Marilla's 1st Birthday!

Today was Marilla Jane's 1st birthday. The preparations were extensive. They are pictured above.

We didn't go all out! We're waiting for Daddy to come home for a real cake and some presents. Since Cheyenne and Elliott are firm believers in birthdays, though, we couldn't let today go completely unremarked. I had made banana cupcakes the other day, so I stuck a candle in one and we sang "Happy Birthday!"

Marilla is impressed. (I had positioned her so she wasn't in the direct sun, but Cheyenne must have repositioned her while I was lighting the candle in the kitchen. Ergo, her face is wickedly washed out.)

Fire Safety Warden jumps in to save the day.

Fire blown out (so fast Mommy couldn't photograph it) and disaster averted.


First tentative taste of the frosting.

I am not Miss Manners here, making my child eat her birthday cake with a spoon. That spoon just happened to be the teething implement at the moment, and I couldn't get it out of her grasp.


Elliott, appreciating the humor in a baby eating cake.

Just missed the kiss, here's the return from the dip down to kiss a sister's head.

Good big brother.

Sweet big sister. (She had just got up from her nap-- cheeks still flushed and hair crazy.)

Hmmm...

Investigating all angles.

Good for sucking on.

End result, by the time she got bored. No cake was consumed, but frosting was poked and prodded!

Aftermath-- tired baby that's wiped frosting through her hair.

The new pink shoe is still perky, though! Note the grippy bottoms for ease of navigating treacherous wood floors.

And navigate she does, Little People in hand.

For a little girl who has just started walking everywhere, she sure does it well. She changes direction, pivoting around, stoops down to get toys without holding onto anything, and generally excels! I realized today how much she understands, even if she isn't talking yet. Elliott had fallen or something, so I was hugging him and kissing the injured head. Marilla, who was in my arms, started stroking the top of his head and trying to lean down. I let her down to Elliott, and she put her lips on his cheek. A definite kiss, even if no puckering was evident! She'll kiss me when I ask her now, a real perk of motherhood-- sloppy baby kisses!

We've successfully survived Day #3 without Daddy. Last night was a bit of a terror, with both Elliott and Marilla coughing so much they woke up every 20 minutes or so. Marilla completely rebelled against her crib by midnight, and when Elliott crawled into bed with us not long after, I couldn't leave Marilla to plunk Elliott back in bed. Not the most restful night! Today was another day of appointments and errands. After dropping Cheyenne off at school, Elliott, Marilla and I went to the dump, a WIC appointment, Kinney Drugs (Elliott is on medicine for his cough-- there's "junk" in his chest), the library and the post office. Two and a half hours later, we were back to pick up Cheyenne from school, run home and eat lunch before Elliott's speech therapy. Whew! We didn't make it to meeting tonight, though, since the kids' coughs are pretty drastic. I'm anticipating a rough night, but I'm hoping I'm wrong!

I'd like to nominate my father-in-law for the Dad-in-Law of the Year Award. Around 5:20 this evening, the doorbell rang, and there was a pizza delivery man. As I opened the door, the delicious aroma of pizza wafted in, and I regretfully told him, "Sorry, wrong house-- wish it was me!" After he verified the address, and I insisted I hadn't ordered a pizza, he started to walk away. All the sudden, a lightbulb went on-- "Wait, did my father-in-law order that?" He had! It was such a treat in our little lonely week! One of the most thoughtful men, ever!

Single Mom for a Week

This picture shows why I'm missing Evan-- he's enjoying having three kids bounce all over him! He is definitely a keeper...

Evan is working on a job up near Mom and Dad's this week. I would normally let my daughter play hooky and we'd all go up with him, but this was the week for lots of doctor and dentist appointments, as well as Cheyenne's Special Day at school-- can't miss that! In some ways, I'm a far better housekeeper when Evan's gone. There's no backup plan-- if I don't keep it all together, no one else is there to step into the breach! Even though I am really doing about the same amount of cooking and cleaning as I would normally do, I feel much more tired out from it.

