Our Friends Came!

First day of my freshman year I met Elise.  At least I think that is when we must have met, because we were in three classes together and in the same ward.  We became fast friends, so naturally we were roommates sophomore year. We both started dating our now husbands and had many great group and double dates.  I went to Jerusalem in the winter, she went in the summer, and then the beginning of our junior we got married two weeks apart in the Manti Temple. Senior year we both did our student teaching while pregnant, and then had our little girls four months apart.  When sweet Clara was two weeks old we parted ways and I took off to Indiana and she moved soon after to Colorado.

Then one year later, almost to the day, she arrived on my doorstep in Kansas! That champion friend of mine drove herself and her one year old nine hours, by herself.  You had better believe that we stayed plenty busy last week trying to squeeze in every fun thing imaginable in between our sweet babies naps. They were both incredibly well behaved during our outings, but on the way home there were tears turned sleeping babies who didn’t get long enough afternoon naps. We figured out solutions for that by the end of the week (bring Andrew along to referee and entertain) and we were a well oiled adventuring machine. More posts on our Kansas City Adventures coming very soon.

Emily and Clara did okay playing together on Monday.  They mostly took turns with parental supervision over a crushed up water bottle. By the end of the week they figured out how to toss a small ball to each other and clap every time they passed it (we did help), and just play next to each other with their own toys.

 

Emily watched everything Clara did very closely.  After they left on Saturday I’ve seen a few tricks of Clara’s appear.  For example, she often could be found with a toy in her mouth and crawling around with both hands, kind of like a dog.  Emily has now adopted this incredible multi-tasking method.

This was their last full day together.  They crawled around side by side like real buds.

This is one of those magically rare moments where they were both looking at the camera and appeared happy (nice catch Elise!).

There were some interesting logistics to work out with five people living in a one-bedroom apartment.  We rigged up a pretty impressive room for Clara by opening the doors to the closet where the washer and dryer are, sliding in the pack n play, putting two chairs in front of it and draping sheets over so them so visibility was zero, and then draping a big blanket over the doors to make it a dark space. We discovered that this masterpiece did NOT work for daytime naps though, so we started taking turns showering before morning naps and then Clara slept in the bathroom.  She was a great sport, especially because she cut TWO teeth last week.

Every night once we got both babies in bed we snuck out on the porch with ice cream or cookies, or both, played cards, and chatted. One night we set up our own home theater, compliments of Emily’s high chair.

Thanks for making the drive Elise. We had a marvelous time.