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Emma takes her first steps
On the 1st March, we saw Emma make more than a handful of steps for the first time.
She had been trying for a week and managed to shuffle around quite a bit. But this month she walked from A to B for the first, with A being the kitchen door and B being the garden bed border. At just a few days short of ten months, she is two months ahead of her brother, who started walking in
January 2009. It was only at the start of this calendar year that she started crawling, which was one month ahead of her brother.
In reaction and much to
Emma's regret, her parents put up the stair gate.
Inter-sibling relations
Piet has become much more tolerant of Emma. This is not trivial as Emma likes to be where he is and crawls up to him to play with his toys. He still is not too keen on sharing toys, but he now often hugs her, kisses her or otherwise plays with her. At the dinner table he
even manages
to feed
her the occasional spoon.
Piet has discovered that cutting with his own knife is interesting. For the moment, cutting up bananas works best for him, while he requests his parents to cut his bread, for example. Grandma is staying with us for a week. Piet enjoys sitting on her lap and reading the papers with her.
When grandma left for the next week, Piet had to make do with his Big Noisy Book of Vehicles (in Dutch), which came with a DVD that did not cease to amaze him. Emma kept working on her walking skills, while both enjoyed having a romp with mum.
After playing with mum, Piet happily lends her a hand when Emma's high chair needs some adjustments. He is also a gentleman who holds his little sister's hands when she goes for a walk.
Asphalt
To Piet's great excitement, the landlord is putting asphalt on the driveway. This is a two week job that involves tip trucks bringing crushed rock, bobcat diggers spreading it over the driveway and two bricklayers working two weeks on the driveway's edges, mixing their own cement or getting it ready-made. First of all, Piet cannot get enough of watching cement trucks
bringing cement, brick layers
laying bricks and
mixing cement themselves, a truck
bringing a bobcat, and bobcats
driving up the drive,
dumping sand and
spreading it out.
Bobcats have become so popular, that Piet can be made to eat his dinner by pretending the spoon is a bobcat. Secondly,
piles of sand got
left behind that provided the
ideal playground for
lots of fun with
sister. And finally, the works provided
inspiration for games with the family; Piet understands he needs to hold Emma tightly while in the wheelbarrow.
When the driveway works finally got finished, Emma was very pleased with the result, walking up the asphalt slope to the back of the garden and carefully inspecting the edging. Piet realised there was still work to do. He loaded his wheelbarrow with sand - all to Emma's satisfaction - and wheeled it up the driveway to fill up the bit between the driveway edge and the garden beds.
The next weekend, we had a barbecue at friends with children that are slightly older than Piet and Emma. The eldest two got an icecream and enjoyed it in the sandpit. At home, Piet often helps mum cooking pasta. At other moments, he often pulls very funny faces. Note on the last picture Emma's bruised eyebrow: she is still walking with more ambition than skill and keeps falling over.
