Rory,
As a second child you wear lots of hand-me-down clothes. You may chafe at this as you get older, but with each new set of clothes you reach I am reminded of when Jilli wore that same outfit, those same shoes. In the past few weeks you have grown into my favorite pair of pink shoes. Jilli wore them in a picture when she was a year old and my memory goes all fuzzy and pink when I remember her walking toward the photographer in those shoes. Will you walk in them?
You cruise a few steps around tables and love pushing the dining room chairs in a semi-cruising half-kneeling posture. You enjoy it and it gets you wherever you want to go. When a chair isn't handy you crawl, on your knees. For the longest time I figured you would commando crawl until you walked, but as soon as you mastered sitting up and pulling up you were over the slither like a snake routine. Goes to show you what I know. Don't point this out when you are thirteen.
We keep hearing sounds that seem uncannily like words come out of your mouth. Did you say hi the other day? When you said "Ha" when Hazel was over to play did you mean to say her name? Your voice is soft and melodic unless you need more food, or want to be picked up, or well, if you want any number of things that need to be done RIGHT NOW. When we aren't quick enough you screech like a monkey.
You think Jilli is so funny right now. Each of you seems to be coming into the role of sister in your own way. Jilli will give you food from her plate and will hold your hand in the car. You love hearing her talk and you laugh when she dances.
You have an impish grin right now that says, "Just wait, you'll never beleive what I can do next." You have tricks up your (hand-me-down) sleeve that are all your own and I can't wait to see what happens.
I love you,
Mommy
Monday, January 26, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Naptime
Naptime is a frantic time for me on the days that I am home with the girls. It is (hopefully) an hour or two that I can sit down and work, check in with my colleagues and bill the ever important few hours. As Jilli has passed the 3 mark she seems to be rapidly giving up her naps. I'm cool with this and I have seen it coming for a while. She still has to have at least an hour of quiet time while I work and hopefully Rory naps.
Today I was making a sandwich downstairs, holding Rory, corralling the barking dogs inside (not getting a whole lot of work done) when I heard a loud crash upstairs. I walked up and found Jilli in Rory's room (actually, she was hiding in Rory's crib.)
"I broke my curtain, Mommy."
Yep, she pulled the rod and hardware right out of the wall. Its a bit of mystery how it happened because, "I wasn't doing anything."
Oh well, I have been thinking her room has way to much pink in it anyway. Maybe we'll leave those jump-out-of-the-wall curtains down and just keep the pretty shade up.
Today I was making a sandwich downstairs, holding Rory, corralling the barking dogs inside (not getting a whole lot of work done) when I heard a loud crash upstairs. I walked up and found Jilli in Rory's room (actually, she was hiding in Rory's crib.)
"I broke my curtain, Mommy."
Yep, she pulled the rod and hardware right out of the wall. Its a bit of mystery how it happened because, "I wasn't doing anything."
Oh well, I have been thinking her room has way to much pink in it anyway. Maybe we'll leave those jump-out-of-the-wall curtains down and just keep the pretty shade up.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Snow White
Its still snowing here. The girls are napping and Barack Obama is President. It seems fitting that the last time we had any significant snow was four years ago. Then, I watched it come down while sitting in my office and figured I'd let everyone clear the roads before I left. Instead it took me four hours to get home, kids were stuck on school buses and people had to walk along highways to go anywhere. The intervening years have been wonderful, magical years for me. I learned not long after my treacherous trip home that I was pregnant with Jilli. The country, the world, poor people, old people, sick people; they haven't fared so well in the four years since our last big snow day. But today...today the world looks new outside and tomorrow is full of hope.
The email I sent to work this morning
Subject: Damn Mickey Mouse
Jilli was “napping” in her room yesterday (playing with her mickey mouse ears that conveniently attach to her head with an elastic strap) when she somehow snapped the elastic across both her eyes. An emergency trip to the optometrist later, we learned she has two matching corneal abrasions with the imprint of the elastic striations on each eye. The doc says she’ll be fine in about a day….
