It's Time For a Pipdate!

5 months old. How is that possible? I'm pretty sure 5 months of pregnancy feels like 5 years. And five months of your first child's life feels like at least a year. But for some reason 5 months of your 3rd child's life feels like 3 weeks. Yet here it is.

Pippa is:

GORGEOUS. Something about her is different than my other two kids. I think they had my coloring. So they looked...normal. But Pippa is golden. And pink. And fair. Her skin is so pale, her eyes are still blueish-grey, her hair is so strawberry blond. And she is sooooo plump. She is just different looking than my other babies. And I LOVE to stare at her. She is breath-taking.

BUSY. That girl. That girl! She cannot hold still! She is on the go, she is looking around, she is turning from one side to the other, stretching to reach what is just beyond her hands, above her head, behind her back. She can't quite roll over, but she's close. And trying ALL THE TIME. She's too busy to eat. Any sound makes her head whip around, away from her bottle. She's too busy to sleep. My once easy sleeper wants to roll and turn and grab and look. Sleeping is so passé. Even her binky is so passé. She puts everything (but not her binky) in her mouth. Every gross thing you hand her or she finds near her. She sticks it in her mouth (by way of her eye or nose or cheek, because her coordination isn't quite honed yet). But baby food? Oh no. That makes her face squinch up like you just fed her something crazy. Dirty socks? Acceptable. Sweet potatoes? No way lady.

BIG. 16 pounds big. 9-12 month clothes big! I've never had a big one. I remember my babies both being fat at one point or another, but Daphne was always several sizes behind her age, and Beck was lucky if he was on target most of the time. Pippa? She wears a size 3 diaper and a size 12 jammy. And the rolls on her arms and thighs are delicious.

SWEET. When I kiss her neck and shoulder really fast, when her brother jumps up and down in front of her, when her sister sings her a song, when Daddy throws her in the air, she laughs this sweet laugh, like water trickling down a pebbly stream. Like a small pop of firecrackers. It's perfect. And when I hold her in my arms, and she drinks her bottle, and she looks up at me with this look like I'm the most beautiful, wonderful person in the world....ahhh, then my cup is full.

Five wonderful months.

M.I.A. or A.W.O.L?

I'm here. Really I am. It just appears as though I have fallen off the face of the earth. Or maybe it doesn't cause there is no one out there to notice.

These days I feel really proud of myself when I spend 10 minutes reading and commenting on other people's blogs. It brings back fond memories. Of when I spent 2-3 eager HOURS a day reading and commenting on other people's blogs. And another joyous hour writing a few of my own. (Remember that? When we would write MORE THAN ONE BLOG POST A DAY?) How did we do it?? Why did we stop?

We stopped because there was life. Oh that. Life. Kids. Kids who need attention. Kids who don't want me to shout "Just a minute...I'm almost done with my post!" from the other room while I upload and edit the pictures that will go on the blog post I haven't even begun composing yet. And a husband. A husband who wants a meal when he gets home from a hard day's work. And a kiss. And a hello. A hello not wedge in between the third and fifth edit of my blog post. And then there's the laundry and the sweeping and the dishes to put away and the bathroom to scrub and the and the and the.

And then there was the baby...and, well, she trumped everything. 'Cause she just doesn't wait for me to sort through my reader, looking for the most neglected blogs to catch up on before I hug her and change her and make her a bottle.

And so, it appears, I am missing. But not lost. I'm out there somewhere, mentally composing clever, witty, interesting posts. With pictures. Perfectly framed pictures.

Anyway, I love and appreciate so much those real-friends and stranger-friends and virtual-friends who have continued to read my blog despite my becoming a super dooper LAME blogger.

I dream of the day when I will have the time (and will?) to get back to the good old blogging days. I'll have to go out and search for new bloggers to read me. Bloggers who don't have LIFE pulling at them from all directions. So let me know, you guys, when that's you--when your laundry and kids and husband are all done and loved and satisfied and paid-attention-to and everyone around you is begging you, please, to just sit down for a few hours and blog. OK?

I'll see you then.

(p.s. I'm not quitting blogging. I just realized it sounds like I am. No, I'm just making excuses for how much I suck. I will still be here, in a few days, continuing to write to a make-believe audience who hangs on my every word, don't worry.)

A Little Slice Of Heaven

Kids at school

Baby in Bed

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal cookies, warm

Milk, cold

Say Yes To The Dress" on DVR.


