Progress

Because so many people are asking, "Is Gates crawling YET?!?!" I thought I should provide another update. He has definitely made progress - see video - but I don't think anyone would call this a crawl. I like to think of it as a waterless belly flop in motion.

Watching the faces of people seeing him do this for the first time is really entertaining. His "method of motion" must look painful because everyone squinches their face up like they are watching a gory surgery on tv. Like I said before, physics are currently against him (big head, big belly), so I'm really proud of my little brother for his determination.

I'm including this second clip to underscore my point about his determination. Watch as he gets to the turn in the hallway and rather than give up because he doesn't know how to turn yet, he stops, drops, rolls, then continues on his way - pure genius! Keep going little brother, you'll conquer the crawl someday soon...

Bahamas!

I may have mentioned this once or a thousand times before, but I'm pretty sure I belong on an island. There's something about being surrounded by water, blue sky, and palm trees - they definitely call it paradise for a reason. We flew down to the Bahamas last weekend for a quick trip - my mom was itching to travel and my dad said we needed sunshine. 
We had two goals each day - sun and sleep; this was not an overachievers vacation. I am happy to report we reached both our goals. My typical day went something like this: wake up, eat, beach walk, swim, eat, swim, eat, night activity, collapse in bed...repeat. Gates' routine was similar except his included pool or beach naps under some elaborate sun-blocking contraption my parents created out of pool objects (see photo).
 
Pool, beach, basketball, more pool, ping pong, giant checkers, sand crab, more pool - you get the idea. Here are a few of the highlights...

   

  

The obligatory family jumpers (notice I got air in the second one...)

To Crawl or Not to Crawl

To crawl or not to crawl, that is the question everyone is asking about my brother Gates these days. I can tell you for sure, the current answer is not to crawl and boy does it make him mad. I'm no physics major (yet), but let's just start with the obvious...29"long, 23lbs in weight, and a 98% head size - this is not an easy object to move. How would I know you ask? Well, because occasionally I grab him under the arms and drag him to different rooms in the house; it's like moving a small country. So I have great sympathy for him trying to move himself - it's tough.

Everyone who sees his effort says, "Oh look at him, he'll crawl any day now!" For the record, people have been saying this for about 3 months. I'm beginning to think "any day" means Christmas.

Here are some of his favorite faux crawl positions...

The grab and pull up 

The rock back and forth

 

 The imitate

And my favorite... The plank (he can do this for over a minute!)

 

Not crawling isn't a bad thing EXCEPT he really, really wants to. He's mastered what my mom calls the sit-and-spin. He's sits in one location and does complete 360 degree spins in a desperate attempt to move forward. He often looks confused after several spins. Sometimes he pushes himself at rapid speed...backwards. THIS is one of the saddest things to watch. He can be only a few inches from an object at the beginning, start pushing, and then end up 8-10 feet from it; all the while getting more and more mad.

 

Not to worry Gater, you'll eventually get it. But in the meantime, thanks for being so entertaining!

Hunting, Racing, Laughing

Those three words pretty much sum up our last week, so let's start with the hunting part. Actually, let's start with a totally rational question. Why does everyone think it is totally normal that a Goliath-sized bunny hops around hiding plastic chicken eggs?!?!?!!! I know I am new to earth, but sometimes it takes the new guy to point out the obvious...THIS IS NUTS! But as Bodie tells me, "The plastic eggs are full of treats and other good stuff. Stop asking so many questions Gates and start hunting!" So I did.

We headed to Top Golf for an impressive egg hunt. Clever planning because an

egg and a golf ball are about the same size, so eggs where hidden everywhere. Bodie, after a ridiculous amount of hunting, found one of the coveted golden eggs; that kid is committed. They also had tons of games, a moon bounce, a magician, cotton candy, and endless prizes. We, of course, partook in all of it then headed home.
Our traditional neighborhood Easter egg hunt at our community house was accidentally forgotten this year so we ended up hosting a last-minute version for whoever wanted to show up. We have awesome neighbors - lucky us.

Easter morning was packed with Mass and church. Both services were filled with fantastic messages about Christ and the resurrection. (Okay, side note here. I may have slept through most of mass and church, snuggled up with my blanket in my car carrier, but I am told it was a really spiritual morning.) Then we headed home to dive into our Easter baskets.

I scored a new bike helmet - I think the "Caution" tape design is appropriate in this family - textured balls and tub toys. Bodie got a super hero car, baseball helmets, and some air pumper cars. And then we had to go on a hunt to find these... BIKES!

 I'm told mine doesn't go quite as fast as Bodie's, but I'd like to point out that mine has double the amount of wheels AND eyeballs, which is awesome. This is the last picture we have of Bodie not in motion. Since Sunday, he's been pedaling all over Arlington. He rode a mile without stopping on Wednesday and earned a Matchbox car (leave it up to my parents to make it a competition). I know I'm bragging a lot about him, but not many four-year olds jump on a pedal bike and take off without training wheels, I'm really, really proud of him.

 And while Bodie is racing around the world on his new pedal bike, I like to sit back and do this...

April is Hopping By

Good grief, this month is hopping by - see how high I can hop these days!. Apologies for the delay in posting. You'll be happy to know Mother Nature appears to have figured things out and we think we're done with snow; we've even attempted shorts a few times in the past few weeks! Related to that, we decided to have a "park-a-thon." What's a park-a-thon you ask? Well, it's when we go to as many parks as we can in one week...also known as total awesomeness. We hit ten different parks in six days with more than a dozen friends, always staying for a minimum of three hours at each park. What about Gates? Lucky for me God gave a cool little brother. He loves parks. His favorite things are going down the slide on his belly, swinging, and eating bark chips and grass. I've tried to explain to him that bark chips and grass taste gross but, as my mom points out, he's never had ice cream so he has little to compare them to. For all he knows, bark chips and grass ARE ice cream!

Tee ball has begun. And by "begun" I mean it started based on the calendar date but that every
practice and game has been rained out so far. Not to worry, I'm super excited about my team, The Storm. And when I say the team name, I like to say it like I'm announcing a scary sci-fi movie title, "The Storm," it makes our team seem really tough. Thanks to my Nana and PopPop who gave me a new tee ball set, I've been able to practice in my yard.

We did get to participate in opening day and wear our uniforms; that was cool. My mom said she had a surreal moment at the ball field when she was sitting in the stands with Gates as the different teams began to parade by and over the loud speaker they started playing John Fogerty's song "Centerfield." This was the song her favorite coach, Gary Gates - who Gates is named after - would play 25 years ago as her softball team warmed up before each game. She said she felt like Gary was there just enjoying the moment with her - watching HER son start his baseball career. Pretty neat.

Our buddies, the Bormans, came to town from California for their spring break. Amy, their mom, and my mom drove across the country together 20 years ago when my mom moved to DC. They were trying to tell us how they used paper maps with highlighted routes to make the trip - I think they drove by some dinosaurs too. Anyway, you know it's fun when us kids never got to bed before 10pm at night...Parrrr-tay! We visited the sites and played nonstop.

Lastly, I should probably let you know the preschool influence has finally infiltrated our home and I have gone bonkers for anything related to superheroes. It doesn't matter that I have never seen any superhero cartoons, movies, or comic strips. Nor does it matter that my only real exposure to them is the theme songs on YouTube and through recent library book loaners. What matters is I have more superhero t-shirts than anyone in my class...and I can sing "Du nu nu nu nu nu nu nu, du nu nu nu nu nu nu nu nu, BATMAN!" louder than any of my friends.