Obviously I don’t post here often anymore, but today I have a very good reason.
His name is Benjamin.
Benjamin joined our family on March 8. He’s pretty cute, so I think we’ll keep him.
Today: pinch proofed!
As I just had a baby (#5!), pretty much everything will be on a delayed schedule.
I could tell right away that Hazel was going to be a smiler. She smiled in her sleep constantly. Though it took her a couple weeks longer than the other kids to start smiling as much in her waking hours, smiling quickly became her favorite activity, and she especially likes smiling at me.
Today at church she was engaging in her favorite smiling-at-me hobby when my friend commented, “Doesn’t it seem like they can see into your soul?”
I joked back, “If she could, she wouldn’t keep smiling.” (And then I commented, “Nah, she’s my favorite. She doesn’t disobey 😉 “)
But thinking more about that unabashed smile, I was reminded of one of my favorite quotes:
It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may have come across four or five times in your life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. (The Great Gatsby)
So, yes. I think maybe a little baby can see right into our souls (and still beam up at us).
I’ve had a secret WIP in progress for several months (well, okay, I mentioned her on Twitter a bit), and even though she was a little later than we expected, she came just in time to make my 30th birthday the best ever!
2 April 2013
We’re all doing well!
A flashback from three years ago when Rebecca was a baby.
I’m not really going to get into a theory of evolution debate here—really, the more appropriate headline would be “Natural selection works.” I totally believe that and I see evidence of it in my everyday life (“natural selection” is just a lot longer than “evolution”).
Genetics at work: my mother and my daughter
As a mother of very young children, I can tell you exactly how demanding and frustrating babies and toddlers can be—but I’ve come to believe that a babies’ cuteness is, in fact, an inherited defense mechanism against some of their most motherly-frustration-inducing behaviors. My evidence:
What other naturally cute behaviors have you seen that totally take the wind out of your frustration?
Rachel loves to wiggle and shake. The other day I watched her waggling her head all around. “I love your dancing,” I told her.
She smiled, and either blew me a kiss—or signed thank you.
Rachel’s middle name is Diana; she’s named after my mother. Growing up, my mother had a nickname she absolutely hated: Banana Cake. (I only tell you this in the strictest confidence. Do NOT use this against my mother.)
Rachel doesn’t really talk. For a couple days, she said “Out” a lot. She has managed to hold onto “Uh ohs!” whenever she sees something on the ground. But her signs are really picking up. She’s gotten really good at Thank you, and also learned please, apple, baby and:
Rachel, banana.
I also love how she signs music:
Rachel has cut two new teeth this month, and she’s pretty happy about it:
We’re just happy to be done with teething. For now.
She has also discovered that walking isn’t just something you have to do when Mommy and Daddy make you walk between them, and she is now taking up to 4 or 5 steps away from furniture to get to toys or to get around her siblings.
Today we had an adventure. We have a trumpet in a case on the edge of our tub in our room. It’s pretty secure there, but today Rachel was trying to pull it down. I was worried she’d hurt herself, so I tried to move it. But when I picked up the case, it opened (it’s broken) and the trumpet fell out.
Right on her face.
She has a little cut below one eye, which might also develop into a black eye. This is what I get for trying to keep my child from hurting herself: I get to hurt her instead. Great.
Par for the course in a pretty crappy day. The older two begin every other sentence with “Mom.” Mom mom MOM mOM MoM mOM Mom mom MOM mOM MoM. “Mom, can I have some milk?”
“It’s right by Dad.”
“Oh. . . . Mom, could I have some milk?”
“No.”
weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth
In fact, the one who probably needs me the most is least demanding:
I told them today to stop saying my name. Unfortunately, this didn’t end the requests, though Hayden did “take out the ‘mom.'”
Thanks, son.
What do you think? Is this something they outgrow, or can I work on them with this?
