chocolate

Someone knows EXACTLY what she is talking about!

Bill Martin Jr.'s Snot

The other night at the end of dinner I looked at Eskil and said, "Eskil Jude what do I see? I see snot looking at me." (He had a snotty nose.)
Without missing a beat Eirena piped up, "Snot, Snot, what do you see?" (And then she burst out giggling.)

oh the cuteness!

How To...

Digging a hole to the other side of world, like in her school book.

scary hairy

I have been trying to decide what to do with my hair. Grow it longer? Cut it short? A style even? Dr. Daddy's opinion about length or style was noncommittal. His opinion about color though? Green. Bright green. Or maybe black. Or violet. And the scary thing is, he's serious.
So one fine day I loaded a program that takes a picture of you and shows what you would look like with various hairstyles based on different models and individuals. First problem, no picture of me. Dr. Daddy rectified that with taking possibly the.worst. picture. of me, ever. I've had better passport photos! So just to lighten things up as I started I chose a style that was flaming orange hair in a bit of a haystack look. And oh dear, I discovered that I look like Ron Weasley. Not cute little Ginny, Ron. I think it something to do with the eyes. Dr. Daddy and I noticed it at the same time and burst out laughing.
After trying quite a few things I finally gave up. Just for fun, I loaded a picture of me with dreads. Dr. Daddy loved it. And now thinks I should do dreads. (If I won't dye my hair green or purple.) Unfortunately for him, dreads take a lot of work (in the beginning) and my current hair style is "combed". So dreads are out. (And here my parents sigh in relief.)
So I still haven't decided what to do with my hair (if anything) but I am becoming more and more convinced that Dr. Daddy is trying to do his own hair crises/experimentation through me.
And no, I am not going to post that horrible picture of me!

Books!

One of the Borders here is going out of business. Very sad, but they were having an entire store clearance sale. We didn't hit it the first week, but we still scored some great books. Normally we just check books out of the library rather than buy them. But these were priced right. We got a book about knights (it is really cool!), things that go (Eirena is memorizing this already) some school workbooks and a book about the human hand (with a little model to make). Unfortunately we were actually looking for an anatomy book so we had to go elsewhere to find that. But, having found it, Eirena is pretty excited about the pages on digestion. We love books. :)

Spring Break

Following our usual tradition of camping for Spring Break, we got in touch with some of our friends who used to go with us on our traditional Spring Break backpacking trips. The addition of six children between the two families has cramped the 40-mile 4 day hikes a bit, but we still had fun camping together.
We intended to camp and then do short hikes/walks at a nearby State park. But the line to enter the park was about 1/2 mile of vehicles long (where we were and only getting longer). There are distinct disadvantages to the ENTIRE state having Spring Break at the same time!
Anyway, we decided to scratch that idea and find a different adventure. We drove to a different park that was much less crowded.

We had a nice walk along the river.

tromped over logs

and some of us got wet.

While we were driving over there Dr. Daddy and I saw this sign on the side of the road. We knew we had to stop and take a picture on the way back. We amused ourselves with the possible scenarios.

Unfortunately none of our scenarios were correct although I would say they were far more creative.

The following day we went to another State park and had a short walk over the rocks around the river.

Eskil and his friend are only 2 weeks apart.

Eskil loved riding in the "jack-jack pack" (alluding to The Incredibles).

Fun times were had by all. (And now for the monstrous task of clean up and storing all the camping gear again. And then I'll be ready for the real break to begin!)

13 months

Eskil turned 13 months old today. He isn't quite walking yet, but is getting braver about it. He now signs "please" and "thank you". He eats table food with greater delight than even a month ago. And he has developed firm Opinions about his world. One of his Opinions is that playing outside is always a good idea and that it should never end. Another Opinion that he has is that he should literally (and figuratively) be in the middle of the action. This causes great frustrations between his sister and himself as their methods of playing can differ. His new way of expressing his Opinion or rather, expressing himself when his Opinion is not permitted is to arch his back so that he is almost on his head and scream. Lovely. (We're working on expressing our Opinion about that method of communication. ) Usually he is happy and takes great delight in life. But he has also become aware of so much more in life and wants to participate in it fully, even when it is not possible.

XY

Eirena is not a "girly-girl". She doesn't really play dress-up (unless you count wearing underwear on your head as a Tall Silk Hat dressing up), she never liked dolls, she gets excited about trains, construction equipment and cars and loves the mud. I would characterize her as a bit of a tom-boy.

But Eskil.... he is ALL boy.

• He gets very excited should someone accidentally leave the door open. He makes a break for it.
  
• He can throw a ball. (Eirena never was interested in balls.)
  
• He loves to rough house and tumble.
• He loves to bang a pot and wooden spoon together. (Eirena was never entertained by this "stereotypical method of baby entertainment.) The more noise, the better for Eskil!
  
• And he loves to sword fight. Already. He found the sword collection and had great fun whopping on all our toes (and Eirena's bum because she was lying down) during Bible reading (only slightly distracting).
  
• And he got such gleeful pleasure out of it too.
• He finds bodily functions fairly amusing.

please ignore the mess

Are there other things I should be on the look-out for in him?

Unclear on the Concept

Eirena and Adisu like to play Hide and Seek. House Rules. House Rules means one person tells the other where to hide while they count. Then the hider "hides", usually in a not-very-sneaky place, waiting not-very- quietly for the seeker to "find" them. Despite Dr. Daddy's and my attempts to explain the point of the game, they insist on playing by their rules. The other day they were playing outside. Eirena first "hid" behind a bush and then told Adisu to count. Later, Eirena was counting facing away from a tree and Adisu hid in front of the minivan, directly opposite to Eirena.
Eventually they may figure it out, until then at least they are entertained.
House Rules.

perspective

I was playing "memory" with Eirena yesterday and turned over a card that had a picture of a lime green rabbit on it.
As I turned it back I said, "that's a scary looking bunny".
Eirena asked why it was scary looking.
"Well, how many bright green bunnies have you seen?" I asked.
With a completely serious and deadpan face she replied, "two".


Then I guess a third just wouldn't be scary looking would it?