Singular Purpose

Charlee's been sick the last several weeks. A couple of days in the hospital with "super infected eczema," a cold, and now an ear infection. I hate it when the kids don't feel well, and I'm unable to make the hurt go away. But the thing I do appreciate about their illnesses is the singular focus it gives me. It's one of the few times anymore that my priorities are super clear. Taking care of them is #1. The gray area that comes with prioritizing normal life is gone. No more "breakfast as a family OR to work early," or  "go to bed at 9:30 OR get a little more work done" or "read one more book OR clean up the kitchen."

Other than being a little sickly, Charlee's growing up. She has her first tooth and rolled over for the first time two weeks ago. She's grabbing for things, including food off the table.  Here are a couple of photos we had taken of her recently.

No More Easy

I'm sure you didn't notice, but I changed the headline of my blog. It used to say "raising two super fun and easy kids."

Now it says "raising three super fun kids."

Lesson learned = add a kid, remove the easy.

Sweet Sisters

We spent the morning at the park with Grandma and Papou. Charlee enjoyed laying on a blanket, watching the leaves and the clouds go by. Kate joined her for a while, and I snapped these great photos. Both Kate and Claire are very sweet with Charlee, so it was fun to capture it.

  

Borracho (The Toddler Formerly Known as Squeaker )

Squeaks has a second nickname. After stealing empty beers from her uncles on our trips to Austin, Chad decided she deserved the name "Borracho," which means drunk in spanish. Aunt Tracy pointed out that we should use the feminine form of the word, "Borracha," but the "a" sound is too dainty to describe the spirit of Claire.



Not nice, you might think, to name your kid after a drunk, but I like that it's a funny name with lots of personality. And that's how Claire is. Other people who've seen her in action call her "a trip," "a toot," "a hoot," and "a bundle of fun." The list goes on.



Borracho recently turned two. Here are some snippets of her.

• Favorite words: "Do it" or "Me do it." She wants to do EVERYTHING by herself.
  
• Chad says she has a lot of integrity in her actions. You might also call her persistent or stubborn. Once she has an idea in her head that she's going to do something, she will insist on it for WAY longer than most adults have patience to protest. For instance, she wanted to wear her nightgown on her birthday, to the park, and I immediately caved.

• She can dress herself head to toe. She's almost able to put on a diaper by herself.
• For as tough as she sometimes behaves, she's a real softie. She loves to cuddle and put her head on our shoulders. While sitting on my lap, she'll often take my face in her hands, squeeze my cheeks, and say "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy."
• Claire loves her blanky. When she's tired, frustrated, or hurt, she calls for "Banky, banky!" Here she is with her blanky sharing a cookie and a sweet moment with me on Opa & Nana's deck.
  

• She LOVES animals. Any animals. Dogs, cats, ducks, cows, birds. The kid's a little obsessed. And she's very sweet with them.
• She's good at riding a bike with her feet... like Fred Flinstone. Pedals, not so much. But with foot power, she's fast.

• Hanging on things is a favorite sport. She hangs from kitchen drawers that are fully extended, the clothes bar in her closet, and the edge of the kitchen table.
• She can do great diving forward rolls on the floor. I can't wait until she takes a gymnastics class.
  
• We've had to call poison control 3 times in the past 6 weeks. The kid is into e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. One visit to the ER later, we now have all unfriendlies under lock and key. Including toothpaste. Who knew that ingesting large quantities of strawberry toothpaste from Whole Foods could be toxic. Trust me, it is.
• Belly laughs happen often around Claire. Whether she's dancing, making faces, or doing physical comedy, the kid is a crack up. When we took photos of the some of our cousins at Reunion, there were about 10 adults watching. Claire started making faces at us while keeping a very straight face herself. I almost peed my pants.

• Claire loves her baby sister, Charlee. She calls her "Chew-eeeeee." It's totally freakin' cute how Claire will repeat "Chewee, Chewee, Chewee" while smiling at her sister.

