Life at Casa de Phillips

As always, casa de phillips is bursting with activity. Here are some highlights and interesting tidbits from our little family of four:



Evelyn is sleeping through the night almost every night....well, perhaps I should say that Evelyn WAS sleeping through the night almost every night until I removed the bumper on her crib. Many "child experts" say technically you should not put a bumper on a child's bed because it could pose a suffocation hazard. I never worried about this with Isaac because he was swaddled (this rendered him immobile) until about five months old when he slept. I figured by five months he was able to move around enough, thus preventing suffocation. Evelyn is swaddled as well, however that girl has the ability to move all over her bed when she sleeps. Yesterday I found her during two different naps with her little face right up against the bumper while she was sleeping. Her bumper--although adorable--is quite thick and I fear she will get her face caught in it so I sadly took it off yesterday. Her pretty pink and green bumper now resides under her bed. During the middle of the night when she woke up twice I came to the conclusion that she must have liked sleeping with her face close to the bumper. Both times she woke up her little head was pressed against the hard slats of her crib...and she was none too thrilled about it.

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I have come to the conclusion that Isaac is the slowest eater in the history of toddlers. He friend "Mornin" (Morgan) came to play on Tuesday. Alison and I let the kids make their own pizza and bake them for lunch. Morgan ate her lunch in about ten minutes. Isaac was still munching away at his meal 30 minutes later. At dinner, he usually starts eating his meal before Tobe and I sit down at the table and is still eating while we are cleaning up the kitchen. I fear he is going to be the lone child sitting in the school cafeteria, happily munching away on his lunch, while all of his friends are playing outside.

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Saturday morning we all went on a walk and braved trekking down the sidewalk that runs in front of the duck's house. Tobe promised that he would scare the duck away should it come near us. It did chase us and Tobe did have to scare it off. On the way back to our house, we stayed on the opposite sidewalk across the street in order to avoid another confrontation with the duck. Despite the fact that the street separating the two sidewalks is quite the busy thoroughfare, the duck crossed the street--dodging cars--and tried to chase us again. I do not know why the duck has a vendetta against our family but I am tempted to call animal control. Can you even own a duck in the city limits? Don't we have leash laws?

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Tobe witnessed a small drug bust on Wednesday evening....as he was taking out our trash. Yes, the upstanding teenager who lives across the street from us was arrested for drugs. We had been suspicious of the fact that a single man owns the home yet teenagers and young adults come and go at all hours of the day. Hopefully this little operation has been shut down. Just in case you are wondering: no, we do not live in the ghetto or in a questionable neighborhood. We live in normal, middle class suburbia where most people in our neighborhood are either young families or retired. However, whenever we sell this house we will not be mentioning this tiny little detail of potential drug dealing on the "Take One" flyer.

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Speaking of our house, we moved in five years ago yesterday. Being the well-educated people that Tobe and I are, we chose the hottest day of the year in 2002 to move. Nice.

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Wednesday, Evelyn was lying on her changing table after I finished changing her diaper, happily holding a toy rattle. Isaac walked up and began to remove the rattle from her hand before I reprimanded him. However, there really wasn't a need for me to tell him "No" because the moment he attempted to take the rattle from Evelyn, she let out the biggest wail. I didn't think the whole sibling fighting thing would start quite so early....

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Isaac woke up early Thursday morning with a fever and has been battling a temperature on and off since then. He acts happy as can be, until the "feber" (fever) returns and then he just gets still. He has been fever-free all morning until noontime today. I had left the kitchen while he was eating lunch to use the restroom and when I returned I found him with his little head lying on the table. We cleaned up lunch and then I put him down for his nap on his big boy bed with an Elmo washcloth on his forehead and a sippy cup of apple juice in his hand (normally he naps in his crib and we never allow him to take drinks to bed...but everyone deserves a little special treatment when they are sick).

Have a great weekend!