My Girl

Today,
My baby,
Went from a little girl,
To a little lady.

-Monique Mixon

Two, Four and Seven

The Almost Two Year Old (I think he's getting terrible a little early):

Turned off the computer while I was formatting a spreadsheet with stats on all the different cars we were looking at. I lost a good 45 minutes worth of work. When will I ever learn to save?

"Helped" Alice with her finger painting by spreading red paint all over himself and the table top.

Colored on his legs with a blue Crayola marker right after the bath that washed the red paint off of him. His legs are still blue because I am not bathing him again today.

Has decided that screeching is far more effective at catching my attention than saying "Mommy."

Stole the key to my treadmill which I searched frantically for (I think I burned almost as many calories as my normal run) and eventually found tucked in the back of his diaper. It may or may not have been covered in something that we won't get into here.

Enjoys turning the dishwasher off and on a hundred times in the middle of each cycle.

Found that things make cool noises when you throw them down a flight of stairs.

I think the reason that God made two year olds cute (especially mine) is so we don't completely lose it when they are naughty. A friend's blog had a quote that called little boys "noise with dirt on them." I couldn't have said it any better.

The Four Year Old:

Rarely causes a minute's trouble and is delightful in almost every way.

Except that she insists on choosing her own clothes. Sometimes tears are involved. Which means I occasionally show up at the grocery store toting a little girl wearing a plastic tiara, an old purple flower girl dress that is two sizes too small, a tutu and brown leather boots.

Also except for sometimes she uses a half a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom and then she tries to flush it. Today before I got it unclogged, somebody else in the house got desperate enough that they had to do their business on top of the clog, which only made the whole situation that much happier.

Believes that I am capable of doing all the things that she sees the Olympic gymnasts do on TV.

The Seven Year Old:

Made my bed today (and other days) without being asked. Also, his own bed and his sister's bed. He gets so excited about surprising me that he hides in my room and giggles to himself until I come in to see what he is up to.

Doesn't care what he wears, so I can ask him to put on shorts and a t-shirt and he'll do it.

Followed his little brother around at the indoor playground today and watched him for and hour and a half. He did such a good job babysitting that he earned 50 cents. I was able to sit on the bench and talk to grown-ups, which is pretty much my favorite activity right now.

Played "Sorry" with a four year old and a two year old (even though they have no idea how to play) for half the afternoon while I worked on the computer and made phone calls.

Prefers fresh strawberries to strawberry ice cream.

Has read so many books at the library this summer that the librarian knows him and has new suggestions ready when we come in each week. Right now he is working his way through the Magic Tree House Research and Field Guides.

Can't wait for school to start next week!

One last tidbit:
Over tonight's pancake dinner T pointed to the Syrup and asked for "ketchup." Alice laughed and said, "If T calls the syrup ketchup, I'm going to call my syrup honey!" Seth added, "Then I will call my syrup VENOM!"
Boys.

Four

Alice, For Starters

Me, two days before Alice made her entrance into the world. I look at this now, and can't believe I was nine months along. The two boys made me puff up like the marshmallow man. I'll always be grateful to her for being smaller than her brothers.
Here she is in the hospital. Yes, she is dressed in boy clothes. I mentioned the ultrasound guy told us she ways a boy, right? Michael's grandpa likes to tease us that his Harvard education is tarnished by the fact that the tech at the Harvard teaching hospital can't even properly read an ultrasound.
She was surprising to us in so many ways. First, she was two weeks early, and the gender thing, but also the hair, and the fact that she was merely 7 and a half pounds (Seth was a good solid 9). Plus, the entire labor only lasted about two hours. It is a good thing that she came in the middle of the night, otherwise she easily could have been delivered in that famous Boston traffic.

Michael says he's never seen me so happy in my life as when my OB announced "It's a girl!" What can I say? My favorite color is pink.

Here is Seth holding her for the first time. He eventually made peace with the fact that she was not a brother. You can tell that he was not being cared for by his mother at the time because his face was filthy. Not that I don't ever let my kids have filthy faces, I just usually don't take their pictures when they do.
The picture from her birth announcement. She finally got something feminine to wear when my incredible mother-in-law showed up with a baby shower in a suitcase. By the time my mom made it with another suitcase-full a week later the house had completely been taken over by pink.
Her blessing day at the Arlington Ward in Boston. Awesome Ellen took these photographs for us.
See Alice's bouffant? She had the best baby hair. Once somebody came up to me and said that they had to check to make sure it was a baby, because the hair made them think I was carrying a monkey around in the Baby Bjorn. What a thing to say to a new mom. They are lucky I didn't burst into tears right there on Boylston Ave.

I love this picture. Isn't it the sweetest?
In case you can't tell, we like her. We'll keep her.

Ultrasounds Aren't Always Accurate.

Four years ago today I was expecting a baby boy named "Clark" who was due on July 21.
(Photo by Kristen)