Something Went Horribly Wrong

From March 2015

As I mentioned in my last post, we have a new baby around here! New babies are sweet, snuggly, and MASSIVELY TIME CONSUMING.

The factory settings for a standard-issue baby take up quite a lot of time, and then when you throw in add-ons like personality, medical issues, sleep regressions, growth spurts, etc, it can really drive up the total pretty fast. We were given the Super Deluxe Primo Edition baby when it comes to how much time her care requires.

When she was about eight weeks old, Dimples started doing this thing of 30 minute naps. She will only sleep for 30 minutes. When it's time to transition from one sleep phase to the next, she wakes up and can't put herself back to sleep. Therefore she calls for Mama to come do it for her. The phase of sleep that she is transitioning into is an active, twitchy phase. Once she gets back to sleep, she can't stay that way for more than a few minutes before she jerks herself awake again.

As it turns out, problem-solving baby sleep troubles is somewhat of a hobby of mine. It's fairly pathetic that I actually enjoy the diagnosis and treatment of sleep issues. When this 30 minute business first popped up, I rolled up my sleeves and got ready for action. I tried this. I tried that. I tried the other thing.

All of those solutions failed.

I pulled out my collection of baby sleep books. I googled. I googled some more.

We went back for round two of problem-solving with a whole new list of hypotheses.

Round two failed.

So here we are, TWO MONTHS LATER, with a baby who will only nap for 30 minutes. Because none of my solutions have worked and because she absolutely has to get more sleep to avoid being an overtired mess, I now go into her room at the 30 minute mark. I jostle and jiggle her back to sleep and then hold her in the darkness for the remaining hour of her nap so that she will sleep.

This eats up an exorbitant amount of time.

To give you an idea of what my life is like, let me describe my schedule:

7:00am - 7:30am   Feed Dimples
7:30am - 8:00am   Shove breakfast into Sunny and Bright Eyes as fast as possible
8:00am - 8:30am   Put Dimples to sleep
8:30am - 9:00am   Dimples sleeps, aka my only free time
9:00am- 10:00am  Hold Dimples in her room in the dark
10:00am                Start the whole cycle over again

I spend two out of every three hours tied up in Dimples' room. This would be one thing if Dimples were a first-born or an only child, but alas, she is a third child. What do Sunny and Bright Eyes do while unsupervised for two out of every three hours, you ask?

Good question.

The answer is: WHATEVER THE HECK THEY WANT.

It is a testament to the ingenuity and creativity of young children that Sunny and Bright Eyes are able to invent new mischief day after day after day. As this 30 Minute Nap issue has perpetuated, all their Christmas toys have become old news. Even watching a movie, previously a rare treat, has lost its appeal. They went down the list of all the areas of the house they aren't allowed to play in and STILL had time left to spare.

One particular day, Dimples was having an ugly reflux flair-up. She was miserable and cried a lot. It was very difficult to get her down for a nap and took a lot longer than usual. I came out of her room after an athletic event of bouncing, jostling, rocking, and jiggling. I was supposed to go check on Sunny and Bright Eyes since i'd been gone for longer than I had promised, but I JUST WANTED TO BRUSH MY TEETH. There were several things that needed my attention immediately before I became sequestered in Dimples' room for an hour, but I was desperate for two minutes to brush my teeth.

I decided to go for it, and knew that I was taking a huge risk, but little did I know how huge of a risk it would be.

Right after I got started, I heard Bright Eyes come bumbling upstairs. She stomped towards the bathroom and I felt her presence in the doorway. As I was leaning over the bathroom sink brushing my teeth, I heard her softly call my name.

I turned my head slightly to the side and was about to do my best to communicate, with a mouthful of foamy toothpaste, that she needed to keep quiet and not disturb Dimples. But as my peripheral vision landed on her I could instantly sense that something was amiss. Everything went into slow motion as my hand holding the toothbrush dropped down from my mouth. I turned to look her head-on and felt my stomach drop.

This is the Bright Eyes that I was expecting to see:

But this was the Bright Eyes standing before me:

I hoped against hope that it wasn't true, and refused to believe it until I got a closer look. With toothpaste dribbling out of my mouth, I knelt down in front of her to assess the damage. The examination confirmed my worst fears. All of Bright Eyes' luxurious soft curls were gone. Her hair was as short as a boy's.

