a babysittin' week

These two pictures are from Tuesday.

The girl is fully mobile now. I put up the baby gate so she couldn't crawl out to the kitchen, but that didn't stop her. She came around the other way, through the dining room, had her party with the broom and the swiffer and advanced on to the dog water.

I was folding clothes, talking to her, forgot all about the ever-dreaded dog water until it was spreading all over the floor. I snatched her up so her clothes didn't get wet and washed her hands and put her over the baby gate while I wiped up the floor, muttering, I'm not proud to say, "Son of a bitch." (I don't think she heard me.)

This is a picture of b.g. sleeping in Uncle Tim's bed. He does take the most extravagant naps, hours of sleep, barefoot, in the sun, in a pile of pillow pets. Can you tell how jealous this makes me? Oh, blessed sleep, how I love you. (And I'm pretty fond of b.g. too.)

Okay today we had t.c. and his little brother l.c. for the morning. There was a soccer game out back with ever-changing rules and some bickering, though nothing serious. Look at how dead the grass is.

It rained later, gorgeous buckets of rain. Hallelujah.

Here's Lydia and l.c. with him telling her some amusing story. The kid is funny. I don't have a picture of this, but he threw his arms over his head and shouted, "No hands!" as if this sedate patio swing were a carnival ride. Lydia told him to be careful.

Here he is announcing that his feet are dirty. It's true, and yet dirtier feet we have seen.



Okay, here are the three amigos down in Lego-land. Once upon a time we had a whole room called Barbieland, which was 500 naked barbies with ratted out hair and all their debris aka accessories. Now we have the same thing, only in the language of Lego.

They wanted to go down there right away this morning, but I made them wait until Tim was awake. Some creations he cares about and some he doesn't, but I'm not making those decisions and neither are they. But later they went down there, after they'd completely obliterated the family room with a blanket fort.

This is another good thing about encyclopedias. They serve as excellent weights to hold down the corners of a blanket fort.

Tim's finally beginning to read, and she's right with him, and it's awfully nice to have someone to read to.


Here she goes, ready to take on the house, and all its unforgiving surfaces, dog hair, and potential catastrophe. Does she look concerned? Not really. That little glimmer in her eye looks downright adventurous.

And one last picture from the backyard where the sandbox is now full of leaves.

Is it already Thursday? Yes it is, as of twelve minutes ago. Time to sleep. love always, Val