A boy obsessed

Matt reminded me that awhile back, all I wanted was for Jamison to find a hobby that didn't include whining or following my every move.

Well, my wish has come true, although I think what Jamison has is more akin to an obsession than a hobby. The only thing on this boy's mind these days are lawnmowers. And trimmers. I have never seen anything like it. The girls have had interests for sure, but the fervor Jamison has for lawn care is matchless.

Last week Henny and Molly came to visit. They never ever get to visit. So this is kind of a big, fun deal. Still, sleepy Jamison was all frowns and pouts in the van ... wouldn't even look any of us in the eye. We roll into our neighborhood, he hears a trimmer and you'd think I just offered him a milkshake.

"Trimmer, Mommy! Trim! Trim!" ALL SMILES.


If he is eating his most favorite lunch and he hears a mower, it's all over. He's standing up in his highchair, frantic to find out whose grass is getting cut and how he can observe or assist.

So generally, because the temperatures are so pleasant right now, we rush out and figure out where the action is. Jamison takes his mower or trimmer with him, starts waving down the neighbor or lawn care service person and I'm just shrugging my shoulders, trying to motion through the noise that this is just my two-year old's thing and I hope you don't mind an audience.

And let's not even talk about the drama that ensues when Matt mows and trims. Right now we're somewhat tolerating his desire to follow Matt around for the 90-ish minutes it takes for him to deal with our lawn, but it borders on dangerous. And stressful for me.

The other day he found his way to where Matt keeps the mower under the deck and just stood there looking at it, hidden under tarp, forever.

Today Matt mentioned that Jamison seems to just carry his trimmer around right now, rarely running the motor. Just needs it with him, just in case. Not even wearing out the batteries, which is very courteous, especially since he's too young to translate his hobby into a money-making job and I'm definitely getting behind on housekeeping what with all of these lawn care chases up and down the street. 

Gotta love him. Trim, trim!

Before they grow up too fast ...

and blogs become a thing of the past, I better post a few updates on how these three children are growing and changing!

Jamison

He's just so dear. He really is. I might even say he is cuter than the girls were at this age, but I guess it's too hard to compare boys and girls, so we'll just call it a draw.

Jamison does his fair share of whining, but when he needs assistance with something, he will just walk up to me and say "Hep me. Hep me." I wish I had had the foresight to teach Emery this when she was one.

Jamison is also obsessed with lawnmowers. He could hear one three states away and be out the front door in a hot second just to get a look. "Wawn-mowie!!" He is equally enthused with the vacuum cleaner which has had a great effect on the cleanliness of my floors.

He adores feeding our fish ("a bish! a bish!), is always eager to throw away trash (and dig through the trash can) and he could not be more attached to his blue rubber boots.

Jamison is still pretty attached to me, too, but if Matt is doing any kind of work outside or in the gym I am long forgotten. His sisters rank pretty high on his list as well, especially first thing in the morning.

Jamison almost always sleeps in his crib, but he will still fall asleep in other people's laps and even sometimes in mine. How much do I love this?! He must know he is always going to be my baby. Whew.

Anna Kimball



Poor Anna Kimball really went through the wringer this month. She spent a full week in gastrointestinal agony before we figured out she had appendicitis. That was fun. I have always believed that kids are resilient but after one too many needles and lost hours of sleep I was beginning to have my doubts about Anna Kimball.

Fortunately she proved me wrong and has bounced back just fine. She's back to being her happy-go-lucky self that constantly wants to know what's next on our agenda and what is on today's menu. Oh, and she is OBSESSED with her upcoming birthday. Naturally.

Anna Kimball has always been a great self-starter and very content with entertaining herself. This seems to be waning a bit and I'm not sure why. I think she might be missing Emery more while she's at school; while Jamison is loads of fun, he's not always the perfect playmate for her.

I'm confident she'll find her groove soon, though. Turning four is bound to have a good effect on her!

Emery



Emery is halfway through kindergarten and I couldn't be happier with how well she is doing. She has her fair share of days when she doesn't want to go to school, but overall she seems to enjoy it, is making friends, loves her teacher, etc. etc. etc. All I could ask for!

