Onward

Auburn waits for me in the morning to come rescue her from her crib.  She hollers out once or twice, prompting me to roll out of bed and stumble down the stairs.  I dress myself, use the bathroom, get the boys moving, and get the dining room set for breakfast.  She stays in her crib, loud and loquacious, sometimes lazily laying on her back with her feet high on the rails; sometimes sitting upright, blanket in hand, peering between the slats. I listen to her cheerful voice singing a heartfelt conversation.  It bounces from one wall to the next and out to greet her scurrying mom.  Oh, but she is not babbling for me, her conversation seems to be directed at herself, filled with meaning and hints of the day's adventures-- she seems to be planning, contriving, and then smiling.  Sometimes even laughing.  Back and forth she sings, then laughs, then stops to suck the edge of her blanket.  I am only a distant observer.

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Monday morning, I was bustling around, peeling boys from their beds, calling out orders about clothes and toilets, breakfast and shoes, pulling on my own pants.  All the while, Auburn, the original alarm clock, was waiting, patient and verbose, behind crib bars.  In retrospect, I know exactly what she was talking to herself about that morning.  She most certainly was making a plan for the week and for the rest of her life.  She was probably also giving herself some sort of pep talk.

She must have decided then and there in her morning monologue that she was ready to take up walking as a permanent mode of transport.  She must have been singing, "Today is the day, girly!  Let's get off your knees, dust off your hands, and march!"

I picked her out of her crib that morning, set her down, and march she did, right across the kitchen floor and into the living room.  And she never looked back.

blurry because she is IN MOTION!

As for the rest of the week:

PTB and I surprised the boys while they were at their grandparent's house by moving all of their furniture from their bedroom upstairs into our bedroom downstairs and all of our furniture from downstairs painstakingly up those steep stairs.  It was decided (by us, not them) that it would be better for our family to have them downstairs for various reasons, so we switched rooms.  The room downstairs is quite a bit smaller than the one upstairs, requiring the re-assembly of their bunk beds.  They enjoyed their first week in a new room with Nolan on the top bunk, complaining each night that it's too warm up there.

Gerret and I made homemade Thin Mints for the family night treat this week.  They mimicked with near perfection the ones made by the Girl Scouts of America.  They also took hours to make, dirtied an inordinate amount of dishes, and left trails of chocolate over the stove top and counter, but Gerret didn't notice the mess.  He was pretty pleased with the result and looks forward to making them again in the future.

Winter persisted.  It snowed a little every day this week.  We haven't seen anything warmer than twenty-something in a while.  The roads have consistently been slimy, slushy, sleety, or white most mornings.  I keep checking the weather in Virginia or the Carolinas and then day-dream about what people who live in those places are doing.  I always imagine them frolicking in green fields, soaking in warm rays on a back porch, and grilling burgers at the park while the kids peruse the playground.

Don't worry about us though, we are hardened against these biting winds.  Our only hope is that the eggs don't freeze before we collect them.