"Mama, I go to work now."

 

I'm not certain that this t-shirt really goes with the patent leather heels, but whatever.

Parker & Cecily

Parker loves his baby sister.  He has several "pet" names for her, the cutest is "Baby Girl" which he says with a little accent, so it sounds like gerr-ril.  But he's also been known to call her Cranky Cessie and Screaming Baby.

 

 

Yesterday, he wanted to carry Cecily around on his shoulders.  It was just about the cutest thing ever.  I didn't get any very good photos since as soon as she was settled, he would take off down the hall.

 

They both seemed to enjoy it.

 

I spend an incredible amount of my time saying "Parker, no squishing Cecily", or "Please get off your sister".  But, to be honest, she doesn't really seem to mind.

 

Cecily probably smiles more for Parker than any other person.

This week, Parker's been trying to teach Cecily how to crawl.  I don't think she's moving quite fast enough for him.  I, personally, think she's moving fast enough already and you can keep your lessons to yourself thank you very much young man.

 

I can't wait to see how these two play together when she's a little bit older.

Just a cute pic of Parker

Happy Girl

Cecily has been in a pretty horrible mood lately.  With the whole house getting the stomach bug last week, this hasn't been an overly chipper place to be.  Cecily managed to be the only one to stay healthy, but she didn't let that fact get between her and a truly foul mood.

 

 

Thursday, it really came to a head.  Denise took Parker up to the Cabin Thursday morning, so I got all day to spend with my girl.  Parker is pretty all-consuming, so I really appreciate the times that someone is willing to watch him so I can hang out with Cecily.  She, however, chose to celebrate the break by screaming.  Not the I'm-a-baby-and-this-is-how-we-communicate crying, it was more of an I-hate-you-and-everything-you-stand-for sort of crying...  From noon until she finally fell asleep at 7:30, it was a long day...  She'd been crying so long that she was still whimpering in her sleep for half-an-hour after she fell asleep.  By the time Keith got home (at 9:45!), I was exhausted and had pretty much used up all my tears as well.

 

Friday morning, Cecily & I were able to cuddle in-bed for most of the morning (a huge luxury without the 2-year-old ready to start the day at 6:30), and I think I can say that we seem to have patched things over and we both like each other again.  And now, after Sunday, she has returned to the happy little girl I knew was in there somewhere.

 

So, about Sunday...  I will apologize in advance to my more sensitive readers (sorry Brian!), I don't usually blog about this stuff, and I'll try to be as euphemistic as possible, but this is the life when you have little ones.

 

Like I've said, Cecily has been in an increasingly bad mood lately.  I've been blaming colic, reflux, and the general sickiness of our house.  But a little over a week ago, I realized that it seemed like a long time had passed since I'd changed my last dirty diaper.  Long, as in weeks (with an "S"), not days.  As anyone with a baby will attest, diaper-counting is one of the less-glamorous and not really advertised points of having a baby.  Anyway, once I realized that my counting required more than two hands and in-fact exceeded my recent memory, I thought I might have the explanation for our little girl's upset.

 

Unfortunately, knowing the problem and fixing it, are two very different things.  But eventually, after two days of prune juice (for both of us), we hit pay dirt.  Believe me when I say, it was epic.  But it was well worth it; suddenly our little girl has remembered how to smile, and she's even laughing spontaneously.  At this point, it feels something like a miracle (at a level similar to the baby Zantac).  At dinner tonight, she even opened her mouth to try eating some solids!  (She didn't actually eat anything, but opening her mouth is a huge change from her recent eating-by-absorption method).

 

Welcome back baby girl!  We'll try not to let you go quite so long next time.

The "after" photos of my new kitchen shelves

There's a totally useless space between the edge of the cupboards and the pillar in the kitchen, it's the perfect spot for a few cookbooks.

 

 

After a little editing, I was even able to fit all my cookbooks on the shelf.

And, an added bonus: now you can't see my less-than-stellar paint job on this corner.

This is where we found him

Friday night, we put Parker to bed without incident and went downstairs to watch a movie.

 

When we came back upstairs two hours later, we found him here:

 

 

That's my bed, if you're wondering.

He'd managed to bring his doggie and two blankies along for the ride.

Don't tell daddy

Parker watches me get ready most mornings, and he always wants to play with my makeup.  I usually give him a clean powder brush & assume he can't get into too much trouble.  Today, I left him alone for two minutes while I tended to Cecily and found this when I got back:

 

 

I'm pretty sure he found my darkest eye liner.

 

Even after I washed his face, he still looked vaguely like a coal miner.

 

Not that this helps much, but that's actually marionberry, not lipstick on his mouth.