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.