The Scuttlebutt

Today is Jax and Em's cousin Tyler's 3rd birthday, and thinking about that made me realize there are only 40 days left until someone else has a birthday.

Wow.  Less than six weeks and she'll be a year old.  We're pretty sure she'll be walking by then; she took a mini-step yesterday.  My friends say they feel like Em has been here forever, but I feel like it was only moments ago that we were spending those first few days alone with her in the hospital, then coming home and dealing with the transition to a family of four.  Now it's like she's always been here, but not in a take-her-for-granted kind of way.  More like a where-would-we-be-without-her kind of way, since I can still clearly remember days when it was just me and Jax.  And I thought I was so busy back then, too!  Little did I know.

So I have a question for all you baby mamas out there with a precious little baby girl at home.  Any big must-haves for her birthday?  She has pretty much everything she needs as far as basic toys because she has all of Jax's from this stage.  But I want to get the ultraspecial girl's first birthday present.  Please leave me a comment (or better yet, a link!) to some special ideas for  my special girl.

  

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Other odds and ends:

A funny story that will remind you that although J and E have grown into better friends, it's definitely not all 100% sunshine and rainbows over here.

Yesterday I went downstairs to get the laundry and heard a strange sound upstairs where the kids were just happily interacting.  Then I heard a kind of plaintive cry--not a shriek or wail--just kind of a Hey, Mom!  A little help here!  I just shouldn't do laundry so bad things won't ever happen.  Good solution.

So I ran upstairs to find the kids in the small hallway that connects our bedrooms, with our small (and light, I promise) console table pulled over and being held miraculously aloft by a ten-month-old who was trying to keep it from landing on her.  I don't know how she caught it or how she was holding it (although she's not a small girl).  I promise it wouldn't have crippled her but it was an unpleasant surprise.  I paused for a moment in amazement with a look of How did this happen?  She looked up at me like, Hell if I know.  Then I sprung into action and tried to figure out what happened.  Is the table unsafe?  Do we need to secure it to the wall?  I turned to my pretty verbal two-year-old.

Me:  Jax, what happened?  Did the table fall over or did you push it?

Jax:  I pushed it.

Me:  What?  Why?  Why would you do that? 

Jax:  (shrug)

Me:  Were you trying to hurt Em?

Jax: No.

Me:  Well, what were you trying to do?

Jax:  To squash her.

I promise we then had a long talk about how squashing would, in fact, hurt her and he seemed genuinely surprised.  Makes me a little nervous because I've been letting them play nicely alone while I empty the dishwasher, go get the laundry, start lunch.  I hate to have to monitor every moment but apparently my mature almost-two-and-a-half year old can't be trusted as implicitly as I thought.  So there you go.  They love each other, but apparently a little healthy "squashing" isn't out of the question.  Back to vigilance.  Sigh.

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My DIY Dump Truck was featured on Gluesticks, a great blog that I love and recommend you follow if you're crafty.  It's where I found the Wooden Peg Dolls that were such a hit.  Being featured is so exciting for me, especially since I never thought of myself as crafty.  I guess having kids can help you discover all new sides to yourself you didn't know were there! 

And lastly, I've been adding more photos to This Week's Photo Challenge post.  Don't forget to pop back over there and check them out and give me some feedback.

Hope you all have a wonderful St. Patrick's Day!  We're off for the second Cocktails and Crafts get together tonight!  I've got my Guinness!