Well, I think that the winter of 2004 will forever be known in the Morningstar family as "sick winter". Between ear infections and tummy bugs and our newest ailment, eye infections, we've been to the doctor's an average of every 2 weeks! Fortunately, nobody's had anything really serious, but I do think that we're keeping the Target Pharmacy in business. I guess that's just how it is with little kids.
With the exception of our communicable diseases, though, we're doing really well. The temps are in the 50s today (I'm actually writing this outside in the sunshine!) and we're looking forward to spring and planting our garden, although we're still enjoying plenty of winter. We've been up to Sundance telemarking for the past two Sunday afternoons and it's been so fun to get out. The snow gods have been very kind this winter, and we've been taking advantage of it! We're hoping to get Sam on skis in early April, but we'll let you know how that goes when (and if) it actually happens.
Sam and Ben have been interacting a lot more over the past few weeks as Ben gets faster and more mobile. The other day I caught Sam teaching Ben to go down the stairs on his tummy. Sam would go down and they would laugh and laugh and then Ben would start down. This, of course, didn't go so well, so after Ben got down a couple of steps I would pick him up. At this point, Sam would get very frustrated with me because I was interfering with their game, but as soon as I started Ben at the top of the steps again, the death-defying (ok, maybe that's a bit dramatic) hilarity would resume. It's cool to see the boys playing together like that.
Sam's other big development is that he has become an unstoppable praying machine! It all started with his bedtime prayers when he asks God to bless the people that are important in his life. Now he has started praying for our meals, too, which is really cool. The normal mealtime prayer goes like this: We all hold hands and then Sam prays "Dear God. God bless us. Amen". Then we start eating. After a few minutes, Sam nominates somebody else to pray again, so we all hold hands again and somebody else prays. This goes on until everybody at the table has prayed at least once for the meal. Needless to say, our food is well blessed.
Ben's doing well, too. He is now climbing both sets of stairs with astounding and frightening speed. He has also gotten into feeding himself, which means that he basically needs a bath after ever meal. Current favorite foods are canned pear slices covered in wheat germ and cereal with applesauce. Yum. He has also started the beginnings of walking. He's been pulling himself up to standing for a few weeks now, but lately he's started to take his first few tentative steps while holding to our fingers.
Sam has come up with an astounding number of very cute todderlisms of late. Here are the highlights:
Hope that you and yours are happy and well!
Love,
Steve, Jamie, Sam, and Ben