Elaine and Meredith Milestones

Here's a snapshot of what Elaine and Meredith are up to these days...

Elaine's favorite things (at 3 mos. old):

• Nursing, but not eating from a bottle
  
• Looking at: Everything! Especially faces, fans, pictures, stuffed animals
• Smiling and"talking": She coos and grunts and loves to get a response
  
• Watching her sister's antics

Elaine is learning to:

• Squirm and scoot (rotating a bit in her crib at night)
  
• Go to sleep in her crib by herself (with some protests), and waking up only once at night!
• Further vocalizations, including a couple proto-laughs
• Hit or grab with her hands - and she's learning to actually hit things

Meredith's favorite things (3 years and 9 mo old):

• Pretending to: play-act recent experiences; go on a rocket ship vacation, usually camping or the jungle; play "family" (usually she's an authority figure that tells others what to do)
  
• Making up songs for her sister - often they have both elements of songs she knows and newly-created, stream-of-consciousness elements
  
• Best friends Savannah, Eloise, and Clara at preschool
• Conversing about rock and roll songs with Daddy and listening to them on the iPod or YouTube (particularly the Beach Boys, the White Stripes, Queen, and They Might Be Giants).
• Talk to grandparents on phone, sometimes as a Skype video call
  

Meredith is learning to:

• Pump her legs on the swing (tricky: you have to do it more than twice to get results)
  
• Be gentle with her sister
• Plan ahead for the next day's events
• Peddle on the tag-along bike