Pictures, Mental and Otherwise

So I've been behind on showing the pictures. My excuses involve the massive sinus headache I've been living with for oh, say, the last week, along with the fact that the latest season of the Sopranos just came out on DVD. I still have the headache, and there are still Sopranos episodes waiting for me, but I love y'all, so I'm taking the time to put up some pictures.

First, though, I have to share a little scene from today that made my day, and if you have a heart in your body will at least hopefully ignite a spark of joy. The girls and I were out to lunch with our friends at Panera. I reached for the piece of baguette on my tray and started tearing a chunk of crust off for Sophie to gnaw on, like I've done a few times before. Sophie loves holding her own piece of grown-up food and slobbering it to bits. It is incredibly cute watching her grab it with her fat little hands and pass it from one hand to the other, put it in her mouth, take it out and examine it, then put it back in, then take it back out and hold it out for me to examine, smile and nod. But that's not the best part.

As I reached for the bread on the tray, and Sophie in her high chair watched, she started vibrating with excitement. She knew she was getting that bit of crust and could.not.wait. Her eyes spread wide and she grabbed my arm and tried to pull the entire baguette to her slimy open mouth. This was the kind of moment that in any average day, when it's just me and the girls, I would have noted with a little smile in passing and moved on to helping Julie with her lunch or eating my own without thinking much of it. But that's not the best part.

In the brief moment as I picked up the bread and I started to notice Sophie's excitement, I heard a gasp from the other side of the table and noticed my friend J, (also a stay-at-home mom of girls the same age - our lives our so similar, it's spooky) who was smiling and laughing at our little scene as just described. It was such a priviledge to share that moment with her because it made me appreciate it so much more. What would have been a passing smirk became a full-on laughing fit and a moment of true appreciation for my baby and the million tiny ways in which she makes my life worth living, even when we are both suffering with colds and she is waking me up all night to tell me about it. That was the best part. Now, let's look at some photos.

Here's a better picture of Sophie in her dinosaur/dragon outfit. For no reason other than it's so cute.


Here are all the kids at Julie's cousin's birthday party last weekend. Aren't they cute?


Julie and Joe the next day playing with the party favor we brought home, or one of them - the birthday girl's mom was awfully generous and every kid got a typical bag of loot, plus one of these go fish games. Julie got HOURS of play with those fish over the weekend, and not just playing the game. She kept taking them out of the pond and arranging them in different ways, then putting them back "to bed" in the game and making up little stories about how they weren't feeling very well.


Julie brought home a shaker-thing from preschool on Monday. A thing created from two paper cups decorated in marker and stickers, then filled with bells and other noisy things before being taped together. This was fine, except that the markers weren't colorfast on the cups, and as she tends to do, Julie stuck it in her mouth with these results. No problem - it washed right off. Notice the pants? She loves the pants.



Sophie proudly showing off the spoon she confiscated from me during a lunchtime food-tasting ritual, as well as the two bottom teeth freshly poking through her gums.



And here she is showing off her newly-mastered pincer-grasp maneuver as she captures a piece of puffed rice.



A tired Julie eating dinner tonight. She is sporting a boo-boo under her eye where some kid at the mall play area hit her with a book the other day. Don't even get me started on how many things were wrong with THAT picture.