Every day is a great day for screaming and playing, screaming and crawling, screaming and cuddling and screaming. The girls express their feelings, all of them, with yelling. Why do I feel like there is a scientific study out there that I should have read about baby screaming. That said, the girls are hitting their milestones with aplomb. B crawls and pulls herself up to standing, but can’t necessarily get back down. Today, she climbed onto her booster seat which was on the living room floor. After awhile, when she wanted to get back down and I wouldn’t help her, she lowered her butt slowly and carefully into the midair in front of the chair and dropped herself. She landed like a fine rubber baby, and started blubbering. I said, “come over here and get a hug, little one.” So she started crawling over to me, laughing like a silly rabbit. Big faker.

C is perfecting the wounded soldier crawl. She favors her right arm and shoulder at all times. Meaning, when it is time to crawl, she scrapes along the carpet on her left elbow like a wounded soldier. If her destination is a far distance, she will try to angle herself perpendicular to her target and then roll all the way there. The only problem with that is that she doesn’t recalibrate once the launch sequence has been initiated and sometimes winds up far from where she intended to go. I think her big belly knocks her off course.

B has turned full-bore needy. Gotta have daddy, gotta be picked up, gotta be carried, gotta get attention, gotta hear somebody say “good girl.” C is still a little bit stuck in her own world if you let her. We get her out and make her laugh though. C is a terrific little giggler. But we have to watch it or she goes over the edge and gets hysterical, and yes, then the screaming with all its joy and anger.

Well, we will need prayer and courage this week. The mysterious skin condition has finally surged to the fore, not to be silenced without another fight. B has a slew of tiny bumps on her belly which coincide nicely with the colder weather/ warmer clothing combo. A remnant of the fungal infection she brought home from Ethiopia, no doubt. So into the fray we go again, bathtimes, ointments, laundry and isolation.

At least they’re cute.

Fidelle