11/16/06 An easy day

I was actually nervous about dealing with all three kids alone all afternoon, but we had an oddly easy day. Katrina slept all day, after a stellar night of only one easy wakeup (making up for hours and hours of fussy-tired until midnight). A nice easy fun morning with Julian.

The best part was a contractor-free afternoon, after a morning of saws, air compressors, and heavy banging while the wood flooring was being installed. Wood flooring contractors win for being the noisiest trade, though painters are the smelliest, drywallers the dustiest, tilers the most expensive, and carpenters take the longest. They ALL have vans that leak oil in your driveway.

Julian informed me today, "When I'm your age, I'm going to go to Yoga!"

One not-so-great half-hour today was when Katrina was screaming and I kept having to stop nursing her to deal with the boys. Gabriel knocked Julian down so hard I heard his head hit the floor from far away. I brought Julian upstairs for a nap, then talked with Gabriel about why he didn't have anyone to play with now, and how it only makes him sad if he pushes other kids because then he won't be allowed to play with them.

One funny thing Gabriel said: I asked him, "Do you push your friends at school?" He answered no. "Do you push Gina?" He answered, "No -- she's stronger than me!"

Julian took a nice long nap, and Katrina was in a great state when I woke her up around 5pm. Great enough that I got in a nice photo session with all the kids.

I did these with the flash off; risky without any natural light, and difficult to get shots with all three of them still. I learned a sure-fire way to make the boys laugh and move: tell them "FREEZE!" It was fun experimenting, and I even got some blur I like (the boys leaning over Katrina, with a slightly alarmed look on her face).







Then the boys goofing around on the floor inspired this series:








The boys enjoy these sessions too, especially since it means they get to spend lots of time kissing their baby sister! (By the way, I'd love it if you all told me if you like a picture and why -- please, critique away!)

I really don't like blogspot's photo uploading methods: slow, uninformative, buggy, inflexible, and any editing you do at all has to be in HTML. The Web sites you can order pictures from have a much better way of uploading via drag-n-drop; there must be a better way here too.


In fact, it took so long tonight that Dave and Katrina fell asleep waiting for me.

Uh-oh, baby's awake. Brace yourself for another marathon evening!

11/16/06