keeping up with a 7 year old

Some pictures from Cousin J's visit.

playing hide and seek in the neighborhood

posing in front of art done by a relative

flying a plane

driving a fire truck

doing bone surgery

recording an album

maybe tomorrow

No pictures today - I'm heading out for the day to spend it with my sister, no kids. But the kids will be well-entertained by Grandma, Grandpa, and visiting Aunt "D". I'll try to catch up with the blog tomorrow.

morning at the sitter's

If only everyone at work greeted me with such joy.

Ah, I know. I need to go in to work and take pictures of people. It's not me, it's the camera! But most adults I know don't feel joy to have their picture taken. That reminds me of a funny little sign a co-worker has in her office: "It could be worse. We could be trying on bathing suits."

family weekend

E's seven-year-old cousin "J" came to spend a day. The first stop was a famous local hot-dog restaurant.

More photos from J's trip will be in a later post.

E and I also got the chance to visit with these two happy guys - Grandpa and his brother (one of our loyal blog readers, I might add).

On Sunday E and I went to church where she called out "hi" to everyone she saw. She asked one lady to hold her hand and me to hold the other. This lady was convenient at a place where E thought it would be fun to hold two hands like she does with Daddy and me. I left E in the nursery where she was the only child, but even though she's not two yet I think she's outgrowing it. There's another childcare room for 2 - 3 year olds which we'll try next time. When I came to pick her up she was sitting on the floor practicing fastening the straps on the baby swing. The nursery volunteer said they had been there 10 minutes, with E fastening and saying "hep" to get it unfastened. The other day she spent more time than that practicing a zipper ("ip"). Fasteners have always fascinated her.

"dirty"

This is how I found E when I drove home from work yesterday. David was on the porch, and she was having a grand ol' time. She got up to greet me and said "dirty!"

She loves the feel of dirt and sand and mostly she seemed to be scooping up handfuls and pouring the dirt onto her feet.

Must go see what that noise is.... It was a man mowing grass two houses down. She stared and stared at him, and when he saw her watching, he started dancing! She danced back. Boogied down for 5 seconds right there on the sidewalk. The man and I laughed and laughed.

In other news, we all have a cold; and E can climb over the crib rail. So far she has only balanced on it, not made it to the floor, and we're trying to figure out how to keep that from happening.

fun at the mall

In the land of coin-operated kiddie rides, in the mall where husbands and fathers congregate to wait....

driving the hot dog truck

you want mustard on that, ma'am?



I didn't put any coins into these rides for her and that was just fine. On another store ride recently (these pictures were taken weeks ago), I made the mistake of putting in coins. She was delighted, but the trauma of not getting "more, more" ruined it. Let this be a lesson to you -- delay to pay until she's old enough to understand that it won't last.

a picture I love

This is someone else's baby, a little girl about 2 or 3 weeks old.

Oh!

Marie captured this expression of surprise.

appreciative noises

We were on our way to the sitter's house and E kept announcing, "Ditda!" (Victor) When I said, "Yes, we're going to see Victor," she sighed and said, "Awwww". When I picked her up at the end of the day she went over to Victor, who was bent over playing with a truck, and she just placed her cheek against his back before saying bye-bye.

She made another appreciative noise, a delighted "mmm!" -- when I fed her crushed pineapple mixed with applesauce. It's on the menu again today. Whatever works.

hats and new clothes

We're encouraging E's fondness for hats. It's a trait shared by one of her namesakes, David's grandmother, whom E favors. And it's just really cute.

This was the hat I wore on my trek in Nepal. (What she's carrying is a fuzzy squirrel cat toy.)

I had her try on a beautiful new dress from my friend Sue, and she played for a while. Here she is reaching for the car keys. Flash forward to prom night...!

The dress comes with a little headband. Humpty Dumpty here ("dummy") is one of her good friends, a baby gift made by my friend Edna's mother. He's being slowly eviscerated, due to the fuzz habit. Oh what a loyal friend he is.

This hat was knitted by my friend Carole and E picked it out to wear while eating green beans with yogurt.

Choose your Guilt

It's a sad way to frame things, but it gave me a lot of clarity and made me feel better when I realized that I would rather feel guilty about not doing my (paying) job well enough than I would about not spending enough time with E while she's young.

no news

Just wanted to say don't expect much if any blogging from me the rest of this week. Too much going on at work and I'm having trouble getting enough sleep and getting to work on time. E sleeps til 7:30 or 8 these days, and if I try to wake her earlier it takes twice as long to get her ready -- kind of a catch-22.

Oh shoot. I was just looking forward to going to bed and remembered I have to drug the cats. I hate that job. David's working out of town for a few days and he usually does this chore.

what to do on labor day?

E is in a stage where I can't do anything without her "help", but today she slept late (so I did too) and is now in a good mood. Well, except for the 20 minutes (maybe it was 2 minutes) of forced crying over the outrage of my putting a shirt on her.


Strangely, E has been self-entertaining for the last hour or so. Right now she's lying under my chair with two of her blankets. I've been drinking tea and browsing blogs. E liked seeing Victor on Marie's blog. I'm halfway listening to an interview with NPR correspondent Rob Gifford on the radio. He's written a new book about his experiences in China. I've always liked his reports and that interview deserved more of my attention, but oh well.

Emma learned colors! The one she recognizes best is Green. I wonder if that means it's her favorite. She can work zippers and is trying to figure out snaps. She still sucks her thumb and puts yarn fuzz up her nose, but she'll take it out and throw it away if you ask her to. Below is a picture from earlier this summer of her indulging her habit.

why don't we have back buttons too?

E likes to climb on my back when I get down on the floor in child's pose (hunched over with legs tucked under your body). It feels great to me, like a mini-massage. When she was getting ready to climb on yesterday she suddenly lifted my shirt and seemed to be looking for something on my back. She said, with her usual urgency, "button!" Then she lifted her own shirt and looked for her belly button.

new playground

We probably had the last old-style metal playground equipment in the state, and they replaced it this summer. I kind of miss it. Sure, plastic is safer, but the burning metal slide never did any permanent damage to me, so it should be okay for other kids, right? :) The main disappointment is that they've done away with merry-go-rounds completely. I haven't seen anything like them anywhere. We had one. I should've nicked it! Couldn't make those lawsuit-proof so I wonder if they've shipped them off to some developing country somewhere. Sorry, my cynicism is showing. Anyway, E is delighted with the playground, regardless. She loved it before and she loves it now. Here are some pictures from August 12th.

I love this look.

me and mine

E has learned to say "mine" and is practicing it a lot.

She's in her crib making little noises right now, which passes for an afternoon nap. I have been looking forward to this time to "get some things done" and for the last half hour all I've been doing is deleting old email! I spend more time organizing my computer files than I do organizing my house - and nobody sees my computer files. If only the house had a built-in feature similar to the computer. You come home with bags of groceries and there's some kind of force field blocking you from taking them in the house. A message flashes up on the door: "You have reached your maximum storage limit in this house. To free up space, delete some old items."