Nice to Meet You Uncle Zach

Uncle Zach is in town (and has been now for days). He and Naomi met for the first time the other day. Pretty fun.

Look What I Found Growing in Our Backyard

Par-tay!

Doesn't This Make You Want to Buy a John Deere

I had no idea it was so fun to dress kids.

Yeah Duluth

Aron and Eliot went to Duluth this weekend while Naomi and I went to my cousin's wedding in Milwaukee. From the sounds of things Eliot and Aron had an amazing time seeing geese, and throwing rocks and seeing boats. Once again, Aron caught an amazing picture.

Painting Is Fun

I took a - well lets call it a sabbatical so it seems full of purpose and intellectual rigor - from pulling out the paints for - well okay I'll be honest - since Naomi was born - well probably before then. The last time I took the paints out Eliot put one finger in them and made a whiney noise because he wanted it off his finger - I wiped it off and that was it. Well okay that wasn't it. I sat and played with the paints for a while and then that was it.

I got inspired the other day (silly, silly me thought it would take two or three months to get my feet back on the ground and I'm just now sort of getting backing on my feet - but well...I digress) and pulled out the paints. As you can see it was a hit! Eliot was covered in paint. After I washed him off and sent him on his way I noticed his belly button was blue.

What Do You Think Was Going Through His Mind Here?

Happy Birthday Eliot - wow 2 years old

Wow he is 2 years old. Wow. Its unbelievable to me. We made cupcakes and brownies today (as you can see he wears brownie mix well - and so does the counter - and the floor - and his shirt). He decorated a few cup cakes and ate some frosting - I think sprinkles are the new frosting.

Goodness I wish I had more energy to write. It was a good day. He is such an incredible person. I feel so blessed to know him.

Happy Half Birthday Naomi!!

Wow 6 months ago she was born. Its hard to imagine life without her. As Betsy was saying last night - how in the world did we live without her? I can't believe it was just not so long ago that I 'sent out' her baby announcement via this blog.

I got her to laugh today by tickling her and making faces at her. She cracked up and squealed and it was so great I put off going to the bathroom which I really needed to do for several minutes.

I also told her the story of the day she was born today and she listened with great interest as I told her how we went to the hospital and met the woman with the really cool purple glasses and the anesthesiologist sang the wheels on the bus go round and round and how we were shocked that she is a girl and how we might have named her Max if she was a boy and were even still considering naming her Gwen when we got to the hospital and how Auntie Laurie came to visit her and Eliot came to meet her.

Uh Oh

As a kid I would visit my dad in his auto repair shop he ran out of our garage way out in Seven Mile Creek in Juneau County Wisconsin. I'd see him throw screws and pieces of random car refuse and pick it up and give him saying things like 'here dad, just in case you need this.' I actually remember doing this. I'd sit and wait and look around and look for things that dad might need. We've laughed about this over the years. How I'd be sure to get that stripped screw my dad just spent 35 minutes coaxing out of an engine and threw to the ground right back into his hands...things like that.

Two mornings in a row this week I threw an empty bottle of shampoo into the garbage (in the way that I manage to get empty things into the garbage - by throwing them in the general direction of the garbage and later picking it up and actually putting it into the garbage) and two mornings in a row I heard 'uh oh' from the other side of the shower curtain and Eliot handed it back to me.

Wow. Writing that just reminded me that I'm a mom. Weird.

Eliot's Baby

There is so much more to say about today like how fun it was to play with Isadora this morning and the fun times hiding behind the curtains, and how insanely hot it was today, and how incredibly fun it was to play with Howard and Linda tonight and how strong and capable and smiley Naomi is.

And I have a horrible sore throat and a runny nose and so I'm going to talk about Eliot and his baby.

Linda and Eliot played with the baby tonight while I changed Naomi's diaper and put her to bed. When it was time for him to go to sleep he asked repeatedly for me to put the baby in his bed. Usually when he asks to have a toy at night I usually say now. This happens often and I just don't want to do the whole give Eliot a toy and have to come take it away 45 minutes later when he's really tired (a mistake I've made a time or two - remember the Green Balloon).

I gave him the baby tho. I fully prepared myself for the horrible return trip probably to be scheduled just as we sat down for dinner. I thought it was worth it tho. He looked so happy. He laid the baby down in the bed and then he sat in the corner of the crib and propped his baby next to him. When I peeked over my shoulder while leaving the room I saw Eliot sitting there looking at his baby. It was heart breakingly sweet. Insanely sweet. The kind of thing you blog after 10 pm sweet.

And to top it off he didn't stay up - he went to sleep. I love it when I'm wrong about things like this.

A New Low

Today despite my cold and only getting something like 6 hours of sleep (why is it that after the night I can't fall asleep Naomi wakes up 2 hours early) I still managed to get the kids out. I kept it together enough to have a really darn good time. On the way home I got both kids in the car in a busy parking lot, got the stroller into the car without having to re-arrange anything and was feeling like a really awesome mom.

