Liam got up from his nap this afternoon and had a snack. He took a bite of bread and said, “Nummy bread.” He drank some rice milk and said, “Nummy na-nuk.” Then he leaned over and bit his tray and said, “Nummy tray.”

All this after seranading me with “The Song of the Cebu.” He’s cute. I think I’ll keep him.

At breakfast, out of nowhere: “I want to get a motorcycle so I can ride it like Mr. Adrian.”

After breakfast, while arranging a comforter on the living room floor: “Mommy, Liam and I are making a plane.”
Me: “Would you like to use the laundry baskets?”
Ngaire: “No, we’re making a plane bed. It’s called a blane.”

[Liam: "Blane too!"]

A few days ago, the youth minister from our church stopped by with his brand-new wife to check out our furniture … it looks like we’ll be giving or selling a lot of it to them, which is fantastic, possibly more so for us than for them (those of you who have met our furniture will understand). Anyway, they (the people, not the furniture) are fantastic with kids, as our children gave them ample opportunity to demonstrate. Ngaire, especially, took a shine to the wife; they hadn’t been there very long before Ngaire asked Miss Hannah, “Do you have big nipples like my mommy’s?” (N.B.: I believe “nipple” is Ngaire’s term for the entire mammary gland.) After I offered them some brownies, Ngaire dashed into the kitchen, saying, “I want to give Miss Hannah a brownie.” Then she returned with a handful scooped from the pan. Later, Ngaire managed to sneeze wetly all over the poor woman. Hannah, bless her, bore it all with good humor and even reiterated, as they left, that they can’t wait to have children. Her husband, for his part, got ahold of Rhiannon and wouldn’t let her go. At one point, he was making her talk, and he stopped and said, “No, hold your finger out for emphasis,” and positioned her tiny index finger just so.

The Husbandlet returned from the Frozen North with a DVD “postcard” promoting the place. We have watched it several times. The first time my mom saw it, she pointed out to Ngaire the “plane that can ride on the water like a boat.” Ngaire said, “No, that’s a seaplane that lands on pontoons.” I am proud to say that I taught her that one.

It is official, have I mentioned? We are moving to the Frozen North in the middle of August. We made an offer on a BEAUTIFUL, OH MY GOODNESS house and it looks like it will be accepted, so now I only have to bite my nails about getting approved for the mortgage.

Conversations with the Husbandlet can be interesting these days. He’s handling all the logistics of our move, bless him, and goes around with a perpetually glazed look in his eyes and a running commentary on percentage rates proceeding from his mouth.

Ngaire has been super-cute with Rhiannon lately. She keeps making what she calls “pack-n-plays” for the baby all over the house, always with a little pillow (a paper towel, a giant stuffed isopod, etc.) and a blanket (sometimes it’s an actual baby blanket). She loves to snuggle her little sister, and even got Rhiannon back to sleep this way once. Liam also continues to adore “Baby On-in,” as he now calls her, though his love is a bit less gentle.

Rhiannon has begun her sweet crooning noise phase. She has actual rolls of fat on her arms and legs, dimpled elbows, and plump cheeks. Since my other babies have been little stick figures, this amazes me. Her smile is more shy and retiring than Liam’s, and she is definitely less intense than Ngaire. She has gone back to being a tad wakeful at night, but all in all, she is a very easy baby. I find her very restful.

I can’t leave Liam alone anywhere! He now scales boxes to access and/or knock stuff off high shelves! He can open our fuse box and turn off the main power to rooms! He has managed to break not one but two floor lamps by shaking their stem thingies! He climbs from the living room chair across our rack of TV trays, onto the TV stand, where he knocks stuff off the TV and tries to eat the baby monitor! He is jumping our sofa into oblivion! I probably shouldn’t be writing this now, because he is probably getting into something! In fact, I think he is banging a spatula against the TV screen even as I type!

But he’s cute … he made up the Rice Milk Song, to the tune of “La Cucaracha”: “Na-nuk, na-nuk [rice milk, rice milk], blalalalala, hot-cha-cha!” And the first thing out of his mouth every morning, after, “HelLO! Hi!” is “Snuggle Daddy? Snuggle Mommy?”

Ngaire is so freakin’ amazing with the baby. She gives Rhiannon her finger to suck on in the car, and stopped her from crying this morning by getting into our bed with her and snuggling her. I’m having so much fun with Ngaire in general, reading and coloring and making soft pretzels with her during Liam’s naptime. This morning, she made my day by saying, “Could you please get me some water? I’m a little dehydrated.”

Rhiannon is a really, really sweet baby. Aside from her passionate hatred of her carseat, she’s pretty mellow about most stuff; even her smiles are mellow … not as huge and emotive as Ngaire’s or Liam’s at her age.

