Leaping

Michael has started leaping. Not quite really walking. He stands up, then leaps in the air, lands on both feet, then does it again and again. Its not meant as a method of getting around, although he sometimes ends up at the other end of the room. He's very close to proper walking, certainly doing a lot more cruising.

Marcus was annoyed with his cup-with-a-straw this morning.
"I'm indicated with this cup".
"Do you mean irritated?"
"I'm IRRITATED with this cup".

We went down to South Arm to visit Monica, Jonathan, Lena and Elise yesterday (I think to save time we will just call them the Cruikshanks now), and Nick and Anna and Lily did too. Its about 45 minutes drive. The boys had a great time, it was very noisy though. We used to have three kids between us, now we have five and another due (Anna) in a couple of months - things just get noisier and noisier.

The Cruikshanks have a very different lifestyle to us - lots of land, lost of space inside too. When we went for a walk Jonathan detoured at one stage to crush the skull of a sick rabbit. Quite a few differences to us. J built the house himself, works from home as a draftsman. They spend a lot more time with their kids than we can. Sigh.

On the way to South Arm we dropped in at Meadowbank vineyard to have a look at Anna's exhibition. The opening was on Saturday - we were supposed to be there but it just slipped out of mind. We forgot dinner at Jeremy and Emma's place on Friday night too - we are both feeling snowed under by the social calendar I think. Anna's paintings and etchings looked great, Elf and I both particularly like the etchings. I'm annoyed with myself for forgetting, particularly because we missed hearing Nick give a speech. Its something he stresses about enormously but does really well - it would have been nice to be there to support them both.