Bedtime Reading

Ellie has developed this penchant for taking novels to bed with her and reading them aloud at great length while I am trying to get Margaret to sleep.  Last night it was Anne of Windy Poplars.  Tonight it was Frankenstein.  I'm not sure what to do with her, I'm really not.  And she tells these long and complex stories about the cover illustrations (or not, in the case of Frankenstein, because the story tonight was about a little baby and three bears and a circus and a small king named Lionel, and everyone having baths.  I admit that I haven't read Frankenstein for some years now, but that isn't the way I remember the plot).

She's also started to behave like a ham in pictures.  She's trying to get a smile, but she says "cheese" and screws up her face into this ridiculous mug.  She wrote Leo a letter today (she said it was an O, but I don't know that she a) knows what all the letters are like and b) quite understands what it means to write someone a letter), and told me to take a picture of it for him.

Anyway, she's a goof.  And a loud goof.  When we put the children in the same room, I did not anticipate that Ellie was going to be the troublemaker, which just goes to show that I shouldn't try to forecast what fool things my children are going to get up to.

Speaking of which, Ellie the amazing baby who can form pigmentation in her skin (this is a foreign concept to me, and I am in awe) has taken up sunbathing.

We went to the beach today with a friend of none from high school, who is also gifted with this magical ability to tan, and she taught Ellie to lie out on a towel in the sun, and allow the sun's rays to beat down on one's skin.

Margaret tried it for a while, but soon abandoned it for a large project involving buckets.