Adorable special sweeties update.

A few weeks ago it looked as if Max and Talia would be walking by their first birthday. Well, it hasn't happened. They're still topplers, not toddlers. For now, they seem happy with the amount of mischief they can get into by crawling and cruising.

Max Max in particular is very good at wreaking havoc. He has added the nickname Captain Destructo to his other names. He pulls hair, bites, pulls stuff off shelves, turns on the gas on the stove, pulls over stools and rips up any paper he lays his hands on (and quickly too). But it's all in such a pleasant, innocent manner that you can't be bothered by it. He has an intense curiosity about things. When he sees something new he doesn't forget and clambers, struggles and reaches until it's in his hands. He doesn't talk too much yet. His two words are "mama" and "ut" (hot).

Talia is not quite as destructive. Probably just because she doesn't have the reach and the strength of Max. He's seven centimeters taller and 2 kilograms heavier than her. She has a quite a few years ahead of her in which she'll be pushed around and have things grabbed from her by her beefy brother. She's a little more serious and little faster learner than Max. She's usually the first one to do anything new and has a larger vocabulary than he does. She says "mama", "papa" (with a perfect sing-song lilt, so cute!), "ka-ka" (which means dog -- their Opa's dog is named Kafka), "cah" (cat), and "ba" (which she says when I'm scolding Max -- bad?).

They really do change each day, but you can only see it if you look carefully. There are the big milestones that are remembered -- first steps, first words -- but there are hundreds of little milestones as well. Most of them we can't see because they happen internally within the child. I'm pretty happy to be able watch it all close up.