Yesterday was a back-to-back doctor’s visit day for me. I had my postpartum visit with the OB/GYN, who left me inordinately proud by praising my pelvic floor and never ONCE tried to get me to go on the Pill. Later, I had a ganglion cyst on my left wrist drained by an orthopedist who looked like she was maybe 16 years old. This is the second time I’ve had the thing drained, and this time around, I didn’t start to pass out until AFTER the draining was done … not until she started mashing my wrist to break up what was left of the cyst and squeeze the remaining joint fluid out through the HOLE IN MY SKIN, OH MY GOODNESS I AM GETTING WOOZY AGAIN.

The Husbandlet comes back from the Frozen North tomorrow. His phone calls have been so happy and excited; he says it is absolutely beautiful and the people are friendly and the lab is nice and there are nearby tidepools to explore. It turns out that they’ll cut us a check for moving expenses, so his idea is for us to sell off pretty much everything and re-buy it on the other end. He mentioned gleaning through our book collection. I DON’T THINK SO, BUDDY. THE BOOKS ARE SACRED.

This morning, I substituted sour cream and water for milk in my pancake recipe, and it is official: Sour cream makes everything better.

Some weeks ago, when our community pool opened, Ngaire developed an obsession with swim diapers. Not so much with wearing them–she never protests when Liam puts his on but she doesn’t get one–more with talking about them. Incessantly, continually, forever talking about swim diapers. Swim diapers! And how we should all wear them! And how various characters from books and movies should wear them! Early on, when I sought to combat her fascination with cold, hard logic (silly me) and explained that only little people who haven’t learned to use the potty wear swim diapers, she merely updated her monologues to include how Mommy or Daddy or Mr. Incredible should pull down his or her big grown-up swim diaper in order to utilize said facilities.

We have tried different methods of dealing with this. (I mean, it’s no big deal, aside from the weirdness of an almost-four-year-old suddenly piping up in public, “Let me tell you a story about Elastigirl. One day, Elastigirl woke up and SHE PUT ON HER SWIM DIAPER,” etc. However, it is extremely, extremely annoying and sometimes, around 4 p.m. or so, I’m afraid my head is going to explode.) I have tried to reason with her; lately, I’ve been trying to acknowlege her comment but then change the subject. The Husbandlet has tried ignoring it. My mother, nurturing soul that she is, takes on the personas of whomever Ngaire is talking about and engages in swim diaper-related chitchat. Liam thinks everything Ngaire does is cool and has learned to say “swim diaper” very clearly. Rhiannon sleeps. None of this has deflected the obsession or caused it to abate.

Anyway, all that to say that my insanity level? Has increased substantially. And I don’t know if this is a good response, but today I have instigated a swim diaper conversation moratorium. Ngaire is under threats of direness if she so much as mentions a swim diaper. Crafty little thing that she is, she thought about this one for a short time and then said, “When we go to the pool today, Liam will wear his swim diaper, right?”

Why couldn’t she preach sermons, like my cousin’s daughter did when she was four?

Rhiannon is SO BIG. I can’t believe it. I tried to put a newborn outfit on her today, one she wore just a few weeks ago, no problem, and the little dress came only to her waist, and the leg openings of the bloomer thingies cut into her plump little thighs. My baby! Also, at five weeks of age, she started smiling (at the Husbandlet, mostly), and last night, at six weeks exactly, her Evening Fussies abruptly ended. I swaddled her as usual and put her in her crib, still awake, and instead of weeping piteously as she has every other evening of her life, she lay quietly until she went to sleep.

So, the Husbandlet’s job of choice is flying him to the Frozen North on Wednesday to meet the lab and check out the town, and most likely sign the contract. (The Husbandlet stresses that this is not a done deal, just pretty darn close.) Today, we hit up a thrift store for suitable job interview clothes–the Husbandlet’s advisor gave him some fashion tips, so we did our best and wound up with what I hope is an acceptable outfit; the Husbandlet is allergic to fashion, and I’ve never learned the difference between a sports coat and a blazer, but we found SOMETHING along those lines that I THINK fits him properly, as well as some nice loafers and pants. If the clothes do not inadvertently signal to the prospective employer that we are seriously deranged, it looks like we will become Frozen Northerners in early August and remain that way for the foreseeable future. I will update more when it is more set in stone (or ice, as the case may be).

In other news, Liam’s little tummy weirdies signalled the beginning of a virus that swept the family (except for Rhiannon, thankfully) and seemed to have one of those horried four-day incubations, so that the last person to succumb (Ngaire) did not do so until six days after Liam. On the plus side, it polished off a couple pounds of my post-pregnancy weight …

For everyone whom I haven’t emailed, and all the blogs I’ve fallen behind in reading, I will catch up one of these days … maybe when my youngest is in school?

So, how are things going, you ask?

