Oh, the weather outside is......

cold. We went outside Friday to play in the snow. Hope loved it and spent a few hours outside. Naomi spent about two minutes before she started trying to go inside. But I've realized I'm quite good at driving in the snow. Either that, or everyone else here is really bad and make me look good by comparison.

We got some Christmas cards from Grandma the other day and I told Hope I wanted her to help me read her card. She gave me a funny look and said, "Do you not know how to read it?". Yes, smarty pants, I can read it; I want to see if you can sound out any of the words.

Hi Mom!

These are the words I hear almost nightly around 2am. A little head appears at the side of my bed and says "Hi mom". I just say, "Go back to bed, Naomi" and she trudges back to her bedroom. But it's the same routine night after night after night. What does she think she's doing wandering around the house in the middle of the night? One of these nights I think I'll just ask her what she's doing and see what she says.

Birthday Ideas

David asked me yesterday what I wanted for my birthday. He said he wanted to get me something nice. At first I thought a new camera- a really nice one. My pictures always seem bad to me- blurry and just not great quality. But would I really have the patience to learn all the fancy-pants stuff? And would I use it any more than I use the one we have now? David just had to have that expensive video camera last Christmas and we've taped less than an hour's worth of stuff, I bet. So I decided maybe not a camera. Asking for my old house is probably out of the question. I could use a new computer, but David wants one too, so that's out. Any ideas what I need, don't have, and can't live without? I can't even suggest jewelry, cause I never wear the stuff I have. It shouldn't be this hard to come up with something I want.

Halloween

Ok, I know alot of people think we should be condemned for celebrating Halloween. But it isn't like I've started my own coven in honor of the day. It's just a fun time to dress up the kids and get some sugar. And exercise. Since our neighborhood must be anti-halloween-ites, only every third or fourth house had anyone handing out candy, and since I couldn't very well tell Hope to be content with her five little pieces of candy after we finished the block we were supposed to ToT on, we walked quite a ways. And thanks to whomever thought it was a great idea to build houses on hills, we got to walk up and down everyone's stairs- some of these houses have 10 stairs up to their door. I carried Naomi up most of them so she didn't fall or get trampled. By the end of the evening, I had shed my sweatshirt, pushed up my sleeves, and was breaking a pretty nasty sweat. I can tell Disneyland is going to be lots of fun if I can't even walk up and down a few flights of stairs without huffing.

I found an angel costume on ebay several months ago that was either 1¢ or 99¢, I can't remember. But with shipping, it was about five bucks. I really thought about getting a devil costume for Naomi, but I thought that might be pushing it, and I couldn't find a cheap one, so she wore Hope's skunk costume. She loves hats, so she loved the hood to it; I put it on her early in the day and had to hide it from her so she wouldn't wear it all day long. Joel had two pumpkin costumes, so he wore one of them, but he and David stayed home and handed out candy while Hope and Naomi went ToTing. Naomi got the hang of things pretty quickly, holding out her bucket and taking handfuls when people let her pick her own candy. She was so sweet- she couldn't say trick or treat, but she never missed "thanks, bye bye". She learned quickly how to say candy and chocolate, and most of her candy has been removed from her pumpkin so we won't have too many days of listening to her ask for it.

Seriously? I have to drive this?

I really didn't want a minivan. After ending up with one as a rental last year and seeing how nice it was to sit on the floor between the girls to help them eat lunch, I decided it might not be the worst thing ever. And after the trip to Spokane last Thanksgiving in which I got to spend most of the five hours leaning over my seat trying to catch the vomit before it got all over Hope, I decided it might be a pretty good thing to have a minivan so I could actually get to her in situations like that. But holy cow, I don't want to drive one. They're just such a soccer-mom thing. But here's our new car.