In that moment it was too much for me to take in, and I burst into tears. I cannot describe to you how much I LOVED that hair. Just a few weeks before, we were at church when Bright Eyes was having a particularly fabulous hair day. A couple of church ladies came over to me and asked, "Do you curl her hair? It's so gorgeous!" I answered, "Are you kidding me??? I barely have time to brush my teeth in a given day. Anything her hair does, it does all by itself." Now one of the precious few things of beauty in my life of toil was abruptly and haphazardly taken from me, and I sobbed bitterly.

Bright Eyes was completely taken aback by my reaction. She had a guilty conscience and she was expecting to get in majorly big trouble. She had counted on yelling, fuming, and probably a spanking. She did not plan on a crying Mama, and was weirded out by it.

Throughout all of this, I noticed that she kept both of her hands firmly behind her back. It was a minor detail that my brain picked up on but didn't have time to process right then, given my extreme state of shock.

After I released some emotion, I needed answers. I pleaded with her, "Bright Eyes, what happened?!?" She was still uncomfortable with the situation and wasn't going to talk. I tried to hug her but it was awkward with her hands behind her back. Since I was getting nowhere with her, I raced downstairs to interrogate Sunny.

Sunny was around the corner in the back section of the basement, sitting in the middle of what looked like an Edward Scissorhands crime scene. There were beautiful light brown curls strewn all over the place. A small purple wastebasket was half-filled with hair. The sight of it all renewed my state of shock. I was still crying when I demanded that Sunny give me an account.

She stammered and sputtered and failed to form complete sentences. She knew she was guilty and that anything she said would be held against her. She was determined to give me as little information as possible.

As I continued trying to extract the details from the two of them, it struck me that something was a bit off with Sunny. She was positioned with her right side pointing away from me, so I didn't have a head-on view but there was something suspicious about it.

I happened to have plopped down on the floor right in front of the murder weapon. A pair of cheap dollar store scissors were laying in front of me, and I fiddled with them while we talked. It occurred to me that they were sticky, with a layer of hair clinging to them. Then I noticed that the table was also sticky. Then I noticed the half-empty bottle of wood glue sitting on the floor.

With this new information, the plot thickened. Scissors and wood glue are the kinds of things that you don't want your resourceful and unsupervised young children to have access to, so we kept them on the high shelf. These items that they misused so abominably were stored six feet off the ground. In order to obtain them, Sunny climbed onto The Professor's desk and stood on top of the printer.

As their list of wrongdoings was growing by the minute, I finally erupted into the angry outburst that they were waiting for. I pulled Bright Eyes towards me to sit her in my lap in order to outline her offenses and issue her punishment. It's hard to make someone sit in your lap with their hands behind their back. As I reached for her hands to move them out of the way, I discovered the hidden secret. Her hands were COVERED in glue. And then the glue was covered in hair. Instead of being tarred and feathered, she was glued and haired.

She had used the wood glue like hand lotion. Then she also rubbed it through her hair like hair gel. Things didn't go according to plan, however, when it didn't rub off of her hands like lotion would. The glue stayed there plain as day, a testament to her guilt.

If only it had been your basic Elmer's school glue. School glue is washable. Wood glue is most definitely not.

I paraded them upstairs to start the process of de-gluing them. We had made it as far as the kitchen when I got my first good glimpse of Sunny.

For the purpose of comparison, here is what she looked like before:

It was now time for Dimples' 30 minute wakeup, and I still hadn't managed to brush my teeth.

Their hair needed some serious fixing due to the uneven and choppy nature of their new styles. My haircutting skills are seriously lacking. What little skill I do have is with long hair. Therefore when The Professor got home from work, we packed everyone up and hauled them in for their first professional haircuts. The haircut ladies did a great job of taking a big fat mess and turning into something halfway cute!

They got oodles and oodles of compliments everywhere we went that week. So now here we are, a short-hair family. It took a long time for me to adjust to their new looks, and I relived some of the sorrow all over again when they woke up the next morning after I had forgotten about their short hair.

For old time's sake, let's look back at a few pictures of their former glory:

Playing Talitha

²¹ When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. ²² Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. ²³ He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” ²⁴ So Jesus went with him. . . . ³⁵ While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?” ³⁶ Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” ³⁷ He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. ³⁸ When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. ³⁹ He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” ⁴⁰ But they laughed at him. After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. ⁴¹ He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). ⁴² Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. ⁴³ He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.

