The Baby Whisperer

I've decided one of the things I like best about babies is that they can't talk.

Our children talk all the time.  It feels like there is never a time one of them is not opening their mouths and letting a cataract of words spill from them.  (Although as I type this, Adelaide is sitting silently at the table, reading The Neverending Story and eating a bowl of oatmeal, and Cade is down for a quiet nap.  Atticus, on the other hand, is currently taking a not-so-quiet "rest time.")  And half of that time they're contradicting whatever it is that I'm saying.  Caedmon and Adelaide in particular appear to be vying for the crown of Tsar or Tsarina of All Knowledge; I could tell you that the sky is blue and Caedmon would say it's really more of a gray-blue, while Adelaide would inform me that it actually only appears blue to our eyes.  THE SKY IS BLUE, CHILDREN, ALRIGHT?  Sheesh.

Babies, on the other hand?  Especially sweet, squishable, lovable babies like my darling, darling nieces?  They can't contradict anything I say.  As far as they know, my opinion is their opinion, just the way it should be (I have no idea where our children get their contrary streak, fyi).

For instance, if you look closely in the above photo, you will see a handful of my face flesh in sweet Norah Mae's right little fist.  This is obviously because she loves me so much that she never wants to let me go.  See also the evident baby kiss she is planting on my eyebrow.  I can choose to disregard the fact that she is in a phase where she wants to gum everything in sight and go with my own interpretation, because she's not saying otherwise.


Or this one:

See how Norah is gazing soulfully into Adelaide's eyes?  It's obvious she's trying to communicate what her mouth cannot:  That she loves her oldest girl-cousin and is desperate to move to Iowa so she can be with her all the time.  I won't presume to narrate Adelaide's expression, as I'm sure whatever I say will be capital-W Wrong, and I really don't feel like hearing why for the next three days.

You could say that the look on our newest niece Elliot's face is one of shock and perhaps stunned fear, but I would posit that she is stunned- stunned that she's been alive for six weeks and is just now experiencing the joy to be had when being held by yours truly.  Oh, her parents will be hearing about this.

Here's Ellie again, lifting a hand to the heavens so that God would hear her plea never to be so cruelly separated from Adelaide again.

And here's Norah clearly telling us that although she is a smiley, cheerful baby in general, she always holds a little something back with the world at large; that extra affection is reserved for her Daddy.  Plain as day.

And here I can tell just by looking at her that Norah is utterly blissful at being ham-handedly loved by a five- and three-year old boy.



Now tell me:  How obvious is it that I'm going through some serious medical-grade Baby Withdrawal this week?  Because I feel like I'm being pretty subtle about it.



Tomorrow?  TWO YEAR OLDS.

A Newsy Kind of List

• My baby sister had a baby yesterday.  The baby of my family now has two babies of her own.  This would be strange except both my sisters somehow produce the most scrumptious babies you've ever seen in your entire life.  She and her husband (because she is an adult; I just realized I'm making her sound like a teen mom or something) didn't find out the sex of the baby while pregnant, which is one of my very favorite things ever.  I love the anticipation of not knowing and the hot debate of Boy or Girl, although I could do without all the "well, since you're carrying all in front it's a girl," and "you know you're having a boy when a birthmark in the shape of Bolivia appears on your rump" nonsense.  So before yesterday, nobody knew that Steph was gestating another GIRL.  They named her Elliot Ann (adorable!), and I can't wait to see how her tank of a big sister, Vada, attempts to smother little Elliot with love.

