My beautiful children

I love watching my children grow. Each day they surprise me with something new. I feel so old and inflexible and static next to them. But I have to remember that as they change, they are changing me, too. Layla is now very happy to see how high and for how long she can lift her head. The little grunts she makes while doing so make her sound very serious and determined. She also succeeds quite often at grasping something that is dangled in front of her. Her smile is simply magical. I can hardly remember the baby of a month ago, who was so fussy and hard to figure out. Now she is utterly predictable and reasonable--as long as we stay home and don't mess with her schedule. She is definitely a homebody baby.  She recently started sucking on her hand to soothe herself down to sleep and back to sleep if she wakes up. This is a good thing that will bring us much peace, I think.

Mazin is quite amused by Layla's antics--especially her habit of spitting up all over John and me several times a day. He gets excited when she does something new or smiles her big smile at him. The other day he wanted to play with his doll for the first time in his life. We dressed her and changed her diaper several times and fed her with a bottle. It was very sweet. He came home from daycare the next day and told me he was upset because the girls wouldn't let him play dolls with them. Oh, my heart! Those mean girls spurning my sweet, sensitive boy. Back to superheros and swordplay. At home he is primarily interested in constructing very intricate structures with every block set we have. He uses ALL of the pieces... ALL of them! You can see one of the structures in this photo. He will spend an hour completely engrossed in this activity. It's a beautiful thing. Yesterday he was building a castle; today it was a home for his little dinosaur figurine, "to keep him warm." I wish I could hear his thoughts when he is concentrating so intently on a task.