When I woke up this morning and looked out the window, I thought, “gosh, that looks like awfully solid rain…”
So, I am not, after all, a lazy gardener for not cleaning out my beds and putting in annuals yet. I’m just psychic!
Spring Snowstorm
Month: April 2010
5.5 Years Old!
Dear Carolyn,
Today you are halfway between 5 and 6. I am not going to kid you. It’s been a challenging few months for both of us. But first, the good stuff.
You are doing wonderfully well in school, as always. While I always knew you were great at reading, you continually surprise me with some of the math concepts you’ve already grasped. Your teacher can’t say enough nice things about you, and while there seem to be one or two kids in your class that you have a hard time with, the rest of the stories you bring home from school make me believe that you’re really having a good time.
Of course, with this past week being spring break, you’ve suddenly discovered that you like being “not busy”. So I have a feeling you’re going to love summer break just as much as school, just so long as we get together with your friends regularly! Honestly, I like us being “not busy” too – we get along a lot better when I don’t have to make sure you make it to the bus on time or get to dance class before it starts.
You have not lost a single tooth yet, which is a source of a lot of frustration for you. You keep checking to see if any of them are wiggly, but unfortunately, seeing as you didn’t get your first tooth until you were nearly eleven months old, it’s not likely you’re going to lose one any time soon.
Your favorite TV show lately is Arthur. You also really like Clifford, Dinosaur Train and the Electric Company. You’ve sort of started shunning the preschool shows like Sesame Street and Signing Time, but at least your sister likes to watch “Ar-fur” with you, and you’ll agree to watch Dora with her sometimes. We do sometimes have spats over who gets to watch which shows and how much and how often, which I’m sure is really only the beginning of typical sibling rivalry issues.
I have to admit, we’re finding ourselves butting heads a lot lately, and I worry about what that’s going to mean during your teenage years. But then there are the times you are loving, charming and kind, and you go out of your way to help me and be wonderful with your sister. I’m hoping to see that part of you a lot more in the next few months. But no matter what, I will always love every part of you, even the difficult ones.
Love, Mommy
Earth Day Planting
To make up for having to take down our trees, Carrie and I planted the beginnings of a garden today. Beans, cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes, zinnias, marigolds and parsley. Including the sunflower Carrie planted at the PTA’s Earth Day fair last week, we will have a lot of new growing things to take care of soon!
Empty Space
We had to let go of a couple of old friends today. The two giant evergreen trees next to our driveway were not in good shape – one was already completely dead, and the other was in the advanced stages of the same disease. As much as I knew the responsible thing to do was to have them taken down, and I knew that they were coming with the equipment to do it this morning, it was shocking just how fast they were gone. We left to run a few errands, saying goodbye to two tall trees, and a couple of hours later we came home to stumps.
Now there’s a patch of ground with grass seed scattered on it, where in a few weeks nobody will ever know trees existed.
And that makes me sad.
Ice Skating
Carrie passed Snowplow 1 and I passed Basic 1 and 2! :)
We’ll be taking a break during the warmer weather, though. As much as I’d like to move on to Basic 3 and learn how to spin (haha) it just seems a little odd to put on winter coats and skate on top of frozen water when it’s 80+ degrees outside!
Moo-fie Star!
Somewhere along the line, Anna has picked up the idea that sunglasses make her a movie star:
I don’t think I take enough pictures of her, do you? I mean, she clearly has no idea what to do when there’s a camera pointed at her…
21 Months Old!
Dear Anna,
Today you turned 21 months old. So much closer to two than one, it’s amazing how much you’ve changed from baby to little girl in this past month!
You love your books, just like your big sister. Your new thing is to let me read you a book, then you take the book from me and read it, page for page, back to me. You have a crazy good memory, and even though you don’t say every word in the book, it’s remarkable to know what parts you enjoyed enough to retell. You will even do this with books we haven’t read for a while, or at least not since before you started reading them back to me. Like I said, your memory is really, really good.
You have 14 teeth now, but I know for sure that there are two more working on popping out sooner rather than later. I can *almost* feel them poking through, but it’s hard to be brave enough to stick my finger in there with all those teeth you already have!
You love being outside. You would live outside if you could! Your first request after breakfast is “shoes, ‘side!” every morning. And now that we have the sandbox, it’s become “shoes, ‘side, sand-ee box!” Days when you get to come out early enough to see Carrie off on the bus are the most exciting, and you adore walking to “Gamma’s” house to see Grandpa (and Grandma when she’s not at work.)
You love the pinwheels I “planted” in our front garden. You look out of the family room window every day and point to the “flow-ahs” and try to blow through the window to make them spin. You love to carry them around and hold them up in the breeze.
You have a new baby doll, who at one point was named “Nemo” but now just appears to go by “Baby”. She’s pretty much become your lovey – she has to sleep with you, and not only that but I have to put her to bed too. If I sign “I love you” to you as I start to leave your room, I hear “Mom-eeee! Show Baby!” and I have to sign “I love you” to Baby as well.
You know, I think you must practice being cute and adorable while you are happily playing in your crib before anyone else gets up in the morning. It’s the only way you could have gotten so good at it. Pretty soon, the cuteness might overwhelm us all!
Love, Mommy
New Sandbox
sandbox with lid: $60
160 pounds of sand: $12
assorted sand toys: $17
hours of joyful play: priceless
Playground…and Big Girl Shoes
Denis took the girls to the school playground today while I was working, and then I met them there after work.
After we managed to pry them away from the slides and tunnels, we took Carrie to the shoe store, where we discovered that she has crossed a threshold: from toddler & preschooler style shoes to Big Girl shoes. She picked these out – the one pair in the store I would have never, ever guessed she’d want.
My little big girl is getting so big!
Springtime Cuties
We’re loving the warmer weather around here! We pretty much spend every afternoon from when Carrie gets off the bus until Denis gets home from work out in the front yard, doing fun things like riding bikes, blowing bubbles, “chalking” (like coloring, but with chalk), and playing with the “flowers” (aka pinwheels).
We love spring!