Happy children

On Thursday at lunch the girls were being "best of friends" again—their term. This time they were still friends by the time I got the camera and no one was elbowing the other one in the face or anything like that.

They played babies in the living room while I made dinner. Rachel created a crib for Miriam out of the laundry basket, with a couch cushion over top and a blanket draped over the rest. Miriam was completely content to suck her thumb in her cozy little bed—when I first walked into the living room (at Rachel's behest) I wasn't even sure where she was. Rachel had to show me.

Thursday was the day we didn't have water in the afternoon/evening. For some reason I consented to Cheetos for a snack. That was a bad idea because without water to wash off their little fingers things got a bit orange. It was probably a good thing Miriam just stayed in the laundry basket sucking her thumb or else we'd have orange fingerprints all over the house! Baby wipes just didn't do this mess justice.

Here's Rachel modeling her bunny ears with the bunny she got for Easter last year. If she looks like she's crying that's probably because she was just finishing throwing a fit. We've had an influx of fits recently—I think Rachel's been as stressed out as I've been with Miriam's illness and everything else going on.

The headband part of these bunny ears was broken later that evening during yet another fit. We're still brainstorming ways to fix them but I'm just not sure it's possible.

Miriam wanted to show off a picture that she drew. I asked her what it was and she said it was a flower (upper left) and Miriam. I asked her who the other people are (the circles with long lines coming out are heads with legs) and she said, "It's just Miriam and a one'an [another] Miriam. Two Miriams."  

She also made a collage of the stickers she got at the hospital—likely the most expensive stickers on the planet with how much a trip to the ER costs. She has a bunch of princesses, Tinkerbell, and Fancy Nancy. The second time we went into the hospital she asked for a Fancy Nancy sticker.

"I want a Mancy Mancy sticker," she explained to the nurse. "Because is my mom's name's Mancy."

They didn't have any at the nurse's station so she ended up with a Belle sticker, which she was happy with.

They played with the laundry basket for a long time (while our dirty clothes piled up on the floor of our basketless closet). I think they had a car game or a train game going on here...

Today Miriam was watching Grandma get ready for the day and Grandma offered to curl Miriam's hair. Usually grandma just does a curl or two and then Miriam runs off to play but today Miriam sat on the counter, so still, with her hands in her lap and let Grandma curl all of her hair. Then she ran upstairs to show me her "Hermione hair."

It was in ringlets in the back (so cute)!

She and Rachel had a fight about who was really Hermione (my answer: neither of them...but Rachel wasn't happy with that). Rachel kept trying to convince Miriam to be Luna or Ginny. In the end they decided they could both be Hermione and even found a stuffed cat for Miriam to tote around and call Crookshanks (Rachel has a permanent Crookshanks). Miriam was as pleased as punch. She didn't even get upset when Rachel tossed Miriam's Crookshanks in the living room and got him stranded on the ceiling fan. In fact, both of the girls thought this was downright hilarious. 

Grandma turned the fan on and Crookshanks II came back down a little dusty but none the worse for wear. We revisited the conversation about how we don't throw things in the house. It went in one ear and out the other, I'm sure.

And one last picture of Miriam—she was dancing while holding onto our "privacy curtain" and asked me to take a picture. She's been thinking that she's pretty cute stuff all day long, thanks to her curly locks.