Now That I'm One

•I can walk and even run. I can climb stairs.
•I can say "mama,"  "na-na" (meaning nurse or any kind of food), "ow" (which I learned during a biting stage), and "ah-ooo" (which is just something I like to say)
•I prefer to be with mommy.
•I think Oli is hilarious.
•I've learned to drive a toy truck around like Jake
•My deepest unfulfilled desires are to push the buttons on the phone and pull the cat's tail.
•I smile at almost everyone.
•I really like playing in the bathtub and playing outside.

This is How Rumors Get Started

We were all laying around the house on a hot summer day.
S: What should we do?
N: Let's get out of the house.
S: (mishearing) We should buy a new house?
O:  We're moving?  I don't want to move.
J: We're buying a house?
A few minutes pass
J:Where's my suitcase mom?

My Sweet Girl

Every mother should have a five year-old girl on Mother's Day.  Olivia's class made gifts for their mom's on Mother's Day and she was so excited to give me my present.  When I went to pick her up at school on Friday she came walking out the door with a decorated pot and marigold plant.  When she saw me, she had the sweetest, happy, hopeful look on her face.  It broke my heart!  It's still broken.  All day Saturday she was looking forward to Sunday.  On Sunday morning as soon as she woke up I heard her get a something out of her drawer and she came in to my room with her card and a drawing she had made.  It was so touching that she was so excited for a holiday that didn't have anything to do with her.  She is a wonderful girl.

Don't You Dare

Jacob is at a great age right now.  You have to watch what you say however.  One day I must have said, "don't you dare."  As in, "Nathan don't you dare till up the boulevard," or maybe it was, "Nathan, don't you dare tear down the garage to expand your garden space."  Whatever it was, it is now Jacob's favorite expression.  And he says it with gusto.  Usually it's, "don't you dare change my diaper."  And frankly, I would prefer not to dare but sometimes it does have to happen.

An Afternoon at Our House

After a day of rain, the children and I went out to play in the backyard.  My little Henry, seeing the sandbox, which had now become a pool, crawled right in.  Okay, I thought, he's already dirty, might as well let him play.  So he spent a happy half hour splashing muddy water and attempting to chew on sticks and rocks.  In the meantime, my little Jacob, had to change his shirt because he was blowing bubbles and a bubble popped on his shirt, making it "dirty."

After awhile, Henry started to look like a muddy little piggy so I decided to take him in and give him a bath in the kitchen sink.  I tried to get his clothes off while he tried to un-pot a plant, drink someone else's orange juice, and fling various things off the kitchen counter.  Finally, I got him in the sink, sprayed him off with the hose (very handy) which he loved, and got him dressed again.  All that fun must have been tiring because he promptly fell asleep.

Ah, Spring!

It rained and brown gave way to green!  We've been enjoying being outside all week.  On Sunday, Oli, Henry, and I went around the lake. On our way home, out of the beautiful blue sky, there was the longest rumble of thunder I've ever heard and then hail.

Painful hail!  Oli was riding her bike and screaming at the same time.  I was running with Henry in the stroller, trying to make it home.  A neighbor offered to let us stand on her porch until it was over.  It probably lasted three minutes, but it was a long three minutes.

Its been nice to be out in the backyard.  Jacob and I planted some peas and he is very into tending them.  Every morning he asks me, "water peas, Mom?"  We got some sand for the sand box.  Jacob has spent hours filling up his dump truck.  We're trying to learn to keep sand in the sand box but between Jacob and his dump truck and Henry the sand eater, we're going to be buying a new bag of sand next week.

March

Time is moving too fast.  We had lots going on this month.  We started some seeds - pepper and tomatoes.  I've been taking them out to the greenhouse each morning and bringing them in at night as its been below freezing at night.  We had some chicks hatch.  We kept nine Auracaunas.  We keep dreaming about our little farm in the country but right now there is not even a property on the market to dream about...very unsatisfying!

The little guy got an ear infection which did not go away with the first round of antibiotics.  At the same time he got six teeth!  There has been much crying, to say the least.

At the same time I have been forced to read "Rotten Ralph" and his many adventures to the older two way too many times.  Ralph is a naughty cat who never listens to his owner.  I'm a little concerned about our many readings of Rotten Ralph as Ralph never seems to make things right at the end of the story.  Perhaps I'm over-analyzing.  I'm all Ralphed out.  I'm also Thomas-ed out.  I think we need to get outside. Spring come soon!