Like mother, like daughter

Damian and I have discovered that Ellie’s primary love language is gift-giving.  She loves giving people pictures that she has colored or little trinkets she has, and she equally loves receiving gifts.  Everyone in the airport on Monday night learned the same thing.  A few nights before, via Skype, Damian showed Ellie a locket that Nana was sending back for her.  She didn’t mention it again, but when she saw Damian come through the doors from Immigration, she ran up and immediately started raiding his carry-on, pulling out the Paddington Bear he brought her, the Baby Jake DVD he brought for both kids, and then screaming “WHERE’S THE GOLD?  WHERE’S THE GOLD?”  It was a little embarrassing and a lot hilarious.

I guess she comes by it honestly because I made it just over 12 hours before I finally said “Okay, really, what did you bring for me?”  It’s never a good sign when the answer starts with “In my defense, the price of goodies in the UK has skyrocketed…and I couldn’t really think of anything you like anyway…and another thing in my favor: Ryan Air only allows 30 kilos of luggage and I was already at my limit.”  Then he pulled out the treasures…a 6-pack of travel-size potato chips (with one missing – Damian got hungry), veggie stock, a chocolate bar, and a pack of chocolate candies (half empty because Damian had a chocolate craving in Italy).  It’s the thought the counts! ;-)

And he’s off!

Keanan is officially a crawler!  He had previously taken one or two “crawls,” but today it clicked and he was off.  The first time, he literally crawled into my arms and I absolutely melted.  He’s still torturing me at night, but he couldn’t be sweeter during the day.

Most Memorable Milestone Ever

On Tuesday afternoon, Dallas and the surrounding areas were hit with 13 tornados.  Thankfully, Damian was working from home and when we heard that the storms were coming this way, we cleared out the junk from the closet under the stairs and started watching the radar.  The tornado sirens went off in the middle of the kids’ afternoon nap so we whisked them out of bed and rushed them under the stairs.  We put bike helmets on them and I wore Jackson’s man-sized helmet.  Ellie and Charlie were disoriented, whining and freaked out; and Damian and I were stressed; but Keanan was all smiles.  In the middle of the all of the drama, Keanan sat up for the first time (got from all fours to a seated position) and was so very proud of himself – he just beamed and giggled…perhaps because his family huddled under the stairs in bike helmets was a pretty funny visual, or maybe because he knew that we would NEVER forget the first time he sat up.

I’m sure we’ll always remember seeing these box trailers flying through the air at the same time that sweet Keanan accomplished a developmental milestone.

Prayers

Tonight, while saying her prayers, Ellie said “thank you for Daddy who works hard so we can buy food, and thank you for Mommy who…uhm…tells us what to do.”

Babbling Keanan

At 10:18 last night, Keanan woke up and started babbling.  He’s been cooing and squawking for months, but last night he started making consonant sounds – he’s particularly found of G’s.  It was so amazing to witness such a drastic and sudden change in his “speech” and I loved listening to it…for the first 30 minutes; then I decided that it would be just as sweet in the morning and I put the pillow over my head and went back to sleep.