We survived.

Yes, the earthquake, the hurricane, the two children teething at once.  We're still here.  Still alive.  No one injured.  Only a little bit of sanity lost.  Here are the brief stories: In the middle of the day, the glasses in our cabinet started shaking and I thought the people who live upstairs must be having a wild dance party.  Then it got louder and Lucy ran and literally jumped into my arms.  I did not really feel the ground shaking, and all I could think of is that the water heater must be about to explode (it's behind a door near the cabinet where all the glasses were shaking).  Then it suddenly stopped.  My cell phone made the noise that means I have a voicemail, but whenever I tried to check it, it said, "network busy."  It did that for like a half hour.  I was ridiculously confused.  I finally searched "Washington DC news" online (I really just could not put two and two together) and then it all made sense-- seismic activity.  Duh.  But, keep it mind I did not at all feel the ground shaking so that counts for something.

The hurricane was the opposite.  We were quite prepared.  James works at the Emergency Preparedness Dept at the hospital so we had all the latest weather reports about what the hurricane might do in our area.  We bought bottled water, filled up the gas tank, ate all the best refrigerated food in case it went bad in a power outage, and even sand-bagged our door (our basement has flooded a couple of times even in an average thunderstorm).  We also cancelled Charlie's baptism, which was a huge bummer.  We're hoping to reschedule later this month.  And for all of that, all that happened was that our power went out, but for less than 24 hours so none of our food even went bad-- hooray!  Our garden maintained some damage though.  All of the sunflowers were either snapped in half or uprooted.  Thus, we survived our first earthquake and hurricane, all in one week.

In other news, our old friend Jack (who I used to babysit last year) came to play with us today.  He starts preschool tomorrow, but needed someone to hang out with him today and we were glad to oblige.

Charlie snoozed the rainy day away.  This is his favorite place to sleep (on the couch, propped up with one red pillow).  Don't worry, he's only there when I'm right next to him.  I have to play defense with Lucy otherwise she'd smother him with love.

This is an accurate picture of Lucy lately-- fingers in mouth constantly.  Those molars must be killer.  She actually took some bites out of Jack's soccer ball (made out of styrafoam).  

 A quick Lucy funny: I got a new music program on my computer lately that allows me to play pretty much any track I want for free.  It's great.  So, we've been listening to a lot of Raffi lately.  He cracks me up and drives me nuts all at the same time.  But, I am eternally grateful to him for writing a song about brushing your teeth.  Up until now, Lucy would scream, cry, kick, run, etc if you even got close to her mouth with a toothbrush.  I tried everything.  Upon listening to Raffi's teeth-brushing song 200 times in one day, she suddenly decided brushing your teeth is awesome and will even do it herself.  So, Raffi may have saved up thousands of dollars of dentistry bills.

Speaking of Raffi, we also like the song "Oats and Beans and Barley Grow."  Lucy has changed it to "Oats and Beans and Charlie Grow," which makes me smile every time.  Too funny.  Here is our growing guy:

God help us, I think he might be an extrovert.  Sometimes I'll be holding him in my lap, reading to Lucy, talking on the phone, or whatever, and I'll get the feeling that someone is looking at me.  I look down at him, and there he is just intently staring at me.  When I look at him though, he bursts into a smile and laughs exuberantly.  He has suddenly become very interactive, smiling and carrying on a conversation like he was born to do it.

Recently, my mom sent us the baptismal gown for Charlie (my grandmother made it for my brother to be baptized in.  Then I was baptized in it, then Lucy, and now Charlie), and she sent along this little playmat that we had left in her basement.  Lucy had a fantastic time telling Charlie all about it, and I'm fairly sure she remembered playing in it herself.  The conversation went something like this, "See, Charlie?  You like that, Charlie?  See, one butterfly for Lucy, one butterfly for Charlie.  Look at all these pretty butterflies, Charlie."

As you can see, Charlie was more interested in his chatty big sister than he was the butterflies.  Later, when Lucy was occupied with something else, he tried talking with the butterflies, but they were not nearly as interesting.

James started school last week, and things are chugging along again.  I've started to look for part-time childcare work.  Goodbye, summer!