A birthday party

Our girlie.  She's a big five month baby in 9 month clothes.  Look at those sparkling eyes.
(And self-inflicted scratches--boo.  Poor baby has dry skin and I am only slowly learning how to care for it.)

But not for this girl.  She turns 5 months in just a few days, but you don't get a party for everything, big girl.  This party is for our big three year-old.  When I am able to step back and reflect for a minute (maybe ten if the kids' naps overlap for that long), my primary emotion at Benjamin's three year birthday is awe.  In the last year Benjamin has blossomed from a toddler into a little boy.  

I'm not so good with manual focus yet. 

His imagination has grown by leaps and bounds.  He can easily pass twenty minutes at a time wrapped up in little worlds that I cannot enter with him:  as a fireman going to work at the newspaper and pick up milk at the store, with his bear and sock monkey (and heather!)  going to the lighthouse to catch some fish or with his national geographic animal cards that jump off the bed and bump their heads (like the song five little monkeys).

s'mores cake.  Mmmm...

His imagination does have its limits though.  He doesn't yet understand food and water scarcity.  We are collecting coins in a jar for a church program to help dig wells for people who don't have enough water around the world.  Anyway, when I asked Benjamin if he knew why we were collecting the coins, he said so that people who don't have water can put the coins in slots in their faucets so the water will come out.

make-your-own trail mix 

Benjamin can now hold conversations with us and ask many questions about this confusing world.  Our friend and midwife Christy throws a big party for all of the babies she has delivered in Waco every year and this year the theme was "Rock Star Baby."  Benjamin's response was, "What are we going to do with rocks?"  This from a boy whose father plays the UKULELE to him at bed time.  Imagine that.

At three Benjamin is also a good big brother.  He surprises me with his patience sometimes when Eliza is being needy (as a baby will be) and I can't pay as much attention to him.  On a particularly long car ride recently, Benjamin asked if we had a button to turn off Eliza Jane's crying, but other than that, he was a good sport as we all tried to make it through the drive.  More than his patience though, Benjamin loves to make Eliza Jane laugh and to give her hugs and kisses.  

back yard campout with s'mores ...

And most of all, his three year birthday cannot be assessed without mentioning his love of books and rhymes.  Of all his toys, Benjamin picks out books to play with the most, and delights us constantly with his repetition of mother goose rhymes and very silly little poems from a book called Whiskers and Rhymes by Arnold Lobel (of Frog and Toad fame).  If you have a kid who likes rhymes, this is a GREAT book.  He has them all memorized.  And now I leave you with one of our favorites:  

Although he did not like the taste

George brushed his teeth with pickle paste 

Not ever was his mouth so clean 

Not ever were his teeth so green. 

... and leaf-printing 

Art fun

Waco Cultural Arts Fest this past weekend.  I don't know
if JB or Benjamin had more fun with this art project.  

At four months, not yet interested in painting.  Sigh.  

Mixing paint!  

Almost two months ago in NY.  Nice to return to these pictures after getting back to our life in Texas.  

Sleepy Benjamin.  Same exact thing happened last year on the boat ride.  

Pouting Eliza.  

Double date!  Night without the children!  Wine!  Shakespeare!
No thunderstorm!  Fun times!  

And the grandchildren.  This is the ONLY semi-non-blurry picture out of about 50.  

And a big THANK YOU to those of you out there willing to brave my mean security feature to post a comment on this blog!  I was getting about 12 spam comments in my e-mail inbox every day.  Sorry!

Siblings at play

Story time with bear and whooping crane 

 As I'm uploading these pictures this morning, I'm thinking, how did we even have time to take these this week?  When did we have a leisurely morning?  Getting back to work the last two weeks, even just part-time, has been a challenge.  Between organizing childcare for both kids, getting all their STUFF around for childcare, getting my STUFF together for teaching, figuring out how to pump at work, and dealing emotionally with leaving my 3-month old at home for 4 hours three days a week, I'm just exhausted by 8:30pm every night. Last week I thought, is this worth it?  As I sit here on Saturday morning drinking my coffee, Eliza is asleep, Benjamin is outside playing with JB, and I think, yes, it has been worth the effort.  I enjoy teaching and am thankful I can still make it work.  Benjamin enjoys Parent's Day Out and Eliza is doing just great with my friend who is coming to the house to watch her, so I think all will be well.

 Another thing we did this week was set up Benjamin's twin size mattress and turned this toddler bed back into a crib for Eliza and set it up in the other room, so these pictures are already a little behind the times.  But I remember being so happy on this particular morning (again, don't remember when this was possible!) because it was just so obvious that Benjamin loves playing with his baby sister.  In the picture above B is telling E a story with bear and whooping crane just like daddy tells him before he goes to sleep.  B's story involved something about a lighthouse and a museum...

B is into imitating his baby sister.  Here he is wearing
his shirt as a "onesie" like Eliza Jane

The cool pull-out desk in his granddad's old dresser.  

Summer in New York Part II

We're mostly on photo hiatus here after vacation.  But pictures can't capture the developments in Benjamin and Eliza's lives these days anyway.  Well, except for this:

Benjamin and I spent a lovely while this morning drawing. I just sat back in awe as Benjamin's imagination took over.  First he drew a crescent moon--a good one--and told me it was a "crescent moon."  I think he is drawing first, then naming whatever the drawing looks like, but still, it is amazing to see him do this.  Not because it means that he is particularly precocious with drawing--about that I have no idea.  I am just in awe seeing this moment in development that I have been looking forward to so much!  He spent a while drawing shapes and then giving them names--"mushroom," "horse,"--then a whole scene with a few boats, clouds, and the ocean (even a tiger in the ocean!  Did we tell him about Life of Pi?).

