Life with New Little Eloise

Our family is loving the addition of little Eloise. She adds so much sweetness to our home!

Since I'm not good at blogging, I thought I'd post my monthly emails I send to the Hart side once a month. Here goes:

How to catch a Lincoln
1. Lay blanket on floor
2. Place baby on blanket
3. Wait 2-5 seconds
4. A Lincoln will appear as close as humanly possible to baby without actually being on top of her

Lincoln loves to find dangerous stuff to plug in, such as my straightener or the hot glue gun. I'm running out of out-of-Lincoln's-reach places to store things.

He's really getting into playing pretend games with Lydia and is really good at imitating her. He usually contributes something to the games--a crash, a death, a sickness--where he gets to fall over frequently.  

Lincoln had a terrible gastrointestinal infection this month. You can see his ribs and spine on a normal day, but between the lack of appetite and then throwing up, he looked absolutely emaciated. His shoulder blades were so sharp looking I thought they would slice right through his skin. Glad that's over!

Lincoln is ready to potty train, but I'm just not pulled together enough to really hit it hard. He's constantly trying to change is own diapers and can't stand to have a barely wet diaper on or wear one he's passed gas in. (TMI?) So, I'm always chasing around a bare bummed boy. He recently not only peed on my bookshelf, but peed right on the little section of signed books I have. Moment of silence, please.

       Lincoln melts my heart with how sweet and soft he can be with Eloise. He loves to hold her, sing to her, kiss her (we finally got him not to do it on the lips!), wipe her with the burp cloth, give her his special blanket, and just be close to her.
      He also can show her affection much more...erm...enthusiastically. If she survives his love, she will be one tough cookie.
      Basically, if he actually believes us that something causes harm, he'll stop, but he doesn't think El's as wimpy as we make her out to be: Soft head? Pshh. We're working on not jumping over her or headbutting her or doing headstands right next to her...
       He loves to roll her over and sing, "Tummy time, tummy time."
       Recently, when I told him Eloise was swaddled and couldn't do anymore tummy time, he asked to hold her and then they attempted a ninja slide of the couch so he could put her in tummy time again.
       Good thing I have my own ninja reflexes!

Lydia 
(Not in age order; it's only fair to mix it up sometimes)

     "We have something at our house--it's Eloise!" Lydia is the mini mom. She loves to babysit Ella Bella while I do laundry or check the mail or just walk in the other room. 

      She also likes to mother Lincoln. "Don't talk with your mouth full--Lincoln CHEW!"

One of the highlights of her month was going to the doctor. She anticipated it for months and was beyond excited. She wanted to have another turn after Lincoln and Ella did their checkups.

She's really into peanut butter and jelly sandwiches without the jelly.

Brad's been working on phonics with her, so she (and her little copycat Lincoln) have been walking around the house saying, "Haa haa toilet! Baa baa chair!" Safe to say it's still a work in progress.

      She had a morbid fascination with death for week or so since we've been reading the illustrated Doctrine and Covenants before her bedtime. She kept double checking that certain people will die: "Is cousin so and so going to die someday? Will they go to the spirit world? Has Joseph Smith come back alive yet?"

      She was upset about dying herself because she didn't want to leave our house behind. I told her she wouldn't die until she was a very old grandma, so she didn't need to worry about it, and she really wouldn't care about her house at that point because of how amazing heaven is and because she'd have her family, but it wasn't until I finally promised she'd have an even nicer house in heaven that she was satisfied. 

Lydia went through a solid six months (January through June) without wearing pants once and with only wearing shorts a handful of times. We convinced her to wear some Anderson hand-me-down leggings once or twice in July and August and she only wore them because they came from Abigail and Saylor. We're still trying to acclimate her to pants before the weather gets cold and because her dresses and skirts are starting to get short, but progress is slow.

Lydia's always singing, here's some of what she sings:
"Oh No, Donald has a Farm"
"Twenty Bridges Falling Down"
"I have a dairy, the farmer in the dell"   
       She also makes up her own songs all the time. I've been pretty impressed by what she comes up with. She's creative and fun.

L:"Mom, I think the reason my tummy is sick is because of the wipers."
V: "What are wipers?"
L: "When I get something out of my nose and eat it."
V: "I bet you're right. Let's not do that anymore."

"Please bless Jesus in Heaven that He will feel His love in every heart."

Eloise
Our little Ella is starting to social smile! Best thing ever. She definitely has her fussy times during the day but is only waking up once a night more and more regularly. Can you say spoiled?

Brad
Brad has his nose to the grindstone times ten. I think we thought this last semester would be a little easier since it's only six weeks, but it feels like the craziest yet.

My best analogy to describe Brad is that he is like a cat with nine lives, only he's living all nine at once (and not because he necessarily wants to). Besides fuller then full-time school, Brad still works at the music venue from time and time, does a lot for church, does the grocery shopping, and also tries hard to be a really good dad. It tires me out just thinking about it all. We're sure grateful for him.

He did get some well-deserved downtime this month watching football because our bishop has been offering him extra tickets to the BYU games.

We just received word that his upcoming rotation has changed. The surgeon in Provo that he was going to work with will be gone for 9 days of his 4 week rotation, so he's now going to be working in West Valley and West Jordan for his surgery rotation instead. It's not too impossible of a commute by any means, but we had been really excited to have a rotation he didn't have to commute to, so it's kind of a bummer and may affect his ability to be involved with as many emergency surgeries and other things.

Me
I'm feeling under the weather today, so I can't think of much more to say (and this is already getting way too long...)

Life is good. And crazy and chaotic and messy. We're having a pretty good adjustment to baby and I'm happy and exhausted. That's it.