When she is not at school, Emery is creating, creating, creating! She's our little artist-engineer and it's so fun to watch her imagination at work. I think we will soon need to buy stock in Scotch tape, scissors and ballpoint pens.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing enough for Emery's spiritual formation. But then the other day, when Anna Kimball was begging for someone to be with her in her room, Emery yelled back, "Anna Kimball! Even though you think you are alone, you are NOT! God and Jesus are with you!!!!"

That made me feel better.

Clean-up problems solved

I take it back. Emery does still say humorous things. The other night she shared with us a ground-breaking solution that will actually make cleaning up fun:

"You know how it's not fun to clean up? Well, here's what you can do - you can just clean up with one hand and play with the other."

If only.

"The white man" and other things that are making us laugh

A few weeks ago, soon after Matt and the girls had been watching quite a bit of the coverage of the Pope's visit to the U.S., Anna Kimball asked, "Mommy, that house that we saw at the running race (a big brick art museum downtown), is that where the white man lives?"

I just love the connections kids make at this age. Like, here's the most important looking man I have ever seen and then there's the biggest house I have ever seen so naturally the two must go together.

Jamison puts on a great show for me and the church nursery workers every week. Whenever I drop  him off, instead of crying, he just freezes with one knee slightly bent and stares at the ground. He won't make eye contact with anyone. Not even me.

Now what could be going through his head? Maybe "if I act like I'm not in this room I won't really have to be here?" Would that we could really know ... In any case, this peaceful opposition to being left in the nursery is always good for a few chuckles.

I'm starting to get concerned that since Emery is 5 1/2 she isn't going to say as many funny things anymore. None really come to mind right now. But, she still scrunches up her nose when she's explaining something important and that's kind of funny. And the relative maturity that comes from 5 1/2 years on this planet is certainly welcome on days dominated by irrational toddler/preschooler behavior.

She hasn't shed a tear

Emery's been in kindergarten almost a month now and I can't say that Anna Kimball has once indicated that she misses her or wishes she were still at home with us during the day. It's not as if Anna Kimball is happy to have her gone, it's just that, well, she's content with our new normal. 

These children, they have a lot they can teach us! I have shed more than enough tears for the both of us and have done more than my fair share of complaining inwardly and outwardly about this transition to having one member of our family in school five days a week. 

Anna Kimball is also pretty proud to now be in preschool. She does the one-morning-a-week co-op preschool that Emery did and according to her teacher, acts like she's been in school all her life. 

She's also doing a fantastic job of playing with Jamison and taking on the role of calling the shots now that big sister is out of the picture much of the time.

Having Emery in kindergarten is a startling wake-up call to just how quickly the "littlest years" fly by. I'm so happy I get to be with Anna Kimball and Jamison during the day and really just want to follow Anna Kimball's lead in embracing and accepting the season that we are now in.

Here's our brave and happy kindergartener, who has also shed her fair share of tears ... but now bounds down the steps each afternoon happy to declare she had a "no tears" day. Gotta love her!

"You don't have to tell me because I already know."

Currently, this is one of Emery's most-used responses to any information being relayed to her. I think it usually tends to be in response to good news from someone smaller than she, as in Anna Kimball is exclaiming there will be ice cream for dessert or that we are going to the pool.

So maybe our little know-it-all really is ready to start kindergarten next week.

Emery certainly is into seeming more grown-up than she actually is. I sometimes catch her talking to herself in bed, making up words to sound smarter. You know, just adding "tion" to the end of any word and using her very best professional, motherly voice.

Yet, the lack of inhibition or self-awareness is still there and for this I am so very grateful. This means she will still blurt out to the elderly man up the street getting his mail, "I know how to swim but not all the way!" No introductions, no formalities. Just getting to the point. It's great.

In the past few weeks sometimes Emery has been so dear and such a delight to be around that my heart just cannot bear the thought of sending her to school for 35 hours a week so someone else can watch her be who she is. And then a friend reminded me, "The world needs her little light. Send her out!"

True. And I did need to be told that, even though I already knew. 

July is for Jamison

Attempting to summarize summer so far actually overwhelms me to the point of wanting to shut down this blog all together. I think the only way out of this blogging hiatus is to catch up with several short posts instead of getting bogged down by a diary of all that we've been up to for the last eight weeks.

