Chase me, chase me, Lauren.

Lauren started crawling at 6 months old. A early crawler, to which I take no credit. It's a matter of her own desire to catch up with her big sister.

From the very beginning, the sight of Evelyn is enough to make Lauren bounce in excitement in my arms. Especially when we are following Evelyn up the stairs. Lauren would wiggle herself so that she's facing Evelyn, wave her arms and giggle in excitement. If Evelyn is in the mood to interact with Lauren, she would turn back and say "ribbit" every couple of steps. This makes Lauren laugh and laugh and laugh. Now that she's mobile, Lauren wants to follow Evelyn every where she goes. Evelyn took pride in this, too, and would let Lauren chase her. Except the 3 year old is not very good at gauging the crawler's speed. She'd zoom past Lauren on the hall way yelling "chase me, Lauren!" Lauren would sit up to watch her big sister, beams at the challenge, get on all fours and start towards the big girl. At which point, the big girl had done enough waiting and is zooming past again yelling "chase me, Lauren!" as she goes.

Then, they realized that this chasing game would work better if Evelyn is lying down and only rolls around. Seeing Evelyn laying on the couch or in the bed, Lauren could not resist to crawl over (doing an infant battle cry "ah`" along the way) and lay her head down on her sister, which would tickle Evelyn so that she'd giggle and laugh and roll away. Finding herself lying on top of the mattress instead of a cushy toddler body, Lauren would crawl a few inches over to where Evelyn is, and lay down again and so goes the game. Happy screams, laughter, and battle cries would fill the air. And all I have to do is assume the head-bump prevention duty and hope that they'd wear themselves out enough to guarantee an easy bedtime.

I wish they would so enjoy each other always.