Four Things

It's an email forward. It's a meme. Either way, it's lunchtime, I'm in my office, and I don't feel like doing real work while I eat. So here are a few things you may not know about me...

Four Jobs I have held:
1. Receptionist at a doctor's office
2. The Easter bunny at a charity egg-hunt (just once)
3. South Dining Hall dishwasher
4. Disney outdoor food sales at the Magic Kingdom - popcorn and soda girl extraordinaire!

Four movies I would watch over and over:
(a.k.a. the part where you lose all respect for me)

1. The Breakfast Club
2. Bring It On
3. What a Girl Wants
4. Pride and Prejudice, the BBC Miniseries

Four places I have lived:
1. Smalltown, KS (population: 2500; stoplights: 1; graduating class: 46; too small to name on this blog and maintain any confidentiality: probably)
2. Notre Dame, IN (Go IRISH! Beat Georgia Tech!)
3. London, England (for one fun-filled semester)
4. Orlando, FL (while working at Disney World, with a free pass to enter the parks as I pleased)

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Lamar's cake donuts
2. Coca Cola Classic
3. McDonald's All-American meal (cheeseburger, small fries and a small drink)
4. Caramel Latte

Four places I would rather be:
1. An all-inclusive beach resort
2. Walt Disney World
3. Camping in the mountains
4. Home with my girls

Four friends I think will respond:
1 - 4. I won't single anyone out, but if you want to contribute answers for any/all categories feel free to do so in my comments, or leave a link to your own site if you answer there.

On the road again

We're in the preparation stages for a trip to the far corner of Kansas to visit my family. It'll mean 10 hours in the car each way for four days of visiting, but it's worth it. The last time we were there, Ruth was in the throes of "stranger anxiety" (a.k.a. "my arms are tired"), so I can't wait to introduce the family to the lively, funny, interactive child she has become. I'm looking forward to watching Marianne interact with my sister's daughter of approximately the same age, and with the grown-ups as well. Marianne has reached that point in childhood where she acts shy for the first 30 seconds after meeting someone, then instantly turns into his best friend and starts piling her toys up next to the new person and showing off all her tricks. She's likely to count to seventeen and sing a few of her favorite songs repeatedly during the weekend to showcase her skills. If the family is lucky, they'll even get to see her attempt a somersault. With the exception of the 20 hours in the car, the weekend should be great fun.

All this to warn you that posting will be sparse in the coming week. Busy at work and busy at home means very little time for you, dear internet. But I'm sure I'll catch you up on all the fun later!

Family movie time!

I forgot to tell you all that we took our first family trip to the movies last weekend! There's a $1.50 theater near us, so we thought for that price we could actually test out whether going to a movie is feasible with kids at this age. As a bonus, the kids were both free, so a movie for four for $3.00? Sweet! We saw Over the Hedge. I have not gotten that much exercise during a movie in my life!

For starters, the theater was not up to code. I knew it was an old theater, so no fancy stadium seating or anything, but I at least expected a few safety features like lighting on the floors... If you've seen the movie, you may recall that the first 10 minutes of the movie is at night, so it's a fairly dark picture. We arrived a couple minutes late, and there was not a single light on within the theater, so we had to stand at the back for several minutes till it got bright enough that we could see where open seats were available. We waited and the girls were patient, I think in part because they were so blown away by how big it was and scared by the pitch darkness of the theater (it made me a little nervous, too!).

When we did finally sneak into some seats, it took about 45 seconds before Ruth starting squirming around and then crying because she didn't want to be held or sit in a seat. So I scooped her up and headed to the back of the theater. Thankfully there was a little open space in the back that I could stand in and still see the screen, because I spent the rest of the movie there, holding Ruth. Occasionally she'd get a little noisy or energetic and I'd walk the back hallway with her for a few minutes. I could still hear the movie anytime that I couldn't see it, so I managed to take most of it in. Ruth is just a little young for that. I'm not surprised since she won't settle down to watch a movie at home yet, but I thought the theater experience might subdue her... Wishful thinking.

