On Wednesday Andy finally started crawling like a normal baby! He’s been army crawling for a month or so. We would put him up on all fours but he’d just rock back and forth and then lay on his belly and scoot. However, he finally got the courage (or arm strength) to stay up on his knees as he went forward and he was off! Neither Meghan nor I were forcing it (at the time) either; he just off and crawled. (He probably saw the TV remote sitting all alone and waiting to be chewed on)
Between dragging himself around and rolling he could get anywhere he wanted to. However, now he is really moving. If he sees something across the room he’ll work himself around and just go over there. If we leave him in the living room and go into the kitchen he’ll crawl over and peek around the corner at us with a huge smile on his face!
I delayed writing this post hoping that I could get a nice video of him crawling. Unfortunately he reverts to the army scoot every time I turn the camera on! However, this morning I finally caught him! See the Videos page for the video.
While I was uploading the video I noticed that it had been a few months since I posted some. You’ll be happy to know I’ve rectified that and posted about 15 videos! If you want to watch them in order, this is the first one of that group.

FYI: You can see the crawling video on the blip.tv site in a bigger player: http://wolfes.blip.tv/file/4470255

Note that there were some notable videos in this batch: Eden’s braided hair, Andy’s first teeth, Andy standing, Eden climbing onto the toilet by herself, and Andy feeding himself!

While I was away for 3 weeks in Africa Eden had the audacity to go and grow up on me. She is now using “sentences” regularly. Meghan overheard her looking at my picture last week saying “Dada, home, please”. She has started to talk in the third person and refers to herself as “Edie”. If she wants me to not carry her anymore she’ll say “Edie walk”.

Eden loves to mimic everything we do (without being prompted). If I slap my knee, so will she. If I clap twice, so will she. If I groan loudly, so will she. Its very cute.

Eden was upset with me when I first got home yesterday. She gave me the cold shoulder for half the ride from the airport…but then for the last 10 minutes she was very talkative, wanted to show me everything, giggled uncontrollably, and wanted to hold my hand. (Andy sat on the other side of me just staring and smiling at me the whole time). Then this morning when we got up she didn’t want anything to do with me. She wanted “Mama” to feed her the oatmeal, take her to the bathroom, give her juice, etc. But then 30 minutes later she was her bouncy self and was bringing me things, etc. I hope she doesn’t hold this temporary grudge for too long!

How is it possible to both hate and love the Kenyan court system at the same time?!!

I met our lawyer (Daniel Were — pronounced “Wear-ay”) at the lower courts at 9am this morning. We were seeing a new magistrate because our previous one was transferred to Nakuru back in the spring. The new magistrate’s office was all business and very quiet. There were 3 other lawyers in the room and about 12 clients like myself. There was a very small amount of Swahili spoken back and forth before Were started things off by announcing our case, etc. After some shuffling of papers Were stepped out and beckoned me to follow. (Uh oh, not good!) He tells me we somehow fell off the docket! The problem with that is our official file is off in another building and not in the magistrate’s chambers! 🙁 Some disorganization with the changeover of magistrates must have caused it…so frustrating! Argh!!! Kenyan courts drive me crazy!!

Because I leave on Monday and because I was not able to stay in the courts all day we had to be seen this morning if I was to attend. …and now Were thinks its very important that I be there because “Baby Eden” is not. So Were started to work his magic: He called an assistant to go and fetch the papers and bring them to us at the building ASAP. Only 15 minutes later we go back to the chambers and see everyone waiting outside because the magistrate received an important (and private) phone call. Were chatted with some of the other lawyers there in Swahili but otherwise everyone is perfectly quiet while we wait in the tiny crowded hallway. We’re let back in a few minutes later and I found out that Were was getting himself pushed back to the front of the queue! So he just reads off what the magistrate should say while she hand writes it out for our file. She doesn’t even bat an eye at any of it! Were suggested April, she said mid-April was fine, and we’re done! I love the Kenyan courts!

We slip out and now I’m back at the training I’m giving this week with an hour to spare! I had arranged for several other guys to give all the talks this morning so I had plenty of time to type up this prompt update for you all!

Our unofficial “backup lawyer”, Milkah, was one of the other lawyers in the room because she had other business with the same magistrate this morning. So if Were had not been able to convince the magistrate I am sure Milkah could have! 🙂

Andy turned 4 months old on Sunday! Its crazy to think its been that long since he was born! He is 17 lbs 8 oz and 26 1/4 inches long so still up over 95th percentile in both! Last month he was off the charts in height, so we were thinking he was going to be a basketball player. Now it seems we’re going to have to settle on him being a professional football player instead. He’s been eating so much we started him on cereal to supplement his meals. So far I think only 5% of it is staying in his mouth, so its looking like its a long-term project for him.

Andy seems to be picking and choosing which milestones he hits. He’s completely surpassed rolling over and is almost sitting up by himself. He’s only thinking about reaching for things that are in front of him, but he’s been happily sleeping through the night for almost 2 months! He isn’t saying much apart from squeaking and squealing, but I think thats because his sister won’t let him!

I’ve updated our photo gallery to have a few new features:

1. You can now “download” any of the full size images. There is a download link in the upper right near the close button.
2. You can now upload your own amazingly cute photos of Ben…or if you have some of Eden, Andy, or Meghan we’ll take those too! There is an upload box near the bottom of the photos page.

For the three of you that are technically minded and actually care: the picture gallery is powered by a great jquery plugin called yoxview.