Iris turns 6 tomorrow! For her birthday circle at school, she chose to bring daifuku as a treat to share and wants me to read Anno's Hat Tricks to the class. She's doing well in school, although first grade has been harder than kindergarten. In particular, reading is not coming easily for her, although she's making slow progress. She's been really interested in science and engineering lately. Ben took her to a Hacker Scouts open lab, where she and a friend had fun making rubber band guns and seed bombs. Iris has also been riding her bike a lot lately - on weekends she always asks if we can go for a bike ride. At the Berkeley Juggling Festival a couple of months ago, she saw a girl about her age (Frank Olivier's daughter) riding a unicycle and wanted to learn. So, there's a 16" unicycle on the way.

Zinnia has a best friend, named Maddy, at her preschool. The two of them are inseparable on the days they both attend, and they spend most of their time collecting things in baskets or purses and taking care of baby dolls. They wait for each other to wash their hands and get their lunchboxes out of their cubbies so they can sit down together at the lunch table (there's a rule against saving seats). Zinnia is still very self-motivated and independent, which is both wonderful and challenging. She recently started drawing and writing a bunch (probably because Iris often draws for an hour or so after school), and she made her first drawing that was recognizable as a human figure.

Neil has a very active imagination. When he gets to preschool in the mornings, Teacher Terra usually says "Hi, Neil!", and he says, "I'm not Neil; I'm a dragon/ a bad bird/ a scary robot/ a friendly tiger." He's potty-trained enough to wear underwear everyday, but he hardly ever remembers to go on his own. Either I have to remind him, or he realizes he needs to go only after his underwear is wet. Helping me in the kitchen is one of his favorite things to do. Whenever I start to cook something or even just serve a snack, he pulls up the stool to the counter and asks, "Can I help with you?" He's usually my stirrer when I'm baking. However, he tries to lick anything that might possibly taste good (including the top of the salt shaker), so it's a little tricky to have him in the kitchen with me.

Wendell has recently started crawling. He went straight to a proper cross-crawl rather than doing the army crawl (slithering). He also lifts his butt in the air and stands on his hands and tiptoes, like a Stegosaurus. He's still a very happy baby, and I'm amazed at the amount of time that he'll play contentedly on the floor. He loves when his big siblings pay attention to him, laughs at all of their crazy dancing, and doesn't seem to mind being lifted into Iris's lap (when she's sitting on the floor behind him). He stopped sleeping through the night at around 6 months and now wakes up 1-2x per night. But he goes back to sleep easily after having his diaper changed and nursing for a few minutes, and he doesn't have any trouble falling asleep in the crib by himself. :-D He LOVES baby food, and it's really rewarding to cook for him. Some of his recent favorites have been split pea soup, pureed broccoli with ricotta cheese, butternut squash with butter and cinnamon, white bean puree, oatmeal with pureed peaches, and yogurt with pureed blueberries. Anything in the squeeze pouches is a big hit too.