Marianne, on the other hand, did a great job! She was a little upset at not being able to see Ruth and me, and once made Nathaniel bring her to the back so she could ensure we were still there. Otherwise, with the assistance of a couple packs of fruitsnacks, she sat still throughout the movie with only occasional commentary (that's according to Nathaniel - it was nothing I was able to hear from the back of the theater, which is a good sign).

*****

On an unrelated topic, this is my 200th post on my blog (Renee finally taught me how to tell, because I'm lame and couldn't figure it out for myself). Hooray for me! I hope you're all enjoying the look into my daily life. I know I'm enjoying the chance to share it with you. Thanks for reading!

Star charts - a potty training update

Potty training update? But didn't you start potty training months and months ago? Didn't the Magic 8 Ball promise a quick success?

Hush, you.

On the upside, we're making some real headway. The big calendar of star stickers is a hit, and Marianne likes having it. She wavers on her enthusiasm and sometimes tells me to just go ahead put the stars on myself so she doesn't have to bother herself with it, but for the most part I can tell that's very proud of herself when she sees all her stars for the day. Plus, it's helping her to understand calendars and how we progress from one day to the next. The first time she earns a sticker after naptime she'll often ask if we move to the next day then, and I explain that the days change when you go to bed at night, not just anytime. I point out upcoming events as well so she can get a feel for how long time is. Might as well get some extra learning out of the game, right?

On the downside, the kid is far from reliable. She's doing much better - yesterday, for all the time that she was in big girl pants, she only had two accidents and both times she stopped herself part way through going and ran to the bathroom to finish. That's a huge improvement. HUGE! It shows an awareness that hasn't been clearly exhibited since the first few weeks of training back in the spring. But for anytime we're out of the house, whether it's playing in the backyard in big girls pants or going to the park or store in pullups, she appears to totally forget she's a big girl and goes right in whatever she has on. I suppose becoming reliable at home is the first big step, and then we'll worry about outside the home later. However, at this point, I'm baffled at how I'll ever be comfortable leaving the house with her in anything but a diaper or pullup because she's not even close!

Ruth is still showing about as much interest in potty training as Marianne. Every time I ask Marianne to go to the bathroom, Ruth drops what she's doing and runs there full speed to sit on the training potty and watch Marianne use the big one. I joke that I might just have to potty train her first, but in reality, she may not be far behind her big sister on this one. I made a comment along that line to the doctor at Ruth's one year check up, but said that I thought that might be a real slap in the face to Marianne if her baby sister got out of diapers first. His response was, "I can't think of a better motivator!" I'm just not up for trying with both of them right now, though.

Striking a balance

Ruth is at an amazingly fun age. Or maybe it's just that she's an amazing kid. She's growing into a big girl at top speed, but she still has just enough baby in her, just enough need for her mommy, that I feel good about her growing up. We went to the mall this weekend (the whole family - yeehaw!) so Nathaniel could shop for pants, and I could return some things, and the girls could play. Nathaniel's work took longer than mine, so I strollered the girls over to dinosaur land to kill some time. Both of them love the play area now. They join the other kids in running around like lunatics from mammoth to egg-tunnel thing to dinosaur. They climb, they crawl, they jump from death-defying heights. And we, the parents, stand around the perimeter, letting them do their things, but keeping an eye out just the same to be sure no kid tries to bolt from the play area, and no one gets too aggressive or dangerous. It's all sorts of fun, let me tell you.

Since it was a Saturday morning, the play area was packed. There were easily twice the kids of a weekday morning. Marianne jumped in headfirst, calling to me occasionally to watch an especially impressive leap from a dinosaur's back. Ruth, not to be outdone by her big sister, also ran headlong into the fray. Every couple minutes, though, she'd scan the perimeter till she found me, tuck her chin to her chest for maximum aerodynamics, and run toward me full tilt till she crashed into my legs. Her little arms would wrap around my knees in a bear hug, she'd smile up at me once, and off she'd go again into the mass of children.

