Progress

Aerin is quite the athlete. She can pull herself up in her crib, even though we've lowered it as far as it will go. She's very good at falling and what we call controlled landings, where she slowly lowers herself down. She doesn't even look at us when she falls anymore. Since we always smiled at us when she did look, I think she decided that falling isn't a big deal.

Aerin made her first conquest last weekend. I took her to a baby expo at the Richmond Raceway Complex. There were some areas where you couldn't take strollers (which struck me as odd, but I'm sure they had their reasons). Since I had Aerin in her new stroller, I had to stand at the entrances to the areas to get closer looks. One of these areas was being watched by a gentleman and his little boy, who couldn't have been more than 4 years old. To my surprise, he came right up to Aerin with an expression on his face that can only be described as enthralled. He went to touch her face, but his father and I both said no at the same time. He went for her hand, so I suggested he touch her feet. He grasped her little foot like it was a precious jewel and stared raptly at her for a good 5 minutes. I have never seen anything like it in my life. In my experience, little boys either aren't interested in babies or dislike them. The father was watching with a bewildered expression that I'm sure was similar to mine. He told me that the boy had never done anything like this ever before. I finally had to go and the boy would have followed us if his dad hadn't physically prevented him. Aerin was pretty unimpressed for her part. She smiled briefly when he took her foot, then went back to examining her surroundings and playing with her stroller toys. It seems she is unaware of her great and terrible powers. Poor Andrew. He's going to have a rough time of it as she grows up.

We finally got rid of the Behemoth, which is what we called our old travel system. We went for the Cadillac of travel systems with all the bells and whistles (hey, it was our first baby and a micropreemie). The stroller weighed approximately 2 tons and took up the entire trunk of both our cars. It was very pretty and comfortable for Aerin, but the second she outgrew the carrier/car seat, it was retired. We got a Peg Pérego Pliko Lite stroller and a Britax Decathalon convertible car seat. Those who know me will be shocked to learn that both are in gender-neutral patterns (the stroller is black and green and the car seat is grayish with multicolored stripes). We plan to use these for our next baby, so it just made sense.