It's funny how babies--ours, anyway--seem to make advances in fits and starts. They'll be hanging out on a little developmental plateau for weeks, not doing anything terribly new or exciting, and then all of a sudden, wham! They're a completely different baby.

Take Elsa. Please! (Thank you very much; I'll be here all week.) All of a sudden, she's a babbler. No longer content to gurgle and goo and squeal (oh boy, can that girl squeal), she's started staging long, loud, monosyllabic filibusters: "Buh buh buh ga bah ah ah bah ga ga guh guh da da ba da ba ga ah guh guh buh buh!" And then there's her special pacifier sound, a funny, nasal little speech she makes when she's in her crib with her pacifier in her mouth, which makes her sound like a cross between Popeye and an old Yiddish man: "Goy goy goy goy goy!"

What's even more impressive, though, is how crazily mobile she has become. In the past week, she's gone from slow, casual creeping to seriously intentional, commando-style scooting and proto-crawling -- always in the direction of electrical cords, naturally. She's also suddenly capable of getting up to a seated position on her own, from her back or stomach or all fours. This means that now, when I put her down in her crib to sleep, whether or not she remains lying down is entirely up to her. I'm not sure how I feel about her having this much free will.

In any case, we've had to make some adjustments. Yesterday, I lowered the mattress in her crib, just to be on the safe side. While she's not pulling up yet, I'd rather not have her first attempts at it land her on the nursery floor. And last weekend I gave in and paid a visit to the Superstore That Must Not Be Named for babyproofing supplies. There is now foam on the corners and edges of the coffee table, and a very nifty plastic cover over the power strip in the living room. (Who knew such things existed!) The other day, Elsa made a beeline for it and I watched, chuckling in evil triumph as she failed utterly in her concerted effort to electrocute herself.

And what of Clio, you ask? Has she been sitting silently, stilly by while Elsa bounds ahead with verbal and gross motor skill advances? Well, sort of. She has started babbling a bit more, and last night I heard her try out the Yiddish Popeye pacifier thing. As for movement, she will occasionally push up onto her hands and knees or scoot a little bit when she's on her tummy, but she seems to be doing it more out of a sense of obligation as opposed to any real desire, like Elsa the Exploradora. Mostly, Clio's perfectly content to sit in one place and flap her arms around or play with a toy and grin, twinkly-eyed, at us, or to lie on her back and play with her feet. Cruising across the floor hell-bent on her own destruction just isn't her thing right now. And that's cool. But we are pretty sure that she's about to beat Elsa to a milestone for the first time any day now: those lower incisors are totally ready to pop.

In other news, I'm very happy to report that since my post in which the girls first slept through the night (or most of it, anyway), they have pretty consistently gone from their 10:30 dream feed through until 6 or 6:30 without needing parental intervention. Elsa still wakes up and cries a little around three or four most nights, but gets herself back to sleep after a few minutes. Clio has awoken with teething pain a few times, but some cuddling and a quick hit of Tylenol generally do the trick. Meanwhile, I'm trying to adhere to a strict I-will-not-come-in-and-get-you-before-6-am policy, because as far as I'm concerned, anything before 6 am still counts as the middle of the night -- a value I want very much to instill in my children. The next big step will be to eliminate the 10:30 feeding. Any tips on how and when to do this -- including how to involve majorly painful engorgement -- from those who've been there are most welcome...