of cabbages and kings...

It has been difficult to blog lately.  Not only am I challenged in the area of time, but now I have to do it standing up! And that's not really my favorite thing, not when I have 3 kids asleep and should be sleeping myself.  Pecking away at the keyboard from bed, well, ok, I'll spend a little time on the computer.  But standing up?  Blech.  And that is honestly the entire reason why I haven't posted in so long.  The airport burned out or something (that's a technical term), and so I have to plug in directly to the ethernet cable.  Putting  a crib in the bedroom pretty much blasted our plans for a desk / computer area, so I am typing at the bureau, which is decent standing height, at least.  

This is how Rowan wakes up in the morning. I can only surmise that she does a lot of head turning, or some vigorous thrashing.  I call it her sleepy snarl.  She wakes up from her nap like that, too.  It's really quite wild.  And I love it.  It reminds me of me, I guess, as a little squirt.

This is how Genevieve emerges from sleep.  Pretty much perfect. This has earned her the nickname of Hollywood Hair, to which she replies, "Name Geneveive. Noelle. Costa."  Pretty much all of their sentences come out like this, as if each word were a statement in itself.  I quite enjoy it.  She loves her name, which makes me happy.  I hope that she always does. Rowan has a bit of a harder time pronouncing Elizabeth. Generally it comes out, "Iiiiiiiiiiffff".  She'll get there.  

I have been blessed with really cuddly children.  It works for me, because I am a cuddly person, and never get tired if little arms around my neck, impromptu kisses, and sleepy heads on my shoulder.  Except when it is 90 degrees out. Thank God for air conditioning.  Really.  Yesterday was kinda rough.  Much better today, with the big noisy window unit pumping full blast.  It's annoying, but so worth it.  Jude is the coddliest of them all, I think.  I just lulled him to sleep.  He really fights it sometimes.  I laid him in his crib and he started wailing with desperation the second I began to lower him down.  Stinker.  So I let him be for a bit, reinstalled the pacifier a few times, sang a little song.  His eyes are so heavy, but he still keeps throwing up both legs and banging them down, clutching at his face.  It's not always like this, maybe he was overtired.  But what finally got him to relax, was me holding both his hands up by his head in his favorite sleep position, and then bending down and squashing my face into his neck.  It took about 20 seconds.  He really likes being smothered with cuddles. 

Oh, that little nerd!  he is awake already!   Ok, time to eat something before I am in demand again.

Me and Fatty Mcgee

So here we are, looking a bit tired, ok, very tired.  But happy.  We had a good day today. Yesterday, not so much. But If I can continue in this day to day, new mercies, let go of control thing that I am working on, then we are heading in a good direction.  We just enjoyed each other today, all of us.  

Jude was happy and fat and delicious as per usual, and the girls were sweet and funny.  we played outside for a bit in the wetness, ran around the house, and were silly.  Dan called out sick, and after sleeping in for a good, long time (he averages 4 hours of sleep a night), he offered to stay with the girls and Jude so that I could go out! Blessed man.  But in a sick twist of fate, he called me half an hour into my excursion, because he had started throwing up on his sick day.  I have to say, as unexpected as my outing was, I had to fight back tears to have it so quickly taken away again.  But he tried, poor guy, and it was greatly appreciated.  And I did manage to score a little, hot-pink book, entitled "potty training sucks".  It has been making me giggle already this evening. 

After dinner, the girls actually played in their room for a couple of minutes (literally), and I got to whip out a notebook and make some quick sketches of the world's wiggliest live model.  He didn't really want to keep still, but hey, I drew something.  I honestly can't remember the lat time I did that!  It felt nice, and I didn't get frustrated, even though I was less than thrilled with the results.  It was practice, and it was better than nothing.  I must remember that I can squeeze a bit of practice into my regular day, without having hours set aside.  Lesson learned.  Hopefully there will be more days like this... 3 kids is just rough, when they are so little!  Two was not too bad, once a strategy was worked out, and I got to go wherever I wanted, basically, as long as I had the double stroller... but for now we are housebound, and we are learning to make it bearable, even enjoyable.