• I watched another documentary last night (no more Bronies, I swear).  It was Happy People: A Year in the Taiga, the one about the self-sufficient people of a small village in Siberia, and it was AMAZING.  I wish I could send Doctor Who to each one of your homes to kidnap you and bring you here to force you to watch it with me, only since I've already seen it, I'd probably spend half the time re-watching it on the television and the other half staring at your faces to watch your reactions.  It would be fun and not at all creepy.  There's so, so much I could tell you about it, but I'm afraid of ruining it for you if there's even the tiniest chance you'll ever watch it, so I'll just tell you about three of my favorite parts: 1) May 1st is Russia's equivalent of Labor Day, and one of their festivities is the curious practice of burning a scarecrow-type figure wearing a dress, which you don't really understand until the narrator informs you that they're "burning Winter in effigy."  RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU COULD DO WITH SOME BURNING OF WINTER IN EFFIGY.  2)  Gorgeous.  It is all fairy-tale gorgeous there: massive amounts of snow on the mile upon mile upon mile of forest, the breaking up of the river in the spring where it looks like the entire landscape has just decided to start moving itself along, the beautiful Russian language you get to hear as the trappers describe all their preparations and activities.  3)  It's truly remarkable everything they do by hand: making their own mosquito repellent from birch trees, making their own insulation out of moss and earth for their hunting huts, making their own skis, making their own everything.  If you loved Laura Ingalls Wilder or marveling at other cultures or if you're a human being, you should watch this film.  Incredible.

• At the direction of Cassi Renee and Common Household Mom, I picked up some Liquid Fence this morning, as the rabbits have been eating my tulip shoots and this is bad for my blood pressure.  Here's hoping I've finally found something that works, other than searching Pinterest for a good recipe for rabbit stew, that is.

Bravo, Mothers of 4+

This is my first week without baby J.

Remember him?  The baby I've been watching for the past six months?  Well, he finally got into a local daycare center, which means I only have our three kiddos to watch over.

Mothers of four or more children, how do you do it?

I cannot even tell you how productive I've been today (in part because it would feel too much like bragging, but mostly because I'm afraid I'd put it all out there and you guys would be like "Um, I get that much done before my morning coffee every single day of my life.  That's completely average person productivity."), with just one kid in the house this morning while Atticus was at preschool, and then only two chilluns for the past couple hours.  I mean, all five members of our family are going to be sleeping on clean sheets tonight at the same time.  That hasn't happened since around early 2006.  (I've talked to you about my low standards before, right?  Just so we're clear.)

And we only had the baby during the day, four days a week, which means I had evenings and three other days to get stuff done.  It was still overwhelming.  Seriously, mothers of four or five or God help you six, how?  Have you simply made your peace with insanity?  Do you have some sort of strange coping mechanism they secretly tell you about at the hospital or... wherever you go when you adopt?  Do you automatically qualify for membership to some hidden and unbalanced but deeply supportive cult when you get the fourth?  What?  Because I know you can't be going it alone.  It's just not possible.


Yes, I froze in panic around thirty times this morning because Oh my gosh I haven't heard baby J in a really long time and I haven't even checked on him and holy crap I bet he's not breathing but then I remembered I hadn't heard him or checked on him because he's not here.  And yes, two of our three children have shed actual tears over the past few days because they don't get to see the baby or play with him or haul him around the house like the surrogate younger brother he's become to them.  We miss him already, and the thought of me seeing him in a month or so and him not recognizing my face kind of kills me (why do babies and small children have such short memories?  Oh, so they won't remember the fifty bajillion ways you screwed up with them?  Oh, okay.  That makes sense).

But I did get to have breakfast with this guy:

You didn't know Captain America likes Raisin Bran, did you?  Or that he's dragged those Batman jammies out of the dirty clothes hamper so many times he is seriously starting to stink.  But at least his sheets are clean!

I also- in another fit of our-youngest-child-has-been-educationally-neglected- played a game with Cade involving flashcards and letter sounds.  Turns out he knows all his letters and their sounds.  Who knew?  Not his mother.  When I called Derek and told him this, he said "I know, that kid's got a big brain; that's why you've got to keep challenging him," and I was like What?  We're not done once they know letter sounds?  You mean I have to keep teaching them things?
Sometimes I think Derek's a better stay-at-home mom than I am.



In other news, and because I can't think of a good way to wrap this post up:  It's still winter.  I don't understand why.  Somebody fix this.

Thanksgiving Travels

Our family spent the last week down south, eating and seeing family and eating and going to movies and eating and visiting with friends and eating and enjoying warmer temperatures and also eating.

