Random Thoughts

You know these popcorn-glove Halloween party favors? That's what my feet look like right now. (Slightly less bumpy; shorter toes.)

I recently read that Niels Bohr's response to Einstein's famous "God does not play dice with the universe" quote was: "Stop telling God what to do." Ha.

Sam, upon being handed one of those travel toothbrushes (the kind that folds in half): "How do you deploy it?"

I spent two hours today untangling this thing ^. No one believed I could do it. It may be my greatest life accomplishment (to date). While I was working on it I kept hoping someone would ask me to do something else, so that I could reply, "I am doing a great work and I cannot come down." But no such luck.

Something that made me suddenly self-conscious the other day: gesturing with my hands in what seemed like a non-outlandish way, but as I happened to be wearing oven mitts at the time, the ridiculousness of it seemed suddenly rather prominent.

Goodnight.

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Junie-bird at 2

Typical Junie-look. Kind of knowing and bashful at the same time.

Oh, Junie. How do I describe this girl? I love looking back over the last two years and seeing what baby-traits have carried through. It's one of my favorite things about watching babies grow up: looking backward, you can see the person-traits emerging in the baby, but looking forward, you can't pick out WHO this stranger might turn out to be. We still don't know, really. Sam and I look at her and shake our heads and say she's a mystery wrapped in a conundrum wrapped in an enigma (or whatever that Winston Churchill quote is---we never get it right when we say it, either). She's just some of . . . everything!

Party hat (at Sam's office)

Also at Sam's office. Coloring underneath the box robot. She exhibited great fearlessness when the robot, later, came crashing down nearly on top of her. One of Sam's coworkers leaped heroically to the rescue, holding the robot up like someone lifting a Volkswagon off a trapped child. Junie allowed herself a few blinks and show-sniffles before forgetting about it and getting, unruffled, back to coloring.

She is also fearless on the playground, (boldly?) going where no baby has gone before. (Nor SHOULD go. I have to keep hauling her down from rock-climbing walls, larger-than-baby-size-holes, and other hazards.)

Here she is looking shyly pleased as everyone claps for her candle-blowing-out abilities. I love this look.

More playground-climbing. Unaware of being watched. Singing some secret (only in meaning---the volume of the singing definitely does NOT say "secret") song of her own.

She wants to do everything big people do. And succeeds at most of it. She balances here on this rope with great seriousness. (I THINK she is pleased with herself, but doesn't like to be too demonstrative about it.)

Seb is dressed as an astronaut. A little while later Junie showed up saying "Astronaut!" and wearing HER coat and boots. (She had a backpack on too, before this.)

She really does love her brothers. Often in the morning she will come in sleepily to cuddle with us in bed. Then she'll wiggle away saying, "Cuddle Malachi?" She goes and climbs into his bunk bed and snuggles in with him (waking him up if she has to).

I still see calm and serenity in her, but her serenity often manifests as a sort of unruffled determination, or maybe calculation . . .  more like, "Hmm. And now what will I do NEXT . . . ?"

I can't wait to see who she is in another year! Love you, Junie-bird!

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Easter

I think Easter is my favorite holiday. It's my favorite time of year and I just love everything about it. This year was especially good for some reason. The weather was perfect, and we had lots of time to celebrate/study Holy Week as a family, and we tried some new egg-dyeing techniques, and my friend Beth made me a bunny bracelet . . . it was just a lovely week.

Egg artists at work

Onion-skin dyed eggs

We tried a couple different negative-space effects (can't think of the real term?)---white crayon (top) and  clear nail polish (below). It was really fun to see how they all turned out.

The whole collection

Everyone looked so cute. I love this picture of my happy, grown-up Abraham.

Thoughtful Junie

My gargantuan belly seems to be the focal point of this picture. Lovely. Speaking of which, how is it possible that there are still people on this earth who aren't aware that the ONLY comment you should ever make to a pregnant woman about her appearance is, "You look wonderful!"?

Easter Egg hunts provide the best picture opportunities. There's something so cute about kids hunting for eggs! I think we broke fully 50% of them during this hunt, but luckily we can eat lots of them at a time (we like deviled eggs and egg salad!) so they didn't end up going to waste.

Little pink runner

This tiny girl was so sweet and serious about her first (real) Easter Egg hunt. She carried her basket around very carefully, but not carefully enough to keep her one egg from falling out of it every minute or so. We'd call her over to where the egg had fallen, and she'd happily "find" it again and put it back in her basket.

These boys are so handsome!

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