So today I will give a little summary on Jamison and call that success for July.

He is at the most adorable and vexing stage right now. He still looks enough like a baby that I just want to devour his thighs and snuggle him so ... but he's also old enough to wriggle out of your arms and get into big trouble with electronic devices, toilet paper rolls, spice grinders, you name it. His favorite words are "Da!" "Dog!" and "Go!" Though I'm still his parent of choice, the instant Matt revs up the lawnmower Jamison does a Jekyll and Hyde on me and will. not. be. moved from his observation deck.

It's pretty wonderful.

Jamison enjoys his sisters but is quickly learning to hold his own with them. Just today when one of them was trying to grab something he was playing with, he bellowed the deepest, manliest "NOOO" I've heard him utter so far.

Jamison has been walking since he was 14 months old, which is a new experience for us, given that the girls didn't get going on their two legs until 21 months or so. When Emery would carefully go through a basket of board books, page by page, at his age, I thought this was normal toddler behavior. When Anna Kimball would quietly inspect a bag of small trinkets and toys, I thought this was normal toddler behavior. And I think I was right ... it's just that now I'm learning there are many different kinds of "normal."

The only book Jamison has ever gazed at for more than a moment has pictures of dogs. I might as well toss all my buckets of little toys for him to fiddle with because he is over it. All this boy wants to do is climb the furniture, mow the lawn, run away from me at the pool, turn his sister's CD player into something that doesn't play music anymore and then melt my heart all over again with his grin.

What progress looks like

I believe last spring I blogged about Emery's preschool performance, during which she just stared at the audience and never opened her mouth except to shout out, "Anna Kimball!!" in between songs. 

This year she actually did sing along and even cracked a smile or two ... but kept her arms folded the whole time. Too cool for preschool?

Who knows? It's all behind us now ... nothing but a few months of fun in the sun stands between us and kindergarten. Eek. 

Emery is also as cautious as they come. As in it is pretty difficult to get her to even go down a playground slide unless it's a three-foot baby one. Well, she's doing swim lessons right now and at the end of class the kids "get" to go down this slide if they want to. 

Double eek. Emery has actually been going down with an instructor but we told her that if she went down by herself she'd get a milkshake. I had no idea that would do the trick. I didn't even see her come down, I was that sure she was going to ride with the instructor. 

But she did! At this rate she'll be marching off the diving board come Memorial Day to snag that ice cream prize Matt has promised her for such a feat. 

"When I turn into Emery ... "

"I'm going to go to preschool, too!" Anna Kimball has had this revelation a number of times recently. School is certainly on the brain with more talk of kindergarten in the fall for Emery popping up in our daily conversation. But we're not going talk too much about that yet ... I'm still in denial that things really are going to change that much around here come August 13.

We have this book called "Watch Out Kindergarten, Here I Come." I'll admit, sometimes it gets me a little choked up. Without fail, if Emery asks me to read it to her, and then asks for another story after, I always wind up saying yes. I think to myself, "how could I not read her another story right now? This time next year she won't even be here trying to stall before nap time." If Emery were really clever she would work this strategy to her advantage every afternoon ... and I'd probably fall for it every time.

Our incoming kindergartener's latest obsession is parties. She usually plans a party a day, sometimes more and there's always a list involved. It's convenient that it's almost always one of the baby doll or stuffed animal's birthdays, hence a perfect excuse for a party. But these aren't always birthdays we are celebrating. No, today I caught her with a ruler making a list for a measuring party. And right now, as Matt is tucking the girls in, I can hear Anna Kimball exclaiming, "I want to go to your party, too!" According to Matt, this measuring party is an all-day affair and Anna Kimball is going to get dressed up. You would, too, right? I mean it's a measuring party after all. We always wear our finest to those.

Now that Jamison is one, he is eager to assert his independence in most situations. He can climb a flight of stairs faster than you can say "We need to make a list for my candy party." Spoon feeding? No thank you. Jamison insists on forking much of his food and if you have the audacity to put the food on the fork for him, he'll just take it right off and try again himself. With limited success.

