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Elizabeth at Two Years

I haven’t had a chance to do a little update on Elizabeth’s developments, so here’s what we’re noticing right at two…

She seems so much more grown up now that there’s a new baby in the house!  Though she still sucks her thumb and twirls her hair, Elizabeth is getting to be a big girl.  In addition to picking out her own clothes, she wants to put them on by herself: “I self!”  She likes having her hair up in a pony tail (“I tail!”), and she loves to color with Tommy.  While he’s writing his name and “car” over and over, she asks us to “E, F, E, F” and write her name on her paper, too.  Lately she’s been asking “I snuggle!” which I happily do.  I needn’t have ever worried that she’d be as good of a reader as Tommy–she will bring over a huge stack of books and sit while we read all of them to her.  It’s been raining here way too much lately, but on the rare sunny days, she’s at the door as soon as Derek has left for work, begging “I play!” and would stay outside, chasing Tommy or picking flowers or trying to peddle the tricycle, all morning if permitted.  Our favorite development is her insistence on participating in family prayers.  She bows her head and folds her hands and babbles on and on.  We hope Jesus understands, because all we can catch is several mentions of Tommy and Susie and “A-EN!” when she’s done.

Willett Visit

My parents just left after a wonderful visit…it was the perfect timing, too.  I’d been sad that they couldn’t come earlier to meet Susanna, but God knew I would be at the end of my physical and emotional strength last week and that I’d need their help then!

In addition to tons of cooking and cleaning, my mom taught Susanna to take a bottle, which enabled me to go to church and have a belated Mother’s Day date with Derek.  Now I just have to be faithful to keep up with the pumping once a day, because both of the big kids will be happy to help feed their sister if I have a bottle for them!

As I mentioned yesterday, the kids loved the instruments.

John was able to come up for a couple days, too.

In addition to fixing several things around the house, my dad got creative with Tommy.  After hearing about Grandpa Muller making block cities with Tommy by the hour, Grandpa Willett decided to make a play mat for the block cities.  He let Tommy help him paint, to Tommy’s great delight!

We loved having them here!

Aspiring Musicians

This afternoon, Grandpa and Grandma pulled out their instruments to play duets for the kids.  Within seconds of the first hymn, Tommy was on his way upstairs to make a duplo oboe…

And once he joined in, Elizabeth had to go make one, too!

Snoozing Susie

Elizabeth Turns Two!

Elizabeth celebrated her second birthday today!

We started with “faffles”–which she calls pancakes and waffles–and presents at the breakfast table.  Since she’s two, she got two books this year!

Grandma and Grandpa took the kids to the playground…

And we had double chocolate banana muffins for dessert.  Elizabeth actually blew out her two candles all by herself!!

Pink Boots

Big Helper

This week’s goal is to get Susanna to take a bottle–I learned my lesson with Elizabeth, who waited too long to be introduced and then resisted for months until Laura finally wore her down and got her to take one.  We have so much travel happening this summer that I absolutely have to be able to feed Susanna a bottle in her carseat instead of stopping to nurse every two hours all the way across the US.  So no matter how much of a pain it is, I’m going to try to pump and offer a bottle once a day.  Fortunately, I have a big helper who can’t wait to feed his baby sister!  It didn’t really work today, but hopefully Tommy will be able to help with a feeding here and there in the future.

No, This Was My Jonah Day

So today was horrible.  Horrible.  We had to leave at 5 am to drive to Winchester, VA for me to go to court for my accident back in December.  Because the prosecutor couldn’t be troubled to return Derek’s calls, I had to spend over 7 hours in the car today to say “yes” and “no” to a judge and pay a stupid fine.  The accident is replaying itself in my head again, whenever I close my eyes.  Thanks, Winchester, VA, for giving me more reasons to ponder my failures as a mother in my sleep-deprived, semi-depressed state.  I needed another thing to keep me awake at night, because obviously a newborn isn’t enough.  Poor Susanna–with a blocked tear duct and gunky eye–hated being in the car and was generally miserable.

Fortunately, I’m related to a living, breathing hero.  John took a day out from his leave in DC to drive over and meet us and take the kids to Chick-fil-a so that Tommy didn’t have the trauma of seeing his mommy in court with real criminals like the Mexican illegal immigrant in chains with the DUI who was up before me.  The big kids thought it was all just a fun trip to see Uncle John and couldn’t understand why I would cry about that.

I won’t go into much detail about the rest of the day, because it really went downhill again from there…a chipped windshield on the way home, sitting in the doctor’s office with Susanna for almost an hour after our scheduled appointment time, sitting with the girls in the ER waiting to take the eye cultures to the lab there (that’s really where you want to hang out with your newborn, right?), all this making Tommy late for his first soccer practice, the bird that pooped on Elizabeth’s face (eye, nose, mouth) at the park at the end of soccer practice…yeah.  Hoping for a full night’s sleep tonight and a better day tomorrow.  Thank goodness Jonah Days don’t last forever!

Tommy’s Artwork

Tommy has become a boy on a mission–to color at least twenty pictures a day.  We should take out stock in construction paper!

This is a picture of Christopher Robin, inspired by bedtime reading with Daddy:

Note the phonetic spelling of Winnie-the-Pooh (and that “the” and “luh” sound and feel very similar to Tommy).  Note the curvy road ahead road sign.  Don’t ask why.

This is Winnie-the-Pooh (and a jar of honey):

This is Tommy and Daddy.  You can tell who is who by the initials on their shirts. (Or it stands for “Detroit” and “Tigers.” It can be hard to tell.)  They have a few more toes than normal:

And this is Tommy’s current favorite preschool activity–sounding out words and spelling them with stickers:

A Third in Cloth Diapers

Well, with the umbilical cord completely off and the 8 lb mark having been passed, Susanna was ready to start into the wonderful world of cloth diapers this weekend!

Diapering for free…it’s a beautiful thing…

For something the opposite of beautiful, check out Tommy’s hair.  I will never attempt to cut it while having contractions ever again.  But in the meantime, here’s hoping the front and the spot behind his ear grow quite a bit before Hannah’s wedding next month…

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