Then as I was clipping Naomi into her car seat. Oh goodness. I'm feeling squeamish just saying this. I clipped her cheek into the clip on the car seat. Can you imagine the pain?? I can't believe I did that. She screamed - as I probably would have too. It was just horrible. Horrible. I'm sure she'll get a nice bruise and probably be sore for a while. Won't that be fun to explain to the pediatrician tomorrow - yes my daughter whose chest sounds like she has been smoking for decades also has a huge bruise on her face from some mysterious accident with the car seat. Nice.

Watch Out Tiger Woods

Eliot, Naomi and I went to The Mall of America today to get out of this horrifying heat. Goodness. Anything over about 78 degrees melts me, causes me to stop eating and makes me sick. I don't know exacly how hot it was today but it was hot and humid and not anywhere close to 78 degrees.

We stopped at a sports store because (hmmm...could I have figured this one out before it happened) my new exercise routine (walking in the mornings which of course now has been thwarted by my crummy summer cold) is messing up my feet because I've been wearing Tevas with no arch support that are also something like 5 years old (I bought them when I still worked for Net Market Makers).

Eliot found a small putting green (probably 10 feet by 4 feet) and ran right up to it (dad aren't you proud). I showed him how to use the putter (which was perhaps a little too big for me) and to my thrill I made my first putt.

Eliot decided to give it a try and although he refused to use two hands (I kept telling him over and over to use two hands - which...hmmm...is odd - I'm the same mom that let him go running around the store and had no comment on that) made a putt from about 4.5 feet. It was awesome. I'm quite sure I was more excited about it than anyone in the store including Eliot (I think he was just annoyed that it was 'gone' and he had to find it).

Rolling Over

Little Naomi has been rolling over now for, well, I'm embarrassed to say it (could I say it just happened yesterday). Okay she has been rolling over now for, well, I've lost count. She has been rolling over for ahhh, 5-7 days now. We lay her down for a nap and she rolls onto her belly. Yesterday I had a babysitter with Eliot for a few hours so I could do some work and she of course woke up about 3 minutes after I started working and laid on the bed next to me most of the time and rolled around.

I haven't seen her roll from her front to her back which I find pretty amazing. I remember that roll being Eliot's first and it being a while before he mastered the back to front roll. Naomi has quite a method. She puts her feet in the air (straight up - that alone amazes me - try that - its hard) and then lets them roll to her left, her whole body rolls and she flattens out, sucks her thumb and goes to sleep.

Its amazing - these milestones. When Eliot was doing this I felt like it was pretty cool and like I was supposed to find it cool. If I'm going to be completely honest here I don't really, truly find it all that amazing to see a human being roll over after being alive for several months. With Naomi and the faster pace of life when she did this roll-over thing it did feel more amazing to me. It wasn't the kind of thing to write a blog about apparently and it was pretty darn cool.

From Bad to Beautiful

To those of my faithful readers thanks for coming back after my whining of yesterday.

Today I still feel like, well I don't feel good. I don't exactly feel BAD - not like so bad I can't function. I feel the kind of sick where you wish you could lay on the couch and watch re-runs of the Waltons and eat chicken noodle soup and read trashy magazines and blow your nose into nice soft Kleenex (the real brand - no knock offs) and throw them on the floor pretending you won't eventually be the one with the horrifying task of cleaning them up.

Instead, as generations of women before me I played with my kids and nursed my infant and walked to the park and did dishes and cheated and watched a video with the kids and luckily had a super fun play date with (count them) two - yes not one but two other fun and brave adults who risked their nice looking noses to come to my house today and have a great time (well at least I had a great time - I hope they did too).

I decided to take the kids and Aron out for dinner tonight and there was this fantastic moment where I wasn't thinking about anything I have to do or didn't do or wish I did or must do. I was just sitting in the restaurant nursing Naomi not feeling in the slightest bit uncomfortable about my boob being out in the world and Naomi was holding my hand and Eliot was sitting on the chair next to me clearly enjoying his meal and being in his own two year old world.

The colors were brilliant (I love, love, LOVE our neighborhood restaurant called the Birchwood Cafe), their floors are fun colors and the sun was out. It was a magic moment. The kind of thing fairy tales and legends are made of. The kind of thing I imagine I'll remember in 30 years a lot better than this f*%$ing summer head cold.

A full time job would so NOT be better than this.

Welcome to My Pity Party

I got up at 6am to go for a walk (yeah me I've done that 6 out of the last 7 days - life is so much better when I get this time for me) and Eliot woke up too so he came with me. He was fine. Sweet. Thrilled to be out. I wanted to walk by myself tho and not have to navigate curb cuts and say 'car' every 5 minutes.