The above picture is a cactus.  The little lump (with legs!) beside the cactus on the left is Brazos.  He often recalls the story of Brazos getting into the cactus on our camping trip last November.  JB had to take the thorns out of Brazos' fur and that made quite an impression.   It seems appropriate that it should be his first representational picture.

I am learning a lot about discipline these days (...failing a lot at discipline these days) and many of the things I ask Benjamin to do are met with "MUSH!"  "Mush" rhymes with "push" which he does as he says this.  We're obviously working on this.  But then today when I asked him to lie down so I could change his diaper (potty-training another thing we are working on...) he said very sweetly, "I would be glad to" and did it promptly.

Eliza Jane also amazes me with the delightful sounds she makes.  She'll often spend long minutes just talking away with me trying to imitate sounds.  Her smiles are bigger and more often and she is working hard on rolling over.  We had a harder night with sleep last night, but overall, what a wonderful relief from the newborn days!

Summer in New York Part I

Our summer trip to visit family and friends in NY always requires more than one post.  Not that I'm going to write much!  This blog is not going to be much more than pictures for a while, I think.  Eliza Jane is doing very well and sleeping through the night, but she still gets to sleep around 10 or 10:30.  I read a few words in the pile of books accumulating on my nightstand and fall asleep.  I'm not really complaining--she does sleep through until after 6.  I just don't know when I'm going to get my grading done this semester.   Two goals:  revise syllabus for less grading (without compromising the course too much!) and get this baby to go to sleep earlier within the next few weeks. 

Right now she's googling and gabbling away on her little play mat, and trying to turn herself over.  I think she's a lot happier just playing around by herself for a while than Benjamin ever was.  She actually looks like she's having fun.  While she's happy I should be working on getting some of that grading out of my syllabus...

at Lake Minnewaska 

I knew Benjamin would love climbing all over the rocks this year.  

I think this might have been the longest I was able
to hold Jack during our whole visit.  That boy is a mover!  

Benjamin kept calling the gazebos at Minnewaska "summer houses" and I finally
realized he got that from a story from the Little Bear books.
Grandmother bear tells little bear a story inside a "summer house." 

Friends of 14 years

And here I am with a double chin.  Wow.  But this was one of
my favorite parts of being in NY in August--getting cozy and drinking tea!  

Note to self:  Tinker Toys a good idea of B's birthday.  Do they still sell these?  

just photos

Eliza Jane is smiling

Benjamin had a delightful time with his Aunt Amy.  They went to the zoo...

read lots of books ... 

went to the museum... (well, that's me, not Amy)

and cooked and baked enough to fill our freezer.  

Little E Jane grew out of this onesie a lot faster than Benjamin did when he was  a baby.  Out of her newborn clothes in about three weeks.  

Isn't this just sweet?  

And Lizzy lou with her uncle jeff the wandering minstrel.   We've had good visitors.  

Eliza Jane

Aunt Mary came by this week to meet Eliza Jane and she asked, incredulously, "Did you hear about the woman in Florida who gave birth in the hospital parking lot?!  The security cameras caught it on video!"

No, I hadn't heard about that woman, but if we had waited 10 more minutes I would have BEEN that woman.

The clock struck midnight on her due date, May 23, and Eliza Jane started her descent into the world.  I had contractions all night and managed to keep it to myself until about 6am.  I informed JB she would be arriving that day, we took a minute to acknowledge the significance of this, went through a list of things we needed to do to get ready, and the adrenaline (for him) and oxytocin (for me) started pumping.  

Probably the best decision I made about this birth was to invite my friend Shannon, who is trained as a doula, to help me with labor.  She was awesome.  When Benjamin was born, JB was able to focus all of his attention on helping me, but this time, with B around, we needed someone to play with him the whole day too.  JB's parents arrived to help mid-way through the day and by then I was thankful to have both JB and Shannon for support as I labored.  The contractions were coming at a steady 8-10 minutes apart until about 3pm.  They were bearable enough that I felt, quite frankly, bored.

At around 4 the contractions were steadier, longer, and harder, and we called Christy. She said she'd come over to check me before we went to the hospital.   After one more contraction, I told JB to call her back and tell her we were going right to the hospital.  What if I had not acted on this intuition?

By the time we pulled up to the entrance of the hospital the contractions were so close I could barely make it to labor and delivery.  As a nurse described it later, JB and I "waltzed" in the doors to labor and delivery, with my arms around his neck.  My water broke right there at the door, he wheeled me into the delivery room, and I made it as far as the bathroom when I started feeling the baby coming down the birth canal.

JB remembers having two thoughts almost simultaneously:  "Oh my God, she's ready to deliver the baby" and "Oh my God, there's our baby!"  Fifteen minutes after getting to the hospital, Eliza Jane was born in one push as I stood up in the bathroom of the delivery room.  Christy arrived just in time to catch her (literally) as Eliza sped out of the womb.  Christy didn't even have time to get her gloves on.

It all happened so fast I didn't have time to process what was going on as it happened, so the memory is a blur.  Much more so than Benjamin's birth, which took long enough that I have clear pictures in my mind of each stage.

Eliza Jane is a healthy 8 pounder and despite being a biting barracuda, has managed to get plenty of milk and didn't even lose weight in the first few days of life.  Tomorrow she will be three weeks old.  We've been blessed with visitors for much of that time.  What a help they have been as we've adjusted to having a newborn.   JB and I can't really remember Benjamin's first two weeks of life at all, and I kind of hope that we forget many parts of these first two weeks of Eliza's life too : )  I'll leave reflection on these last few weeks until I've had a little more distance from it.