Just saw these photos again...

...and wanted to share them (again?) with you. Robert was a big baby. Big, fat, roly-poly baby. I saw these this week and laughed out loud. He still makes all of those expressions, too. I just didn't know how much he looked like his 3-year-old self so early on.

In these photos Robert is 1 month, 2 months, and 13 months, respectively.

Another Story by Alice and Robert

Once upon a time there was a caterpillar in a nose, and a tissue tried to get it but it crawled down the tummy. a Bird tried to get it from the inside of the bird, and he ate his tummy instead. And the caterpillar tried to eat the bird, but he already ate the all.

Family History Breakthrough

This is it, ladies and gentleman, the actual evidence of a rumored deed that supposedly connects my GGG grandfather to his as-yet-unknown-to-me siblings and parents. I wouldn't have found it on my own for many, many, many years. Thank you, Ancestry.com and all your users.

Let's start connecting up families!

Bobby's Sunday Summary

Not too much new to report.  The last week before school starts.  The kids played fairly well together.  Alice has started to read a lot more books to Robert.  This helps a ton, especially on days when they both wake up early and the rest of us want to sleep in.  Hopefully everyone will adjust to school starting.

Epiphany about Alice

Ever since I found a painting that perfectly illustrates my feelings for Robert, I have been searching for something similar to describe my feelings for Alice. Yesterday, the search became an obsession as I looked through all of Brian Andreas' Story People prints online, ignoring my kids, getting more and more agitated that I couldn't frame my feelings for her. Mr. Andreas' work pinpoints quite a few tricky feelings for me, but nothing felt right when it came to Alice...

...maybe my feelings weren't normal

...maybe I was a bad mom because I couldn't exactly say all these other things about my experience as a mother, especially with Alice

...maybe I didn't actually have a clear picture of my feelings for Alice

...and that was the real answer. I didn't know how I felt about Alice.

So, I thought about that the rest of the day. I thought about my relationship with Alice. I can't say that I figured everything out, but I got this far:

She's my first, so everything she's experiencing is new to me. I feel like we're exploring together, but she's dependent on me, and I'm kind of dependent on her, but we're trying to learn independence from each other. And I'm insecure about all of that. Sometimes I'm even afraid of what Alice may say or feel or do in certain situations because I might not know how to respond.

I guess that could be said about any of my children. But Alice is old enough to see my mistakes and confront me. It's a new playing field.

And in all this thinking, I finally acknowledged to myself that Alice needs physical touch in order to feel and express love: hugs, kisses, sitting on laps, holding hands, playing with hair. I'm not much of a toucher. Her need for physical touch has actually been a source of anxiety for me. But once I recognized the complexity of my feelings for her, and how I had avoided physical touch for so long, I suddenly wanted to let her know how much I truly, deeply loved her. I scooped her up right there and hugged her tighter and more meaningfully than I had ever done before.

She means so much to me that it hurts to think about it.

I guess that's it. That's how I feel about Alice.

If you find a piece of art that illustrates this feeling, please pass it on :)