Ahhhh....27 minutes of heaven.



What does your slice of heaven made of?

Paparazzi

I have taken so many photos of my kids lately, I swear I feel like their own personal paparazzi. Mostly it's because I'm getting used to my new camera. Also because I happen to think they're extremely cute. I'm not biased, I'm a photo-journalist in my dreams, so it's completly objective. Here are a few I've taken lately (grandparents, this is mostly for you.)

At Bridalveil Falls...










Her Royal Cuteness






Beauty School Drop Outs





Her Royal Fatness



At Cascade Springs (We have been getting in some serious nature lately. 9:00 church rocks!)...


(Look! I'm actually IN a picture!)





SO Attractive...



Well, that should tide the relatives over for a few more months, right?

The History of a Pant Leg

It was 1986, and we wore our jeans high and narrow. The waist went way past the navel, the pant leg should be as skinny as humanly possible. In fact, we couldn't get our pants narrow enough at the bottom. Everyone wanted the skinniest pant leg possible, so skinny your heal would barely fit through when you pulled them on. But for some reason, no one actually MADE pants that narrow. Sometimes you could find one with zippers at the bottom and it was proclaimed "totally awesome." Mostly you just had to buy straight legs and peg them. We folded, rolled, sewed, pinned, and tucked our pants into our socks in order to achieve the skinniest pant leg possible. And when we watched old shows from the 70's, we hooted and pointed and wondered how they ever wore something so hideous as bell-bottoms. "All fashion comes back around," my mother told me. "Well, I will NEVER wear bell bottoms," I informed her. "I swear it on my life."

In 1990 I headed across the Great Pond and inland to Germany for a year. When I got to school, everyone said, "Vy do you do zat to your cheans? "Cause I'm cool," I thought. "Duh." But within a few months I realized the Germans were not so into cool and that I just looked weird, so I stopped pegging my pants.

Flash forward to 1991 when I returned home and realized that it wasn't that the Germans weren't cool. It's actually that they were fashion forward. Because guess who wasn't pegging their pants anymore? Anyone. Good thing all my German jeans had been straight leg.

Somewhere after the horror of the fashion-dead-zone that was the 1990's, a retro 60's-70's look came back in fashion. The baggy, shapeless shirts of the last decade were out and tight-fitting baby shirts were in. Guess what else was in? Bell-bottoms! Only they were called flares now. And they weren't the horrible high-waisted type that went up to your ribs like the 70's versions, luckily. (Because nothing became so abhorrent to the child-of-the-80's once the 80's were past as the high waist. ) But I still resisted. Then just as I was about to keep my promise from 1986, I tried them on. And that's when I realized: nothing is so disgusting for a hip-heavy figure like mine than pegged pants. Flares, on the other hand, seemed to distract the eye and make me look far more proportional. Flares it is! My new love! Forget that silly promise I made in my early teen years. What did I know then anyway??

I lived happily for nearly a decade in my flares. The degree of flare changed slightly. The shape and location of back pockets moved. The waist-lines got ever lower and lower and lower until you were lucky if your underwear didn't creep 6 inches above your belt when you bent down. But still, flares prevailed.

And then came the horrible day a few years ago when I saw them: skinny jeans. I would have died for these in the 80's. The skinniest, narrowest, most tapered leg you've ever seen in your life. Matched with stretch material, they could be skin tight and you could still get your heels through the bottom of the leg holes. Only this time around skinny jeans were super-low waisted, creating the soon-to-be-ubiquitous muffin top. Only 11 year olds could wear them without waist fat hanging over the top. It was unlikely for most teenagers to look good in them, and it was hopeless for moms. Fine with me. I had already come to accept that flares were more flattering, and this new ultra-low-rise version of pegged pants was the worst of both worlds. So I just watched from a distance with a baffled expression as teenagers by the thousands ran out and stocked their closets with these super tight, super low, super super ugly skinny jeans.

But soon pant legs in general followed suit. I tried to hold out. As skinny jeans pretty much took over all the stores, and flare legs became nearly impossible to find, though, I had to adjust slightly. To the bootcut. The bootcut is not nearly as flattering to my hippiness as the flare. But what can you do when even Target doesn't carry flares anymore?

And then, last week, it happened. I saw these while out shopping...



