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I had this miserable day yesterday. Jonah the Tiger (seen here after our last day of bowling, at which he got his face painted--and I won the league) has been sick with the flu since I got home from Nashvegas Monday night. I'll give you one guess who stayed home with him (and Ava) three days in a row. It was a long three days. Yesterday's fun and games included all of us making a mad dash from the eating area at Costco to the bathroom, Ava trying to eat some paper, and me getting pushed by Jonah.

And then...Ava started walking.

She'd been working on it for a couple of days, taking one little step every now and then, and she'd been standing all on her own for a couple of weeks. But yesterday afternoon, she stood up, pivoted around on one foot, and then took two real steps forward before falling down.

She's been practicing ever since, and I could see how much better she'd gotten between this morning and this evening, when I got home from work. (Note: both these videos are from this evening.)

It's really amazing. At this age, Jonah still had another week before he would even start to crawl, and walking was more than 4 months away.

Videos (post 3 of 3)

#1: Jonah sings (and plays!) the days of the week--in Spanish.

#2: Ava plays peek-a-boo.

#3: Jonah pops bubbles while wearing his "scary teeth".

Boo! (post 2 of 3)

Halloween = party in neighborhood on 10/29 + party at school on 10/30 + party at cousins' on 10/31 + trick-or-treating for Jonah on 10/31

Let Elmo = Jonah and let Monkey = Ava

Elmo + Monkey = Cuteness!

Vitals (post 1 of 3)

Here's the lowdown: October was a busy month. One trip and a wedding, one birthday, another wedding (local, whew!), and then Halloween. I'm not quite sure where the month has gone. But I do have some lovely documentation of the month.

Stats: Jonah weighed in at 31 pounds and was 39 inches tall at his 3 year old visit. Ava, at her nine month visit, was 18 lbs 12 oz and 28 inches tall. They're both tall and average weight, which is just perfect, in my opinion!

Scenes of the season:

My streak would have continued if today was September 25

I realized that if I'm going to use the blog to track the kids' milestones, I'd better get to it. I know that pretty much everyone who reads this thing already knows about most of these, but this is for posterity, kids.

Ava is officially pulling herself up on anything and everything. She's also cruising. I hear that early walkers start around 8 months old, so she clearly won't hit that. But I wouldn't be surprised if she's walking before Jonah turns 3. She is also finally cutting her first tooth.

Jonah is potty trained!

After our disastrous attempt at potty training back in July, Matt started telling Jonah that he could have five (!) M&Ms if he peed in the potty. (Matt didn't consult with me before determining the quantity of M&Ms that a peepee was worth.) Jonah was still not interested—until we gave him an M&M to try! Once he knew what he was missing, he was pretty much potty trained in two days. It's been over a month now, and he's not even wearing a diaper for naps. He's also often dry overnight. I was terrified of potty training; I'm shocked and amazed at how easy it was.

Jonah has also started preschool, and he loves it. He's going to Pine Village Preschool, which is a Spanish-immersion preschool that just opened up a site in the South End. How we got to this particular school is a whole other story, but we're happy with it so far. And Jonah can already count to at least 20 in Spanish!

Ava and I attended Katie and Blythe's non-bachelorette party/non-bridal shower last weekend. We spent two nights on Block Island with them, Mom, Aunt Sally, and Blythe's mom, Adrienne. Ava had been a little sick, but she was a real trooper, and she was great the whole weekend. The adults had a lot of fun playing games and drinking wine after she went to bed.

Labor Day weekend, I flew down to Memphis for Tiffany's bachelorette party (and I held my own, even though I haven't done much partying lately!), and Matt drove ALL BY HIMSELF with both kids down to New Jersey for the weekend. I'm truly impressed that he did that. Personally, I find the idea of driving alone with two kids to New Jersey on a holiday weekend way more terrifying than the idea of taking care of them by myself for a few days.

We had a busy summer, and it's carrying on into fall. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up!