Lovie

Some kids become attached to a blanket (i.e. Calvin). Some to stuffed animals (i.e. Bryn). Ivy has formed an attachment to a book. It's been going on for about two weeks now, with no sign of abatement.

She moves from room to room with her beloved book, plopping herself down to thumb through the pages every so often. Even as I type, she's sitting in the front room leafing through the contents.

If you try to take it from her, she will scream like you're ripping her ear off. And of course, her taste in literature is quite sophisticated.

Flower Self-Empowerment

Words cannot describe how much I love this flower that Bryn made. I'm so grateful that she has a healthy self esteem.

These are a couple of signs that Bryn put up on her door. Peter and I laughed our heads off when we discovered them after the kids were asleep.

She's constantly trying to find an excuse to be less clothed. Last night she blamed the heat, stripped down to her skivvies, and fell asleep at an odd angle. I took a picture, but it's not blog appropriate. I'll use it as blackmail when the time comes. Love this girl!

Life in Ivy's Box

Since figuring out how to use the two longer stems attached to her torso, Ivy has been exploring every unbabyproofed corner she can find. Currently, her favorite things to do are:

* Splash in the toilet
* Brush her hair with her tooth brush
* Brush her teeth with the hair brush
* Eat out of the trash
* Roll around on her back in the dirt I've just swept into a pile
* "Jump" on Calvin's toddler bed
* Systematically pull every diaper from the giganto-costco box until they fill her floor
* Climb under the sink and get into my giganto-stash of Costco granola bars and chew microscopic holes in every single bar, then put them back so that the next time I go to open a bar, I find a gooey masticated mess instead.
* Empty all 525 envelopes from the stationary drawer and lick the seals to render them unusable
* Pull the stickers off of Calvin's sticker chart and eat them- you can imagine how much he loves this
* Eat all the colors of the crayon box

She loves all things containerish, especially if she can somehow maneuver herself into them:
And she loves Super Why. It's a little creepy how fast she turns into a blob when this show comes on. I let her watch it because it's on right when I shower, and well, considering her other hobbies, it seems a good alternative. But I'm starting suspect that the show's creators are subliminally brainwashing her and soon she'll start begging for Coke or kung-fu-ing secret Ring operatives.

Finally, for those of you silently screaming at the screen, "Get that baby's hair out of her eyes!", this hair-do's for you:

His mad coloring skills

Calvin loves to color. He gives his art away to anyone that comes to our door, so if you'd like an original, come for a visit. He'll probably be famous one day and you can make a tondred of monies on the Antique Roadshow or something.

Rules of the Ool

We took the kids to the base pool again today. We talked about three simple ground rules in the car on the way over:

1. Don't go in the pool without a grownup.
2. Don't go in the pool without a grownup.
3. Don't drown.

Bryn and Calvin both violated the first two rules, and Ivy repeatedly tried to violate the third rule by ducking her head into the water while I wasn't looking (yes, I was holding her on my hip the entire time). Each time she bent back up sputtering and giggling. So much for the rules.

I think a rule we'll tack on for next time is "Don't drink the pool water." When Ivy wasn't sipping directly from the giant cup we were swimming in, she was constantly slapping her hand in the pool and then slurping off all the delicious chemically treated water from her fist (which she's doing in one of the pictures below).

A Whole Decade

Peter wrote (and emailed) me some Haiku for today:

Time flies swiftly by
Memory gives warmth and joy
The bright future shines

Firefly was great
Star Trek generations end
Don't watch BSG without me tonight

And so as he administers a quiz in on campus and I scrub ice cream drippings off the kitchen floor, a decade of matrimony quietly comes to pass. I am indeed not going to watch BSG without him tonight. If that's not love, what is?

Mother's Day Gifts

Presenting the gift of song- from voices a mother and hopefully a couple of grandmothers can love.

Two Poems

Peter was helping Bryn learn the second poem, and it seems Calvin must have been eavesdropping. There's no convincing either of the kids that symmetry does not rhyme with eye.

Ninja Pup

Bryn's latest creation here at home...

12 years to go...