Saturday Afternoon update

So, I'm not into posting lots and lots of updates every day, but things have changed enough since this morning, that it's worth another update this afternoon. Basically, as of this morning, I thought for sure we'd have babies by this afternoon. But I don't feel that way now.

The doctor has had all kinds of restrictions and orders for Skye - like not eating food for the last 48 hours or so (I know it's to prevent the possibility of aspiration, but how can not eating for 2 days be helpful to anyone?!). After some discussion with the doctor (where she admitted that the hospital is not a prison and that they can't stop Skye from doing what she wants), Skye (with help from her mom) took it upon herself to do a bunch of things she wasn't supposed to do. She took a shower, she ate food (the doctor later gave her permission to eat) and now she's a completely different person. She's calm, relaxed and doesn't look like a woman about to go into labor. So, at this point, who knows - maybe she won't be having babies today. Only time will tell. But things are looking much better than they were this morning.

Saturday morning update

Skye started having pretty strong contractions last night. They put her on magnesium (via the IV) for the last 12 hours. There are a set of factors that determine whether you're a good candidate for a VBAC. The fact that she's had a previous c-section is actually only a very small factor. Current factors include her bag of membranes being broken, she's got an abruption (though small...they think), and she's having abnormally strong contractions without being dilated much at all. Those factors really put her in a high risk situation. So....everyone is recommending she have a c-section, perhaps as soon as this afternoon.

Obviously, this is NOT Skye's preference. But she's being a trooper about it. She's tender-hearted and wants badly to do things nature's way and be able to hold these babies right after they're born. These boys are going to have to spend time in the NICU, but we're going to make sure they're healthy and safe. Deep down, Skye knows that, but it's still going to be hard for her to see her boys connected to lots of tubes for the first few weeks.

But all things considered, I think things are going pretty well...

62 Hours and All is Well

I am still here and doing well. Contractions in the night got painful and woke me up frequently, but they have slowed and eased up. I was sent back to labor and delivery for a while this morning for monitoring, but everything looks good, the contractions are less severe, and they sent me back upstairs (to the comfier beds).

Blessedly, Seville is also doing better. She slept through the night last night and woke up walking, so she is now off to a friend's house to play and Jared will finally get some work done (not that work is the most important thing at the moment - we all realize that - but given that we are HOPING I will be here for a few weeks, we want to keep things as normal as possible until something noteworthy happens.)

I had hospital Cream of Wheat this morning, and it wasn't noticeably different than homemade Cream of Wheat. I can't decide whether that's good or bad. On the one hand, finally a hospital food that isn't either too soggy or too dry! On the other hand, it only emphasized the fact, in my brain, that Cream of Wheat is inherently bland and mushy and slimy, and I'm not sure I'll be able to eat it at home again without thinking of it as hospital food for the infirm. hm.

48 Hours Update

I'm still here and still pregnant. I'm still being monitored (though not as closely as before), still having contractions, and still losing fluid. But so far no labor. If I make it until morning, our outlook will be much better than it has been.

Meanwhile (as if we need more complications) Seville is having a problem with her left hip. She was up most of the night crying apparently (grandma reports) and wouldn't walk today until evening, at which point she started limping around a bit. We've had this problem before, and I'm pretty sure it's something called Toxic Synovitis. If her symptoms stay under control, it's probably ok and will eventual resolve, but there is a point at which we'd need to take her to the hospital. We've been through a Toxic Synovitis hospital stay with her before and it was no fun at all. They did lots and lots of tests and put her through a lot of miserable stuff. So we'd like to spare her that if she seems to be doing ok and improving. However, she really needs a parent right now, so Jared has gone home to be with her and have her sleep in her own bed and such.  The problem with that, of course, is that things with me could happen in an instant, and he might have to rush down here in his PJs in order to catch the birth of his babies. That's a worse case scenario, of course, but it's not an unlikely one. So we really are crossing our fingers and praying that nothing will happen with either me or Seville tonight, since Jared can't be two places at once.

Thanks so much to all of you who are wishing us well, including us in your prayers, and offering help.  I'm sure we'll need lots of help, we just don't know exactly what and when yet. We'll try to keep you posted. Thanks!

Back at the Hospital

So Skye went back into the hospital last night. Her water broke at about 9:30pm. Apparently - contrary to popular belief - having your water break does NOT necessarily mean you're going to have babies right away. They say it's 50/50 that she'll go into labor within 48 hours. It is possible that we can keep the babies inside Skye for another 3 weeks or so. At 34 weeks, they deem the risk of infection greater than the risk of prematurity, so I guess they would induce at 34 weeks if she makes it that far.

