Many Things (and Buttercream)

It's been many days, so we're taking this in bullet-like paragraphs:

Cora is 15 months old today. I will not rehash my love/hate relationship with the passage of time (short form: she appears to no longer be a baby and this makes me cry), but holy crap do I love this toddler-baby. She is EXUBERANTLY everything. Loud, fast, hungry, joyful, smiley, sleepy- she is all the things at 125% and I want to squeeze her 130% of the time.

(Note: Those are all happy faces. Exuberantly happy, even.)

Landon lost his 3rd tooth! The first one he pulled all by himself, this time while at school when we didn't even know it was that wiggly! I'm glad I didn't have to pay the $40 dental extraction charge and even more glad I didn't have anything to do with the pulling because wiggly teeth freak me out in a way that nothing else involving blood or the human body does.

He was very excited, and JP and I were very excited when we remembered to be the tooth fairy at 11:30 p.m. when we were climbing in bed. We were less excited when he attempted to burst into our locked room 20 minutes before he was supposed to be awake the next morning to let us know the tooth fairy left him a $2 bill.

Landon also typed his first report (about an animal, of course) on the computer at school this week, and then illustrated it for fun, because he's Landon and his love of illustration is topped only by his love of animals. "Mom, did you know all the letters are NOT in the right order on some computers?!"

He also wrote out his Valentines on Tuesday, the very night he brought home his class list. Without any involvement from me, he carefully wrote out each friend's name on a Valentine specially chosen for them (all wild animal themed, obvs), along with an individual note like "Dear Iris, you are a really fast runner!" or a carefully colored heart if he didn't know them well enough to comment on their running prowess (or reading, or whatever, I now regret that I didn't read them all because the ones I saw while chopping onions were adorable). Then a lollipop flavor was painstakenly selected (Mom, Iris does not like red flavor) and taped to the wild animal Valentine. He really is an extraordinarily sweet little boy.

(Who also runs really fast.)

Claire is going to play soccer this spring (blergh, after school activities) and picked out her pink soccer ball and hot pink soccer shoes and she is SO EXCITED to play soccer, though I think she has very little understanding of what that means. She does know that her soccer ball does NOT bounce very high and points this out to anyone who steps inside our house. Claire's team is called the Fighting Bees, which makes me inexplicably happy, and Cora has a coordinating soccer-themed headband to wear to games.

I have a new favorite wine: petite sirah. It is delicious and drinks like you can chew it. (Note: probably not how a sommelier would describe it.)

I read a lot of articles, but rarely link to them. Two of my faves from this week are:

(1) This article in Cosmo, which the Fug Girls pointed out to me, as I have not read Cosmo since college, is glorious: I Tried All the Sex in 50 Shades of Grey in 1 Weekend. It's funny and witty enough to make me think I should start reading Cosmo again.

... at this point, he's a shell of the man he once was. His hips are thrusting but there's no light behind his eyes. We give up two minutes in and high-five, pleased to have made it that far.

And (2) this one from National Geographic, via Longform.org: Why Do So Many Reasonable People Doubt Science. It's really good. As is science.

Maybe—except that evolution actually happened. Biology is incomprehensible without it. There aren’t really two sides to all these issues. Climate change is happening. Vaccines really do save lives. Being right does matter—and the science tribe has a long track record of getting things right in the end. Modern society is built on things it got right.

I'm also re-reading the In Death series which I find ridiculously enjoyable. It's like the Babysitter's Club for adults who like House: predictable story arc with slow character growth from book to book, but somehow thoroughly entertaining from beginning to end. A new one just came out on Tuesday and I'm waiting impatiently for my digital library to stock it.

I went to lunch with some coworkers today and ran into two people I know at the restaurant, and then JP walked in partway through our meal. I love living in my small town. It made me smile all afternoon for having seen him for the last 15 minutes of my lunch.

I am baking a dark chocolate cake for Valentine's Day. JP is supplying the champagne. I can't decide if I should frost my cake with classic white buttercream or try a new recipe for dark chocolate buttercream. This will be the most important decision of my Saturday.

It's 11:25 p.m. and JP and I are clearly failing at our nightly plan of "let's go to bed early tomorrow." So, until tomorrow, here's Cora dominating at the nightly wrestling match:

Girl plays to win.

