Picture Perfect? No Way!

There are phrases that I don’t realize that I’m saying too often until Jacob parrots them back at me. Sometimes he’ll say something and I think, oh gosh, is that really how I sound? The other day we were talking about something and Jacob says “Daddy, you had better come help Mommy because SHE HAS HAD IT!” Nice. In my own defense, February has been a doozy so far. The week of 2/6 Bella got influenza, then the week of 2/14 Will and I both had influenza and Jacob got strep throat. Yesterday Bella was knocked out by a 24 hour stomach bug. Even our cat keeps throwing up everywhere. I hate it when the babies are sick, it’s just heartbreaking. The cat I have less compassion for because she eats things that she shouldn’t. I think she purposely vomits in ways that are difficult to clean up (Like into the side pocket of Will’s work bag or behind the dryer.) She is seriously about to become a barn cat. And we don’t have a barn. Last Monday afternoon Bella had her 18 month check up with Dr. Farrior. Here she is up on the exam table, “reading” while we waited for the doctor. I am so totally head over heels in love with her – I love how she still has that baby look, those chubby cheeks and fat legs and just look at those tiny feet! I know that over the next 6 months she’ll lengthen out and lose some of that round baby look, but right now she still has the baby belly and sweet baby face, oooh I could just eat her up! Bella is doing great, she is doing everything right on target developmentally, with the exception of drinking less milk than he felt she should. She drinks about 14 ounces; he thinks it should be in the 24 ounce range. He did not, however, provide any ideas on how to make tiny baby girls drink nearly twice as much milk as they actually seem to want everyday. [But then he is a man, and men like to tell women to do things and leave the how part up to the woman to figure out. I’m not guy bashing, I like men, I married one and am glad I did most of the time. I’m just observing as I see it.] In the midst of all the sickness and off-schedule-ness of the past few weeks, Bella is now completely weaned and it might be that she hasn’t figured out yet that she should be drinking more milk in cups to compensate. I offer her more milk, and she looks me in the eye and says "No Way!" "No way" is her favorite way to say no right now. Last Sunday afternoon everyone was feeling a little better and I had fun taking a few casual snaps while we played in the living room. Notice the kitty sleeping in the background, probably dreaming up new places to throw up. And, now for the fourth picture from the fourth folder "challenge" that is going around. OK, I am totally cheating and this is actually the 6th photo but it is from the same group of pictures, it's just that Jacob was at that age where only 1 in 10 pictures are in focus! [side bar: I don't know why I keep pictures that aren't in focus, but I have a really hard time deleting pictures of the kids, the bad ones of me go right in the trash before I even download them, but I have tons of pictures of the kids with one eye closed, runny noses, hands reaching for the camera lens etc. I dream that maybe I'll make some sort of bad picture art project with them someday. Actually, there's a more interesting blog challenge, post the WORST picture of your kids you can find ...] So this one is from January 2006, which means Jacob is about 16 months old, so just a little younger than Bella is now.