Cold Coffee

• Make a fresh cup of coffee.
• Nature calls before taking that first sip, head for the bathroom.
• Notice trash can in bathroom almost overflowing.
• Finish up and take bathroom trash out.
• On the way, grab stray baby diapers and sippy cup sitting on dresser from last night.
• Add diapers to bathroom trash, drop sippy cup off in the kitchen sink and take trash outside.
• Pop in a DVD for Max.
• Scoop Brooke up off of the floor and plop her into high chair for breakfast.
• Take a sip of cold coffee.
• Make cereal for Brooke.
• Play tug of war with Brooke over spoon while feeding-get up to get her a spoon of her own to hold and pop coffee back into micrwave oven on the way back.
• Continue feeding Brooke when Max yells, "MOM!"
• Look over to see Lauren has tipped over a tall, potted plant and most of the soil is now on the floor.
• Re-pack the potting soil, noting it's dryness.
• Put plant outside on front porch for watering, bring two others with it.
• Water houseplants and get distracted, continuing to water a few of the porch plants when Max yells, "MOM!"
• Return to the dog trying to get at the remainder of the baby food.
• Try to continue feeding Brooke, who is no longer interested.
• Remove her from high chair and insert Lauren in her place.
• Retrieve cold coffee from microwave oven, which has been beeping.
• Take two slugs of cold coffee and stick it back into the microwave.
• Get a bottle of formula for Brooke, who is complaining loudly, and plop her into a carseat with the bottle propped up with blankets.
• Attempt to feed Lauren...Yes!!...She is hungry and eating well.
• Interupt Lauren's breakfast to get Max a cup of milk.
• Grab a cracker for Lauren to keep her happy while I get the milk.
• Look for Max, then hear him yell, "MOM!" from the other room.
• Max is now pooping. "Do you need me to wipe you?" "No." "Why did you call me in here?" "I love you." "I love you too Max...call me when you're done." "Okay."
• Return to feeding Lauren, sit down, when Max yells "MOM!" "I'm done!"
• Return to Max, wipe his bum and wash my hands.
• Return to feeding Lauren, who is no longer interested.
• Put her on the floor to play.
• Give Max his cup of milk.
• Get my coffee out of the microwave...it's cold.
• Grab a couple of ice cubes and try for iced cofee instead.

Brookenstein

The only way I can think of to describe Brooke's smiles, is a quote from a movie...

"She has 600 different smiles. They can light up your life. They can make you laugh out loud, just like that."

She laughs and smiles quickly and readily, which encourages people to respond to her wherever we go.

When you pick her up, you have to be careful not to do it too quickly, as the momentum can almost make you launch her airborne, as she feels so light. In actuality, she is not. She is in between the 75th and 90th percentiles for her height and weight. Nevertheless, she is quite compact and muscular. She has washboard abs and it's easy to misjudge her size. She will cling to you like a spider monkey, either burying her face in your neck or confidently facing outward, for a bird's eye view.

She has been standing since she could sit. When we first started to pull her into a sitting position, she immediately crunched her tummy muscles and locked her little legs in place, amazing us all. She has been standing ever since. She crawled the same day that she sat up on her own with support and she pulled herself up into a standing position only 17 days later. All this happened during her 6th month of life. We are expecting her to walk any day now, as she frequently stands without support.

It's hard to get a photograph of her that isn't blurry. She is always in motion. It's hard to feed her, dress her, bathe her and change her diaper...all because she won't hold still. When I put her into her Jumperoo, she starts "jumping" before I can even lower her into it.

Even though she often gets "punked" by Lauren, she has learned to get a few licks in from time to time, as I have caught her flapping her arms on Lauren, in effect beating on her.

Brooke loves to eat the dog's dry kibble food and we must pick it up from the floor often. She is our daddy's girl and just melts at the sight of him. She is cuddly and affectionate when she is in the mood, otherwise, don't restrain her! She will hoot and hollar until you break her restraints.

Brooke is active, social and independent. She is an absolute joy!

Should I Worry?

So Max and I are sitting around, just hanging out together, while the babies are asleep. He is lounging on the sofa, playing games on my iphone and I am sitting on the floor, watching the movie, "Sex and the City."

Max is completely involved in his games and not really paying attention to the movie...or so I think. A scene comes on where Samantha is fixing sushi for her boyfriend and then lays down, naked, arranging the sushi on herself, in anticipation of his homecoming for Valentines day. Anyway, Max happens to look up and asks "what is she doing?" I reply, "she's making sushi and then she put in her naked self as a joke." Then Max says, "I wish I could have shooshi on me when I'm naked too." Should I worry?