Porch light during a rainstorm

The light on the porch during the rain this afternoon was beautiful.  The little boy on the porch wasn't too hard on the eyes, either. 

He doesn't like to look at me with the camera anymore.  I was calling his name and making funny noises and you can tell from these that he wasn't really focusing on me.  I don't like the just-missed eye contact, but I kept these anyway.

Here is the real deal.  He's looking right at me because he's teasing Mama and he knows it.  Little stinker.

Here Eli is a few days ago watching TV in the family room.  His new favorite is Thomas the Train.  I don't understand the appeal, but he asks for it now every time.



First thing this morning, Eli came into the bedroom and climbed up on the bed with me.  He wanted me to wake up, and I was still trying to sleep a few more minutes.  He kept saying, "OK!  OK! You wake up now!"  His talking has come along way in the past few months.  He speaks in full sentences frequently, but he tends to use alot of canned phrases, repeating sentences that we say often word for word.  Neither Derek nor I can remember saying this to him (like when Derek gets him up in the morning), so I think he put it together on his own.  I realize he's almost 3 and still behind in his language, but this is great strides for him.

Mini Me

Awhile ago our family was standing around in the family room talking about something and Grace made a suggestion of what to do next - I have completely forgotten the context, but it was something that wasn't especially workable.  Charlotte wheeled around with this kind of bossy/didactic tone told Grace exactly why her plan was flawed.  I looked up and Derek and I locked eyes right at that moment and I said out loud to him what I knew he was thinking, "yeah, the kid does a pretty good impression of me." You probably had to be there but trust me, it was uncanny. 

It was not the first time or the last that I have been struck by watching Charlotte emulate me, often while talking to Grace or Eli or Kat.  Honestly, it's not always a reflection of myself that I find particularly flattering, but there it is.  She also loves to make detailed plans like I do and she and I have butted heads many times over our conflicting visions for some project or another.  Derek laughs about it and he is always the first to point out that she's just like me in these moments.  Then, I laugh too.  Sort of.  Through gritted teeth.

Eli isn't much into imitating others at all at this age, at least on purpose.  But I came upon him like this yesterday and went to grab the camera.  He's lying on the couch, looking at my phone and watching tv, in the spot and posture where I had just been a few minutes earlier.  Kid knows a good thing when he sees it.

Playing his Super Why game on the iPhone 

Glancing up to follow the action in Barney on tv 

Noticing the camera pointed at him.

Melting Mama's heart.

Pink

Gracie had the idea to dye her hair pink awhile ago.  We talked about pink highlights and asked about it at the last haircut.  Yesterday, we got it done.  I think it looks so cute.   She easily agreed to let me photograph her with her pink hair, so that's a sign to me that she really likes it, too.

This is a very typical Grace look.  

 Happily, this is also a very typical Gracie look.

After the hair appointment, Grace and I went to Chili's for dinner.  The waitress complimented her hair and cooed over it.  Then, she asked me: "It's not permanent, though, is it?"  Me: "Yeah.  It will maybe fade a bit and then grow out."  Waitress: "But it's not, like, real dye, right?"  Me: "Yeah, real dye."  Waitress: "But it's not PERMANENT dye?"  Me (in my head): "You do know that hair is not permanent, right?  We grow more, new hair all the time, yes?"  Jeesh.


Gracie is funny about enthusiasm and excitement. Things she is very excited about always seem to end in tears. I can relate to the stress of anticipation and that anti-climactic, "what now?" feeling when something you have been waiting for finally happens. That seems to be a daily struggle for Grace. My Christmas-morning level of anticipation/let down seems to mirror her this-grilled-cheese-sandwich-is-going-to-taste-so-good level of anticipation/let down. It's a tough way to go through life. It's like the things she is most happy and excited about are the hardest for her to process emotionally. And then unfortunately for all of us she tends to lash out and find fault and get stuck on details and things that she can't control/change.  We are trying to coach her and help her learn to navigate the complex challenges of growing up and emotional maturity. The blind leading the blind perhaps? Seriously - I adore my little middle daughter and all of her enigmatic intensity and I look forward to seeing where her passionate little personality takes her in life.  (I sometimes actively remind myself of this when dealing with the wailing and the gnashing of teeth).

The punchline of this story - after almost 2 hours of sitting and stripping and rinsing and cutting and blowing and foiling and dying and sitting and rinsing, when the foils came out and she saw the big reveal, Grace burst into tears.  Everyone in the salon (who had been getting a big kick out of this little girl getting her hair done alongside all the little old ladies that day) froze.   I gave Gracie a hug (though space it usually the best thing to give her at these moments) and I sort of quietly explained how it can be stressful when you are so excited about something, and Laura the stylist was super cool about it.  I was very proud of Grace and how quickly she got herself back together (when she was younger it could take awhile) and by the time we left a few minutes later she was smiling and primping and skipping.  She was excited to go to school and show her teacher and her friends.

Spring

These are from a few weeks ago, when we had a little stretch of spring-like days.  We bought this little blue bike for Charlotte when she was 2.  Eli liked riding on it, but notice how his feet never touch the pedals.

