Lately

Just some snapshots of what we've been up to lately, starting with Emery's preschool end-of-year performance, during which she sang not a word, but did grin like the Cheshire Cat the entire time. In between songs she felt it very important that the girl standing next to her, and everyone else, know that "Anna Kimball's peeking at me!!"

We also had Jamison's two-month checkup and from the looks of Emery's face you would have thought she was attending his funeral. She dislikes going to the doctor that much. I recently had the idea to buy her and Anna Kimball a pretend doctor's kit so that she might get a little more comfortable with the unavoidable reality of doctor's visits ... so far she is quite content to be "Dr. Emery" but certainly not the patient.

We've been breaking out the sundresses, actually for quite a while since it's been warm here all May. Pardon Anna Kimball's exposure.

I'm slowly getting back into shape while also trying to avoid joining the gym again. I have a free trainer who actually lives with us and has invested more than a birthday checks in our garage gym, so I'm giving that a go. Fortunately the kids enjoy watching the spectacle of me attempting multiple pushups at a time, so here's hoping the novelty of it doesn't wear off too soon.

As for Jamison, well, he's doing a great job of rolling with our routine and actually is sleeping better out of the house than in the house these days. Such is the life of a third child I guess.

He loves to be sung to, is in the 75th and 90th percentiles for weight and height and has even had a number of solo visits to our dear angel neighbor who frequently invites the girls to play. Somehow I've been able to hide the fact that she came and went with their baby brother, but I'm not sure how!

They surprised me

My expectations for last week were pretty low, since I figured weaning all of us from grandparental attention and help would be pretty tough. Turns out I should have had more confidence in all of us. Let's start with Jamison, otherwise known as the boy who sleep-trained himself at 6 1/2 weeks.

Here I was, gearing myself up for some pretty miserable cry-it-out sessions at 8 weeks, and the child goes ahead and shows me that he's just fine going to sleep by himself, morning, noon or night. Part of me is wondering if I did something wrong with Emery and Anna Kimball that they had to scream-it-out on more than one occasion, and part of me wonders if he's just amazing. And part of me doesn't care, because hey, I just got a lot of time back in my day now that he doesn't need my arms to cradle him to dreamland.

And then there's Emery and Anna Kimball, who spent quite a bit more time at home than usual this week. Didn't seem to bother Emery a bit. She even asked to stay home quite a few times. She and Anna Kimball played together better than ever, rarely needed timeouts and didn't drive me to the pantry for some chocolate relief any more than they normally do.

This isn't to say there weren't challenges or that I think it will be a cakewalk from here on out. It's just to say that sometimes having low expectations isn't such a bad thing, since being pleasantly surprised is always a good thing!