I took half a million pictures (but still missed a bunch of stuff I wanted photos of), so I think I'll spend this week highlighting a few per day.



First up:  The Best Movie Theater in the Entire World.





Or at least in the midwest.  And if not the midwest, then in Kansas.  Or maybe just in southern Kansas.  Or just in the Wichita area.  Definitely the best movie theater in the Wichita area.  Also in the world, as far as I'm concerned.

ANYWAY.  The Warren Theatre ("theatre" because Wichitans like to pretend they're British?) on the east side of Wichita is my favorite theater ("theater" because I'm perfectly aware no one will ever mistake me for a Brit) ever.  But I think I've already established that.  It's huge and everything is art deco and covered in gilt and velvet, there's a fireplace in the bathroom, a balcony in the biggest theater (the one pictured above, where we watched Catching Fire) where 21+ can sit and have a meal and be waited on while watching the movie, and there's an old-fashioned diner just off the lobby and everything speaks of old Hollywood glamour.  Derek and I drove an hour north just so we could see the movie in this theater.  Oh, and so we could double date with old friends we don't get to see enough of.  That too.  (Somehow I got a photo of the movie theater but not of our friends.  Priorities:  I have them.)  Big thanks to Mom and Mark for watching the kiddos so we could visit the theater!  And our friends.




We also jumped on the trampoline:

That's Derek, Adelaide, and me, although Adelaide and I were the only ones who made sure to spend plenty of time jumping every single day we were at my mom's house.

I also finally got to meet my friend Megan's baby Iris, who is beautiful in fact and in name:

She's pretty and tiny and petite in a way our children never were.  (They were never tiny and petite.  Of course I thought they were pretty.  Most of the time.)  Well, Adelaide was petite for about five seconds after she was born then she discovered eating and started growing and hasn't stopped, which I realize is a good thing, but I'm still a little freaked out about the thought of my children someday being taller than me.  My sisters and I never reached the height of either of our parents, so it's sort of unimaginable to me.  Don't get me wrong; I want our kids to be taller than 5'4", but still... it's hard to picture.

  

We also got to ride in a horse-drawn wagon, and our friend Liza, the driver, invited Adelaide and Atticus to come sit beside her, which they jumped at.  She gave them an impromptu lesson and answered millions of questions.

Liza's sister Anna was there with her adorable baby Kenyon, but of course I didn't get a picture of that.  It would have made too much sense.

I also didn't get any pictures of Derek and Mark golfing (que lastima), or any of the portion of our trip at Derek's parents' house, which actually is a shame.  

Never fear, though!  There are still plenty of baby pictures to look forward to this week!

Revelatory

Monday I started watching after a baby.  That's right- someone entrusted me with the life of their offspring.  I'm assuming they're doing this, at least in part, out of sheer desperation; it would appear that despite the fact that our small town is seemingly teeming with daycares, there still aren't enough openings for infants to go around.  This sweet little baby boy is on a couple daycare waitlists- and has been since around six months before he was born- so I'm just filling in the gap before something opens up.  

Adelaide's school dismissed early that day, the first day of school, so part of the day I just had three kids, and part of it I had four.  

First of all, J is, so far, a pretty easy baby.  He's happy, he's cute, he's cuddly; he's a baby!  Even the first day in to this whole experience, however, I had a couple revelations.  

Number one:  I can understand why people keep having kids as their first ones get older.  Atticus and Caedmon were relatively helpful- as helpful as two- and four-year-old boys can be- but when Adelaide got home, it was a completely different situation.  Granted, J is still a novelty, but she kept asking if I could lie him down on the floor so she could play with him (yes), if she could feed him (no), if she could carry him around and show him "what the life of a cheetah is like" (no), and if she could teach him things like "patty-cake" and "itsby-bitsy spider" (yes).  I felt a little bit like Super Woman that day (minus the fancy spangled cape, although that would no doubt make laundry and 10 straight games of Memory feel a little more festive) because I was able to get all kinds of chores done with four kids in the house, but the truth is, without Adelaide, I would have accomplished very little.  Just playing with him for five minutes at a time allowed me to do extravagant things like use the bathroom and wash the boys' perennially smelly sheets (SERIOUSLY, BOYS.  I realize that males practically come out of the womb peeing all over everything, but I feel like I need to get "JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD" tattooed on some highly visible place on both of them.)