As I watched all the children in the area, I was filled with joy. There were babies not yet walking, with moms and dads helping them to stand next to the toys. There were kids too big for the area, maybe 8 or 9, leaping from dinosaur to dinosaur and not giving a second thought to the adults who guarded their little ones. And there was every age in between. Brave kids and shy kids. Aggressive kids and peace makers. And there was my Ruth - the perfect balance. Brave enough to strike out on her own, but not yet old enough to care who saw her needing a hug from her mom.

*****

Wondering about the spots all over Ruth's face in the photo above? Yeah, she's a tad banged up. The victim of sisterly, um, love, one might say. It seems that at daycare on Friday Marianne pushed Ruth out the back door onto the patio face first. Ruth also has a sweet split lip on the inside of her mouth that makes me nervous every time she eats, but she has been a trooper about the whole thing. Sadly, I was slightly relieved when it happened. If Marianne was going to beat Ruth up, at least she waited till Friday. Usually that sort of thing happens the day before I'm taking one of the girls to the doctor for a check up and makes me feel like a truly superb mom, but this time Marianne waited till a couple days after the appointment. Whew!

(The spot to the left - your left - of Ruth's mouth is food, but the rest are cuts and scrapes. Poor kid!)

15 months

Ruth had her 15 month check up this week. As expected, she's practically perfect in every way! (Yes, we just recently acquired the Mary Poppins dvd and it's a big hit at our house.) Ruth is very tall for her age - 95th percentile. That actually makes her skinny since her weight is only 70th percentile, but you wouldn't guess it to look at her.

The only question I had for the doctor was in regard to Ruth's style of pigeon-toed walking and running. Turns out, she has something called tibial torsion. It might correct itself, or it might not, but I've been assured there's nothing alarming in the condition. In fact, she may end up the most athletic person in our family. Not that that would be a huge challenge in this family. It turns out that being a little bow-legged and pigeon-toed actually allows for faster running and is common in professional athletes including Jackie Robinson, Brett Favre and John Elway (not that I'm wishing my little girl to become the next great NFL quarterback or a MLB player or anything, I'm just saying). Now that my mind is at ease that she doesn't need leg braces or anything dramatic to fix the problem I can sit back, relax, and chuckle to myself at her funny little walk. And come to think of it, she is one darn fast kid!

Experimenting

The girls like to play with their clean diapers. If Ruth isn't busy jamming clean diapers into the Diaper Champ, she's filling their dirty clothes basket with them. For the most part I notice them as I'm putting the clothes in the wash, but a couple times now they've gotten past me. How many times is it going to take before I start keeping a better look out? The issue is that all the tiny beads of silicon that make a diaper so absorbent fill with water and then the agitation of the machine tears the diaper and voilà! Silicon beads everywhere! As I transfer clothes to the dryer, they fall from every fold and pocket. On the upside, the dryer causes them to contract to little pellets that end up in the lint collector, so it's not the end of the world. It is sort of gross, though.

I can now say from experience that regular diapers hold up much better than pullups. I've had this accident once with each, and the pullup was destroyed in the washer, leaving behind thousands of the beads. The regular diaper actually held up remarkably well, losing some of its contents, but for the most part holding it's shape. (This, um, experiment, was conducted on Target brand generic diapers, for the record).

