Put Your Hands Where I Can See Them

Graham invited Joe over for the Fourth! We had some more bubble fun, some trike fun, some chalk fun, and some marker and stamp fun with a small roll of craft paper attached to a board mounted to a wall in the garage. This poster is describing it in such laborious detail because she thought it was sort of cool; Ted agreed but thought the coolest part about it was that it was mounted in the garage. He is perhaps correct as you can see what became of Joe's hands. These pictures were taken when Joe was asked to hold his hands up--as in for the camera. Joe made like the cops were after him for contraband fireworks or something ("Hands! Hands! Let me see the hands!").

Home Ec Lessons

Tomorrow, Baby Bird will be 10 weeks old. Who can believe it? Julie has just two more weeks of leave which makes her blue when she thinks about it so for now, she's not! But she figured she should at least see what work-appropriate clothes she had that fit so this morning, while the Boys were at Whole Foods, the Birds evaluated Julie's wardrobe. We unpacked some skirts that Julie had tucked away in the wake of nursing Joe. Here, Julie is explaining to Clara how everything looks better once it's been ironed. Doesn't she look like she's taking it all in and thinking, "Pearls. You're givin' me pearls, Mama Bird."? They also had a lengthy discussion about a skirt that Julie purchased when the peasant look was all the rage (a rage of which Julie was not such a fan) and the extent to which it was maybe too peasant-y after all? Or no? They decided no, and that it might look nice with namesake Grandma Jane's turquoise earrings. Lest our loyal readers think that Clara is the only one to get such lessons, you should all know that while Julie did not ask Joe's opinion on the peasant-iness of a skirt when he was Clara's age, he was instructed in the finer points of ironing and all about sorting laundry (Julie has done a lot of laundry with Joe or Clara in the Moby). Life skills or, pearls.

Bird Sleeps Until 6:06am!

Look at her! Now it must be admitted that Baby Bird is a champion sleeper and has, for a while now, been waking up only once at night and it's so early in the morning, you can't even call it night--like 4 or 5 am! Usually it's because she has to poop, and then she's up so you know, might as well eat. She's been going down around 7:30pm, and sometimes, she drifts right off, and other times, she just sort of lays there and presumably sorts through her copious thoughts until 8pm or so and then she drifts off. So we're pretty lucky. Still, we get up at 6am in the Ekkers household and 4am isn't 6am. But this morning! This morning, Baby Bird woke up, and was making her I-have-to-poop! squawks, which Julie has learned to not ignore, but you know, listen to for a bit. So there we were, squawking and listening when the next thing you knew, it was 6:06am! Wow. She fell back asleep. Sleep training is but weeks away and this only makes us more confident of that timeline.

Super Bubble Saturday

And then it was Saturday! Marco was having a party! Whee! We got all dressed up! The boys were in festive yet subtle Fourth of July-ish wear and the Birds were in complimentary navy blue and pink outfits. Off we went. Rang the doorbell. No answer. Checked around back. No Marco about. Fans, the party is two weeks from today. Crap. When we arrived back at Yellow House, Joe said, "No Yellow House." What to do to lift flagging spirits? Bubble fun, as Miss Tammy of Joe's infant room at KinderCare used to say. We'd broken out the bubble gun this morning and dubbed bubbles stuck together "super bubbles." The super bubble well was not yet dry. Super bubbles are the best. By this evening, Ted had taught Joe how to operate the bubble gun and Joe shot bubbles until we ran out of bubble juice. Then we had broom fun (because we--the mean parents--didn't want to have hose and water everywhere fun).

Friday Night Fun

The weather was just perfect on Friday so the evening found us all outside in the backyard. Ted and Joe had been weeding and watering, and Julie and Clara joined them with a blanket in tow once Clara was done nursing. Joe and Julie had fun wrestling, though Julie was later pretty wiped out by Joe's thrashing. After defeating her in every bout, Joe held Clara's hand and then her foot. He likes to take Clara's hand and say "Walking, walking, walking." Right about now, Fans, is when all of you are thinking, "Oh that is too sweet!" As you think that, you should know Joe has a death grip on that little hand. Toddlers. . .