Home (almost) Alone

Aug. 4-6

Bethany left Livi at home with me on Friday. We had tons of fun.

Olivia, without any prompting from daddy, tried to have her first climbing experience up the staircase. Mom was none too happy when she found out. I don't blame her considering the staircase is now fair game to Livi and we'll have to run that way every time we see Livi crawl out of visual range in that direction.

Livi continues to crown "white paper objects" as her #1 pick of toys - be it baby wipes, Kleenex, tiolet paper, junk mail, dishcloths - the kid can play with the stuff forever. Toilet paper doesn't hold up well against her brute strength as you can witness in the pictures. The dishcloth fares better and she takes it along when she can. It's funny to see it get snagged under her foot as she crawls and she has to figure out why she keeps stopping.

The little explorer is discovering new places in the house. Up under the high chair she hung out for a while, then tried to eat scraps of food that she'd left on the floor from previous feedings. Note to self: clean floor after every feeding.

A lot of my family has the flying gene, but Livi might not have inherited it. My own piloting experience was with one cardboard airplane, Lucie Annica, that I made for Kristina, Bethany's goddaughter, a while ago. I tried to put Livi in a shoebox and fly her around thinking she'd be as thrilled as Kristina was.......I didn't get one smile, just a perplexed look and a baby bolting (as fast as babies can bolt) from the box after the box landed and the safety belt light went off.

Saturday was sleep in day.....for daddy. Mommy and daddy were sleeping soundly when the baby alarm woke us up. It's an unspoken rule that whoever is making the most movement in bed usually gets up, because there's no faking that you're asleep. Well, I made some ruckus to get the hot covers off me, but that didn't stop me from rolling over to go back to sleep. Mommy finally got up, letting sleeping bear daddy stay in bed. We laughed about it later when I told mommy I was waiting and hoping she'd get Livi. We love you honey - it's just that your alarm goes off a little early on Saturdays.

We all spent the day Saturday relaxing. We went into town, dropped mommy at work, and went to Target, where Livi got all kinds of compliments. (Now I'm not one of those parents who thinks there child is perfect and the best thing since sliced bread - but Livi's close:) But seriously, a lot of people did comment on Livi's blue eyes. I found out for the first time that strangers with kids really do just stop and talk to each other about their kids and so on. This is a very interesting social phenomenon. We stayed out late, shopping at Michael's, where we ran into little Luke (boyfriend number "I lost count"), brother Kade and parents Angela and Steve. I took Olivia around and we ended up in the fake flower section where Livi ran her fingers through all the muli-colored plants.

Sunday, Livi stayed home from church. She'd had a little coughing fit and a sniffly nose. Dad stayed at home with her and we played in the living room until mommy got home. We had another shopping trip, my first to the new Dawsonville Wal-Mart, where mom took Livi around and I geeked out in the electronics section.

Mommy bought more scrapbooking stuff. She actually set up shop in the fine dining room. She's still got the savvy shopping chops - she bought a matching table cloth for the dining room table, to protect it from the industrial work she'll be doing with all the cutting, gluing, measuring, color-coordinating, and hair pulling with the scrapbooks. More power to you sister. I'll just do the photos. Josh