Seasons

I think a combination of Lyla's age (I'm realising how mind-numbing the baby years were), some gorgeous weather and just the loveliness of Michigan (yup, just wrote that) made this a really great year for us.  The seasons seemed so well-defined and each filled with its own lovely traditions.  The autumn was particularly lovely, warm days, amazing leaves, hay rides and pumpkins and apple cider...very American.  I think that after 10 years here, I'm actually starting to feel at home, hard to admit though that is.

amateurish foliage shots



at Verhage farms



We had about 23 opportunities to wear halloween stuff...

Zoo Boo

 And it just seemed that fall would never end, more and more perfect, warm days, the kids playing in the playground every day after school...but then, the first morning frost...

Then, yesterday, the first few inches of snow.  What a difference a year makes, last year she liked it, up to a point, this year, I can't get her to come inside (thank you large deck!).

There are snow angels...

And swimming (with a good amount of eating thrown in)...

And buckets and spades

And warm cuddles afterwards...

And the countdown to Christmas begins!

The Circle Game

It's a time of firsts for the kid - first trip to the dentist (oral surgery may be in her future...great! This dentist is so behind the times, doesn't he know that a diastema is THE look for fall.  Look at all the gap-toothed beauties around, Anna Paquin, Lauren Hutton, Vanessa Paradis, MADONNA for goodness sake!), first hair cut (made bearable by a dum-dum and a swag bag at the end).


what d'ya get??

And then, of course, the first day of school.  For a start, it's basically playgroup, she's going two days a week for two WHOLE hours at a time, secondly, this was just a meet the teacher, parents get to stay day, not even the real waving goodbye day and I was still a messy puddle on the floor.  The kids played for a bit then had their first circle time while we all looked on and snapped pictures.  I wasn't expecting the tears at all, but they just all looked so grown up and earnest.  The official end of babyhood.

I'm a walking cliche with lyrics from The Circle Game going through my head "we can't return, we can only look, behind from where we came and go round and round and round in the circle game".  Wonder if Joni has kids...



Update: You know what's fun for getting the heart rate going? Sit and watch your fearless three year old have her first solo swimming class supervised by two flirting teenagers, who instruct her to hold on to the side then turn around and don't notice for a couple of seconds that SURPRISE the child doesn't listen and lets go and sinks like a stone...oh hahahahahahah, awesome!

I think there's a new Wonderpets on!

OK, I've never actually said that, but I've come pretty close a couple of times. Lyla's new favourite game is "Animal PreSchool/Playdate". All the animal mummies and daddies drop the kids off at the dollhouse where the poor old girl doll is expected to serve them tea and entertain a dizzying mix of small animals - don't tell me having a lion and a pig over at the same time will end well. Oh and there is no baby zebra so the cat is his kid because, "not all families look the same and that is OK", sometimes I'm so pc I even annoy myself. So after it's all over, each mummy shows up to collect her offspring, one tiny animal mummy at a time, and each one has to say, "do I really have to go, and thank you for having me and let's do it again soon". Then the whole thing starts from the beginning again. It is literally all she wants to play. It was adorable for a day, pretty cute for a couple, after a week it is teeth-grindingly annoying. Yes, yes, I'm awful, foster her imagination, blah blah, blah. The worst part is, my guilt over her lack of a fictiously perfect younger sibling always ready and willing to play this frankly very tedious game, brings me back every time. So, no, I haven't yet suggested the WonderPets, but I'm getting close. Amateurish photo illustrations follow:

Almost Three

What is Lyla like at almost three? How can I capture the essence of her right now? I can look at photos in a year or two or ten but I'm not sure I'll remember what she is really like right now.