Passported

Friday was an exciting morning. I woke up sick, my back tire was flat, and Landon had the day off school so we were scheduled to get the kids' passports at the district clerk's office at 9:30. Except we hadn't picked up the do-it-yourself passport photos from Costco and it didn't open until 10 a.m. and the tire place was in the other direction and I was supposed to go to work at some point and I was nauseous and feverish and sniffly, but it ended up being a productive, if horribly expensive (three new tires!), morning. I had filled out all the passport paperwork online ahead of time (that was fun- height: 2'7"; occupation: smiling; hair color: n/a; eye color: can't tell yet!) and taken the pictures via a piece of poster board taped to our dining room wall. I'm glad it was me doing them and not a passport photo place because there were a lot of outtakes.

Cora could not understand why she wasn't allowed to move around or dance or clap or waive her plastic puppy or do much of anything else she wanted to do. The big kids got it in one take, but Cora used up several.

I was able to crop the puppy out of the last one and we had a winner. I still held my breath when we got to the passport office, but the clerk said we were good to go! JP had to drive back home to get our check book (who has checks these days?) because apparently the government can't take credit cards and I had exactly $3 in cash, but we got it done and in 4-6 weeks we can leave the country at will for the next 5 years.

Other than all the random jaunts to Paris I'm sure we'll be taking, the passports are for our 10 year anniversary trip to Jamaica this summer. We're bringing the kiddos along as we didn't think we had anyone to watch them and, when we started talking about what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go, we felt that if we were going to spend a bunch of money and take enough days away to make the trip really big and memorable, then we wanted them along with us.

So starting sometime last year, I set about finding a resort that fit all of our criteria: (1) not overly themey or group-oriented; I would rather stick a fork in my eye than go to a karaoke/bingo night or Sesame street concert; (2) we didn't want a kids' camp so much as a babysitting type option to use as needed; i.e., we didn't want to drop them off anywhere, we really like playing with them during the day, but I also definitely want romantic dinners with JP and the ability to go walk on the beach at night while leaving the minors safely behind in their rooms; (3) all-inclusive; I want all the money spent so I don't obsess over it when I get there; I will never order a drink poolside if I know how much it actually costs; (4) not a hotel room; it is not a vacation unless I have a separate room from my children, preferably a separate room with rooms in between; and (5) private; normally I'm a really big fan of people, but I am NOT a joiner on vacation. I literally have no desire to talk to anyone besides my little family, except maybe in passing. Maybe.

And I think we found the perfect spot in Bluefields Bay, Jamaica. Private villa with 2 big bedrooms and baths, private pool, private stretch of beach, two nannies, private chef, super all-inclusive, even little things like washing all your clothes and packing up for you before you leave. A REAL vacation. One I expect to come home from more rested than I was before I left. I love our trips, but we're always doing them on a budget and making our meals from our pre-packed cooler, not staying in hotels or places with a/c, etc. I can't wait to enjoy what seems like the best combination of family fun + romantic getaway for our 10th anniversary with the three kiddos we've added along the way. We spent our honeymoon in Jamaica, so there's a nice full circle feeling to that.

I'm excited. We're going the very last week of summer; the only week JP's swim school is closed. I think it will be nice to get away as a family after JP's crazy summer schedule and this time it won't be to hike until we drop at 105-degree not-really-air-conditioned Palo Duro Canyon (not that we didn't love that trip!). While on the topic of travel, I added a new Travel tab to the top of the page with places I've been and places we plan to go. As we transition Claire out of daycare (Kindergarten begins this fall!) and start paying off our student loans, our vacation budget will get bumped up in priority. And as the kids get older, I can't wait to start taking them to more far flung places. Let me know if there's anywhere I'm leaving off our "to go someday" list!

Our Schedule: Today

Someone in the last post asked about our daily schedule and I realized I hadn't done one of those in a while. They're fun for me to go back and read later- we so rarely capture the mundane, but it's the mundane that dictates so much of our life. So without further ado, here's our Thursday!

5:00 a.m.: JP wakes up to go swim. He's very stealthy and I usually manage to stubbornly stay asleep.

