About the Boys

Okay, I know this is supposed to be about Arequipa, and not Joffre and Alec, but I also know that most of my audience would love to hear about what the kids are doing.

Joffre continues to surprise us with his memory. He can recount events from Christmas or even last summer in great detail. He also can nearly recite some of his favorite storybooks. His comprehension is good, too. Yesterday I said, "you need an attitude adjustment," and he said, "NO! I not having a bumpy day!" ("grumpy") He puts things together well, too. He thinks a lot and seems to make sense of things, in interesting ways (examples coming when I remember what they are - my memory appears to be growing weaker as his strengthens) Seeing that Alec now says Dada and Mumum, Joffre's trying to get him to say Joffre, too.

And then there's Alec, who dances and claps to music, crawls like a pro, plays simple games like peek-a-boo and catch with a soft ball (he even invented one where he would place his sock on the stair, wait till I went for it, then snatch it away and chew on it for an instant before giggling and putting it back on the stair), and today was caught using a cup to scoop up bathwater and attempt to drink it. He knows when he's not supposed to be doing something, and now when I catch him going for an electrical outlet and say, "Alec, NO!", he revs up to the crawling equivalent of a run. Several times he has seemed to repeat a word we've said, and he is now more or less able to walk holding my fingers. He is very vocal, crooning and singing to himself when he's happy, and grumbling and whining when he's not (usually when he can't play with something dangerous, or when we aren't feeding him fast enough).