week ending april 20, 2008

Week ending April 20, 2008: This was a busy week! On Monday we went to the Maryland Zoo with a whole bunch of relatives including my cousins Virginia and Samantha from North Carolina whom we haven’t seen in 2 years. The kids must’ve walked miles without complaint and really enjoyed the day playing with my cousins and seeing the animals. I couldn’t have asked for a better day. Here are the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/Baltzoo2008 On Wednesday at physical therapy the therapist said that Chloe has made enormous progress and will probably be able to stop coming to therapy soon. In the last 6 weeks she’s relearned how to walk and now walks heel-then-toe most of the time. On Friday we went to our friend Angie’s birthday party. Chloe surprised me by acting worried when I said that Angie was inviting her friends from school whom Alex and Chloe have not met before. Chloe said “there are going to be STRANGERS there?”. This is the same child who makes new friends every time we go to the play ground or the play area at the mall. It was funny at the party how the boys and girls split up. There was one boy Alex’s age and Alex warmed up to him pretty quickly, and Chloe joined in with the other little girls although she kept checking in with Angie for reassurance. Here are the pictures from Angie’s party, although Alex and Chloe aren’t in many of the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/AngieSBday2008 On Saturday we went for our first boat ride of the year, this time on Grammy Barb’s boat. It was the opening day of rockfish season, so we spent a little while trolling for rockfish. Alex was so adorable sitting with his hand on a rod waiting for a fish to bite (when trolling several lines are in the water at one time and the rods go in rod holders so it isn’t necessary to hold the rod, but Alex was so excited about the chance of catching a fish, he couldn’t keep his hands off the rods). Unfortunately we didn’t catch anything. He seemed to do a little better with the boat ride itself. At the beginning of last year he’d get frazzled and frantically ask us to slow the boat down. This time he seemed to enjoy going fast for a while, and toward the end of the trip as he was getting over stimulated, he went into the cabin (out of the wind) and sat uncomplaining with his hands over his ears. He didn’t even ask for anyone to hold him, but when I pulled him onto my lap he leaned against me quietly. I’m quite proud of him for how he’s learned to adapt to all the sensations on the boat. Here’s the boat ride pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/FirstBoatTripOfTheSeason2008