But...(this is just my opinion)...there's a good chance we'll have babies here in the next few days. This would mean a stint (perhaps several weeks) in the NICU for the babies (probably some breathing assistance, tube feeding, etc.). For those of you who know Skye well, you know that NICU is not a place Skye wants her babies to be. But...ultimately, safe and healthy babies are what we want and, personally, I feel fortunate that we have top-flight NICU care available to make sure our boys make it into the world safely. I feel quite confident that everything is going to work out.

On a slightly different note, despite having made a good bit of progress in our preparations over the last few weeks, we're totally not ready to bring the boys back to our house. We do have car seats - so we can at least get them home. But we may have to make a bed for them in the bathtub and swaddle them in old t-shirts. I find the whole thing kind of amusing because, obviously, we'll work it out. We tried to get ahead of the game with our preparation, but no matter how prepared you try to be, this baby stuff is just unpredictable!

Anyhow, we'll try to keep people posted on the blog. I ain't gonna be doing any Twitter-style updates every other minute, but when there is something news-worthy, I'll try to let you know. Skye may post some smaller micro-updates on Facebook, if you're of that ilk.

Thanks for checking in and thinking of us...

Back At 'Em

After a week of extreme caution and virtual bedrest, trying to get my contractions to slow down, I had a doctor appointment on Friday and they checked "things" out. Everything is looking good! I've had no dilation to speak of since I left the hospital, so nobody is worried anymore. It looks like the pre-term labor of last week was an isolated incident due to the stomach flu (or whatever), and I'm back to being a normal 3rd trimester twin pregnant person. Which means I'm not very mobile and it hurts to walk around, but there's no danger in it, which is awesome.

I celebrated the good news this morning by prepping a couple of garden beds for planting. I had assumed before that I might not be able to plant a garden this year, which would be so tragic! So I got all stoked at the idea of putting peas in the ground. I admit, after about 5 minutes of shoveling dirt and turning it with a pitchfork I realized how ridiculous this idea was (I mean, come on. I can hardly walk by now, danger to fetuses or not). But Jared helped me out and we got a couple beds mulched and ready to go. I spent the next loooooong time sitting in a reclining lawn chair gasping for breath while my hip joints trembled and attempted to relax.

Seville climbed all over me, bounced around, sang songs, and peed on the lawn while I lay there (with my permission, nay, even at my suggestion, because I didn't think I could walk up the deck and into the house with her. Am I a bad parent?). The chickens got a little break from their coop and scratched and pecked in our yard for a while. It was a great day.

Oh, and the OTHER great news is that Baby "A" turned around and got his head down last week. Not that I needed them to tell me that - it was quite an event. It happened Thursday night and it sent me grasping myself and lying on the couch to recuperate. Afterward I could tell by the types of movement I felt in which places that he had turned around. Anyway, this means I'm officially in the game of being able to attempt a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean). I chose my doctor, hospital, and everything based on NOT wanting another C-Section, which is what 99% of doctors will automatically do if you have both a previous C-Section AND twins in there.  But there are criteria, and the first is that the first baby needs to be head down. So I was happy about that too (now, if Baby "B" could only turn around, it would makes things easier still).

Hospital Stay

Well, I suppose it's time to start using this thing again (as in, this blog), now that we have lots of people wanting updates on our situation. I just looked back and was semi-surprised to see that I've included a few pictures and some drivel, but little of consequence for the last few months.

Here's the nutshell update:

We are pregnant - and with TWINS, no less. (now let's just get these next couple questions out o f the way: no they're not identical (fraternal), and no that doesn't run in my family. If you'll recall, Jared had cancer and chemotherapy a couple years ago, and that left our situation... shall we say... somewhat compromosed. We were so fortunate to have an oncologist who was cognisant of and sensitive to cancer-life-related issues for younger people, and who made time for us to get some of Jared's "boyz" on ice before he started chemo. So... despite our efforts at having one baby at a time, fertility treatments are unpredictable, and here we are).

The babies are both BOYS, and Jared is about as stoked as can be. He's resisting all kinds of urges to buy little basketballs, I'm sure.

So we're excited, and life is changing fast. The pregnancy hasn't been without complications - I was on bedrest for several weeks at the beginning, and have some other complications that make me pretty uncomfortable pretty much most of the time. I have several "indications" that put me at risk for pre-term labor, but things have been looking great lately. I hit the 28-week pregnancy mark a couple of days ago. I was excited to reach that benchmark (a big one for twins).