I've been feeling super sad for Eliot. He has an awful runny nose cold with a deep chest cough. He seemed over it for the past few days so thing seemed okay.

Then Naomi woke up with a cough yesterday morning and we skipped church to listen to her tiny little self cough and see her little nose run and her sweet eyes run and her feel basically awful. We missed a ton of fun visitors at church and from what I hear a great sermon too.

Now I'm feeling sick and thought I coordinated the kids to sleep at the same time. Ha ha yeah right. I was just nodding off when Naomi woke up. I fed her and laid her back down to sleep some more. That was 2 1/2 hours ago. She is still awake and has spent a good chunk of the time Eliot has been asleep either crying or eating (oh and biting me and by me I mean 'the girls' that is her new thing in the past few days too).

Eliot just woke up and is upstairs patiently waiting for me to get to the reason I sat down to write this blog. I just sneezed and snot ran down my face to my chin. Remember in elementary school when that would happen. A whole face full of snot. Just a river of gooey snot all the way down your face. Yup. That's just what happened to me. I had to hold my hand under my chin as I walked to the bathroom for a tissue (also known as three feet of toilet paper since I can't seem to ever remember to put Kleenex on the grocery list).

Wow. I am sooooo fantastic.

Oh and GREAT. Naomi just felt asleep in the swing where I put her just before the 'snot incident' and now I guess I won't go do those important errands I planned to do when Eliot woke up.

I'm so glad I don't have a job. I'm so glad I don't have a job. No really. This is better than a job. I know it must be better than a job. At a job I would have had that snot thing in front of co-workers. This is much, much better. I'm sure its much, much better.

Your Baby

I was doing something in the kitchen the other day (probably something really fabulous like cleaning the top of the stove which never, ever gets clean) and I heard Eliot and Aron talking in the living room. I missed the whole conversation except this part.

Eliot: Baby (I think he was pushing the baby in the swing)
Aron: Is that your baby ?
Eliot: Baby
Aron: Eliot, you're my baby.

Oh my goodness. I could go on for way more words than is appropriate for a blog about how amazing I think that moment was/is. Eliot is so kind to his baby and lately all of his stuffed animals. He feeds them and swings them and wants to include them in his play - including putting his fuzzy rabbit in the raunchy, stagnant water he had in the back yard. I read somewhere that kids grow up to treat their children the way they were treated (the context was a parent writing in to say how freaked out they were because their child was throwing their baby doll around).

I'm just not used to being around the father/son dynamic. There wasn't any of that going on at our house growing up. I'm sitting face to face with my goofy assumptions about how dads talk to their sons and it blew me away that Aron talked to Eliot about Eliot being his baby when Eliot was in the middle of a loving act of caring for his baby. Its so beautiful in its simplicity. Basically, Eliot you love caring for your baby and I love caring for you.

Excerpt from Eliot's Journal

I've continued my social experimentation today. I'm focusing mainly on adult responses to me checking what I've begun to call boundaries.

Yesterday I didn't eat any of my dinner and instead asked for jelly on bread. Mom told me I could have some and then had to eat some of my actual dinner. I ran around and cried and refused to eat anything but jelly on bread. It turns out that mom gave in - she said I won the soccer game 1 to zero in over time with a penalty kick and she'd chalk that one up to experience. I don't know what she meant by that but when I woke up at midnight I had a nice snack of some of the jelly stuck between my fingers.

Today while mom, Naomi and I walked all the way home from the park pushing the stroller (9 blocks) I walked into a few people's yards to see what mom would say. I think she might be on to me because she didn't put up much of a fuss and I got far enough into the yard to feel uncomfortable (about 3 steps) and came back to her on the side walk.

I was also repeatedly distracted by rocks, sprinklers to run through and puddles to jump in. I'll have to focus more on that one as time goes on.

Eliot On His Own

We went to the 4th of July Parade in Afton, Minnesota today. Aron walked Eliot away from the parade for a while to check in with Naomi and I and Eliot got really annoyed. He loved the parade (hmm...any wonder - it was truck, followed by fire truck, followed by truck, followed by car, followed by truck you get the picture) so much that he walked away from Aron to get back to the parade. For those of you who don't spend lots of time with Eliot - he isn't one of those kids who runs off to do his own thing. He usually wants an 'escort' especially in big crowds with lots of people and noise.

Later today during dinner we were all eating and wouldn't get up to go look at the bok bok's (chickens) with him and he started heading down the steps to go on his own. He didn't actually make it.

Still, its a sign. Two years old is here. He is newly independent. He says no (which I think is pretty darn cool - I love his ability to draw boundaries and whew he can stick to 'em) with a vengeance. He gets mad when he can't have his way. Its always a new fun adventure.

Welcome Ty!

This is baby Ty. Ty Stephen Collins. My cousin Ryan and his wife Melanie welcomed him into the world recently - I think yesterday.