Who cares what the polls say

People in this country think we actually elect the president. How foolish. I just watched an hour-long debate about who is going to win the election. Do these people not remember the last two elections? George Bush lost the popular vote, and yet he's still the one residing in the White House. We don't elect the president; the electoral college elects the president. Yes, it would be nice if the process was a little more democratic, but it isn't. Living in a very blue state, I know my vote counts for nada in any presidental election. Washington State's 11 electoral votes will always go to the most liberal candidate. So why even bother? I will vote, because I have a responsibility to do so. But don't try to convince me that "my vote counts" or that just because the polls say McCain and Obama were neck and neck a few weeks ago, McCain has a shot in heck of winning. Obama already has 260 electoral votes that are a given- the states historically vote Deomocrat. There are 90-some votes that are up for grabs in the battleground states. Obama needs 10 of those to win. There is no way he won't get them. That's basically one state. All he needs is one of the 7 or 8 states to go his way. Even if McCain gets all the votes for the states that are strongly Republican, weakly Republican, exactly tied, and weakly Democrat, he still doesn't have enough votes to win. Obama will be president; it's a mathematical certainty. So can we waste air time on something else?

Neighborhood of Make Believe

Hope is sitting on the couch making up some story between her hat and a hair clip. They got married-she performed the whole ceremony. I asked her how she knew what people said at a wedding. Her reply? "I knew cause we watched that movie where the boy and girl got married outside in the snow". Ah yes, the episode of Friends that we watched about SIX MONTHS AGO!! So the make-believe continues and pretty soon the husband tells his wife he doesn't like her. So the hairclip that's the girl tells her mom that her husband said he didn't like her. The mom says, "I'm so sorry he said that to you. Do I need to kill him?" Looks like Hope has the basics figured out: when someone says something mean to you, tell your mom and she'll kill them.

The days are long, but the years are short.

Today actually didn't seem that long:)
I was just upstairs rocking Joel and had to fold his legs up so he'd fit. It's amazing that he's already that long- to go from a little tiny thing- ok, he was never technically tiny- but little enough that we'd have to really bend our arm up just to support his rump, and now he lays his head on my shoulder and his feet are hitting my legs?!? Holy cow, that's gone fast. And Hope and I went shopping for shoes today for her. She's already out of the little girl shoes and into regular girl shoes. HOW is that possible? Naomi is so much more fun now that she's grown up a little that I don't mind the fact that she's getting bigger, but I bet in a year when she's too big to comfortably sit on the arm of my chair and look at pictures on my computer or snuggle in front of me on the couch, I'll wish these stupid years would slow down for her too. I don't recall giving any of them permission to grow up.

Ok, I know my geography isn't the greatest......

But on a weekly basis this summer, some patient would tell me that they went to "Eastern Washington" on vacation. When I questioned them further, they had gone to Chelan or Moses Lake or somewhere similar. Yes, I suppose technically if you divide the state of Washington in half, the Cascades are pretty much in the middle, so anything east of the mountains is eastern Washington. But isn't central Washington a more accurate description of where you were??

Thursday at work, someone brought in some wonderful peaches and plums. That led to a discussion of where to get good fruit. One of my coworkers, who is really not the brightest star in the sky, said she always gets her fruit "from that fruit stand in eastern Washington". Oh yeah, THAT fruit stand. You idiot, there is more than one fruit stand in the eastern half of the state. As she elaborated, the one she meant was the Thorpe place right before Ellensburg. Ok, since CENTRAL Washington University is in Ellensburg, wouldn't that pretty much be CENTRAL Washington?

And then at lunch, same coworker (who, as a side note, rivals Laurie on her health issues) asked me what state Chicago is in. Really? REALLY? Ok, if she'd asked what state Edwall was in, I could see not knowing that one. Even some mid-sized towns I'd have understood. But Chicago is the third-largest city in the country. That's like not knowing what country London or Paris is in. Do they not teach geography in school anymore?

Who's sleeping with whom

I swear, nobody in this house sleeps in their bed. Joel starts out in his crib, but sometimes ends up next to me. Hope has to start out in Zach's room, cause she and Naomi talk and keep each other up if they're in the same room. David usually ends up in Zach's room too, since he doesn't enjoy being kicked by Joel or kept awake by my snoring.

