Bumps and Bruises

It has been very interesting learning to be a family. Most of what family is comes naturally to us. But we are still learning the ins and outs of our kids, their personalities, needs, etc.

Michael continues to show us more of his personality every day. He is ALL BOY. I absolutely love watching him run. He holds his arms high and moves them twice as fast as his legs are moving. He loves running around the house, jumping down the stairs, being chased, being tickled. He also loves helping with his little sister. He moves things out of her reach, gets her bottle for her, gives her toys. And he LOVES giving her hugs and kisses. Yesterday he was a little wild giving her kisses and bit her in the midst of kissing her. He has had several time outs in the last 2 days. He seems to understand why he is sitting alone for 3 minutes and has done a good job at not repeating the naughty things that brought him to a time out. We are making sure to give him lots of kisses and hugs after a timeout so that he knows how much we love him and that nothing he could do would ever change our love for him. We also make sure to give him lots of praise for doing good things because we don't want him to think he is any less special that his little sister. She requires a lot more attention and care, so sometimes it feels like she gets more of mommy and daddy than he does.

Liliana continues to be a mommy's girl. Right now Matt is trying to console her from being knocked over by her brother (accidentally). As long as she doesn't see me she seems to be fine. She has taken quite a few spills in the last 2 days. Many of you know that I often walk into doorways... well... it is even harder to get through a door way with a baby in your arms. She's learning how to go up and down the stairs. We are assuming that she has never done stairs before. Her first try she stumbled down 3 stairs. Poor thing. She's a trooper though and bounces right back.

Tonight my mom, sister, brother-in-law, and 2 nieces stopped by to spend some time with the kids. The kids seemed to enjoy themselves. However, once everyone left, Michael was testing our boundaries and Liliana was especially whinny. It will be interesting to see if their behavior afterwards was because they were hungry (it was just about dinner time) or because of having all the people around. So far they seem to react to people very well. And they seem to be attaching very well. I didn't really have a whole lot as far as expectations go for when we got the kids home. But, how things are going so far is way better than I imagined. Maybe this is just the calm before the storm. I hope not.

Well, I should probably get back to the kids. Matt is still sick and being very helpful despite the circumstances. We are keeping the kids up until 8 tonight in hopes that they sleep longer. This morning the kids got up at 4. We got Michael to go back to sleep until 6, but Liliana stayed up. I think tonight Matt and I will go to bed with the kids at 8. We are so tired.