Mmm, cake.

Moments after we all walked into the house, Ian was on the couch, yelling:  "Strawberry mrrmmmrrm! I want strawberry mrrmmmrrm"

"What?" I asked, "what do you want?"

"I want strawberry mrrmmmrrm" repeated Ian.

"Is that something you can eat?"

"Strawberry mrrmmmrrm"

"Is it something you read? Something you watch? What is strawberry mrrmmmrrm?"

louder, more emphatically: "Strawberry mrrmmmrrm! Strawberry mrrmmmrrm! Strawberry mrrmmmrrm!"

"Is it something on television?"

"YES. Strawberry mrrmmmrrm!"

"Strawberry Shortcake?"

"Yes, I want Strawberry Shortcake!"

"Oh. We aren't watching television right now."

"I WANT STRAWBERRY TELEVISION CAKE!"

 

Does he look like a kid who doesn't get enough cake?

Miss Me?

A few months ago I had a great idea for a blog post on the theme: "if you have time to blog about work-life balance, you have some." I never wrote the post, which should tell you something about the state of my life. Things are going really well, but wow, the busy.

At 2 and a couple of months, Ian is starting to use the potty, with little or no prompting from his parents. Mira was the first to use the potty, but after one successful try she has figured out that the potty is more fun as a distraction tool. She likes to declare her desire to use the potty whenever she is faced with something she'd rather not do (get her diaper changed, put her pajamas on, eat breakfast...). Ian has been shockingly interested in non-diaper based elimination. Thrilling and thoroughly unexpected. Who says boys are harder to train? We are a while off from dumping diapers completely, but we are making some good progress without trying much. (Anyone who remembers what we went through with Ada will find this a big and pleasant change.)

When I am not working and marveling at Ian's willingness to use the potty, we have been having a good, if fairly mellow, summer. We went to our college reunion, Ada turned six, we celebrated 4th of July with family and I took a bunch of pictures on a work trip to Chicago.

 

Newish Chicago Icon

More recently we spent a week at the beach with my family. The weather was better than ever in the years I have been going to the Oregon coast. Amazing. Even better, Ada got over her fear of the water. She lead me repeatedly into the waves, much to Ian's horror. We heard "look out, the ocean! look out!" a lot from him. Mira, who pretty much refused to touch the sand last year was a lot more willing to play on the beach, so long as we didn't expect her to get near that scary water stuff.

Mira and Ada on the beach

Ada and I built a fairy house, which was very fun to do. In case this isn't in your repertoire, Ada offers the following public service announcement: Fairy houses must be built with all natural components; no artificial/human made items and nothing currently growing. So no picking flowers, but fallen leaves are fine. Or in our case, sea weed, shells, driftwood and dried sea grass.

 
fairy attractor, dune scaler, child who posed for 10 minutes 

but later declared she does not like her picture taken

 

we could have never left the porch and Mira would have still had a good time

 
proof that we had fun inside the house too: cherry juice stained boy

After a few days to recuperate and wash the sand out of our pants, we went to see Chris' family, including his 94 year old grandmother.

great grandma

We had a great time, despite the rigors of traveling with three kids. (Pro tip: take a third adult with you!)

How can you resist toddlers in tiny cars?

And lest I forget to tell you the exciting news: my sister and her husband have a book out! It looks like this:

The book is great - funny, interesting and compelling. Also, pictures! recipes! a comic! Really, I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me. Go buy it and read it now. This means you, Maggie.

Before the summer is over we have a few more tricks up our sleeves. Maybe I can commit to a post every couple of weeks, just to tap the mike. You may have forgotten me, but I miss you.