Miscellaneous

• Today Gabriel came to me all distressed after eating some chocolate chips. "Milk!! I need milk!! I need milk to wash my teef!! I need milk to wash the choc'ate off my teef!!!" :)
• Israel has been really starting to pull up this past week. (10 months 3 weeks. He pulled up for the first time at 10 months 2 weeks.) Today I found him TWICE in the bathroom playing in the toilet. Oh my goodness, child.
• Israel is also clapping his hands happily (10 months), which is almost too cute to handle. He also is repeating noises. Tim says "Thank you!", and Israel sing songs a phrase back.
• Israel now has 6 teeth.
• As of tonight, we have our bedroom back. Whoo-hooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We discovered that Gabe didn't really seem to disturb Israel's sleep while we were all in one room over vacation, so we rushed to reclaim our room today. It is quite a nice thing, having your own bedroom to sleep in. If you want to get a change of clothes, for example, you can just go rummage around and find what you need. No tiptoeing in the dark to search blindly, or simply waiting for morning. You also don't have to fold your covers up and put your mattress away in the morning. It is the coolest thing, having a bedroom. I feel newly wealthy. :)
  
• It appears we are on our second round of colds. I think we picked up a Kansas cold from vacation. Sigh. I'm sure Tyler has ours, too.
• Tim and I were talking on the way home yesterday about the bemusing mix of emotions you can have toward your child in a simultaneous moment. The night before when Israel couldn't sleep, I brought him into our bed and put him in between us, and both of us had the mixed feelings of exhausted frustration and secretly smiling and savoring his sweet little warmth and softness and just wanting to squeeze him with overwhelming affection. :) That soft skin and those silky curls and the involuntary giggles that turn quickly into exhausted fussing are just so adorable...
  
• Both of my boys have been on a "MommyMommyMommy" kick lately. Nobody may help Gabriel except Mommy. Mommy needs to hold Baby Israel, Daddy just is not quite sufficient. I think because I want to be home with them full-time and cannot quite yet, I sort of relish all this Mommy-love. Too quickly this will pass. I'll squeeze that chubby baby close a bit longer, I'll stop the heart-broken tears to do the diapering this time. It won't be forever.