Eisenstern 2.5
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I told dad when Gabriel was still a baby that it felt like time had slowed down on us. Dad laughed at me and said that the time would start to fly by soon enough. He was right. Gabriel’s getting bigger every day, and sometimes I look at him and wonder where that little boy came from.
We do need to have a talk about his table manners, but there’s no harm in him flinging his salad across the room right now, I guess.
(It bothers me. Avery tells me it’s just salad. She’s right.)
Avery seems a little upset about how much weight having Gabriel made her gain, but I think she’s unbelievably attractive now. Not that she wasn’t before! But I also understand her being happy with her body shape is important too. I just like to remind her I like her just the way she is.
Personally though, I’m not sure how she manages to play with Gabriel the way she does. Oof. It makes me tired just thinking about it.
He’s a sweet kid, though like all kids he’s tried his luck a few times to see how far he can push before he reaches a line of some kind. So far, setting those boundaries has been mostly uneventful, but he will occasionally push up to the line and then back off like he’s trying to annoy me. (He probably is.)
I don’t know what Bryn was like to our parents as a toddler. Maybe she did the same thing. Well, even if he’s not exactly like his aunt Bryn, he’s still the most adorable little munchkin. I was kind of hoping he’d get Avery’s hair colour, but blond is fine, too. As it happens, the blond runs pretty strong in this family.
Cynemaer’s kids have all come out blond, too. Go figure.
He’s not very tolerant of the flash cards. He’ll get annoyed with them eventually, but he does often ask about them. It seems silly to me. If you’re going to just get annoyed by them, why bother? That’s what I think.
But, he still asks, and it’s a decent way of learning. Since neither myself or Avery work, we can spend all of our time at home with him. I think he finds it a little annoying at times, but he’ll survive.
Incidentally, through the power of science, when Avery and I had our second child, I was able to carry it for her. So, I’m pregnant, weirdly. Never thought that’d happen, and I’m something of an experiment, but so far so good. I am consistently hungry, though. Typically for ice cream.
At least ice cream is good.
Gabriel has a noted interest in Diaval. I’m hoping he grows up to love the silly furball as much as the rest of us do. Diaval’s awfully tolerant of his toddler habits, like smacking his head a little too hard, and petting his fur the wrong way, but a little at a time, we’re teaching him how to treat cats, and he seems notably interested in making sure he learns the right ways to do things with pets.
It’s good to know his empathy’s fairly well-developed for his age. Pets make the world a little better, though I probably wouldn’t have chosen a cat, personally. Well, dad likes cats. It makes sense. (I’m pretty sure dad is a cat.)
Father came by sometime after our second child was born, a little girl we named Hilda. She looks almost exactly like Avery, I can tell already. He was awfully excited to meet his grandkids, and spent some time talking to Gabriel and then met Hilda.
“You seem a lot more confident now,” he said.
“Yeah,” I answered. “After I got past the panicking part, I realised I was already doing everything I was supposed to.”
Father laughed. “Yeah, that sounds right.”
Hilda’s growing just as fast as her older brother. But unlike her older brother, who’s far more interested in learning about the world, Hilda seems to dislike being away from Avery or myself too long. One of us needs to be nearby, or she gets very upset, very quickly, and There Will Be Tears.
She’s a sweet girl, though. Her heart is also in the right place, and she’s a little gentler with Diaval than Gabriel tends to be. Maybe it’s a girl thing.
Like my parents before me, we spent a good deal on getting varying toys and activities for the kids. I managed to find a set of our old nesting blocks, and Gabriel sure enjoys playing with them. He’s almost always over there if I leave him be long enough.
Hilda prefers being read to, or learning flash cards. She also gets annoyed at the cards eventually, but, and I may be imagining it, I think she has a longer tolerance of them. Hard to say.
I am glad the kids are so close in age. It’s important to have someone around your age you can talk to, and I hope they lean on each other when they need to. I don’t know what I would’ve done without my siblings, that’s for sure.
For all that she enjoys the flash cards, Hilda does have a habit of trying to cheat and peek around the card. What’s funny is, she can’t read yet, so the words on the back wouldn’t mean anything to her, anyway!
Silly kid.
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