("Super Bowl Sunday!")
1/26- After reading, when the lights are out and we go to bed with Enzo, Tami and I say "Goodnight Mama" etc. for each of us and then "I love you Mama" etc. for each of us and then we go through all the family and also friends that Enzo has at school. Usually he says "goodnight Mama" etc. for each person no matter what we say to start the sentence. But that night, for the first time ever, Enzo said "I love you Papi." Yay!!!! Sure, he said "I love you Monte" for the first time first, but I was right after the dog. Sweet.
1/31- Before we even got to prompting when we were in bed, Enzo busts out with "I love you Papi, I love you Ana, I love you Mama." It was among the best nights I have ever had. I could not possibly feel more contented going to sleep. AWESOME.
(Ana and Cousin Vincent.)
2/3- Ana has a tooth! It's the front, middle, bottom, just right of center. It's just barely broken through the gum. Our baby girl has a tooth. Then, that same day, something big happens. So big, Tami forgot to tell the grandparents about the tooth. While Tami, Enzo, and Ana were at Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunti K's house (I was at work late to supervise an event), they all got to watch Ana take her first steps, two little steps in a row!! Awesome. I rushed over as soon as I could leave.
(Look what brother taught me.)
2/4- Super Bowl Sunday. First, it's a Sunday, which means breakfast with all friends and family who show up. We've now been doing this for well over two months and some friends and/or family have shown up to each Sunday. It's been great. The kids love it. Tami and I love it, too. Some of the best parts? The kids play with family and friends every week. The week I was sick, I could rest knowing my kids were getting plenty of love and affection. Tami and I get to enjoy adult conversation in our home. Every week, early Sunday morning, Tami and I actually clean our house. We get to provide delicious organic food for friends and family for the same cost we used to spend going to breakfast just the four of us each Sunday. It's always a fun surprise to see who will show up.
This Sunday, today after breakfast, we transitioned to Super Bowl bar-b-que mode. And...... we saw Ana take a step without holding on to anything! Super cool. She is so cute. She sticks her tongue out constantly. She smiles so much just like her brother. We have happy kids. We are lucky. And, Ana gets genuinely excited to see me and I adore that. When I come home she smiles and crawls towards me. Her smile is gorgeous. She stands a lot now, too. That means she can get really close, stand up, smile her gorgeous smile, and then fall right into me with open arms. Lovely.
(Ana can lift her heavy water bottle now... and wears blue berry stained arms like a princess.)
Somewhere in those last couple of days other neat events happened. Many were as simple as me getting to watch and love the kids. Some developmental markers occurred too. Like, when Cousin Vincent said six and then Enzo grabbed something and said seven. I've never heard him say seven before and it came after six when he wasn't listening to sequential counting; that was cool. We read "Go, Dog Go" often. The first pages have "Big Dog" and "Little Dog." Enzo has never repeated that, or said it along with me. But recently, at the end of the book, looking at the picture on the inside of the back cover, Enzo points to a smaller dog and says "Little dog" and then to a bigger dog and says "Big dog." It was neat to me because I didn't even know he got the concept on the pages where he hears it but then he went and applied the concept to a totally different page with no words on it and he did it correctly. Enzo is also good at finding "A for Ana," "E for Enzo," "P for Papi," and "O" in any text which he calls "ABCs" when he sees any string of letters. We're working on M for Mama now. His favorite song that we have to sing every night? "Sing ABCs.... musica Papi." He goes to school two days each week and to two extra curricular classes each week now. Once per week during the day when I am at work Enzo goes with Tami to Mommy and me Pee-Wee Mariachi classes. That's where they sing and dance and play with drums and streamers. Then, on weekends, he goes to Papi and me Soccer class which is where he runs around to colorful flags and kicks "Goal!"s. He has become a busy kid, I have become a super happy father of two, and Tami has become, by definition, a soccer Moma. She refuses to get a mini van though.