So last night Joel and Naomi started out in their respective beds. Hope went to sleep in Zach's room, and was supposed to have been moved back to her bed after Naomi fell asleep. Something was severely wrong with Joel, who woke up three times shrieking and had to be rocked back to sleep, which is unusual for him. The last time I couldn't get him to settle down. When he gets really worked up like that, the only thing that works is to lay down with him in my bed. The plan was to put him back in his crib after he fell asleep. However, laying down in a cozy bed with a little snugglebug is quite condusive to sleep, so I fell asleep too. By the time David went to bed, he was too tired to move Hope. So I slept with Joel, David slept with Hope, and poor little Mimi just slept with Tubby.

More teething???

Hope discovered yesterday that she has a loose tooth. I was pretty sure she was making it up, but I checked and, sure enough, it was wiggly. As I was playing with it, I noticed the one next to it was loose too! They certainly aren't going to be falling out this week, but they move around quite a bit. Joel's getting teeth, Hope's losing teeth.

Guess who else has two toothers!

There already was a post 2 years ago about guess who has two toothers, so I had to put the 'who else' part in there. While Joel is proving to be my best baby so far, he certainly has been the worst teether! Hope was fussy the day she got her first tooth; Naomi just opened her mouth one day and there was a little tooth poking through. No such luck with Mr. Man. He's been a shrieking, whining, big 'ole crybaby who has drooled and chewed on everything in sight for the last few weeks. His biting has lost him his breastfeeding priviledges; the thought of going to the ER to have a nipple replaced doesn't excite me:( And just think, we have 18 more teeth in the next couple years to deal with.

Doesn't it just figure that the one time I don't bring the camera....

is when a great photo op occurs. We went to the zoo again today, and Hope wanted to feed the birds again. No, she didn't sing the Mary Poppins song- I know Bryn will be so disappointed in her. David decided we should all go in, but strollers have to stay outside and I didn't think about the camera. When we were there last month the birds weren't too hungry and it took a long time before they'd eat the birdseed Hope had. This time, they'd land on you as soon as you got the birdseed in your hand. One landed on David's head, and another perched right on little Joel's shoulder. Joel seemed fairly confused, but he didn't cry and he held still, so the bird stayed there for a minute. WHY did I not have my camera??? That would've been such a great picture! But the girls got to feed one of the giraffes and we got pictures of that, so I guess I should be happy about the pictures we did get and hope that our next visit to Willawong Station will involve hungry birds.



Hopey last month feeding one of the birds

Naomi feeding a giraffe today

Not my little helper

Naomi loves to help with the laundry. She takes clothes out of the dryer and hands them to me to fold. She takes clothes out of the washer and puts them in the dryer, and swats my hand away when I try to help. She spins the washer tub to check for any stray socks, and declares "No mowa!" after she's checked.

Yesterday she was helping me fold kitchen towels and baby blankets. Apparently she didn't want to help very badly. She'd hand me about three towels and then say "ok, no mowa". Well, you goofball, I can see twenty more little towels in there. So I'd say, "yes, Naomi, there's more". Same thing- three towels and no mowa. It took awhile but we finally got all of them folded. She even crawled into the dryer to make sure there really were no more.

A bunch of bugs

We went to the zoo the other day. It was raining, so the indoor exhibits were quite popular. Most of the indoor stuff was creepy crawleys- Hopey got to pet a snake and a gecko- yuck! But the butterflies and blooms exhibit was fun- nothing slimy there:)

Naomi loves corn on the cob!

The Dangers of Unsupervised Camera Usage

Wowies

Naomi is constantly getting
"wowies" as she calls it when she gets hurt. Except she doesn't have to actually get hurt. If she brushes up against something or the wind blows on her wrong, she comes running crying wowie and has to have whatever area has the aforementioned wowie kissed. And if one leg has a wowie, the other leg will have a matching one. Often she gets wowies when nothing seems to happen- I think she makes them up. And lately in lieu of actually kissing them for her, we tell her to give it a kiss. She will- she'll just kiss whatever body parts she can reach. Yesterday she'd come over and point to my arm and say Wowie? and then kiss my arm for me. Compassionate little thing.

