Christmas

Christmas this year was spent in the UK, with Johanna's family coming up to London to hang out with us. Kirin and Malik both seemed to have a good time and life has slowly been getting back to normal since the in-laws departed.

It has been very cold here - below freezing, which is rare in London - so we have had to bundle up pretty well when leaving the house. Kirin has been less than keen to wear a toque, but he does seem to love the mask Johanna bought him. He now refers to himself as "Dash" (from the great film The Incredibles).
Malik's crawling is speeding up at an exponential rate which is both lovely to see and a bit frightening. I swear we need to put a helmet on this guy to save him from all of the bumps and bruises.

More important, his awareness of things around him is developing just as quickly. When I arrived home today, he was genuinely excited to see me and even crawled over to say hello. He also started grabbing the duck that Kirin had snatched from him in the bath. Fighting for toys... that is a phase I'm looking forward to.

Malik is on the move

Malik has started crawling which is fantastically cute (see the first video) but also a reminder that we need to keep an even closer eye on him. This morning, while I was at work, Johanna and Kirin were in the kitchen and left Malik in the living room. He was playing with a noisy toy, thrashing away, when all of sudden it went quiet. Johanna and Kirin returned to see what was going on - only to discover that Malik had disappeared. Don't worry - they found him in the bathroom trying to stand up to take a look in the bath.

NB - See if you can hear Kirin offering some positive re-enforcement to his little brother.



And, he is taking to the swing quite nicely, too.

The Christmas show

The shepherd boy

Looking for direction

Kirin and his mate Joel

Malik is happy to see his big brother

A couple of weeks ago, we spent Saturday afternoon at Kirin's nursery to see his first Christmas show. As you might expect, we took a couple of videos (apologies for the shaky quality ad sound). Kirin did well but seemed a little like a deer in headlights when he saw the crowd. The one thing he liked more than anything else: his red tights.

Rockin' around the Christmas tree

I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus