Two

During my absence Elsie had a birthday.  She is TWO!  and a really wild two at that. 

 We celebrated with banana cupcakes, because at the time all Elsie wanted to eat was banana.   She has thankfully ended her banana phase and is now eating eggs faster than our chickens can lay them.

It seems the second she blew out those candles something in her clicked.  She is no longer a baby.  Declaring to her dad, "I smart," she no longer takes no for an answer.  Still my happy little dancer, she is now needing more challenge and stimulation.  Translate that and you come to the conclusion, she is way smarter than me.  I am no match for this kid and find myself constantly struggling to keep her involved in some task.  The alternative is destruction.  This child has an incredible knack for annihilation  (see previous post on soup, and that was only in a few minutes).  She wants to build and climb and be in everything.   She has more force in her than any kid I've ever met.  She may always be a challenge, but she is the best challenge I could ask for.

Ouch!

Life with three littles and a crazy house has finally caught up with me.  Doing to much is what I excel at.  Slowing down is not something I'm good at.  This last week I had to slow down.  Way down, to the point that I couldn't even pick up my kids or move my head.  Turns out ignoring the literal pain in my neck was not such a good idea.  I ended up with a herniated disk at C7, and a kind of pain I was not familiar with.  I would take natural childbirth over a herniated disk any day. Especially since I get a baby in the end. 
So I lost track of blogging once again, but with good reason, and I am back at it now.  My neck is recovering a lot faster than we thought and I'm able to pick up Rue.  Elsie is a bit tricky, due her size and tendency to thrash around wildly.  We snuggle on the sofa now.
In case your wondering I did not go to the hospital, but this was probably the closest I ever got.  Their options were Pain killers, muscle relaxers or steroids, all of which are very suspect to me, especially while nursing.  So I turned to a friend who is possibly the most ingenious massage therapist I've ever known.  Aside from his incredible fiddling skills, he knows more about the human body than anyone.  He was able to stop the pain within 2 minutes of laying on his table and is  slowly putting me back together.

Before all this neck stuff I had some posts to put up.  My favorite being our trip to the Sculpture park.
Elsie and I pulled Annie from school and took on an adventure.  Annie was very concerned that missing school was a bad idea.  Sadly her mom is a little crazy and thinks that being outdoors is equally as important as school.  The girls had a blast playing on all the works of art and Annie found a new favorite place.

 Standing in my favorite sculpture from when I was little, someone put a heart in the middle.

Annie thought the heart was just for her.

On our way back to the car Annie made a friend.  It was the perfect ending to our adventure. 

Soup

Tonight was one of those nights when you don't realize it but you've lost track of one of your kids and yes, she's doing something terrible.  I was upstairs tending to the screaming baby, and Jon was feeding the dogs, and we each thought the other was watching Elsie.  Left alone for a total of maybe 5 minutes, Elsie did this...

 "Eggy soup, with lemon, for my tea party."

Jon found her after she had cracked close to a dozen eggs. Some into my salt bowl for soup, and the rest onto the floor.  Proud as a peacock, she had covered my kitchen island in raw egg.  Way to go wild one. Perhaps next time you could make soup with something less slimy.

Birth

    Eleanor Ruth, was born when it was dark outside.  I'd never had a baby at night.  I tell my babies not to come at night, because I don't like the dark.  Rue did not listen, and I did not feel like arguing with her once she made it known she was ready.  Annie, I argued with, not intentionally, but it was dark and I was scared.  Annie was my first.  We argued for a total of 15 hours, and I exhausted myself and her.   So I didn't fight Rue, I thought about it for a while.  Then I began to feel that exhaustion, that only comes during birth, creeping up on me after only a few hours.   It's amazing how quickly the physical memories come flooding in.  Nothing in life feels like birth.  There is no equivalent of pain or joy. So I gave up waiting on the sun to rise, and she was born at 5 am.
    I used to wonder if there is any meaning to a child born at night verses the day.  Will they sleep better or worse, will they be difficult or easy?   Does an easy birth signify an easy child?   I've decided none of it matters.  God has formed this child the way he sees fit, the way he wants her to be, and to arrive on his schedule (oh the never ending struggle of surrender). I still like having my babies during the day.

