There's big news from the Ashley camp: A Tooth Has Been Spotted! And at the tender age of almost 11 months... Teeth schmeeth.
As Ashley Kate came army crawling across the floor to me tonight I couldn't help but take a few pictures of her. Her shirt is a wee bit too big, and as she drug that belly across the floor it just slid further and further down her chest, ultimately exposing a bit of baby cleave. I know it's not really cleavage, but I got a little snicker out of it anyway. Of course when I positioned myself in front of her with the camera she instantly NEEDED that camera, and in a bad way. So all of my pictures ended up really close because the child can move when inclined.
Yes, she looks orange, which is sort of true, sort of not... I'll say this lighting and that shirt don't help her slight orange glow (which we are pretty sure comes from eating lots of orangey baby foods - I swear carrots are in EVERYTHING) but lets look past that. How about focusing on those eyes instead?
Lilly, in her bravery (or, um, unintelligence) laid down right beside Ashley and subjected herself to getting little baby fistfuls of her hair and skin pulled in all directions. She might have even gotten her eye poked once. Or twice. To which she lovingly responded with a quick lick to the face.
Sometimes we at the McClure house do our very best to add punctuation to the truth that is the title of this blog. We're all certifiably crazy, and that's what keeps us from going insane. Or getting a divorce, whichever.
Friday night Ella was down the hall in her bathroom when she hears us talking in the kitchen as we're getting supper ready. David says something about how I'm throwing a fit (who, me?) to which Ella yells 'Mama! Do Not Throw Fits! Daddy doesn't tolerate fit throwing!' We both get a good little laugh out of that but then I bristle just slightly at being called a fit thrower and possibly make a statement that only David could hear.
David, who at the time was holding a cup of water, made the insinuation that he was going to toss all that water on me, right there in the kitchen, as payment for my surliness.
Being surly has gotten me drenched before, many years ago at our old place in Georgia, when we were busy hosing out the dog pens that were out back. David made a remark that I didn't care for and I sprayed him like there was no tomorrow. And then I promptly threw the hose down and ran into the house like a girl. This didn't deter him, however, and he drug that hose, all eighty billion feet of it, up to the house and stood outside yelling COME OUTSIDE AND TAKE YOUR MEDICINE! I didn't, of course, so he got a little surly himself and sprayed me, inside the house, through the open window. I kid you not.
I tell you this so that you know what the two of us are capable of and how our minds work. So you won't be surprised one bit when I say that as I stood there, staring down a man with a large amount of water who is threatening to throw it on me, I knew he wasn't bluffing. This is going down on my terms, I thought, so I reached forward and knocked some of the water on him. And then turned and ran like a girl.
Chariots of Fire started playing as I spun around, and in slow motion David threw that whole glass full of water at my back. HIT! I'VE BEEN HIT! A quick glance over my shoulder tells me that David's coming after me. But as soon as I turn back around I hear it: ZZZZZZOOPE! as the rubber traction of David's moccasin-esque shoes hit the puddle of water and his feet go flying. And as I stop and turn to watch this train wreck, I see a six foot two inch tall man with one leg kicked high in the air and the other giving way as he crumbles and bends and gets squished like a long legged spider in the very narrow, puddle filled hallway.
I don't think I even checked to make sure he was OK before I started laughing so loud and for so long that you would have sworn I was a crazy person.
It's what keeps me from going insane.
I'm going to need you to go ahead and make these Banana Crumb Muffins.Until my camera arrives, can I placate you with these pictures of baby Anderson from my cell phone?
I took these so that I could send them to Rusty after he had to leave his precious, brand new son to go back to work. Work that involved traveling to St. Louis for three days. A proud new daddy needs to get photo messages sent to him periodically, just to warm his heart, you know? I'm pretty sure Rusty was glad to get all of the pics that Marisa and I sent, and I'm going to guess that he even showed a few of them to anyone who would look.
Anderson is SO CUTE, y'all. SO CUTE.
Since the weather has turned officially fall here, we made a rather large trip to our storage unit this past weekend. We had several stacks of the girls' clothes that we needed to store away or trade out. Thank goodness for having a ready made wardrobe for Ashley just waiting on us! Despite her squishy thighs and bulging belly, Ashley still seems to fit into clothes that are small for her age, which could be trouble if all those 12 month winter clothes don't fit!