Revelation number two:  Before Adelaide came home from school, when I just had the three boys in the house, it was uncannily like going back in time about two years, to a time when I had (for those whose brains can't do the math) a four year old, a two year old, and a newborn.  

Can I just ask a favor of you?  If you know someone in that stage of life- someone with two or three or God help them four little ones- go out of your way to do something nice for them.  I'm talking small stuff: take them a cup of coffee (or buy it for them, it'll get them out of the coffee shop faster anyway, benefiting everyone!), smile at them when the spectacle that is their family careens through the grocery store, make comforting noises when the mom bursts into tears mid-conversation.  Yes, it's a short, often sweet stage of life and you should "cherish these years" (I cannot even tell you how stabby that phrase still makes me feel), but it's also desperate and exhausting.  

It's incredible how just two little years later how much easier our everyday life is.  All of our kids can buckle themselves into their carseats.  They're all capable of small chores and being pseudo-helpful.  You can kind of reason with them.  Let me tell you what, taking care of J caused quite the wash of memories to overtake my brain, and although I'm still in the throes of preschool- tantrum- fun and am just beginning the crazed can-you-fill-this-out and do-we-have-twenty-photos-of-me-that-I-can-cut-up-because-this-is-due-tomorrow and but-I-DO-want-to-do-cheer-clinic-again-even-though-I-hated-it-last-year, it is so much easier than life was only 24 months ago.

Hallelujah.

Genetics, Schmenetics

My trip was wonderful.  Fantastic.  Terrific.  Any other word you used to find on those stickers the teacher put on your school papers.  (Did you have any teachers that would use the zeros in "100%" as eyes and draw a little cartoon face underneath it?  My first and second grade teacher used to do that.  It was one of the many things I loved about her.  Anyway.)

I got to see my mom and Mark and my grandparents and my sisters and their husbands.  Which was awesome.  But somehow I didn't end up taking a ton of photos of them.

No, the 100+  pictures I did take were of my two little nieces, double-cousins who are as disparate in personality are they are in appearance.

Take Charlotte, for example.

She's not even a year old and she's walking.  She has a bunch of teeth.  She's less baby-proportioned and more little girl-looking.  Basically everything Adelaide wasn't around her first birthday, but seeing her in Adelaide's old jammies brought back a wave of 12-month-old Adelaide memories.  It was a little bittersweet.

Many of the times I looked at almost-one-year-old Charlotte:

Why, yes, she does have two dimples and a cleft chin.  Ridiculous in theory, incredibly cute in reality.

I couldn't help but recall our own almost-one-year-old Adelaide:

Obviously not because they look so much alike.  Adelaide being blue-eyed, pale, and round, it's hard to see just what kind of genetic material these two share.  

Maybe this is just something all mothers experience as their children get older?

The same thing happened with 9-month-old Vada:

Vada, who's as sunny in disposition as she squishy, looks a tiny bit more like my own nine month old Adelaide:

But I have to admit, Adelaide on her best day was never as chronically happy as Vada is at her crankiest.  I've never met a baby more determined to make everyone she meets love her.

So what did I learn from this weekend?  It's good for me to get away every once in a while, and despite being related, Adelaide, Charlotte, and Vada are nothing alike.  Which is a good thing.  Otherwise you have scary clone babies, which sounds like an episode from The Twilight Zone.  Or WWII Germany.

Make Lists, Not Anorexia

Are you trying to figure out what that title means?  Me, too.

I was going to post a random list today- because, you know, I love lists- and it occurred to me that I especially love to make lists when the rest of my life is somewhat disorderly.  It's like my way of creating a small amount of order in my life.

Then it occurred to me that eating disorders often start the same way: as a way of establishing control in one's life- "Hey, I may not be able to control much of anything in my life right, but at least I can still control my body!"

