It's a hard knock life!

Carlee, age 2 1/2, is our little fashionista. She has very definite opinions about what she will (or will not) wear. Every morning is a struggle to reach a meeting of the minds between her and Carolyn.

The same thing is true at night, when after having taken a bath she digs through her drawer full of (mostly) pajamas and gowns. She pulls them out one at a time, gives them a look and then throws the ones not in favor on the floor.

Last night, Carolyn fussed at her and told her she would be in trouble if she didn't get all of them picked up and put back in the drawer. So, Carlee complied and feeling like she was being overworked, spontaneously started belting out "It's a Hard Knock Life." Most of you probably know that is the song in "Annie" when the orphans are being punished and have to work at cleaning their dormitory in the middle of the night. It's a great song and Carlee certainly sang it at the appropriate time!

I've asked Carolyn to try and get that on video. If she does, I'll upload it here and let you know when it gets posted. Carolyn says that both girls sing it; she saw them "cleaning" the tub and singing it, but Carlee is usually the song leader...using the real words. Kate is more into ad-libbing words and music.

Veteran's Day Program at St. Philip's

The St. Philip's Veteran's Day Program was held on the front lawn of the school. Boy Scouts raised the flag and then a number of songs were performed by the students. Instruments played included flutes, clarinets, trumpets, guitars, drum, recorders and bells. I had no idea they had so much variety in their music department. When I was going to school there, eons ago, they finally had a piano teacher about the time I was in 6th grade. I took from her, as well as from about 3 other piano teachers. I'm not sure what that says about me. I know I wasn't a prodigy, so I can draw a rather bleak conclusion from the number of teachers I had.

But, enough about me...

Carolyn thought that the pre-K 4 class was going to perform since Kate had come home singing patriotic songs lately. But, that wasn't to be the case. The little ones just sat and watched. Jax enjoyed the program, too. He was a very good little guy, especially considering that he hadn't had a nap and this was his 2nd program of the morning; they were at Gage's program earlier.

Here are a couple of pics of Kate telling Jax goodbye with hugs after the program.




Carolyn and Jax

Jax at 6 months

Jax turned 6 months old on October 29. He's a pretty easy baby...easily entertained and happy to watch his sisters or anyone else who sits near him. Of course, you understand that his sisters rarely sit. They are very busy, very noisy little girls. But they make him (and us) laugh.

Jax seems to be very zen...he spent a few weeks studying his hands, but now he seems to have moved on and particularly enjoys watching the palm trees sway outside the windows.

He seems to know that it's theoretically possible to travel from where he is put down to another place in some other manner than rolling. He's experimenting with a couple of different methods. One way is to plant his face on the floor, push his toes down and straighten his knees. That forces his bottom up (like he's in the middle of a jackknife dive) and has some potential. The problem, however, occurs when his heinie is at its' highest point. In that position, since he's using his face instead of his arms, he just can't keep his balance and he invariably falls to one side or the other. Imagine how far he would go if we took him off the blanket and put his head on a skateboard! Wow!!!

A second method he has tried is just to keep his belly down on the floor and kick his legs. It looks very similar to the way Kate crawled early on, but she actually used knees and hands. She seemed to exert an enormous amount of will power to keep her legs under control, but then all of a sudden one leg would fly up and waggle around a little bit until she regained control of it and got it back down on the floor. But to be fair, I'm sure she was a little older than Jax is now when she got to that point. So, we have that to look forward to with him. As I said, he keeps his belly down and kicks his legs and occasionally one of them goes high up in the air, but no forward motion can be hoped for unless he has some snake muscles in his belly.

I keep trying to get a picture of either his jackknife position or his leg up in the air, but haven't managed to capture it yet. The picture below is the closest I've come.