Rue's birth was relatively quick, to which I credit being in better health.  With each birth I get better at nutrition and preparing my body for birth.  I walk further and further away from what doctors tell me is right and I feel stronger with each step.  Conventional nutrition and supplements have never helped me in the past and with this pregnancy I forsook them altogether.  I threw out the prenatal vitamins, the fortified orange juice, the rules on dairy and seafood.  I embraced my herbs and vegetable juices.  I dined on raw oysters, eggs and liver (yes all raw).  And in return I felt stronger, healthier and less plagued by the physical strains of pregnancy.
     My hope is that all this will give Rue a better start in life.  A healthier beginning then I was given.
So far she's doing great.  Rolling over and causing trouble for me already.  Here's hoping this one doesn't start crawling at 5 months.  It doesn't look good, but maybe, just maybe she will take pity on me.  Unlike her older sisters who thought crawling at 5 months was cute and walking at 9 months was a great idea. 
Rue's birth was Jon's first.  Yes, we have three kids now, but we didn't know each other when I had Annie and he went for a walk around the block when Elsie was born.  So Rue was his first birth.  Yes, I now have a handful of birth videos with Jon's running commentary going on in the background.  And yes, he loves to show them to people.  It got a little weird when he started showing them to people outside our family, and they are now on lock down.

And then there were three...

I stopped blogging, a crime against family I know.  It feels like almost a year of our life is lost.  If you haven't guessed this is my kids family photo album.  This is all our lives posted for them to see when they are old. To see all the strange and crazy things their parents did, and to hear about what amazing little children they are.  And speaking of children. . .

Meet Rue, our sweet little baby, who joined us during my blogger shutdown.  She deserves so much more than one post, so I will be filling you in on her arrival and incredible smiles in the next few weeks.  She is the perfect mix of her two older sisters.  Annie's olive completion, and big eyes, Elsie's adorable nose and round cheeks.  The best thing about rue is her smile.  It's all her, no one else's, and she loves to show it off.  Already she is proving not to be just another girl in my husbands quest for a boy.  She is special and unique.  Incredibly beautiful and dramatically different then her sisters.   I am so excited for her to grow up in this crazy family and see who she reveals herself to be.

Elsie's dreamworld

It started two nights ago.  Elsie woke up screaming.  There were snakes in her bed.  Trying to get her,  I run, stumbling in panic.  Snakes are a common sighting around here.  In the garden, under the front porch, slithering out of the basement, but never upstairs.  I get to her room, no snakes.  Just Annie grunting half asleep for us to shut up.  I'm looking under the bed, and everywhere I can think.  No snakes. All clear.  I take Elsie to my room so Annie can sleep.
She's back asleep in seconds, only to wake up thrashing her arms screaming.  So she woke Jon, and the baby (oh yeah we had a baby, I will fill you in on that as I get back into blogging).   Turns out Elsie was having a nightmare.  Her first.  She was convinced snakes were in my bed too.  She woke up a few more times that night.  It was exhausting.
Fast forward to today.  Elsie woke up from her nap, and she's calling "Emmy, Emmy where are you?"  I go upstairs and she's looking under the bed and in her closet for Emmy ( our neighbor).  Of course Emmy is not here, but I get a little spooked thinking she saw someone creeping in the house. So I'm looking now too.  After a minute or so I realize, " Elsie was Emmy here in your sleep?" She replied, "We play hide and seek in my sleeping."  So Elsie dreamed she was playing hide and seek with Emmy, and there are no intruders in my house.  All is safe.  I've never been privy to  a child's dreams before.