So what I think I'm saying is that you should make a list if you need to assert your control.  Lists good, eating disorders bad.


Jeez, someone get me a muzzle.  Or, you know... something that locks my fingers together to keep me from typing.  SAVE ME FROM MYSELF.


Let's just start the list, shall we?

• Adelaide hates the 1st grade.  I'm not sure what to do about it.  She seems to be performing just fine on an academic level, but every day she comes home unhappy.  And cranky.  And takes it out on her brothers, which seems to make them feel like we could do with one less female in the family.  I'll probably write a longer post about this topic soon, but right now, I'm pretty much at a complete loss as to what to do for her.  Ideas, anyone?

• I recently read a statistic that the average American checks out 7 items per year from their local public library.  Really?  Only seven?  And apparently the month of September is "Get a library card" month.  People need to be told to get a library card?  That whole article made me feel depressed, and defeated, and a little disbelieving.  Seven?  That can't be right.  I feel like if people would just walk in and see everything their local library had to offer, they'd be there a lot more often.  Things like Books! DVD's!  Free internet access!  Book clubs!  Story time!  Newspapers!  Smart people!

• Speaking of which, it's Banned Books Week!  While I understand the need to censor certain books for certain people (there are books that we don't allow in our house, so our family does, in effect, ban books), it's hard for me to read the vast lists of books that have both been banned in the past and are currently being banned, because some of them are such great books, and some of the reasons for doing so are so stupid.  To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most banned books of all time, and it's one of my very favorites.  And while I'm not surprised to see Harry Potter on the list I can't help but think, Really?  REALLY?

• For some reason I've been reading more nonfiction than usual lately.  I recently read Strength In What Remains, about a young man who witnessed the start of the civil war and subsequent genocide in his native country of Burundi, and somehow managed to escape to the US, where he began the difficult climb from the very bottom of the socioeconomic ladder in New York City all the way up to medical school.  Before that, I read a book about the American ambassador who lived in Berlin in the years just before WWII.  Both books had very difficult scenes to read and described some truly heinous atrocities.  It was in the middle of one part of Strength In What Remains where the fleeing young man witnesses a rebel soldier throwing a baby into a pyre with one hand and eating a corn cob with the other that my stomach rolled and I began thinking about all the horrible sins perpetrated in WWII and in other genocides, and it occurred to me that the terrible weight of all those and every single sin in history combined is what Jesus had to knowingly bear when he went to the cross for us.  It makes me feel disgusted with the human race and simultaneously uplifted to know that He loves us that much.

• We got a postcard in the mail letting Derek know that "It's time to get your vision checked!"  Oh, and it's from the eye doctor he saw one time IN CONNECTICUT.  They've somehow managed to track us through four moves across three states, because we're still getting regular postcards from them.  They should give tips to the CIA.  Because, you know, I'm sure the CIA has trouble with that kind of thing.

• I got a text from my sister yesterday saying that her daughter (my sweet niece Charlotte) is thisclose to crawling, except for one pesky leg that just won't cooperate- so all she can do right now is crawl in circles.  Which gave Derek and I a good laugh.

• And here's my other niece, Vada, the blondest and rolliest baby ever.  (Maybe not ever.  But definitely in this post.)

And I haven't seen either one of them in MONTHS.  (Well, it's been about a month.  But that's a long time in baby land!)

The end.

Mother-Son Bonding

Caedmon is becoming more independent.

He's 22 months old now- which means in two short months, he will be two years old.

Two, two, two, two.

More and more often, he's asking to walk.  When I'm carrying him, when I try to put him in shopping carts, anytime he sees his older siblings walking.

He doesn't want to sit in his high chair anymore.  I try to let him sit at the table with Atticus and Adelaide at lunchtime, because it's just not happening at supper- he's still way too messy.

He hates being told he's too little- especially when it pertains to something the A-team are currently involved in.


One of the few times he still lets me baby him a bit is at naptime and bedtime.  I read him a couple books of his choosing, pick him up, and he permits me a few seconds of cuddling before lunging for his crib, signifying our time together is over.

