Oh, Johanna

Here is our favorite little 2 year old monkey. She is full of personality, energy, silliness, laughter, kisses, jumps, hugs and doing things herself. She loves her baby sister and is fiercely protective of her when others try to touch her, or even talk to her. Every day she gives us something new to laugh about.

And then she does this... for the third time that morning.

The same morning I was making us an egg-in-a-mess, a favorite breakfast I used to have at my grandmother's house. First you soft boil the egg, and then you peel it, chop it up and mix it with generously buttered toast pieces. I am always looking for ways to engage(read occupy) Johanna so I asked her to help me peel the eggs. She jumped up on her pulled-out drawer and went to peeling. She had just finished peeling her egg when I was looking for a knife to start chopping them up. When I came back with the knife I found her in the middle of sinking her teeth into the warm egg. I started with the, "wait!", but then realized it's okay. She's just going to eat it differently. So I laughed to myself, and her, as I watched her eat the egg like an apple. She laughed too.

When we woke up this morning we discovered our pumpkin missing and all the tops of my mums missing. Javelina. These creatures are in full force in the fall and love pumpkins, or any vegetable. And, as I'm learning, they love flower tops. Sadly, I forgot to lock the gate last night so we were the latest victims. So off I went for another pumpkin at the grocery store. Two stores were sold out of the standard orange carving pumpkins so I settled on a white pumpkin. It turned out to be pretty cool. They are orange inside and have huge, plump seeds which we liked better for roasting. Here's Johanna showing off the new punkin'.

Today naptime came a bit late. Grumpiness is always a part of her wake up routine so we really need to dedicate 30 minutes to "waking up" from a nap. This afternoon she got up around 4pm and our plan was to start trick or treating at 4:30pm. Bad planning. Getting her in her monkey costume and suitable for pictures was nearly impossible. A family picture was out of the question. Here's our best effort.

After our first house she was back in action! We went to 3 houses and the fire station and got more than enough candy for the whole house. Johanna also discovered lollipops today, as in a tootsie pop. WOW! She knew she had come across something special.

Here I am at 9:34pm, just having put Johanna back to bed for the 7th time tonight, thinking about patience. Patience. As far as I'm concerned this is the biggest challenge of parenthood so far. It's not my strong suit and never has been, but maybe if I start looking at things in terms of the egg eating I can laugh and not always want to control things in the direction I think they're supposed to go.

Ran 3 miles this morning.

180.5