7:00 a.m.: I'm up (or should be; today I wasn't, but I have a cold and flirted with calling in sick). JP gets home and rousts the kids from their beds and starts getting breakfasts and lunches ready. My job in the morning is solely to get myself out the door by 7:30, though lately it's been more like 8. L&C pretty much take care of themselves- getting dressed, brushing teeth, and eating breakfast. Cora is usually left sleeping until 7:30 or so when JP swoops in and dresses her and sets her in her high chair to push around some cheerios and enjoy a nice YoToddler organic yogurt squeezey pack. Backpacks are packed the night before, and, if I was in charge of mornings, lunches would be too, but JP likes to live dangerously and does it all on the fly. This stresses me out so I stay back in our bathroom getting ready and chatting with kids as they come by.

7:45 a.m.: If I'm still home, JP will run Landon down the street to school while I hang out with the girls and finish getting ready. I do Claire's hair and Cora runs around in circles relocating toys in different rooms.

7:55 a.m.: JP is back and loads up the girls in the car with lunch boxes and jackets and I make my tea (Golden Monkey loose leaf black tea from Teavana; best tea ever) and bring it with me in a giant reusable cup. Claire gets kisses and hugs on the way out the door and Cora gets squeezes she doesn't think she needs.

8:15 a.m.: Everyone is at school. Except some days when JP has an errand and decides to take the girls with him before dropping them off, or he wants to do something at home before leaving. They're pretty much always at school by 9.

8:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.: I'm at work signing subpoenas and JP is at home scheduling lessons, talking to clients, and working on his new swim products company. This is also his time to handle kid stuff- doctor appointments, sick kid pick-ups, etc. If something kid-related comes up after 1 p.m. then it's my territory. It's like zone defense. We can both be available when necessary (like for programs or teacher conferences), but this general "owning" of one part of the day works out really really well.

2:00 p.m.: JP is at the pool and pretty unreachable for the next 4.5 hours. Luckily in my new job this is rarely a problem, though occasionally something pops up that would be nice for him to know or help with.

4:45 p.m.: I leave to get the kiddos, getting the girls first, then Landon on my 5 mile drive home. On Mondays and Wednesdays I leave at 4:15 and get Landon first, drop him off at JP's pool for swim practice, and then get the girls and go home, and even though everything is 2 miles apart this whole process inexplicably takes an hour+ each time and I'm just dropping Landon at the curb in front of the pool building. I dislike Mondays and Wednesdays for this reason.

5:15 p.m.: We're all home. Cora goes straight to a highchair to eat dinner #1 because she eats 3,000 calories a day and can't wait until our 6:45 dinner hour. Landon and Claire do various things- feed Tex, bring up/put out trash cans on the right days, put away clothes if JP folded some in the morning, and then play inside or outside depending on the weather. Sometimes they sit up at the bar and color or do homework while I cook, other times they're in the play room playing restaurant or pirates or babies, and sometimes they head back to their room to play legos while Cora is confined to her chair. I'm chopping and cooking and cleaning and chatting with the kids about their days. I sign Landon's homework folder and check his work and make sure there isn't anything we need to be doing for the week.

5:45 p.m.: Cora is down and roaming and Landon and Claire are always with her. Or I should say, Cora is always with Landon and Claire. Cora "plays" with them, mostly by walking around and picking up some of the items they're playing with and looking at it importantly, and then she'll wander off and hang out with me for a little bit, mostly by grabbing on to my legs and yelling her love at me. And other times she'll just do her own thing for a while, sweetly and quietly and out of my line of sight so I have to yell her name and freak her out to figure out where she is. I call out "Hey guys where's Cora?" a lot. I'm probably still cooking, music is playing, and unless Cora is fussy/teething, it's a really nice part of my day. I also head back to our room to switch laundry or fold things if needed. We do laundry every other day or so, so there's usually something to be done back there and Cora LOVES to help.

6:30 p.m.: JP is home. Unless it's Thursday, which I guess is what I'm writing about here, and then he's not home until 7. I am always very glad to see him, as are the kids, ESPECIALLY Cora. She can sense his presence from half a mile away and if it's a fussy night, she immediately stops being so just to make a liar out of me when he walks in the door and she's being all smiley and adorable.

6:45 p.m.: We're eating. Cora's back in her chair enthusiastically eating dinner #2; kids are eating and telling JP all about their days at the same time; and I'm sitting at the table either eating or focusing on giving Cora a steady stream of food to eat herself.

7:00 p.m.: I leave for barre on the nights I go to barre, usually Wed. or Thurs. (plus Monday's late 8:00 class because I can leave right when the kids get in bed).

7:15 p.m.: Dinner is over. L&C clear the plates, JP or I do dishes, and the other one marches the kids off to our shower for their nightly car wash.