 

-Mark 5

 

Today while i was cooking dinner, The Professor played with the girls in the living room. From the kitchen, i overheard the BabyGirl tell The Professor, "I'm going to lay down over here and sleep, and i'll be Talitha. Then you will be Jesus, and you will say to me, 'Talitha, come!' and i'll get up! Then i'll eat. Okay, Daddy—I mean Jesus?"

 

I was pretty amazed, because i didn't think she'd ever heard that Bible story in such a degree of detail. I know that she really likes it in the Jesus Storybook Bible. I haven't read that section to her in a while, but i didn't remember it mentioning Talitha koum.

 

Well as she continued to play this game, it became apparent that she thought Talitha was the little girl's name. All through dinner, we had to refer to her as Talitha. If we slipped up and called her the BabyGirl, she immediately corrected us: "No! I'm not the BabyGirl! I'm Talitha!"

 

I was then christened "Talitha Mama," and Bright Eyes was "Talitha Bright Eyes." The Professor split his time between being Jesus and "Talitha Daddy." For whatever reason, he felt uncomfortable playing the role of Jesus. He kept trying to get out of it, and she kept insisting that he was Jesus. I volunteered to be Jesus for a little while, but she didn't go for it. A red-haired person cannot play the Lily Maid, and a mama cannot play Jesus.

 

This was how she insisted on eating her dinner:

 

She laid her head on the table and closed her eyes. Jesus told her, "Talitha come!" She raised her head triumphantly with a huge smile. We all exclaimed with joy, "She's alive!" Then she took one bite of her food, laid her head back down, and started over from the top.

 

After all 20 bites of this, she and i went outside to pick some of our neighbor's cherry tomatoes. At the beginning of the summer, those tomatoes were DELICIOUS. We looooved them. They were awesome to just pop in your mouth like grapes.

 

Now, however, they are oppressive. If i never see a cherry tomato again it will be too soon. The Nice Lady scolds us if there are too many red tomatoes on her plants. She comes over and gives us a stern talking-to about how we need to pick them right before they turn red so the critters don't get them. She really doesn't like to see red tomatoes hanging on the vines.

 

Today there were approximately 125 red cherry tomatoes, and i knew we were going to get in trouble if we didn't grab those suckers.

 

Well, at the beginning of the summer, the BabyGirl/Talitha really enjoyed picking tomatoes. Now she's totally over it. She gleefully consents whenever i ask her to accompany me, but she just uses it as a ruse to get outside. As soon as we are out there, she abandons me for her favorite project: digging in the dirt where our internet cable was buried, where we are desperately trying to grow new grass to cover up the dirt. Turns out, grass seed has a hard time sprouting when it is regularly tampered with. The weeds, however, are more than happy to propagate the grassless dirt.

 

It's somewhat of a pain in the butt to be forced into management of a grove of tomato vines that i didn't plant myself. They are all intertwined with 100 other things. One of which is this enormous 8-foot-tall allergy-inducing ragweed-looking thing. You need a beekeeper's outfit to interact with those tomato plants. Between the 8-foot ragweed and the millions of bugs, i come out of there itching, sneezing, and puffy-eyed.

 

While i was fighting with the Nice Lady's tomato vines, the BabyGirl was constantly running off. I yelled her name sternly in my I Mean Business voice. Then i would see an auburn tuft of hair pop up from behind a bush or around the corner of the garage, and a little voice replied, "I'm Talitha!!!" So then i would have to yell, "Talitha, get back over here or you're going inside!"

 

Finally i extracted a sufficient number of red tomatoes to hopefully abate the Nice Lady's wrath. We went inside and Jesus put Talitha to bed.

 

Just Because It's Sunny, Doesn't Mean It's Warm

Easter this year was very hard. The week leading up to Easter was difficult, exhausting, draining, and painful. It was reminiscent of the suffering that Jesus Himself endured that week. Easter Sunday is supposed to be a joyful time of celebration, but we didn't feel like celebrating. Honestly, had it not been Easter Sunday, we would have stayed home from church because we just didn't have it in us. We were tired, worn, and broken.

But the truth of the matter is that tired, worn, and broken people are exactly why Jesus came to earth in the first place. So we took ourselves to church with gratitude for His sacrifice and with hope in His victory.

