Growing Up

Isabelle often talks about growing up. It used to be that she couldn't wait until she was 18 so she could do whatever she wanted. She hung on to that for months after I explained that she wouldn't have to be obedient to me forever. She would say (after reluctantly doing what she was told), "but when I'm 18, you can't tell me what to do, right?!" Now lately, she is very concerned about how hard it might be as a grown-up. When she found out that having a baby was painful (she was given very limited details and thankfully didn't inquire further, as she is wont to do!), she very seriously told me that she was not going to have any babies that grow in her tummy. She would only adopt children that someone else had to have in their tummy. As much as I told her that she didn't have to worry about it right now, she really wanted to have a thorough discussion with her definitive decision made known to me. OK, I said, you can adopt if you want to (she was already quite educated on the subject, being that I've worked in adoptions on and off her whole little life)

Then just this week over breakfast, we were talking about school, how some people go to more school after high school to become doctors or teachers or reporters like her father. She was dismayed that she would have to go to more school to be a reporter (her latest career choice) and asked what she would be learning. I told her that she would practice writing stories and learn how to talk to people about the stories. She wasn't happy about it and said, "well, maybe I'll just be a mom, then." I was brushing her hair up into a ponytail at this point, and said with genuine enthusiasm, "oh, so you can make your daughter pancakes and do her hair?" Which I thought would sound delightful to a child, right? And she retorted, "I don't want to ever cook!" So, the stress of deciding her future still remains. All she wants to do is play, she says, why would she ever want to grow up? Indeed.

Soren sings!

This is a clip of Soren "singing" along with Cora, who is singing one of her Kindermusik songs. It's one he's heard in the car a lot and quite obviously enjoys. What a ham.

Sisters

Here I was trying to get a nice picture of the girls in front of some blossoms by our house, but they were not getting along. So instead I caught them each taking turns expressing their brief disdain for the other. Very nice.

For my mom!

Mom, this is Soren's current walking stage - sometimes falling, looking a little inebriated but otherwise getting around just fine. He LOVES putting objects in the garbage (or any big container), which can be a problem :-) He also can say "Cora," you can catch it here amid my many "can you say Cora?" over and over. I'm a bit annoying, you don't realize how you prod your children until it's recorded. Yikes. Anyway, he knows her name and exactly who she is, it's very cute.

SOREN THINGS

Here's our little buddy dancing in his high chair and saying "bye bye" at the end. Try not to get hypnotized by that wallpaper.

Sunday

Here are some pictures from last Sunday. I just wanted to get some pictures of Soren in his new little outfit, including a baby tie! He fell on the ground the other day--pavement--hence the scrape on his nose. I wish I would have taken a picture right afterwards, because there was also a scrape on his head, in between two older bruises from earlier collisions with the kitchen floor and cabinet door. Sigh...

It's getting cold

I realized today how much I must nag my girls to come to the table to eat before their food gets cold when Cora asked me to play Uno. I had to finish up something on the computer (as per usual, right? What was it before computers that kept our mom's from coming right away?). The second time she came to ask me she said, "Mom, hurry and play Uno with me, it's getting cold!"