While Daddy is Gone

Eric has been in Vermont this week, so I had to get a little more creative with the kids. In an effort to enhance dinnertime with just mom and two little ones, I retrieved a tiny package of crescent rolls lurking in the back of the fridge and made pigs in a blanket. I convinced Mierae she needed to sit at the table and eat by arranging her meal in a slightly more appetizing way.


Why don't I think to do this more often?! Jolie was happy to eat whatever was on her plate, as long as she could dip it in ketchup.


But today she clearly indicated her preference to eat dirt...


with a cupcake on the side.


Other highlights of our week include Mierae painting her fingernails with a marker, rubbing a purple ink pad all over her body, Jolie needing to be held every other minute and screaming for over a half hour in the car on the way home from my sister's in Cincinnati. But we had a good week. Tonight Mierae surprised me by asking for her toothpaste and brushing her teeth all by herself, asking to take a bath, lying still for me to rub cream on after bathtime, asking to read stories and then lying on her bed and going right to sleep!! Jolie on the other hand screamed again for 20 minutes until I came and rescued her from her crib-prison. But we lay down together on my bed and she held my hand while she calmed down. Then when I put her in her crib she went straight to sleep.

I have appreciated the time I've spent this week in awe of my two beautiful daughters. I loved watching them interact and play, seeing their facial expressions and realizing how much Mierae is "a little Robyn" and Jolie is all her dad. If Heavenly Father never sent us any more children, I would be always be grateful that we got one little Robyn and one little Eric.