Ellie is Walking and Talking and Riley is Surviving it All

Ellie just started walking a couple weeks ago. It started with balancing on her own for a few seconds, progressed to moving up and down the edge of the sofa and then came the daring first steps. Now, she won't stop moving and is having even more fun following Riley around. There have been lots of bumps and bruises along the way, her newest one is smack in the middle of her forehead but she is determined. She falls, she may wimper a little and then she is moving again. It just seems impossible that Ellie is at this stage already. Life is just moving too fast and I can't possibly take it all in. It is amazing and kind of sad all at the same time. The day is full of hundreds of sweet sweet memories that I know my mind will not remember ten years from now, let alone ten days from now. Hopefully this blog will help a little, memories saved in the cyber world. So, in an effort to document and remember things... Recently Riley had his first big boo-boo. I was snapping the double stroller into place and his left pinky finger got caught in the process. Riley is usually a very strong boy and gets over things pretty well but not this one. I picked him up quick to see it and he said, "I walk. I walk." So I put him down to walk but the pain just made th little guy crouch on the ground holding it once again unable to just walk this one off. He doesn't want anyone to touch his owies or even look at them so I held him as Griff pushed Ellie in the stroller. Griff tried to get glipses of the sore finger and make sure there wasn't blood and it wasn't broken, and it is neither. Riley has also discovered how to use the water hose outside and last week I found him in the backyard "watering" the flower. This would be a huge blessing but the windows were wide open and he was spraying a lot more than just the flowers. And Ellie, besides walking, can now say the words:"please", "no-no", "bye-bye", "hi", "doggy" and "shoe". Yes, I know that last one sounds crazy but she really can say it. She just started making the "sh" sound this week and the other morning when I told Riley to go put his shoes on she said it as sweet as could be, "shoes". This may be a foreshadow of a shoe obsession to come, we shall see. And this morning I went in to get Ellie out of bed and she handed me the speaker from inside one of her dolls. Apprently she figured out how to open the velcro and take our the noise maker inside...oh the things she gets into. :-) She has also started pretending to burp, cough and just yesterday learn to bark like a dog.