Leah is cute :)

Just have to share a few pictures.

Just hanging out in a cute diaper!

"My mom is a rockstar." Yup, just telling it like it is.
And this is what happens when we decide that buzzing lips is a great idea in the middle of a bite of pears and oatmeal. :)

Not to brag, but....

Okay, all parents think their kid is the smartest, cutest, most wonderful child in the world.

But in my case, it's true.

Case in point. Today, as I was running around, switching loads of laundry and cleaning the house, Jack kept trying to get my attention. Finally, I stayed still long enough to hear him tell me, "Mom, I'm making guys." Well, that could have meant a lot of things, but in this case, it meant he was drawing people. And I can't even describe how BLOWN AWAY I was when he showed me this:

I was honestly in AWE. And he knew it and was quite pleased with himself. (You'll notice the erasures--that's the little bit of his perfectionist mother in him...). I taught kindergarten for a year and had kids who couldn't do this. I remember studying elementary art methods in college and learning about the different levels of development in how kids draw themselves.

As a point of comparison, here are three stick figures drawn by kids as old as Jack or older. It's a really classic habit for kids to draw a head with arms and legs. Because when they look down at themselves, they see their head and body as one entity and they see their arms and legs coming out of it.



Jack's drawings today went on to include noses and more colors. :)

It's just too much

When I heard the report on Tuesday evening's news that there had been an earthquake in Haiti, I was terribly saddened. But I had no idea the magnitude of the disaster until a couple days later.

I don't usually watch much of the news. It depresses me. Or it's just nothing that interests me (i.e. political). Or we're watching Curious George instead. But the last couple nights, I have been giving Leah a bath at 5:30 and have watched the NBC Nightly News.

To say that my heart is broken is an understatement. The piles of dead bodies burning because there is no room left in the cemetery. The injured babies lying in their mothers' arms. The babies who are now orphans because their parents didn't survive. The utter despair in a husband's eyes as he searches for his wife. And the numbers. Oh, the numbers. 40,000 buried already. At least 100,000 dead. It's incomprehensible.

This country first captured my heart 12 years ago. And even though it's now been six years since I've been there in person, it doesn't take long for everything to come back to me. Just watching Brian Williams walking down the street, I can practically smell the combination of sewage and something burning. I can see the faces of the abandoned babies at the orphanage. I can see the Hotel Montana, where we enjoyed an afternoon swim, and which Ron Allen made mention of on the news tonight. I can see people walking around with nowhere to go. Just walking. As I'm sure they're doing now.

God, bless Haiti. Bring them the people and resources that they need to recover from this mess. And give them hope that life will get better. But give them comfort until it does. Amen.

My beautiful children

I know I'm a little biased, but come ON. These are pretty cute kids.

At Target last weekend, Jack spotted a shaving kit "just like daddy's." Dan got a shaving brush and new razor for Christmas, and Jack was SO excited to find this Disney Cars set just like Dan's. And Mom was glad that it was on clearance for $2.48. :)


And Leah got a bath tonight. Since birth, it's been her absolute favorite thing in the world. She just recently graduated from the plastic over-the-sink bath to the kitchen sink. She loves it. And so do I!


"Look at my teeth!"


"I can buzz my lips!"

"I like to eat my toes!"
My sweet 6-month-old will get her first taste of solid food tomorrow night. Stay tuned for pictures!

SIX months

Leah,

I'm rather ashamed that I haven't blogged a THING since your last monthly letter. I mean, sure. We had Christmas and stuff, but still. I should at least be getting pictures up here! But, wait. There's a good excuse for that. For one, we've had a new fancy camera for about a month. But I just got the lesson on it from your father this past weekend. I mean, I could take a decent picture, but now I know how to get pictures from the camera onto the computer and everything. So all of our Christmas pictures are just waiting to be seen. Of course, I could post some pictures from our old camera, except that I can't. All of those pictures are on the other computer, which decided to just stop working last week. It won't turn on. It won't even pretend. I'm doing really well and not freaking out. Except that I AM freaking out! There are 4 years' worth of pictures on that computer! But the wonderful people at the Geek Squad are going to help us out, God willing.

Anyway, on to the task at hand. You are officially halfway to your first birthday. Six whole months! It's insane to think that six months ago, I was sitting in a hospital bed holding my brand new baby girl. You were still kind of icky (or as Mimi would say, you still had "placenta head"). But you were so precious. And big. And beautiful. Sometimes those first days feel like just last week. But sometimes I realize all we've gone through to make it six months, and it feels much longer. Like years. Well, maybe not years. But close.

At six months, you have mastered sitting up and are moving toward crawling. And when you're propped up, you can stand for a little while. But the other day you were standing and fell flat on your butt. You looked at me like, "That wasn't very fun." But you've got ample padding in that area, so you were just fine. :) You've still just got the two bottom teeth, although I know you're working on more down there. I can see white! I just can't feel anything yet. And gosh, you love biting anything in site. Everything goes straight in your mouth! Which is fine when it's your toy or burp cloth. Not so much when it's mom's shirt in the middle of church or Jack's crayon when he needs it.

So, now that you're six months, you'll be eating real food! We'll probably give you something really exciting this week--like rice cereal. Yum! I think you're going to like this eating thing. I mean, you've liked eating since you were born, but this is going to involve sitting in a high chair and taking it from a spoon.

I'm a little afraid to talk about sleep. You see, you've actually begun (GASP!) sleeping better. Last night, you did get up around 1:00am, but the two nights before that, you slept 10 hours straight. It was glorious. Of course I didn't sleep 10 hours straight because you go to bed at 6:00pm, but it was still just lovely. I am very excited about this new "normal." (fingers crossed....).

I'm really excited that you're six months old, but I'm also kind of sad! It means that you're getting farther and farther away from all those "baby" things. And I'm so looking forward to everything ahead, but sometimes I miss little things. Like the first time you looked at me and smiled--not because you were gassy or dreaming, but because you recognized me and it made you happy. Or how your tiny (well, it's all relative) body fit into newborn clothes. You know, for the whole first week or so of your life. Yeah, I never really had a tiny baby. ;)

Love you, dear girl! Happy half birthday. Here's to the second half of this momentous first year!

Love,
Mama