Of course, as fate would have it, the instant I was excited about reaching week 28, I started having some pre-term labor symptoms. The next night I was sent to the hospital and have been here since (3 days). I'm one of those contraction-ey pregnant women - I get 'em all the time - and this is pretty normal for a twin pregnancy in the 3rd trimester, so it's nothing to be alarmed about usually. But when the contractions wouldn't slow down with rest or water, and especially when they were only 3 minutes apart, it was looking a little scary. At the hospital we determined that I was starting to dilate with all the contractions, so they put me on medication to stop them and IV fluids to keep me hydrated. We also figured out, as the night wore on, that I had the stomach flu.

I hate the stomach flu. HATE. THE. STOMACH. FLU. I'm one of those people that just doesn't deal with nausea very well, and I can't throw up, so I'm just miserable the whole time. BUT, believe it or not this is good news, in a way. It's probable that the stomach flu is what was actually causing the contractions and pre-term labor symptoms, and once I got over that, they were able to take me off the medications and things have been ok since.

So today I get to go home! I have to take it easy and watch closely what happens over the next couple of days, but I don't think I will even need to go on any kind of long-term strict bedrest at this point, which is great news. I will probably need to have pretty limited activity for the next couple of months, so we'll try to find a way to work that out, but that's not nearly as bad as I was thinking it would be.

The pictures, by the way, were taken here in my room during my stay. Seville came to visit me yesterday. Apparently she dressed herself, and arrived completely decked out in poofy pink princess attire with matching shoes and tiara with fuzzy pink embellishments. While she was here, Grandma helped me untangle and braid my hair. She wanted matching braids, so I tried to put little ones in her hair. I couldn't get over how cute they were, so we took pics.

Also, the view from OHSU windows is pretty fun. There are lots of cool cloud things that go on up here, and I've been watching them from my bed (I guess you can see Mt. Hood from other places in my room. Just not the bed).

3!

Seville turned 3 last Sunday! We had a birthday tea party for her on Saturday with family and a few of her little friends. It was so cute. Here are a few pics of the big event:

The happy 3-year old.

Playing with cousin Ashlynn

Wrapped up in her new fairy blanket that Mommy made

The spread: tea, little cookies, scones of various types, Devonshire cream and jam, egg & cress sandwiches, cake.

The rest of the pics can be seen here:

Holidays

A few pics from our holidays:

Seville & Daddy Conquer a Tree

Makin' Gingerbread Houses

Having a tutu party (all the Engstrom girl cousins got tutus for Christmas)

Making Gingerbread cookies with cousins.

The rest of our pics can be seen here:

Is Santa Claus Real?

This discussion came up in my family for the umpteenth time this Christmas. Most of my family members know that I don’t advocate teaching in a literal Santa Claus, and some agree with me, but I’ve never spelled out why I have such strong feelings about it because I don’t want to create controversy or make anyone feel criticized about their parenting choices. Like I told my family, all parents need to make The Santa Decision for their own families, and it doesn’t make you bad parents one way or the other. BUT, that said, I think there are implications to the relatively modern Santa-phenomenon that people don’t think about. Here’s my synopsis, in pros and cons.


CONS TO TEACHING SANTA IS “REAL”

•    UPSTAGES JESUS CHRIST: Children are inherently more drawn to a Santa figure than to the real Savior: A mystical, magical being that flies, has magical reindeer, sneaks through your chimney to bring presents, lives in the mystical north pole, has elves, etc? That is far more titillating to a child than the story of a Jesus Christ whom you learn to know and love only in your heart. Jesus Christ will not bring you a Barbie or fly from house to house with a magical sleigh. Jesus Christ takes some effort and commitment to know and love. The real Savior can’t compete with toys and flying sleighs, and so Santa trumps Jesus’ birthday celebration year after year.
•    PROMOTES CONSUMERISM: Santa Claus represents the consumerism that is taking over Christmas. Many people complain that Christmas has become all about presents and “stuff” rather than Jesus Christ (or family, or love, or peace, or charity, or whatever).  A lot of that comes from a Santa figure who is – let’s face it – all about presents and “stuff.”
•    ON GRATITUDE: Children who believe that Santa brings their gifts miss an opportunity to learn about gratitude - to understand that gifts come from people who love them who took time to think about them and make or buy something thoughtful.
•    TEACHES ENTITLEMENT: If children think presents come from Santa, out of the blue, at no cost to them or anyone around them, it just encourages an entitlement attitude that children (and people everywhere) are not in need of.
•    ON GIVING AND SACRIFICE: Children who believe Santa brings gifts their gifts miss an opportunity to learn about giving, that gifts are both received and given. If your presents come from Mommy and Daddy and others who love you, you learn that you have the opportunity to give gifts too.
•    ON CHARITY: Children who focus on Santa miss an opportunity to learn about charity, that if gifts come from people, not magic, children learn that we all have a responsibility to care for one another (because no magical being is going to fill in the gaps where humanity fails to provide for each other).
•    JESUS-SUBSTITUTE: Santa Claus is a “counterfeit” in my view: you often hear that Satan’s most effective tool is creating counterfeits of sacred things in order to detract from them. I know this may sound extreme to many, but look at what Santa Claus has become in our society: a “magical,” mystical being who encourages you to be “good” and who loves little children?  These are semi-Jesus attributes, but Santa falls far short of the true miracle of Jesus Christ’s gift to us all, and to allow Santa to take the spotlight robs Christmas of its true message.

