Cousin Camp

My nephew Barrett has been staying with us since Elizabeth's birthday party last Saturday and we are having a mini cousin camp. My sister Kim is 8 months pregnant, and we thought it would be nice to give her a little break. He's here until tomorrow when my mom (who is also here, thankfully!) will take him back to Austin. It's a lot different with two kids who are only 14 months apart, walking everywhere, into everything, and who like to play with the same toys whenever the other one is playing with it. They are having a lot of fun together. Elizabeth is learning how to actually use the toys rather than pick them up out of the basket and throw them on the floor; Barrett is learning how to share and how to adjust to another person around. They get really excited each time they see each other and are giving lots of hugs to each other. Barrett calls Elizabeth, "Bet-tuh," and she calls him ,"Buh." It's much more difficult to keep a clean house with two, or maybe it's because Barrett is so much older and actually plays with the toys. Those blocks are all over the house. Nana and I are the ones in danger; we both almost wiped out from stepping on some toys. I seriously do not see how it's possible to keep a clean house when you have two little ones. Please, please forgive my house if you ever drop in on me. I used to keep it picked up and clean, but now, it's just not the same. And to be honest, it isn't that much of a priority for me now to spend all my time picking up the toys. I'll do it at the end of the day, but I'll let her have her fun. When she gets a little older, I'll teach her how to pick up after herself. We'll see if that works!! Any tips from any of you more experienced moms or housecleaners?!!
Yesterday all five of us went to Baylor and went swimming. Barrett and Elizabeth each had a great time swimming and watching "the big kids" go down the slide (You can see it in the picture; it looks like one at a waterpark). Barrett especially loved seeing Nana go down the slide (And so did we!!). Mom always was a daredevil; maybe that's where Elizabeth gets some of her fearlessness. We have learned that Elizabeth loves the water and so we try to let her swim as much as possible. She smiles and laughs the whole time. She has learned how to kick her feet when she's on her stomach and her back. When we're in the pool, it's the only time she will cuddle with us and let us hold her. Otherwise, she wants down and wants to be doing her own thing.

We also went to the doctor yesterday for Elizabeth's 1 year check-up. She weighed 22 lbs (75th percentile) and was 29 inches long (average). She got her shots, which weren't fun for her or her tender-hearted Daddy. Poor things! also want to write about Elizabeth at one year...She is a really independent girl and entertains herself with her toys. She loves people and is extremely outgoing. She will not let us feed her anything but will eat it anything we put in front of her, only if she is allowed to put it in her mouth herself. She loves all types of food and drinks a lot of water, too. She is still taking 2-3 naps a day, depending on what we are doing. She is still finding more wallpaper border to eat off the wall. We have just given up on teaching her not to eat it. Poison Control tells us it's not THAT bad for her, so we'll just let her do it. It will all be gone soon enough, and we will NOT be putting it back up. We, too, can learn some lessons. ;)

It should come as no surprise that Elizabeth likes chocolate and sugar. She devoured her birthday cupcake and didn't seem to know what hit her. It was the only time she got more on her mouth than on her bib. Like I said, she's a smart girl! :)One of my previous posts mentioned that she was a climber and that has only increased with age. She climbs on every toy she has and on all our furniture. She always has bumps and bruises on her as a result. I dread the day her attempts to climb out of the crib become a reality. And she doesn't really like to be told "No." Who does, right?!! But she seems to be a little more stubborn and strong-willed than other children her age. Everybody tells us that we have our hands full. When she gets mad or frustrated, she lets out a "Ughhhhh" and throws both arms down to her sides with her palms parallel to the ground (that's hard to describe).

She sure is sweet, though. Now that she's facing forward in the car seat, every time I get out to get her, she grins at me and just laughs like we have an inside joke or something. She knows how to throw trash away and how to bring me things when I ask her to. I have vegetables in pots on my back porch and one of Elizabeth's favorite things to do when we're outside is to take the "label stakes" and move them around from pot to pot. She puts one down in the potting soil and pulls it back out and then moves it to another. It's very cute.

It's funny how much we have learned about ourselves since our daughter was born. At church on Sunday, for instance, I was trying to hold her to go to sleep (which is a feeble attempt at best--she MUST be lying down in a bed to do this). Her cries were distracting everyone (so I eventually took her to the nursery). After church I was expressing my frustration about this to Shane, and I said, "I wish she would just let us hold her and touch her while she went to sleep." And he responded, "Huh!" with a big smirk on his face. I knew what he meant: his dear wife (me) does not like ANYTHING touching her (not his part of the comforter, no body parts that aren't mine, and basically nothing that is not a part of my body). Shane tells me (often) that I have to have a neutral zone around me when I go to sleep. He admonishes me that the neutral zone is on "his" half of the bed, while I still get "my" full half. So when I expressed frustration that Elizabeth didn't let us touch her, he just laughed. And I understood perfectly.