GROWLER MONKEY

Allegra loves to make noise. Seemingly her most favorite is a growl. She'll growl at you and wait for a response, and then do it again. This will go on for minutes upon minutes. Other times she'll just start growling at you over and over waiting for you to play. Kristen's guess is that her little growl actually means, "I love you." Sounds good to me.

CLIMBER, A LA TOBIN

Just a weekend before her 1st birthday, Allegra has begun her climbing career. Kristen told me just yesterday that Allegra is climbing up onto the dinner table via the chairs. I was skeptical until I saw it with my own eyes this morning at breakfast.

She got a foot-hold on the rungs of the chairs, balanced her body onto the chair's seat, grinning the whole time. From there it's not too far to the table top, and victory.

This is just what we need, a protege of Tobin...

LATE NIGHT CUDDLE BUG

Most nights, after the boys are in their room (I don't say asleep, because, let's just be honest here), Allegra will be in bed with Kristen and I while we watch some TV, or read, or whatever. This time of night is when she comes alive, as if she knows full well it's her personal time with mommy and daddy.

I don't have a more favorite time ever. She's giggly, and growly, and rollie-polie. I can get her giggling like no other time. She wants to stand and fall over, and roll over both of us. She will growl at us to get us to growl back, which goes on for 5 minutes at a time. And then as she's about ready for bed, she'll just settle down a bit and lay sweetly on each of us (back and forth), sucking her thumb, and usually stroking our arm or face. There's no sweeter moment, and I desperately hope to remember them for the rest of my life.

Oh, and then the best part? If you ask her is she's ready for her crib, to go to bed? She nods in the affirmative and grunts at us. So we take her up and lay her down without even a peep.

THE RADIO OPERATOR

Recently when Allegra gets tired, her thumb goes to her mouth (nothing new), and the unoccupied hand goes to her ear, so that she looks like a radio operator or something. And she switches off - sometimes it's the right thumb in her mouth, left hand on her left earlobe. Other times it's her left thumb in her mouth, with her right hand on her right earlobe. It's really whatever strikes her at the moment.

DISNEY WORLD TRIP - DAY 2

With the sick-situation from last night, Blane slept on the fold-out bed in Meme and Grumpa's room, while Tobin and Allegra slept with us. Grumpa gave us all some laughs by recounting the previous night's events in their room:
Apparently Blane woke up at one point, and was trying to talk to Meme. Grumpa overheard Blane complaining that Grumpa's snoring was keeping him awake. When Grumpa rolled over to look at Blane on the other side of the bed, Blane noticed this and slowly ducked-down behind the bed so he couldn't be seen. (This has Grumpa laughing pretty hard upon retelling it.) Grumpa informed Blane this morning, that it wasn't his snoring that had been keeping Blane up, but rather, it was Meme's...

Our second day in Florida was our first day at the Parks. With the gastro-intestinal fireworks of yesterday, we figured that taking things slowly at Animal Kingdom would be our best bet. While we were truly blessed that both Tobin and Allegra's tummies and spirits were back to normal, Animal Kingdom was still a drain on us all.

We started the day with the 3D attraction, "It's tough being a bug", from A Bug's Life. Unfortunately, there were a couple parts that were a little unsettling for Blane, and the rest of the day he had sort of a down attitude toward things.

Toward the end of the day, Tobin rode Dinosaur with Kristen, Grumpa, and I. Blane decided against it, not wanting to be scared again - this turned out to be a good idea on his part. The ride was really jerky, dark, and loud, he would have hated it. Tobin on the other hand, didn't like it much, but toughed-it-out like a champ and was ready for the next thing.

All in all, the day was a fun, but exhausting one. The kids did incredible at keeping up and not breaking-down or complaining. Even Allegra, at only 11 months was a super-trooper through the heat and constant motion. On the 8 mile drive back to the condo, Tobin crashed (around 5:30) and never got back up for the night.

Blane and Kristen and I went to the pool before eating dinner. While Blane and I were swimming, we worked our way over to an area that had bubbly water (similar to a hot tub). As we got into the bubbles, Blane told me, "These bubbles are the life!"

We returned to the condo and had tacos for dinner, and then Blane joined his brother in dreamland - both asleep for the night by 7pm, AWESOME. We finally discovered their kryptonite!

DISNEY WORLD TRIP - DAY 1

Just as we were landing in Orlando, Tobin puked in an air-sickness bag. He would continue to do so every 2-3 hours for the rest of the day. Allegra even got into the spirit and did likewise at about 12:30 in the morning, giving us worry that Tobin had passed things on to his baby sister. To make matters worse, she liberally covered the bed sheets, necessitating a call to the front desk in the middle of the night for new sheets. While Kristen bathed her and Allegra, I waited for the hotel staff (nearly 40 minutes) to locate the linens and deliver them to the room, so as not to wake the rest of the family.

After getting off the plane and gathering our bags, we headed for the rental car. Dad asked Mom, "Is it Thrifty?" She confirmed that it was, so we proceeded accordingly. Unfortunately the Thrifty lot was not on airport grounds, so we had to take a shuttle to the site. After getting there and waiting in line for an hour, we got to the desk and found they didn't have a reservation for us - which is about the time Mom came and realized the rental was with Hertz...

Tobin was in between pukes at one point and wanted something to drink. Kristen gave him a tiny sip of her Coke, in a coffee mug from the cupboard. Tobin took his sip, laid-back on the couch with a sigh, and exclaimed, "Ah! That's a good cup of joe!"

We hung out in the room for a few hours, and then realized that the AC didn't seem to be cooling the unit down. A call to the front desk and maintenance later, and we were in a 2nd unit for the night, until they could fix the AC in the original unit. So to put a positive spin on things, when Allegra puked in the bed - and we had to get the replacement sheets - it was not the bed we'd be sleeping in for the remainder of the week!