Four Items of Business

E loves detective stories.  Nate the Great.  Encyclopedia Brown.  Things like that.  Recently she heard about a crime in the neighborhood from some school friends (I admit I am a little suspicious as to whether it actually happened).  She drew up a "Wanted" poster that night.  It said:

"Wanted: Thief.  Unknown Name. Unknown Looks."

She drew a picture of a bandit below.

She also recently found a small plastic fork.  She attached it to a drawing of a road and labeled it:

"A fork in the road."

That girl definitely takes after her father when it comes to humor.

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M has begun drawing presents for everyone.  After craft time I always find scraps of paper left on my pillow, hung to the door, or waiting on my desk.  With both her and E in the craft production phase I am going to need a warehouse for all of their treasures.  I have taken to hiding some of them in the bottom of the trash can.  It is sad when it happens, but I don't know what else to do????  M signs all her pictures (even the ones drawn directly onto the walls).  She used to sign them Mee.  Then I taught her how to draw a "g".  Now she signs them Mgg.  I don't know if I'm up to correcting her.  She's so proud.

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Lately, GQ likes to say the following:

"Mom, I love you."  Pause.  "I love both of you."

Does this mean he considers me a split personality?  That he loves both the cranky me and the nice me?

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Every night S gets a bottle.  Usually I nurse him before I give him the bottle.  Still, when it is 7:00 he somehow knows that the bottle is coming and he will barely put up with nursing.  He keeps looking around for that contraption that just flows with seemingly neverending milk.

He is also taking to sucking on his fist.  As a thumb-sucker myself, I hope it doesn't stick... but it is really cute.

January 1

Last night the wind began to blow. It woke me. Loud, pushing wind. Wind that moves the weather. That I could tell, even in the dead of night. And with the onslaught of this Winter Wind, all the beautiful warm days of December disappeared. Iowa knows it's January now. The season has arrived.

Now, I watch the wind continue to blow outside my window. It would not surprise me if a branch snapped in front of my eyes. The trees move like sea-coral, scraping the house as they are dragged forward by this grasping wind. Cold has come.

I am not excited for the cold, but it seems fitting that even the weather knows it is a new day, a new month, a new year.

Ring out wild bells. Ring out.

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Today, E was so excited to share Primary with M. (It was M's first day as a Sunbeam.) She took M into sharing time all by herself. She loves "Big Sister" moments, and made sure to tell her all the fun things that would make up for not having snacks like the nursery kids.

M was proud to help her sister too. When getting ready for Church, E could not find her scriptures... so off we went. No one quite believed M when she claimed she'd found them in the chapel, but there they were. Quite the hero.

Grant got lost after Church. Sometimes it can drive a peerson crazy that the Church is built in a "u" shape. Around and around we went, and he probably did too. When we finally found him, we asked: "Where were you?" He thought for a moment before saying, with a shrug: "I don't know." He didn't seem too worried.