sinai-grace days

i've been wanting to linger in bed a little longer each morning. it's so lovely to be sandwiched between luci and lij. luci will spoon right into my back. lij will start playing with my hair, saying, "huh?! huh?!" in his cute little baby voice. i remember luci's big word at that age was "tartar."

i think i've also been treating lij like a puppy. he crawls over to me and i ruffle his hair, rub his back, then pat his butt to send him on his way. i pluck him out of trouble when he starts looking for shoes to bite, papers to rip, or the outgrown swing to crawl under. i clap and say, "good boy!" when he does a trick.

one time i had lij on my lap and luci came over to me holding her piggy bank. she said, "here mommy, i want to buy him! take my money!" speaking of money, luci wanted to buy a frivolous $14 toy the last time we went shopping. i told her 'mommy's piggy bank doesn't have enough money in it right now.' she said, "poor mommy's little blue horsie is too small." i had no clue she saw my old childhood piggy bank and made the correlation.

i miss home. there's gobs of work on my desk which i'm totally too unmotivated to do. hence i blog. with my door shut of course, furtively minimizing my screen behind patient labwork if i hear footsteps a little too close. i pulled an all-nighter working on a presentation for the department. i kept trying not to fall asleep on the road by blasting the AC, prying my eyelids open, singing whatever song came out of the radio. i was belting out, "you make me feel like a natural woman." which is a song i'd never sing, even as a joke. i began singing, "i hate this drive. i hate this drive..." to the same melody.

only 5 more days at this forsaken rotation.

rutherford & lewis

if gary and i could ever be rich inventing family-friendly homes/decor/toys, that would be our label, i think. we call lijah rutherford, partly because gary always sings "ruka tuk tuk" to him, and also because to me he looks like a stern, stuffy teddy bear when he's dressed up. and of course there's lucia/luci/louie/lewis. i've said this before - they're growing so fast.

we got the keyboard out for lijah, who seems to be really interested in music. there i was, in awe of him hitting the drum pads, mixing the beats up from salsa to dixie, future brian mcknight-esque imagery occupying my brain. he suddenly stopped to try to bite the adaptor cord instead.

then there's luci whom i overheard saying, "my name is lucia marie guevara and i'm three years old and i have to go poop in my potty." she had her first day of ballet class yesterday. we coached her to be good and mind her teacher. she was so pretty, wearing a lavender leotard with ruffles, matching hair ribbons, pink tights and shoes. i kept expecting her to bust out of the classroom, howling, clinging to our legs. instead she was the first one in and the last one out.

i also played hookey on gary's birthday this past wednesday. i had to get super creative to call in sick, since people at work knew it was his birthday. so i used the favorite all-time scapegoat: diarrhea. i made up a story about going out to celebrate at a mexican dive, then getting food poisoning. the day after i purposefully wore black and aimed to look a tiny bit disheveled. they said, "oh honey, you should have stayed home today too!" it was so wonderful, getting coffee and bagels for breakfast, going shopping and bowling, baskin robbins... it was like... post-college.