•  ON FAITH: Here’s the nutshell version: If you teach your children that Jesus is real, and also that Santa is real, and they find out Santa is not real, why should they believe Jesus is real?  I have friends who advocate teaching Santa as an allegory of faith. Which is fine and good as an allegory. But for a child to be taught that if they believe whole-heartedly in something they cannot see that seems fantastical and a little other-worldly, and then they are promptly taught that, in fact, what seems to be far-fetched is indeed not real, that what doesn’t make logical sense and can’t be seen is indeed false – that’s a pretty big “lesson about faith” at an impressionable age, don’tcha think? (And not the lesson you meant to be teaching). I know many many children have grown up believing in Santa and remained faithful Christians throughout their lives, but who is to say it isn’t a factor in the increasing religious skepticism in the modern West? Consider that Santa has been around for just over a century and has been a widespread Christmas icon for a few generations in the Christian West. In that same time period, most western countries have gone from being religious, observant people to becoming mostly godless and secular. We are removing God from our currency and national songs, ceremonies, and monuments, banishing Him from our public places and our children’s schools, etc, so that now, those that still believe in Him are considered by many to be juvenile, blinded, half-wits (not very different from how you viewed other kids who still believed in Santa once you learned he wasn’t real, is it?).  Am I saying all this is Santa’s fault? Certainly not. But who knows how much the confusion of religious icons affects a very young mind, especially as we are learning more about the heavy impact of early brain and child development.
•    PARENTAL TRUST: Some (not all, maybe even not very many, but some) children feel betrayed by their parents when they learn Santa isn’t real. If you aren’t truthful with your children about Santa, they may consciously or unconsciously feel unable to trust you about other important questions. Children need to feel that their parents are a source for reliable information and values, and I think parents should stick to that standard even in the case of Santa Claus.  If a child asks you if Santa is real, and you say, “what do you think?”   (as I’ve heard so many advocate, as a way of “not lying”) you are ignoring their honest plea to know the truth. Why teach a child that they cannot come to you for answers?  I think that the subconscious effect of this on a child so young about something so big (to them) is probably more than we realize, and it’s a chance I don’t want to take, even if the risk is small.


PROS TO TEACHING THAT SANTA IS REAL: After many conversations with many people, I’ve compiled a list of all the arguments FOR believing in Santa that I’ve heard (they really all boil down to a few things).

•    FUN FOR PARENTS: Parents, of course, love the fantasy. It’s really fun to watch the magic of a child’s wonder.
•    “YOU BETTER WATCH OUT”: The naughy and nice list is very useful for parents who want to bribe good behavior during the holidays. Even I have been tempted by this recently.
•    FUN FOR KIDS: Obviously believing in such a fantasy is fun for children (but I beg to differ on this point somewhat. I knew, as a child, that Santa was merely a fun icon and not a real being, and I guarantee you my Christmas was no less fun. I had all the same anticipatory wonder, the same imaginary fun, the same love of Christmas. I just knew where it came from.)
•    OPPORTUNITY FOR IMAGINATION: Parents love to give their kids an opportunity for wild imagination and fun. Obviously we all want to foster kids’ imaginations. (But... if they think it’s real, is that really imagination, per se? Again, without believing Santa is real, kids can have just as much fun with their imaginations, just as they play house, fairies, cowboys & indians, games, etc. That’s imagination, and they know it’s a game. I’m not sure believing something is real is any better, let alone if it even technically qualifies).