Rhiannon alternates between good days (happy baby, but sometimes doesn’t want to be set down for naps and goes through multiple wakings and squawkings and re-rockings before consenting to do so) and amazing days (goes to sleep ALL BY HERSELF and sleeps for three hours). She is oh so sweet, and I am reminded of my thoughts in Liam’s infancy, that if all my babies could be like him I would be tempted to have a dozen. (Of course, if all my almost-two-year-olds were like him, I would get prematurely gray. Either that, or even more inured to the shock of finding my toddler hanging out on windowsills three and a half feet above the floor.) Anyway, my main issue with baby Rhiannon (or Babee Non-nin, as Liam calls her) is that I don’t get the hours of gazing on her in adoration that I had with Ngaire … but I do get the accompanying guilt (“My poor ignored little third-born!”), especially after multiple trips upstairs to re-rock her, when my thoughts go more toward wishing she would just conk out already, rather than adoration.

We’re co-sleeping at night, and Rhiannon sleeps really well … generally she wakes up once or twice for a quick nurse, but there have been a couple nights where she hasn’t woken up at all, or only so briefly that she hasn’t wanted to be fed. Her one trouble spot is in the evenings, when she never wants to sleep by herself; because I’m a quick learner (it’s only taken me three children!), I’ve decided to just accept this fact and set aside time in the evenings to hold her so she can get some rest. Of course, this is very difficult for me, as it necessitates sitting still, snuggling my baby, and reading a book while the Husbandlet chases Ngaire and Liam.

Between rainy days (or wet outside after rainy nights) and my attempts to get Rhiannon good naps, we haven’t had nearly the wild whirl of social engagements and playground and library visits of our pre-Rhiannon days. Sometimes, I just take Ngaire and Liam outside our house to dash around on the sidewalk and climb some nearby steps (or scale the accompanying handrail). We’ve rediscovered a walk from our house to the library and the playground behind the library, which is good for everybody because Rhiannon gets a long sleep in the sling while we walk and play. I’m trying to keep the Electronic Babysitter to a minimum, though sometimes I wind up letting the kids watch half an hour of TV in the morning and then another half hour later in the day … mostly when I need to nurse the baby right before we head out the door (prime Liam mischief time) or when I’m trying to get dinner heated up or just need a few minutes off later on. (We did, to give us credit, make it to the zoo this past Saturday, where we met one of my oldest-in-the-sense-of-longest-term friends and her husband and new baby, who shares Rhiannon’s middle name. A good time was had by all.)

As Ngaire approaches her fourth birthday, her sleep schedule appears to be going through a change. She can no longer fall asleep at noon, and she seems to need a shorter nap. So I’ve been keeping her up till 1:30 and waking her at 2:30, hoping that she’ll go to sleep more easily both then (it’s working!) and at bedtime (jury is still out, but we’re only on Day 3 of the experiment). Liam is almost two, and now seems ready for a slightly later bedtime (7 p.m.) and a longer daytime nap (12:00 to 2:00). I realize this must be dull reading for even my most die-hard fans, but I’m mostly recording it for myself, so that two years from now, when Liam and Rhiannon are doing the same thing, I’ll be able to check my records, as it were.

Anyway, the main point of all that is that I now have a lot less time to myself. I read the baby advice books (“Sleep when your baby is sleeping!”). I scoff. Mockingly.

The kids are cute! Liam ends most words with a squeak up the scale, and if Ngaire asks for, say, Cheerios, he will say, “Cheerios too!” We’ve been going to our neighborhood pool most evenings, and Liam has yet to work up the courage (or sustain the body heat) to go in the water for very long, but he has a blast splashing in the baby pool and dipping his feet in the water of the big pool.

I’ve introduced Ngaire to Go Fish; we now fill the time between Liam’s naptime and hers with art time for her and a mean game of cards, as well as some snuggle time with books. She is practically swimming now, albeit in a floaty suit … but the paddling! It is amazing! She can paddle the length of the pool. Watching her and Liam, I am so thankful that I chose to reproduce with the Husbandlet, because left to only my genetic input, my children would shun any activity more strenuous than reaching for another book.

I absolutely cannot believe that my baby is almost five weeks old, except that she seems so enormous. She has stretched and plumped up, and is so alert. (She is a cute little Lert.) Already I feel nostalgic for her newborn-ness.

Liam threw up at breakfast today and had a rather runny diaper shortly thereafter, and is quite droopy and clingy, so I’m gearing up for … whatever. We’ve already had one tummy bug in the family since Rhiannon’s birth, and hopefully this one will come and go swiftly, not leaving too much destruction in its wake. The last one felled the Husbandlet, on Mother’s Day, no less.

Speaking of the Husbandlet, guess who had a job interview yesterday that went quite well? We should hear back about this one next week. Yay!

P.S. Liam requested a tortilla for lunch, and I asked Ngaire to put it on his tray. He said, “Thank you, Ngaire, for the tortilla.” I was just about to translate, when Ngaire replied, “You’re welcome, Liam.” It’s fun that she understands him … sometimes, she understands him better than I do, and corrects me or puts an end to my confusion by explaining what he’s saying.