melted smoosh

dear jellybean, time is such a tricky thing. it seems impossible that it has already been a full month since you arrived, and equally impossible that you have grown and changed so much in only a month. compared to your newborn self, you are staying awake for much longer stretches and now usually prefer to nap in your own bassinet (although you often take at least one nap in the bouncer, or while being held!). you usually go 4 hours between feeds at night, although on a few lucky occasions you've given me a 5 hour and once even a 6 hour stretch! then sometimes you have "noisy nights" where you'll grunt and squeak in your sleep just enough to keep me awake. you generally don't fuss otherwise, so i'll take it!  you have a very Teutonic temperament: generally calm and unperturbed, with a facial expression that is perpetually unimpressed. we often joke that you are silently judging us all.  in the past week, you've started to smile at us, but it's so fleeti...

this year, on the feast of St. Nicholas, we received the best gift of all! our sweet Elizabeth Rose was born at 11:45 PM on December 6, just fifteen minutes shy of her due date, weighing 7 lb 2 oz and measuring 19 1/2 inches long. after Cecilia's whirlwind birth on the sidewalk, we were all excited and a bit anxious to find out exactly how Elizabeth would decide to enter the world. in fact, i had discussed scheduling an elective induction for 39-40 weeks with my OB just to have a little more control over the situation. and my amazing family scheduled themselves to take turns coming to stay with us so there would always be an extra set of hands to help with the older girls, with Kira arriving first, a week before my due date.  historically i've always gone past my due date (10 days over with Greta and 3 with Cecilia), but they say the third baby is the wild card. the day before Kira arrived, i had my routine 39 week appointment. my OB said he didn't think labor was going to...

 somehow i feel like i'll be writing these posts for the next ten years -- i'm obviously biased, as her mother, but Cecilia is just such a hilarious little person and i love these insights into how her brain works!  the girls have been playing with a cane and crutches we have down in the basement. one day, Cecilia carefully examined the cane (which has a large foam grip on the handle), and announced: "a cane is like a unicycle without pedals!" (she's not wrong!) displaying the anklet she made (one of the amazing doctors in my practice gave the girls this jewelry kit!) "Mom! i can say the Plegible Legiance!" "Mommy, i'm the grown up and you're the kid, so you have to listen to what i say. and what i say is that we have to get ice cream." the girls working together to build a blanket fort, following specific instructions from their Auntie Krista (to help with one of her college assignments!) smelling a candle that had been in a box in the...

 i just love words. big ones, small ones, long ones, short ones; words that sound like what they mean and ones that sound exactly opposite (like pulchritude). i especially love words that succinctly describe a complex concept. for years, i've jotted down words that struck my fancy, and thanks to the magic of Canva's free design software , i bring you the first batch of words to enrich your day!  Caravaggio's brush deftly portrays the glaucous grapes and shiny apples. With an avuncular grin, he produced a quarter from behind her ear.  Their bibulous laughter floated down from the rooftop bar. The fricative sound of the sprinkler, gentle song of the windchimes, and occasional whine of a mosquito lulled her into a summer afternoon trance. That otiose tradition tradition dates back to the fifteenth century. The panegyric strained the limits of the audience's attention.  The stern faces of the caryatids gazed out over the piazza. linking up with Rosie here !