In digging through tote after tote of clothes stashed away, I realize how often I would pack the clothes up and think to myself I'll come back later, fold them neatly and organize. Ha! I have a feeling there's going to be a whole storage unit full of totes that are haphazardly thrown together!
One of the things we ran across in the big clothes shuffle was a box of teeny tiny shoes. Ella's first shoes, to be exact. I was so excited to see these little bitty things, remembering how cute they are and how cute she was when she was learning to walk. I brought a couple of pairs home because even if Ashley's not walking in them, it will still be nice to have them on her feet once it gets cold. That, and maybe she can practice her walking in them? She is at the very, very beginning stages of putting one foot in front of the other when I hold her hands and 'lead' her. We've got a while, that's for sure, but I will at least be prepared when the time 
comes, right?
This morning I outsmarted myself with the shoes, though. I went ahead and put a pair on her, just for kicks. As soon as I did her eyes got real big and she opened mouth, inserted foot (shoe). You see, shoes are a bit of a hot commodity for Miss A. She will absolutely beeline to the shoes by the door when she's on the floor. You can imagine that anybody's shoes are going to be dirty when it comes to a baby putting their mouth on them, but ours especially. But oh no, she wants those shoes! So when she folded herself up like a pretzel and shoved that shoe in her mouth I thought Gooood one, Megan, just GIVE her a handy dandy shoe to put in her mouth! Maybe this wouldn't be all that bad if, when I had put that certain pair away, I had actually cleaned them up like I should have (see above). But I didn't. So there I was, offering my sweet little baby a veritable feast of dirt and germs and poop, right there on her foot. And now in her mouth. I am such a genius sometimes I hurts. For real.
All this shoe talk reminds me that a) maybe baby Ashley will take after some of the other women in the fam who have quite a thing for all things shoe and b) Is it a faux pas to let younger children use the much revered FIRST PAIR OF SHOES of their sibs? Of course one of the pairs that I brought home was Ella's first pair, bought for her by my mom, because they are a good, stable pair of shoes to learn to walk in. But should I have left those alone and let them be Ella's for eternity? Does Ashley deserve her own pair, or am I just being silly? I can see me, many years down the road (or maybe not so many years, as I paused in the storage unit and gazed at them longingly) looking at the first pair of shoes of my children and just wanting to bawl. Will one pair mean even more because they were worn by more than one pair of feet? Or should I spread out the sweet pain into several pair?
Ashley's utilization of her first pair of shoes, no matter what they are, may be a ways off. Just like the day that she gets a tooth! Who knows when one of those will show up. Ella's first came at ten and a half months, so it cold be any day now... Or not. I don't see any real sign of one coming in, but I'm not complaining. She can gum h er food as well as any toothless adult! Ashley is also learning by leaps and bounds about pulling up. She hasn't done too much on her own as far as discovery goes, but once I 'teach' her a little, she catches on in a flash. I feel a few pangs of guilt about this since I'm not at home to help her along like I was with Ella. I just have to remember to make time each evening when she and I can trot off to do a little exercising. Ashley will get what I'm showing her for that little session and I'll just clap and say Yea, Ashley! You did it! Yea! and she just grins that toothless grin and seems so incredibly pleased with herself. That, in and of itself, is enough to make me want to do it over and over again, much less the fact that she's learning some skills!
Where Ashley Kat e's physical skills (and toothical skills) might be lacking, she definitely makes up for in her vocal skills. She has long since been vocalizing various sounds, the first of which was ma ma ma ma ma! Then baa baa baa baa baa! Always with the little higher inflection with the last syllable. Beyond her sounds, it would appear that Ashley has also been exercising her volume. My daycare provider recently mentioned AK's ability to be really loud with her babbling. I kind of snickered, because usually I just laugh at her when she does it at home, but apparently when you combine her with the other little girl at daycare w ho is Ashley's age, they make quite a racket. Actually, the other little girl is INCREDIBLY loud, as I have experienced first hand, so I did what all good parents would do and blamed Ashley's behavior on the other baby. Hee hee!
One thing that Ashley has done, where David and I just looked from her, to each other, and then back to her, took place one night as David was doing a little leather working. Ashley was in her seat, gumming some of her absolute favorite star puffs, when David started making some pretty loud noise as he hammered. Ashley looked at him, kind of startled-like, and put one hand over each ear. We both noticed her response so David quit hammering. Down come the hands. I told David to do it again, just to see, and sure enough, as soon as the hammering started, back went the hands on the ears. Pretty clever, I thought! Now that I really think about it, I'm sure it was a Holy moly this makes my ears HURT, rather than I'll just block the noise, but whatever. Pure genius is filling up that huge melon of hers, I tell you!
