June on the West Coast

We started out the month BIG.  Charlie went to visit Scarlett's future suitor, Max, in Boston.  Max is growing his organs on the outside, superhero-style.

Moving on, Scarlett helped her cousins prepare for their camping trip.  Then, they played in real sleeping bags, we played pretend sleeping bag, we played pretend campfire.  She put friends around a campfire made of blocks, and stoked the fire.  She gave the friends fake marshmallows.  She told them not to get too close to the fire. It was very realistic.

The sunny weather came so there was a lot of gardening and sidewalk chalk.  Mostly we drew frogs, and mostly the frogs looked like aliens.

Then we get to the biggest June event- Esther's birthday.  We went strawberry picking, and did a lot of strawberry eating along the way, and left with full bellies and red fingers.  There was a very ominous rain cloud in the distance the whole time.  It poured on the drive out there, but was nice and dry while we picked berries and rode the hay wagon and watched a rabbit hopping around.  And now my baby niece is two!

All the while, Scarlett has been practicing her new trick, of delaying bedtime.  "I want a glass of hot milk."  "One more story."  "I want another bear."  etc etc etc.  Two has been fun, except this part.

our little creature of habit

Scarlett's new game is to sit on the kitchen floor, on a towel, putting her bath friends in a big bowl of water, and a little pan of water next to it.  The bowl is a hot tub.  The pan is a swimming pool.  The rubber ducks swim around and dive and slide etc etc.  They go back & forth between the bowls.  Scarlett gets soaking wet.  She eats an apple- whole, not cut- while she does this.

The first time she did this, I was trying to occupy her while I did dishes, so I said, hey I have a fun new game wanna play?  She was eating an apple.  So now she plays the game while Charlie is doing dishes, and she insists on having an apple, even though she doesn't always eat it.

She's like this with many things.

1. We always walk around the block the same way.  It takes a lot of convincing her to take a left when we hit the four-way stop.
2. She likes walking into Aunt Sally's house by the front door, because there's a hanging plant there and she wants to see it every time.  Aunt Sally gave her one for Christmas too.  We usually use the back door at their house, but she's not having any of that.
3. For a long time she asked for a banana every morning, and ate it.  Then she kept asking for the banana but wouldn't eat them.  Finally we've stopped supplying bananas and she's taken to eating mostly yogurt, all day.
4. At the zoo last week, we bought her a snow cone for the first time.  So I anticipate many more snow cones at the zoo coming up.

 

First Snow Cone, of many

Summertime, and the livin's easy...

We made sun tea this week, on one of our 80 degree days.  Charlie and I have been drinking sweet tea with the fancy whiskey he got for father's day.  Scarlett has been having iced tea, and she thinks we're drinking the same thing.

Last weekend after a run, I was drinking chocolate milk.  Scarlett didn't know what it was, but she wanted some.  So I told her it was special coffee, and she stopped asking. 

Scar and Ramona, slathered in sunscreen and wearing their stripey swimsuits. 

Father's Day

Dear Charlie, you are the best daddy I could hope for my little girl to have.  Not just because you found Arnie tonight after I'd been looking for half an hour, although that was impressive.

June

Some of Scarlett's favorite things lately:

• Bears! We are still celebrating teddy bears and their picnics several times a day.  She is sleeping with a huge stash of bears, her giraffe, a cow and a whale, and even from under that huge pile of stuffed animal, she asks for more friends.
• Smoothies, with honey
• Requesting a glass of milk and not drinking it
• Generally not eating anything
• Talking about how, when she was in my belly, she had no toys to play with.  No Arnie, no books, nothing. 
• Hugging this lion, on our neighbor's porch.

She's also grown a bunch since our last trip to the swimming pool.  She was able to walk farther out of the shallow part than ever before.  Her height on the chart at the pool was imprecisely 35 inches. 

40 years

Our Season of Injuries

This weekend was a rough one for our toddler's perfect skin.  One evening, as she ran into the bathroom to throw toys into the bubble bath, she caught her toe on the edge of the door.  She said, 'I hurt my toe'.  Thinking she had stubbed it, I reached down to kiss the toe, and saw it was bleeding and there was skin dangling off.  A lot of skin, enough to make me queasy.  Seeing the blood, she said 'It's red!  There's red!'.  She was fascinated with the 'red' and was mad when we put a bandaid on it.  She is much stronger than I am.

The next day, she was running in the driveway and fell, landing face-first, and now she's all scratched up.  Scratches on her cheek, a vaguely black eye, and a fat lip.  She also has a scratched-up hip which we didn't notice until later.  She cried for about 30 seconds and then wanted a snack.

What I have learned is:

• Toddlers do not want you to ice their wounds
• Hurt is irrelevant to her if snacks are around
• Her pain hurts me more than her

In her unscathed days- playing in the crib with Carrie

Scar and Grandpa.

Also pictured, Bill the bear.

From Portland with love

Dear Charlie,

Scarlett and I spent the weekend in Eugene and when we came home last night, the house was very empty without you.  When she woke up this morning, she asked where daddy is.  I keep reminding her, that you are in Boston with Max, his belly hurts a little and you are there to give him extra love so he will get better.  She seems happy with that answer, but she asks about you every day anyway.

• We have been reading Make Way for Ducklings a lot, because the ducklings are in Boston like daddy.
• Scarlett got to pet chickens, she went into the neighbor's back yard but not into the chicken's house.  She found this much more pleasing than just looking at them through the fence like normal.
• Today we ate lunch and she directed me to sit in your chair, and Laundry Bear sat in my chair, and she sat in her own chair.
• I asked what her favorite part about our trip to Eugene was.  She said, playing on Grandma and Grandpa's bed.  But, I would have guessed it was playing with Lucas' toys.
• Today before naptime she said 'I am make sure-ing the right friends sleep in the shopping cart.'
• One of her books ends with 'What do you think Star Catcher wishes for?' and today she said, she wishes for a snack.

I'm glad you got to visit friends.  I will be glad when you get home too.
We love you and miss you.
Emily and Scarlett