We eat.

What else you's guys gots? Steak? Who gotta steak? Gimme it.

Don't mind the rind.

These spoon thingy are pretty nifty! Who knew?

Sibs.

I've been an awful blogger lately. Probably a good thing. I think that it signals an arrival to our rhythm. We have figured out a working-ish scheduley fly by the seat of ones pants sort of thing.

The kids are awesome. Luke hit puberty. I mean, not really......but he seems so much taller, so much more like a boy than a pre-schooler of late. His face is emerging ~ not his baby face but his boy face. Not sure what exactly it is, just a general era of big boyness with the retention of his sweet spirit along the way. He suddenly has all of these memories, these observations, these quirky little boy things that I just find so endearing. He has the soul of a boy trapped within the maelstrom of a very, very active body.

Jules is a girl, all of the sudden. She has totally differentiated ~ babies are pretty much all the same, but for how we clothe them. Recently my girl seems to have clear differences. Her penchant for relationship and understanding nuances (who is who's sibling amongst playgroup, who is who's daughter/sister/brother etc) all are just leaps and bounds ahead of where Luke was at this age. She knows all of her friends at school by first and last name, and notices things about her friends that I can't even believe (aka Madison has earrings but Ava does not, but Ava wears sparkly tights and has pigtails sort of details, which she loves to relate upon pick up from school). We have suddenly started doing "girlfriend" things together ~ the other morning she wanted to help me get dressed up to go out, yesterday just she and I went shopping for the kids Christmas outfits. I'm so not a girly girl ~ mascara signals a big going out event in my life. So Julia and I walked through the "getting ready" process together the other day ~ we washed our faces together, put on moisturizer, she brushed her hair, she put on "lips sticks" (aka chap stick), and she delighted in her special time with Mama. She has this new habit of asking me (whenever I am emotional, as I find myself being a lot ~ I'm acutely aware lately of how my cup runneth over ~ ) she asks me "Mama, are you happy or sad?" when I get emotional about these kids of mine. My answer is generally "Oh Jules, I am so very happy".....and then she throws her arms around me and proclaims "Oh Mama, we are going to be girlfriends FOREVER!" with a huge happy sigh. I love her. I still can't believe that I get to be the mother to a little girl. I so hope that we do, in fact, remain girlfriends forever.

Jake. The Snake. Jake has pretty much done everything but put up billboards on 95 to signal that he was ready to start solids. Short of hunting and killing and eating a deer, he pretty much got the point across that he was ready to eat something other than just nursing. I was hell bent on ignoring his signals, until I realized that I was quite honestly sick of sitting half naked at dinner every night nursing the little man while I tried to shovel food into my own mouth. Out came the highchair. I cut up some bananas, and let him go to town. He loved them. He then loved gnawing on a cantaloupe rind.....and he loves oatmeal mixed with breast milk, and carrots, and sweet potatoes......in fact, my fat toothless old man baby seems to adore gnawing on anything that I put before him. So, about a week before he turns 6 months old, we have embarked on solids. He is also......moving. I won't really call it crawling......but he is pretty much mobile. He flops and planks and scoots and turns and wiggles and rolls and army crawls to wherever he wants to go. We are brushing up on our infant CPR and sweep and clear maneuvers as a result.

We had brunch with old friends today ~ one of these friends had their first little girl 2 days after I had Jake. I went through clothes yesterday to hand over my baby girl clothes to my friend and her sweet daughter Mia. I ended up weeping in the basement. NOT because I want another baby, but because going through the boxes of baby girl clothing made me miss my baby Jules. I can picture her in the darling little dresses and hats and whatnot as though she was just in them yesterday. It is hard ~ NOT the not having any more babies thing ( I'm happy about that), just the physical acknowledgement of looking at these baby clothes, and seeing clear physical proof that my daughter is never going to be a baby again. I mean, I feel like an idiot even writing that, it is so obvious........and I adore who she is and what she was, but man, this all just goes much, much too quickly.

We are preparing for Thanksgiving. We are local this year, going to Mom and Dad's. We are having fun with friends, and trying to organize, and party planning, party attending, and busy busy to the max. The trees have dropped most of their leaves. The coats are going on every morning. The nights are dark by dinnertime. The fireplace is lit daily. Things are getting baked, and dinners cooking in the crock pot, and while we treasure every day that we are squeaking in at the playground with friends, we recognize that they are coming to a chilly end.

It's Eagles time. Go Birds. Happy Sunday, all.