Rilla in her high chair.

Apparently, she's not in her high chair enough-- she had her 12-month checkup today and the doctor says she's not even on the growth charts now. I have to bring her back in a month to see how she's doing, feeding her lots of calories in the meantime. I do like the doctor, but it's extremely frustrating to have to go through this with my full-term baby. I thought Elliott was my only problem baby! I am completely unconcerned about Marilla-- she is active, alert and progressing just fine. Another mother with a tiny kid told me recently that the World Health Organization's growth chart (comprised of more breast-fed babies) was more realistic than the one most doctors use. I looked that up when I got home, and Marilla was almost in the 25% in that one. I think we'll ignore the other growth chart! While I obviously plan on feeding my child, I am NOT going to fall into the obsessing-over-every-calorie trap I fell into with Elliott. As far as I can see, my kids just grow slowly. As long as they are getting a fairly normal diet, I think they'll be fine.

Elliott's weight was a little more exciting today. While he's still nowhere near the growth charts, he was now 25 lbs! (With jeans and a full belly of Cream of Wheat, but, hey!) It has no significance, but 25 just sounds like a nice round number for a little boy.

He's not such a little boy anymore, though. Today, I had to say, "No, Elliott, you are not allowed to download computer games." They are getting computer literate earlier and earlier!

Cheyenne managed to find this game online, download it and install it.

Definitely need to password-protect our computer! She and Elliott are just enthralled with this game. It is possibly the most cringe-inducing game known to man-- I have always loathed Candyland, and this is Dora the Explorer Candyland. Not only do you have the soul-scorching monotony and idiocy of Candyland, you get to have Dora the Explorer's obnoxious little squeaky voice chirping at you the whole time! It does occupy the children for quite some time, however...

Thankfully, the computer time hasn't totally turned Cheyenne's brain to mush. This is her creation, who grows every day. Last week was her 100th Day of School Party. Cheyenne brought home the hat and sunglasses and taped them to the pig she had drawn in Wednesday night meeting! The next day, she made arms and legs for the pig. Then, to entertain him, she made a book (with pages!) and taped that in his arms so he could read. The latest installment is a battery pack taped to his back so he can talk! For the .00001 it cost for the tape and paper, she's certainly having fun!

Cheyenne continues to love school, though Monday was an awful day-- she had to Pull a Stick! All the kids have 5 popsicle sticks in a little pouch with their name on it, and if they misbehave, they have to pull a stick. That phrase has a HUGE weight to it. Alex's mom brought her home Monday, and Cheyenne didn't seem quite as bouncy as normal. When I asked her how school went, she said "I had to pull a stick." I said, "Are you telling a story, or did you really have to Pull a Stick?!" She buried her head in my skirt and started sobbing! Poor little kid was quite undone by it-- cried on the phone to Daddy about it. It sounds like she kicked a girl by accident during calendar time (when they all sit on the rug.) I don't think she meant to kick the girl, but she'd probably been told to sit still or something and she hadn't. Anyway, it was very heartening to see that this bothered her-- no hardened criminal here! She dreaded today, when she had to sit for five minutes of playtime (the consequence of stick-pulling!) but now that we have that behind us, we are resolved to NEVER have to pull a stick again!

Cheyenne has always embodied that little ditty, "There once was a girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. When was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was HORRID!" So it happened that on the day she descended to the depths and had to Pull a Stick, she also totally surprised me with her good behavior! Elliott dumped our whole huge tote of wooden blocks right after supper, so I told him he had to pick them up a little while later. I didn't even ask Cheyenne to help, because it really was all Elliott's mess. Without any prompting, Cheyenne started helping Elliott, encouraging him and saying, "It's okay, it will be quick and we'll have it all nice and clean!" This is the same child who lay down on the floor and HOWLED Saturday night because she had to pick up Little People! I'm hoping it means some of the hours we spend correcting her and trying to get her to do the right thing are actually paying off!