And then she woke up in the middle of the night “sick” (I won’t elaborate here….)
And this morning there are two inches of snow covering our neighborhood and daycare is closed…
So…I am staying home. Call or email if you need me.
Jilli was “napping” in her room yesterday (playing with her mickey mouse ears that conveniently attach to her head with an elastic strap) when she somehow snapped the elastic across both her eyes. An emergency trip to the optometrist later, we learned she has two matching corneal abrasions with the imprint of the elastic striations on each eye. The doc says she’ll be fine in about a day….
And then she woke up in the middle of the night “sick” (I won’t elaborate here….)
And this morning there are two inches of snow covering our neighborhood and daycare is closed…
So…I am staying home. Call or email if you need me.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
The First 11 Days
January is giving me whiplash. The past week and a half or so have been crazed at work; long days, big projects and changes (lots of changes.) There are more long days and projects and changes to come, but its going well.
The weather has been lousy so far this winter. We have 5 or 6 days of cold and drizzly rain and then one nice day. I think I am getting seasonally depressed. I need more sunlight. But we've had our usual fun and it has been nice to settle back into a semi-normal routine. We've been to the museum a few times and to the park once or twice when the clouds have broken. We also had a night where the power went out. I am so not a good pioneer. After we used candles to light our way through bedtime routines I was over the novelty of the experience (luckily it was back on around 9pm).
Jilli, as usual, has kept us laughing. In no particular order:
She has some sort of obsession with dust. Not the small particals we inevitably see wafting through the air of the house...just the word. She loves singing The Bear Neccesities right now and it goes something like "I mean the bear ne-dust-da-dust, the simple bear ne-dust-da-dust. Forget about your worries and your dust!" Jilli is an odd bear.
"Mommy, look! I can jungle rope!" (jump rope)
"These are the yay-ers!" (pom poms....)
When allowed to fall asleep in our bed as a special treat one evening she emerged about 30 minutes later, "Daddy, can I go to sleep on my floor? Its more comfortable."
"We played in the monkey-purpose room at school today!" (multi-purpose)
And right now the end of everything (a book, movie, whatever...) is the "edge" of it.
Rory decided to knock off a few (or ten) milestones early in the year. In the past 10 days she has learned to: clap, show you how biiiig Rory is! (SO BIG!), wave (emphatically), pull up on anything that she can hold still for more than a second (the couch, mommy's legs, sketch) and cruise a few steps.
Here's to a slower and sunnier rest of the month....
The weather has been lousy so far this winter. We have 5 or 6 days of cold and drizzly rain and then one nice day. I think I am getting seasonally depressed. I need more sunlight. But we've had our usual fun and it has been nice to settle back into a semi-normal routine. We've been to the museum a few times and to the park once or twice when the clouds have broken. We also had a night where the power went out. I am so not a good pioneer. After we used candles to light our way through bedtime routines I was over the novelty of the experience (luckily it was back on around 9pm).
Jilli, as usual, has kept us laughing. In no particular order:
She has some sort of obsession with dust. Not the small particals we inevitably see wafting through the air of the house...just the word. She loves singing The Bear Neccesities right now and it goes something like "I mean the bear ne-dust-da-dust, the simple bear ne-dust-da-dust. Forget about your worries and your dust!" Jilli is an odd bear.
"Mommy, look! I can jungle rope!" (jump rope)
"These are the yay-ers!" (pom poms....)
When allowed to fall asleep in our bed as a special treat one evening she emerged about 30 minutes later, "Daddy, can I go to sleep on my floor? Its more comfortable."
"We played in the monkey-purpose room at school today!" (multi-purpose)
And right now the end of everything (a book, movie, whatever...) is the "edge" of it.
Rory decided to knock off a few (or ten) milestones early in the year. In the past 10 days she has learned to: clap, show you how biiiig Rory is! (SO BIG!), wave (emphatically), pull up on anything that she can hold still for more than a second (the couch, mommy's legs, sketch) and cruise a few steps.
Here's to a slower and sunnier rest of the month....
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