She's feisty and dramatic and demanding. She's learning that saying "Please can you, would you mind" makes us more likely to give into her demands. She's ecstatically happy one moment and in a flood of tears the next. She is unafraid of most things, spending ten minutes gently getting a spider to crawl into her hand so she can bring him to show me. Grabbing handfuls of the blackberries that grow at the edge of the little wood in our garden and cramming them in her mouth until purple juice drips down her chin. She'll eat just about anything, especially if you give it to her a couple of times but she would be perfectly happy to survive on milk and fruit. She's in love with a cartoon pig and a whiney French-Canadian pre-schooler. While she's surviving on that milk and fruit, she'd like you to read to her please, constantly. She can play for ages with her little plastic animals and "zoo" (see above) making up stories and adventures. She's incredibly loving and sweet, whispering "I love you" in your ear and giving you a big wet kiss on the cheek. I think we'll keep her.

Summertime and the living is...

carefree, serene, pleasant...easy.

I could live in Michigan forever for the summers alone. Winter here is harsh and brittle. Black ice covered roads, dirty slush piling up everywhere, giant icicles hanging precariously from buildings, people with grey, pinched faces. But the summers...this is why people live here. And the fact that you've been through the winter and know that another one will be coming around soon enough just forces you to make the most out of every day. So here are a few things I love about Michigan summers...

the hammock

the fruit (dear god, the fruit)

the beach

Farmers Market Day

More gorgeousness from the Richland farmers market (farmer's? or maybe farmers'? a market made up of farmers or a market for farmers? farmers doesn't look like a real word now). Anyway, peonies...how utterly lovely. Description defying. Or maybe it just defies me...something about Victorian undies, maybe?



And the first strawberries of the season, yippee! I was starting to get a bit sick of rhubarb. So fresh they still have sand on them, which is quite a pain to wash off, actually.



And then incredibly easy spinach and parmesan gnocchi for dinner, plate swimming in olive oil, yum.

Oh and Lyla in her Elmo (not Victorian) undies is pretty gorgeous too.

Lovely Things

The child continues to grow like a weed, think we might need to start her on the ciggies soon.

These crudely drawn chalk illustrations obviously represent mother and child...jumping.

************************************************************

Our first (little, tiny) farmer's market haul. The rhubarb ended up as rhubarb and strawberry crumble, asparagus roasted for 10 min then demolished in 5, and the basil is doing well on the deck.

**********************************************************

This guy came to visit us this weekend...

Among other kid related things, we subjected him to a hot day at the zoo with a two year old...

It was one of those times when you haven't seen someone for ages (almost 10 years) and yet it was as if no time had passed at all. Lovely things.

Spring

So, much of the winter looked like this...

There was lots of cake...

and hastily made wizard costumes...

and knitting...

and at some point I decided that the kid had to start earning her keep around here...

But then tiny signs of spring started to appear, and this is Michigan so we knew there would be one more big cold spell so don't get your hopes up yet Quinns, but it was/is lovely! Spring just can't be this lovely in places like California or Arkansas, the dark, cold days of staying inside are over, the grass turns greener, new, little lime-green leaves start appearing on the trees, tiny purple, white, yellow flowers. There was a quote banging about in my head that I thought would beautifully sum up the joyous, optimistic feeling of knowing that summer is on its way, there will be long days of cherries and blueberries and splashing at the beach...I thought it might be something Gatsby-ish, fresh, green breast of the new world-ey but I actually this is more like it...

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best -- " and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called.-- Winnie the Pooh

I is very smart n stuff...is called spring pooh.

***

We've been walking this trail for a year or so now and we were there in January on a sunny day with not much snow, and have been going back this past week too, oohing and aahing over all the loveliness.

