Update

Jolly just turned 4.  He had a backhoe themed birthday party (recall that the past two years have been recycling truck and garbage truck themed).  Guinevere made an amazing cake that looked like caution tape when we cut into it (chocolate and yellow cake, cut apart on a diagonal and reassembled to give a diagonal stripe effect).  It was decorated with white chocolate trucks she made from a candy mold.

Yesterday I had a really fun time playing dolls with the boys.  We are getting another baby doll, as there was considerable debate over who got to play with our one baby doll (the two dolls with long hair are much less desirable).  They both wanted to feed the baby a bottle and sit it on the potty ("Pee!  Pee!" says Rip.)  Jolly has already demonstrated that he is an excellent big brother, and I am sure Rip will be also when their baby sister arrives in 3 months.  We also dressed the long-haired older dolls in different outfits (most hand-made by Guinevere's great aunt - these were Guinevere's dolls when she was younger), which is my favorite part of playing with dolls.  Jolly has very firm opinions about what all the dolls should wear.

Rip has been having trouble sleeping - both going to sleep and staying asleep.  This means his parents have also been having trouble sleeping.  I've gotten up at 3am two days in a row now.  He was previously a child who said "bed! bed!" when he was tired and did a great job of going to sleep on his own, so we suspect he is feeling unwell in some way.  Whether it is teeth or gallbladder or something else (recent scary dream?) is still unclear.