Adria doesn’t cry that much any more, at least not in earnest, so I suppose there haven’t been many data points recently.  But yesterday I had Austin sitting up on the floor playing with a toy, and I started rough-housing with Adria a bit.  We were wrestling and she was climbing on me, and then I caught her between my knees and started squeezing her as fathers do.  She started yelling in mock anguish, and I was kind of chuckling at her antics, and then suddenly Austin lost it.  I thought he was laughing at first, but when I looked over he had the most pained expression on his face, and he started wailing like I rarely hear from him.  It took me a long time to get him calmed down…and in the end, I had to ask Adria to act silly to cheer him back up.  It was both sad and fascinating at the same time…I still can’t believe how much he hinges on her.

Later in the evening, Austin really needed a nap.  He fell asleep on my shoulder, and I set him down in his bouncer to sleep for a few minutes.  As luck would have it, Adria picked that moment to throw a tantrum in the other room (about getting her own hand soap from the dispenser, if you must know).  I moved her into the master bedroom and closed the door, and she started doing her wailing tantrum thing.  I went back to the kitchen to check on Austin, and I discovered that every time Adria would wail, Austin would get a pouty face (in his sleep!).  She went on long enough that her cries started to wake Austin up, and eventually he started crying in distress as well.  I think that was the crowning moment of my President’s Day holiday home with the kids.  

Austin was never able to sleep, and only got a 5-minute nap or so.  Sigh.

This is actually the second post called “belly sleeping,” and that was an accident until the blog warned me.  Adria started sleeping on her belly at almost exactly 6 months…it took Austin another 3 weeks to make the switch.  Looking back, I notice that Adria was only wearing a cotton sleeper, since it was late June.  Austin is still wearing his blanket sleepers, so that might have slowed him down a bit (although, it certainly doesn’t stop him from rolling when he’s in the middle of the floor).

Adria and the dog she drew

When I asked her what it was, she quickly replied, “It’s a dog.”  Well of course it is.  

A little while later, after she had gone elsewhere to play for a while and then came back, she stopped back by her drawing and decided to count his legs…and correctly came up with 7.  This didn’t faze her a bit.  ”Daddy, this dog has seven legs!”  

I took a bunch of videos of the jumping, trying to capture a good few seconds. These are not the best that I have, but they are the best compromise between audio and video. Play these two in sequence…watch Austin bounce, and listen to my scientist daughter experiment with adding a little bit of milk to her glass of water (with my blessing):

For posterity, here’s a photo of the milk-mixing experiment:

Adria pouring a little of her milk into her water

We are very open and honest with Adria.  When she asks us a question, we answer it, as best we can.  We certainly try to phrase things in a way that we think she can understand (verbally, emotionally, and intellectually), and we often round the hard edges off of some of the more poignant answers…but we give her the truth.  A lot of times, the answers come down to money, and I’m not afraid to teach her at this age that things cost money, and money doesn’t come easy.  Here’s a typical dialog:

“Ok, Adria, I put your flower in a vase and I’m setting it right here on your dresser.  This flower is for looking at, but not for playing with.”
“Why can’t I play with it, Daddy?”
“Because the vase is fragile, and if you drop it, it will break.  We don’t want that.”
“Why don’t we want that?”   (sigh)
“If the vase breaks, then we won’t have it anymore.  If we need a new one, we’d have to go spend some of our money on it.”

Without being too materialistic, we’ve had lots of talks about money.  How everything we get is a trade of some kind, and usually we trade money, and we have to work for our money, and our work is a trade of money for us doing something useful for someone.  Now, frequently when we get into the car with Adria, she’ll get started with a dialog like this:

“Daddy, someday, when I get bigger and bigger and bigger, I’m going to get my own work, and my own white house, and my own white car…and then I can come pick you guys up, and take you to my house!”

Tonight as we were driving, she gave us this same speech.  I asked her what she was going to do at her job (a sly way of asking what she wanted to be when she grew up).

“Adria, what are you going to do at your work?”
“It will be my work.”
“Right, but what will you do there?  Remember, you have to do something useful to someone so that they will give you money for your work.  What will you do at your work to get money?”
“Ummmmm…there will be a drawer full of money at my work and I will take some out!”  

Amanda and I chuckled about this for a while.  Amanda whispered, “Now why didn’t I think of that?”  We both think that we’re in the wrong profession, if there are places out there where you just go in, take some money out of the money drawer, and then go home.  Eventually, between the snickers, we managed to give her the idea about what we meant (we even mentioned banking, but stressed that you couldn’t just take the money in those drawers  )…she finally settled on a train engineer (i.e. driver).  Presumably, a train with a drawer full of money.  

My favorite moment, of course, is around 45 seconds.

(And then he degenerates into a coughing fit…)

Austin enjoying the soft blanket on the soft grass

Staring up at me, blue sky in his eyes

Rolling over to play with the grass

There are a couple of major allergies that I worry about.  Milk, wheat, peanut, egg, shellfish, grass…  This was a pretty gentle introduction to the grass.  He was mostly covered in clothes, and he was pretty ginger with it at first.  No ill effects.  Incidentally, Amanda says that with all of the peanut butter she ate while nursing Austin, she finds it hard to believe that he could be allergic to peanuts.

Here's looking at you...

...looking at me

As you can see, she’s getting quite good at holding the camera.  She looks at the image on the back to aim it, and presses the shutter without moving it too much.  More recently than this photo, I’ve taught her how to hold it with two sets of thumb and index finger, so that she doesn’t block the flash or lens.