Eliza Boulevard

That's what we should call her, because Isaiah thinks she is a little road for him--see how he's driving his car on her tummy? He loves doing that. Sometimes he tries to get her to hold onto the cars but she's not very good at that yet. He loves to try to give her hugs too. He doesn't usually put his arms around her, he just smooshes his head on her and says "awwwwww." Sometimes he gets a little aggressive and she reacts like this (which has no impact whatsoever on Zay's actions):

Almost thou persuadest me to smile.

That's what Eliza's been saying to us lately. She's getting really close to smiling, but it's not quite there. She has two tiny little dimples and I'm looking forward to seeing them when she smiles rather than just when she cries!

She seems to have grown a bit the last week. She's starting to fill out some of her 3 month size clothes (yes, she's wearing Zay's dinosaur pj's), is holding her head up better, and paying a little more attention to things. She's also slept through the night the last three nights. Uh-oh. You know what that means...now I think she should sleep through the night EVERY night so if she wakes up it will be even MORE annoying than it used to be! But it has been nice to sleep all night a few times in a row now--we may end up keeping her after all!

Most beautiful picture ever...

 My apologies to those of you who were hoping for more pictures from my photographer friend. But to anyone out there who's dealt with having 2 kids under 2 years old, you can see the natural beauty of this photo. It was a super long day and Zay refused to take a nap (which he usually does around 11). Around 3pm I suggested he "rest his head" on the couch and within seconds he was asleep--the nap was brought back! As if that wasn't miraculous enough, Liza Lou (just testing out new nicknames to see how they feel) fell asleep too. Hooray! I used this rare opportunity to do something really worthwhile (put away laundry (and if you've ever tried to put away laundry with a crying newborn in one arm and an 18-month-old "helper" dragging along the other arm, you know what a vacation this seemed like!)).

Have a seat...

I told Zay I was going to have Eliza sit down (meaning in her bouncy chair) but he had other ideas. He dragged the bumbo over and even though she's still a bit floppy-headed for it we gave it a try. Zay gets really excited when she does new things and we cheer for her. I can tell he's looking forward to her being able to play with him. How do I know this? If I'm in the other room and she gets fussy for a few minutes, when I come back in Zay will have put her binky, a book, and some toy cars on her stomach for her to play with. She's not very appreciative yet, but soon enough.

Girls are weird

So I've been trying to do my duty as a mother of a little girl and put these silly headbands and bows and ribbons and flowers and other such nonsense on her head all the time. But I must not know how to use them because they're always falling off. I put her down for a nap with the headband securely resting in its proper location on her forehead and when I went to check on her this is what it looked like. It reminded me of Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge from Star Trek: The Next Generation because he wore that weird visor thing over his eyes which I always thought (in my 1980's childhood) looked like a banana clip. {Please note that although I remembered "that banana clip guy from Star Trek" I didn't really know the name of the character. In the interest of making my blog a bit more sensical to those of my readers who might not know right off who "that banana clip guy from Star Trek" is I decided to do a little research and actually find out his name. You're welcome. Also please note that the only similarity between Eliza and LaForge seems to be that they both wear hair accessories over their eyes. Eliza is not actually blind, helmsman of the USS Enterprise, or black.}

Which is worse

I've been trying to decide if it's worse when they both cry at the same time, or when they take turns. And is it worse to change two stinky diapers right in a row or to have a break in between. And what about eating, and naps. I used to think the goal was to have them on the same schedule, but now I'm thinking that may not be such a great idea after all!

I bought these coordinating, adorable rompers for the kids for Christmas. Jerel was horrified. You might have a hard time picturing mild-expressioned Jerel horrified. It looks like regular Jerel but with a slight rolling of the eyes. Apparently some people (Jerel) think Isaiah is too mature to wear rompers, and much too old to wear baby blue. Silly me, what was I thinking?! Anyway, I assured Jerel this would be the first and last time they'd match so much because I had to buy Isaiah the biggest size (18-24 month) so once he grew out of it the fun would be over. As it turns out the romper was too small for him already so I had to take it back, but not before snapping a few shots of my matching, adorable, unhappy babies!

A long winter

Poor Zay LOVES to be outside but it's just too cold out there! So he spends most of his time looking out the front window. I rearranged the furniture a bit so that he can get right up to the window. And I sacrificed my aerobics step so that he can use it as his window seat (truth be told, not much of a sacrifice). Anyway, he loves to stand there and watch the birds or dogs or kids playing basketball. He gets really excited for delivery trucks. And the best part of his whole week is garbage day. We live on a dead end street so he gets to see each truck go by twice and he watches all the way until they disappear around the corner. If I hear the garbage truck coming and he's in the other room I run and get him so he won't miss it. After they leave he stand there and points out the window and says "gone. gone. gone."

He's starting to talk a little bit. He says ball, up, bink, no, broke, and a few others I can't think of right now. It's a bit tricky because he says "no" for both yes and no. And lately he gets to say "broke" a lot because everything in our house is breaking. Last Thursday we woke up to a broken furnace. Dead dead, not repairable. Jerel got the gas fireplace lit, then went to leave for work and his car wouldn't start. He took mine and Zay and I sat down to watch a movie and the DVD player wasn't working. Ugh! Anyway, the car and DVD player are working again and yesterday we got the new furnace installed. While they were here installing it, the dishwasher died. Seriously. So Isaiah thinks everything is broken, and he's usually right. Although now that we have a furnace and have turned off the fireplace, he points at the fireplace all the time and says "broke. broke. broke." So I guess we'll go dishwasher shopping this week....when we remodeled our kitchen last summer we wanted to replace the stove, dishwasher, and fridge with stainless steel appliances but that put us way over budget so we didn't do it. Since then the stove has died and now the dishwasher...I'm sure the fridge will go next *heavy sigh* and they're all only 5 years old! Pretty soon Jerel's going to start thinking I'm breaking them on purpose just so I can get the stainless steel!

Vanity Sizing

Have you heard of it? It's when brands label their clothing with smaller sizes so that women will want to buy it because they'll feel better about themselves wearing a smaller size. I'm not making this up, they really do it. And it really works--I've avoided buying things when a bigger size would've been perfect just because I don't want to wear that bigger size. If the tag had said something else I would've bought it.

Now I know girls feel the pressure to be tiny earlier and earlier these days, but I was surprised to find out that vanity sizing has apparently hit the newborn market. This picture shows Eliza, laying next to a pair of tights I bought for her. The tights are labeled "0-9 months." They are as long as her whole body! If Jere weren't so against me dressing Isaiah as a girl, I could've put them on HIM for a much better photo. I mean, really, they would maybe even be a bit big on Zay and he wears size 18 month.

Anyway, I don't really think this is vanity sizing unless there are 18-month-old girls out there who feel better about themselves because they can squeeze into a size 0-9 month...I just feel the need to point out the ridiculousness of these tights and to explain why my daughter will go to church with bare legs every Sunday until she finally grows into the smallest size tights I could find...