Charlotte gave it a shot riding without training wheels.  She'll get it this summer.

Louisa

Back in Feb. we visited Alex and Louisa for a few days.  It was great to see them.  The cousins really seemed to pick up playing as if it hadn't been 2 months since they had seen each other.  That made me very happy. 

Louisa came over to swim in our hotel pool one morning. 

The quality of these pictures is really quite lousy (but the girls are wonderful!).  I did a stupid thing.  The light in the pool area was beautiful so I wanted to take some pictures.  I went and got my camera which had been in my car overnight.  I brought it in from the dry, 20-something degree air directly into the very humid, 80-something degree pool room.  It fogged up like I have never seen before.  The whole camera and lens was literally sweating streams of water running down the sides.  As I thought to myself, "I really shouldn't turn it on until it dries out", my impatience overcame me and I flicked the switch.  Nice.  Luckily, it didn't short or anything from being turned on while wet and the glass eventually unfogged with no lasting water marks on the inside or anything.  Alot of these are out of focus or still have that haziness from the fog, though.  Alex's friend who is a professional photographer/videographer was very politely mortified by my careless treatment of my equipment.  As she is reading this, my friend Doni is probably gasping as well. 

The girls started playing this jumping game...

This series tells a great story about Gracie. 

1.)  Girls ready to jump.  Grace:  Um, Charlotte, isn't it my turn to be in the middle?

2.) Girls jumping.  Well, two of them anyway.



3.)  Louisa and Charlotte laughing it up.  Grace looks a little put out.

4.)  Hands on her hips, in classic Gracie form.  The kid misses out on stuff all the time because she is hung up on not getting her way about one irrelevant thing after another.  I haven't gotten through to her that it's a tough way to go through life.   

But here's my girl.  I adore her.

 This series is sort of a self portrait.  Gracie was teasing me and jumping up and down on the chair and I saw myself in the mirror as she dropped down out of sight.  I intentionally shot it so I was in focus.  I like it.  I think a good self-portrait is one with me photographing my kids.  I see myself in the pictures that I take of them.   I was reading a few posts down the other day when showing the blog on my phone to a friend.  I noticed that I described the picture of Gracie in the tutu trying to contain a giggle as "this is me trying to make her laugh".  I didn't write it that way intentionally, but it is true that when I look at that picture I see Gracie and her cute smile trying to come thruogh and I also see me behind the camera and hear myself saying goofy things and trying to get her to laugh.  Because she thought she looked good posing for me all serious and model-y and I think she's beautiful when she laughs.   I hope someday my children see the pictures that I took of them as a nice record of them growing up and also as a story of how much their mother loved them and thought everything about them was beautiful.

The Baby

We still call Eli, "the Baby".  Maybe sometime that will start to bug him.  For now, I am glad he doesn't mind.

Eli talks more and more, but still not always when we want him to.  He's a funny little guy.  He likes when I toss him high and then he lands on the mattress in my studio.  He sits up and says, "I'm okay, Mommy!"  Derek had never heard him say that, and was standing in my studio when Eli rolled off the mattress in an odd way and hit his head on the floor.  Derek said, "are you okay?" and Eli came right back with, "I'm okay, Daddy!" and we laughed.  Eli loves to start sentences with, "hey look...!"  My day starts almost every morning with the sound of padded footsteps, the door banging open and a little voice saying, "hey look!  There's Mommy!" 

Here he is trying to escape the camera by heading in the house the other day.

My Nephew

I meant to post this awhile ago and saved it as a draft while I checked with Shawn to make sure it was okay, and then I haven't been back to it...

I had the chance to watch Shawn play hockey the other night, and although I messed up the times and missed some of the game, I really enjoyed it.  Here are some shots of him in action.

#47

Two years ago, I posted a list of 45 things that make the man that I married such an amazing guy.  Last year on his birthday I added one more.  To continue the trend..

47.)  You don't cry over spilt milk (literally or figuratively).  This week I made a stupid mistake.  I spent money on something on-line and paid to have it shipped here, and then happened upon it locally and cheaper.  Grrr.  I was tired and grouchy and as I was driving home from the store I was mentally hollering at myself over the waste.  It bugged me.  I was embarrassed to come home and tell you about it.  In my head, I told myself what I knew you were going to say.  No big deal.  It happens.  Don't worry about it.  At risk of sounding cheesy, I actually heard your voice in my head saying those things to me.  And I truly felt better, right then.  Both because you're right - it's not a big deal.  And because I know you love me and you don't want me to feel bad and you have this indefatigable confidence in me and in us, no matter what, that after almost 11 years continues to astonish me.  You bring a Zen-like, self-assured, steady and calm element to my life, Derek.  Thank you.

P.S. - In addition to not crying over spilt milk, I could add that you have been known on occassion to, say, wipe up spilt milk with your sock and leave the sticky spot for me to discover when I step on it.  But it's not like that bothers me or anything.  ;)

More family pictures coming soon...