Surprise

We were sitting in church on Sunday, and Bracken was feeling around in Addie's mouth. He whispered to me, "I think she's got some teeth almost through." I felt two teeth in there, then spent a couple minutes trying to dodge her wiggly little tongue to sneak a peek. Sure enough, Addie's got two teeth. I have no idea when they came. What's that about second children getting less attention? In any case, she is just becoming a champion real food eater, dissolving her way through everything I give her. She also finally, definitely flipped from back to front. There have been a couple times when I found her several feet away from where she started, but I have never seen her actually roll (see above about second children). Well, I still haven't seen her roll, but I did find her on her tummy in her crib yesterday when I know I had put her down on her back. She is just so different from her sister. It's amazing. I also can't believe she's 8 months old now. Wow.

I was playing tennis with Chloe yesterday. Kind of. We played a game that involved a tennis ball and a racquet. When I'd try to stop she'd say, "But Mom, I LOVE tennis." Bracken is so proud. We were watching tennis the other day and she kept cheering for "Ria." We were watching Maria Sharipova play Serena Williams, so we're not entirely sure who she was cheering for. She yelled the name regardless of who she was watching. Despite the fact that Bracken would prefer to have her root for an American, I think in the end, any cheering and excitement for tennis is fantastic in his book.

And in my book, anything she does that doesn't involve a tantrum is fantastic. I know I made the mistake of mentioning that the tantrums had decreased and I was enjoying her growing up. Well, Sunday night as we drove home from Bracken's parent's house, having left early after 2 hours of pretty much solid crying from my almost 3 year old, I found myself hoping she would throw up, or exhibit some other symptom of disease that would account for the animal like shrieks she'd been emitting. But, no. My headstrong little girl is just having a really hard time of it lately. And, consequently, so are the rest of us.

But, she did poop in the potty the other day and finally earn her magic wand. Sure, it was accidental, and very small, but we take what we can get.

Bracken's big achivement for the week was getting our new fence stained. It was a big project that didn't start off very well, but turned out great once we borrowed a compressor and sprayer. Now onto the sprinklers.

And me this week? I built some planter boxes out of some of our old fence sections, and repaired one of our gates. I also learned that touching the blade of a jig saw to see if it's loose should wait until after the blade has had a chance to cool down. And gloves, though they may seem to slow you down a little, are a good idea when working with fence wood. Yeah, I used to be smarter. I think. I really don't remember any more.