*****

I've read in Weight Watcher materials and heard from numerous other sources that, in baking, you can cut the fat and calories dramatically by substituting applesauce for oil or butter in a recipe. Yesterday I tested out this theory in a batch of zucchini bread. Our garden is producing zucchini at an amazing rate, so we're at that stage of the summer when we get to eat it with almost ever meal and still give it away regularly to friends and neighbors. I figured even if I had to scrap the whole batch of bread, the loss of the two zucchinis wouldn't really harm us. I can't claim this was a perfect comparison between regular zucchini bread and my low-fat version, because I also left out the crushed pecans to make it even less fatty, and that changed the texture somewhat. (In addition to the fat content of the nuts, I couldn't stomach the thought of wasting a cup of pecans on something that might be headed straight to the trash, even if we do get ours free from my grandmother's tree).

The results of this experiment were impressive. It's not quite the same. The texture is definitely a little off - chewier, maybe. The flavor is good though. The slight hint of apple is actually a nice touch. And the appearance is great - beautifully browned and cakey.

On the downside, as the bread was baking I sat down and calculated the WW points for the low-fat version of the bread. Either I had never accurately calculated the full-fat version, or I was deluding myself on what the numbers had been. Even after eliminating almost a cup of shortening and another cup of nuts, the bread still has 3 points per slice. (For those of you not familiar with the WW system, an average woman already at her goal weight should be eating something like 23 points a day to maintain her healthy weight). That's ridiculous! It must have been at least 5 or 6 points a slice before, and that's cutting each of the two loaves into 16 slices. Apparently I'm going to have to come to turns with less cakey foods in my life in general if even the low-fat ones are that bad for me. Those of you who know me, though, know that cakey things (mmmmm, donuts) are my biggest weakness, followed closely by soda. I can't win.

For the ND crowd

This morning, while running, I was struck by a scent that I hadn't smelled in a long time. It brought back mixed feelings, as it wasn't a pleasant smell... but the memories were of ND, and in general those are happy ones.

There are two aromas that truly bring to mind Notre Dame. One is, of course, the South Bend ethanol, made all the more present by the pink haze on the horizon. The other is more subtle and occurred less frequently. It's the smell of worms. Specifically, the smell of a rainy morning, when the worms have all decided to leave the grassy haven of the quad to slither up onto the sidewalks and swim around in the puddles. It's the smell of rain (good), mixed with dirt (not totally bad) and a healthy dollop of slime (nasty!). I have very vivid memories of hopping around on the sidewalk in an effort to avoid stepping on worms as I made my way from South Dining Hall to DeBartolo on a rainy weekday morning. Nathaniel always teased me for how offended I was by the smell, but I found it truly repulsive. Surely I'm not the only one who remembers this stuff.

This morning I only actually saw a couple worms on the sidewalk where a sprinkler in someone's backyard had shot over the fence and left a puddle. But the memories were bright and clear, and it made me watch my step a little closer, just to be safe.

Gold means dry!

Yesterday we started a new potty-training game with Marianne. She loves marshmallows and smarties and all those reward options, but they're just not doing the trick. She remembers to ask for them if she goes potty at our prompting, but she doesn't want them badly enough to volunteer to go the potty. To mix things up, while on a rare shopping-trip-all-by-myself this weekend, I picked up one of those huge desk calendars and a pack of star stickers. With Marianne's help, we developed a coding for what actions earn which colored stars. Within the first 15 minutes of my arriving home and taping the calendar to Marianne's closet door, she'd gone potty three times. Each time she earned two stars - a gold one for going potty when her big girl pants are still dry, and a blue one for going "wee-wee" in the potty. She then proceeded to spend the rest of the evening using the bathroom at every opportunity so she could fill the box on the calendar as full as possible with star stickers. According to Nathaniel, though, things got a little hairy this morning when he tried to explain that she had to put her stars in a different box on the calendar from yesterday. She wanted to keep piling them all into Sunday.

In case you're wondering, she also has the opportunity to earn green stars if she tries her best to potty, but there's no output; red for when she goes "poo-poo"; and silver I think I'll give her for each time she potties successfully while at daycare (the daycare lady already keeps a record of that along with how many diaper changes she does). That way all the days, even daycare days, get a nice spattering of stars.

