Rest

Today I took Rosie for an afternoon bike ride, in the retina-searing heat, so she could fall asleep in the bike trailer. After a mile or two of quiet, I make my way home and carefully pull the bike into the driveway. I carefully unzip the trailer cover and Rosie sits up and shouts, "Mommy! Look, I fell asleep!!!!"

Then for me a rush of amusement, affection, and murderous rage.

And... that basically sums up motherhood for ya.

we heart playgroup

Look at these sweet girls-- some of Rosie Jo's playgroup buddies with their little wee princess crowns made from foamy stickers. We go to these get-togethers several times a week at different spots-- Rosie shouts, "Hi guys! I came back!!" She settles down at the crafty table, puts stickers on her legs, puts all the marker caps on her fingers, and grabs a blob of homemade playdough, sits on it, and then takes it outside to collect grass and playground detritus.

A while ago, our playgroup took a fieldtrip. We loaded up about 10 toddlers onto a touristy river boat and chugged up to the Fern Grotto, while lithe young women danced hula, and a couple heavy uncles played slack key and sang falsetto.

We tried to keep the kidlets from jumping off the boat.

And here are some hobbits in the verge...
Such a drippy, ferny, steamy place!

New Skills

Seems like everybody is picking up new fancy shenanigans, mastering new flights of fancy. Here are some:

Rosie took a three-week-long swim class at the YMCA and went from being a no-wet-face-choke-gag-barf-wimp to jumping into the deep end and going under water on her own and back floating fearless wonder. We went to the pool just about every day for those three weeks to get the most out of our limited membership before the class ended-- by the end the cute lifeguards all new Rosie. One lifeguard left a permanent impression on Rosie by flashing her silver tongue stud. Rosie gaped. Ever after, Rosie Jo carefully stuck her tongue out, too, every time we walked past her. The one boy lifeguard Rosie charmed completely. She called him Robbbbbbbbppppert. This was an excellent joke.

Also, RJ learned how to put on and zip her own pink cowboy boots!

Somehow, un-noticed till just now, this kid has started drawing recognizable objects. Chalk seems to be her preferred medium. Here's the artist at work.
"Things hanging on the hanger"

"4 monkeys" and "2 cats." Notice the cats' eyes and whiskers?
"That's a cat. Leave it alone, it's taking a nap." Eyes, whiskers, mouth
And look at these cute furry things, "cats."
Hehe, here we are about to do something that seems really naughty. We went for a walk down our dirt road and found a guava tree that was bountifully shedding its fruit. We picked up the cleanest nicest ones and made guava cupcakes, but the rest...
We squished.
Eeeew.
A mound of cat-flesh on the cookbooks.
And Matt spent the weekend at an Aikido workshop. Here he is blasting an innocent bystander with his almighty ki force.