Week 5: January 26-February 1

January 26
The first full orange I've given her to peel. Why didn't I do this sooner?

January 27 

The only (clear) picture I took due to the hubbub of my parents coming to visit.

January 28  

As I said, my parents came for a visit to see the new baby. My brother came up to see us all, too. I got out the bean bin I made for my daughter. My dad, brother and daughter had so much fun playing with the beans. They looked for the buttons and their buried hands. They stirred them around. They talked about the buttons going out to dinner (my daughter's idea, of course). The buttons were worms, you see, swimming in a sea of beans. My brother asked my daughter what are the worms going to eat? She thought about it but said she didn't know. "Beans!" he said. We all had a good laugh. My daughter chuckled along, too. You know, because everyone else was.

January 29

A lot of babywearing going on over here. It's been helpful to start putting my son in a sling after a good feeding to get a nap. My daughter remembered that short months ago, she was in a sling. (I wore her in this sling -- Boba -- on my back when I was 6 months pregnant and felt comfortable.) She says she wants to be a monkey and go in the sling. This is toddler speak for back carry. I'm waiting for the day I have the both of them in slings....maybe it'll make it into Mamatography.....

January 30  

Snowdrops! In January! We saw these just before we entered the house after an awesome investigatory walk to see what the noise was from outside. (Turned out it was tree trimmers, who weren't particularly neighborly and were done making noise, turning a giant dead tree into mulch. Oh, and she insisted on wearing these red cowboy boots (completely wrong for the task). I let her without much fuss after telling her it was cold. After a while she said randomly when walking, "I feel happy. I love my red boots sooo much. Ruuuuuuuunnn!!!" Then she took off running in those ridiculous "walking shoes" for half a block.

January 31 

Ummm......I forgot to get out the camera. I blame my parents. : )

I'm donating this picture to the next day's space because our first finger painting experience was absolutely the coolest. 

February 1

I don't know why it's taken so long to set up finger painting, but we certainly did enjoy this! These are favorites just because of the sheer joy and wonder that so naturally shapes her expression. 

There's the "Oh my goodness, a surprise, what experience could possibly await me, I love painting, let me get to it, overwhelmed" grimace....

 The "oh my goodness this is on my fingers, cold, wet, squishy....!!!!"

 The "I get to paint! WITH MY HANDS!!!!!"

 The completely serious, focused face of a toddler sticking her hand in goopy, gooey paint for the first time, slowly, slowly....