Lookalikes

These two- not so much:

These two- Joel is a little carbon copy:

The Joys of Motherhood

I've spent the last twelve hours cleaning up puke. We've gone through almost every blanket, sheet, towel, and pair of jammies in the house. Naomi started throwing up at bedtime last night and kept at it every half-hour or so till midnight. Hope joined the fun at 3AM. Poor thing slept on the floor in front of the bathroom door so she wouldn't have far to go. I fed Joel at 5:30-ish, and when I fed him again at 8, he'd thrown up. Luckily his isn't chunky:) He's still losing his milk; hopefully his will stop as quickly as the girls' did. If I'd known they were all going to get sick, I'd have made eggs for dinner instead of pizza. They slide up just as easily as they slide down.

How things change....

Remember when we were little and Oma would say "hold out your hand and shut your eyes...." I had some crackers in my hand to give Hope and I put them in my fist so Naomi wouldn't see them. I held my hand out, palm down, so I could put the crackers in her hand. She stared at my hand for a second, got a strange look on her face, and then fist-bumped me!

The Lake Life

We had our monthly staff meeting yesterday at the docs' house. They live on Lake Stevens; I've been to their house before but it was for a Christmas party, so I didn't spend alot of time on the deck taking in the view. It's been beautiful here this week- I think it was about 78 degrees, sunny, and a little breezy. I did pay attention to the meeting, but I enjoyed watching people on the lake too.

Especially when I thought we'd move to Tucson, I sort of gave up on my lake house dream. But after sitting on that deck for two hours, I'm really hoping someday I can find a way to have a place on a lake. I miss the leisurely pace of being at the lake; life goes into slow-motion somehow. I remember several times going to McKannas' cabin on my day off and just laying on the dock and reading a book, being rocked almost to sleep by the motion of the dock, being warmed from the sun reflecting off the water............I don't know if it gets any better than that.

Sleep Matters

After the exhastion and crying all weekend, Joel needed some sleep badly! I figure he slept about 2 hours total on Friday, and the same on Saturday. He and Hope were both asleep before we got out of Quincy city limits, but they woke up after about an hour and a half. So I was all for putting him to bed early on Saturday. David mentioned that he thought Joel actually woke himself up in his cradle because it rocks a little when he moves, even though the rocker is locked. So I put him in Naomi's crib for the night. He slept for 14 hours! He did wake up once to eat, but went right back to sleep for three more hours. We all see where this is going, right? If he can sleep for 10 or 11 hours without eating, am I going to be real quick to get up when he thinks he's hungry after 4 hours? I also have been putting him in the crib for his naps too. Today I put him in the crib when he was looking pretty sleepy. He was quiet for a few minutes and then started crying. I was busy unloading the dishwasher, so I figured I'd go up when I was done. Guess who was asleep by the time I got up there:) I think we're finally to the age where he can start learning to put himself to sleep.

Since Joel is sleeping in the crib, Naomi got booted into the bunkbeds. She's actually staying in bed. Hope has a CD player and listens to a VeggieTales CD when she goes to bed, which Naomi discovered was a pretty neat way to fall asleep. So I told her if she got out of bed, the Veggies would get turned off. So far she's taken her naps in there too and hasn't tried to get out of bed. Let's hope she enjoys her Veggies enough to stay put.

Hmmmmmmmm

Halfway through June and nothing to blog about.......... It's been pretty routine lately- nothing exciting. I think our back yard is finally going to be done next week. We'll see though. Zach will be here for a couple of weeks this weekend. OH- I booked our reservations for Disneyland- that's exciting I guess. David and Cari made the executive decision that Zachary was going whether he wanted to or not:) But we still have to wait six months to go. :(

Hope has started quoting thing she hears on tv. The other night she came into the family room to show us something she drew, and as we were looking at it she said "Dad, I'm thinking Arby's". There had been an Arby's commercial on earlier. What a nutjob though.

The other day I was on my cell with David and went out to the garage to get some food out of the freezer. Hope and Naomi trailed me out the garage too. I asked Hope to help me carry a couple of things, and so Naomi wouldn't feel left out I asked her to carry my cell phone. Hope and I took the food to the kitchen and put it away and I didn't think twice about my phone. Naomi kept following me around but I didn't think much of it. Ten minutes later, I was unloading the dishwasher and I saw her little hand reach up and put my phone on the counter next to me. She'd been following me until I asked for my phone back. For her, that's pretty sweet. Normally she'd call China or hide it somewhere, and then throw a fit when I wanted to put it away.

