Second firepit of the season

A very nice evening last night, and wood lying around with some matches, so hey, let's have a fire! And while we were at it, we got some photos of mom playing with Lily.


Some of the neighbors came by, and other friends, and dinner was delicious. We had ice cream and okra (not at the same time), with salmon and grilled apple.

Seeking the Center

She-Who-Is-Also-An-Artist is having her second art show in town, and her first at a gallery. It's a fabulous local community-oriented gallery, and they are showing her most recent set of inked mandalas in the month of June, coming up soon. The opening reception is June 1, and it’s very awesome to see my wife’s work on display.

SEEKING THE CENTER
[She-Who] creates mandalas, Sanskrit for circle, as a means of centering and enjoyment. These vivid geometric shapes are created by hand and are not computer generated. She uses permanent colored and metallic inks on acid free paper. Please join [She-Who] and view her mandalas and over 200 local artists work.

Just between you and me, “centering” is a code phrase for “doing some relaxed adult thing so that I don’t lose my mind after nine hours with Olivia/Lily/both.” Not that we don’t love those kids, but hey…

Subject/Predicate

Lily had a fever this weekend. Sitting on my lap after taking some pain reliever, she looked up at me with her droopy eyes, smacked her lips, and said:

"I like it."

Her first sentence was about yummy medicine (or 'cine).

Very scary pink friendly monster

Used to be that Olivia wasn't afraid of the dark. She'd wake up in the dark, walk to our dark room, and would not comment about the lack of light. But in the last few months, she has generated an awareness of dark places and the imaginary monsters that lurk there. She occasionally draws them.

So now we work with that fear. I take it as a natural development, and try not to make too big a deal about it. She falls asleep with a night-light.

Tonight, I had to follow her downstairs to stay near her while she turned on the light. (This is a new thing, that she can reach the basement light switch, which is set higher than standard switches.) She said that she used her "shooter" and the monster was dead. Even three-year-old girls know about "shooters." I suppose this knowledge is unavoidable in our world today.

Lily talk

Approaching 21 months, the language explosion is on. We ask her what she did at daycare:
"Pl-aay," she says in her sing-song voice.
"Gas station."
"House," as we approach our house from a couple blocks away in the car.
"Bye Kay!"
"Lounch," for any meal.
Want this little piggie again? " 'gain!"
"Book. book. book"
"Sowwy," when apologies are needed.
"Sing. Sing. Baa baa sheep" and then "Tinkle tinkle?"
She frequently loves to carry around a board book to look at.
"Lotion."
"G'ama, g'ama" whenever grandma is on the phone.
"Aw done." Unless olives will be served for dessert. Then she comes storming back into the kitchen screaming "Owives! Owives! Owives!"
And, of course, a whole bunch of things she is urgently trying to tell us that we simply don't understand. Parents--we're soooo slow to get it.

Loser boyfriend?

Olivia was complaining that Tombo was calling her stupid, so I said that he’d have to go home for the remainder of the day. When she claimed that Tombo’s mom and dad and house all died, we told her that he could go to his aunt’s house.

“No, but I love Tombo!”

So now she's creating imaginary loser boyfriends for me to deal with? At age three?

Photos, because you like them

I thought that I would publish fresh photos of both children, but uh... turns out that lately, we've only gotten good close-ups of Reesa. So there she is, on the swing last night. Some of her favorite words are doggie and birdie. She has a word for her sister, Genevieve. It is Zhe-zhe.


Speaking of Zhe-zhe, here's our most recent good close-up of the elder child. It's from February 10.