The milestone birthdays of March

Whew. The past week or so has been a blizzard of birthday anticipating, birthday celebrating, birthday birthday decompressing ... and repeat. First, Jamison turned one. One! How can it be? I spent much of the day tearing up, then exhaling a sigh of relief to have the rigors of the first year behind us, then tearing up ... and repeat.

Naturally the girls hijacked the day and my emotional imbalances and worked it to their advantage to open Jamison's presents, try out his toys, have Chick fil A for lunch (ice cream cones included of course), screen time, pizza for dinner, cake for dessert etc. etc. etc.

At one, Jamison is far more mobile than his sisters were. He loves to be outside and can say "vroom vroom" (well, it sounds more like "broom broom") when playing with cars. He adores Emery and Anna Kimball so much so that I often will let him into their room even before their appointed wake-up time. You would too if you had already been entertaining a 12-month-old in the wee dark hours of the morning for going on two hours and wouldn't mind a few moments of solitude before morning part II officially begins.

At this stage I would probably give him a C- when it comes to wake-up time and nap durations but even so, his smile and general adorableness can cover over a multitude of sleep-related sins.

Yesterday, Emery finally turned five. She's probably been talking about and anticipating this birthday for at least seven months now. In lieu of a party we loaded up the day with a ton of fun activities and treats and I think we thoroughly exhausted her to the point of her not even being too sad that the birthday was over at the end of the day.

The picture above is the only decent one I got of her all day. Every time I tell her to smile for the camera she does this smirk/smile thing which isn't exactly becoming. Sigh.

At five, Emery still has such a sweet spirit, which I know sounds vague and something nice mothers say about their daughters ... but she really does! There is something gentle and dear about her. If Anna Kimball is playful like a golden retriever, well, Emery is playful like a butterfly. She flutters, rather than romps, around the house. Emery adores being read to and would literally listen to me read the phone book I think, if there still were such a thing.

This past year it has been so fun to see her artistic side develop. I love that she isn't afraid to draw something like a giraffe,  for instance, even if she doesn't "know how to." Knowing that she loves to draw is becoming a pretty awesome ticket to have in my pocket when it's clear that she is bored and fluttering around the house with nothing to do.

What Emery wanted most for her birthday was a fish. So she woke up on her birthday to a red, male fish we named Cinco (get it, Spanish for five? :))

Well, today Cinco died. Talk about a birthday letdown.

But, it turns out this everything is actually ok. Apparently Emery really wanted a blue, female fish. Maybe we will name her Cinderella. And pray she doesn't croak when the clock strikes midnight.

Happy birthday Jamison and Emery! We love you!

Anna Kimball is three

Somewhere in the middle of a two-week stretch in which we all passed around a nasty cold and our house resembled a snowstorm of Kleenex, Anna Kimball turned three. (I'm beginning to think we should start celebrating her half-birthday in a bigger way since maybe then she would have enough healthy friends to have a real birthday party. January is the worst!) Mercifully her birthday fell on a day that wasn't quite as snotty or miserable as the rest and we all enjoyed celebrating her life immensely.

It's funny to look back on Emery when she turned 3 and realize how different these two girls are. When Emery turned three she had already established a passion for Cinderella. Anna Kimball could give a hoot about Cinderella, or any other princess for that matter. She knows she's "supposed" to like Snow White since Emery has already claimed Cinderella, but in truth she really has a thing for Arthur.

Here she is modeling her new Arthur "pack-back."

Emery was quick to point out that it is a "boy"color, but judging from the smile on her face, I don't think Anna Kimball minds a bit.

We kept the day simple, but full of fun surprises like trip to Target where the girls got to pick something out from the dollar section and lunch and ice cream at Chick-fil-A.

Of course there was also plenty of playtime at our neighbor's house, from whom Anna Kimball also received her gigantic three balloon.

I wish I could convey accurately in words just how silly and special Anna Kimball is. There's just something about her that's particularly fun and light-hearted. One friend has compared her to a Muppet and commented that she just seems game for anything. Just watching her putter around the house all day, terribly busy with her play kitchen and tending to her baby dolls is enough to give me the giggles. Anna Kimball adores and looks up to Emery, but when Emery is at preschool, I don't think she misses her a bit. (this gives me some relief as we anticipate kindergarten for Emery in the fall.)

