Dragon Traps

Margaret and Ellie have been building up a storm, inside and out, since they got to my parents' house.  Whether it's the more weaponizable blocks, or the wide open spaces of the front yard, or benign neglect, I know not.  The fact is, they are building.

Sometimes they are building towers and castles and houses, and sometimes they are building dragon traps.  Sometimes they are building Mommy traps with blocks left in the places where mommies most like to put their feet, but we won't discuss that at this point.  The important thing, at least as far as the photographic evidence goes, is that during Ellie's nap today, Margaret built a dragon trap.

I'm not sure the mechanism by which she intended it to trap dragons -- whether it was magic, or somehow a physical trap triggered by the presence of a dragon -- but unfortunately, it was also attractive to newly awoken Ellies, and so is no more.

So they went outside and played in the dirt outside.  There's nothing quite like playing in the dirt, apparently, for enjoyment.

They're baking a cake.  In case you wanted to know.  That stuff on the block is chocolate, and the rest is flour.  So they tell me, anyway, and would they lie?  (Probably, but they call it "pretending").

Art Appreciation

We went (last week) to this walk up by the Fine Arts Center in Port Angeles, and I discovered that my children approach art in a similar way: they gaze at the piece in question, and then try to climb and/or sit on it.

I'm going to call it "experiencing art tactually" or something else that makes them sound like critics rather than like children who like climbing things.

I feel that Margaret would be a hit at the Louvre.  In a few years.  When she can climb better.

Out of Office

I am not with my children this week, because I am in Seattle doing an AP institute, and they are with my parents in Port Angeles.  This should mean that there is a cessation of blog posts, but that seems needlessly cruel to my international audience.

And also needlessly cruel to my mother, who might enjoy these cute stories about my children in amongst the trial and tribulation of keeping them alive and intact while I am gone.

I tried to do this post during a break at my conference, but apparently there is some sort of policy on the school wifi that you can't do anything fun.

Anyway, I thought I would share with you some pictures of last weekend's trip to Olympia.  We went to visit my brother Eric on his mostly vertical property, and he suggested a fun post-prandial stroll.

We should have been immediately suspicious.

We soon found out.

After clawing our way up a perpendicular slope through dense underbrush for a while, Ellie decided that she had had enough, and thought that it would be a good idea for me to carry her.

In a somewhat flatter place, Margaret demanded her picture be taken, on pain of her extreme displeasure.

So we did that.

And we climbed back down the hill, I laid down my burden, and was tired.

But not Eric.  No, Eric wanted our children to help his children plant trees or some such new-age folderol.

They've planted arnica and elderberry, so that's something.

Anyway, much fun was had by all.  There's something fun about a cheerful mob of cousins rolling around in the dirt together.  It's even more enchanting when they don't want you to roll in the dirt as well.

The Continuing Pacifier Saga

Ellie likes her pacifier, as anyone who knows her knows.  I am trying to separate her from it with gentle nudges -- it's for the car or bed -- but sometimes she finds one, or walks away with one, or knows that I have one in my pocket and so butts my leg with her head (like a goat, rather) until my leg disgorges her paci.

I've adopted this plan of having her keep it in her pocket.  She's pretty good about not putting it in her mouth, but I think she likes to have it nearby, you know, just in case.

Anyway, this morning, she had it in her mouth, and I reminded her that she shouldn't.  She took it out, and then did this.

I'm not sure that this is good for her, but it is a use of the pacifier that isn't the one I was worried about.  I'm not sure what we're going to do about that, I'm really not.

Mummy's Little Naturalists

On our hike yesterday, when we got to the beach, Margaret and Ellie both grabbed the notebooks in their backpacks -- you remember their backpacks, that they had to have so they could have water?  Well, they needed writing utensils as well.

Margaret announced her intention to write the names of the things that she saw so she wouldn't forget them, and figured out all by her lonesome how to spell log.  I'm very proud.  She asked me how to spell  lake.  So she got those things recorded properly.  

And when, in the car on the way home, I asked her what her favorite part of the day was, she said that it was writing down what she'd seen.  So that's something.  I'm not sure what that says about how much she enjoyed tearing around, but writing is fun.

Ellie wanted to participate as well.

Unfortunately, she got stuck for a word.

It's very hard to be 2 when you want desperately to be 4.

One Morning in Washington

There have been a great number of missing teeth in the last few days (see title), but none of them belonged to Margaret or Ellie.  Or me, for that matter, which is good, because my missing teeth tend to be expensive to replace, and painful besides.

Anyway, various cousins have lost teeth, or had loose teeth (or both!) this last week.  But this post isn't about that.  What this post is about is taking Margaret and Ellie out to Lake Crescent for a walk on the irritatingly named "Moments in Time Trail."

It is a lovely, flat, mile-long loop from the Lodge to the Lake and back through the woods.  There are big hollow trees, draped moss, a nice beach, and so many things to pick up and insist on carrying.

They started off with their backpacks, because they both wanted to take their water bottles, and they NEEEEEEEEDED their backpacks for the transport thereof.  It seemed a lot of production for a short walk.  When I was young, we were just thirsty.  Or we drank water from random streams and got giardia like ordinary, decent people.  Humph.

Also important to have along was a walking stick; Margaret found her own, but Ellie needed some help, and was particularly difficult to fit with a walking stick that was short enough for her to carry, and sturdy enough for her to stump along with.

And then Margaret saw the water and pelted off towards it.  More on the water tomorrow.  The upload speed here is so slow that it takes an hour or so to get the pictures ready.  Just so you all know how much I have to go through for your brief reading pleasure.

But I'm Just

One of the things that one notices immediately if one is in any sort of position of authority over Margaret is that her semantic wranglings are worthy of an imprisoned English Jesuit trying to avoid the stake.

For example, when one tells her that she should not dig in Nana's garden, because Nana has asked her not to, and it's bad for the pretty flowers, her response is not to stop digging, but rather to say "I'm not digging; I'm just scraping the dirt with the shovel."

When requested to leave the dirt that she was scraping inside the confines of the rocks and not dump it on the grass, she responded that she was not dumping it on the dirt, but rather cleaning the shovel.  Repeatedly.

Anyway, here is a series of pictures of Margaret neither digging nor putting dirt on the lawn.

You can see Ellie in the background quietly getting into mischief.  I am rather certain that she does, you know, do all sorts of horrible things that I don't notice because Margaret is standing in front of me doing  something she shouldn't ostentatiously.