It was quite a task to get everyone dressed, primped, and beautified in time arrive at church 30 minutes early. Not our usual 10 minutes late, but EARLY. The minute we walked in the door, the BabyGirl spotted her best friend and kindred spirit, Addy. Addy was also wearing a purple dress and they made an adorable pair. Anytime the BabyGirl and Addy are together, a massive hugfest ensues. They embraced each other tightly and everyone around ooo-ed and ahh-ed. It was very sweet.

Since we went through the ordeal of getting all dressed up, gosh darn it i wanted some pictures to commemorate. And not just ordinary sitting-on-the-same-old-couch pictures. I wanted great pictures! Clearly, the place to take great Easter pictures is outside. Growing up, we always took pictures in our elaborate handmade Easter dresses standing in front of blooming azaleas, tulip trees, or daffodils.

Well, we don't have blooming azaleas here in the frozen tundra. But on that particular day we had abundant sunshine! With glorious sunlight, how can you go wrong? I herded all the younglings outside for some wonderful family photos. Once we got outside, the reality became obvious: it was freezing cold.

Bright Eyes was the first one to voice her opinion. She's never had an Easter before, so she wasn't aware of my childhood photo-taking traditions.

What's wrong with you people??? It's freezing out here!!!

What bothered the BabyGirl was the frigid wind. She complained, "I need a hat!!! My hair is blowing everywhere!!! I don't want my hair blowing!!!"

We all tromped back inside for warmer clothes, and then went out to try again.

It was short-lived, however. Eventually we had to face the facts and take pictures in the same place we always take pictures. The only spot in our entire house that has decent light is the living room couch.

Much better.

 

 

For Easter dinner, we were invited out into the country to visit the Griffiths. We had such a wonderful time! They have a beautiful home on 40 acres with a picturesque view in every direction. Their middle-school aged daughter Selena was so sweet and patient with the BabyGirl, helping her to feel comfortable in a new environment. Because we had such stimulating conversation, we stayed well past the girls' bedtime, a costly sacrifice that we don't make for just anyone. Our time together with them was so rejuvenating after our draining week.

 

My main disappointment was that i didn't get to do as much teaching with the BabyGirl during Holy Week as i wanted to. We weren't able to properly focus on Jesus' death and resurrection because of other issues going on. Yet somehow, she managed to absorb a lot and i'm so thankful! During the church service, in that quiet moment when the singing has finished and everyone just sat down, she exclaimed excitedly, "We're here because Jesus' boo-boos are all better!" And later at home she said to The Professor, "Silly Jesus! He needs to put His cross away when He is done with it!"

 

The next day we had some Christian music playing on Pandora. I don't even remember which song it was, but there was a line that said, "He is risen." The BabyGirl was so energetic, "They said 'He is risen' just like Jesus is risen!"

 

He is risen indeed!

 

 

Posthumous Blogging: Who Wears the Crown?

Here is a story from sometime in July:

The BabyGirl's night-night song is "Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus." We have sung that song for her bedtime since she was about 4 months old. She knows it by heart. My dad even commented that she knows verses that he and my mom don't even know.

Back in April, the BabyGirl and i made a trip to visit my parents. She has a very difficult time sleeping in new environments. One night while we were there, i put her down for bed and then my mom and i needed to run out to the grocery. My dad was on BabyGirl duty. I told him that if she woke up, he should hold her with her head on his shoulder and sing Tis So Sweet.

Well sure enough, she woke up. He followed instructions and held her while singing her song. He tried to put her back in bed; it was a no-go. Like trying to put a cat in the bathtub, she resisted gravity. He sang it again; she still wouldn't go down. At this point he was bored of that song and decided to sing something else. She jerked her head up from his shoulder and glared at him with a look that said, "You are breaking protocol and i won't stand for it." He quickly resumed singing Tis So Sweet, and she rested her head back on his shoulder.

By the time she was two years and a few months old, however, she also got bored of Tis So Sweet. One day during naptime i decided to sing "What Wondrous Love Is This." She loved it! She's got quite a knack for picking up new songs. After two naptimes' worth of singing it, she knew most of the words to the first verse. (Even though she has no idea what a "soul" is.) Then she turned her attention to one of the other verses:

When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down
When I was sinking down, sinking down
When I ws sinking down, beneath God's righteous frown,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul, for my soul.
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul.

When i got to the part about the crown, she lifted her head from my shoulder and said enthusiastically, "A crown like a princess wears!" She was so pleased to have picked up on a word she knew.

