My Favorite Children

I love all my children.  They are all so special.  Some are just more *special* than others.  Alice has been into biting people lately and other odd/disgusting habits.  And Henry is just a mess most of the time. Some children in this family are, well, better behaved.

For the purpose of this blog post, let's define favorite children as the ones who are easier to care for/neglect because they don't demand as much attention as others.  As a side note, I've long wondered why Heavenly Father designed babies to have to nurse for so long or even at all.  Why can't we just feed them mush from day one?  Because if that were true Zora would get zero attention. Nursing her, forces me to pay at least some attention to her every 2-3 hours.

Moving on.  As indicated by the title and the later definition of terms, this post is about my favorite children: Rex and Zora.

Rex still talks nearly constantly but he's at school most of the day.  Then he has homework when he gets home, which still takes him an hour to to do but he does it mostly by himself and without too much complaining.  But he's sweet.  He gives me random hugs throughout the day; usually just rebuilds whichever tower Henry knocked over that Rex was working on; rides his bike like a champ; and is gaining independence, even though I don't really think he wants to.

Tuesday we had 9 am dentist appointments so we didn't have to get up as early but my alarm went off at the same time.  I told Rex I was sleeping in a bit, but he, not remembering he didn't have to catch the bus, got up, got dressed, and then made his own breakfast, all without complaint.  I'm sure he was feeling a bit neglected but he did it any way.  He's also pretty funny.   This week after driving past a Trump sign he said, "This is an important election.  We're either going to have the first really tan president or the first woman president."  I laughed.

Rex has also decided that since his last name is Baker, he should learn how to bake.  This week he made pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and then pumpkin pie bars (from a box) all by himself.  I gave him the recipes but he did the rest--ok I put stuff in the oven and take it out for him.  But everything else he does on his own.  And he is quite the baker.  His creations have been big hits.

Now Zora.  She is just the most content, mellow baby.  She's the baby that I always looked at jealously at church as my kids was crawling over benches and screaming and pulling hair.  She just likes to sit and play with one toy at a time.   She doesn't have much interest in rolling over so we can put her just about anywhere and she counts her left foot as a legitimate toy.  She takes an hour or 2 long nap in the morning (at 8 on the dot), followed by a short siesta as Grandpa Dick would say while we're out and about and then will sleep another 2-4 hours in the afternoon followed by a another little nap at night before going to be around 9.  I mean, who can really complain about a baby who sleeps that much.  She's not a great night sleeper, but she also sleeps really well in bed with me so it doesn't really matter.  She's pretty golden.

She also, apparently, never wears clothes.