Mind Bullets.

I wish I could blog just by thinking things. I'd just think, "Blogger, take a note" it would just start writing a post. At the end I'd think, "Publish" and it would be done. Of course there would be those awkward posts where I forgot to tell Blogger to publish and it just kept recording my thoughts and the entire world would know that I just sweep everything on my counter into my junk drawer when I'm "cleaning. Or that I can't sleep unless I shave my legs, even if it's midnight. Or that I can't figure out how to work my can-opener and Andrew thinks I've done lost my thinker. I'd hate to let those things out.

Life in the World of Cookes is just fantastic these days. Except for the fact that I missed a voicemail from Lucy's soccer coach and we ended up missing her first soccer practice. Ever. Fail.

I'll update you on each of us. That'll be nice for you.

Andrew is cute and muscular, and he's watching Avatar as I type this. Hee hee, I typed "Avatart." That sounds like one of those re-done adult movie spoofs. (I should say that I only know they exist. I don't have time for that stuff - I'm too busy eating ice cream and planning Thanksgiving. Well, and looking out for my eternal soul.) He just looked at me and asked, "Was any of this Pandora stuff filmed live?" I answered, "Pandora doesn't really exist." And then his face turned sort of blue while I cried laughing. I guess you had to be here.
Okay, back to Andrew. He's doing pretty good these days. His car doesn't have AC and we're too cheap to fix it, so he's been enjoying the cooler weather on his drive to work! It should be nice enough to start riding his bike (motorcycle) again soon, so it'll make his commute a little more enjoyable. He's going to be hosting a poker night next weekend, and is looking forward to our family vacation coming up in October - have i mentioned that yet?

And then there's me. I'm doing fine; same as always. My mom's group starts next week, and since I'm one of two secretaries, I've been trying to get organized and get things on our calendar and so on. Our Executive Council meets over the summer for business, but I'm excited about getting back to our regular meetings and getting busy for awhile! The summer is always SO long when you're waiting for Daddy to get home every day.

Bought a shower curtain today. That was a pretty big deal. I suppose you had to be here for that, too. We moved from one bathroom to the other and had to take the shower curtain with us, so we had a naked tub. We all know how that looks. Ugh. So I took tomorrow's grocery money and we went to Target for a little shopping. We ended up with a shower curtain, a rug, noodles for dinner tomorrow night and a big square pillow/cushion thing. Living the dream, y'all.

We're back at the gym now that we've moved, which has been wonderful. I'm going to spin 2 or 3 times a week and doing Pilates pretty often. Tonight Lucy and I went to family yoga - she had tried to attend a class last night and couldn't join because they had to have tennis shoes, so I made it up to her tonight by letting her come to class with me. We did about half of it, and she was just so excited! She did all the poses and stretches and had a blast, but the quiet got to her and she wanted to "check on Molly," so we took off to find Daddy. She ran up to him in the weight room and said, "Daddy! I learned to do a cow-down!" You know, cow pose...downward dog...they're all mammals! 

And speaking of Lucy, she's doing just fine. She's very busy, what with all her imaginary kids and learning to read and preparing mentally for the soccer season, you know. Being a first-born worrier, all of these things just swirl around in her little head. She's learning to write b's and f's right now, and writes them all over the place, which is adorable. We're doing Explode the Code and she's just loving it! I think she'll be reading pretty well by her 5th birthday, which will work well for us. I think we're going to be starting her kindergarten year next May so that we can work through the summer. I can't see any reason we'd waste the AC all summer when the nice months to take a break and play are during the holidays in the Fall. So we'll be working May-September and then taking October, November and December off instead. I suppose we'll try to plan any future babies for the fall to make things a little more convenient. Not to mention, we're full up on spring birthdays. One more May baby and I'm going to do things Vietnamese style and just celebrate everyone on Tet.

Now I've gotten off topic. As if you need information on our family planning. Or maybe you do. People seem to care about those things. I suppose I can try for the fall, but when push comes to shove, we really don't make those decisions in this house...babies come when babies come; we just clear our calendar! That aside, I'd LOVE to have Lucy reading by the time baby #4 arrives. Ideally she'll be homeschooling her siblings by the time she's 8. Like I have the time to eat bon-bons, watch my stories AND teach my kids.

Right, okay. Lucy's fine. And adorable. I need to talk to Andrew about potentially getting her a decent haircut. It's a massive battle to brush her hair every day, and I'm losing. It would be nice to get her hair thinned out a little and maybe a little shorter so that there are fewer tears every day. Hm. We'll talk about that.

Molly. Molly is...a treat. Well, she's usually a treat. This week, she's two and a half and I'm afraid one of us is going to go insane before she hits three. Where did my mild-mannered angel go?? Molly's got some weird cough this week and she's been wearing her monkey costume nonstop. If I suggest she do anything but what she's got her mind set on doing, she loses it. That said, even with all of her tantrums she's about the funniest kid I've ever met. Tonight she wore Lucy's shin guards, backwards, to the gym and Target. I can't get enough of her weird ways. Nothing ruffles her, and she just doesn't care what people think. I love that. Her speech is really just leaping along and she's really not running into anything she doesn't have the words for. Molly's favorites these days? Potato chips, skittles, getting water from the ice maker by herself, yellow cloth diapers (only yellow) and her bestie Reesie. Oh, and the monkey costume.

Claire? Claire is about the happiest, cutest, chubbiest, most patient baby of all time. She's just along for the ride, doing whatever babies do. She loves riding around on my back in her carrier and lying on the floor while the girls watch TV. She's just sweet as pie and and always grinning. She doesn't even know what she's grinning about. She's always got this big, glazed happy face, waiting for someone to squeeze her, kiss her, tickle her, nurse her, change her, roll her over and carry her around. She just sleeps wherever she is when she gets tired and wakes up chattering to herself until someone notices her.

Claire is eating about 5 times a day, taking 3 naps a day and bouncing happily into her own crib around 8 or 9 every night. She sleeps there until about 2 am when she comes to bed with me to nurse and roll around. She nurses once during the night and sleeps until about 8am or so. She naps in her swing most days, I think. She's not really a big napper. She dozes throughout the day and does a 3 or 4 hour nap every couple of days to catch up. I'm pretty sure she'll be 5 years old and napping in that swing.

She's still taking her paci pretty much all day long - she takes after her big sister Lucy that way! She had a bottle of formula a couple of weeks ago on her ride back from San Antonio. I thought she'd have an absolute fit when she tasted it, but she didn't even blink, just like Lucy did when she tried it. She was just thrilled to be in her carseat (happy place!) and eating at the same time.

All in all, we have nothing but joy in our newest model. Her hair is coming in bright orange and her eyes are...brown? Gray? I can't tell yet. Another couple months should help. I'll look tomorrow and report back.

Well, Andrew is out cold on the couch. Apparently Avatar didn't do it for him. Of course, after the week he's had I don't even think "Avatart" would keep him awake either...he's so silly. He's asleep on the couch with Molly's pacifier strap AND one of my hair bands wrapped around his fingers. I don't have to look far to figure out why Molly falls asleep with her legs trapped in her bed rails...