(soon to be) Lone and Lorn

Starting this evening, and ending late, late Sunday night, I will be doing it by myself with three children under the age of three. Since I am not Theia, 'doing it myself' does not hold any special thrill. But I'm trying to put a good face on it and I'm trying not to think too much about Sunday morning. Jessie usually runs the show on Sundays so I can get myself all purty, and nurse Ingrid before Sunday School. I'll let you know how it goes. At the very least, I don't expect to be looking very purty this Sunday. But then, Jessie won't be there, so that shouldn't matter, right?

Wordless Wednesday

Baby-Baby-Wearing and other Stuff

I am still living in the afterglow of our lovely weekend. Thanks to the generosity of our friend Christi from church, Jessie and I got to go on a date! We haven't been out alone since we moved and we have been chompin at the bit to get out together. We planned on just leaving the older girls, but when we started to walk out the door with Ingrid Christi protested convincingly enough that we decided to leave Ingrid as well. I'm not sure she didn't regret it though, since Ingrid was fussy for the last 45 minutes that we were gone and her husband wasn't home to help her before we returned. I think he's still apologizing for that :). We are so grateful for the friends we've made here. The Lord has provided some amazing people to encourage us and increase our joy at our new home. After our date we had a romantic evening that may have involved candles and a massage, but I'm not saying. We had a family day on Saturday. We took the girls to the Manatee Recreation Area so they could get mud in their diapers play by the lake.

Eliza was sleeping in her carseat while we arrived so we played on the playground and Theia decided to have her first accident. Just as another family was arriving to play, she pulled up her dress and proceeded to christen the sand around her. I don't know what got into her. She's never done that before. Oh well, I was beginning to feel left out when I hear everyone else's potty training horror stories.

We actually saw our first alligator since we've been here. I didn't get a picture because it was way out on the lake and just looked like a floating log. We could see it better with Jessie's big zoom lens. We took a lot of nice pictures with his camera but they aren't developed yet so you only get to see the low quality digitals since we sacrificed our nice digital on the altar of 1 year old toilet mischief.

This is me posing as an artsy mom who wears her baby 75% of her day and takes stunning pictures with her high quality camera as a matter of course. Just for the record, I did make this sling myself, but I don't use it very often. I have been trying to get into the habit of using it more, because I do like babywearing. I was carrying Ingrid this morning in the sling that my Mom used to carry me in, and Theia asked if she could wear it. So I put a diaper pin it to make it fit and she was immensely pleased.

Don't you love how toddler's legs and feet are so chubby?

It looked like so much fun that Eliza insisted on wearing it too, for about 8 seconds.

Just call me Dear.

Yesterday Theia was reciting the names of our family. It went something like this: "...and her name is Ewiza, and her name is Ingern, and his name is Daddy, and your name is Dear, right?"

My Middle Child

This little girl is just growing up way too fast! This is Eliza in February 2008. Such a delightful little pink-cheeked baby.

And this is Eliza last week. She is running, jumping, talking, singing, feeding herself with a fork, and pretending to be a dog. She is still sucking her thumb and she still climbs up on Mommy's lap to snuggle several times a day. I love that she still does this!

Eliza is a very motherly little soul. She treats all her dolls with great tenderness and speaks to them very softly. She likes to make sure that all of the toys of the household are properly nourished and hydrated.

This is not limited to "living" toys. Hairbrushes need love too.

Eliza is also our biggest eater at the moment. Jessie and I often share our food with her off of our plate and she usually ends up eating more than we do. That's why we're so skinny (Harharhar). She surprises me with her undiscriminating taste too. I recently discovered that she is quite fond of tomato soup. In fact, we started feeding it to her with a straw for ease of passage. She slurps down a whole bowl without coming up to breathe.

One of My Favorites.

I love this picture. I took it on a day when I was trying out my camera settings and getting a little artsy.

Theia

20 months

Snugger than Two Toddlers in Wicker Baskets...

This is the girls' latest preferred method of watching movies. I don't know when it started, but it is absolutely necessary to them now. If the toy baskets have been moved, or if by some freak chance, they actually have toys in them, they must be located and emptied before any movie can be properly enjoyed. Perhaps Theia feels safer when the basket is "holding" her, since she has been known to whimper and hide her face while watching Veggie Tales (mostly because of a certain Philistine pickle). And Eliza is just all about comfort. Give her her thumb and a stretchy waistband and she's good to go. She cannot suck her thumb without burying her other hand in her pants or tucking it into the neckline of her shirt. That's why we try to keep a onesie on her at all times. Peter Pan has been the most requested movie of recent days. I can't see how Captain Hook and a hungry crocodile are somehow less disturbing than a large pickle with a fake accent, but "ours is not to reason why".

*Disclaimer: Yes, it looks hideous to have no rug under the coffee table. I removed our alpaca rug becauset there had been too many close calls (Eliza immediately spilled water all over the area after I removed it too :) and I just haven't gotten the other one out of the garage yet.