Joel has started cooing all the time. Especially at night, he's real talkative. I'll put him in his cradle when I go to bed and he coos me to sleep. He just lays there and talks to the ceiling. He's such a good baby. I think I may even be able to talk David into another one.

The Pot Bin

This cracks me up every time I see it. It's a big wooden bin where they put the used pots from the greenhouse at the bottom of our hill. But every time I see those words, I expect to see a bunch of stoners leaning in there looking for some weed.

The Middle Child

It probably really sucks to be Naomi. She does get babied an awful lot, and gets her way more often than Hope ever did. But she also gets ignored more often, I think. I'm making an effort to take her places with me rather than always taking Hope and leaving Naomi with David. But the other day at work someone wanted to see pictures of my kids, so I pulled up this blog and easily found pics of Hope and Joel. You know when the last picture of Naomi is from? Christmas. So I'm posting a couple cute pictures of her so she doesn't start counting posts like I counted lines in the Christmas letters. But in that family the middle child always got more lines..........

He once was lost but now is found

Slumbers was missing for a few days this week. We were pretty sure he had to be in the house somewhere, but we'd torn the place apart looking for him and he was nowhere to be found. I was feeling the way I used to feel when one of the cats didn't come home at night, and Hope was starting to sleep with "Soft Slumbers", as she's named the back-up bear we got for just this situation. We assumed he'd get lost when she was little enough that we could just switch and she wouldn't know the difference. Now she knows there's two of them, so it just wouldn't work very well. And with Naomi's tendency to put things in the garbage, the fact that the girls have been playing on the back deck the past few days, and that we'd gone several places that Hope might've taken him, we were afraid he might be gone for good.

But last night I saw a box of books in Hope's room that she rarely plays with. Naomi plays with it alot, so I checked in case she had crammed Slumbers in it. There he was! I actually had tears of joy in my eyes when I saw his little face poking out from between the books in the box. He may not be as soft and snuggly anymore as he once was, but he's still Hopey's baby.

Roly Poly Joely

Breastfeeding is supposed to result in leaner kids. Not working so well for this family. Hope was a formula baby; Naomi was bottle-fed breastmilk, which leads to similar weights as formula babies. At Hope's 2-month well-child check, she weighed 11 pounds. Naomi weighed 12 pounds at hers. Joel, well, Joel obviously isn't starving to death. I was betting on about 13 pounds. No, no; he weighs 15 pounds. On the dot. Fifteen pounds. Hope didn't even weigh that much at 4 months. My boss's daughter who is 9 months old weighs 16 pounds. After weighing Joel and looking at the percentiles chart, the nurse decided she must've written it down wrong because he was so far off the chart and asked if she could weigh him again. Same as before. He's officially a chunk. No wonder my arms hurt and I don't want to wear him in my BabyBjorn.

How do you explain hell?

David was trying to explain what hell was like to Hope. Eternal separation from God doesn't quite convey to a five year old, so he was using other examples. He apparently got the point across though. She said, "So it would be like mommy was spanking me and never stopped?"

How things have changed....

This morning Hope asked me if I watched Bug's Life when I was a little girl. I told her I didn't, and she asked "Well, then, what movies did you get in the mail when you were little?" I told her when I was little you didn't get movies in the mail; you had to go to the video rental store and rent movies. "Rent store. What the heck is a rent store??" I had CheapFlicks' movie list memorized; she doesn't even know you can go to a store to get a movie.

Things you don't hear every day....

This morning David poured a bowl of Rice Krispies for Hope and told her breakfast was ready. Since she is the world's biggest dawdler, she was still trying to get dressed. So he yelled up the stairs, "Well, get your pants on and get down here! Your cereal is getting cold!" Um, isn't cereal supposed to be cold?

Hopey then proceeded, because she can't sit still at the table, to dump that same bowl of Rice Krispies all over the carpet. My medications must be working better, because I didn't yell at all. I just went and got the dustbuster to clean it up. But seriously, what genius puts carpet in a main eating space? One more item to add to the list of things I don't want in my next house.

Well good morning to you, too....