I have a feeling that Claire will have lots of nicknames in her life. She's got a magnetic personality. Here's to you, Borracho!

Belief-O-Matic

One of my goals for 2010 was to visit some churches and decide if I wanted to make attending a part of my/our life. I've talked to some friends about their churches (mostly protestant), but that's as far as I've gotten.

Until now.

I just took the Belief-O-Matic online quiz that tells you which religion you practice... our ought to consider practicing. Here are my top 5, and interesting highlights from the remaining 22:

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Neo-Pagan (93%)
3. Secular Humanism (93%)
4. Liberal Quakers (91%)
5. New Age (83%)
7. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (76%)
8. Mahayana Buddhism (74%)
9. Reform Judaism (66%)
12. Orthodox Quaker (55%)
22. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (28%)
26. Roman Catholic (17%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (14%)

This quiz was one of the quickest studies in comparative religion I've ever seen. So anyone know of a good Unitarian church in St. Louis?

Favorite New Blog

I found a new blog I like so much that I'm posting about it. You just gotta check out Dinner a Love Story. It's a blog about "helping parents figure out how to get family dinner on the table" without relying on packaged foods or being too focused on homemade perfection.

The author, Jenny, has the same feeling about food and family dinner that I have. And her post about the 6 rules of a family dinner gave me permission to let myself off the hook until the kids are a little older.

I really want to put her bumper sticker on the swagger wagon.



Do you think it's too little "professional business person" and too much "hippy Mom?"

Grandparents' Fix

I'm so behind on blogging and photo sharing that the grandparents are complaining. Here's a Charlee fix!

I wasn't planning on writing anything tonight because I'm soooo tired. But uploading the videos takes a while. It's the perfect time-box for a few thoughts about Baby Charlee.

• She's cooing, gurgling, and drooling a bunch right now. Her smile is big, bright and easy.
• Her hair is still red, eyes still blue.
• We think she looks more like Claire than Kate.
• She loves watching her sisters do anything. Charlee's eyes are always on them.
• I'm sooo tired because she's still up 3 times a night. In bed by 7 or 8, up around 11, 2, and 5. I can't wait for a few more months to pass.
• The poor kid has wicked bad eczema. She's mostly happy, but when she gets to scratchin', she does it relentlessly. I've given up dairy and soy in hopes that it may give her some relief.
• We can't imagine life without her!
  

Camp Opa & Nana - Week 2

We continue to have fun at Opa & Nana's. We've had lots of adult help--Opa, Nana, Dad, Aunt Tracy, and Uncle Tom have all shared in the parenting. Here are highlights of the last week or so.

Tune in next week for "What I Learned About My Kids on My Summer Vacation."


Good friends, Maisie and Audrey, visited. With four girls, the screaming was ear splitting at times. They enjoyed a pillow fight with Spencer.


Lisa and Nana attempted to wrangle the girls for a photo, but this is as close as we got. From the left: Audrey, Squeaks, Maisie, and Kate.


We celebrated Father's Day with Opa and Uncle Tom. Opa enjoyed 3 of his grandkids romping on his lap that morning.


Kate, Claire, and Owen enjoy breakfast on the screen porch. Owen spent the whole weekend with us. It was really fun to see him interact with the girls. He especially liked watching and playing with Kate.


Opa & Nana have a huge covered area and garage on the first floor that we used for bike riding among other things. Here's Kate making a "road block" for the riders, Claire and Owen.


Claire can't reach the pedals, so she pushes with her feet. Very Fred Flinstone-esque. Owen can't reach the pedals either, so Opa pushes him.


Charlee and I are usually sideline observers.


We haven't had a lot of River time because it takes a man-to-man defense with the kids. On one of the River outings, Nana supervised the building of a dam. After Owen and Claire figured out that the object WASN'T to knock over the rocks, they were successful.


Our favorite cousins spent the day at the camp house (just a short walk or truck ride from Opa & Nana's house). We joined them for lunch, dinner, and some River time. Here's a photo of all the kids except for Charlee. It was quite a process to gather the bunch together. From the left: Cole, Claire, Camden, Owen, Grayson, Kate, and Blake (held by his Mom, Erin).