"The High-rise Retro Flare" A.K.A, the bell-bottom. I don't know what to think now. I'm nearly dizzy from how fast fashion seems to be cycling through. I've gone from bell-bottoms to pegged pants to straight legs and back to flares, back to skinny jeans and now on to bell bottoms again! Shouldn't fashion cycle through more slowly, like every 20-30 years at least? Wait, has it been that long already? Well, still...am I really going to have to go to the high-waisted retro flare in order to save myself from the ultra-low-rise skinny jean? Sigh... so be it. Beauty is pain.

It's Time For a Pipdate!

Do you ever feel that with each consecutive child that time goes by faster? Cause it sure seems that way. I am pretty sure every second of my pregnancy crawled by, but for some reason the last four months have gone in the blink of an eye.

Pippa is 4 months old!

Stats:
Weight: FAT! (14.4 lbs, 60%)
Height: Longer than our other babies, still slightly below short (24 inches, 44%)
Noggin: Gargantuan (I forget what this stat was, but her enormous brain is in the 79%)

She Rocks At:
Grabbing things--her binky out of her mouth when she should be trying to sleep, my hair, her bib during feedings, not her bottle.
Making her siblings laugh--Beck has almost burst blood vessels in his brain from laughing so hard. Mostly this occurs when he's teasing her, but also from watching her laugh at him. They get each other going and Beck usually ends the laugh fest by running to the bathroom holding his crotch.
Burping--she lets out the biggest, loudest, most resonant burps ever. Also a source of Beck's hysterics. Burping never gets old when you're four.
Standing--whereas Daphne started standing at age 1 1/2 weeks and never looked back, and Beck wouldn't even straighten his legs until he was like 2 years old, Pippa has chosen a nice happy medium of 3 1/2 months to start standing. She loves to lock her knees and stand on our laps. But this means not so much snuggling in my arms. She wants to be a big girl. :(

She Sucks At:
Sleeping. My former star sleeper, who slept through the night from age 4 days old on, has regressed a bit. She wakes up about 3:30 am every night lately and is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, chirping, talking, ready to rock and roll. After 3 or 4 binky applications she sometimes goes back to sleep. Sometimes I must resort to using the-tool-which-no-baby's-eyelids-can-resist: the swing. And then I get to sleep for a few more hours. I refuse to pick her up or feed her. I am so not down with that.
Napping. Similar to sleeping, Pippa has suddenly decided napping is so passe. She'd much rather stare at the birdies on her wall, gab and slobber, wiggle out of her swaddle and try to roll over. ARG.
Keeping her food down. She has followed in her siblings' stinky, messy footsteps and has developed reflux. Not as bad as either of them, but bad enough to require a bib or burp cloth at hand at all times. And lots of changes of clothes. Mostly mine.


Eyes: Pippa's eyes are giving me hope. They have not turned brown! I was looking at pictures of Beck at this age and they were definitely brown by now. Pippa's are still a steel grey-blue, but quite clear, with a starburst of brown in the very center. A bunch of her aunts and uncles on Big Daddy's side have eyes exactly like this, so I'm hoping and praying they'll stay this way.

Hair: Still rather strawberry blond, but in some lights it looks just plain mousy brown.

Skin:
Somewhere between transparent and actually glowing. The doctor yesterday said, "You're doing to need to apply a lot of sunblock to this one!" Thanks a lot, Grandma Boppie.

Overview: I have to say, Pippa is still a delightful, easy child, despite her sleeping boycotts. She smiles all the time, laughs, coos, hates her carseat, but forgives me after a day with many trips and looks at me like I'm chocolate ice cream. I love her.

Sloppy Seconds

Here I sit, on my bed, reading blogs, eating leftovers. I love leftovers. Not my own cooking's leftovers. At least, not passionately. But I passionately love restaurant leftovers. How awesome is it to go out to dinner, eat a fantastic meal, and then get to eat it again the next day!? It's very awesome, that's what. Even if you do have to share some of your coconut-crusted mahi-mahi leftovers with your cat, who is suddenly on the bed next to you, staring at you pitifully with eyes that say, "I know I won't even look at dry catfood containing seafood, and I scorn even the Fancy Feast if it has fish in it, but if I don't have a bite of that coconut-crusted mahi-mahi right now I will jump into a tank of foaming pitbulls, I swear." So you share a few nibbles to keep her from such an awful fate, and you enjoy the rest yourself, grateful that you are eating something delicious that you didn't have to cook yourself and which, of course, contains ingredients you would never buy in a millions years anyway. And that is what makes leftovers so wonderful.

You?