3 weeks in...

I saw the figure emerge in my peripheral vision.  We were asking the clerk about the merits of various double strollers when I saw a penguin of a girl slink out from behind one of the merchandise shelves with her pants slipped down to her knees. She had to go potty.

Only, when I brought her to the public restroom in the store, she declined.  She wanted to use one of the colorful Baby Bjorn chairs stacked in the nursing aisle.  Who could blame her?  Baby Girl was conducting important consumer research.  How many of us would bypass the chance to test-drive a throne so cute?  Of course, most of us would likely possess the social cues not to pull down our drawers in public, nor expect to actually test the limits of the bowl, but I had to give it to Baby Girl for taking the initiative.

*** I have learned to do something new in the last week.  It is is not a totally new learning, it is a learning that has taken on a new form in a new context for me this week, and it has made a huge elephant footprint of a difference.

I decided earlier this week that I was not going to lose my temper with my toddler.  If I had any self control at all, and if God had any power over that self control, I was just not going to let the ignite the coals of my anger.  So I didn't.  I just...chose not to escalate any situation.  I'm not saying I handled every altercation well, but given the fact that Big Pops and Nana Jake thought it prudent to gift my tot with a set of porcelain pug salt and pepper shakers (totes appropos for 2 y.o.) and given the fact that my toddler chose to gift me with a banging of my funnybone with one of said pug pepper shakers, I have to say that I did well, praises be.

***

As mentioned, my dad and stepmama visited earlier this week, which was 10,000 laughs and chicken parmesan and a trip to the zoo and hanging out on our primitive patio, blowing bubbles.  I missed them before they came and now I miss them more because I bear Baby Girl's missing them and so it's a camel back of missing people who live far far away.

***

Little Man is still the smooshiest, sleepiest member of our family.  I am watching the cheeks of his sister thin out by the day, so I am working extra hard to plump his up to balance the cheek chubbery around here.

***

One more thing.  I was home yesterday tending to both children by myself.  I allowed Baby Girl to fingerpaint.  In the house.  For the first time ever.  And we didn't have to call poison control!!  We had fun!!  Masterpieces were made!!  I am the mother of two children!!!

***

***

Nana J and Pampa

Days of Sweet, Days of Sweat

We've had some sweet days here with the advent of summer, and I am so so glad for sprinkler park weather, and husbands who take days off to wrangle toddlers and knock out grocery lists, and wee baldy infants that caterpillar crawl up their mamas' chest.... Of course, it has not been all bliss and baby booties.  I am still in excruciating abdominal pain, rendering me unhelpful for the majority of toddler fun-making.  I have been so guilty of being a mean mama to my toddler, meeeean and wretched!! and I have surely been forced to my praying knees. Oh mercy, have I.

I know the days will start to be better once I start to feel better, but in the meantime, I am nuzzling a downy head of a Little Man and kissing the sweet cheeks of a Baby Girl and holding fast to the Lovey Loverpants and hoping that we will find our rhythm as a family of four, even if it is an awkward, peculiar kind of rhythm...let it be one that we four can follow together.

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Adventures with Daddy...

We do not own a set of blocks.  We don't need them when we have Walgreen's pharmacy in our very own home.

Even Thundercats need a nap sometimes.

Oh those sweet munchy dimples!

Recovery

The volunteer corps that has been tending to our sink of dirty dishes and tending to Baby Girl's newfound interest in reading The Berenstein Bears and Too Much TV - which she subsequently wants to watch on the telly; this toddler knows irony - has left.  They arrived when we were still a family of three and now they depart and we are a family of four. That's madness.

I've been so so grateful for the help, but I'm glad for the reprieve, as well.  My guts are all still so painfully swollen and my appetite is pretty poor and my desire to just hermit-snuggle Little Man for hour upon silent hour is so great.  I'm happy to trade an immaculately clean home for a messy one if it means I can walk around our place with my milk-stained t-shirt and not feel self-conscious.

So far, though, we're lucking out with Little Man who really is a champion sleeper/feeder and must have some copper pipes for plumbing because dang if this kid's bowels aren't a thing of beauty.

Baby Girl has decided to love on Little Man at every opportunity while punishing her parents in ways never before demonstrated.  Girlfriend grew a set of horns and has taken to violent outbursts, hitting Mama, and declared herself oppositional in every way.  Of course we were forewarned, but like every parent on earth, we said to ourselves, "Oh...but our child will be different!"

HAH.

HAHAHHH!

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA.

wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.