Easter Weekend (Part 2)

On Easter morning Scarlett got an Easter basket with bubbles, books, a bath toy, some coloring supplies, and bracelets.  Then, we went to visit cousins- we ate food and drank mimosas.  Scarlett played with cousins, mostly in the dirt.  As a bonus for us, she took a super long nap after the morning brunch.

Easter Weekend (Part 1)

I feel like all I hear about around these parts are people complaining about the weather.  They're upset that it's raining, or it's overcast, or it's cold.  And I get it a little, I could stand to see the sun sometimes too.  But if you live in Portland Oregon, it seems silly to expect the nice weather in March or April.

That said, this was the first weekend all year with enough sun to play outside two days in a row.  People were cheerful.  Especially the people, Charlie and I, who spent Friday night at the Edgefield, walking around and drinking wine and soaking in this salt pool.  And eating dinner, sitting for as long as we want to eat without feeling rushed by a toddler.  We talked a lot about Scarlett, then we talked about being one of those couples who mostly talks about their kid.  But we had fun.  Did I mention there's a soaking pool?  There is, you should try it.

When asked who was coming to eat dinner with her, and put her to bed, Scarlett said Tavish.  So I guess, big thanks to my mom and dad for driving Tavish up here so he could handle all that.

On Saturday afternoon, there was probably an hour's worth of prep so that Scar and Lucy could dye eggs, which lasted a matter of minutes.  

And then, the Easter egg hunt.  We've been reading the Clifford Easter book extra lately, so Scarlett was familiar with the idea of hunting for eggs even though she's never done it before.

And for some reason, Amber is being really selfish and holding that baby in her belly even though it's time for him to come out.  Why you gotta be so greedy Abag?  The rest of us want to hold him too.

In last year's Easter family photo, Scarlett wouldn't let go of her baby doll.  The doll is covering half her face for most the pictures, or she's looking down at it, or the pictures are blurry because we're trying to make her smile.  This year, the treats inside the eggs caught her attention.

Tightrope

We saw tightrope walkers at the park, with their ropes stretched between this maze of trees.  It was really odd and fun, except the part where we had to keep Scarlett from running underneath them.  To distract her, we did some daredevil moves, but closer to the ground.

The ropes are in the background of these pictures, below. Although I totally understand if the beauty in the forefront is so distracting, you can't look past her.

Car talk

On the way to the grocery store, Scarlett says to me, "I have a lot of bathing suits."

She does- she has four.  She put them all on, one over another, yesterday.  But then she had a potty accident, and we had to wash all the bathing suits, and they are hanging up drying in the basement.  Later on, in the grocery cart, she said 'The bathing suits are hanging to dry'.  Everything she says is fascinating to me, I wonder when that will end.

Conversation at the duck pond

Me: Look at the little sleeping ducks!
Scarlett: Their mama will put a blanket on them.
(We walk together for a minute)
Scarlett: They don't have a Violet to sing to them.

Pie!

Yesterday evening, after several days of potty training fails and some backsliding on the progress we've made, I told Scarlett that I wanted her to be a big girl tomorrow, and stop having accidents, and that we knew she was trying and that she could do it.  The thing is, she can control her bladder, if she wants to.  But she doesn't want to stop playing to go sit on the potty, or she wants to go but she wants to grab 13 stuffed animals and read four books first.  And by then, it's too late.  So today, we turned on a timer and every time it rang, regardless of what we were doing, Scarlett had to take a bathroom break.  And it worked.  Zero fails today.  She wasn't always thrilled, but she agreed to go.  And now I'm going to make a big sign that says: IT HAS BEEN ONE DAY SINCE OUR LAST ACCIDENT.

To celebrate, she and I walked up to the Bipartisan for pie tonight.  We planned for blueberry but they had marionberry instead.  Which was fine, she was mostly interested in the whipped cream anyway.

Big steps

Scarlett is suddenly able to climb this crazy steep thing at the park.  I don't know it happened- one day, she just ran to it and climbed up before I could think to get spot her.  She's never attempted this thing before, and I never pushed her towards it because it was so steep.  What is this called anyway?  A kid rock wall?

These pictures aren't from today, since today there was pelleting rain, and in Eugene it snowed 7.5 inches. On Sunday afternoon, Scar touched hail for the first time- after it hailed loudly and we watched out the window, the sun came out and we went outside to splash in puddles, stand under the gutter drip, and squish hail in our hands.

This week she also climbed up the rope ladder at the park all alone, and climbed into her crib for the first time.  I went into her room, expecting her to be reading books like usual.  But she was lying in her crib, looking up at me and giggling.  I asked, how did you get in there?  She said 'I climbed!'.