Bella's New Look

Bella's always been a little model when it comes to pictures. She loves to strike a pose and smile and say cheese. Today something changed. We went to one of my favorite places - Greenfield Village - and I tried to take some pictures of her. No matter what I said to try to get her to smile, this was the result:


I guess she has entered another phase in her life. She was cracking herself up. Apparently tongues are hilarious. So is spitting. She spit at the librarians earlier this week. Over and over again, each time laughing hysterically. The librarians weren't so amused. Gotta love two year olds.

Full Day

It was a fun, busy day today. It wouldn't be fall in Michigan without a trip to the apple orchard. Benjamin's preschool class took a field trip there today and I brought Isabella and Christian along. It was so fun to see how excited they were about the tractor ride and picking out their own apple. Also, Isabella was convinced she was one of the class. Even when they said that only the preschoolers were to do a certain thing and siblings were to stay with parents, she was bound and determined to participate. As I'm wont to do, I ignored the rules, and let her join in. She sat with them during the presentation and followed her brother everywhere he went. If she'd ever disrupted, I would have taken her out, but she was a perfect little preschooler - even raising her hand to answer questions! :) At one point I overheard a grandma ask, "Is that little girl in the sunglasses in the class? She's so small." No, she just thinks she is.

Afterwards we rushed to Benjamin's gymnastics class and they gave out a coloring sheet at the end which Bella wanted to paint. So we came home and painted. I decided since we'd been to the orchard, we should do a painting related to that. So we made our own orchards by painting the trees and then glueing red tissue paper onto them as apples and apple blossoms. (We did that by wrapping small squares of tissue paper around a pencil eraser and dipping them in the glue.) While we did that, Benjamin asked to go play at McDonalds, so I made them promise not to demand we buy anything there, and we walked over. There were a ton of kids there and they had a blast playing together while I got a chance to rest and feed Christian. Poor neglected third child. This is the place I've found he likes best:


He's not a big fan of his bouncer seat, but he actually fell asleep in his jumperoo shortly after I took this picture. I was commenting to a friend today that with Benjamin I was too inexperienced to recognize his cues early on. Tired, hungry, gassy??? Who knows? My schedule was his schedule and I could have met his needs at all times had I had a clue what they were. Now I'm on the third and I can read him really well. But now I don't have the time to do anything about it! He gets tired and overstimulated while we're at the orchard or while we're at library story time and there's nothing I can do, short of dragging everyone else home. Poor kid.

We got home from McD's just in time to make some dinner and read books before bed. It was a fun day, though. Also, it was the first day that I sported this new look:


I finally did what I've wanted to do for years and years. I got to the point where I so hated my hair that I had nothing to lose. Even if I ended up hating it short, I couldn't possibly hate it more than I already did. Turns out I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE having short hair. I don't really like the way I look with it and I still feel like a total stranger is looking back at me in the mirror, but I LOVE the feel of it and I love the ease of it. I may never have long hair again.

Hobbies

My kids each have their hobbies lately. Benjamin's is building. Whether that's with Jenga blocks, colored foam blocks, legos, or whatever else he finds. He is forever coming to me with his newest creation and describing to me in great detail how it "pooms the bad guys with fire!" or "blasts into space" or "sees when bad guys who shouldn't come in are coming in!" Yesterday during the other twos' naps, he asked me to play with him. So I started doing what I do best - create a perfectly symmetrical, completely non-functional structure. "That's cool! What's it do?" he asked excitedly. Do??? I thought. It does nothing. It just is. See how perfectly symmetrical and pretty it is?? But I looked into his excited and expectant face and I realized I couldn't just say that. So I came up with some grandiose explanation involving rockets, thrust, fire, explosion...you know, all the stuff boys love. "Wow! I want to help!" he shouted. It snowballed from there. Pretty soon we'd used all the blocks in the set and created an entire state-of-the-art defense system, complete with bunker, guard towers, rescue rope, secret passageway, flame thrower, control panels, etc. We both had a lot of fun, but I insisted on taking a picture before he got to kick it all down - the end result of all his creations.


Bella's hobby is cutting paper. She used to have a really hard time handling scissors but she finally got the technique down a few weeks ago and she has become a cutting fool. Every morning she tells me, "I want to cut, mommy!" (Thank heaven there's a comma in that sentence.) That's my cue to retrieve her scissors from the high shelf while she grabs a magazine or two or three from the pile. Then she'll happily sit at the table and cut the magazine to shreds while she waits for breakfast. I'm amazed how long it holds her attention. She really is so cute to watch. Although, beware - I found out that "safety" scissors can actually hurt quite a bit if you try to take the magazines away too early and your daughter isn't ready to quit.

Christian's hobbies are sleeping and eating, but I've also been trying to get him to smile more. The other day as I was getting this picture,


he suddenly pulled one of these:


I was so excited. He's done that more and more lately. I think it transforms his whole face from dazed newborn to charming baby. It's so fun.

