it in space, completely on her own. We tell her it's much more fun to cause mischief with both hands instead of always using on to support herself against the cabinets, but she hasn't figured that out yet. If the possibility of two-handed terror isn't enough to motivate her, what is????

Item! We got professional pictures taken on Saturday for their birthdays, since Norah's wasn't too long ago and Mia's is coming up. They haven't gotten photos taken since Christmas, and that was with the whole family. I figured Sears wouldn't mind if I stole the pictures and posted them here, would they?

Here's a nice close-up of Mia. Norah would not let us take her close-up. In fact, it was hard keeping her from crying the whole time because she couldn't cling to Mommy throughout the session.


Here's one shot of them together. It took forever to get it, because of the aforementioned crying one-year-old.


Here's Mia alone. We liked this one better than the other one of this pose even though she's a wee bit tilty in this one. Her smile is nicer in this one, and she looks a bit more relaxed.


We had a couple of different poses for this, too. Mia looked better in the other one, but Norah looked worse in that one than Mia does in this one. Mia looks fine, she's just not looking directly at the camera. In the other one, Mia looked right at the camera and had a great smile, but Norah looked truly miserable.


Norah got a lot happier once Mia and Daddy left the room and she could stare longingly at Mommy.


We decided to get an "official" one-year-old photo since Krys never got around to scheduling a session when she turned one. Yes, I blame my wife. She's in charge of those sorts of things, because I would just take pictures with my own camera!


So there are the latest photos of our children. You cannot deny they are the cutest in the world!!!!