The other kid

Yesterday, Phuong had another mom over for French class. Her husband had to go on a business trip so I had to watch Michael and her son, Elyo, so they could actually concentrate on studying. Elyo is quite a bit larger than Michael, about 8 pounds and a bit of height too even though they're only 1 day apart in age. And he can walk really well.

Michael was funny, he looked very apprehensive when Elyo started playing with his toys. It was funny because Elyo took all the cool toys at first and Michael went and got out his books. Here's little Michael surrounded by 5 books and big Elyo "taking" his trucks and stuffed animals. I also played with Elyo a bit because he deserved some attention too. Michael didn't take well to this and would look at me like I was leaving him for another baby. He crawled over to me to read him his books and assert his rightful place as real son. That was great.

Since they were noisy and the kitchen is right next to the living room, I moved all the toys into Michael's room and brought out the cool electronic toys. Elyo started playing with the walker with the sounds, then Michael walked over there, pushed the toy out of Elyo's reach and positioned himself between the toy and Elyo. He never let Elyo take over that toy. Michael left a couple of times to play with other toys but if he heard Elyo playing with that other toy he would come and take it from him. Later, the boys were running and crawling around and Elyo was pining for his mom so I tricked them back into Michael's room with a bag full of toys. Elyo got there first but Michael came close behind and pulled himself up onto his crib. Then he kind of walk-lunged at Elyo and basically tackled him and took the toys. Good work boy.

Elyo was soon getting fussy, as it turns out he was running a fever due to his vaccination against measles, mumps and rubella. He had this pacifier in his mouth but he had been crying enough that his nose had started running. So he had all this snot dripping into his stupid pacifier attached to his shoulder. I'm sure he was eating most of it, and it was disgusting but what is one going to do? I didn't want to get his contagions and to contract lockjaw and nightvision. No thank you.

Later, Elyo and Michael were playing nicely in the living room. Elyo started crying, I tried to comfort him, but Elyo had had enough and he stood up to go and find his mom. He whirled around quickly and took off only to find Michael in his path. His giant rugby physique wasn't nimble enough to avoid Michael so he ran him over and fell on him. Michael starts bawling, Elyo intensifies his crying, and I'm hugging Michael and trying to simultaneously comfort Elyo and nothing is working. Fortunately his mom came out and calmed him down a bit but didn't do anything about those boogers streaming out of his nose.

I think we can wait a little while on having Bors or Astrid Pilar.

Today is the official day that Michael started to walk. He let go of us and took 5-8 steps all on his own. And he is also starting to walk to nearby things instead of dropping and crawling. We have video so we're going to try to post later today.

So today is the day. Today is the day my little baby turned into a little toddler.

Love,
P

Here is a video clip of Michael walking. He takes a good 5 or 6 steps.