This time last year...

Maxine was not reading and her cloth diapers were not leaking (see the wet spots on her pants?)... now she loves books and we are working on the leaking-thing. I believe she has graduated to the category of "super soaker" and we have ordered hemp inserts to try and remedy the situation. Back to the books, she loves reading, turning the pages and pointing at pictures. The other day I held up a magazine with the picture of a woman's face on it and she pointed at the woman's mouth and then touched her own. Maxine is so smart!

This time last year Maxine was eating every 2 to 3 hours and she was sleeping in our room. To make it easier for us we just put her in the travel bed between us. We called this period the "Bento Box Days".

The photo above is a shout out to our Nepal friends. Not only does Maxine eat rice with her hands like any Nepali babe her age, she can sort the rocks out of rice like no other... she even has the squat down. So proud...

We have been in a whirlwind preparing for the move to Ethiopia... we leave for DC one week from tomorrow. Maxine had 5 vaccinations on Thursday and it was terrible. She had a super high fever, felt terrible and thought we were trying to give her shots every time we tried to take her temp. Yesterday I was out of town and Ben ended up taking her to the ER because she had a temp of 104! We now know that is apparently "normal" or "okay" for a baby because their metabolisms are much faster and she has had so many vaccinations to make her immune system work extra hard. However, we were freaking out because one of the shots she had was yellow fever and it can have scary side effects for young kids (like under 4 months but we were still worried... despite all of the professional medical advice we received telling us it was not going to be a risk). She is still having a fever but she is so much better today.