Every Day with Eli: February 10

UPDATED WITH PICTURES!

If nothing else, I know my mom waited up for this post. Unfortunately, my internet decided to die yesterday, so I wasn't able to write this post yesterday.

More specifically, our modem and router were apparently so old that they became obsolete and the addition of a new wireless printer was more than they could handle and they quit. And my internet quit. I didn't realize quite how much I relied on the internet until mine just stopped working. I was at a loss.

But my handsome husbando made a late-night Best Buy run, and purchased a new modem and router for us and we are back in business. Hooray!

So. Today is Tuesday, and Chris goes back to work on Thursday. That means today was my one chance to practice taking Daisy to preschool with Lily and Eli. Yes, I realize it is neurotic to feel the need to "practice" something like this, but it's how I roll. So today, Chris and I loaded the three youngest kids in my shiny new van and drove to preschool. Though Chris was there with me, I insisted on doing everything myself, just to see if I could do it. He was there for moral support and emergency help only.

Well.

Somebody (whose name rhymes with "Silly") did not like that plan.

Somebody saw that Daddy was there, with open arms, and didn't understand why on earth she had to walk.

Somebody refused to walk into the preschool. Instead, she sat down in the wet parking lot and screamed.

It was awful. I cajoled. I encouraged. I praised good behavior. But the girl refused to take more than one step, and kept sitting down and screaming. Eventually, I had to scoop her up under my arm and carry her, wailing, into the school.

She kept screaming.

Everyone stared.

I was that mom.

And then I cried the whole way home.

She's not quite 19 months old yet, but Lily has made the leap from baby to full-fledged toddler. I've never really experienced the "terrible twos" with any of my other children, but Lily seems to have decided it's time.

Oh, yeah. This was when I found her emptying her pants drawer. By the time I came back with my camera, she had put most of the mess away.

This girl.

Seriously.

Even better? I was so discouraged by the morning that when it came time to pick Daisy up, I sent Chris and Lily to get her and chose to stay home with Eli. Chris reported that Lily cheerfully - cheerfully! - walked the whole way into preschool and back. That girl is just messing with me.

After lunch, my dear friend Amber came to take pictures of Eli for me. Less than 24 hours later, she had an amazing selection of beautiful photographs ready for me to peruse.

I am convinced she is a robot.

But I won't share those yet. Instead, I will share pictures of Amber at work, because it's pretty impressive.

What? What's that on Amber's chest? Oh, it's just her two-month-old daughter, Edie. Who had a cold. And yet Amber was still able to photograph my baby, and do it well. I told you she's a robot.

Here she's shushing my baby into a pose while her own baby sleeps right there.

Pretty impressive, huh?

Once you see the pictures, you'll be even more impressed.

Also, I discovered this today:

When I was pregnant with Lily, I bought these little ceramic birds on a whim. Two white ones for Chris and me, a blue one for Caleb, a pink/red one for Daisy, and a green one for Baby Rainbow. For my birthday a year later, Chris and the kids happened to buy me a few more ceramic birdies, and one just happened to be a little blue one. A year after that, we now have birdies for every member of our family, and it makes my heart happy.

UPDATED WITH PICTURES!

These are some of my favorites of the beautiful photos Amber took for me. I've already shared them on Facebook, but putting them on the blog makes them official.