Madeline has been going through some remarkable advances over the past week that have been very interesting to watch. She started to arch her back over the weekend when planning to move forwards which put her into a full pre-crawl motion. Oddly this didn't work out as she may have expected on the slippery red rug. When she was hoping to move forwards to grasp her favorite electronic gadgets ( a phone or remote control ) she would slide backwards away from it instead of moving towards it. But today she was doing better with the pre-crawl motion. She has figured out how to pull on the long haired carpet in her room to climb forwards on the ground. Suddenly as we were watching her she pulled herself up on my leg to near a standing motion before falling and scaring herself into crying. My guess is that she will be into crawling from one side of the room to the next within two weeks. The timing on these recent stages of development for her are at the level of missing a week could be the difference between no words and a first word, no walking and a first step. She'll be graduating from college and off to school in no time.

So Sarah and I are continuing to bop around looking for a potential new home to fit the growing clan despite the fact that we fit quite nicely into our current domicile. We saw a nice set of condos this afternoon, one that caught our fancy even. But it takes a big gulp to think about bidding on a 4 bedroom Brookline condo in a turning real estate market even if the seller just knocked 10% off the asking price.