Today's naptime was the same.  We read one of his favorites by Sandra Boynton followed by Goodnight Moon, put the books away, and I picked him up.  He must have been feeling especially generous today; I got a good thirty seconds of swaying him back and forth as he sucked on his fingers.  I decided to make the most of this moment and softly said, "I love you, Caedmon."

He picked his head up off my shoulder, looked me in the eye, and replied,

"Where Daddy?"


Hmph.  "Daddy's at work."

"Daddy-work-home-buppertime?"

"Yes, Daddy's at work, but he won't be home at suppertime tonight; it will be a bit later."

"Okay."

I laid him in his crib, and began to rub his back, the way I normally do for a few brief moments before exiting the room.  Today, however, he said, "No, I do it," and did his best to wrench his arm around and rub himself on the back while lying on his belly.


As I stood in the doorway, preparing to leave his room, I tried one last time.

"Goodnight, Caedmon.  I love you."

"Daddy work?"

Sigh.  "Yes, Daddy's at work.  I love you!"

"I want Daddy."

"GOOD NIGHT, CAEDMON."


Any guesses how our bedtime routine will go tonight?

Noise Makers

It must be baby season.  It seems like half the people I know are either having a baby or are married to someone having a baby.

This means I've been to my fair share of baby showers recently.  Actually, it feels like more than my fair share.  I like baby showers in small doses.  One or two is fun, three or more provides more cooing and aaawwing and weird games than I can handle.

At a couple of the showers for first-time mothers, they did a "What advice would you give to the future parents?" activity.  My standard answer for these is always the same:  Buy earplugs in bulk and don't take advice from anyone unless they have a medical degree or more than six kids.

My fellow shower-goers sometimes laugh when my answer is read aloud.  I'm not sure why.  I'm quite serious, especially about the earplugs part.  I'm half-joking about whom you should ask for advice; I'll take advice from others, but only after I've inspected their children.

If our UPS man were at any of these showers, he wouldn't laugh.  He would agree with me, and maybe hand out party favors of earplugs in plain brown packages.

Okay, so maybe he wouldn't do the party favor thing, but he would definitely know what I'm talking about with the ear plugs.

I don't know how or why, but he always seems to deliver packages to our house when our children have reached their upper limit in general noise-making and cacophony.  Yesterday was no exception.

The boys and I had gone to pick Adelaide up from the bus stop after school.  She emerged from the bus holding her forearm in the very specific way that screams, "Nursemaid's Elbow!" to me.  She looked like she had been crying.  When she finally reached the wagon, she told me her arm "hurts like it's bleeding all over."  She clumsily climbed into the wagon with Caedmon, and the four of us started for home.

When our house came within view, I told Adelaide I'd fix her arm as soon as we got inside.  This started up a miserable wailing of, "No, Mommy, NO!"  Atticus got distracted by her antics, let his flip flop-shod feet step too close to the wagon, and I ran over his bare toes.  He screamed.  Caedmon decided that if his two siblings were upset, well then, he was, too, and his screeches soon joined the chorus.

We had just reached our front porch steps when I somehow heard the rumble of a truck over the clamor of our three angels.  I turned around, and sure enough, there he was:  The UPS man, coming toward us with a delivery.

He either has a family of his own, is half deaf, or just really likes kids, because I can always read amusement in his face when he finds us like this.

Better than the pity I see in the eyes of the mailman.

Things You Need to Know About Charlotte

Three weeks ago, my middle sister and her husband welcomed their new baby girl into the world.

Her name is Charlotte, and she is the cutest little love muffin you've ever seen.

She also makes me spontaneously erupt into baby talk that is gratingly irritating, even to my own ears.




Because I think more of the world needs to know about her, here are some fun facts about Miss Charlotte:



What she looks like:



She has a lot of hair.  I forgot to measure while I was there (I was too busy gazing into her already-turning-brown eyes), but it looks pretty long to me.

She has a cleft chin.  If you ever meet her in person, good luck not touching it.  It begs to be touched.

