celebrating similarities

We have twins (big surprise since that's the name of my blog) and these boys are as different as red and a water tower. I could go on for days over their differences. Their similarities are even more fun to reflect upon - They both love to giggle. They both are snuggly when it is what they want to be doing (Ok, one likes to snuggle more often than the other). They both love playing super-peek-a-boo with my old cottage quilt. They both love splashing in the bath tub.

And today, after 7 months of disparity, they both can walk!

William started stumbling around the room in an independent, upright manner about 7 months ago. He's now proficient enough that he will even take Mamma for a walk and is quite demanding if the route veers from his intended direction. Around that same time, Michael decided he'd do some army crawling, but that if something in the world was really important, it'd come to him.

So we've worked and worked and worked with him. He visits Miss Karla each week for some playtime PT where he has been learning that there is a pretty fun world up high. And Miss Allison comes over weekly for more playtime and Michael has learned (among other things) what "up up up" really means, besides just a means for getting out of the crib after nap time.

This week, our visits came with mixed results, and I have to admit I was beginning to get a little discouraged (like the discouraged that says "if this is part of the programming being cut in the state budget, will I continue it out of pocket? well probably yes, but reluctantly, maybe yes"). At PT, Michael was kind of uninterested. William was really the star of the show as he figured out how to take a suction-cup ball and a plain ball and attach both to the mirror. That kid's crazy ;) But today with Miss Allison, Michael had tons of fun putting together puzzles, dumping (and eating) cheerios, and stacking cubes. With high spirits came solid balance, so he was 'almost' standing, and enthusiastically walked around the room while holding onto Jessica's (nanny) hand.

Tonight, we were lucky because Dada made it home early from work and was here for post-dinner playtime. As I tried to demonstrate Michael's one-handed balance, he decided it'd be ok to let go and just walk over to Dada. Just like that.

And after a lot of cheering (which of course startled him, distracted him and caused him to crash), we tried a few more times with similar success.

And then William realized what was happening, raced across the room and knocked Michael right back onto the floor for a reprise of the army crawl. Which is much slower than William racing.