Small changes around the house

Lately we've been doing small things around the house. Tweaking things here and there to accommodate our needs a little better. First we surrendered most of our den to the girls' toys. We have two bookshelves in there still, blocked off by a wall of pack'n'plays and a toy box. It keeps the toys contained to one area a bit better. Then we moved our glider rocker and the unsteady bookshelf that has doubled as a shelf for bottles for several months. The recliner replaced it and Steve put a shelf on the wall so we have someplace to put bottles and coffee cups a bit farther from the reach of little girls. Then we moved that rickety bookshelf over to the edge of the den for the girls books. Steve secured it to the side of the entertainment center with an L bracket so Amelia can't pull it over again and all their books and a few toys fit on it. Good thing too, because they've collected too many books to fit into the bins under the toybox any longer.

The newest and biggest change was a hutch for the dining room. It has doors with shelves inside on the bottom, a pull-out tray for a laptop, and open shelves on top. This is mainly for my stuff that I don't want the girls to get into, since Steve has the desk in the spare bedroom. Up until now, my books, magazines, etc. have found a home on our dining room table. The problem is that Ella can still reach them and Amelia can too if they're near the edge. So some of my books have been colored in, picture frames have been broken, and other things of that sort. Not to mention that I had to collect and move all of it any time we had anyone extra over for dinner, only to move it back after dinner. Basically I got tired of moving it around and rescuing it from little hands. So we bought the hutch. Steve put it together last night, I organized my things into after my internship, and I love it. There's room for pictures that had been stacked and hiding in the bedroom until now and little breakable knick knacks that I didn't have a place to display out of reach. My things are finally organized and have a place.

I situated a few pictures on it earlier and then went to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. While I poured a cup of coffee from my new-Christmas-gift coffee maker, I glanced around and saw our new banana tree. It's supposed to help bananas stay fresher a little longer. It was $4 and I figured it was a sound investment since we've gone through a bunch of bananas a week for probably six months now. But it was odd, seeing that and thinking of our new hutch somehow made this house seem more like our home. We're putting more and more of our own touches on the house and bit by bit it feels more like our home and not just our house. I think that's the best change of all.

A confession...

It's Friday afternoon and I'm back from my internship. Both girls were napping when I got home (hallelujah!) so I enjoyed some quiet time before getting them up. After diaper changes, Ella had a bowl of cereal and a cup of milk and was watching tv. Amelia was entertaining herself too so I started reading on the internet. Amelia started crawling into the dining room and I didn't pay much attention. She likes to play in the little bedroom or the kitchen and I figured I'd hear her getting into something she wasn't supposed to and then I'd retrieve her. Probably 10 minutes passed before I realized she was very quiet. So I got up and walked into the dining room - no Amelia. Stuck my head into the bedroom - no Amelia. Hmm. Walked into the kitchen - not there either. I really didn't think she'd crawled upstairs since she tends to grunt when she climbs the stairs and I hadn't heard that. So I checked the den, wondering if she'd crawled in there and I just didn't notice. She wasn't there either. I was starting to get a little nervous at this point but knew she had to be in the house and if she had gotten hurt, I'd have heard her. So I checked the kitchen and bedroom a little more thoroughly before going upstairs. Sure enough, that little sneak crawled out of the bathroom with a bottle of my contact solution! She was absolutely fine. But she was so quiet climbing the stairs...

Needless to say, from now on, if she's awake the gate will be up.

Family of book worms

In the past week, Ella has had an ear infection and a cold and Amelia has had a cold. It's made for a rough week, especially since I was gone 28 hours at my internship (still chipping away - only 139 hours to go!). Last Friday I stayed home because Ella was so miserable. All day Friday and all day Saturday there were only two things that made Ella feel better: being held by either me or Steve and her books. The kid adores books. This makes me very happy.

I've always loved to read. Unfortunately it's been a few years since I did much pleasure reading, primarily because of grad school and becoming a mom. But when I was pregnant with Ella and hadn't started school yet, I read voraciously. I read the entire Anne of Green Gables series. I read the Chronicles of Narnia. That makes 15 and I read other miscellaneous books too. And I've been reading for years. We have pictures of me as a toddler, reading to my dolls and asleep on a pile of books I had been reading.

Steve is the same way. He read his mom's college textbook for English when he was in junior high. He reads almost every night before bed. He is a wealth of information because of it too.

Amelia is off to a good start. She will sit on the floor surrounded by books and be content for quite a while, the same way Ella always has. She always wants to hear Ella's bedtime story too. We read Ella a book every night before bed as part of her routine. She receives books and a magazine in the mail and on the days those come for her, she carries them around all day long. Books are her favorite and I love that books were comforting to her. I hope it always stays that way.