Monarchs

I'm desperately trying to hide from reality right now so here's a series of butterfly pictures. Bury yourself in them and you might forget that kindergarten is still several years away and the 24 lb dead weight still can't walk. It's not funny. Find yourself a 24 lb bowling ball, paint a smiley face on it with 2 chipped teeth, sling it over your right hip, and that's what it feels like to carry Keira. Then, carry smiling bowling ball up and down two flights of stairs, lift it in and out of the crib, high chair, and up and down off the floor 3,947 times per day. Then, just for kicks, without putting down the bowling ball, add a 24 lb string bean to your left hip and repeat said exercises. And while you're busy walking in my shoes, you can find out what my grocery store trips are like by attaching a tornado siren to your cart. But, I think I got a little off topic here.

Back to the butterflies. These were two separate monarch butterflies that emerged about an hour apart. I'll put the pictures in order of stages to show how it goes. Remember you're interested because you're trying to forget about the laundry and vacuuming. Oh, and ignore the people walking into my pictures.

Happy Birthday Keira! (a week late)

Last week we were galavanting around Paris, pretending we didn't have any children, and especially ignoring the fact that one of them was having a birthday we were missing. So we gave her her birthday dolly when we got home, and finally got around to celebrating yesterday.

As far as development goes, she's walking around furniture and standing on her own momentarily before making a semi-controlled plop to her bottom. She can walk behind her walker push toy thing, and almost the doll stroller (it rolls a little faster). She's started in on sentences this week, "Ah wa Mama" (I want Mommy) and "Ah wa dat" (I want that). I can't imagine who in our household she might have learned this from. Some might suggest it's the one body that speaks English and talks about 'I' ALL the time. But we won't mention any names. Keira's other words are too numerous to list. Though 'owie' and 'awa' (agua/water = beverage) are probably her favorites. We passed the milk refridgerators at the supermarket and she proudly announced to everyone who would listen, "Awa... Awa... Awa!" I tried to explain that that was milk, not water, while I marched on past. We came back a few minutes later to pick up the cream that I had forgotten and she repeated her announcement. I guess "leche" is a little harder to say.

Yesterday before breakfast she played for a few minutes and then began to fuss. When I picked her up, she said rather emphatically, "Ah bee." I could tell she knew what she was saying, so I racked my brain to figure out what "Ah bee" could possibly mean. Ah ha! It came to me. "Hambre", Spanish for hungry. Funny she might pick up a word like that. Ha.

Here are a few fuzzy pictures... we should have used the flash.