I said, "You're right; a princess does wear a crown! And Jesus has a crown also."

Whoa, whoa, wait a second there Mama. She looked at me with pity for my ignorance. You see, she knows A LOT about Jesus. She has her Jesus Storybook Bible practically memorized. There was a stretch of time when she refused to get out of bed in the morning until she'd read her Bible (pretty convicting for me, actually). She flips through the pages and names each character: that's Daniel! that's Zaccheus! that's Saul!

But her favorite picture by far is Jesus with the children. She frequently requests it. "Want to see Jesus and boy and girl!" After multiple experiences of flipping through the entire Bible to find that page (well okay, flipping through the gospels. It's obviously not in the Old Testament), we finally committed it to memory. Page 225.

Incidentally, she also knows a good deal about princesses, thanks to my sister's gift of the book The Princess Primer. It is filled with all sorts of useful information, from styles of ballgowns to how to tell a good prince from a bad prince to the proper way to curtsy.

As she looked at me, i could see her mentally filing through all the pictures of Jesus in her Bible and comparing them to the pictures in the princess book:

With her analysis complete, she felt qualified to inform me: "No Mama, Jesus has no crown."

There was no arguing with her. She had evidence.

One day we will spend a little more time reading Revelation, where Jesus kicks butt and takes names. But for now, she sees Jesus as a familiar friend who invites you to sit on His lap and play.

I think that's exactly how it should be.
 

Halloween Narrative

We had a blast trick-or-treating with the BabyGirl this year! She provided the most hilarious commentary on the other kids' costumes.

During the morning, i explained to her the basic protocol: "After dinner you will put on your costume and we'll go outside. We'll walk around to all the houses and ring the doorbell. Then people will open the door and you'll say, 'Trick or treat!' and . . ."

As i was speaking, she looked at me with an expression of extreme skepticism. Her face said, "What kind of crazy ideas has this woman come up with this time?"

I continued: ". . . they'll give you candy!"

Whoa, wait a minute. "CANDY?!?!?" That sure wiped the skepticism off her face.

"Oh yes, my friend. Candy."

She ran to her room and got her shoes. "Let's go now!"

Since she hadn't been paying attention for all the words that preceeded "candy," she hadn't heard that these events were to take place after dinner. This was a big hardship; she wanted to get the candy right now.

We did, however, go ahead and put on her daytime costume. She was a beautiful fairy princess. Mimi got her the pinkest, ruffliest, shimmeriest dress you could imagine and a pair of pink wings to go with it. She twirled and sashayed and pranced around the house displaying her elegance. She absolutely loved that dress! Unfortunately, she refused to allow me to take her picture, so you are going to have to take my word for it that she was very pretty.

Finally Daddy came home from work and we ate dinner and the long-awaited moment had come. She put on her nighttime costume of a tiger. It was cold out, and the princess dress was not warm enough. She would have had to wear her coat over the dress, in which case no one would see it. So she was a big fluffy tiger:

Bright Eyes got schlepped along for the ride. The only reason she is even halfway giving a smile is because at this point she had no idea what was going on:

We stepped outside right as a big clump of kids walked by. The BabyGirl was really excited now. "Girls!!!"

The trick-or-treating on our street is very profitable. Everyone else besides us is retired seniors who love having cute little kids come to their doors. The BabyGirl was a big hit! For the first few houses she was unsure of what was happening, but then she got the hang of it.

There was a boy with his dad who happened to be going at the same pace as us. We were about 30 seconds ahead of them, such that as we turned around to leave a house, they were walking up. This happened for many consecutive houses. The trouble, though, was that the boy's costume made the BabyGirl VERY nervous. I don't know if i can describe it very well. He was wearing all black, and his shirt had a green LED light-up outline of a body. His face was covered also and had the outline of big creepy eyes. Kind of like the standard alien face but not exactly.

The 4 of us were walking on the sidewalk when the boy and his dad passed us. They were understandably walking faster than us. I was in front with The Professor behind holding the BabyGirl's hand. She said, "Get here by me, Mama." She wanted Daddy on one side and Mama on the other to protect her from the alien boy. She kept a very close eye on the boy so she could monitor his movements. He was already at the door of the next house when we walked up. She made it very clear that we would wait for him to move along before we got any closer.

While we were standing a safe distance waiting for him to leave, she began to (very loudly) narrate what he was doing. "That guy is at the door."

