—1—
The other day I saw a cardinal out in the backyard and commented on it. Dom responded, as he always does, with an impression of Cardinal Sean. A few minutes later I picked up the binoculars to look at another bird, a titmouse, which promptly flew away.
“What are you looking at, mama?” Bella asked.
“Nothing. The bird flew away.”
“Where did the Sean go, mama? Where did the Sean go?”
I was confused for a moment and then laughed. “Do you mean the cardinal? It flew away.”
—2—
The other day I said “Thank you” to Sophie and she shocked me by replying with a very credible attempt at “welcome”.
—3—
More and more Sophie is an upright person who sometimes crawls rather than a crawling person who sometimes stands upright. She navigates within a room by walking around holding on to walls and furniture and people and only drops to hands and knees when she is faced with a space to cross that is more than one step away from a hand hold. Or when she is too impatient to get to a specific thing or person far away.
—4—
Yesterday I put on some zydeco and danced with Bella in the living room. Well, I can’t really dance; but we held hands and moved about vigorously and laughed and had a good time. Sophie rolled about on the floor kicking her legs, her form of dancing, I think. The funny thing is that she learned this move from Bella, who learned it from a board book Sophie got for her birthday. It’s an illustrated version of “If You’re Happy and You Know It” and one of the pages shows a bunch of babies rolling about on the floor. Bella loves to “read” this book to Sophie and also to act it out when I sing the song to her.
—5—
At my OB appointment today the nurse paused before she placed the blood pressure cuff on my arm. She touched a finger to my forearm, pointing out the redness there. I guess I got a bit of sun this morning playing in the yard with the girls.
Dom was home from work today and was doing yard work and of course Bella and Sophie insisted they had to get out, the little tyrants. So I was forced to go and laze in the warm spring sun. I perched on the hood of the minivan while Dom hung a flagpole. Then I pulled the girls around the yard in the wagon. Sophie later fell asleep in the swing while we ate lunch outside.
But I think the real redness came from the half hour drive to the doctor’s office. Why is it that the car’s windows always magnify the sun and make it burn?
—6—
Incidentally, how cool is it that my OB isn’t making me sit around in the office for an hour to do the glucose screening? They just gave me the bottle of orange syrup and told me to drink it about 45 minutes before reporting at the lab one morning next week. And I don’t have to fast either. After I get my blood drawn for the screening, I have to get my Rhogam injection. I think I’ll take the girls so the receptionists can meet them. The ladies at my last OB always loved it when I brought Bella in.
—7—
I finally finished Sophie’s baby quilt. Only a year and a couple of months after I began. I chose a simple pattern and meant to have it done before her birth but got stuck on the binding. I bought a shade of pink that just clashed and then my blood pressure shot up and the doctor told me to take it easy and couldn’t get back to the fabric store.
There are some compensations for my tardiness, though. The look on dear Sophie’s face when I handed her the quilt was priceless. she grabbed it with a huge grin and insisted I lay it down so she could crawl about on it.
Thanks as always to Jennifer of Conversion Diary for hosting 7 Quick Takes.
My day was exactly the opposite. I had planned today to be a yard and garden day. It didn’t happen. James came downstairs from his shower and said it was a good day to go out. And I have to admit, there were a list of errands we had been wanting to do. So we went to IKEA, had lunch at Ruby Tuesdays, ran to Office Depot, Buy Buy Baby, picked up my prescription, hit Home Depot and then stopped by the Church for me to go to Confession. I only had about 30 minutes after we got home to try to patch a hole in the fence (one small job I was hoping to do in the yard today). It is funny how plans can simply not work out the way you intend, but it doesn’t mean things have to be bad or unproductive? Glad you and the girls had fun in the garden!
Oh how I love that Mary Lennox feeling. And I don’t get it here in SoCal, really, the price we pay for not having a proper winter. No snowfall and leaf litter to hide the green shoots.
Lovely post!
i knew you would understand the Mary Lennox feeling, Lissa. Well I’ve been jealous of all your flowers when we were buried under snow and snow and more snow. I guess there is no perfect place this side of Eden.
I have to confess that as a native Texan I have been falling in love with this whole phenomenon of four seasons that hitherto I’d only known about from books. I still don’t exactly like February but I do like the way March and April feel following after it and I suppose they wouldn’t feel that way if it weren’t for February’s brutishness.