Meeting my relatives
So I'm back from visiting my sister and her family. I met her new kids and neither of them screamed or cried when they saw me, so I count that as a success.
The baby, Bhutan*, is chubby and hilarious. He pretty much never cries and ALWAYS WANTS TO EAT. In fact, the only time he really gets upset is when he hears the spoon scraping the bottom of his bowl of formless vegetable slop.
We went swimming and he learned about splashing. Unfortunately, he learned by splashing himself.
The little girl, Sophia*, is smart and personable and active. She LOVES to read and be read to, and will ask for the same book to be read to her over and over. She's only three, but her attention span for books is really long.
A girl after my own heart!
We did lots of stuff with them while we were there. We did a lot of firsts, like going to the pool and playing in the sprinkler. Sophia was very cautious about the water, but slowly got more and more comfortable with both the pool and the sprinkler.
The public kiddie pool we went to was very shallow. It was also warm - like swimming in a gigantic bathtub.
And full of filthy children.
We pretty much all got sick.
In spite of losing my voice for three days, I really enjoyed my trip and had fun meeting the kids. My sister and her husband are routine-nazis, which is cause for two thumbs up in my opinion. Kids are nicer when there's consistency.
Now I'm back home and things have been crazy. The population of our house rose to an all-time high right after I got back, as we were sheltering seven dogs and six cats for a short while. Fortunately, two dogs got adopted, my parents collected their dog, and today Mark's mother collected her two cats. Between fostering and pet-sitting for vacationing family members, it got a bit ridiculous.
But that's another post.
It was good to get to know Sophia and Bhutan.
I will enjoy watching them grow up. 
