Potty Training Chic

Noticed that Jocelyn (2), though her picture started this blog off on the right foot, has been a bit lacking in press lately. The above images give you an idea of what she's been up to. She, too, likes the frog pool. She joined the group in the previous pic a bit later. And she's the coolest potty trainer on the block. Can't beat having the shoes on the wrong feet and sporting Lewis's red cookie monster shades.

Learning Bird Songs Link

No wonder I have trouble keeping birds' calls straight! This site shows that a single type of bird can have several different calls. It provides helpful photography for learning to identify birds visually, too. Thanks for the referral, Gayle.

http://www.learnbirdsongs.com/

A Hoppin' Good Time

Lewis used his birthday gift card from Uncle Jeff and Aunt Candi for an inflatable frog pool. (The big frog head with water spraying out isn't quite visible in the picture.) This is actually the very first kiddie pool we've had around here, and I think it's a hit.

Those are my toes!

Screwtape, the "wise" old devil, says:

You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption "my time is my own." . . . And all the time the joke is that the word "mine" in its fully possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything. . . . The man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift; he might as well regard the sun and moon as his chattels.

--C. S. Lewis

Deja Vu All Over Again

With the rate at which further installments to Anna's tooth extraction saga are coming, I'm beginning to wonder if she's suffering from some vitamin deficiency that results in tooth loss. Ian performed the services again, so this time we got a picture of the two of them together. I wonder if Ian realizes the business potential he has here with all the teeth in need of removal that are coming behind him. So far his services are pro bono.

Clive Staples on Pleasure

I finished enjoying To Kill a Mockingbird for Book Club last week and so found myself in need of some more nursing reading. Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis seemed just the thing for the occasion. I would have read it before now, but my dear husband has been carrying it around in his briefcase for the past three years. Anyhow, here's one of the many gems I've come across thus far. (Don't forget it's spoken from a diabolical perspective, so God is "the Enemy"):

"I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula."

Big Girl

Eva has been standing up without assistance for a week or so now. We are all very excited at her accomplishment, and she's figured out it's a big deal too. More often than not, she'll clap for herself after she stands up.