Wish us luck. Ruth still seems at least as enthusiastic about the potty as Marianne, if not more so. Every time anyone goes into the bathroom she rushes in to sit on the training potty. I think I'll just go ahead and potty train her once I finally figure this out with Marianne. You know, while it's still fresh in my mind.

*****

On a similar topic, Marianne has begun to make promises she can't keep. In the morning when I'm helping her into her first pair of big girls pants for the day, she'll say, "I promise I'll keep these pants dry AAALLLL day!" Part of me wants to tell her not make promises like that, promises she can't live up to. But part of me knows that she doesn't understand the full implication of a promise so I shouldn't dwell on it. I think that first part of me is afraid that if she makes that type of promise too often, it will cause her to lose faith in herself and give up more easily on goals that are hard to reach. But then the second part of me reminds the first part of me that if she doesn't understand the implication of a promise, it's doubtful she can grasp the disappointment in not keeping it... I should probably try to merge my two parts and see if they could, together, come up with a logical train of thought rather than talking each other in circles.

They just keep growing up

Going to work on days when the girls are awake before I leave is getting more and more difficult. It's Marianne's fault, really. The problem is that she's growing up, and along with that, she's learning to express herself and her feelings verbally, and it's killing me! It's one thing to leave when both girls are still asleep, knowing that in a few hours I'll get to pick them up from daycare as the hero-mommy. They'll be at the top of the stairs, holding onto the babygate and bouncing up and down saying "Mommy! Mommy!" in the way that's cute and loving, not the annoying plea for attention.

It's was something else entirely to be on the way out the door when a younger Marianne would wake up, and want a big hug before I left. Maybe she'd cling to me or act sad or even cry, but it was in that baby way. I missed her all day, but still, there's the hero-mommy thing to look forward to and I knew once she was at daycare she'd have fun with the other kids and forget me.

Now there's a new possibility. In this one, Marianne wakes up as I'm leaving, so I stop to give her a hug. As she pulls away from the hug she says, "Mommy, I don't want to go to daycare. I want to stay home today with you. [Boy at daycare] will be mean to me at daycare. Don't go to work today." and so on and so forth with pleading and sadness and real reasons why she feels the way she does. She's making a case for me to be home with her. Given my own tendency to prefer that option over going to work, it breaks my heart. I can see her face light up on the days that she gets out of bed and I'm still in my pajamas. "You're not going to work today, Mommy?!" Or the confusion on days, like yesterday, when I'm dressed unusually - in this case, for a run. "Where are you going, Mommy? Are you going to work?" Even she can tell that doesn't fit my company's dress code.

I don't really dislike my job. But I do dislike that it takes me away from the girls when they so genuinely want me to be with them. It makes my days a little sadder. It's a good thing I can always count on the hero's welcome when I get to daycare in the evening. Even Dragon Tales can't beat Mommy's arrival! (Though if I take a couple minutes to talk to the daycare lady, Dragon Tales usually sucks them back in).

*****

Ruth loves to copy Marianne. She literally follows her around the house trying to do what Marianne is doing or play with whatever Marianne is playing with. This causes some foreseeable issues, as Marianne generally wants to play with the toy she just picked up, and doesn't take kindly to Ruth's immediate attempts to take it away from her. In the past few days, there's been a lower level of violent reactions on Marianne's part, thankfully. In fact, last night, they spent a solid 15 minutes playing happily together. It started as an act of meanness on Marianne's part - Ruth was standing in a tupperware box that's usually full of toys, and Marianne pushed her out of it and took it away. Ruth was understandably upset, so I told Marianne she needed to give back the toybox, or find a way for them to play with it together. Marianne proceeded to let Ruth grab one edge of the box, then run with it, so Ruth had to run along behind till she tripped in order to keep ahold. That may not sound like fun to you and me, but they were laughing hysterically as they repeated this game over and over. Then, when that got dull, Marianne put the box on the floor and climbed onto it like a stool. Ruth wanted up as well, but couldn't really fit, given their combined level of uncoordination, so it ended up being a sort of "ring around the rosy" game with Marianne turning on the box and Ruth running around it on the floor holding Marianne's hand. Inevitably one or both of them would fall down and they'd end up in a pile on the floor. Then they'd be up and at it again.