There's a lot I could learn from Anna Kimball. She doesn't seem to think too hard about anything, is quick to share with her older sister and is seemingly unperturbed about her failures (i.e. doesn't mind a lick when she has yet another pee accident all over the floor). Anna Kimball, you are a bright ray of sunshine in our house and we don't know what we'd do without you. Not laugh as much, that's for sure. Happy birthday sweet Anna Kimball, we love you!

I think it's a spring flicker

Last night the girls and I walked up to our neighbor's house for a quick visit. It was raining lightly and when Emery noticed the water hitting her cheeks she wondered aloud, "What is that hitting my face?" I told her it was sprinkling but she quickly corrected me, letting me know that it was a spring flicker hitting her face.

Of course. Sometimes I just don't know what to do with her outfit choices other than laugh. They are part ridiculous and part perfectly appropriate for a lively almost five-year-old little girl. Who knew when we went shoe shopping last week that the pair she selected would coordinate so well with her outfit?

In other news, Anna Kimball is mastering the art of potty training. I'm writing this down here so that I won't be discouraged when it comes time to train Jamison -- the first day and a half is dreadful, awful, beyond frustrating, but then it will click. It will.

On day two she took her show on the road to our neighbor's house (does it sound like we go there a lot? We do.) This pic will definitely be making into her rehearsal dinner slideshow one day.

As for Jamison, he's still lapping the house on all fours, most often in search of me. I try to treasure the first hour or so he is awake in the morning, even if it's before 6am, because it is only then that he is truly and utterly content with anything and anyone.

I can't believe we will be celebrating his first birthday in two months. Whoever coined the phrase "The days are long, but the years are short," hit it spot on. This year has been no exception, although when I think back to last March it seems a lifetime ago. Jamison loves to clap his hands, observe his sisters' antics, not play with any of his toys but eat all manner of refuse on the floor and attempt to snatch my iPhone wherever I might have laid it down.

Sometimes I just want to eat his face -- I love the girls but I don't think I ever had quite the appetite for their cheeks as I do for his.

'Tis the season for ...

Winter weddings. Emery was a flower girl in our neighbor's daughter's wedding last week and she handled herself, and her jingle-bell pompadour oh-so-gracefully. For a four-year-old that is ... she had to stand up front with the bridesmaids for the whole ceremony and was only somewhat distracting as she tried to decide what exactly to do with her pompadour. Should it be a purse or maybe a baby in her arms? Maybe she should turn around and see what the bridesmaids are up to? There were nearly 400 guests at the wedding but that didn't seem to bother her - there is so much to love about the lack of self-conscience young children have. I know I will cry the day that changes.

Minor surgery. This was a simple procedure we knew Jamison would need soon after he was born. I just dreaded actually going through with it mainly because I knew he would have to fast before anesthesia and, well, what baby wants to do that? I have to say, though, that once we got through that part, and really it wasn't that bad since Matt took care of distracting Jamison from his favorite food source, it turned out to be one of the best days I've had in a while. I got to sit in a private waiting room alone and listen to podcasts alone, read alone and just BE alone. It was heavenly. No, wait, here's what was heavenly - finally getting to feed Jamison and then holding him in my arms while he slept and literally COOED for a very long time.

Christmas windows. We took the girls on a mystery ride the other night to see the Christmas windows downtown. Left Jamison cooing in his crib with a sitter. The displays this year didn't seem quite as magical or enticing to children as they have in the past but we still managed to get a few "wide-eyed wonder" photo opps.

Red overalls. This boy just keeps melting me. He is motoring around the house on all fours faster everyday. I think he set a record today because usually he just crawls around whatever room he is in. Today he finally realized he could find me when I left the room and I think he did several laps around the house as a result. So now we can bid farewell to the awfulness that is him screaming every time I leave the room? One can only hope ...

Haircuts and chocolate

This morning the girls were playing in their room with the door closed. This isn't unusual these days, but it doesn't mean they're just sitting on their beds reading books. (Although actually it did the other day when they were pretending to "nap.") Still, it was so nice to have a little peace and quiet that I tried not to wonder what was going on in there.