I’ve also heard people say “it doesn’t do any harm,” but that’s not a “pro.” It’s a defense against arguments against, and so it isn’t really an argument. It’s sort of the equivalent of saying, “nuh-uh! Does not!” so I refuse to include it in my list of pros, though I figured it needed to be included somewhere.

So there. Anyone wanting to know why I won’t teach my children to believe in Santa now knows.  All you Literal-Santa-Promoters and believers can roll your eyes now (if you haven’t already rolled them a million times :)  

So to each his own. I’m sure if your kids believe in Santa they’ll be just fine (like my husband reminds me about him and his siblings).  I confess though, while on one hand I don’t care how you do it with your kids, on the other, I do wish more people would do what they could to make Christmas about Christ, and not about all the things Santa represents. So if you are Christian, I’ll put in a plug for that much, at least.

R.I.P. Myrtle

Last night, our beloved Myrtle fell victim to Fowl Play (okay, okay. bad I know. and not the time for jokes. Sorry).

We haven't updated since we got chicks back in the spring. As promised, we did indeed get two more for a total of four. It's been a fun adventure and such a delightful thing to have fresh eggs every day from your own chickens who are eating food you trust and living lives that you know are humane.

But today we are officially back down to two chickens.

The first we lost was originally named Florence but we had to revoke the name. Why? She turned out to be a he (it's notoriously difficult to sex a 1-day old chicken, so you gotta expect this to happen now and again). He was a beautiful rooster, but we realized we would have to... "get rid of him"... before he started crowing and causing problems (yes, I mean that in the way the maffia means that) (Discussion Topic: how do I feel about engaging in animal sexism by killing an animal just because it's male, knowing that this has happened in various cultures to human babies just because they were female? discuss).

Jared was all prepared to man-up and learn how to slaughter a chicken and provide for his family. But then we learned that there is a Rooster Relocation Program (No, that's not a joke. There really is. We live in Portland. Things like that go on here). Anyway, since our Rooster was truly free-range and not genetically bred to have double huge enormous juicy hormone-laden breasts, we learned he would be mostly sinew and might make good stock, but that's about it, other than maybe a couple tough bites of tiny breast. So we spared his life and donated him to a local farmer. That was a couple months ago. Goodbye Rooster-Man (as he came to be called).

Then we were left with three: Strawberry, Rosie, and Myrtle.

Last night we lost Myrtle (the one on the right), who hadn't even lived long enough to lay any of her much-anticipated blue eggs (it would have happened probably in the next few weeks). We've followed the trail of feathers and tried to figure out what happened. As near as we can figure, with the temperatures suddenly dropping well below freezing, the local band of raccoons has gotten more aggressive and started their prowling much earlier. We think we didn't lock up the chicken pen soon enough after dark last night, and the raccoons must have gotten in before we did. This morning only Strawberry was out clucking for food. Rosie re-appeared a few hours later. Myrtle hasn't come home, but based on the bounty of feathers blowing in the wind near the coop, we are pretty certain she didn't make it. Tonight we heard the raccoons attacking some poor creature in a neighbor's yard, and it was quite early. Earlier than we managed to lock the coop last night, so it all seems to make sense.


So today we are explaining to Seville about death and chicken-heaven. She doesn't seem too distraught about it. I actually think it's good for her to be exposed to the reality of mortality when she's young, but of course it's not like she really understands.

Forrest-Inspiration

My little bro and his wife came to town last weekend. While they were here they went to the beach, and invited anyone to come along who wanted (we wanted). Despite a dismal forecast, it was the most pleasant beach weather I've seen in a long long time. Perfect and sunny and beautiful.





You can see the rest of our pictures here:

Forrest-inspired Hug Point Trip

Knee Surgery + 5 Weeks =

Finally! Backpacking!

Last time we went backpacking Jared said he wouldn't go with me again unless I got my knee fixed. See, my knee does this thing, occasionally, where I'll be walking along just fine, and then suddenly and without warning, something shifts and I can no longer bend my knee or bear weight on it without excruciating pain. Then later in the day or the next morning or a couple days later it will shift back and everything will be fine again. Very mysterious.

Now, walking around normally, this is no big deal; I can go home and rest it until it goes away. But of course, this doesn't usually happen when I'm walking around normally, it happens most times when I'm doing something active. Like, say, backpacking. And in fact, we were once backpacking in Joshua Tree National Park when it happened, 4 miles in. Joshua Tree is, may I remind you, a desert, and so having a finite amount of water and an undetermined amount of time before we get more was a little nerve-racking. We had to stop and make camp in the wash right there, I took as much ibuprofen as I had in my first aid kit, and hoped it would "sleep off." I was able to gingerly walk in the morning and hike out (if you can do anything "gingerly" with a 40 lb pack on your back).

