1.1

To our math teachers who promised that math would indeed apply to real life: We sheepishly bow our heads in agreement. And with an apology or two, as it seems as though we are awfully digit-focused in our blogosphere.

In reviewing recent postings, it is painfully clear that either I need a week-long writers workshop or a crash course in new perspectives. I think what's been happening to our brains is a strange justification. While trying to describe the galactic sense of wonder I am compensating with lots of numbers to quantify an otherwise qualitative experience.

Because as hard as we try to specify the millions of nuances that Carli and Joseph are comprised of, we end up saying pretty much what everyone else says: "They're amazing!"

While they are in fact amazing, they are so much more, rendering the thesaurus a mediocre tool for such extraordinary subjects.

But enough about mom and dad. Let's get back to the math. The "I turned 1" switch flipped and the developmental graphs are displaying staggering results.

Carli, mobile for at least the last four months now, has her progress moving at a steady rate. To date she is pulling herself up, cruising, free standing for a few seconds at a time. We no longer change her diapers or clothing, we wrestle with her until one of us is covered in desitin paste and/or pulling on clothes at random praying that eventually limbs will end up in their designated spot.

While Joseph is doing exactly the same; his graph went from plateau to spike- and what took Carli three months to master he has decided to compact into a four week span.

All this to say that the "gym at home" is providing harder workouts. If only we could translate all these burned calories into chiseled abs!

And around again to the abstract: Books and more books ("boo"). We are now entering the learn by repetition (and practically lose your marbles reading a particular tome for the 40th time) phase. We are enjoying some preliminary results; Carli is quick to recognize an "ana" (banana); and Joseph is quick to identify that the bees will buzz when he turns to a certain page. That or he really enjoys how ridiculous mom and dad look when we "buzz" and "moo". But we are happy to suffer for our art.

Finally, self expression above all: Carli's rapid fire exclamations fly out with the rhythm of a jackhammer; "Hemma, hemma, bub, bub". That explanation hardly does justice to the absolute deliciousness of it, but that's the general idea. Joseph's gurgles, screams and grunts have more tones than our Elmo guitar. If only we could translate those into adjectives, we might stand a chance of conveying our enthusiasm accurately.

Happy April. One question, what the heck does April snow bring?