My little sun baby

Maddie and Jeni have been the best helpers with their new little sister. They wanted to help me give Charity a bath the other day. They each took turns wiping her with a nice warm wash cloth since we can't put her in the tub until the last of her umbilical cord falls off. One would wash her while the other manned the camera. Gracie wanted to get in on the action too. She helped me wash Charity's hair.

When we finished her bath it was still bright and sunny outside (unusual with our crazy weather we are having right now!) so I laid a towel in front of the window, covered Charity's eyes with a hat and laid her in the sunlight to help clear up the newborn jaundice she has.

She didn't like her bath at all but she loved laying in the sunlight. Once the sun warmed her up she was totally relaxed and let me rub her down with lotion without a fuss. A couple of short sessions in the sunlight made an amazing difference in her color! She is a pretty little pink baby now!

Making blocks

You know the old adage about giving a child a present and they would rather play with the box? We had such a moment at our house last week. We got a package and Nathan was dying to open it. He ran and got a little knife and with careful supervision he soon had the package unloaded. I asked him to put the knife away and then went to give Charity a bath. A few minutes later I came back in the room and he and Grace were busy cutting "blocks" out of the packing foam! I had one of those "what-do-I-do-as-a-responsible-parent" moments. Do I freak out and snatch the knife away with a stern lecture about the dangers of sharp, pointy objects? Or do I let him continue on with his careful cutting and let him practice a new skill that was obviously bringing him great joy? In the end I settled somewhere in the middle. With some instructions and many "Be careful!"s from me I let him keep cutting. Maybe that earns me the bad Mom of the Year award but I figure it's a skill he needs to learn at some point and the foam was a good medium for it.

He and Grace had so much fun with their blocks. He would cut them and she would stack them up or pile them back in the box. She would find one that was too big and toss it back to Nathan so he could cut it smaller. They played and played with those silly blocks. They were all pretty small by the time Nathan was finished with them.

Eventually the blocks got small enough that I made Nathan give me the knife and call the project finished. But we made it through without a single cut or scratch, some new skills learned and an afternoon of cheap entertainment for Nathan and Grace.