19 1/4 months

Mom and Dad made it safely home! They spent a couple of nights in Gainesville with Utaka, and it sounded like they worked very hard, boxing things up and cleaning up the yard and getting rid of lots of stuff. Then they drove up to Wisconsin, I think spending only two nights on the road. It seemed really fast! Then when they got home, they discovered that something was wrong with the water supply so they had to stay in a hotel that night. Otherwise, it sounds like the neighbors have been taking care of the asparagus patch, and the rhubarb has been very prolific. We miss them down here, especially Thomas. Whenever we pass by the entrance to Mom and Dad's former apartment complex, Thomas always points and says, "doo! doo!" as if he's trying to say, "hey, you passed it, you passed it!" I always tell him that Grandma and Grandpa aren't there anymore, but I’m pretty sure it doesn't compute.

Thomas is getting very adventurous these days! I think he may be over some of his separation anxiety at last. The other day at McDonalds, he went up the playplace stairs to the second level all by himself-- for the first time. And for the first time, was out of sight for a several seconds at a time and was fine!! No crying or anything! And he was approached by another girl and she started playing with his "motorcycle" that he was sitting on ... and he was ok with it. And then he actually approached some other little kids and played with the motorcycle they were sitting on! Whoa. Where did this self-confident little kid come from? It's so exciting to see! On the other hand ... now is the time he'll start running away from us!

Thomas has a cold again. This one is number two. It started out as sneezing, and wincing when he coughs. Then his nose started to run and it just got runnier and runnier. He gets pretty tired and clingy at bedtime, but he's going to sleep a lot easier in the past couple of days. The only thing now is that he is getting very picky about his food and refuses to eat dinner, so he wakes up in the middle of the night hungry. We're figuring out what to do about that! It also looks like another tooth is about to erupt soon. This will be a bottom-left one (to make a row of four). Funny that this one is coming so late, after getting four molars!