Scar and Daddy

Ione's Birthday: before, and after

Here is the blog post in which Ione, looking fresh and adorable in this little yellow dress, destroys a birthday cake.  It must be awesome to be one year old.  Nobody ever lets me mash up a cake like this.

Esther Rose, age 3

Dear Esther,

When your older sister was born, she had all my attention from the first minute.  There were four adults- your parents, plus Uncle Charlie and I- cuddling with her and passing her around and just being totally infatuated with her.  I would come over and hold her and sing to her, and as she got older, she loved her Aunt Emily best.  Once she could talk, she would say she loved Mama, sometimes Cooper, and then me.

When you were born, Scarlett was four months old and I was so preoccupied with her and with my new life as a mom that I think I missed out on you as baby.  I held you some, but I never got to bond with you like I did with Hope.  You've always liked Charlie better anyway.  He joked that it only seemed fair, that he had a niece who loved him best too.

I love watching you and Scarlett together, hearing your conversations as you two sit at the fairy doll house, and I'm thankful you'll always have each other.

Your first day:

And you, today:

We love you Esther, happy third birthday.

Zoo Up

Last week, DeAnna and I took our girls (plus the baby in her belly, which has since been determined to be a boy) on this train that goes from the rose gardens at Washington Park up to the zoo.  I know there was a train, I've taken it at zoo lights, but I guess I didn't know where it went or how to find it.  So, she found it, we saw elephants and giraffes, we saw two tomato frogs where there used to be three ("maybe one of them died" Scarlett said), the girls *mostly* did a good job sharing the zoo key necklace.

Then, at the end, they ran around this playground at the rose garden. I was telling Charlie about it after- it's such a cool playground, big, tons of slides, stuff to hide under, etc etc.  He said, yes Emily, you've been there before, we had our wedding engagement photos taken at that park.  But in my defense, that was like 8 years and many partially-awake nights ago.

But it prompted me to look for an old picture.  This is the farthest back our documented photos go- here's a throwback to us with Hope, age 4 weeks old.

Scar-isms

Yesterday, Scarlett found some cheese in her rice and made an unhappy face.  I said, it's parmesan, you like parmesan.  She said "But I don't like any of cheese."  Which is true, she doesn't like cheese.  True, AND CRAZY.

I reached over to write that down, because it's adorable.  She asked what I was doing.  I said, I like to write down the cute things you say, to read them later.

She said "I like my mama. Write that down."

Father's Day, take 4

Scarlett walks into the living room, "Where is my favorite daddy of all the daddies?"

Charlie on his first father's day

Hello, sunshine

Things we like lately

• Eating snap peas from the garden
• Our turtles
• Drawing monsters (not scary ones)
• Hopping 'like a frog'
• Puzzles
• Sitting by me at the dinner table, then scooting her chair closer and closer, until she's right there touching me, then stealthly trying to sneak onto my lap.  
• Asking for her 'tooth brush options'. I bring out all 4, then they fight for the honor of brushing her teeth.  'pick me, I'm green!' 'pick me, I'm suctiony'  etc.  The Dora toothbrush wins every time.
• Lately she's been asking for options for floss too. She likes to have and say 'options'.
• Biking.  Including popping a wheelie, and stopping to carry the bike.

In other news, happy birthday to Polly!

Stories about giraffes

We checked out a new giraffe book from the library.  On the way home, Scarlett started reading what she says was on the pages.  I had to pull over to get this on paper.

"Walking in the desert there lives a giraffe, eating up his leaves in the jungle.  Far away lived little giraffes and big brown spots.  His neck was so long.  In the giraffe's tummy there was another baby giraffe."

"In the giraffe's house there lived oregano.  The giraffe sat and ate and ate."

"In the river lived two giraffes, they were Arnie and Elwood.  Up in the jungle Mama, that was just a short poem. It wants to tell us a little bit."

"In the tree branch lived a giraffe eating up his leaves for fifty dollars cents."

"Rainbows in the sky.  In the sky there lived a mama giraffee and her husband and their little giraffe."

Scar and Z

Old friends:
At long last, my dear friend DeAnna, who I've seen maybe three times in the last 7 years, brought her family from Kentucky out to the West Coast.  Here are Scarlett and Zoe on the teeter totter, asking to be bounced higher and higher. I told Scarlett, I've known Zoe's mom and dad longer than I've known your dad.  But to Scarlett, the world started when she was born and anything before that is fiction. 

Scar-isms

S: "Mama, would you like to come to my pizza and English party tonight?"

E: "English party?"

S: "I'll give you English muffins."

Obviously, I said yes to that one.

Scarlett sleeps with a heavy pile of blankets, even when it's hot.  She wants every inch of her to be covered.  Once she's in bed, she calls us back in her room to make sure her head and feet are covered.  We come take her to go potty around 10:30 or 11, and she's sweating like crazy.  But she insists on this.

She's been making up songs where she just uses words of whatever is around her.  'shower, soap, Arnie song' etc.  

Today she kissed her new Dora toothbrush.

Today we- Scarlett and cousins- went to see the Frog & Toad play.  She wore her brand new Frog & Toad shirt (thanks Carrie!).  She was great for an hour, then fidgety for the last 15 or so minutes, but she seemed to really like it and she recognized the stories and only once asked for a snack.  Afterwards we sang these lines over and over: 'bamboo comes from a bamboo shoot / rutabaga comes from a rutabaga root / and Toad looks funny in his bathing suit'.

And, here is a short list of things Scarlett has suggested we get Charlie for Father's Day:

"a cousin for hoombah fish" 

"I know!  Some candy!"

"a cousin for Chubby" (which is nice, since Chubby is the whale toy she 'gave' Charlie so he'd have a friend to cuddle with at bedtime)