This morning I took Joel into Naomi's room and put him on the changing table so I could change his diaper and get him dressed. Naomi was awake, but I left her in her crib till I was done with Joel. This was the conversation that went on:
Naomi: Hi!
Me: Hi Naomi
N: Hi!!
Me: Hi
N: Hi...... Hi!..... HI!..... HIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!
Me: are you saying Hi to me or Joel?
N: Dole
Me: well, he isn't gonna say hi back.....

Effective Discipline

You know you've found an effective punishment when your child asks if you can just spank her instead. Hope has had to spend the day in her room, and has twice yelled down the stairs, "Can I come downstairs and you can spank my bottom?" What nutso kid asks to be spanked?? She deliberately colored on the kitchen table for the second and third time this morning, so she got sent to her room. I actually told her at first that she was going to get spanked and asked her if she wanted me or David to spank her. She said David, so I just took all her markers away and made her quit coloring. Then she changed her mind half an hour later, and it didn't seem as effective to spank her then, so I sent her to her room for the rest of the day. It's killing her to be up there by herself. She's yelled down here about a few different things- wanting some stuff that was up on a shelf, telling me about the weeds in the back yard-real important stuff. I know she's been up there long enough to learn her lesson, but I told her she had to stay there till David got home and, honestly, my ears are enjoying the break! But at least I won't be as likely to spank her anymore when I've seen how well just sending her off by herself works.

Seven Years

I've thought a lot the past few days about how long seven years is. I can't really make myself feel much of anything about it. It doesn't seem like a long time ago or a short time ago. It isn't a big anniversary like five years or ten years- it's just one more year. I think I'm starting to feel like it was forever ago, rather than feeling like it just happened yesterday. Some things seem like they just happened, but overall it seems like a lifetime ago.

The most popular girl in school

A few times in the last couple of months, Hope has cried over the fact that her friend Hannah sometimes doesn't play with her at daycare; she plays with Makenna, another little girl who Hope isn't supposed to play with very much. Hopey's trying to obey and not play with Makenna, but then that means she feels left out when Hannah and Makenna play together.

Yesterday was the girls' first day back at daycare. We kept them home for two weeks because David's parents were here to help, but since we have to pay whether we're there or not, and they have preschool every day that Hope would miss out on, I decided to take them to daycare on their normal days even though I'm home with Joel. So when we walked in yesterday, it was like Santa had walked into the room. All I could hear was "Hope's back! Hopey's here!" We were mobbed by about eight little girls wanting to give Hope a hug. Hannah was first in the hugging line and was SO excited to see Hope. It was nice to see Hopey's little face light up from all the attention. Last night she told me how much all her friends had missed her and that Hannah played with her most of the day. I certainly don't think having lots of friends should be anyone's goal in life, but for the social little bug that is Hopey, it meant the world to be the center of attention and know that so many little girls were happy to see her again.

How Comfy Am I ?!?

It didn't take Joel too long to figure out this comfy, cozy sleeping thing!

And he honestly is not the chunky monkey he looks like in this picture.

Happy Birthday mom. And Happy Birth-day Joel.

I love you, Hope

Mandy's post about Alex reminded me of something Hope said the other day. We've told her that no matter how much mommy and daddy love her, God loves her even more. So the other day I told her I loved her lots. Her reply? "Well, God loves me lotser!"

The Best-laid Plans

Tonight I was trying to have the "just cause there's a new baby doesn't mean I love you any less" conversation with Hope. I told her that I'd have to spend alot more time taking care of her brother, at which point she informed me that I needed to take care of Naomi and she could take care of Joel. I told her I'd probably need to take care of Naomi and Joel; contrary as usual, she had a better plan. She'll help me take care of Naomi and I can help her take care of Joel. At least she's helpful; she fully expects to be the primary diaper-changer for her brother. When we got a cradle for Joel, she was upset because we put it in our room instead of hers. I told her if she had the cradle in her room, then she'd have to get up with her brother in the night and feed him and change his diaper and rock him and put him back to sleep. She was fine with that. I think she's forgotten how much babies can cry.

