finally walking and other things

Sorry for the lack of eye candy, but I'm afraid to load any pictures onto our computer right now, as it will most certainly decide to freeze up and not turn back on again for days. I will have to rely on my words this time, which may or may not be an appealing alternative.

Libiya Audrey is walking almost exclusively! She is very pleased with herself as she toddles around very cautiously with her blankie and her 'foo foo', which is clearly her pacifier. She is just as snuggly as ever, despite finding her new wings. We moved her into Eva's room recently, which is working out about 50% of the time. The times when it does not work are when either one of them starts to cry about anything, because the other one decides that there must truly be something terribly wrong in the world, and so they both carry on together, which escalates exponentially every second that it takes to intervene.

In case you may question why we would put ourselves through this particular challenge: because of the spiders. The upstairs on the girls side and our downstairs bedroom seems to be the only place that we are not currently seeing them. I feel that it is not a coincidence that I managed to go without seeing Arachnaphobia for over fifteen years, and was finally coerced into seeing it by my sweet husband only weeks before moving into the live manifestation of the film. He insisted the movie was funny. I did not think it was funny. I still do not think it is funny. I have my suspicions that he brought this all upon us by making me watch that movie.

So, long story short, we had to decide whether to keep Libi in our room, where Eva would wake her up in the middle of the night when she came in to sleep with us every night, or play the high stakes, and hope that putting the two of them together might bring some comfort into Eva's tender little soul so that she might sleep through the night. And speaking of Eva, I could not find the camera in time today to capture a glimpse of her backside as she waltzed away from me completely in the nude except for my high heeled sandals (that I never wear). I really only keep them in the closet for occasions like that.

Estella is plowing through her summer reading program at the library at breakneck speed. She has logged in 8.5 hours of reading since June 2, and I'm pretty sure that's not even all the time she's actually read. She finished the book "Hotel for Dogs" by Lois Duncan after watching the movie, and really loved that. She is now getting into writing reviews for the books she reads, and let me tell you, she has discriminating taste. While "Hotel for Dogs" got 5 stars and a rave review, "Clarice Bean" by Lauren Child did not, because "I did not really like this book because it was boring." She has read so many of the good books that I can think of that I tried flipping through the little directories of books recommended by grade. By the time I got to the fifth grade list, I gave up, because she had already read the good books that I could see through that.