July 13

Still no baby. It's surprising, really, because when Caleb woke up this morning, he told me, "Today's the day!"

Yesterday, the first thing he asked me upon waking was, "Is Baby Rainbow here yet?"

The boy is absolutely ready to meet his new baby brother or sister. We are ready to meet this baby. It would appear that the only one not ready is... Baby.

But that's OK. We've gotten really good at this baby-coming-well-past-its-due-date thing; you'll recall that Caleb came 6 days after his due date, and Daisy came (with quite a bit of prompting) 9 days after her due date. Aside from not being able to sleep, I feel great.  I'm OK with the waiting, and we're filling our days with fun things.

Yesterday Amber and her darling kiddos came over to entertain us in the morning, and today Chris and I decided to have a breakfast picnic on the beach of a nearby lake. It was just what I wanted: I got to lounge on the blanket, while Chris and the kids had fun throwing rocks into the lake.

Also, it was an absolutely beautiful morning. There was so little humidity that Daisy's hair barely had any curls in it! (Don't you love Caleb's Batman cape? It was a birthday gift from Aunt Jenny, and is probably actually pajamas, but Caleb loves it so much that it is now a daytime staple.)

Chris impressed his children with his mad rock-skipping skills.

Funny girl. She liked all of the "rowboats" on the lake.

(Boats full of rowing teams)

Just one last rock...

On our way home, we stopped by a new-to-us playground. 

Daisy is clearly enjoying the slide, but you'll notice Chris grimacing in pain as he slowly scooted down the slide. It was not adult-friendly.

My little Batman. How sweet is he?

Yesterday, he told me that he knew "all kinds of things" about babies. When I asked him what he knew, he began listing on his fingers:

They are small.

They smell good.

They say "goo goo ga ga".

They crawl.

They eat and sleep and cry.

I think the boy is ready to be a big brother!

Meanwhile, yesterday morning I gave each child a baby doll and we practiced holding babies. Caleb was careful and gentle and attentive. Daisy threw her doll across the kitchen. Duly noted.

But, she was tickled to swing in the big-girl swing today. So I would gauge her developmental progress to be somewhere between "not ready to be trusted with babies" and "big girl".

We'll get there eventually.