Leaving Our Girls

We're about to take our first vacation away from both of the girls and it's not a quick weekend, it's 7 nights. While I'm a mom all about getting away from the kids, this one is stressing me out for some reason. We left Payton a few times when she was about 6 months old, but she was an easy baby and loved everyone. Now she's old enough to realize we're gone, and I know that she's gonna really miss us. She freaks out when Jason leaves for work in the morning. Parker is very much a mommy's girl, and I just hope and pray that none of her grandparents drop her off on the church doorstep after she cries her little heart out just a little too long. I know of course that they are in good hands, but 7 days is really long. I'm sure that by the time we get back Payton will be dating, and Parker will be in at least 1st grade. OK, maybe not that extreme, but still.

These days Parker is such a hoot. Today she came up with a new noise that is hysterical, it's kind of a scream/ahh/happy sound that is incredibly loud. And she's super proud of it so she does it over and over. She has also discovered that fruit seriously improves the flavor of rice cereal. She's now eating 1/2 a container of fruit with 2-3 tablespoons of rice cereal all in one sitting, and usually ticked off when it's over that there's not more. She rolls over from her tummy as soon as you lay her down on it, and just grins as to say "ha, you can't make me!" She's also spending a lot of time playing with her toes, and grabbing at toys trying to hand them back and forth to herself. She's gotten really good about bedtime, and will most always go right to sleep when I put her in her crib at 8 p.m.. She still won't nap well during the day, and likes to have a quick early morning bottle around 6 a.m., but then goes back to sleep until 8 or 9. Overall, she's just becoming a happier kid, I suppose we'll see how that goes when we abandon her tomorrow night.

And then there's Payton. Oh boy! Everything is about Payton picking now. She has to pick her clothes, my clothes, and Parker's clothes. And her nightly sucker, she must pick. When I try to rush her to eat the next bite of food on her plate she opens her mouth wide, points in, and tells me that she needs to "finish it up". She's very much into brushing her teeth (finally), and tells me multiple times a day that she needs to brush her teeth. She has such emotions, the tantrums are so dramatic, at least for the 30 seconds they last. She know when she's misbehaved and will usually go into time out without argument. The other day we were at Target and she kept running away from me. I told her that when we got home she was in big trouble and would have to go into time out. She sweetened up at that point, I assumed that she was trying to get out of it, but instead when we got home she told me time out, and marched right over to her corner. How do you not laugh at that! She still has a big crush on Karl and has to give him a kiss any chance she can, although Thomas is still her phone buddy.

I suppose that's a pretty long winded update, but I needed to get some of this silly stuff down or I'd forget.

One more picture of Payton in her Halloween costume. This one is from the community party that we had last week.