I was within a few feet of them, supervising the good times, but I couldn't bear to tell them to quit, or even to be careful, for fear that it would put an end to the sisterly fun! Instead, I read my magazine, with an eye and an ear always trained on the girls in case of an accident or need for intervention. It was good to see, though - this growing in their relationship and the ability to really play together. I can see the games take natural shape around the leader/follower roles they have, but that's all part of life. Soon enough, given the proximity in their ages, those lines will blur. For now I'm content to watch Ruth learn from her big sister and Marianne learn how to play well with her baby sister.

My little guttersnipes

Today has been an excellent day so far! It started with a morning run with my neighbor (no kidding - I'm still doing that, even if it means giving up sleep on a couple mornings a week!). On our cool down walk, she mentioned that she was thinking of taking her boys bowling today, and invited me to come along. Why not?!

Here's one of the best parts of the day, though, which was pre-bowling. When I got home from my run, despite the fact that both girls had been crying when I left at 6:30, they were asleep. Hard. And they stayed that way through my shower, through my getting dressed, through Nathaniel opening and closing the garage door as he left for work, through my making pancakes and a cup of coffee, and even through my eating my own plate of pancakes. In peace. While they were hot. It was like a wild and crazy dream coming true! As I forked up my last bite of pancakes (mmmmm, Bisquick!), I heard them starting to squirm. I can't imagine a day starting much better.

Just for entertainment value, here's what Marianne's hair looked like after sleeping on it for 12.5 hours:

What's that? You can't see that giant tangled mess of hair well enough? Here's a brighter, close-up shot. Lovely!

The thought of having to brush that mess out dry, combined with the sight of Ruth combing her hair with her syrupy fork, convinced me to do baths before the bowling trip. And of course the upside of that is that they're done now! I don't have to do baths this afternoon! Hooray!

Back to the bowling thing, though. Here's one of those monumental "firsts", and I'm sad to say that Nathaniel missed out on it since he was at work. But the girls have both now had their first chance to bowl. Marianne and Ruth (bowling together as a team) scored a 74. I got a 91, so you can see that they come by those mad bowling skills honestly. Here's a shot of Marianne bowling (yes, she had bumpers and ramp to assist her - I got my 91 by sheer luck).

Marianne's look of concentration and concern as she watches her ball's (agonizingly slow) progress down the lane:

Ruth enjoyed the whole bowling experience, but found it a tad over-stimulating. It was hard to keep her still for 15 seconds. I spent most of the time I wasn't bowling holding her. Thankfully she enjoyed my neighbor's arms as well, so I did get a few breaks.

Lastly, did you get a load of those shoes in the earlier pictures? The smallest size they had were actually one size bigger than Marianne wears, but they worked out alright. Even bowling shoes manage to be sort of cute on feet this tiny:

The great outdoors

We had an excellent weekend camping with my parents, so I'm refreshed and ready to go this week. Actually, I'm not sure I've truly felt "refreshed" since I had kids, since even the most relaxing weekend turns into an adventure in trying to keep kids out of dangerous situations. But this weekend was probably as good as it gets. With two extra sets up of adult hands around to help, we managed to come through with only the most minor cuts and scrapes. We even went for a nice little hike on Saturday!

Both girls loved having all the rocks to climb. Sometimes they were assisted. Other times, they took their lives in their own hands.

