Status Quo
Things have been good Chez Froggie. The girls are settling back to school and I'm getting used to being taxi mom again. We seem to fill every moment of every day with all sorts of things from the mundane to the very exciting.
Blogging seems to be pretty far down my list of things to do lately. I seem to be too busy doing things to spend time writing about things. I wish it weren't so. I know that someday the kids will look back on my musings here for glimpses of their childhoods and when I go on bloggy hiatus, whole chunks of their lives go missing.
Last week, Daniel turned six months old (whoosh - that time raced by) and we had an impromptu photo shoot. Here are the lovelies in all their glory:
Claire:
Four going on forty. She has matured so much in the last few months. She is turning into such a lovely human being who is helpful and smart and creative and just plain pleasant to be around. Don't get me wrong, she has moments where she can pull out the stubborn and whiny act till my head feels like it is going to explode but by and large, those incidents are lessening in frequency and are easier to talk her down from. She loves to read and can read anything as long as the sentences are not too complex. She likes looking things up in the children's dictionary and likes any book about animals or nature. She adores arts and crafts and can draw lovely things when she feels like it. She loves school for the academics but hasn't got much time for the other kids (they "bother" her). I hope she doesn't shoot venomous glances across the play-doh table or anything.
Jillian:
Silly Jilly. The kid is three. Have I ever said how I feel about three? Me and three are not friends. Three takes years off my life. When Claire was three she was stubborn and moody and just plain infuriating. I wondered if she was ever going to snap out of it. Jillian at three looks a lot different but it is no less frustrating (if it were the same, I would feel like I had a clue how to manage). She can go from absolutely adorable so you want to scoop her up and kiss her all over to so nutty you think you could make a MINT by selling her to the monkey keeper at the traveling circus. She is an emotional little creature and most of her moods come with capital letters and exclamation points. Claire can be happy but Jillian is HAPPY!!!! (complete with squealing and jumping). She also spends a goodly portion of her day looking for things that are right under her feet. One day last week she stepped over her grey pants five times while whining to me that she couldn't find her grey pants. She runs off in stores and at the mall and does things like play "jungle" in clothing racks or will hold the hand of a mannequin and declare that it is her "Mommy". This makes taking her into public places really hard. But...when she's in a good mood and behaving herself - there isn't a sweeter, cuter, more considerate, entertaining kid on Earth. When she gets past three, she's going to rock my world daily.
Daniel (six letters in his name, six months...that's how this photo shoot started):
Lucky boy. He has a Mommy, Daddy and two big sisters who think he is awesome. He is lavished with hugs and kisses and told how handsome and good he is from daylight till dark. This may all go straight to his head and make him an insufferable three year old but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. For now, we're all loving every second of this smiley little guy's life. He is so quiet and content. He is happy to stand in his exersaucer or sit in his pillow or on a lap and watch things verrrrrry closely. He's not interested in crawling or moving around and that's fine by me (Claire was a very similar baby that way). He loves bathtime and would win a gold medal if Jolly Jumping were an Olympic event. He hates bedtime and naptime and any other time that requires him to halt his reconnisance on the household. He started on solid food and has very definite, and odd, tastes. HATES carrots and baby cereal. LOVES prunes and squash. Pears and applesauce and sweet potatoes are ok. I don't remember the girls having tastes like this. Jillian ate anything and everything and Claire, like me, ate well when really hungry and clamped her mouth shut otherwise. He loves pulling my hair (ow) and thinks that giving "kisses" involves gathering both my cheeks into his chubby fists, squeezing as hard as he can (OW!) and putting his open mouth over my lips and waiting for me to make kissy noises into his open mouth and then giggling at the echo. Sometimes, for my trouble, he'll drool into my mouth or put his tongue in there. The whole act is both repulsive and adorable.
The whole gang:
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