Lilac Pond updates are rarely ‘occasional’ when a new baby is in the house. And why not? When sleep is rare and moments for writing hard to come by, one usually spends such moments doing chores – or playing a computer game in the hopes of relaxing for a moment or two before the daily grind begins again.
But here we are in the depths of snowy winter, and I find we’ve all reached milestones that allow us a little more breathing room, peace, and energy. (breathe in) Ahh… Enjoying it while it lasts.
Clara, now almost 6 months old, is starting to scoot with enthusiasm, trying desperately to make these motions into a crawl. Mostly, she looks like a seal slapping her way up the beach. Instead of finding a rock to sun on, however, she mostly crashes into whatever toy Eleanor happens to be playing with at the time.
Clara is thus more engaged with her the world, going from serious stares to breathtaking smiles as quick as a thought. She is fascinated by Eleanor, grins for daddy, and still has special snuggles for mom.
Clara is also a tank. By that, I mean she is a really big girl. She’s about 22 lbs. at 6 mo. This means she has out-grown her infant car seat (over a month ago); she had to be upgraded to a new style of infant carrier, since the Bjorn wouldn’t hold her; we had to get rid of the baby swing because the motor couldn’t handle the abuse of trying to rock her; and she is in 24 month clothing because her little torso is so big, but her arms and legs get a little lost in the sleeves and pant legs. A lot of rolling is required. She is sleeping reasonably well, mostly because she so exhausts herself with all her seal-climbing around and actively getting into all of Eleanor’s toys.
Eleanor, now at 2 and a half years of age, is able to play by herself with remarkable concentration. She also loves to play with people, as evidenced by a growing number of playdates with friends and cousins. She is also starting to enjoy playing with Clara. Sometimes.
Eleanor continues to be hilariously verbal. She speaks so well that often I have to remind myself that the thinking behind these fully-formed sentences is still that of a toddler mind. For example, in asking Eleanor what her daddy does for work, she replied, “He programs.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“He fights bugs,” she told me. “He fights and he fights and he fights them” (This said with little fists flying.)
Also, following a Sunday School lesson, Eleanor informed me that “God messed up the block tower.” I had a very hard time not laughing at the teacher’s horrified expression. The teacher corrected her politely, saying that they had learned about Jericho. Eleanor, however, took from the lesson that God likes to smash other people’s block towers.
In these mid-winter months, with the snow piling high, we often fall into predictable routines. Elliott works; the girls and I do our daily eat-play-rest cycles. In the evening, we all get together and play as a family. The next day, the routine starts again.
These routines probably look simple from the outside – they probably also look repetitive. Heck, a lot of the time they feel repetitive. But then again, I think this really is the business of life: taking care of our work, ourselves, our family, and our world. We constantly adjust, we constantly evaluate, we constantly learn and grow. If we’re lucky, we get a moment to take a breath and be grateful for it all, too.
And sometimes we don’t have time for the breath because we have to go clean up the spills in the kitchen. But that’s good, too.
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