Jungle Joe's

This afternoon we had a playdate at Jungle Joe's with Lyla's little friend Ella. Jungle Joe's (doesn't that apostrophe look wrong? I checked online and that's what it's called...but Jungle Joe's what? Jungle Joe's Collection of Craptastic Creatures?) is basically a large room filled with about ten huge, inflated, bouncy castles. Except they are sharks, or monkeys, with bouncy stairs to climb up and bouncy slides to throw yourself down. If I'm sounding kind of snotty that's because I felt slightly snotty walking in there. It's sort of grimy and a bit sticky underfoot...juice, I told myself. Lyla didn't know what to make of it either (I think I heard her say...it's like Chuck E Cheese without the charm), but after about 20 minutes looking around and checking it all out she got REALLY into it. There was one giant bouncy creature that started off with an obstacle course and finished up with a nearly vertical climbing wall with bouncy cubes sticking out every couple of feet leading up to the top of a large slide. Lyla completed the obstacle course bit and came up against this huge wall and basically went back the way she came. But after seeing Ella do it a couple of times she decided to have a go.

This is where I just started to stare at her in awe...the whole time biting my tongue and trying not to just jump in there and get her. It probably took her 3 or 4 attempts to get up the wall, every time getting a bit closer to the top then losing her footing and tumbling down to the bottom (soft, bouncy bottom, but still), sweaty blonde curls sticking to her forehead, pink cheeked, she'd pick herself up again and set off back up the wall. I figured once she'd made it up once she'd think, alright, done that, but she finally got to the top, hurled herself down the slide then ran back around for another go. This continued for maybe another 45 minutes or an hour, each time struggling to the top, more sweaty blonde curls etc.

The whole time, I couldn't stop thinking, how do we lose this? This incredible tenacity and confidence. It didn't even matter that she was struggling, she was having a great time and was elated every time she made it. Is it self-awareness? Do parents and teachers somehow knock this out of kids? How on earth do I keep this? The whole time I was dying to tell her to just stop, come to me, I'll help you. She is capable of so much more than I can ever imagine and I need to remind her and remind myself of that every day.

Kiss it better

Lyla: Sorry mama, I broke the windmill. (plastic pinwheel blowy thing)

me: OK baby, I'll look at it when we stop, I'm driving right now.

Lyla: I think it's really broken...

me: Alright, we're here, let's have a look.

I turn around and she's looking sadly at the two pieces in her hand. I can see that it's an easy fix and suddenly I'm blown away by the fact that I can instantly make her happy, I'll take the windmill, stick the plastic bit back in the hole and it will work again. I do it and her face lights up, she's blowing, it's spinning around. This is the joy of a young child...I can make it better. One day her boyfriend will dump her, or her best friend will find someone else she likes better or she won't get into the university she wants and I'll have to find another, more clever way of helping her feel better. Right now I can stick two plastic pieces back together and I'm a hero.

Keep Calm and Carry On

I don't know if I am insanely easy to please or if I really do live in one of the most beautiful places on earth...but this view every morning when we're eating breakfast makes me happy! Yesterday we actually saw the sun for the first time in a week or so and it was just lovely reflecting off the snow.


After watching Holly frolick in the snow on the deck, Lyla wolfed down her breakfast and demanded (there might have been a "kweeeeze" or two in there) to do the same...



I thought it was going to be a case of 10 minutes to get the snow suit on for 5 minutes of play but she stayed out there forever playing with her spade and a couple of bowls. At one point she dumped a spadeful of snow on Holly's back...I don't know why people say cats only have one expression, I couldn't manage to get a picture of the look of murderous rage in Holly's eyes.



Obviously, I was out there too, engaging her in creative and stimulating play...

And then I peed in a bowl of snow....

Aside from the fun frolicking in the snow, we seem to have taken a couple of developmental steps backwards in the past few days, she's waking up more at night and after mentally checking off potty-training (pottty-training...done!) she's had a couple of "mama, I just peed"s. Sleep and potty = connected? I'd forgotten how critical the sleep is for both of us, we're just much nicer people after a good night sleep, without it, her grumpiness feeds mine, or maybe the other way around. Anyway, I think it's time to slow down, throw a chicken in the oven, cuddle up with a ton of books and maybe a cup of tea and a cake...oh the felt food madness has to stop!