Hi, Baby Conner

Are you hungry?

 

I love you.

 

Once, Twice, Three Times a Baby

 

 

This past Saturday our clan experienced a surge in family members. My brother Matt and his beautiful wife Courtney welcomed three tiny babies into the world. I’ve been hesitant to say anything on the blog because of how exciting and precarious the whole adventure of having triplets is. It just felt like news I wanted to hold on to and protect. But now…

I want to shout it from the rooftops!!! I am SO excited to be an aunt yet again to a new litter of kiddos. Conner Peyton, Mason Davis, and Avery Reese are my new tiniest best friends and I could not be more elated to have them in our lives. Matt and Courtney have been phenomenal these past several months and I know they are over the moon with love and joy right now. I can’t wait to burst in on their hospital party tomorrow when I finally make my way back to Kansas City.

All day yesterday, in betwixt working on stupid homework, I would just say their names out loud and smile while I gazed out the window. They are finally here after months of waiting for their grand entrance. I still cannot wrap my head around these mini miracles. Right now they are having a super casual dance party in the NICU based on their early arrival, but I have no doubt they will soon be running the world.

I can’t wait to meet these magical little ones. I love you, babies.

 

A Toddler Makes the Rules

This blog is. a. riot.

Not this one, well, yes this one, but this one.

I’m a big fan of babies as adults. Not like Angela on The Office, a little more mild than that. Like, making babies pantomime dance moves that are obviously too advanced for them, or having a baby party and then making two babies come together and hug each other at an outdoor cafe while Swiss people look on horrified. Only Jill understands this last part.

Anyway, babies and toddlers are hysterical. Probably some of my favorite people in the world. This blog post, written from the point of view of a toddler is a hoot. Said toddler tries to delicately describe to a part what a dinner menu should look like with four carefully chosen options. I particularly love:

• Step 5 of Option 1: Toast with Butter, “Ask toddler how he or she would like toast prepared or cut. Don’t make assumptions. You don’t know anything about anything.”
• Step 7 of Option 2: Pasta with Butter, “Resist the urge to add spices or parmesan cheese which is not actual cheese but very small flakes of dry cheese and disgusting. If there is something wrong in your head and you try to add a puree of garbanzo beans or nutritional yeast you are not ready to be a parent.”
• Step 3 of Option 3: Crackers and Cheese, “Select a normal, non-artisan cheese like mild cheddar. Cut squares that are all the same shape. Don’t let cracker crumbs stick to the cheese. Please take some pride in your work.”

Seriously, it’s a scream. You should definitely read it. I really like to read something by a parent than can find a great sense of humor in child rearing. While many years from producing little creatures myself, I tend to get my exaggerated eye-roll on when I read too much about home births, feeding babies like they’re a little bird, or elimination communication. (woof in regards to that last one, by the way). This blog is refreshing to say the least.

 

On that note, Happy Weekend! And here’s to enjoying meals not dictated by a diaper-wielding toddler. Huzzah!

 

Entrusting Babies

Today I make my foray back into the world of sitting on babies. That was totally taken from Jill, who used the phrase “sitting on babies” as opposed to babysitting, and I thought it was funny. Now that I’ve written it, it’s creepy.

Anyway, I am in fact babysitting today. I haven’t done this in over ten months. The last children I looked after were the wee ones in Switzerland, and boy, was I ready to leave that behind!

I am babysitting as a favor to my boss/professor/mentor (still not sure how to refer to her) and don’t mind sparing a few hours. There are two kiddos–two and a half years and barely a year. So, they’re young. But, she hinted that they will sleep for a lot of the time I’m there, so hopefully I can get some reading done.

This week I am reading The Known World by Edward P. Jones for my Southern Lit class and already I am loving it. Only 70 pages in and I can tell it will be a keeper.

Wish me luck this afternoon!