"i love u"

"i love u", originally uploaded by kelanew.

hazel is cooing at me from her post next to me on the floor. she has a way of getting my attention, so i won't write the blog post i was planning just now. in fact, i have one half-written that is already a month old! hazel, my dear one, some day when you bemoan the fact that i wrote more about eva when she was a baby than i did about your babyhood... take solace in knowing that often enough, i put the computer down so i could just stare at your cute face, or so i could do as i'm doing right now, and watch you roll back and forth from stomach to back, holding your head up high, grinning at your own accomplishments.

photo: eva wrote this card for me. in her words, "it says 'i love you', because i love you mama, but i wrote two Us but one looks like a V but that's okay." she did it all on her own, without the usual asking how to spell the words or how to make the letters. (for the record, "love" just happens to be one of the words she can spell/read.) we were shopping for some clothes for hazel a month ago, and she said "let's get this shirt that says 'love' on it." that's how i know she can spell it. i think that came from the valentine's day project. :)

okay, now that hazel has "crawled" several feet away from me by inching forward on her belly, i'm going for real. she's too much, that one. oh, love, indeed.

clothing swap

swimmer, originally uploaded by kelanew.

when you have two girls in a family (or maybe two boys? though i know nothing about that...) you expect that eventually there will be sharing of clothing. this can be a good or bad thing (or so i hear), depending, but it worked out well for me. growing up with two sisters and a stylish mom, i thought of it as a convenient extension of my own wardrobe.

well, first thing this morning, we had dueling bed... "issues". eva had an accident, and before i had the opportunity to do anything about that, hazel promptly projectile vomited across a broad swath of the dry side of the bed. well, good morning, indeed! no stranger to such things, i tend to have a stack of spare blankets, towels, waterproof pads, and fresh pajamas next to the bed so i don't have to go running downstairs in the middle of the night. so, i replaced or covered bedding as needed and swapped out the jammies of the kidlings... however, i had nothing dry for hazel, not even a swaddling blanket, so i put one of eva's pj tops on her.

i expected this 18 mo sized shirt (that eva still wears!) to drown poor hazel, but in fact, it fit her pretty well. the sleeves had to be rolled up, but the rest was fine. in fact, she's still wearing it now. so, it seems they might be raiding each others' closets sooner than i would have thought!

i'm going to blame the clothing swap for today's brilliant mothering moment: as we were leaving eva's school after having dropped her off, i put hazel back into the car. i felt low bloodsugar due to my slightly late lunch (my nursing body is rigidly tied to the clock with respect to caloric intake, i swear!) and i was also a bit preoccupied, which is my excuse for the fact that ignored the quiet little voice in the back of my head that said "hmm, something is amiss."

i pulled into the driveway at home 12 minutes later and opened the rear door to find hazel wasn't in her carseat. what, what?! oh... she's in eva's seat. eva's *foreward facing* seat! hmm, that's why my brain was trying to tell me, hey, those shoulder straps look a bit high...

seriously. some days i think i need supervision... and no, just because your child is in an 18 month sized shirt that your preschooler can still wear does *not* mean she should be forward facing in the car. eek.