I watched as my little girl hopped and flipped around a bar, walked on a balance beam and grew to be very proud of herself. I also watched as she tried to disobey and do her own thing and was brought back to the group with some gentle guiding from her coach, and the fear that she might not get to play along if she didn’t keep the rules. I was proud of her. She was so big, she just hopped along and followed directions once she got the hang of what she was supposed to do.

For a reward for a good class they all got to jump into the foam pit that the older kids use to catch them as the practice dismounts from the bars and stuff. That was the highlight of Olivia’s life. They jumped in over and over. She was hoping to try that from the moment we walked into the gym and she said, “Mom, those kids are falling all over those squares!” with eyes as big as saucers.

She bounced and danced all night long. I could tell she felt a sense of accomplishment. She also had a ton of fun. “I am so happy! I am so happy!” was the chant the whole way out to our car. She loved it so much we signed up for the weekly class.

If I don’t drink coffee in the afternoons and opt for tea, Elise wakes up at 3am or 4am and I can quietly nurse her back to sleep in less than 15 minutes. She stays in her own bed until about 6am or 7am and we can sleep without vicious toes in our skin.

This is the same child with whom I had pre-labor contractions that drove me up a wall until I cut out caffeine around 38 weeks pregnant. Starbucks does not like Elise, or maybe it’s the other way around.

Thanks for your patience.

As for everyone else. You will notice a striking improvement in the quality of L&B photography. That would be thanks to Rob and the Nikon D40 that he bought me for Christmas. It’s my new favorite thing.

With images like these, you know it’s a great blog.

• Blue Bell Knoll/Cocteau Twins… Without a single discernable lyric, Carolyn’s Fingers warm the soul that wanders another brown dead Ohio winter.
• This Place/Ellie LaVeer… smelling the new CD that we’d all waited for so long to hear, putting it in the tray, and being happy from end to end.
• Transient Warehouse of Damaged Goods/Jonathan Penn… Dead Flowers on the highway, night driving.
• Children Running Through/Patty Griffin… Heavenly Day ushered in spring with the voice of an old friend.
• In Rainbows/Radiohead… waiting until release day, listening end to end, satisfied.
• Boxer/The National… the crescendo of Slow Show, waiting on the platform for the train in Barcelona, feeling with every fiber a citizen of Berninger’s fake empire.
• Sky Blue Sky/Wilco… south to West Virginia, bright sky, absolutely no work in sight.
• The Cost/The Frames… Irish rock and the swell of sound from downtown Cairo at 1am, knowing I would be home soon.
• Fox Confessor Brings the Flood/Neko Case… route 340 from Front Royal, stepping into my dead grandmother’s house for maybe the last time, and knowing the places we call home can never completely be home.

Others well worth the hearing:

• We Walked in Song/Innocence Mission
• Armchair Apocrypha/Andrew Bird
• We All Belong/Dr. Dog
• All Hour Cymbals/Yeasayer
• The Swell Season/Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
• self-titled/The Cake Sale
• A Year in the Wilderness/John Doe
• The Stage Names/Okkervil River
• The Trumpet Child/Over the Rhine
• Challengers/The New Pornographers

Post your own in the comments.

So what was my answer?

“We are. All the People of God are His wife. Me, you, Elise, Daddy…”

Liv laughed, “Daddy is a girl?!”

I then said, giggling and afraid that I’ve reached the point of confusing, “Well, with God and people He is the boy and we are all girls.”

It was hilarious, I tell you, for Olivia to imagine that Daddy is a girl. I have absolutely no idea if that was a good answer or not. Remind me again why I am in the business of Catechizing this little spit-fire?