7:25 p.m.: Naked children are running from our room to their own rooms to put on jammies. JP comes to join me in the kitchen (or I come to join him) and we chat while the kids get dressed and get out their clothes for the next day. Cora's jammies are put on and everyone's teeth get brushed.

7:30 p.m.: The kids clean up anything they got out while dinner was cooking, which is usually 90% things that Cora got out, but we're appreciative and they don't seem to mind. Cora helps by getting out more things and putting them away in new spots while clapping for herself. Everyone finds this adorable, so she'll probably never learn what "clean up!" actually means. We read books, sometimes all together, sometimes splintered off in small groups. Cora only likes two books to be read aloud to her and has zero interest in listening to any others, so she roams once we finish our nightly rendition of Peek-a-Who and Moo Baa La La La.

7:45 p.m.: Cora is in bed and silent. This still freaks me out a little bit. Big kids have usually migrated to their room with a book each to read in their beds until we tuck them in. They think this is very grown up, and JP and I love getting a little time in the kitchen to get everything is in order so we don't have to go back in it after we're off duty.

7:50 p.m.: Kisses and hugs (2 of each for Claire; Landon is cool with 1), light out, usual "no talking/go to sleep" warning given. We walk through the hallway to the TV room and close to door between them.

8:00 p.m.: I read or type or shop or take a bath. JP works. If I'm on the couch, he comes out with his laptop and sits with me and we get to do the idle chatter interspersed with comfortable silence that I love so much. Sometimes we watch TV a show or two, currently on Season 3 of The Wire, but we rarely just have it on as background.

11:30 p.m.: We go to bed, vowing to go to bed earlier one night soon.

The (Almost) Unbearable Cora-ness of Cora

I need to move on to a new topic (like food or yoga, riveting!), but lately I spend much of my time either actively trying to soak up all the Cora-ness that Cora has to offer, or feeling like I need to capture all the Cora-ness that Cora is offering so that I don't forget it later. She's SO MUCH CORA all the time and it's starting to stress me out that my brain isn't capable of absorbing it all up at once. Like the sun. Or organic chemistry.

On Saturday I was delaying putting her to bed by reorganizing her closet. She was being smiley and squealy and exuberantly enthusiastically herself and I'd bought her some spring clothes, so I thought yes, let's stay up and mother-daughter bond by putting her closet in rainbow and seasonal order. But after about 60 seconds, without any hint of tiredness or protest, she walked to her crib and pulled her fuzzy blanket out between the slats, balled it up on the ground, and curled up in a ball, resting her chubby cheek on the fluffiest part, and closed her eyes. Bedtime. Done. Third-baby, you-look-busy-so-I've-got-this-style.

I'm kind of obsessed with these outfits, esp. the shoes

Other nights when I go to put her down at her usual 7:30 bedtime I will try to hold her close and sing her all of two lines of a song and she will jump out of my arms into her bed. Like literally jump. I have caught her MID-AIR over the bars of her crib because she does not have time for the sweet stylings of "You Are My Sunshine" at 7:32/midnight o'clock. So you set her down, give her the blankie, turn off the light, and close the door. You won't hear from her again for 12-14 hours when you finally go in to check on her and find her reading her book like what? You're ready for me now? Kay, just let me finish this chapter.

And if you go in too early to try to encourage her to wake up because you miss her, she will scoot into the corner of her crib and tuck into a tighter ball and make very clear that you are to GO AWAY until she is ready for you. She's like a 2 foot 7 inch sleepy teenager and it is glorious.

On Friday evenings Landon has basketball and JP's lessons end early enough for him to take him, so the girls and I have a ladies night. Claire picks the itinerary and so far it has been a mix of yoga, fingernail painting, playing babies, and bath time. Always bath time. We have a giant shower and basically use it as a car wash- all the kids in, all the kids clean, all the kids out. It's fast, efficient, and most importantly, Cora can't drown herself, so they never get to use the tub.

Because seriously, Cora will enthusiastically try to drown herself the whole time she's in a bath tub. It is so stressful.

This past Friday I could only stand the cycle of drowning/rescue/choking/coughing for six minutes and that was a new record. And then she spent the rest of Claire's time trying to crawl back in.