She's ridiculously tiny and cute.

What Charlotte does with her time:


She likes sleeping.

And having her hair washed.

And sleeping.

And having her hair brushed.

And sleeping.

And staring at her mama's face.

And laying on her daddy.

And sleeping.

By the bye, when this photo was snapped, my sister here was only two weeks post-baby.  Way to go, Kelli.



The only bad part of this trip to see our new baby niece was the confrontation of a startling fact:

This guy, our sweet Caedmon, is no longer a baby.  I now keep expecting him to ask for the keys to the car or tell me he's moving out.

I'm trying not to let it bother me.

Perspective

Yesterday, it rained on and off most of the day, and last night, we had strong winds in our area.  This resulted in the leak in the ceiling of our laundry room to drip-drip-drip throughout the day (that's right- the majority of our 112 year old house is sturdy and leak-free, but we've had all kinds of problems with the much newer addition otherwise known as our laundry room), and the crashing of the rocking chairs being blown around and knocked over on our front porch throughout the night.  I was able to hear this crashing because Derek and I were up all night with a screaming Atticus.

Just as I was getting ready to sing a really special rendition of "Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me," I got a call from my mom.  The roof had been blown off of the home of my youngest sister.  She was at home last night when the windows started shuddering in their frames, and as she ran into the living room toward her husband, the windows in the house blew out and the power went out.  They both hit the floor, and thankfully they were okay as the roof was subsequently peeled off the house.  It's also a good thing they didn't make it to the basement- the ceiling to the stairwell collapsed.  After all that, they couldn't get out of the house right away because of the live power lines down around the house.  They're not sure if all this was due to a tornado or the 80 mile-per-hour straight line winds.  Oh, and did I mention she's 29 weeks pregnant?

Shortly thereafter, my other sister and her husband headed over to help out- you know, the one that's due with their baby any day now and has been put on bed rest?  Yeah, them.

After hearing all this, my mom asked, "So how are you doing?"

I thought about our leaky ceiling, sleepless night, and all the other little bothers that build up in every day life.  Then I thought about our intact house, my intact sisters, and how thankful I am I'm not pregnant right now.

I gave her the only answer I could.

"We're fine."

Update:  It official: it was a tornado.  Twisted tree trunks don't lie.

Samson and Rapunzel

You know how much fun it is to be around a little kid on Christmas Eve?  They're all excited and anxious and a little bit crazy just waiting for the next day to arrive.  Just being near them is enough to get you hyped up (and possibly drive you a little bit insane).

That's kind of how I felt the previous weekend.  I was down visiting my sisters, both of whom are expecting their first babies.  I got to experience a vicarious thrill just being surrounded by so much eager anticipation.

At this point, my middle sister is probably edging the younger one out on eagerness, simply because she's due any day now, so she's got the whole can't-wait-to-meet-my-baby thing going on combined with a fair amount of I'm-so-done-being-pregnant.

I'm super excited to see this baby, too, for many reasons; the foremost of which is to find out just how hairy it is.

Let me explain.

My sister and her husband are both very hairy- not in a sideshow freak/ front page of the National Enquirer kind of way- more like a shampoo commercial/ no amount of product will ever make mere mortals' hair look like that.  As a result, I am fully expecting their baby girl to exit the womb with long, shiny, chestnut-colored hair.  She'll have to get her first haircut at one month, and her hairdresser will call it The Mane- the same title that has been bestowed upon my sister's hair.

Added to this is the fact that over the weekend, my brother-in-law mentioned their most recent ultrasound, and that the technician was amazed at the amount of hair they could see.  I said something like, "What, could you see her hair floating gently in the amniotic fluid?"  I was joking.

He said, "Yes, you could."  He was not joking.

I'm thinking about starting a pool amongst family members where you not only guess the weight and length of the baby, but where you also must give an estimate on the length of hair- in inches, not centimeters.

I'll go first:  8 lbs, 5 oz, 20 inches long, hair length... let's go with right around 4 inches.

Believe it or not, that's a conservative guess.