Anyway, that was the trip Jared said he wasn't doing it again until I got it fixed. The problem was, no one knew what was wrong with it. Pokes and prods by my favorite orthopedic surgeon plus MRIs at various angles showed nothing. And so no one was quite sure how to "fix" what ain't broke. But I had a standing offer from the doc to go in there and take a look anytime. 5 years later, finding myself a) desperate to be able to recreate the way I used to, b) not pregnant, and c) not breastfeeding, I decided my window of opportunity was now, and called up my old doc to schedule "the procedure."

Bless his heart, Dr. Weintraub found a floating piece of cartilage in my knee that didn't belong. It was not the kind of thing that an MRI would pick up, and since it was literally floating, unattached to anything, it would explain how the pain would move around and be totally unpredictable. I guess it could just get wedged into various parts of my knee joint - and then feel kinda like somebody's jabbing fork between my bones.

So anyway, now it's gone (yippee!), and though my knee is far from better a mere 5 weeks later, I was able to go on my first little backpacking trip, without worrying about my joint freezing up on me at random.

Since we were going with Jared's sister and her husband and their 2 month old baby - and bringing our own toddler who is, just this year, really too big to realistically pack in in a carrier - we were looking for a short, easy hike. Where to go?!

A few years ago, just after we got our GPS, we decided to do some adventuring by picking a spot on the map and seeing if we could find it. I once found a tiny blue smudge on a map that looked like a mountain lake and thought it would be fun to see if we could get there. After much twisting and turning on dirt forest service roads we got about as close as we figured we could by car, and bushwhacked the rest of the way there. Indeed, we found not only a beautiful, shallow, warm, idyllic, natural mountain lake, but a trail, just north of where we'd been bushwhacking, that would have saved us a lot of time and scrapes on our ankles (and arms, this being Oregon, after all). There was also a firepit and good campsite on the north side of the lake, and I remarked on our way back that this would be the perfect place to bring friends or family members who were a little leery of backpacking, because it was such a short, easy hike to a secluded beautiful place.
So we decided to try and find it again. Of course, we couldn't remember a thing about it. Not what it was called, not how we got there. We couldn't even agree on which National Forest it was in. So we almost had to give up. Then Jared had the brilliant idea of getting out the old GPS and seeing if we marked any points on it. And after searching through our marked waypoints, converting the coordinates and finding a map I could plug them into (did you know you can plug GPS coordinates into Google Maps? Works flawlessly. Awesome. Took me ages to figure that out.), we found our spot.
And so with in-laws and kids in tow we headed up there on Saturday morning to see if it was still there.

And so it was....The rest of the pics...

2009 Cripple Creek Backpacking Trip

Fourth of July

We spent our Fourth in Sunriver with my family...

in a cabin on the Deschutes River

Seville was afraid of the fireworks Uncle Jason was setting off, and needed Daddy to cover her ears...

All the women in the family wore pigtails on the Fourth of July to the firework show (Seville liked the far-away ones)

The rest of our photo album is below.

Sunriver

Playing Make-Believe

So one of Seville's favorite things to do lately is pretend we're all somebody else. She pretends to be friends or cousins sometimes (in which case I pretend to be their Mommy), but mostly we pretend we're each other. So at least once a day she'll announce that she is Daddy or she is Mommy and then Daddy and Mommy get assigned parts - one of us has to be the other one and one of us gets to be Seville. It's pretty fun. And she is actually very obedient when I say things like, "Mommy, are you getting in the car fast?" "Yes, Seville!" she'll say, speedily getting into the car. Only it's more like, "Yes, Seviiwe!"

The other day, after Seville took a bath, Jared came into the living room to find her doing this...


"I'm Mommy! I'm on the computer!" she announced.

Seriously, is this what she thinks of me? Leading up to my recent concert with Cantico, I was on my computer it seemed all day every day (I was managing web-sales and other stuff for the concert, as well as singing in it), so after I heard about her little "imitation" of me, I vowed to stay off my computer unless she was asleep, for a while. So far it seems to be working, and the impression she has of me as an ever-computing Mom is fading into the background. Now when she pretends to be me, she says, "I'm Mommy! I'm driving!" (is that even better? hm.)