Sisters...

I did not grow up with my sister and I feel like we missed out because we lived in separate houses for many of our early years.

Everyday when I watch my girls interact, communicate, play, smile, giggle, and fuss I am grateful that they are getting the full sister experience.

Bored in a hospital? Try this!

Michael doesn't just stand around an visit well. He likes to be moving or doing something. He has an extremely hard time just standing around in hospitals.

Recently when we were in the hospital visiting family Morgan asked him for a "glove person" he obliged her. Then he got a little kooky.

Childcare Happiness

I think we all know by now, that I don't relish the idea of sending my kids off to spend the day with some other person. But, we've found a sitter that makes the leaving a little less traumatic for us all.

A friend of ours with three kids of her own is watching the girls. Can you imagine the looks she must get when she takes my kids and her kids to the park together? 5 kids 5 and under (girl (5), boy (3.5), girl (2.5), boy (18 mos), girl (11 mos) - heck those must be the same looks that Mike's mom was getting when she had her 5 kids that were 5 and under.

The age spacing seems to work well for this mix of kids. The older girl is really quite nice and helpful (as much as 5 year old girls can be). She is also old enough to realize that if a 2 year old yells because you touch their toy that there are plenty of other things to play with and will happily pick something else. I'm not too sure how much the 3 year old boy and Morgan interact and play. I do know the 3 year old boy really likes Kenna and wants to trade his younger brother for her, sweet.

I think the friend and I parent very similarly; so, my kids seem to know where she's coming from and have adapted well. Kenna will even let me walk across the room at their house without crying or crawling straight toward me. She still fusses for about 40 seconds after I leave the house, but that's much better than crying for longer.

They sometimes come to our house and I sometimes take the girls to their house. It seems to be a fair trade for the kids and they all seem to like trading places. They live pretty close to us (not that most things in Richmond are very far apart anyway), so it is a pretty easy to drop-off and pick-up routine.

This arrangement sure makes me less stressed out about going to work. I'm pretty lucky to have it as well since, I just happened to ask this friend if she wanted to watch my kids in a joking way because I figured there was no way she would really want to watch 5 kids all afternoon 3 or 4 days a week. I'm quite happy that I did ask her.

Daily changes

You know you always think that infants grow so fast, and then when they're toddlers you realize that all kids no matter how old really change daily.

Morgan now has empathy - at least for her sister, sometimes. Previously when Kenna was crying Morgan would run to her saying "It's OK Kenna, Morgan's coming." Or some other equally cute words that sound rather like what I say regularly. Or she would ignore it completely.

In the last few days, when Morgan hears Kenna crying, or just fussing a little, she says "Momma pick Kenna up. She's crying; she needs you." Or "Momma, Kenna needs some more milk." She is beginning to realize that Kenna's cries mean something and that Momma can and even more importantly should fix it.

Speaking of daily changes. Kenna now takes about 5 steps before she falls down. She occassionally will walk away from me to some inanimate object, but mostly she's still walking between Mom and Dad. She is pretty darn proud of herself when she does walk between us. Often I think she's even more proud when she walks from the couch to the chaise lounge.

Why oh Why?

Morgan has officially entered into the "why" stage. It has not hit full force yet, but I'm sure we'll see the increase daily.

Mike installed a child carrier on the back of my bicycle. I took Morgan for a ride around the block in it to see how she liked it. Later when we were going on our "Family Ride" from the store, we decided to try Kenna out in the seat to see how she liked it. The trouble was that Morgan wanted to ride there. She also wanted to eat goldfish crackers; so, we told her that if she wanted the goldfish she had to ride in the trailer and not in the seat on my bike.

Mike: Morgan you can't eat the goldfish while you ride on Momma's bike.

Morgan: But why not Daddy?

He did not miss a beat, he just explained why (because if she dropped them they would be lost), she did finally get in the trailer and let her sister ride on my bike.

As soon as she asked the question, I though, "that's a good questions." Then I realized what she had just said. As far as we can remember this is the first time she asked us "Why."