Tatum has started standing on her own for a few seconds at a time. She thinks things are hilarious and will scrunch her face up to snort and laugh at any attention. She is eating all sorts big people food: mac ‘n cheese, avocado, egg yokes, bananas, rice, meatballs, hamburger, bread. Phew.

Chase is currently playing Mario Kart on the nintendo gameboy DS. He’s been pooping on the toilet consistently for a month or so. Not having to change two kid’s poop filled diapers makes a huge difference. He’s been asking to go to school lately – I think he’s finally bored with us. He wakes up the happiest and brightest of the family. Nap times are cool because Subie runs at top speed (a rare and frightening event considering her size) to jump into his bed as soon as nap negotiations begin. Chase loves it. He’s also become re-interested in sign language. He gets this unfamiliar hyper focus when you start teaching him signs and he tries real had to match the motions with his hands.

Dexter is just finishing up a rebel phase. There was some lying and screaming and fights but now he’s bounced right back and it’s like coming up for air. He’s right back to awesome. He goes to Basketball skills camp on Mondays and soccer practices on Tuesdays and Fridays. In school he’s finishing up all his standardized testing. He scored almost perfect on his advanced placement test for next year. He and I (matt) talk about math and science a lot. This morning he asked me if I knew what 7×7 was. After I answered he explained to me that 7×3 is 21 and 7×10 is 70 so that’s an easy way to find the answer. “10s are easy” is what we’ve been working on for a long time and he’s finally trying to teach me which is a good sign.

The cats are happy. No flea sightings since Laguna Beach and I’ve (matt) slacked way off on the vacuuming so that is a very happy sign. It’s a warm happy feeling to have cats able to jump on the bed or up on the couch and not have to cause a scene.