Next Steps: Crawling and College(?)

Every day now Solvi performs new feats of physical advancement and Olie just continues to say the darnedest things. Which is my way of saying it's time for another update.

Let's start with Olie for a change. Ever since Dad let it slip that someday Oliver would go to college, our poor boy, who at this point has no concept that he might ever want to leave his parents, has been obsessing. Seemingly comforting statements like “it's a LONG time away” have no effect. So last week as I was getting Olie up for school, he raised his disheveled head (I love morning hair!) from the pillow and asked, "Mom, what comes after college?"
"Well you get your first apartment and job."
Dead silence.
So I add, "or, some people come back to live at home."
"Yeh, I'm going to do that!" No hesitation there.
Then smart Mom that I am (sometimes) I seized the opportunity to finally put this anxiety to rest once and for all. "You know, Oliver, there are many colleges in New York, so you could go to college and still live at home."
"Yeh, I'm going to do that."
I thought that that settled it, but a few days later on the way to school, "Mom, can Jack and Owen go to college in New York too?"

The fact checker lives. At school Oliver's class is studying dinosaurs, so the teachers buried plastic dinos in the sand in the sensory table (Oliver's favorite spot). Oliver unearthed a small fin backed reptile the other day and announced to Gena, “Actually Dimetridon lived BEFORE the dinosaurs. He's just a reptile.”

Here's another gem. A couple days ago as I'm lying on the floor of Oliver's room he commands. "Mom, you be dead."
"Oh great," I think, "What grand concept are we wrestling with now?" "Why?" I ask hesitantly.
"So I can dig you up and put you in the Museum of Natural History." Phew.

The future paleontologist

And as for Solvi Dear. First let me say that there is just something about this baby. I'm going to start counting the times that people come up to me and say how cute she is. Not just happen to be sitting next to me on the subway and say the obligatory, "Cute baby." But actually go out of their way to comment. This morning on a 20 minute commute to dance class: twice.

Our little rolling wonder is now desperate to get vertical. She's all but abandoned her signature rollomotion for a more precision creeping technique (pulling herself along, belly still on floor). She's quite fast. No longer can we just leave her because she can now pull up to at least her knees and sometimes all the way to standing, and unfortunately, her preferred method of descent is to pitch backwards from standing (hopefully) into awaiting arms. She's also starting to “cruise,” making the first few hesitant steps from her cube to the coffee table. Solvi also sits pretty well on her own, though can't get to a sitting position herself and is still likely to careen back. In fact this has become a favorite game.

On the culinary front, Solvi has also advanced to the wonderful world of finger foods and is quite adept at using her pincher grip to shovel Cheerios into her mouth. She even very generously likes to feed some to me as well.

Verbally Solvi's favorite sounds are still, "da, da, da" and "ma, ma, ma." They don't seem to stand for us yet, but I swear that "ma, ma, ma" is reserved for a distress call. Like when she’s crawling down the hall and can’t get to me fast enough, “mamamama!”

"Reading"

It's amazing to watch two children develop side by side and note the differences as well as the similarities. One example is the way they read. From a very early age, Olie delighted in reading, his eyes carefully perusing the pictures. With Olie I remember having to guide his finger to any fluffy or scratchy parts. Solvi's fingers on the other hand seek these out immediately. In fact for Solvi reading seems to be an entirely tactile experience. So little does she seem to care for pictures that unless a book has flaps to manipulate or different textures to touch, she totally disinterested. The one exception is books with pictures of babies or, better yet, mirrors! Apparently Solvi thinks she's just as charming as the rest of us do, and she loves to kiss herself in the mirror. Speaking of similarities, Chad and I also catch Olie watching himself "perform" in a mirror or TV reflection quite often. I'm afraid they get this from me.