Thursday, October 25, 2007

The cutest children on the earth

Getting out of the bath yesterday:

Elly: "Mommy, I'm freezing."
Kes: "I freezing too. We're a mos' freezing kildren onna erf."

I couldn't help myself, I joined in: "You're the most wonderful childen on the earth! The most special children on the earth! And I love you more than anyone else on the earth!!!"

They giggled and giggled about that. Then Kes said seriously again, "And a mos' freezing onna erf."


Other recent cuteness:

I was "eating" Kessa's belly, and she said, "Ow." (This is her comment about anything she does not want done to her body, whether it hurts or not.) I stopped and said, "I'm sorry, I won't eat your belly anymore." She said, "Mommy... be ghentle please."

This is also her refrain if I tell her she's hurting my head when she plays with my hair... "OK, Mommy, I'll be ghentle."

I love the "g" sound in place of "j". She likes to "gumpy" on her bed too.


On a recent morning, Elly woke up and ran into our bedroom where I was in bed and Scott was getting ready for work. She said, "Daddy, I had a really bad dream last night, but I woke up, and I looked around, and there was nothing scary in my room, so I just went back to sleep until the sun came up!"

Sunday, October 14, 2007

kiss and make up

Today the girls got in a fight over the pedal tricycle. Elly's screaming "I had it first! I had it first!" And I asked Kes if Elly had it first and she said yes, so I told her to go get the foot tricycle. Kes immediately stopped pulling on Elly's tricycle and her face toned down from bright red to its normal color and she started patting Elly on the back, saying in the most soothing tone, "It's OK sister, here you go. Here you go, sister." Elly was still crying but not yelling anymore. Kessa: "It's OK, here you go, sister. Sister? Take a deep bweth." And Elly did, and said, "OK, thank you Kessa!" and they immediately started playing together on the two tricycles, giggling hysterically.

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Legoland

The day after the beach, we took the kids on their first trip to Legoland! It was (while a bit overpriced) a great day for the kids. Kes actually enjoyed the rides! The last time we took her to any kind of amusement park she was terrified. This time, she wanted to go on everything and was sorely disappointed when a ride required a height above hers. Eliana had a marvelous time, especially watching Daddy get soaked on a boat ride. The girls' favorite ride was a gentle boat cruise through different fairy tales, and a helicopter ride. But, the pictures tell the story best.

La Jolla Beach

We recently went on vacation - the first night, we arrived in La Jolla. We tried to go to the Birch Aquarium near UCSD but it was closing shortly so we decided to go to the beach. We found a great parking spot and decided to just load the kids out of the van in their clothes and no shoes and head to the beach without swimsuits or anything. Elly proclaimed, "I just want to play in the sand, not the ocean!" And Kes said, "Yeah, no othean!" (Fools we were to believe them.)

First, they did play in the sand. It was such fine, soft sand, that I even convinced Scott to take off his sandals pretty easily. They built sand castles, ran and jumped, chased each other and us, and Elly even made "sand angels". After a while, though, I said, "You know, we should at least get our feet wet while we're here," and somehow managed to get both kids to take my hands and the three of us took off running for the waves. (So, I suppose I started it.)

When we got to the waves, I realized that the grade was so subtle, if we went in an extra twenty feet, we'd only be an inch deeper. More importantly, we could stand in one spot and have every wave reach our feet and none go high enough to threaten to knock over one of my girls. The variability in waves in one place was only an inch or two, due to the gentle slope. Kes, for the first time, was unafraid as she got her feet wet. Before long, she was having a great time, jumping up and down in the waves. And shortly after that, I realized I could actually let go of them and there was no danger whatsoever of them being swept off to sea.

So, I did. For the first time ever, I let them play on the beach, in the waves, without holding my hand. Games of chase ensued. Elly and Kes made mud pies in the wet, fine sand and watched the waves slowly wash them away. They found seashells, seaweed, and rocks polished smooth by the waves. What I can't even try to capture here is the pure glee. They were gradually getting more and more soaked by seawater and covered in sand, and seemingly in tandem with their drenching did their laughter increase. Really, the only appropriate word for what was going on here is "cavorting".

And as for me... I had more fun than I'd had in years! I laughed as hard as they did and harder than I ever have as an adult. Part of me wishes we'd had our video, or at least our still camera with us, but another part of me is happy to lock it away in my memory, pure and magical and completely unique.