Colorblind

I know I've said, and so have others, how lucky we were to have Danny and Debbie in our lives at such a young age so that we were around other people who didn't look exactly like us. Otherwise we could have easily grown up with the same prejudices as some of our relatives. Now I'm realizing how lucky Hopey is, how lucky we all are, to have Lexiepie in our lives to teach Hope a similar lesson.

Tonight two girls came to the door selling something for a high school fundraiser. One was blond, all-American looking. (as a side note, what exactly is all-american? is it native american? I think really, instead of all-american, we should say all-northern-european-looking. that's what we mean, isn't it?). Anywho, the other girl with her was Indian or Pakistani or something similar. Hope was in the living room when David answered the door, so she had to say hi to them. After they left, we were all in the kitchen and Hope said, "I wonder if those girls were sisters or just best friends?" David was the one who pointed out how sweet it was that, although it should've been obvious that they weren't sisters, Hope doesn't see those sorts of limitations. For her, you don't have to look alike or be biologically related to be a family.

I guess it's genetic.

Bryn, you'll be happy to know that Naomi loves it when I do "that thing to her head". I don't know how she figured out she likes it, but she's walked over to me about 10 times today, picked up my hand and put it on her head so I can rub her head for her.

I Need Earplugs!

So Hope wanders into my room at 4:00 this morning and starts talking to me. After much discussion about which toys she can't find (cause I threw them away) and where she thinks they might be (the moving truck must've lost them), this is what she says:

H: You know Alex, he has a long black thing on his bottom.
Me: Ok
H: Why does he have that
Me: That's just what boys have on their bottoms
H: Well, Grant's a boy; I bet he has a white one
Me: Yep, he does
H: These jammies are soft; here, feel............

SHE'S NUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He knows me so well

That show "The Moment of Truth" just had a commercial where some guy asks his ex-girlfriend if he wanted to get back together, if she'd leave her husband. So David asked me which of my ex-boyfriends I'd leave him for. I didn't have to think about it for more than about two seconds; I said there wasn't one. But David knows me well enough to know that wasn't the question he needed to ask. So my dear husband smiles and says, "What if Peyton Manning was single and wanted to marry you. Would you leave me then?" I think my answer was "Yep!". Never gonna happen, so it's ok; besides, he said he'd leave me for Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Random Thoughts by Hope

Any conversation with Hope is always an adventure. This is a sampling of today's revelations:

"I want to go to the circus. I've never been to the circus. When can we go to the circus?" Said during breakfast when there was nothing circus-like happening.

"Are you trying to be your father???" This one required some explanation even for me. I asked her to hold our shopping list and then asked her what some of the letters were in the words. She apparently thought I was teasing, which she associates with her grandpa. 'teva, Hope.

She spotted a RedBull cooler at the store: "Look, there's the soda that gives you wings. Let's get some so we can have wings. Then we could fly. It'd be fun to fly........." I tuned out at this point. I'm sure there was a commentary on what she thought she'd see or do while she was flying.

MOMMMMMMMMMM

Naomi has finally learned how to say mom, credit mostly due to Hopeybug patiently saying "Naomi, say ma.........ma" over and over till she'd finally copy her. But now it's about all she says. If I'm not paying attention to her and she thinks I should, she yells "Mom!" If I'm not in view, she'll yell until I show up. If I close the bathroom door, if I don't shove food in her mouth quick enough, if she's bored, if she's in her crib and wants out.........you get the idea. David thinks its hilarious, so she has figured out she's being funny and does it just to make David laugh. I knew that, contrary to Oma's assessment, she wasn't retarded and would eventually talk. But now I wish she'd learn a new word. What else can I have Hope teach her? At least she hasn't figured out how to say "no" yet. She just shakes her head and runs the other way.

Angels Watching Over Me

I'm not sure what possessed me to make a 9am OB check. It's normally a 30-minute drive to the doctor's office; at 8 or 9, with traffic, it's more like 45 minutes if there aren't any wrecks. So when I woke up at 7:23, I was more focused on getting showered and getting the girls ready to go than I was on eating breakfast. So on the way to the doctor, I realized I hadn't eaten and needed to. But I figured, I'll just wait till after the appointment and take the girls to McDonalds. Great idea for a diabetic, right? Hashbrowns, biscuits, and OJ- no carbohydrate there. But we went. Naomi was flirting with someone sitting behind me, and when we got up to leave, I saw it was some skanky-looking guy just hanging out there. So when we went out to the car, I locked the doors. I never lock the car doors when we're in it unless there's someone around that worries me or we're in scary area. But I locked them, just to be on the safe side.

