"Oh, lil' bay-beee." ~ April 8, 2014

Nora gets so excited to cuddle with Owen that she mimics the voice of the mom character, Linda, from Bob's Burgers to express herself. High praise. Nothing like a Long Island accented three year old to console a baby. "Oh, it ok, Oh-weee! It ok bay-beeeee."

 

"No pictures, mama....NO, NO, PICTURES!"

Earlier today we had met with friends at an indoor playpark in a church basement (I know, the things we do for our kids) and it was stressful at times but we survived. By "we", I mean me. I spent a good ten minutes trying to ignore an old preacher and shriveled up fellow conservative discuss the merits of Chris Christie and how World Vision went terribly wrong because they should have stuck to their guns about being anti-gay. I made a point of coughing loudly to get their attention and then whipping out my breast to feed a crying Owen. They left the room.

Nora even rolled with the roughness of the other kids and steered clear just at the right moments and checked in with me. No meltdowns, no apparent jealousy, no injury. I mentally patted myself on the back and thought we were golden. I loaded Nora in and asked her to climb over in to her carseat while I loaded a sleeping Owen into the car. I locked the car, came to the other side to buckle Nora, and opened the door to find her kissing and rubbing a now very awake and disgruntled Owen. The whole way home I silently hoped for a nap and chided myself on being so stupid as to not think to buckle Nora in immediately after getting him settled. Lesson learned.

Lunch was consumed, nursing completed, outfits changed, running to the potty, searching for the Elmo doll, diapering, another outfit change, kissing owies, watching Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, negotiations over watching another PBS episode but only if she napped, feeding a bottle to Owen together, fending off Jehovah Witnesses, diapering Owen again, outfit change for him, coaxing Nora to put a pull-up on. It was now 1pm. I needed a nap.

I set them up in bed together for our nap and ran to brush my teeth when Nora sat up suddenly and called for me. I came bolting back in to see a grinning Owen and a distraught older sister. When I asked what was wrong she said, "Oh, no, mama! Oh no, his feet ah' bwoken!" He had sock lint stuck to his toes. Best big sister ever.