A picture dump

This week has been a little crazy but we did manage to have some happy moments. For starters, my mornings often began with this view:





Even if they manage to take up more than half the bed, a sleeping baby is one of the most adorable sights around.



Benjamin's been getting around lately. He made his way over to the lamp the other day...

He seemed very interested in it. I'm not sure if it was because it was shiny or because he could see his reflection or if it was because he's at that stage where everything is interesting.

My friend Shallee gave Benjamin this shirt. It says "one tough cookie." She said she thought it described him well.

That scratch on his cheek, by the way, is a self-inflicted wound. The set of bite marks I found on his arm, however, I'm afraid aren't. Both girls deny biting him. Rachel suggested that perhaps he bit himself. Alas, these bite marks are a full set on top and a full set on bottom. Benjamin only has two teeth...

I'm kind of thinking this is the culprit:

She looks and acts so innocent but I can't even count the number of times she's attacked him. More often than not it seems to be more curiosity than maliciousness. She wants to know how long he can keep his balance while she pushes him over. She wants to know how hard she can bite him before he cries, how many toys she can take away before he cries, how far she can twist his arm before he cries...

She's constantly apologizing to this poor boy. And I rarely catch her ever actually doing anything to him—I just catch the aftermath.

She does love him, though. And he thinks she's hilarious—you know, when he doesn't consider her presence a life-threatening condition. Here they are playing with a bucket. Miriam kept talking into it in a deep voice to hear it "echo."

She put it on her head and that was funny.

She put it on Benjamin's head and it was still funny (but only for a while).



Here's Benjamin wondering what in the world Miriam's doing now:



She was making her eyes all funny.



He completely adores his sisters.



I like to think Benjamin adores me as well, though he does make my life more difficult. Diaper changes, for example, have become quite the battle. You can see the diaper at the top of the picture—I had him all ready to be snapped into his diaper when he threw his toy and decided he wanted it back. He flipped himself out of my grip and rolled over until he was lined up with it.

He hasn't quite mastered forward movements yet so I ended up giving him the toy so we could get back to the diaper—but I love his little claw marks on the carpet. He really wanted to get to that toy!

Here's Benjamin reaching for another toy on another day:

He gave me an exasperated smirk as if to say, "Just give it to me, Mom!"

I made him work for it a little harder. This time he stuck his tongue out, which everybody knows increases your arm's reach by at least 5%.

He was so excited he got the toy that he rolled over a few times—flip, flop, flip, flop. He's such a rollie-pollie guy!

As if you weren't already convinced this was just a picture dump, I have absolutely no segue to this next picture. Without further ado, here's Miriam squeezing her grapefruit rind to get all the juice out. She loves grapefruit.

Here she is with her hair freshly plaited, holding a bouquet of brushes:



And here's Benjamin eating some wild onion that he picked from the lawn:

My mom says she thinks he's an oral explorer. I think she might be right.

We went to the playground where Benjamin discovered that he actually really enjoys swinging.

Miriam already knew that.

But Benjamin just found out that swinging is the best thing ever!

(Except for maybe his hair. His hair might trump swinging as the best thing ever.)

Standing was a little less cool. He wasn't really a fan of that.

But sitting? Sitting was even less fun than standing, especially because I covered up all the wood chips (a few handfuls of which he managed to ingest get anyway).

Miriam likes it when I do tricks on the bar (even if my tricks are lame).

We had to leave the park to meet Rachel at the bus stop. Miriam wasn't happy about leaving the park so she sat down to have a temper tantrum. Her temper tantrums are so mild, though, that I never care when she throws them. Want to see what a Miriam temper tantrum looks like?

I filmed ten minutes of Rachel's epic tantrum yesterday but she asked me not to post it. A Rachel tantrum cannot be captured in two photographs. 

Anyway, she was happy for like fifteen minutes after school, so that was nice. Here she is disembarking her bus:

And here are the girls eating their after-school snack, popcorn (and, yes, I still need to sweep off the porch):

Here's Benjamin all wrapped up and snuggling with Mommy. It's been the only way I've gotten anything done this week, though it's helped me accomplish very little because baby-wearing is just easier with a little baby. By this age it's like being 18 months pregnant with an octopus. In other words, not helpful. He piches my neck and scratches my arms and pulls my hair and tries to nurse and grabs at every object he lays his eyes on, all the while pumpking his little legs up and down.

The other alternative is having him scream the minute I break eye contact with him, let alone turn my back or walk out of the room.

Here he is bouncing his heart out at ten o'clock last night:



And here he is sleeping at ten o'clock this morning:

I think not sleeping for half a week kind of wore him out.