Big Girl

She's growing up too darned fast. Today, I went down in our black hole basement, tried to find the baby seat to hang from the table. Took me only half an hour or so, but I finally did find it! That was after another half hour of replacing the table cloth, which I was going to do before Sylvia was born, but life got in the way. I know normal people have table cloths on their table, and they can just take it off and put on another one. Not us, no, we duct tape our table cloth to the table. It's not really a table cloth anyway, it's plastic with fabric backing, bought at JoAnne's, by the yard, to fit our pretty big table. The duct taping helps to make sure that no little fingers mess with the table cloth. It works too, but after half a year or so, holes start appearing and it needs to be replaced. After more than a year, it just looks disgusting, and it had been bothering me for a while, glad I finally got it done!

After finding the baby seat, I installed it on the table. Put Sylvia in there, with a few frozen blueberries, and she looked at me and just grinned. 'Really???? Are you going to let me sit here and eat??? All by myself???? Wow!!! I just love it!!!!' She happily picked up a blueberry, and brought it to her mouth. Took it out again, put it in again, and then the other kids discovered her sitting there. Erik was the first 'Guys, guys, come on!!!!! I found Sylvia's chair!!!! She is sitting in it!!!!!'

Six pairs of running feet, excited voices. 'Sylvia!!! You are so big!!!' 'She is eating!' 'What is she eating???' 'Whose chair is that??' 'What will you give her???' 'Will she eat every meal now??' 'How are we going to keep the table clean?' 'Look how she has this really disgusted look on her face when she takes out her blueberry!' 'YEAH!!! Sylvia, you ate it!!!!!'

Sylvia sitting there, surrounded by her siblings, chewing her blueberries. Happily grinning, and enjoying all the attention. Me, choking away tears, how can she be growing so fast. I am not the only food source anymore. Her poops will change to the more disgusting type, not the nice, soft, yellowish breastmilk poop anymore. I am not ready for this! But she sure is!

Not only that, but she has figured out that it is possible to pull yourself up to stand. For now, she is just doing it on people, but she has been eyeing the couch, and been experimenting with it. She is not totally there yet, but the way she is going, it won't be long. I keep telling her that she's too little to do that, but she doesn't listen.

Christmas was fun! The kids were happy with all their presents, spent all day yesterday and today playing with them. Sylvia was more interested in the wrapping paper than in her presents. And in the tiny pieces of the other kids' presents of course. I got my very own machete. Nice, big, and shiny! Can't wait to go bushwhacking again!

Of course, I had to go out and try it. Can't have a brand new machete and not do anything with it right. There is some brush in our front yard, which I want to take out at some point, so that was perfect practicing material. I had seen all those movies, where people just swing their machete, and the jungle dissolves around them I took a big swing at one of the bushes. And another one. And another one. It now had three tiny notches in it, but was still stubbornly standing. This was harder than it looked in the movies!

Not one to give up easily, I kept hacking at it, and eventually it gave in, leaving me proudly looking at this tiny stick on the ground, wondering how long it would take to bushwhack for a mile or so. I had some more fun taking down brush, but it really was much harder than it looked. Lots of room for improvement in my machete skills.

While I was standing there, swinging my machete like a mad woman, suddenly a passer by pops up out of nowhere. I kind of hide my machete behind my back and smile at him, with a bright 'Good morning!' added. He returns my greeting, but looks kind of doubtful about it all, and seems to be moving fast to get away from me. Hmmmm, I wonder what kind of story he will tell to the neighbors. I must be building up quite a reputation, first the ammo boxes, now the machete...

Finally did some baking again today, other than just the daily bread. I made blueberry scones, and a batch of unchicken steak. Not only that, but I also managed to make yogurt and pad thai. Yummy!