Anna Kimball eventually wandered into the living room and said something about how she didn't want a haircut. To which I said, "No, honey, that's ok. You don't need a haircut." Didn't think much of it until I went to check on Emery a few minutes later ...

She was in a corner, kneeled over with her head on the ground, silent. And then I saw the scissors. And the hair. And the deeply ashamed look on her face.

Funny thing is she sort of gave herself bangs and it doesn't look terrible. But I do believe she feels pretty terrible because every time I have mentioned it today the ashamed look comes back on her face and she quickly murmurs "Sorry."

Emery tends to be a model firstborn who plays by the rules and I kind of didn't think we'd go through this rite of passage. On the other hand, she has been begging me for a haircut the past few weeks. I guess she got tired of waiting. :) So we're getting a proper one tomorrow.

Tonight I told Matt that for much of the day I feel like crying and stuffing my face with chocolate. Just so he knows. And he does. It's that hard here in this house with three kids under 5, including one boy who shall remain nameless but is a terrible napper and frequently cannot tolerate it when I leave the room or when he is plopped on the kitchen floor over and over and over again. We are at that stage with him that we just have to keep handing him plastic to play with, any kind of plastic, anything that seems safe and interesting. And so the house is an utter disaster between all of his gizmos that don't really entertain him that much and all of the imagination explosions the girls concoct, which I love love love but dread dread dread supervising the clean up process for.

For the record, though, I did not cry today. And I kept the chocolate intake to one salted dark chocolate caramel and a small handful of chocolate chips. If that's not victory than what is?

Lately

"Water doesn't taste like anything. I'm tired of water," said Emery at dinner the other night.

What she isn't tired of is jumping. The girl is a crazy jumping bean these days. Every time I turn around she's jumping up and down as if I just announced we were going to live at the ice cream store. It took her a long long long time to learn how to jump, so I guess she is just making up for lost time.

Halloween came and went and naturally there were a fair amount of emotional displays from Anna Kimball regarding "more candies!" In fact, I even caught her licking away on a second lollipop after I told her she could only have one. Par for the course, I know, but seeing as how Emery is a first-born rule follower to the letter, I simply have no template for this kind of misdemeanor ... other than to throw that lollipop in the garbage and keep my eye on this one a little closer now. Oh and try not to start worrying about teenage rebellion yet.

I'm thankful the girls aren't really aware that many moms buy or make expensive and/or elaborate costumes for Halloween. That is just not my scene, at least right now. We were able to keep it simple with a borrowed Raggedy Ann suit for Anna Kimball and a few random items from the dress-up bin for Emery.

For Jamison, well, he got about four minutes in the spotlight. His average bedtime is 5:15 so he had already begun his night by the time the festivities started. I did manage to get him into our signature baby giraffe costume for a few minutes so that he could snag a little candy from our dear neighbor.

One big pumpkin ... one little boy!

At dinner tonight Emery prayed and the end of her prayer went something like this, "And I don't want to do anything. I just want to wash dishes and help Mommy in the kitchen when she is cooking. Amen."

Well, Emery, lots of times I don't want to do anything either. If you can manage to feed this family of five and keep the kitchen spic-and-span, have at it!

Sweet mornings

*I wrote this post a week ago. This morning was not quite so sweet. Jamison began his day at 4:55 and went down for his morning nap at 7:12. Fluke thing, right???

For some reason I feel compelled to document how our mornings go these days. Perhaps it's just to capture, in words, the sweetness of this season, a sweetness that is so easy to miss in the constant stream of meal making, nap-taking, nap-failing, diaper changing, potty-failing, car seat buckling, car seat unbuckling, tantruming, laughing, crying, whining, cheering, etc. etc. etc.

I've always been a morning person. I love a fresh start. Right now my mornings often begin earlier than I would prefer, but it's still my favorite time of the day with the children. These days, Jamison is first to rise and sadly, even as recently as the past few days, he has decided that 5:47 suits him just fine. The good news is that I can whisk him to my bed and nurse him back to a bit of a slumber giving my brain and body a chance to accept the reality that the day has begun. Before long, he fully awakes with the widest grin you've ever seen. All of his little toys are suddenly new again and he's perfectly content to lay around on the bed with me and fiddle with them while I attempt to have some semblance of "quiet time" with the Lord. 

