for the record

a couple things happened today that I wanted to record. they are all very different, but still worth mentioning.

I had taken the kids to a park to meet up with friends after nap time and charlie had done a great job sharing. when we were getting in the car to go I asked charlie to look me in the eyes so I could tell him that I was proud of him for sharing his cars. after praising him he says to me “what’s that?” and pointed at my face. I asked him if I had dirt on my face or a zit (sometimes he is nice enough to point those out for me). he said no. then said “those green balls?”. it was like he was noticing my green eyes for the first time in his life! seriously?  I told him that they were my eyes and that I have green eyes and he has brown eyes. I thought it was both sweet and crazy that that is when he decided to take notice of them.

 

bill is working a lot. A. LOT. by the end of this week he will have worked for 26 days straight with only 1 day off during that time (last sunday – aug 12th). the last full weekend we had off as a family was july 28th & 29th. this should be illegal. actually, it probably is according to some resident governing board – not that it makes a difference. can you tell I am ready to be done with this year? the kids are too. they saw bill for a bit before heading off to church this am (he was leaving to go round, etc) and the entire way to church the girls were babbling back and forth “dada. daddy. dad. daddy. da dou.” they love him and miss him.

 

this last one takes the cake. prepare yourself for some unwanted information about ellie. I mentioned in a prior post that the girls are really into the potty. when I was cleaning up dinner tonight ellie came over to me and pointed at her diaper and said “da” (a pretty common sound around here). I said good job ellie for telling me you are going to the bathroom. I will change you before bath. then she ran away so I thought all was good. I finished cleaning up and started baths and called the girls in. I thought I would have to deal with a #2 from ellie so I had some wipes ready. but as soon as we got into the bathroom ellie ran to the little potty and sat on it and said “da” over and over. so I asked her if she wanted to go and took her diaper off. she instantly started working things up. she would push and then stand up and check the toilet to see if she had produced anything. she did this for a bit and I continued to just ask her to sit back down. by this point claire was in the tub and getting cleaned up. ellie continued to try to work on something and was moving around a bit. once I saw she was serious I kept her seated on the toilet. and all of a sudden she produced a seriously large poop! I was so proud of her. the bummer was she got pretty sad when she realized that I wasn’t going to let her touch it. so maybe she won’t repeat this great act for awhile, but either way I was impressed that she even knew what she was supposed to do on a toilet. I took a picture of the whole thing, but cropped it for the blog. I know – gross. but I had to show bill. good job ellie! I am so proud of you! now if we can just work on some more words (I must say eleanore is the more vocal one. she will repeat things and has a small number of words. claire prefers to use da dou with a few others. she just can’t help it).