Emma on the Edge...

Lily in Her Own Time

What I love about Lily is her amazing ability to time travel. One minute, she's freaking out about swimming in the deep end of the pool with her swimmies on, the next minute, she's realized that she really can swim and then she goes all out- cannonball into the deep end, sans swimmies. All in the blink of an eye. She's so cautious, but then when she puts her mind to something, BLAM, there's no holding her back. It's like the previous minutes of angst never took place. Miraculous.

A few moments from Lily's life the last few weeks:

• She became a reluctant kayaker
• She let me pull out her dangling-by-a-thread front tooth, and proudly posed for her official "toothless"picture
• The fashion girl strategically wore her pink skirt and shoes in her school play - a flash of hot pink in an ocean of blue-jean wearing kindergarteners

I love her kindness, her mother hen-ness, her ability to be brave, even when she doesn't want to be. One of her favorite books is Ruby in her Own Time. It's just so Lily - first a watcher than a doer - all in her own time.

The Adventures of Goggle Boy

How is it that someone so small can have such a commanding personality??? Sometimes a tyrant, sometimes a sweet thumb-sucking cuddler, Henry is currently prancing around the house with Lily singing the "Dark Vader" theme at the top of his lungs while Star Wars IV (or is it V? - I only know them by the Princess Leia costumes anyway) is playing in the background. He refers to Yoda as "The Cute Guy." He wouldn't allow us to address him as "Henry" this morning, only as "Firefighter Henry." Although sometimes he goes by "Baby" (if he and Lily and Emma are playing "Kitty Poo" - I still have no idea what that is), or "Pooka" - no idea where he got that either. He can name all the Beatles, but he favors George, though Ringo is creeping ahead because Henry really really wants to play the drums.

He LOVES his friend JJ, mentions him every day, almost as often as he swears, although luckily it's mostly just potty talk. He does however have an amazing ability to repeat most of the curse words that have flown out of my mouth over the last year or so (and it really hasn't been that many), with his current favorite being "jackass!," which he yells at any car he considers to be travelling at an unreasonable speed up our fairly quiet street.

He is also finally using the bathroom, with the exception being when we are outside, when he recently peed on a friend's son's crocs, without even thinking twice. The worst of it all is he is so charming, his pint-sized Ferris Buellerness gets him through. I have no idea how he will make it through school without multiple incidents and frequent calls home - Thank God we have another year before he faces the public!

Camping in Maine

This is a picture of our first night camping in Maine. Notice the strange resemblance to a motel room...

After one of our tents broke as Danny and I raced to set it up in coming darkeness and driving rain, we all packed it in for the first nightand drove straight to the nearest motel. It was so worth it for everyone's sanity.

This was the camping trip where everything broke or got lost or just stopped working, but it was still pretty cool. The kids were fun, funny, and up for anything. We kayaked, rode bikes, swam for hours a day, read books, played cards, Danny played guitar, roasted the token s'mores, and wished we could have stayed on two more weeks. Alas, maybe next year.