My little standing/walking girl. She has REALLY taken off with her walking the last three days. Now she'll venture off into open spaces, with nary a handhold in sight!

She really likes phones, and standing at Mommy's knee.

It's been unbearably cold the last several days. For once, though, the snow was low enough that Cheyenne could kick her feet and swing! After about five minutes, though, we needed to come in for some "chocolate tea."

And while Evan may be gone in body, he sure lives on in his son. Sitting in the La-Z-Boy, with a laptop computer... The nonchalance with which he sat there!

Pictures of Beautiful Girls (And One Handsome Gent)

We have been camera happy around here this weekend. We've been other kinds of happy, too, but the camera-happy is the easiest thing to demonstrate on this blog.

Cheyenne called me today, "Look, Mom, Rilla and I are so cute-- get your camera!" (I'm SURE she won't be vain.) Anyway, Rilla was very businesslike in her Carrhart overalls and industrial-strength teether, so it was soon a solo photo-op.

My favorite.

It's getting harder to get her to pose naturally-- she's getting into the fake smile phase. We were good and silly today, though, so they mostly worked.

This was one of the beautiful girls here this weekend.

Getting a kiss from a handsome little guy.

That little guy got around. Here he is with his buddy, Olivia.

Snuggling.

With Rilla this happy in Tori's arms, I figured I'd do a group shot of all my five kids. (Sure, my mom may have given birth to two of them, but they're mine, too!)

Of course, Rilla was having none of it.

Sort of okay shot, with Rilla standing.

Girl With Computer.

Girl With Ridiculously Large Dimple.

Tori is in the not-smiling phase. Good thing she's so pretty.

This smile is almost genuine.

Tori's good at goofy faces, though!

Three good friends!

Tori kissing my baby.

Life is good when Cheyenne can be with Tori.

Rilla in a happy moment. (A quickly squelched happy moment, but it was fun while it lasted.)

Rilla in a not happy moment. "I don't care if I'm clutching a sock, I'm NOT going to be happy!"

Evan and Elliott are up at the Vaughans' right now. They went up yesterday afternoon-- Evan had an estimate to do for a possible bathroom re-model up that way. Elliott had a great time playing with Orianna and Lillian and getting to see Grandpa. Us girls couldn't go up since Cheyenne had school today. I was feeling very sorry for myself, stuck here without a husband, but it's gone fine. We were invited over to Smiths' last night for supper, so Cheyenne got to laugh at Andrew's "funny jokes." (I don't know what it is about 11-year olds-- Tori and Andrew are The Mostest in Cheyenne's eyes right now.)

Last night, since Evan was gone, Miss Procrastinator Extraordinaire decided to finally push a tooth through her little gums! A week shy of her first birthday, so she won't be a one-year old freak without a tooth. I had no idea why she kept waking up last night, but I felt something funny when I was spooning in her Ham and Pineapple Dinner at lunch today. Glad to finally see that little white tooth. I think Cheyenne was looking for the full blown tooth-- she was pretty disappointed in what she saw!

It has snowed about three feet here in the last four days, and I'm not even doing my normal exaggeration! Our neighbor came over and ran his snowblower in our driveway this evening-- I was wondering how I would get out of the driveway to take Cheyenne to school tomorrow. Today, I just gunned it over the ridge left by the snowplow. That will only work for so long, though!

I better get to bed before Rilla wakes up working on Tooth #2! I have a little red-haired girl waiting in my bed-- it's lonely in her room without Elliott! We're looking forward to our boys coming home tomorrow.

Problems with Preemies

I read so much about preemies when Elliott was first born. One of the things I remember reading with a sinking heart was that, "Preemies often find it difficult to show or receive affection."

Cut to this morning, post bath, when we all piled back into Mommy and Daddy's king-size bed to get rid of the chills. Elliott crawled on top of Mommy and Cheyenne, reached his arms out to hug us both, and said, "I love you guys."

I think that's one preemie worry I can safely discard.