Around 6:45 we hear Matt resurface from the basement, where he gets ready for the day. (His man cave is a whole other blog post :) ) He begins fixing his breakfast and I transition Jamison to the kitchen for his morning exercise in the Johnny Jumper. 

The coffee gets started, dishwasher unloading begins and chattering from the girls' bedroom usually can be heard. Praise. the. Lord. they are so obedient to their "OK to Wake!" clock and generally don't show their faces until 7:09 when the "clock turns" as they put it. 

Then at 7:10 on the dot they march out of their room, Emery always in the lead, and always bearing some kind of complaint about her finger, elbow, knee or some other very minor but very important ailment. Anna Kimball is all smiles, gleefully announcing that she has a "bouncy diaper." 

(Their animal lovies are under their shirts because they are babies of course)

So it's back to their bedroom we go and Jamison comes with us. There he will sit while Emery takes approximately 47 minutes to change into her panties. I have no idea why she is so leisurely about this. I am ever so glad he finds this entertaining. 

It's not long before Anna Kimball declares, "I hungry," and it's back to the kitchen to thaw whatever breakfast goodies are in the freezer, or fry up "an egg like Daddy's," or a smoothie to sneak in whatever nutrients I can get away with serving her ...

I could go on and on but you get the picture. It's all very ordinary, even mundane ... but there's something to savor in the routine, in the sweet morning spirits of these three children who really won't be so little and endearing in these small ways for very much longer. 

I could clean a bathroom

Or make these cookies. Both take about six minutes. So really I guess I could do both because I can definitely find 12 minutes in my schedule for these kinds of necessities.

These are not overly sweet so I think of them more as snacking cookies, which means I can eat them anytime I want and also feed them to the kids, guilt-free. Win-win!

Mash up two very ripe bananas and combine with 1.5 cups of quick oats, 1/3 cup of peanut butter and 1/2 cup of chocolate chips. Into a 350 degree oven for 12-15 minutes. (I suppose that's when I should be cleaning not one, but two bathrooms!)

Working on manners and bottles

This is how every single sentence Anna Kimball utters these days sounds:

"I wove your kitchen ... Mommy,"

"Daddy has a truck ... Mommy."

"Henny has a pool and I can go there ... Mommy."

"Emery has her sandals on ... Mommy!"

In case I forget who I am, to her and two others, she is faithfully there to remind me. Anna Kimball also is bordering on developing another habit that isn't quite as cute, one her sister developed at exactly the same age. The one where she interrupts me whenever I am talking to another adult and insists that I  "Stop talking Mommy!" so that she can get her very important question posed, statement uttered, or what-have-you.

So we are working on manners these days and I am seriously considering strapping my four-year-old in a high chair any minute now for I am beginning to lose track of how many times in meal she slips out of her seat, ambling on toward more interesting pursuits than finishing her half-eaten meal.

We/I also working on not getting too freaked out by Jamison's recent refusal of the bottle. Just a stage, right? He's so darn cute otherwise, but I tell you, I didn't even want to make eye contact with him yesterday after he refused two bottles in a day. I heard him laughing in his crib and all I could think was "the nerve! to laugh!" But then of course I went in there and saw him kicking his left leg like crazy and doing this new adorable thing where he sucks in his lower lip under his upper lip and somehow I forget the dreadfulness of his bottle boycott.

Yes, Anna Kimball is sitting in Emery's lap - Emery wants to mother everyone right now :).

Moments before he tried to fly out of the Bumbo. Definitely not a reliable holding spot but it'll do for about 10 seconds. 

This was taken on a walk to the neighborhood playground early the other morning. The girls were so excited and kept exclaiming "we're having so much FUN!" Guess we haven't been frequenting the playground recently ... I loved their enthusiasm over it all because really, playgrounds get old pretty fast ... but not on that magical morning. That also happened to be the day a wet bed woke them both up at 5am, Anna Kimball put herself down for nap at 11am and we sure needed a little magic to see us through a day that literally would not end.