Genius or not, poor baby AK has been cursed with something that her smarts can't get her out of: the absolutely killer susceptibility to being tickled. She and Ella both get it from their daddy and it's pretty fun for me, being the tickler. I'm an OK ticklee, but David, not so much. Right now Ella thinks it's fun to get tickled to the point of peeing her pants, but I'm sure one day that will wear off, much like it did for David. If I'm feeling dangerous and would like to gamble with the safety of my hands and arms, I'll give David a quick jab. I don't often feel this way, since should I lose my hands in some terrible 'accident' I'd never be able to tickle Ashley, and that would be missing out on one of the most wonderful experience s a person can have with a baby. There's just something about those peels of laughter that can make you look past all of the other, not so glamorous aspects of parenthood. It's a good thing those poor defenseless babies have on diapers, isn't it? Ella Grace is another story all together. If I had a nickel for every time she has yelled 'Stop! I'm going to wet my pants!' (only to take a 3 second break and then beg 'Tickle me again!') or actually run off to the bathroom... I'd be one rich mama, I would.
Daaang, look at me, writing more here than I have in a long while! I suppose an update on Ella is the only fair thing to do next, isn't it? That could take more time than I've got, to tell you the truth! Sometimes the things that come out of that girl's mouth just astound me. As of late, it's been shocked-at-the-audacity astounding, unfortunately, but there have been some shining moments of pure-genius astounding too. Maybe calling her daddy 'Dude!' would fall more into the audacity category, and not the genius one, I think. Oh, and as fa
r as the gloves that Ella Grace was wearing in her crazy get up picture? Those are leather work gloves, just for little childrens. You should know that we would have all of the appropriate accessories so that we can be hauled off for breaking child labor laws! We're putting that girl TO WORK!
PS: A loyal blog reader, Karen, welcomed a beautiful baby girl to her family last week. Meghan Gloria arrived, much to Karen's delight (yea! pregnancy is over!) and dismay (WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S TOO LATE FOR AN EPIDURAL?). I'm pretty sure it was 99.9% delight, though, since baby Meghan is absolutely gorgeous and fantastically healthy. Even better is the fact that it appears that Meghan takes after Karen and her Filipino family! (Karen's first daughter, Faith, is a gorgeous little girl herself, but is as white girl as they come.) Congratulations to Karen and Jason!
Remember last week when I mentioned that Ella and Mallory had to have a bath after they played together? And that the water had to be changed out?
Yeah, this would be why:
Ella and Mallory start out with water cans, innocently watering the corn (stalk stubs).
And then all that water turned the exposed dirt into mud, which demands to be played with.
And meatballs made for Lilly.
This isn't even as bad as it got. I just gave up on taking pictures and started preparing for the clean up!
These two girls had to strip on the deck and be carried in to the tub, they were THAT DIRTY.
And it was fantastic.
(David and I just told them 'go play outside' and we were perfectly happy with the result. It is so nice to see kids be kids and play in such a basic way! Ella and Mallory had so much fun, and we've got so much mud, that I'm just sure Angie will look past the stained pretty purple shirt and bring Mallory back for more fun SOON. Right Angie?!)
Ashley uses her long monkey toes to hook onto the edge of her tray, which I think is so funny. But even more funny is the view from below, seeing these chubby legs sticking out!
Me: You realize that if we ever get divorced, Ella and Ashley will have a New Daddy like that. [snaps]
David: Yep.
Me: What? That's all you've got to say for being replaced?
David: You're the one talking about remarrying!
Me: Yeah, actually I'm the one talking about divorce!
Me: No, you know what? You're not lucky enough to divorce me! I'm going to make you suffer for the rest of your life!
David: No, I'll suffer for the rest of your life.
Me: You're crazy if you think you're going to outlive me. I'm taking years off of your life as we speak. You'll be lucky to make it to 50!
David: That's NO SHIT.
(I swear this is how it all went down, verbatim. But before you go getting all worked up, it was totally tongue in cheek. Unless David keeps beating me at Scrabble. Then it's New Daddy all the way!)
