Baby Fever

Not mine. No, oh no. A snotty, sleepless, teething mess of a toddler is a great antidote for baby fever. Three molars in five weeks time is enough to send Luke and I both over the edge. And the fourth one is swollen up and ready to burst, so I know we have at least one more week before we get a reprieve.

I have fully embraced the love-them-and-give-them-back phase of my life, much to my daughter's dismay.

It's Ella who has baby fever.

We have been surrounded by new babies and pregnant women. It seems that as soon as one baby is born, we find out that another one is on the way. It's been very exciting, and all this babyfying is manifesting itself in play. Ella has delivered a hundred babies over the last couple of weeks with a full script that includes a hospital, nurse, and doctor. Thankfully, the last two babies added to her immediate cirlce were vaginal births, so she gets that mamas push the babies out now (as opposed to having them cut out in surgery).

She has been walking around the house with a baby stuffed up her shirt, waddling like a 9 month pregnant woman, then going to the hospital to push her baby out. Then she nurses the baby, but sometimes she pumps and gives it a bottle.

Since Luke was born, she has been requesting a sister. I keep telling her that I don't think there will be any more babies in our house. Over the weekend, as we went through that topic again, she said the one thing that could completely unnerve me about that situation: "I'm going to talk to God about that."

I had to stifle the urge to beg her not to, because she knows things.

Yesterday, she began our day with an announcement that Aunt Becca has a baby in her tummy. She does not, but I'm sure that she found that news unnerving as well.

Not only is she completely focused on new babies, and especially girl ones, she is also becoming unsatisfied with my explanation of how babies get into tummies. Until now, she's accepted a simple "God put it there" and now she wants to know how.

Uhhh.

I think I need to find some books.

Sex and babies aren't the only prevailing topics right now. There's also marriage, divorce, salvation, resurrection, prayer, and, as she was falling asleep last night, a technical discussion of how our new door will be installed in the living room ("Like, how does it get screwed in there?").  

She is 3 and a half, and she keeps me on my toes.

The H. Luke Update
Harris Luke is mostly concerned with "Ball!" and "Choochoo!" right now. He got trains for Christmas and has developed a love for them. When his mouth is not hurting, he eats like a starving beast - especially vegetables. I watched the child eat approximately 20 brussel sprouts the other night. It was amazing. He talks all the time; we don't understand him all the time. His vocabulary has definitely expanded, he uses short sentences now and follows simple instructions. He shakes his head "no" to mean "yes" and it's totally cute. He can barely sit still through two pages of a story, but he will sit and "read" a book to himself for a while, and loudly. When he's not playing ball and trains and cars, he clomps around the house in Ella's princess high heels and helps her take care of babies. Occasionally, he finds a ponytail holder lying around and needs his hair done. It's long enough now for a ponytail, and it will get longer because we aren't cutting it any time soon. Like, maybe not until he asks. He gives sweet kisses and tells us "bye" when we leave. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, instead of crying, most of the time he says, "Mama? Mama?" If Dave is already gone when he gets up, he walks around the house calling, "Dada? Dada?" He is trying to figure out the potty and insists on taking his diaper off to sit on it regularly, but that's as far as he's gotten yet. He has told me a few times when he needed a fresh diaper, so I know he is starting to recognize when he needs to go/has gone. He will be 17 months old tomorrow, and he's so much fun right now.