About 10 days ago Elaine took her first steps without any help. Just 2 steps, after that someone had to catch her. But she is learning very quickly, because today I took the kids to the City Supermarket after work and Elaine walked around everywhere. I still had to hold her hand in case she would lose her balance, something that happened every couple of steps, but most of the time she was basically walking without my help. I love my little girl!

Scott was not so happy that Elaine was suddenly getting all attention. To protest he decided to sit in Elaine’s stroller and he refused to get out. I tried to carry him but he was stubborn and completely ignored me. Luckily I figured out a trick for this: after I told him that the stroller was now a race car (making fast turns and race car sounds) he was a happy boy right away again and forgot all about the fact that he was supposed to be unhappy with us. Scott is a great little boy, I am so happy to have him around every day.

Another interesting thing that I happened this week had to do with Elaine’s vocabulary. She knows about 100 words I think, mainly Chinese ones but also a couple of Dutch ones. But yesterday she surprised me when I came home an she said something like “papa eye bat”. At first I did not realize what she was trying to tell me, until I noticed that she was pointing at my iPad. She is just 13 months old and now already asks for my iPad, she is a real Apple fan girl! When I give it to her she knows which button to push to turn it on, how to swipe to go the home screen and how to launch her favorite app. To me it proves that the Apple UI (=user interface) is the most intuitive in the world and that the iPad is the perfect toy for all ages.