Rocks

Margaret has been throwing rocks.  This seems a little unfair.  We spend all day saying that she shouldn’t throw x, y, or z, and then we take her off for a little fun rock throwing to let off steam.

There’s a contradiction in there somewhere.

Anyway, she has taken to throwing rocks like a duck to water.  She’s very hard on herself, though, because when the rock doesn’t make it to the water, she says “that wasn’t very good,” but we won’t let her get that close to the water, because it will have deleterious effects on her footgear, so we’re kind of hamstringing her. 

But, you know, it burns energy, what will all that running up  and down and picking up rocks and ranging up the beach and bending and just walking around on rocks.

Ellie seems unimpressed with the whole enterprise, but that’s just because she wasn’t being allowed to put the rocks in her mouth.

Om Nom Nom

Ellie is cutting a tooth.  Loudly, and with much lamentation.  And this means that she will eat anything she can get her little fists around, although she much prefers it when she can get her fists around my fist.

I was beginning to feel a little soggy.  So I pulled out Sophie the Giraffe, who has the most hair-trigger squeaker in the history of rubber giraffes.*

Ellie liked it, and so she took it with her to Brent’s house last night for Hannah’s birthday.  I barricaded her in a chair (she’s been learning to sit up, the clever turnip), and she gazed in some trepidation, giraffe clenched in her jaws.

And then she switched to the moose, but was no less worried.

There’s a lot to frighten a baby of sense over there, since I’m not sure that my children’s cousins are completely certain whether they belong on the ground or hurtling through the air.

*A long, sad tale, I feel sure, but not one implicated in the present story.

Lessons?

I wonder when we can start piano lessons for Ellie.  Today she rolled herself over to the edge of the blanket, and found a very small piano.

So, of course, she started to play.

I said to Margaret in a very excited voice, “Look, Margaret, Ellie is playing the piano.”  Margaret responded – in the same excited voice – “Yeah!  Can you stop her?”

So Ellie can now get into Margaret’s stuff.  Oh dear. 

Lock Up Your Choking Hazards

So Ellie is on the move.  Which is good, because she has been slow to roll over in any organized fashion.  I mean, she managed one or two examples early on of rolling front to back, and then decided that she was over that for months, and then a few weeks ago she started rolling back to front all the time, but she was still on front to back strike.   This meant that I spent a lot of time looking at her and saying “it’s the easy one, kid.  Come on.  You can do it.”

And then she learned, and quickly figured out how to use these rolling skills in combination, and now I can’t leave her anywhere.  Nor can I leave anything else anywhere.  It’s a hard life, it really is.

And here’s the good part – that leg is moving, and she’s about to push off for another go.  But I stopped taking pictures to go and move some choking hazards that Margaret had left in a small pile just out of frame.  I think this is going to be an important part of my life from here on out.  Or at least for the next year.

Baking

We have cousins visiting, and it has been an adventure, since it meant that there were four children 3 1/2 and under in the house. 

So yesterday, in a misguided attempt to do something fun with them, I decided that we would bake a cake.  Because, you know, cake baking is easy.

And it wasn’t that bad, but it did have its moments.  Like when I realized that I had premeasured everything, but left it on the counter, and I was going to have to leave the two girls sitting on the floor right by the half-formed cake batter to go and get it.  Whoops.  But at least I thought it through enough to premeasure things.

Anyway, they had fun.  And enjoyed the cake.  At least, Margaret enjoyed the cake.  I don’t know if Franny did, because when she got eligible to eat it last night, I was putting Margaret and co. to bed*.

See?  Here they are stirring:

And here is Margaret giving it one last whisk.

Stirring was done on a strict turn-based system, as anything else would have led to weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

And I’ve got some ideas on what to do differently next time I bake with two pint-sized sous chefs.

*I don’t actually know if there’s enough of Ellie to be a co., but she’s trying really hard.

Running the Asylum

I think I’m losing my grip on Ellie.  Leo has gone home, and so there I am with no one to get up early in the morning with Margaret and acres and acres of spare bed and the early-morning feedings just sort of happen in bed while I doze.  And then I find that this small person has crowded me out.

And she absolutely knows what she’s doing.  Look at that look.

Humph.

Hot Sauce

I think that Leo is winning.  It’s not that there’s really any competition, except for the hearts and minds of our children, and in that, I think that he’s gaining ground that does not need to be gained.  He is introducing them* to exotic and exciting and interesting flavors.

And what makes it worse is that they* like it.

Here is Margaret, protecting and hugging her hot sauce.

Clearly I need to get the shaker of bland from my mom if I have any hopes of keeping some modicum of control.

*Well, Margaret, since Ellie isn’t eating food because I am LAZY about it.

*She.

Investigating the Glaciers

Last night, we went up to Hurricane Ridge and had a picnic, much observed by deer* and chipmunks.

And then we walked around, insofar as it was possible given that the snowpack is over lots of the trails.  And since I downloaded all the pictures on Leo’s camera today to get the ones of Margaret swimming in a lake (watch this space), I have the ones that I took last year.  See the difference.

And then

I realize that this post is long on Margaret and short on Ellie, but we thought it best to not let Ellie play in the snow, so she spent the evening snuggled up in her carrier on my chest.  Besides, there were deer who were Very Interested in what we had to eat, and so I didn’t want them to get any ideas about Ellie, who is, of course, very edible.

*Cute story – we were pointing out deer out the front window of my parents’ house to Margaret, and she said “There are deer in my Corduroy Bear book.”  We were confused, because . . . well, not to put too fine a point on it, there aren’t deer in the Corduroy Bear book.  But then she said, “He says ‘Oh, dear . . .’ and suddenly all was clear to us.  And it was adorable.

Feet

Ellie has found her feet, sampled them, and found them to be quite tasty, though she thinks that they could perhaps do with a little more washing.

I say first, that the kid needs to learn to appreciate what she has, and second, that I want to know what exactly she’s doing to her feet to make them need washing. 

She’s thinking about it.

Ice Cream!

We went to the beach this morning (more on that later, when the pictures from my phone finish loading up), and on the way back, we stopped at Granny’s Café for lunch.  Granny’s Café* is a tasty place to eat, but it is really better known (and loved) for its ice cream.  So after Margaret ate her lunch, we had some ice cream, and Margaret managed it herself.

Sometimes you have to be a little fierce with ice cream, but it learns its lesson eventually if you stay firm.

She did a good job of eating it, though it got a bit messy at the end when she thought that a good technique would be to puncture the cone and come at the ice cream from the bottom.  She got most of it out, though, despite my attempts to help her, attempts which were strenuously resisted. 

*I’m noticing that the autocorrect is adding the acute mark to café, and although I appreciate that this is technically correct, I would like to point out that there are few places on earth less likely to use the correct spelling of café.