All too often I take for granted what how beautiful the place I live is (or the nearby national parks, at least). As I drive home after picking the girls up from daycare, Marianne will almost always point ahead of the car and say, "Look, Mommy, mountains!". Or if it's cloudy, "Look, Mommy. No mountains." I'm very happy to have given her a chance to know that sort of beauty at such a young age. She's not yet taking it for granted, and that's a good reminder to me. Once while we were driving in Minnesota on vacation, she did the same thing, pointing out the window at the empty skyline and saying, "Mommy, no mountains!" It struck me then how exceptional her childhood is because of her proximity to the mountains, to nature, to the chance to play in places other kids can hardly imagine, but are forced to sing about throughout grade school. It's not the only sort of outdoors that a kid could enjoy, but I'm happy to be able to offer her the "purple mountain majesties".

And since I mentioned MN, here's one more picture from that trip. It's Marianne with her Uncle Phil, catching her first fish. Talk about a look of true excitement! (Marianne looks happy, too).

A day without email...

You know the lyrics from the U2 song "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World", A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle? That song pops into my head all. the. time. And it's always that line, at least at first. (Yes, I realize that's actually a quote from Gloria Steinem, or according to one site, Irina Dunn, but often credited to Ms. Steinem, but it pops into my head with the U2 tune, so I'm giving them credit here). That really has nothing to do with this post, but as I was typing the title of the post, the song immediately started playing in my head and will now be there for hours. It doesn't help that it's in the mix on my iPod shuffle currently, so I get an added dose of it every couple days.

The real point today is that I'm busy. Busy at work - I just got a few new projects dropped onto an already full work load, so this post must necessarily be brief. Busy at home yesterday - cleaning for my parents arrival last night and prepping for a camping trip that begins immediately after work today. Busy on the weekend - camping with my parents and enjoying the great outdoors! As you see, it's not all bad, but it's time consuming, nonetheless. I went the whole day yesterday without so much as a glance at the computer screen. Hopefully I'll be back in better blogging form soon, when work allows me time to goof off.

Books on demand

By request, here are a few pictures of the book I made for Marianne. Once, when I was in first grade, I won a city-wide award for a book I authored and illustrated (I lived in a real city at the time, so those of you who have always seen me as a small town girl can quit laughing now). I was so inspired that I spent years thinking someday I wanted to do that for a living. Maybe while staying home with my kids, I'd become a famous children's book writer. I think we can all see now that that dream is not going to become a reality. And note the great job on my part of using Marianne's washable markers to draw the book, so it's already fading away from getting splattered when we wash hands.

*****

While I was typing this, Ruth walked down the stairs unassisted. I mean, I was watching her, and telling her to turn around and go on her tummy. Apparently she's had enough of the baby stuff, though, because she came down the entire flight of stairs standing up, holding tight to the rail so as not to fall. I'm impressed. And scared. I don't want her quite that independent yet, because one of these days she will take a tumble.

Interestingly, Ruth has taken significantly fewer big spills than Marianne had at this age. Maybe I'm better at juggling a baby and the rest of life now (because there was more than once that I fell while carrying Marianne in her first year of life, miraculously injuring only myself while saving her from all but a couple scratches); maybe we're more cautious now than before (though I'd always heard you become more relaxed with each child, not more vigilant); or maybe, despite appearances, Ruth is a little more graceful than Marianne was (she looks like a drunkard as she walks around the room, swaying and swerving, and I don't recall Marianne being quite so off balance.

Whatever the cause, it's a nice change. With Marianne I felt as though every week at church some old woman would stop to look at her and comment, "Oh, she has a little ouchy there. What happened?" and I'd have to explain that she'd bumped her head on the coffee table or whatever. Ruth has been a little easier, though the explanations are funnier/worse when there are injuries, as they are often sister-inflicted injuries (bite or pinch marks). Now that she's getting more independent, though, I'm fully expecting her to begin the phase of constantly bruised and scraped knees from running and falling on the sidewalks and all that good stuff. Heck, Marianne is still in the middle of that phase. I'd better pick up some more cartoon-themed bandaids at the store.