A Weekend of Firsts

This weekend was quite busy, no pictures (sorry).

First Formal Visit with our Ethiopian Friends
Friday we had dinner with our friends that just adopted 2 kids (a boy and a girl) from Ethiopia. They just got the kids at the end of February, so it was our first dinner with them all. It was so much fun!

We had met the kids briefly when the first arrived--exhausted and jet lagged. They were definitely more alert this time and a pleasure to be around (not that they were not a pleasure the first time). It is obvious that Peter has a new buddy--the little boy (20 mos) and Peter did a little bit of chattering and the three of them managed to play with all of the toys successfully. Although we will definitely need to give some "sharing" lessons to all.

I was anticipating a hectic dinner. It is a toddler and a 20 month old and then you throw in Peter....it was so quiet! The kids loved eating their food and they both sat quietly and ate. It was so incredible to look at them and think about where they had come from and what a fantastic new life they will have here with their loving parents.

Peter's First "Kiss"
On Saturday night, we had dinner with some new friends. They have a 15 month old named Kendall. Kendall and Peter had a blast together. It was sooooo cute! Peter seemed to be very impressed that she was able to walk and watched her navigate our house AND his toys! Given the sharing issues from the night before, I was expecting more of that on this go around. Especially because we were on his turf this time. However, Peter didn't care. She played with one of his favorites--a police car--and he just watched her.

The best part of the whole interaction was how "friendly" Kendall was. She kept trying to give Peter kisses. At one point, Peter had pulled himself up on pant legs and was standing in the kitchen. Kendall took the opportunity to give him a hug and a kiss. Too bad for Peter, his balance is not quite there yet. My hands were full of cookie dough and I couldn't help them. They both toppled to the ground....there were a few tears....and a large bump on Peter's forehead emerged.

Honestly, I wasn't sure if the bump was from that or from a prior incident--he hit his head on the sliding glass door harder than usual earlier in the day.

The First Bloody Incident
And then yesterday, we had some other friends over with their 10 week old. Peter was very interested in Evan's crying and also seemed to get frustrated when Daddy was holding him for "too long."

Peter started showing off his new skills with the walker that he got for his birthday. I turned my back for a moment, only to see that Peter had lost his balance and fell on our carpeted floor. However, when we picked him we saw his lip was bleeding a little bit.

I don't think I need to tell the few readers of this blog that blood and 1 year olds were not part of "my" plan yet. I was not anticipating dealing with that until he was running outside or whatever. And for the grandparents' sake, the amount of blood was TINY. There was not a lot of it. We're pretty sure he just bit his lip as he fell down. It is just not something you want to see.

In any case, we got through it. But it was duly noted that even a TINY amount of blood raised my blood pressure immediately. It made me think of my own parents. Here I am freaking out about a bit lip and they had to deal with open heart surgery and a 2 year old.

Anyway, despite the constant falling--which I know will only increase as he actually begins to walk--we had a great weekend. It was a fun weekend of firsts and made me look forward to the other ones that will come our way. Minus the blood of course.