earthquakes, baby food, toe pain, and babies needing to stay babies

I experienced my first (real) earthquake(s).  We've had a couple little ones that we hardly noticed, or heard about later and never felt.  But I felt these ones.  They were 'moderate'. The first one was 4.4. And I'm good with nothing more than that.  The first one was at about 11:30 at night.  Everyone was asleep and I was on the couch half asleep watching the Olympics.  And the building started shaking.  I watched for a second as 2 decorative pots chattered against each other, and I saw a sign on top of our fridge tip back and forth and almost fall off.  Then I unfroze and ran down the hall because I suddenly couldn't remember if I'd hung anything heavy near either crib.  Paul was already up to check Addie, and I checked Garrett.  Everything and everyone was fine. I checked the big closet off the kitchen afterwards and a package of steak knives and our rice cooker had fallen off the shelf. Other than that, everything stayed in its place.  In the big one in '87 the original building was completely destroyed, and although this new building is a sound structure, we're not interested in being in it if there was another big one.  The next morning Paul was at work and me and Addie were playing while Garrett still slept.  And we started to shake again.  It was a 4.5 but didn't last long.  I grabbed sis and ran down the hall to a very tired Garrett who was standing up and pointing at different things on his walls, and making a 'huh' sound as he pointed.  I'm guessing everything was rattling and it woke him up.

We're teaching Addie to self feed at a much earlier age than Garrett.  My kids don't love purees, and I decided I didn't want to feed her rice cereal.  So she eats what we eat (for the most part).  And most the time she feeds herself. At this age, quantity isn't as important as what they get from the milk so I'm just focused on flavor and texture and it's going great!  She eats cucumbers, bananas, cantaloupe, watermelon, peaches, green beans.  She's also had potatoes, pinto beans, spanish rice... all self fed.  Messy? Yes.  Time saver? Yes.  Better for Addie? Yes.  She eats little crawler stage puffs too, and I usually dip those in pureed vegis first and put them on her tray and she loves them.  I always got so discouraged with Garrett because he was so picky and it took forever and was so stressful.  With Addie, it's so much easier.  Oh and she also chews the bits and pieces off of chicken bones, and on our trip last weekend she gnawed on sesame teriyaki steak for a while.  If we have more kids, this will be the way we introduce food, with real food!

Something happened to my toe on our trip to Solvang.  A bite maybe?  It hurt, bad.  It's been several days and is just now getting better.

My boy is going to be 2 years old in a little over a month.  And Addie is 9 months old today!  Time just seems to go faster and faster. I was looking for a picture of Addie right after she was born and I got caught up in looking at pictures of Garrett when Addie was a newborn, and he was so little.  It made me so sad to see that little baby face and to see how grown up he looks now.  He's such a good big brother, and he became one so young, he still looked like a baby when she was born!  I don't know why this gets to me like it does, and I love each phase my kids enter into, but right now I'm feeling like life would be just fine if they both just stayed how they are right now.

Here's a few pictures that got me all choked up.