Just Stopping By...

I've spent the majority of the day reading another blog and all her posts are pulsating around my head so vigorously that I want to write about so many things that I am unable to write much at all. At least not the poignant post-Christmas entry I had in mind. Man, she's good.

I will say, though, since you can never entirely silence a rambler, that we survived Christmas (it was actually pretty fantastic. Oh, and so was the ham.), although my living room floor now has a thick coating of toys. I thought about inserting a gratuitous picture of Santa's idea of being "frugal" this year (monetarily, yes! Check my receipts! Just somehow the numbers got out of control), but it shames me.

There were a few snafus, mainly related to the fact that Elizabeth got a new soccer ball and Lilli didn't and she wanted one, and Elizabeth got a doll sized umbrella stroller and Lilli didn't and she wanted one, and Elizabeth got a Thomas the Tank Engine phone and Lilli didn't....you see where I'm going with this. Lilli thinks she's AT LEAST three-years-old, and possibly 16. Actually they spent a lot of this morning playing with each other's toys quite happily, it was just yesterday that was punctuated by screeching. Oh, the dulcet tones of my little one. They remind me of silver bells, and bird songs AND A WAILING SIREN. I have to remind myself that it is quite normal for a 17 month old, who now regularly speaks in two word sentences (More books! I go! Baby up!), to dissolve into a wordless shrieking puddle on the floor when things don't go her way, but I am new at this. I don't know how I avoided it with Elizabeth, but I did, and I am grateful, grateful, grateful.

In fact, here Elizabeth is being particularly angelic while pajamaed and bed-headed with what she thought was the coolest thing EVER that she found in her stocking.

Some may call it a giant lollipop, others may call it an edible magic wand.

Anyway, I am exaggerating both the frequency and the severity of Lilli's outbursts (at least according to witnesses), but, once again, this is new for me.

But lest you think that Lilli was slighted by Santa, I assure you she was not, it's just that Elizabeth's new toys are much more fascinating. Except for Baby Belle. If you touch Baby Belle without specifically being required to fix her "crown", prepare to have your eardrums pierced. That is because Baby Belle has a very full schedule that must not be interrupted. She eats hundreds of times a day, she shares her food and her bottle with her Lilli-mama, she is put to bed and woken back up moments later over and over, she waits patiently while her "cousin", Elizabeth's big baby doll, is tossed from the new umbrella stroller so she can ride in it, and she actually comes in the car with Lilli. I hear you saying "So?" This is some sort of significant something, I assure you. We call toys you take in the car "car friends". Elizabeth always takes at least one, sometimes more, and they could be anything from her "Effel" to a leaf she picked up. Lilli never takes one. Sometimes she ends up with one because Elizabeth thinks she needs one and will carry one for each of them, but Lilli tries to travel light. But Baby Belle came with us to Sweet Tomatoes. That is major love, trust me.

See? Here's the feeding. Pardon the funky angle, I was trying to take pictures while lying on the couch. And since in reality my head was near Lilli, these are all pictures-taken-at-the-full-extension-of-my-arm. Plus zoomed out all the way.

Here's the sharing of the food. A bite for me, a bite for you. I was getting better with my angles. It's an experimental process you know, this taking pictures without being able to see what you're pointing at. Also pardon the red eyes. I only remove those through Snapfish. Anything stored on my computer is only available in its natural glory, and both the girls and I have red eyes in every picture that involves flash.

Oh, let's see if you can guess what she's saying in this picture?

Yep, "MINE!!!!"

David would like me to insert at this point that she only does this because (we're ignoring the normalcy of this age-related behavior again) of Elizabeth's habit of realizing that Lilli is playing with a toy that she was previously ignoring and zooming over and ripping it out of poor Lilli's hands. He would like me to tell you that it is a defense mechanism.

But seriously, don't mess with Baby Belle.