Ernie's gearing up!

For Lenora. He's been all things baby sister lately: hugging and kissing mom's belly, talking her for walks, and sneaking peeks in her room and at her new crib. Recently, after we see mom off in the morning, Ernie says he wants to go for a walk with his orange and gray umbrella stroller, which he insists on pushing. He refers to these trips as going backpacking (I'm not sure where he got that terminology since I've never used it around him as we've never done that, but I'm rarely surprized anymore, if still amazed, by whatever new information he gloms onto). We walk about half to three-quarters of a mile and the whole way he pushes his stroller. He does stop frequently, however, to go around to the front of the stroller and make sure that Lenora is tucked in tight and all buckled up. He's very eager to become a good big brother.

We've also made some big headway in furnishing Lenora's room. After converting Ernie's crib into his big boy bed, we move the rocker over to her room; and we now have a rug and crib in there as well (hopefully pictures to follow soon). Ernie loves playing in Lenora's room (and he has pretty successfully started calling it that rather than "the guest room"). Last week he even took to running in there and yelling "Wake up, Lenora!" Hopefully we'll get that little nugget under control before she actually arrives.