hmmmm...."hey, mom! can we go to ven and jerry's?!" (that is not a typo). "sure! you guys did a great job riding arond the lake and it is a beautiful day--perfect for ice cream!"

uh, hello? mom? sugar? not doing it?

oops.

the benefit: ava' s behavior was just fine.

i suppose there are lots of reasons to eliminate sugar, but clearly the association between behavior and sugar is dubious in this case.

carter has pedaled around the lake 2ce, and ava has gone 4x in 3 days. how great.

(carter gets a little push, but his little legs keep going around and around and around!)

carter is finally starting to sing. very interesting.

he is more of a little boy now. able to really articulate complicated thoughts and feelings.

what is interesting is that if he has been genuinely hurt or genuinely scared, often he will get very quiet, silently crying huge tears that well up and finally drop off, and if you hold him, he will very quietly sob. not always--sometimes (like when ava plays "huge scary monster-animal") he will scream at the top of his lungs in terror, and sometimes when hurt he will let out a primal wail, but it is more and more common for him to hide his hurt--only showing me or dad. the other day while i was cooking, he was in the living room with dad and ava--he hurt his lip on his sippy cup and just got up and walked out of the room. i did not even hear him until he was holding onto my leg, very quietly saying "mommy...i hurt my lip..."

it makes you absolutely melt.