More About Eleanor

This is mostly for Tim's benefit since kids Eleanor's age change a lot in two months:

Eleanor loves dressing herself in other's clothing. She just loves, loves, loves it and she does a fairly good job of putting it all on.

you see gillian's skirt peeking out from under there?

She is so in love with her monkey also.

and she loves talking to Tim on the phone.

Just Cute Pictures of Some Cute Kids

Emily's Fortnight in Virginia

Tim is off at away rotations during October and November and my cousin Emily came to keep me company for a couple weeks in October. We had a great time. We went to the beach a bunch, and the water front and Tim came down to visit for a day even. We didn't take many pictures because we are lazy, but here are a few.

Emily's son Max came with her and I thought this was just too cute of a picture to leave off.

Our first day at the beach we saw a pod of dolphins right next to the shore. It was amazing. There were about a dozen of them jumping around, splashing their tails, so close to the shore we easily could have swam out and touched them. It was truly the most amazing thing I've seen in a long time. The kids were fairly calm, but Emily and I were screeching like 3 year olds at Christmas.

We also saw this awesome crab that same day. A good day for wild life.

Emily took me to Borders to introduce me to her favorite Seattle's Best mmh mmh mmh latte (sorry the names still confuse me). While trying to get into the parking lot we ran into this conundrum.

No Right Turn! Right Turn Only! What the huh? I'm telling you, sometimes I think life just expects too much.

Date

So Tim and I don't go out very often, but since he is leaving us for the next two months (away rotations at Yale and the Mayo Clinic), we figured we better make an effort. We hired a babysitter and drove down to Virginia Beach and walked along the board walk, full of little shops and live music, and then headed down to the beach itself for the walk back.

I much preferred the beach walk to the board walk.

It was pretty windy and stormy feeling, although the water was super warm. The waves were churning up tons of sea foam, something neither Tim or I had ever really seen before. The waves would come in, leaving behind these huge piles of sea foam that would blow around the beach. It was cool and kind of creepy.

I tried to take a picture holding some sea foam so you could tell it wasn't just part of the surf but the wind kept blowing it away and the surf kept getting me wet and I almost lost my shoes.

We didn't really know what to do with our sandy feet once we got back to the board walk. We winded up just sitting on a bench listening to some band playing, waiting until our feet dried enough so we could get most of the sand off.
Then we ate pizza and went to Cold Stone and went home and watched--hmm, I can't remember what we watched, I think I fell asleep. Now that is going to bug me.

September Pictures

So I have given up with the catch up game and so you won't see pictures of the wedding we went to in August or the trip to South Carolina or all the super cool things I made/did with my free time while Tim was out of town for an away rotation at Wake Forest Medical School in NC during the month of August.

But you will see pictures of:

Gillian trying on glasses while I was trying on mine. We had both James and Gillian try them on, teasing them that in a few short years they would need them for real (Tim and I entered the world of glasses in 3d and 2d grade respectively).

I finally broke down and bought the kids their own umbrellas. It rains so much here and they really are cute with them.

James had a soy food challenge last Tuesday and passed with flying colors and so it is officially okay for him to eat foods with soy. Yipee! I forgot to take pictures during the test itself (7 hours in a doctors office, you think I would remember to take a picture) but this is him eating Ramen Noodles, a much missed favorite, after the results were official.

James and the prize he picked out for completing his summer reading list.

Eleanor just being cute.

Eleanor obviously upset that I don't like her new refried bean hair do as much as she does.

We are so good not one will drop!

The kids playing along to Apples Up On Top, a favorite family book.

I don't have a title for this post because I feel like it is an absurd enough situation that it warrants a clever, funny title--but I couldn't think of one. If you have any suggestions let me know.

My parents stopped over to visit us on their way to China and gave Gillian her "airplane purse" (a bag full of toiletries my mother got on her last flight to China).

