Lionel Comes Along

Joel was home for a few days after Lionel was born, and then my mom moved in with us to help get the girls to school and dance and soccer, and then it was Christmas, and then Joel was home again, and then school started and I was on my OWN. Gotta get these big girls to all their activities! And Lionel just...comes along. Comes to school drop-off!



Comes to field trips!



Comes to the theater to see Beauty and the Beast!



Comes to dinner afterward!



Comes to read our chapter book before bed!



Comes grocery shopping!



Comes to soccer!



Comes downstairs to watch football!



Comes to get the mail!



Such an agreeable and well-traveled little babeling.

Now We Are Six

ELEANOR TURNED SIX. What even.



The night before, I had told her I wasn't sure I'd be able to flood her room with balloons because Geneva sleeps on the bottom bunk, which is basically on the floor, and would be overrun with them in her sleep, but mostly because I didn't think I'd be able to stay awake until she fell asleep. 'That's ok. You can just put a bunch of balloons downstairs!'



We had leftover whipped cream from our hot chocolating, so we topped our cereal with it.



I set up the birthday tree, and this is maybe the only positive side to Lionel's December birthday, that I'll only have to drag the tree unseasonally out of storage once a year.



Joel and I got her a microscope and a chemistry set, because she's becoming a huge nerd. She spent the morning learning facts



and doin' science.



Geneva kept herself busy.



Is she playing Zingo with a stuffed dog, and playing both cards? 

Eleanor asked months ago for a red velvet cake, baked in my fancy bundt pan, with rainbow cream cheese icing and also she wanted to pick the sprinkles out herself.



So like a MONTH ago, we were all at the grocery store together and got a box of red velvet cake mix because you guys! I DON'T LIKE BAKING CAKES AND IT TURNS OUT I'M NOT GOOD AT IT AND CAKE FROM A BOX IS DELICIOUS. She picked some gold sprinkles, and we iced and sprinkled the cake together, and it was SO EXACTLY what she wanted and I told her that's what comes of being very specific in your instructions.



And it was beautiful and sunny so we went to the park and went sledding.



Eleanor has historically had very good sledding weather for her birthdays.



Ice chunks kept falling from the playground and lamp posts and stuff, you had to keep an eye out. 'This is a TROUGH.'



This is a sleep-monster in a too-big bearsuit.



And then, as is now tradition, we tore the gingerbread house to bits.



Ugh, so sugary.



And then the grands and the cousins came over! I continue to get away with not throwing a real party for one more year.



Last summer, Eleanor kept DRAWING on herself during her quiet time, and I was like, Can u don’t. Finally I was like, If you can keep from drawing on yourself for the REST OF THE SUMMER, we can have a party where we draw on ourselves and it's fine. And then I forgot about that but you know who did not forget.



So we did that.



And then we had nachos, and cake, and presents, and then the girls vanished to the dress-up bin until it was time to go home. Every time we do a thing like this, it just reaffirms our decision to move back here.



And the next weekend, we had Birthday Brunch at my parents' house!



Eleanor ate her weight in potato patties, and cinnamon pull-apart.



Whatever Geneva you loved it.

My aunt got Eleanor these thought-bubble headbands you can write on, and they were a HIT.



Those are dark thoughts, Geneva.



YES YOU ARE A DINOSAUR never change.



My mom got her an enormous thing of beads, and between those two things, the kids were taken care of for the afternoon.

Later that day, at home: This is because I'm thinking about my BIRTHDAY.

Six-year-olds, man.

Joel was talking about a podcast he was listening to where they were debating the plural of ‘octopus,’ and he says to me, Is ‘octopodes’ even a word?

But Eleanor heard ‘octoponies’ and was like, Ha!

And then she drew me an octopony. 

 

Lookit his li’l smile. 

Christmas!

OH HELLO

Things have been happening.  Did I tell you that ALL OF US had babies this year? Both of Joel’s sisters, and then both of mine, and then we squeezed Lionel in just under the wire. Christmas was laden with babies, I tell you. 

YOU get a baby, and YOU get a baby, and YOU ALSO get a baby!

We introduced some new traditions this year, like the Jólabókaflóð

(this was my first solo day with three children, so it coincided nicely with when I had already planned to dump a bunch of new reading material on my kids)

and held with some old traditions, like the hot-chocolate-Grinching 

(also on this, my first solo day. I basically saved all my best tricks for this first day).

And then in and among and around all the Christmas festivities we took Lionel to the dr (all of us)

and painted some nutcrackers

and tattooed ourselfs 

SO TATTOOED

And also Eleanor turned six, more about which anon. 

And that was the last thing! That I had to plan for. You guys I have been making LISTS and pre-buying shit and dragging things out of storage and putting them somewhere accessible because I knew that once I had a baby, my time was no longer my own. I have been So Organized, because I still wanted to have a Christmas! And do all the things! But now the things are done and I can just sit here, trapped under this baby who won’t sleep in his swing today, and eat leftover cheese and the muffins my mom made for me when she was here, and wait for school to start again.