I have very fond childhood memories of stopping at Dairy Queen on the way home from the River. I took Kate and Claire there one afternoon for dip cones (served in a cup). It was MESSY but fun.


Charlee and I met my friend, Bita, for lunch at Tacodeli. Yummmmyyy.


Opa and Kate gave Charlee a bottle.


Nana has cooked lots of yummy food. Squeaks and Kate inhaled her angel hair pasta with tomatoes and basil.

Kate and Claire

I've decided that my concerns about privacy are overrated. From now on, I'll refer to the girls however I please!

Bean = Kate
Squeaker or Squeaks = Claire
Little Bit = Charlee

Happy Father's Day, Papou!

We couldn't be with Dad and Papou today on Father's Day. We gave Dad a gift yesterday, so this video goes out to our favorite Greek grandpa, Papou!

All Cattle and No Hat

There’s an old Texas saying about a cowboy who is all hat and no cattle. That is, he is all show and no substance. My Dad, Opa, is more all cattle and no hat. When he proposed we watch him move the cattle from one field to another, I immediately branded it a "cattle drive." Dad would never call it that.

I asked Bean if her Opa was dressed like a cowboy, and she said "Nooooooo. He doesn't have a cowboy hat!" Duh.

Opa is all substance and no show. Which is why we love him! The girls and I had a very fun time watching the cattle drive from the sidelines of the swagger wagon.


The girls chose their own cattle drive garb. Squeaks had a BIT of a wardrobe malfunction. :)


Waiting eagerly




Opa brought up the rear on foot


One of the young'ns


Moooooooo


Michael, who lives on the farm, was at the front with his truck honking the horn to attract the cows towards him. We held up a little bit of traffic on the farm to market road.



Opa brought along a trash bag and picked up roadside litter while herding the cattle. Great multitasking, Opa!

Little Bit Meets River

All of the girls received official foot dunkings in the San Marcos River. Here are all 3!


Little Bit's Dunking


Squeak's Dunking




Bean's Dunking

Camp Opa & Nana - Week 1

The girls and I are visiting Opa & Nana's new house on the San Marcos River. We'll be here for 3 weeks while I'm on maternity leave. I'm exercising my stay-at-home-Mom muscle, and the girls are enjoying summertime on the farm. Here are a few snippets from our first week.


Wireless headsets in the Swagger Wagon = less kid movie audio for Mom & Dad on the drive to Texas


Books with Opa & Nana on the screen porch


Everyone takes a turn entertaining Little Bit


A walk around the river bottom picking wildflowers. Squeaks fell asleep with a flower in each fist


After the walk, I unsettled a wasps' nest. They retaliated by stinging me and Little Bit. Her head swelled up some, but we were all fine in the end. It made for an exciting, but rough, first day at home with all 3 kids for me.


Squeaks and I enjoyed a little one-on-one time eating cookies on the deck


We had huge thunderstorms one night--what seemed like constant lightning and thunder from 2-10 AM. That afternoon, we played in the mud puddles.


We bought new galoshes for the girls to "protect" their feet. We needed full body galoshes.


Squeaks loves being naked. Here she's taking a break from swimming in the baby pool.


Opa was home with us for 2 days. He and Little Bit napped together a few times. I just missed getting a photo of him slumped over just like her.


Bean and Squeaker enjoy holding and talking to Little Bit. Squeaks makes funny nonsense noises at her, and Kate talks to her like a Mom would.


If you look closely, you can see Little Bit smiling at her sisters. She smiled at Nana, Mom, & Dad in the couple of days before this.


We visited a restored mill in Luling with Opa. Kate's sitting on their amphitheater looking at the rain swollen river.


Opa and I would like to try and visit all the nearby BBQ joints that we've never tried (because we're hopelessly loyal to Black's in Lockhart). We started with City Market in Luling. Squeaks liked it!