Pluggin' Along

It's February. And that's about it. If there's a large time lapse between posts on my site, you can safely assume that there just isn't that darn much going on with us.

Eve's vocabulary is growing as fast as her hair. Which, finally, has decided to thicken up. She's watching and copying her sister and the kids at daycare. Josie likes to jump, and Eve tries so hard to do it, too. She puts all her effort into bending her little knees and concentrates on getting those tiny feet to leave the ground - but to no avail. But it doesn't discourage her, she just lifts one leg in the air and pretends. The drama is thick in this one - she can throw a tantrum quite unlike anything I've seen before. (I can guarantee a couple members of my family just gave each other high-fives as they celebrate the sweet justice of history repeating itself and biting ME in the butt.) She got so mad when I took the bag of suckers away from her last night before supper without letting her have one that she banged her head against the wall. Hard. Twice. Guess what? It hurt. But just as quickly as the anger consumes her, she's back to her charming, sweet self. Every day is an adventure. Some days the adventure is like muddling your way blindfolded through a dense, scary forest while getting kicked in the shins and wearing cement shoes. And then the next day, not so much. It's the "not so much" days that keep me going. The tide finally turned for me this morning as she made me the Chosen One over her Daddy for snuggling. She has had nothing to do with me for the past couple of weeks - making Daddy the sole object of her affection. While it does free me up a bit, I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't sting just a little. But she turned her little back and cuddled in on my shoulder when Daddy held out his arms for her while she was visiting with me after waking up. Ahh.

And Josie. She's counting everything, and saying her ABC's, and "reading" books, and singing songs and soaking up anything that we throw at her. She wants to know what everyone's full names are, what our address is, where everyone lives... and on and on. She just "gets" so much - it blows me away that her 3-year-old brain is capable of reasoning and justifying and contemplating and processing. She's so sweet and sensitive that it makes my heart hurt. I know I'm going to shed a lot of tears over her tenderness in the years to come. I'm really going to have to toughen up. Or buy stock in Kleenex. As much as I try to talk to her about sticking up for herself, joining in and not being afraid to speak up, she continues to let her shyness overcome her. All this is pointing us in the direction of searching out and researching our preschool options. She's ready for more challenges and in need of more socialization, no doubt about that. Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to handle letting her go.

My "get-healthy-and-lose-my-butt" challenge continues. Another 1.2 lbs gone. I sabotaged my week, which was going quite well, at an awards banquet for work on Monday night. But amazing (meaning rich and creamy and chock full of a bazillioin calories) food catered from the St. Paul Hotel, an open bar, and waiters who won't let the level of wine in your glass dip anywhere near empty will do that to you. *sigh* But that is what this challenge is all about. Living life and finding balance and being healthy while doing it.