Gillian loved her airplane purse and everything in it including the eye mask which she now wears most nights in what I think is a bizarre display of prissy adultness (adult prissiness?). A shameful stereotype, I know, but I have only Hollywood exposure to such eye masks.

Boys v. Girls

Gillian is way into gender delineation. It is never just Doctor, but rather a girl doctor or a boy doctor, she has been known to call Granpa "Boy Grandma." The other day she was telling me that Eleanor was a girl.

"How do you know she's not a boy?" I asked.

"She doesn't talk like a boy" was the reply.

"How does a boy talk?"

"Like a chicken, bok, bok, ba GOK!"

Children's efforts to make sense of the world around them makes me so grateful to be as old as I am. I wonder if 80 year olds laugh at the way 30 year olds make sense of the world. Probably.

Tie Dye Extravaganza

I loved tie dye when I was young and have been waiting and waiting until my kids were old enough to teach them how. As I got into the project, I slowly realized that I might have been a tad overambitious and spent a great deal of time internally stressing about unintentional dyeing occurring (hence the towel and bare bone clothing).

But the kids had a really great time and in the end all of our stuff was still the same color it was when we started.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the forest...

While focusing on keeping the tie dye from dyeing everything in its path, I totally neglected Eleanor. You think I would have learned by now.

While washing the t-shirts and towels, a Yellow Monster walked in on me. I followed her yellow foot prints (on the carpet) and hand prints (on the walls) down the hallway, across the kitchen and to the steps, finding an open and empty yellow food coloring capsule on the way.

To this day, I can't figure out how those go-go-gadget arms of hers got the food coloring in the first place.

While cleaning the carpet, Eleanor, left to her own devices again, got into the multi-colored chocolate sprinkles and dumped them all out. Of course the sprinkles melted in the wet carpet (where I was cleaning) leaving multi-colored spots everywhere.

Believe it or not, the sprinkle stains did not come out whereas most of the yellow food coloring did (except for the two main spots on the top stair, which is now a bright lovely patch of color).

A "No-No-No"

So Gillian just came into the kitchen asking, "Can you come help me build a teeny no-no-no for baby?"

It took me awhile to process it, but I had just helped Gillian out by telling El, "no-no-no" for climbing up (and messing up) Gillian's cushion fort. Now Gillian wanted help building a decoy fort (a no-no-no) for Eleanor to use.

Beach Pictures

Before Tim left for his away rotation in North Carolina, we made him come to the beach with us. The kids and I go a couple times a week, but I don't let them get in the water too deep when I'm by myself. I worry about having three kids doing three different things at such a dangerous place.

But with Tim there, the kids got to try out their boogie boards my parents are lending us while they are in China. They both got pretty good at them.

Eleanor, glaring at us trying to figure out why we won't stop following her.

July Pictures

Okay, I am just getting to my July pictures. But at least now I am just a month behind rather than the three that I was before. Two steps forward, one step back.

Gillian and the prize she picked when she finally stayed dry all night in her "big girls" for a week. She is officially, all the way, totally and completely toilet trained. Two down, one to go.

James has started taking a flashlight to bed and reading at night. Since he is still happy and energetic during the day, I am trusting that he falls asleep when his body needs him to and yet I still get to have the kids in bed at 7:00. It is hard having kids of different ages sleep in the same room when one needs less sleep than the other. Thank goodness for flashlights.

Eleanor loves climbing, but has a hard time still figuring out how to get down. She was so adorable calling for help teetering on the edge of the table. She was really stuck poor thing.

This is the first time I have seen her fall asleep not in the car or crib. It was so cute.

Tim and Gillian playing video games.

Fourth of July Festivities

We spent the fourth of July at our good friends the Talk's house--their house is the home base for all awesome party and celebration action--nobody knows how to celebrate like Doug and Amanda.

I think this may be my first somewhat decent sibling picture.

Tim with Doug and Amanda's newest baby--Asher.

Doug and Tim making surf and turf shish-kabobs

The delectable food.