"That guy is pressing the button."

"That guy is standing."

"That guy is getting candy."

The boy's dad was standing right next to us and had a good laugh over the BabyGirl's play-by-play. Eventually she said, "What's that guy called?"

Honestly i didn't know what to call his costume. I didn't know if it was a bona-fide character that i wasn't familiar with, or if it was just something he had made up. The boy's dad said, "Glow man." (Note: it was not the same as this. The concept was similar, but the shape was different.)

She resumed her narration. "Glow man is [with concern] walking THIS WAY!" Eek!

We asked her if she wanted to wait a minute to let Glow man get farther ahead. She wholeheartedly said yes. Later we were in proximity again and she said, "I will turn my head. I will not look at him." We affirmed her in her wise choice.

She got very excited when she saw costumes that she recognized. Cat in the hat! Coke can! We had gotten a late start, so we were out after the other small children had gone home and it was mostly older kids.

Then tragically, after we hit the last house and turned to go home, the BabyGirl tripped and fell. She dropped her bucket and candy scattered everywhere. It was so sad! She scraped her hands pretty good. Fortunately we successfully gathered up all the bounty. The Professor carried her home and we all celebrated the fun time we had together.
 

Moments to Remember: What Can I Do For You?

This story is for the benefit of my 80-year-old self:

Last night i was sitting at the kitchen table. The Professor was sitting next to me and the BabyGirl was in his lap. I was talking with him about something i had worked hard on that didn't work out. I was very discouraged and frustrated. The BabyGirl, although not a part of our conversation, was listening intently. While she listened, she had a look of concern on her face.

At a pause in the conversation, she said worriedly, "You are hurting, Mama?"

I said, "No dear, i'm not hurting, i'm just sad."

Her look of concern intensified. She said, "I'll give you a smoochie." Then she leaned over and smooched my cheek. She smiled and said, "You're all better?"

I said, "Oh yes, i'm all better now."

Apparently i wasn't convincing enough. She hooked her arm around mine, laid her head on my shoulder and said, "What [can] I do for you, Mama?"

It was a very special moment that i want to remember always.
 

Proof That the BabyGirl Is a Girl (As If There Was Any Doubt)

The Professor and the BabyGirl were in the car running errands together.

Professor: We're going to Walmar to buy _________.

BabyGirl: Wanna go to Garget (Target).

Professor: I'm sorry, but we can't go to Target. We're going to Walmart.

BabyGirl: Wanna go to Garget.

Professor: We're going to Walmart, sweetie.

BabyGirl: WAAAAA!! DON'T WANNA GO TO WALMART; WANNA GO TO GARGET!!!!!


And honestly, can you blame her? Who wouldn't rather go to Garget?
 

Happy ThirtyTWO!

Two weekends ago we celebrated The Professor's birthday. He is now thirty-two. The BabyGirl believes that he is just two, but we've been trying to convince her that he is actually thirty-two. She mostly doesn't buy it, but occasionally she'll say "firty-TWOOOO!!!" She herself turned two back in April, and at the time we worked so exuberantly to teach her that when people ask, "How old are you?" the answer is "TWOOO!!!" The trouble is, now she thinks that two is the answer when asking about everyone, not just herself.

Having a brand-new baby limited us somewhat in our celebrations; we weren't able to do anything super exciting. On The Professor's birthday eve we drove across town to the Dead Marshes Mall (it only has about 2 stores left and everything else is vacant—very creepy) to eat dinner at Chick-fil-A. You'd think that after so many years of living without Chick-fil-A that we would take advantage of this one and go there more often, but we don't. So it was a special treat.

Happy birthday, Professor!

There's a VIDEO in the kids' meal?!?

 

 

We both love Chick-fil-A lemonade!

Except it's incredibly sweet and potent and i forgot to ask them to dilute it. 

For a toddler, it's basically like crack. 

It was Bright Eyes' very first time at Chick-fil-A in her whole baby life!

You can see that it was quite an experience for her.

 

Another noteworthy thing about this birthday for The Professor was that it marked the half-life of his car. He has now had it for half of his life! He loves that car and it has treated him very well the past 16 years. They had a long-distance relationship for a long time while we lived in the Big City, but now are happily reunited.

The BabyGirl, Bright Eyes, and i are all extremely thankful for The Professor and so honored to have him in our lives. We love you, Professor!