Climbing stairs and nearly walking

Eliana has managed to take about seven steps in a row. She's so close to fully walking! She's great at it if you hold her hand and little by little is gaining stability on her own.

Both girls can now climb stairs, though they haven't yet figured out how to go down. We're on the top floor of our building but there are eight steps above our apartment leading to the roof landing so I let them go up there a lot. They race each other up and laugh like crazy when I pick them up to plop them back down at the bottom to start all over again. It's also handy when carrying them up the four flights to our place, I can just put them down and walking behind them as they (sloooooooowly) make their way up. The only sucky thing is our building doesn't have a regular floor cleaner so most of the time the stairs are really too gross to let them climb, with the exception of the stairs up to the roof since we're the top apartment.

I attribute these skills mainly to lots of time spent in the mall play area. I tried copying some pictures of it from the mall's website so I'll try posting them here (I suppose I could actually take pictures of it myself but I'm too lazy...though I might have some my in-laws took. I'll check and post that shortly). Anyhow, the area is totally padded and as long as we show up early enough, and it's not a school holiday, then the place is either mostly empty or has only other babies/toddlers. Later in the day, after school lets out, it's full of older (by which I mean 5-6) kids, and they get a little too rambunctious so it's not all that safe for little kids. There the girls have learned, by themselves, to climb steps, slide down little slides, and teeter around on their feet a bit. They climb through tunnels, under arches, and ride see-saw-type toys. Oh, and steal food and toys from other babies. My girls aren't bullies, they're just so used to sharing everything they have with each other, especially food and toys, that they don't know everyone else doesn't share the same way. It's really kinda sweet, when you think about it.

This morning they pigged out over breakfast!! Leftover regular spaghetti and gluten-free shells (can anyone tell we're cleaning out our pantry for Pessach?) cooked in tomato spice sauce (the grown-ups' dinner from two nights ago), plain egg omelet, cucumber, and strawberry gamad (a slightly sweet yogurt-cheese thing). Now they're playing quietly together but soon will be diaper changes and naps. Oh, and Bracha is still in PJs (Eli is in her Mini Mouse shirt and OshKosh overalls, I love it!!!)