Oh dear...

...And we were doing so well at this blog thing. Now we've gone and neglected it, dear readers, and it's likely you, like our hummingbirds, have already migrated to some other family blog. Well OK, the hummingbirds may have migrated to another feeder since we neglected that too, but you get my point.

I'll admit I was suffering from the "there's just too much to write so I'll do it tomorrow" procrastination. Joe's trip to Chicago, our trip to Wisconsin, then back to Chicago for Jess and Ben's wedding (so lovely!), then my parents' visit to our home for 5 days. Then Halloween, and then just daily fun and mayhem mixed in between all that. To compensate, I'll throw a few pictures your way...

Calla's party dress for the wedding. It's still hanging in her closet, and she occasionally asks to wear it. I don't know what other occasion we'll have to wear it before she gets too big, so on some random Thursday, I may just have to acquiesce.


Calla at the wedding rehearsal, but it's really emblematic of a pose she struck several times during the week-and-a-half of family fun. She'd run and run and run.... and then collapse. Once, falling asleep during her pre-bedtime diaper change, and then another time, literally falling asleep at the dinner table. Family - gotta love 'em, but sometimes, they can be exhausting, you know?

It was a simply lovely wedding, and fabulous to spend time with so many different parts of our family. Calla and cousin Julia hit it off immediately, once again. It will be fun to watch these two become better cousin-friends as they get older.

Since all the excitement, however, we've gone back to daily life, made all the more exciting by an increasingly independent and spirited two-year-old. So now for a few random anecdotes...

Dinner one night last week was pork tenderloin, made by Joe and the slow cooker. Upon seeing the shredded pork ready for her eating, Calla exclaimed "Hello, chicken! What you doing on my plate?" And then proceeded to eat it up. Perhaps you have to be her parents to find that as funny as we did.

"I need to do it!" is an oft-repeated phrase. While I value her independence and know this is a crucial developmental stage, in practice, it can be tiring and time-consuming. Getting dressed, brushing teeth, pouring cereal, getting into the car seat all take three times as long now and I never quite budget my morning schedule well enough to allow for all the "I can do it!" moments.

On the other hand, I am so pleased to report that she is no longer deathly afraid of her little potty. On the contrary, this now figures prominently into an extensive"I need to do it" routine. Typical hygiene process: Announces she needs to use the potty and heads upstairs, regardless if anyone actually heard the announcement. Pulls herself on to the upstairs toilet to turn on the bathroom light. Gets down, pulls down her pants and takes off her own diaper. Hands wet diaper off to mom, or leaves sitting out in some prominent place if mom is not around. Sits on the potty for about 1.5 seconds, producing no output. Stands up, uses way too much toilet paper to wipe down the potty she didn't just use. Flushes paper in toilet, then rechecks to make sure it worked. At this point, pants are around her ankles, no diaper. Uses potty as step stool to begin tooth brushing process, for some reason. Then washes hands.

If no parent was around by this point, we're usually alerted to her routine by the loud, flood-stage water coming from upstairs. Cue fight with Mom about need to put on a new diaper. Cue fight with Mom about need to turn off water in sink. Then Mom thoughtlessly turns off bathroom light on her own, triggering a third tantrum. Repeat an hour later when diaper is wet again.

So all in all, typical two-year-old stuff. Calla's getting increasingly interested in this new baby we keep talking about, still occasionally referencing the baby in her tummy and the baby in daddy's tummy in addition to the one occupying a prominent place in my belly. She's agreed that the baby can sleep in her old crib, we've covered what little babies eat when they're hungry ("special milk") and have now moved on to what we can sing to the baby when we hold her.

Even with all that discussion, I'm sure Calla has no idea what's in store. Frankly, I'm not entirely sure I do either. Regardless, Baby Girl is on her way in about two weeks, more or less. I'd like to commit to another blog post before then, but let's be honest- our recent track record on updates isn't exactly promising. So, we'll post the news here, but likely not much before then.

Stay tuned... more excitement to come!