My new favorite thing she does is put away the dirty clothes. Every night since she randomly started this last Thursday, she runs to the big kids' room when it's time to put on pj's. As their clothes drop to the floor, she very industriously collects them and then starts the long march all the way down the long hallway, through the TV room, through our bedroom and bathroom, and around to the hamper in our closet. Never mind that the kids have a hamper in the bathroom right by the bedroom, or that we've never made a game of picking up clothes before (well not with Cora, the big kids totally have to pick up their own clothes), this is Cora's job. Her MISSION. And she takes it very seriously. When she dumps the clothes in the hamper, which is taller then her so she has to tip them in, she does a little shuffle stomp dance and claps her hands and it is quite possibly the cutest thing she's ever done. We've got to get it on video. She's just so earnest about the whole task, it kills us, as does much else of what she does.

I don't yet have laundry duty on video, but I do have her fangirl screaming when JP puts on his sunglasses each morning.

Cora and Daddy and the Sunglasses from Lag Liv on Vimeo.

Warning, it's loud, but I'd say it captures Cora pretty well.

Micro-Blogging: Cora and Just Exactly This

Each of these could and probably should be their own posts, but that never seems to happen these days, so:

Cora is a Toddler and Toddlers are the Best.

New tricks include clapping anytime, anywhere you say "Yay!". Doesn't matter if the yay is for her, if she hears it coming from any direction she stops what she's doing and claps. It is so adorable that all four of us say "yay" all the time now. 

She also gives hugs. If you crouch down and hold out your arms, she runs and squeals and throws open her arms and attacks you. The momentum she gains is always a little shocking. This trick is even better than the claps.

~ ~ ~
Third Babies Are Also the Best

I occasionally have pangs at night when I think of how fast Cora's babyhood went by and how little I already seem to remember it. When I pointed this out to JP, he turned and said, "we can't keep having babies just because you think you can't remember their babyhoods" and while I'm not sure why not, it did make me feel better because I still have so much sadness and regret inside of me regarding Landon's first year, that it's actually a comfort to realize that Cora's is already blurring out the way his did, and I KNOW we loved and savored just about every single second of hers.

I also occasionally wonder if we spent enough solo time with Cora, but then I remember that part of the reason her babyhood was so great, besides her general awesomeness, was because we got to watch the big kids love on her so much.  She was basically the center of four people's adoration and she's more spoiled than first baby because of it.  And even now, it is heart-bursting to get to see the enthusiastic inclusion of Cora in her big siblings' lives each day. I try not to take it for granted.

On Tuesday night Cora had a bad cold and just wasn't feeling well and when we got home she kind of dissolved and began crying and sobbing and screaming and maybe tantrumming? It was hard to tell, but she clearly didn't feel good and was just as clearly VERY upset about it. As the crying/screaming jag got going in full force, Claire yelled out, "I can make it better!" and grabbed Cora's favorite book and began reciting, "A COW SAYS MOOOOOO" at the top of her lungs. She made her way to my shoulder while I struggled to hold a flailing screamy tornado, and continued reciting the whole book from memory at top volume. Landon ran and brought Cora's favorite bath toys and blankie and I felt my heart grow three sizes above the din and chaos.

With one baby your whole world is the screaming baby, but with three, it gets divided into two happy helpful parts and one screamy part and the happy part wins. Especially because by baby #3 you've learned that sometimes the only thing you can do is give yourself a break, so I put her in her crib/safe place and closed her door and set a timer for 10 minutes. In 2 the room was silent and I raced back in to find her fast asleep. It was a victory for everyone, especially poor Cora.

On Wednesday she was back to being the center of all joy in the house and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

~ ~ ~
Wanting Just This

This is the blog post I most want to write each night, but it's so simple and potentially smug sounding that it keeps not happening. But life is really good right now and I think that's part of why I'm writing less. I have a job that is challenging and prestigious enough that it doesn't hurt my career to hang out on this step a (long) while. I have discovered hobbies and a life and the joys of not being addicted to the false sense of importance and urgency that comes from a blackberry. At this point, I'm far more interested in becoming a certified yoga teacher than going back to the law firm and the me of a year ago, and definitely the me of three years ago, finds that shocking and maybe even a little disappointing. I struggle with that a bit sometimes, a feeling that I should want to move forward more than I do. But then I come home and make big dinners and play with the kids and go to yoga and snuggle on the couch watching The Wire with JP and still get a full night's sleep and think fuck the ladder, this life is amazing, I don't need to do/gain/earn/achieve more of anything, and that's a strange and new thing for me to think.

