hide-n-(sensory)-seeking

    This, is my baby girl.             She's getting bigger everyday, but we still call her Baby.   She's, amazing!     She loves animals...       Petting a horsey for the first time.     She can climb on practically anything, the more precarious the better!           She loves dolls, and is a very good little mama...             As long as they don't wear any clothes.               She has the wispiest curls ever!           She LOVES water! She can literally play in it for hours.        That makes her a very good helper with the dishes!     She also LOVES to play outside! Swinging is her favorite, but sliding and digging for burie...

Grace wanted to do a science experiment Wednesday. This one is an oldie, but a goody, and we somehow never got around to it with Zak, so it was new(ish) to both of them. Zak had read about it and knew what happens and why, but he  hasn't seen it with his own eyes. Grace picked orange and blue for the colors. She stirred them in, placed in the flowers, and then was grumpy because, "that was too short!" She was cheerier when she could start to see results just a few hours later. Not even 24 hours later the entire flower was an unearthly azure! The orange was much more subtle, but still very cool to observe. Happy scientific-ing everybody!

Sleep.   More specifically, the lack of it.   Some of you may have noticed that my frequency in posting has dwindled in the last couple of months. To a complete stand still over the last few weeks.   I have about a million and one things I wish to write about, but my brain simply refuses to function without the minimal requirement of sleep. And that, up until the last couple of weeks, was not something that I was attaining.   Not.   Even.   Close.   Yes, after weeks of work to get Kit used to sleeping in her bed for large portions of the night, we had finally all been settling down and snoozing happily (mostly) in our own places.   Then her molars started coming in. And are still coming.   It took over two weeks of her waking nearly every twenty minutes (on the worst nights), and being squirmy and restless when she was asleep, and wanting to nurse (pacify) from the moment I lay down to the hour she final...

Funny thing about toddlers...they don't seem to care that mom is trying to rest, or have a laid back/light work load kind of day. Nope, they just carry on with their big plans. Because, you know, isn't it really all about them?     Who exploded flour all over the kitchen?     Just follow the footprints. The ittly bitty ones.     The suspect was covered from head to tiny toe!     Then not even two minutes later!     "Look Mama! Somebody spilled pretzels all over the floor!"     "I'll help."     Hmmm...wonder how this happened...     They always return to the scene of the crime!     Oy! 

So, we sort of accidentally ended up taking two months off this summer. I knew we would be taking about three weeks off at the end, but the rest was unexpected. But I know I needed it, and it certainly didn't hurt them a bit. But as of yesterday we are officially back on track! And it was one of the best days we've had all summer, which, quite frankly, has not been our fondest. But it had it's highlights, some of which I'll share more of soon. I recently assembled (and laminated!) two copies of our new family routine. I hung one in the kitchen, and one in the kids room. Then we all did absolutely nothing about it whatsoever for another month. But now that all major summer events are behind us, it was time to get serious.   So, yesterday morning...I slept in. But! When I got up, we dove right in anyway, and despite our late start, we got almost everything on the schedule done. All the really important stuff got done. And it felt really good....