The weekend, in pictures...mostly of Benjamin

I left Benjamin on the floor while I was off doing something and when I came back, Rachel gave me a big, guilty grin. "He's big enough for me to pick up now, Mommy," she said. Picking him up has been strictly taboo...until now, I guess, because there he was, sitting on her lap. "He was fussing so I picked him up. He likes it when I rock him like this!"

And he did seem to like it, quite a bit. He was a little less happy about her baby-holding skills, however, when she put him down and let go of his head a couple of inches too soon. She felt pretty bad about that. It's nice to have a helpful baby holder around, though, and I suppose that he's a lot less fragile than when he frist came home so it's reasonable to allow her to pick him up and hold him...on her lap, while she's sitting down...on the ground.

We had chicken, rice, and vegetables with sweet and sour sauce for dinner on Friday night. Rachel's been experimenting with independence lately (obviously) and announced as she started scooping the rice that she was getting some more rice. Instead of scooping like a regular person, though, she ended up catapulting the rice out of the pot—the spoon happened to be aimed directly at my face. Benjamin was busily eating his dinner (yes, at the dinner table (oh, the joy of not living with your in-laws, right?)) and we both got sprayed with rice (as did the rest of the room behind us).

Here you can see a piece of rice that landed, yes, in Benjamin's ear:



I kid you not: rice was everywhere.

The girls like to take turns holding Benjamin before bed. Here's Rachel showing off her "Look, Mom, no hands!" technique. Not pictured is my "Nuh-uh! Two hands, please!" face.

Miriam was a little overwhelmed by his girth:

He's getting huge. Like twelve pounds huge. He's nearly as big as the cute little girls in our ward who are around his age—and he should be catching up because he eats all the time and because he was born prematurely my body's pumping out some high-calorie stuff for him. He's seriously chunking out:

We spent Saturday afternoon cleaning up the yard. Benjamin and Rachel helped. Benjamin helped by being mostly not whiney. 

Rachel helped by keeping him entertained and being our runner ("Put this in the garbage!" "Go check on your sister!" "Bring me the clippers!" "Uh-oh! Go rock Benjamin's chair!").

Miriam, who doesn't like snow or bugs or having the sun in her eyes or getting dirty, stayed inside and played princess by herself. She built a castle on our bed:

Later on we threw all three kids in the tub:

Miriam wanted to help scrub Benjamin's head:

And then Rachel wanted a turn so Miriam held him while Rachel scrubbed:

He was squeaky clean by the time they finished...not that it mattered because by the time we went to church on Sunday afternoon he smelled like sour milk again anyway.

Here are the kids halfway ready for church on Sunday morning:

And here are my two boys, completely tuckered out:

Benjamin hasn't been sleeping well lately so we've been taking turns pacing the floor with him. He had a slight cough on Sunday morning and by Sunday night he was completely miserable. By Monday morning Miriam asked me if he was turning into a puppy (an idea she was completely comfortable with—because how could a puppy be much worse than a baby brother, right?). I hope he gets over this soon.