JP's business is going great, though another big chain swim school just opened a location in Fort Worth. That's a concern to him- he's built up a great reputation and customer base here and it's hard to think of that being leached away.  But as we've discussed, the goal was never to grow any more than he has. We have nights and weekends and flexibility in our life and I'm fiercely protective of all three. He also has a line of swim products he's developing, so now maybe he can just maintain his smaller practice and focus on the patents and manufacturing (my playroom floor is stacked with kickboard prototypes from China, so that's new) and marketing. His original goal was to save up to open a permanent location here in Fort Worth, but I love that he's restricted to only having lessons between 2-7 on M-F now (except in summer, but I can handle it for 2 months). He loves that he gets to work out, run errands, go to doctor appointments, and eat lunch with Landon at school each Friday, and I love all those things too. Our lives have a flexibility I never would have imagined and it is so awesome for us individually, for us together, and for our kids/family as a whole. I don't want more- we have enough of what's necessary and extra of the intangibles we didn't know we needed, and I just want more of this.

After a year with some challenges we'd never faced before, we're back on the even keel that is a fundamental, foundational part of who we are and who I am.  I don't know how to put it in words, but every night I lie in bed, tucked tightly in his arms while he falls asleep in his five seconds and I swim around in my mind for an hour and I know that no matter where my musings go, anytime I say I love you, he'll squeeze me and mumble it back, and I lay there and know that I've never been so wonderfully happy and perfectly peaceful as I am right now, and all I want is more of exactly this.

Joy of the Dragons

This past weekend dawned clear and blue with highs in the 60's. We kicked the kids outside at the earliest opportunity and didn't hear from them again until lunch. It was glorious for all. I went to yoga both days, JP swam, Landon didn't have a basketball game because his coach was out of town, Cora took marathon naps, and Claire delighted in being around all her family members all of the time.

On Saturday our big adventure was going to our local Central Market (a fancy version of HEB that I always forget we have because it's a few miles from the grocery store we usually go to and I prefer to drive 10 miles per day or less) to pick out something to grill for dinner and it was wonderful- both the trip and the grilling, and I delighted in once again having something in my pantry with an HEB label.

On Sunday we fulfilled our promise to the kids to go to the rodeo. Both JP and I hate crowds and hassles and paying for parking (paying for much of anything entertainment-wise), so the rodeo is very much not our scene, but we were pretty sure the magic of childhood lay inside $4/kid rides in brightly painted death traps, so off we went. Plus, I really like funnel cakes and any reason to put Cora in her bright pink cowboy boots.

After a failed attempt at a group picture, we loaded up and headed a couple miles up the road. We didn't have tickets to the actual stock show this year, and we didn't even make it to the area with the show animals because Cora slept too late and the sun was setting and the temperature dropped to freezing, so I think we really only went to a fair, but the kids LOVED it. And JP and I felt a bit of magic ourselves.

Mostly because I tried ribbon fries for the first time and ate the whole plate myself.

Magic indeed.

Claire made enormous strides in her carnival riding abilities. We last went to the rodeo in 2013 when she was a pig-tailed two-year-old and I wasn't even pregnant with Cora yet. She loved marching around the grounds with her pink boots and pink purse, but endured severe emotional and mental trauma on the dragon ride.

We skipped last year because we had a tiny baby (excuses! like we didn't drag that tiny baby all the heck elsewhere in town), and this year, after a false start or two and a warm-up ride on a sparkly jeep with Landon as co-pilot, Claire marched right up to the same trauma-inducing dragon and ROCKED it, resulting in my very favorite picture of the day.

When I pulled that pic of my camera last night and saw the joy and yes, magic, on her face, I had a small epiphany about Disney World. I've never been and have never had any desire to go- it looks so expensive and overwhelming and I hate when you have to research lots of things just to do a should-be-relaxing vacation properly, but oh dammit, we kind of have to go someday don't we? I mean LOOK at this face?

Landon, who finds joy in all things, even the most mundane, nearly vibrated with excitement the whole time we were there. He rode on two big kid rides and got to race JP down the giant slide just like last time, though this year, he won!

It was a really fun afternoon. Next year Cora won't be taking 4 hour naps and we'll be able to stay longer- and she'll be big enough to ride on and be scarred by her very own brightly colored dragon!  Magical childhood memories for all!

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.