Day four - the whining

Not Dear Alex, but daddy: Mommy come home!
Today was one of those perfectly forlorn, dreary mid-December days - cold, ended with spitting rain, not the sort of days that make for happiness and light, though Dear Alex was perfectly wonderful this morning, and we seem to have developed a routine that works for us pretty well. Once she's well and truly up, I go in and change her diaper and put her back in the crib, saying "daddy will be right back." Then I go finish making coffee and fetching the mandatory cup o' milk, and loiter in the kitchen a little bit to see how long it takes her to notice that I'm gone. Why? Because I can stay next to the baby monitor and listen to her talk to her awesome menagerie of crib-mates - It's pretty amazing. She doesn't make up stories so much as play back the things BW and I say to her, plus a few off-the-wall free association kind of things re-combined with bits of songs and books she's long since memorized. It's too random and stream of consciousness to even try to write down, but it involves Honey bunny, knuffle bunny, Tom, (her new name for Thomas the tank engine) Brother and Sister. "Watch out Sister, be careful Tom oooh haaa raindrops on roses round and round Brother!" Fun stuff.

In other news:
Today was a playdate day - So, two two-year-olds, two nannys from Trinidad, and two cats. The craziness I described the other day was multiplied exponentially - I was outnumbered six to one. All I could do was leave, as there was no way anything else was going to get done around the house for the rest of the day. The good news is that (as before) it all got cleaned up, and no one got hurt.

Dear Alex had her first bath since last Friday (Picture 1 - above) - after days of boycott, she actually said to me tonight "Bath daddy..." I was more than happy to oblige. That's her "smile for the camera" smile. She's getting better at it, I think. (Picture 2) We had a pretty good time picking out PJs, and hanging out with Brother and Sister, along with Tom and Honey and Knuffle - they seem to be back in rotation - we had a fun conversation about the nature of the two of them, who is who, and what they mean. She's certainly consistent with who's brother and who's sister, but she's not letting on about the why. (Picture 3 - above - from the archives
) I don't know why, but I'm fascinated by her relationship with Brother and Sister - it comes and goes, but it's consistent in it's tone and manner.

For a variety of reasons, today wasn't the best of days, but it does have one redeeming feature - we're one day closer to Beautiful Wifes' return.