In the spirit of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo happening this time of year, here is a (semi-)musical version of what the babies have been up to these past few weeks. If you don’t know these songs as sung by Bob Wills (Happy Birthday, Bob) or Asleep at the Wheel, fire up those MP3 search engines, because you don’t know what you’re missing. And, anyway, then you’ll be able to sing along to the lyrics below.

David really clapped for the first time today, when listening to Roly Poly. I guess he needed a catchy tune to clap along to. Carmen today started imitating Matt’s “yeah.” As in, “All done? Yeah!” “Yeah!”

(David 23 January)

(Carmen 23 January)

(David 22 January)

(Carmen 22 January)

(Carmen temporarily content after climbing a package of toilet paper, 17 Feb.)

(Part of the morning routine: standing on tippy-toes at the front window, watching the cars and buses on their way to work and school, 20 February.)

(Hey, what’s Mama doing outside?)

(I see her, too!)

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Roly Poly
(A tribute to C&D’s vanishing baby chub!)
ROLY POLY, eatin’ corn n’ ‘taters
Hungry ev’ry minute of the day
ROLY POLY, gnawin’ on a biscuit
Long as he can chew it, it’s OK.

(I don’t know where Carmen learned this. Is she imitating us, roaring like a lion, trying to demonstrate her sense of delight, or is it just a successful trick to catch our attention? We had to encourage her a bit to catch her little trick on camera. She is even more exuberant-looking when she is not being filmed.)

He can eat an apple pie
An’ never even bat an eye
He likes everything from soup to hay

(Experiencing the new playground mulch in the screened-in porch, 5 March. It was fun to put in our mouth (but not eat because it tastes and feels nasty!) and throw out all over the floor.)

ROLY POLY, daddy’s little fattie
Bet he’s gonna be a man some-day.

ROLY POLY, scrambled eggs for breakfast
Bread n’ jelly twenty times a day
ROLY POLY, eats a hardy dinner
It takes lots of strength to run and play.

(Two weeks ago after rocking Carmen for about five uninterrupted hours, I decided that I wanted a small nursing stool to take some pressure off of my aching back. When I brought the stool home, Matt assembled it and noticed that C&D wanted to climb it, especially Carmen. He placed it against the futon, and, well, you see what happened. I thanked Matt for assembling the stool, but did not bother to thank him for helping Carmen learn this new trick.)

Pulls up weeds and does the chores
And he runs both ways to all the stores
He works up an appetite that way

(It didn’t take long–the time can be measured in tenths of a second–for C&D to realize what a water table is for.)

ROLY POLY, daddy’s little fattie
Bet he’s gonna be a man someday.

(Enjoying the new water table right away, 5 March.)

A magical day, Matt said. This evening, after having only walked an occassional half step all week, Carmen walked 11 steps when Matt pulled her to standing. She clutched in her left hand one of C&D’s favorite toys, a little peg man from their Galt pop-up toy. Later she practiced standing up and sitting down, standing up and sitting down, still holding her little man.

David frequently crawls around the house with a little peg man in hand, and the auditory effect on our wood floors–thwap, thwap, clunk, thwap, thwap, clunk–sounds a little like a peg-legged pirate.

While Carmen was learning to walk in the living room, David was practicing his throw in the kitchen. He found he was able to bend over from standing, pick up a ball, and throw it. How coordinated he looked! So we played catch for a bit.

David just ate a piece of trash off the floor (and Daddy and I were too shocked to do anything about it). Back to playing jefe and supervising.

Came across this today: Not Milk?

David and Carmen still haven’t had dairy (what’s the point?), but they recently had apples for the first time in many months. Carmen’s body seems to have matured past its problems with them. This is a good thing, because David loooooves apples. The only time he has ever signed “more” is when he wanted another piece of apple. Just the sight of an apple on the table sends him atremble. He raises his eyebrows, waves his arms and shifts his gaze from apple to Mommy, apple to Mommy. He watches each move of the knife, down, cut, down, cut, then shaving the peel from the pulp. He takes a cool, crisp wedge and bites down hard, sending juice and bits of fruit dribbling down his chin and onto his shirt. Today he ate a whole apple after dinner, and then began work on a second before throwing everything off his tray and deciding he had eaten too much.

I think his second favorite food is the clementine, tied with spaghetti sauce. Or pinto beans. Or arroz con pollo. He likes all of these things very, very much.

Carmen is an enthusiastic eater herself, but I don’t know that she’s found her culinary Nirvana yet. Nothing has driven her to the sublime like apples for David.

How amazing to think that just over a year ago, we were measuring the babies’ nursings ounce by ounce to make sure they were eating enough, and now I can’t fill their plates fast enough.