climbing the wall

A new milestone has been reached today by both girls. For the past year, Mabel and Stella have watched longingly as other Hotchkiss faculty kids and students get to climb and sit on the wall between the main building and the front circle drive. The wall is between 3 and 4 feet high and in the interest of safety I decided that I did not want them up there. I figured that when they were capable enough to climb up on their own, then they would be less likely to fall off and get hurt. They are so small that I thought we were another year away from this even being an issue. I underestimated them. Stella looked at the wall and hauled herself right up and was very pleased with herself. She was beaming as she walked across it. Mabel wanted it too, but she had to work a little bit for it. She tried a couple of times with no luck and then pleaded with me to help her up. When that didn't work, Stella came over and tried to give her a boost but it still wasn't working for her. I figured that we'd give it a try some other day, but Mabel does not give up easily. She walked to the end of the wall and tried grabbing both sides of the wall and hooking her ankle up over the corner. She was so excited when she had made it to the top that she gave a little hop and said "I did it!" and then started running (ah!) down the wall to the other side.

nice to meet you

Mabel wanted to sleep in Stella's bed tonight. Only once before have they been able to successfully fall asleep in the same bed together. Things generally start out nice and quiet with their heads at opposite ends of the bed. But after a few minutes that starts to deteriorate into giggling and poking and steamrolling each other until it becomes full blown laugher and there is no hope of sleep in the near future. Tonight we gave it another shot. Mabel was really insistent, so I gave in. They both like to have their backs rubbed in their own ways: Mabel likes to have her back actually rubbed and will say "rub my back" and then turn over on her tummy to make it happen. Stella likes to say "rub my back" but then when I start to rub her back it's too tickley for her so she just says no and pushes my hand away or turns over so her belly is up. After rubbing their backs for a bit I stopped and let them try to fall asleep. They laid quietly for a few seconds and then Mabel stuck her hand out across the bed and told Stella to hold her hand. Stella reached over, grabbed her hand and said "nice to meet you". This prompted Mabel to say "nice to meet you" back, which was followed by lots of giggling and more nice-to-meet-yous back and forth. And I couldn't stop laughing either. Where did they get that from???