And here's a picture I thought was funny. I was trying to get a cute pic of the three of them during tummy time but none quite turned out. However, this one amused me. Benjamin has really been so sweet with Christian from the very beginning. Often holding him or playing with him for long stretches of time. And from what I remember, really, at no time did Bella attempt to crush his head. :)

Now We Just Need to Figure Out How to Stop

All Summer I've had an image in my mind - the image of me, letting go of the back of Benjamin's bike and then standing there cheering and clapping as he rides off sans training wheels. Sunday morning it finally happened. I always take the kids to a playground on Sunday morning before church to get all the extraneous energy out before they're expected to sit still for 3 hours. This week I encouraged Benjamin to bring his bike so we could practice in the big, empty parking lot there rather than our cracked, bumpy, and sloped driveway. After only a minute or two, I experienced the moment I'd been looking forward to. I was so excited! I think almost more than he was! He's been working on it off and on all Summer and this time he finally got all the pieces together and took off. I stood there cheering and photographing and then I heard, "Help! I can't stop!" I got to him just in time to grab his handlebars as he careened into the grass and toppled. I guess that's the next thing to work on! Funny the details you don't include into your dream image. :)


Also, Bella has gotten the hang of her bike. She careens around the neighborhood like a pro now. Before the processes of turning the pedals and steering in the desired direction were tricky, but she's doing great. She also started gymnastics this week. She looked so cute in her leotard that Benjamin insisted on taking a picture. I'm glad he thinks of these things when I don't! It was really fun to be in the class with her. I enjoy the chance for one-on-one time. It's the same mom and tot class I took with Benjamin and it's also interesting to see how different they are in their approaches and abilities. Her first attempt at a somersault involved her belly flopping on the ground and slamming her face into the mat. Not quite, sweetie! ;) She improved quickly, though, and she's a champ on the trampoline! Such fun to see her growing up.


As for Christian, he's spending more and more time awake lately and it's fun to get to know him better. He smiled yesterday for the first time what seemed to be a genuine smile and not just gas. That was fun. He's done it a few more times since too. What a cutie! He's also getting really good at putting weight on his legs and standing up if I hold his torso. He loves tummy time too, but he loves it so much and is so comfortable in that position, that this is often the end result:


So, those are my kids in a nutshell. As for me, I've become a vegetable. Sleep deprivation is hell. Whacky emotions, terrible memory, inability to concentrate or stay on task, falling asleep the moment I sit down, etc. And this is after only 4 weeks? Newborns are so adorable, but the cuteness comes with a price. May he please follow his sibling's examples and start sleeping through the night very soon. And I must say thank you to Kelly for his willingness to take over feedings when I'm too tired to continue. My husband is wonderful.

A Good Library for Kids

What makes a good library for kids? What would you include in the children's section if you had a reasonable budget and a brand new facility? I would be sure to include lots of good books (that goes without saying), small wood puzzles, a large floor puzzle or two, some board games, a lego table, maybe a train table, some puppets with puppet stage, blocks, maybe large foam blocks too, a coloring/craft area, maybe a play kitchen with food/dishes, maybe even a crawling/play area for babies if money allowed. I could probably think of even more things if I took even more than a few seconds to consider. So, when Novi tore down their old library (which had a few of these things) and built a brand-spanking new one, I assumed (silly me!) that they might include some of these things too! The building is huge and gorgeous. The facility is high-tech and shiny in every way, so I expected good things as I took my kids there today for the first time. Yet, I wandered around the children's section twice, assuming I must just be missing the good stuff. No. Didn't miss anything. There's just nothing there! Well, more specificially, there's no toys there. They have 30 computers down the center aisle, all fully equipped with all the computer games a child could want. And believe me, they were being well-utilized. But nothing of any real educational value existed. Nothing that would foster creativity, imagination, or interactive play with their peers. Just the chance to spend more time with their faces glued to a screen, lost in their own digital world. Fabulous. I finally found a box of mangy and torn up puppets in the back corner and so we spent an hour playing with those. Also in the box were these two little gems:


So, we ran around in race car driver uniforms with bunnies/owls/dragons on our hands. Not a lost afternoon, but certainly not what I was expecting from a brand new facility. Am I the only one who would be disappointed with such a place? Am I the only one who seeks for more from a library than a place where I can dump my kids in front of a computer? I've got a computer at home! And I'm already fighting the battle over screen time every day. Why would I take them somewhere else to fight it again?? The good thing about today, though, was that now Benjamin has decided he wants to be a race car driver for Halloween. I wonder if the library would let me check out the costume. :)

Family Photo Update

I've been feeling guilty that I haven't updated the family photo on the sidebar. However, we're awful about taking family photos and I haven't had a picture to put in its place. Benjamin starts school again next week and they ask that everyone bring a family photo, so it was motivation for us to finally take one. I like how it turned out. Nothing fancy, just us on our couch with the camera on timer mode. But we managed to get everyone looking at the camera and smiling at the same time after only 10 tries. Not too shabby. :)

And here are a few cute new pics of Christian. He's still growing well. He's not up to Benjamin's birth weight yet, but he's healthy and sweet. He has good nights when he'll only wake up twice (around 2 and 5am) and other nights where I'm barely asleep an hour before he's crying again. However, we're surviving and in other ways he's wonderful. Content, peaceful, and he seems to love his sibs. He will sit in his bouncer for a long time and just stare at them playing. I can't wait until he can join in. But right now I'm loving being able to cuddle my sweet little newborn. I don't remember loving to cuddle my other two this much. Maybe because he's so little, but I can't get enough of holding him against me and smelling his sweet little bald head. So wonderful.