This Girl

This girl...

She is such a three-year-old.  

She is passionately involved in what she's doing, and yet can spend hours walking around half-dressed singing songs she makes up as she goes along, with lots of real and made-up rhyming words.  

She is the most motherly and loving little thing, toward her babies and any children younger than her (as long as they don't try to play with a toy that is "special to her").

She goes toe-to-toe with Bluejay when there is a dispute afoot, and has a well developed sense of justice.

She cheats at games, in full knowledge and

without remorse.

She has a remarkable sense of style, and can throw on a hat and look chic in any outfit.

She is still so little and darling and such a pain in the neck when she wants to be.  She looks you right in the eye and defies you to stick to your guns.  God help you if you don't.

We adore her.

A Normal Moment in a Normal Day (and I only have 3 kids)

So at last, I sit down at the computer to read my blogs. Finally, the kids are all playing by themselves.  The baby has stopped grabbing at my skirts whining, for the first time all day (he's going through something lately, I haven't figured out what yet).  There are lots of good juicy blog posts from my favorite bloggers and I'm only a few minutes into it when there's a crash in the kitchen. "No one is in there!"  I think, and wonder if someone snuck by me (they're not usually that sneaky yet).  Sure enough, no one was in there, but a cup, one of Aaron's favorites from his childhood, has mysteriously jumped off the shelf and shattered on the floor, amongst all the plastic children's dishes that are already there, due to the fact that I let Sparrow play in the plastic drawer, to detach him from my leg for a minute, and haven't picked them up yet.

No one in the house, including moi, is wearing shoes.  I dispatch Bluejay as the kitchen guard to make sure no one goes in with bare feet, and run off to get my shoes to clean up the shards.  Bluejay takes this very seriously and precedes me down the hallway, shouting to the shoeless masses to stay out of the kitchen!  He reaches the bathroom and announces "Boozy's playing in the toilet!"  (Boozy is the nickname Chickadee has given Sparrow, and it's stuck).  Yes, Boozy is playing in the toilet, dunking the diapers he's pulled out of the trash can.  

I choose to ignore this (he's already gross, how much grosser can it get in a few minutes?), and head back to the kitchen with my shoes, to prevent a more risky situation.  And then I sit down to blog about it.  I guess I better go clean Boozy.

Answer Me This!

Here's a new blog-along blog-along (which is really from here) that I haven't participated in before, and which looks like fun.  I love answering questions.  In fact, my husband and I spent many a delightful dating moment playing "answer questions", instead of "would you rather". So here are my answers to this week's questions:

1.  What's the scariest thing that's ever been in your yard? I can't think of anything scary that has actually been in our yard.  BUT, I have a running joke with Aaron that a cougar pooped in our yard when we lived in Santa Clara.  I found an enormous fumit, of some sort that did not look like it came from a dog.  And since I thought it looked cat-like, but too large to be a neighbor feline, I argued that there must have been a cougar in our yard.  It still comes up in conversation eight years later.  The cougar that pooped in our yard was, in fact mentioned yesterday. Always by me.

2. Beards.  Thumbs up or thumbs down?  Thumbs up definitely.  Aaron has an adorable goatee.  And I'm Orthodox, so liking beards is a requirement for baptism, I'm pretty sure.

3.  If stuff breaks, can you fix it?  Yes. I once even took apart and fixed a VCR!   But I pretend I can't fix the big stuff these days, unless it's sewing or craft related.  "Oh, maybe when Daddy gets home he can glue that back together for you."

4. What was your first car?  A Nissan Stanza wagon.  It was my mom's and she passed it off to me, mostly, I think, so that I could drop my brothers off at school in the mornings, and sit in the high school parking lot at 11 at night, waiting for the bus to get back from basketball away games.  Those were pre cell phone days, sheesh.  Anyway it was a great car, sitting in the driver's seat was like sitting in a nice upright chair, and it had this long, marvelous stick-shift.  I'm so glad I learned to drive on a stick.

6.  Why is your hair like that?  I always cut my hair short when I need to take control of a little something in my life, and, after the first baby, (eg. during pregnancy number two) it was just such a relief not to have that long, long hair of my youth (although even then I would cut it short every few years, it grows back so fast).  I recently had this awesome bob, longer in the front and shorter in the back, and when I went in a few weeks ago to have it trimmed back up, it just didn't look the same.  Also, I colored it recently because all of a sudden the grays just APPEARED and it was a little shocking.  I'm totally going to have a white streak in the front on the right side. But the color is growing out, and I'm left trying to decide if I should leave the awful line of demarcation, or color it again.  I can't afford the professionals, these days!  And I don't have much experience with coloring my hair, I've probably done it 4 or 5 times in my life.  What is a girl to do?

Right Now

Taking a cue from my favorite new mom of twins(!) blogger, Sarah, I am capturing a glimpse of my favorite people, right now.

HE:

• Is such a delightful person.
• Still loves "playing trains" as much as ever, and can build some impressive tracks, all on his own.
• Is enamored of his new baby brother.  In fact, little Sparrow lights up when he sees his big brother come into the room.
• Has very strict rules for how things are supposed to go.
• Has a fondness for puzzles and is remarkably good at putting them together.
• Is particularly interested in arithmetic.  He has invented a game that he plays in the car where he asks us "what does two and three make?"  If he says "what does just three and just five make?" it means he's seen a road sign displaying a 35 mile an hour speed limit, and he's trying to figure out what number 35 is.
• Is generally very kind to his little sister, but does find her perturbing at times.
• Is extremely helpful to his mama and sister, and loves his daddy more than anything in the world.

SHE:

• Has such a zest for life. Everything is either delightful or terrible!
• Loves her baby brother, but has a tendency to want to squeeze/poke/prod him a little too hard.
• Has adorable little speech patterns: "Do you don't mind if I borrow this?" is one of my favorites.
• Talks A LOT.
• Thinks band-aids are a fashion accessory.
• Remembers everything.  You've got to watch what you say around this girl.
• Gets quite a few kicks out of bugging her big brother.  Ok, let's be honest, she gets her kicks out of bugging all of us.  But we love her.
• Has an eye like a hawk.  She's always the first to spot a hummingbird at the feeder or some other little thing (often animal related) that the rest of us would miss.
• Has finally taken to naming her dolls: Boingy, Cheetie and Big Baby.  

HE:

• Is beyond adorable.  I know everyone says it, but it is amazing how much you can fall in love with each new little person God sends your way.
• Is huge.  At least, he seems huge to me.  He looks like a little football player, shoulders up to his ears, no neck, chubby arms that can't quite hang down at his sides.
• Has the greatest grin.  I especially love the ones he seems to save just for me, after we have a nice quiet nurse together and he's sitting there looking at me.
• Is a bit of a mama's boy. And I'm ok with that.  I love how happy he is when he sees me or knows I'm near.
• Feels like he has always been a part of this family.