Claire Helen and Claire Helen's fuzzy mommy in a bouncy house at a neighbor's birthday party earlier today(a buddy who was at creative arts camp with her a couple weeks ago, and who yells from her backyard to ours to see if Claire Helen and Simon are available to play. Good fun.) . You want to be all curmudgeonly and, "Oh, what ever happened to pin the tail on the donkey and a sheet cake?" but MAN that was fun. Claire Helen and Simon were in there for hours, bouncing higher and higher and higher, too out of breath to laugh. You can't quite tell from the angle, but she's about 2 feet in the air in that picture, grinning like a fool.

Claire Helen's birthday party, lo these many months ago. Don't try anything stupid, lady. My muffin. Arrrr.

Blowing out the candle on her cupcake tower/cake. She was VERY concerned about getting that top one up there.

Last night we hosted Mat's cousin's family overnight for the second weekend in a row. The kids are now convinced that's what happens on weekends. They're going to be mighty disappointed next Saturday, with an empty top bunk and only Mom and Dad to chase around.

Wow, it’s been a busy couple of months. We’ve been flying all around the country, cousin hopping, hosting people here, and generally powering through the summer. It’s been great, but we’re glad to be at home for a month before our big (National Lampoon’s) Great Britain Vacation.

What prompted me to sit down and write today is fear that I will someday forget Sumya, Claire Helen’s imaginary friend. She’s always been an imaginary friend sort of kid, but in the last month “Sumya” has really become the archetypal imaginary sidekick you always hear about. She in present at every interaction, and even gets the blame for transgressions I’m fairly certain were not her fault (unless you know of a lot of gnome-fairies who can draw on walls).

Sumya, who is apparently half gnome half fairy, has purple and green hair, wears purple and green clothes, and used to live in a purple house, but now lives in a green house. She has a baby brother and sister named Funny and Binty. She lives in the forest and has a birthday every single day, but doesn’t yet know how to blow out birthday candles. She’s 4 feet tall and sleeps underwater. Her mama doesn’t appear to be very on the ball, letting her baby brother “take her ball when she was still using it” and “not letting her play big kid games because she said they were grown up games but they weren’t.” Other than that glaring difference (ahem), she is apparently much like Claire Helen and Simon’s mommy. Sumya attends Claire Helen’s preschool, as well as another preschool where she learns French and eats cookies. She eats at a table in our living room, under the rug.

Pretty neat, eh?

Hello! Hope you all had a lovely father's day. We had a nice visit from my folks (our garden certainly looks a lot better for it), though the kids did go through a little bit of attention detox the morning they left. I believe Claire Helen thought they were going to live here now, and was very disappointed to learn that 2 adult's full attention at all times as well as cake and juice breakfasts were not now going to be par for the course. They also brought their camera, and I am thrilled to share some pictures with you all! Isn't Claire Helen huge? All the sudden she is so tall.




I am, ah, just lookin' at this cake. Just, you know, watching it. Nevermind me.



Ack! Kids are up. I will post more substantively again soon. For now, it is good grandparent reinforcements are coming soon, as it a lack of cake snack turns out to be wildly disappointing.

Hello from lovely gray Seattle. I don't think there are too many ways it's clear I'm genetically British, but a love of cold and gray is certainly one of them. After all that heat it's so nice to have a break. Possibly also this is a sign of not having air conditioning.

As Mat was taking the kids up to bed tonight, he said to me, "Simon can snap! He just did it! Can you believe it?" Simon having been able to snap for a month or so now reminds me I really should get an update in, if only for his parents' sake.

Simon, at 18 months, can:
snap, loudly and intentionally. Hip little guy.
Jump, and catch a couple inches.
say his name (zee-zye)
and a bunch of other things. Is past the "I can list out the words he knows" hump.
some phrases, usually with stock words at the beginning- more, mine, no, dada/mama. Just on the edge of more complicated sentences, I think.
use some pronouns correctly. Mostly "I," as in "I share," or "I turn." Actually, only "I" now that I think about it.
follow directions of the "go get babydoll and put her in the stroller" variety.

Pretty toddler-y. I think 18 month olds are irrisistible. They speak a language only you understand, are delighted by basically anything you do while looking at them, and you can still fool yourself into thinking they just didn't understand you when you told them to stop drawing on the walls, otherwise they would have cheerfully complied. I had pneumonia last week, and was housebound and bored so half potty trained him. I suppose most people would have done crosswords, but most people probably don't mind diapers as much as I do. It's not true progress or anything, but we're that much closer to being a zero diaper pail household.

Claire Helen is turning 3 next month, and her Grandma Margaret is coming out at the end of the month to help celebrate(Claire Helen has been planning this party for MONTHS- guest list, who will sit near who, whether or not to have cupcakes- a resounding yes, you'll be happy to know). At least she probably thinks that's why she's coming; Mat and I secretly think it's so we can go out to dinner on our fifth wedding anniversary a couple days before, if you can believe that. Five years!

I would make a list of what she can do, but really, what can't she? A couple weeks ago at the park she hopped on a tricycle and started pedaling, making me realize I have been duped for QUITE some time, pushing her with the parent bar on her little tricycle all the way to the grocery store and back. We've had a couple little parent swimming lessons, and now I'm giving her over to her favorite babysitter, who as it happens is also a lifeguard and swim instructor at a local private pool. I think it's better this way- my biggest blind spot is surely fear of the water. What's to fear? It's so great! Oh well. She's getting me back with her new defiant thing when she's mad- getting right up in my face and yelling "Jop!!" before turning around and flopping on the couch/a cushion/a chair and hiding her face. I am pretty sure I am supposed to be Highly Offended, but mostly I just cock my eyebrows and re-explain about the no paint on the rug policy.

The other night we turned on PBS so I could give her a haircut, and The Winged Migration was on, a documentary about a bunch of different birds and their migratory patterns. She can already name so many different kinds of birds(and any other animal, really, bugs too)- different species of puffins, terns, and herons, and always very thoughtfully absorbs more. I don't think it will be too long before she's teaching us species names. She's a little biologist.

Last week we had a hot day, so we set up our little wading pool(which Claire Helen will tell you is basically a country club in our backyard, and in fact couldn't even wait her turn at circle time to tell all the other kids about the marine installation.). Setting these things up always attracts the neighborhood kids, and one of their moms caught some pictures of Simon and Claire Helen snuggling.









Simon's swim trunks, which I like very much, were really only for show. I guess the pool was a little bit chilly for mister 2% body fat, so whenever I'd try to plop him in, he'd do that polarized magnet thing toddlers can do with the ground when they don't feel like being put down, where no matter how I'd try to move his body toward the surface of the water, he would always keep it exactly 12 inches away. All while pronouncing the whole thing "IIIIIIIIIIIIIce! No! No! Iiiiiiiiice!" Yes, obviously, Simon, as your mother I have decided to dip you into a large bucket of ice. This is my idea of fun. Hold on, I'm going to go get some fire ant hills for you to walk through.

He did very much enjoy throwing dirt into the pool, hopefully onto another toddler.