Angels and Demons and Cora

What do third babies play with?

Big knives and razor blades of course.

Cora seems like quite the big kid these days.  I had a minor freak out on Sunday that she wasn't a baby anymore and all these babyish things were gone forever and why must time more forward, etc. and then she ran into my arms when I was crouching down on the floor and she gave me the biggest hug- a real, fierce, purposeful hug!- and I remembered, for the one millionth time, that toddlers are kind of my favorite.

On Monday night the kids were playing Zingo and Cora wanted very much to play too.  Actually, I think she had assumed she already was playing.

But to make it Zingo-official, Landon set up up with a real board and playing pieces and Claire allowed it because she was pretty sure Cora wouldn't win.

It was adorable.  Having multiple kids is the best.  And not just because I didn't really want to play Zingo. 

Also on Monday (sorry, it's late and I just can't with the reorganizing all the blogger pictures; we discovered The Wire and Amazon Prime a week ago and it's making us very tired), Claire started her swim lessons.  Because it was a federal holiday (hooray!), I was dressed in civilian clothes and didn't object to lingering around JP's humid pool deck to watch for a bit. 

Cora paid particularly close attention to the instructor.

I got distracted by the hot coach across the way.

Landon is in a class at the same time as Claire and it is the best thing ever to drop them at the curb of the swim center and know that JP will be there, coaching Landon and supervising Claire, and then he will bring them both home.  It's almost enough to make me like after school activities.

Except Cora gets really bored when the big kids aren't around and was forced to settle for me and my cooking as entertainment.  She was not amused by my vegetable chopping process.  She quite liked the spaghetti though.

Earlier in the day (still on Monday; days off work are the best), we took a family walk/bike ride to our favorite park.  Cora went down the super big kid slide for the first time and was super intimidated by the experience.

Love that crazy baby girl.  That picture pretty well captures her approach to life: arms up, smile on, let's DO this!

Except when she's mad at me because it's 5:15 p.m. and I've only fed her two dinners while in the process of making the one she'll eat with the rest of the family and daddy isn't here and teeth are growing and everything is THE WORST and can toddlers get colic?  Because Cora now has it from 5:15 until the moment JP drives up in the driveway.  He's not even in the house and Cora perks up a room away from anywhere that could tell her he's on the property and looks at me like, well mom, the screaming's been fun, thanks, and runs to the nearest door to squeal and smile for her dad while I pour my second glass of wine and skip yoga.

I was joking with JP that she might be possessed by a demon for that one hour when she ran into the room holding a freshly decapitated baby doll and smiling and I thought, well, maybe I'm on to something.