we're on the upswing

It appears that everyone in this house is on the upswing, healthwise. I'm so relieved, but I'm waiting for someone to get a fever. Hopefully we can keep ourselves together for the remainder of the summer.

Elisabeth has said some pretty funny stuff the past few days. Sadly, my brain must look a lot like swiss cheese because I can't remember most of it. The whole purpose of starting this blog was to remember the fun things Elisabeth said and did. If I can't remember them long enough to get them onto the blog, the purpose has been defeated!

Oh, here is one thing she said that I sort of remember - I can't remember the exact context, but here's the gist. I told her something about making poor choices and how that usually ended up with her having a timeout. I said, "you have to make a judgment call whether you want to do a good thing or a bad thing and get a timeout." Her response? "Judge Klein's getting a timeout?" Judge Klein taught my evidence class, and has a soft spot for kids so she's gotten to meet him a few times. Judgement call apparently sounds like Judge Klein. Speaking of sounds and ears, I am beginning to wonder if something is wrong with Elisabeth's hearing since her last cold. She has been mishearing me a lot, and asking "what?" a lot, and blatantly ignoring me more than usual. I think it is just being three, and therefore possessing every annoying quality a human can posses, but wouldn't I feel like a jerk if there was a problem with her hearing? I'll give it another week to see how it plays out.

Charlotte has repurposed our new vacuum cleaner as a walker. It is one of those little cannister vacuums and it is the perfect height for her. I finally just took the hose off of it and made it a little toy for her. If I could just figure out a way to make her do the actual vacuuming, we'd be in luck. Kind of like a Roomba without the "intelligence." Our Roomba is dumb as doornails, so Charlotte would certainly do a better job that it does.

Here's a video of the very expensive walker. I apologize for the vacuum noise at the beginning, she was so cute following me around though.

W went to the Reston Zoo on Friday. Elisabeth the Brave fed the goats and sheep with a baby bottle. But she fled like the little girl she is when Sully the Camel came over to visit. Last year around this time was the infamous "a goat felled on my head" story when a tiny 1 month old baby goat perched itself on a pole and fell - literally fell - on Elisabeth's head when it lost its balance. She then proceeded to tell everyone on earth that a goat "felled on her head." And, again in keeping with my Mother of the Year quest, I thought that made her wet her pants. So I told her we had to leave since she had an accident. And she cried. She said she hadn't had an accident, she swore up down and sideways. But she was soaked in the pants and there was no explanation. Right? Except that after the traumatic baby goat to the head incident, I let her ride the mechanical car thing. And it had a puddle in the seat because it rained the night before. That explains why her pullup was dry... I'm really a great mom sometimes, I swear. Here are some Reston Zoo pics.

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is the very scary Sully the Camel. Sully is 18 months old and very sweet, and makes Elisabeth tremble with fear and hide behind my legs when he comes up to the wagon ride at the Reston Zoo.

Elisabeth the Brave feeds lambs a bottle.

Elisabeth's new haircut, courtesy of our neighbor Jean. We're waiting for the wagon ride to leave.