Photos

We've been taking them, I swear!  Tons.  Nat, mostly, playing with his Hipstamatic app on  ye olde iPhone.  You'll note several of his recent works in the post below.

Yet, somehow, as I go to post this evening, I can't seem to find any recent photos worthy to share.  We've done things, gone places, our children have been cute-- all reasons for abundant photo documentation, to be sure.  Its a mystery.

In the meantime, a little word-picture instead, a moment from our evening-at-home tonight.  Wish you'd been here to join us.

It was a rainy evening, stormy in fact, a rare evening indeed where I did not feel called to drag my somewhat fried children out into the world.  We nestled in and puttered about, doing some vacuuming and spot mopping and some climbing-on-mom in between.  Some playing with hotwheels, some sloppy joes, some back-to-the-playroom after that.  We were aimless and quiet together, we three.  Seven o'clock found us like this:  Jack sitting in the playroom, a good 120 hotwheels strewn around him, playing and laughing along with the Monster at the End of this Book app.  Ivy in her booster seat at the kitchen counter (by her request) feeding herself applesauce with great success (She is the most fastidious 18 month old I know, asking with distress that I wipe up every tiny drip of applesauce as soon as it occurred.), chewing on toast, and bopping her head in time with the music on her MP3 player.  This moment of family contentment is brought to you by mobile technology....

This little girl and music!  She can't hold back when she hears it; she just has to wiggle, kick, bop, dance.   And   can I tell you what fun it is to sing "The Cat Came Back" with her?  She's nodding and shaking and moving along and then when it comes time for the "Mee--owwwww"-- oh I wish I'd gotten her "Meow" on video!  All her heart and soul and charisma poured into that one, drawn out sound, and that ornery laughing-smile on her face while she does it, just loving every second of the act of meow-ing.... She's a joy.  She loves every second of just about everything, this girl, as long as you don't cross her, or deny her anything, that is.  But she makes you want to go ahead and deny her nothing, with that proud-cat smile of hers and the little random kisses and her high-stepping prancing run and her hands up over her head pretending to be an airplane.  Irresistible. She's big on hats and socks and comparing whether or not various people/animals or pictures of people/animals are wearing hats and socks, as opposed to her.  She likes for everyone to have their shoes on whenever possible.  She asks to nurse by saying "nummy!!" and then asks for the other side by saying 'Die!"  Not as brutal as it sounds as she also asks to go outside as "out-die".  She's saying approximations of a few phrases, like "there you go", and she continues to amaze us with how much she understands.  She is very particular about which books she wants to read and asks for a few by name.  She enjoys discussing the status of hats in her books (point to hat in book, point to her own head, say "Noooo", look to me for confirmation that there is no hat on that dog's head, nod and turn the page...) and can "read" the last page of her book about snow:  "Slide!"  She'll go find things for us  when we ask and sometimes put things away when we ask too.  She's rather systematic and I'm hoping we can capitalize on this and have one tidy child...

I'm kind of in love with my daughter tonight.

Jack, I love you too, never fear. But, my son, you did not dance as much as your sister tonight.  So this post belongs to her.