So as we were driving home, Hope says "Look what I'm doing, mom". She picked while we were driving 70mph down the freeway to realize she could reach her door handle and was pulling on it. If I hadn't locked the doors, her door would've flown open while we were in the fast lane on the freeway. Who knows if I would've had the presence of mind to just pull over or if we would've gotten in a wreck, but luckily I didn't have to find out. Whatever guardian angel God assigned to me today was thoughtful enough to make me forget to eat breakfast and then send some creepy guy to McDonalds, just to protect us and make sure Hope didn't learn a *very* hard lesson.

The Tickle Monster

David and I were sitting on the couch with Hope, and somehow we got started tickling her feet. Pretty soon Naomi runs over, yelling at us. We thought she was going to try to save her sissy. No, no; she wanted in on the action! She started in on Hope's tummy, trying to tickle her too. Then later I was laying on the floor, and she flopped over on my stomach and started tickling me!

The grass is always greener........

I am completely, without question, certifiably loco. This morning I've been crying because I miss Rockford. Yes, the place I absolutely hated and thought should be banished from the face of the earth. The place I complained about constantly and couldn't wait to leave. But David got an email yesterday from the echo dept with all the latest gossip- who's prego, who's dating, that sort of stuff. Then last night I dreamed we moved back there, but the people who bought our house wouldn't let us buy it back.

I told David about the dream, and he said "Well, I don't blame them. I wouldn't want to sell it either". So as we were talking I got started crying because I miss that house and I miss knowing David was happy to go to work every morning and I miss being able to be home and do whatever I want and being able to just go over to the hospital for lunch if we wanted. I miss Amy and Andre. I'm nuts. I hated it there- but now I can't really remember why. Maybe it was just cause I didn't think that's where I wanted to be. But I wonder what would've happened if I'd been taking my antidepressants that week we were in Spokane. David knew as soon as I started saying I wasn't going to go back to Rockford that I hadn't been taking my meds. If I'd just kept my mouth shut, would he still have wanted this job? Who knows. I feel bad that he moved to make me happy. And I am happy. I think. I don't really have a happiness checklist to judge by. I'm afraid that's just my personality- to always second-guess whatever decision I make. Bad news for me, cause the grass is usually greener somewhere else. And in this case it's greener from my back deck in Rockford.

Do you see a resemblance??

Naomi's hair has gotten long enough that it gets in her face it I don't do something with it. So I've started putting the front in pigtails, but they look like the horns on the Garbage Goat to me.

Painting Lesson

Today Hope had an introduction to one of the greatest artists in history, Bob Ross. Who'd you think I was going to say, Picasso? His voice is almost hypnotic. She sat and watched him paint, learned about happy little clouds, and helped him decide where the palm trees should live. Her primary observation? "His hair looks funny".

How do you explain adoption to a 4 year old?

Hope and I were watching Sesame Street and they had a part about babies. There were a bunch of different babies, and she says, "I don't want Joel to be a black baby; I want him to be white". So I tried to explain that if the mommy and daddy are white, then the baby will be white too. "Well, what about Alex? He's brown, but Aunt Mandy and Uncle James are white." So I asked her if she remembered when Alex first came here- he wasn't a little baby. I told her that Alex had another mommy and daddy before Mandy and James became his mom and dad. Typical Hope, she said "Well what happened? Did he get lost??" Gonna have to work a little more on explaining the concept of adoption before PB&J get here- she'll think there's just alot of lost little brown kids who happen to show up at Mandy's house.

This kid remembers everything!!

Hope has an amazing memory. I've always known that. But this morning we were watching the Rose Bowl parade-- she was VERY impressed with the floats-- and she started telling me how it was just like the parade she went to at our old house with Grant and Chloe. Ok, we went to the Lilac Parade ONE year, and she was a few weeks from being two! How does she remember that?? And dad thought she'd forget about aunt Carol's pony............