a conglomeration of a few weeks...

driving in the car with the girls yesterday, this was the conversation in the back seat:

adeline: where are we?

amelia, giggling: RIGHT HERE!

adeline, frustrated: no, where are we?

amelia, equally frustrated: RIGHT HERE, ADELINE!

asking so many existential questions already...

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here is the newest joke from this week...

knock knock.

who's there?

poop.

poop who?

who wants to poop with me?!

***

i was out with a friend the other night, at starbucks. wes was being the awesome dad he is, putting the girls down (he went out the next night with friends; fair play here). so this isn't so much my story as his, but i'll tell it.

adeline had been complaining that her nose was hurting last week. we didn't really pay much attention to it, just told her to blow her nose, right? for whatever reason addy was playing with her head lamp before bed & wes noticed something shiny through her nose. upon closer look, he discovered a small bead stuck up addy's nostril.

so he pushed down on the other nostril with his finger & told adeline to blow her nose as hard as she could...the bead went flying across the bathroom. of course, adeline LOVES telling this story, how a bead went flying through the air, from her nose. *smile*

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this morning amelia woke us up around 6:20--her usual wake up time, sadly--asking wes to snap the outfit onto her doll. wes did it, we went back to sleep until 20 minutes later, when amelia came with the same request & wes obliged again. we both fell asleep again. at 7 i remember wes waking up mentioning something about how he needed to get up to see what they've destroyed (adeline was audibly awake now)...but instead we both fell back asleep. at 8, wes woke up (i did not this time) & went downstairs to affirm our suspicions: we have very independent & capable children. they had their bowls out (they only used one, their favorite orange straw bowl--even though we have 3 others, the orange one is the BEST & they must both use it in the morning for their cereal).anyway, someone had climbed onto the counter, retrieved the orange bowl, poured cereal twice, poured milk twice. then they had taken the bowl to the sink & were washing the bowl & spoons.

they had also built a campsite with numerous tents & other random structures & toys strewn about, had put a pillow under griswold's head & a blanket over him, tucking him in for the night...he was their baby.

they play so well together sometimes. i love listening to their plots. this morning the firefighters were coming to save their babies from the looming disaster (it was weather & fire awareness week or something at school a few weeks ago & now adeline knows nearly everything about tornados, fires, thunderstorms, etc--she told us that a thunderstorm happens when hot & cold air come together way up in the sky. i love her school.). so yea, they are best friends, although neither would admit to it at this point. maybe in 20 years.

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please forgive my lack of posts the past few weeks. i'm on some new medication & WOW does it knock me out. at night i am so tired, barely able to drag myself up from either girls' bed when putting them to sleep (yea, that's at 7:30). by 10, wes usually has to help me up the stairs (extreme tired coupled with lack of balance nerve seems to make me very topsy-tervy on the steps *smile* & wes very nervous).

the girls have found me catnapping throughout the day when i would usually be reading a blog or writing a post, so...soon i should be back to normal or --hopefully!-- BETTER than normal. in another 4 weeks. *sigh*

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ALSO. if anyone has seen mad men, please let me know what you think of it. i just rented season 1 from the library & watching it makes me want to do or say a few things...if, as everyone seems to say, mad men is pretty accurate to the reality of that time period...to those who think the civil rights or women's movement were unnecessary, holy shit! watch this to make your skin crawl. it makes me so very immensely grateful to those who put their lives at stake to create a culture of equality. i keep watching this first season, because it is interesting & such but...do they ever get around to making women & minorities appear less dense?

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enjoy some pictures!

a neighbor invited me to a Psysanky egg decorating party. i followed a pattern & this is what i got. a bit shaky & not quite exact, but still, i'm proud of my wee, pretty egg.

amelia *loves* her doll. & babies. she will naturally drift over to any person younger than 1 year old & look at that small person in awe & love. she can play with dolls & babies for hours.

most of the time i simply cannot resist this smile. she gives it to me at her naughtiest times, of course.

putting her to work already. (actually, she has been constantly asking, begging, pleading to vacuum. i relented & she did a pretty good job...minus nearly sucking up the cord here.)

their cardboard block castle built by engineer daddy (i did help but the door & ceiling was all wes)

this child takes outfits to a whole new color spectrum

& YES! that's a soccer jersey. soccer started last week...&...

...at her first game she cranked & badly bruised her knee, resulting in a required icing (with frozen chopped veggies). my dad the cross country/basketball coach helped with what to do for this one. she was limping so much that it looked like she was skipping. poor kiddo. but to prove kids are mostly like gumby, she was running & pretend-crawling on it the next morning. but the bruise remained...ouch.

& her face scratch is from a small bush. she was kicking the soccer ball around when it landed near a bush. adeline bent down to pick it up, not noticing the bush & WHACK, SCRATCH, etc. the problem is that she had just been coloring with red & purple markers & had that all over her hands, so i just assumed the blood (from half a yard away!) was marker smeared on her face from her hands & tears. anyway, not smeared marker but lots of blood. i soon realized that, but until then she had a few minutes to cake a lot of mud in the scratches. a big *yuck* of a clean out...

amelia can't give up the baby-sized brown's beanie. i think we have a fan in the making.

this is me, ready to meet up with some friends at starbucks. this is adeline in her dress-up 1950's poodle skirt.

the man & i.

conglomeration