"My, what big teeth you have..."

"The better to bite my brother's toes!" says Dante.

This last month has been a bit challenging. Dante has four teeth (with another two not far behind) and firmly believes that toes make the best teething rings. He can stand on his own and has taken a few steps. He signs "milk" and said "mama" for the first time while reaching up for me (I think he was trying to make up for waking me at 5 in the morning.) He loves being mobile and is pretty content to venture around the room playing with toys. He also manages to find every microscopic scrap he can find to put in his mouth. Alejandro is on constant patrol and comes to tell me "Dante is eating stuff again." On one occasion, I found Alejandro trying to fish a sticker out of Dante's mouth on his own. But Dante bit him so now he just reports the incidents. Dante's personality is really coming out as well. He can work up some mean crocodile tears if you tell him "no." You'd think the world had come to an end. But he's a tough little cookie. He holds on to the the back handle of Alejandro's riding toy. Alejandro pushes himself along, so Dante is trying like crazy to follow behind. Sometime he can't keep up, so his feet go out from beneath him but he won't let go. So he gets drug along for a while until he manages to get back up on his feet and keep going.
Alejandro has become quite creative. He makes trees, people and mountains out of his legos and they actually resemble his desired object. He loves his Mr. Potato head and puts an arm in the nose spot and calls him an elephant. He can get himself dressed but most days he changes his shirt three times before he decides what to wear. (His concern about fashion definitely comes from his father, not me!) He's been going swimming all the time in the pool here at our complex. We had to get him a life vest because he has no fear of the water. He's started giving us problems at bedtime and it takes an hour or two to get him to stay in his bed and then he gets up in the middle of the night and wakes the whole house. So everyone is tired and grouchy the next day. This has been going on for about a week now, which is six more days than I can handle. I prayed it would pass, and that didn't happen. So I prayed for patience with mixed results. Now I'm praying my mom and dad can figure out what to do with him when we go to Ohio next weekend!
Not a whole lot else is new.
Love always,
debi