Pasha says

So many kid sayings go by that I love, and so few of them are remembered more than a few minutes. Here are some recent ones that have weathered the storm of forgetfulness...

"Little girls grow up to be women, and women are the keeping-you-safe-guys." (He meant "guys" in a mostly gender-neutral way, I'm pretty sure.)

"Okay, you can wash my hands, but don't wash the dirt off."

"Most of your children came out of your belly."

Me: "Oh lord, I really need to get some sleep so I can actually be a parent." Pasha: "But mama, you're already a parent!" (He's so right! There's no way around it, and telling myself stories about how I can't be a parent until sleep, order, coffee, or anything else comes my way is actually quite silly!)

Mother's day earthworm

My mother's day gift to myself was to learn to crochet. I did and un-did a few simple exercises just to start getting the hang of the basic stitches, and finally just decided to let this pink tube that was initially going to be a snake for Pasha turn into an imperfect earthworm for Pasha, instead. It has a few extra stitches stuck in here and there, and a few skinny spots (have another bowl, wormie) but it pleases me to have created something tangible, perfect or not. Much more satisfying to finish that last stitch than uploading yet another school paper, though it does probably rival the feeling of starting to grok statistics.

Actually, as far as crochet earthworms go, it's as perfect as it needs to be.

Joseph, the boys and I also planted two fig trees for the little ones, buried with blessings for each and some of Jack's dried placenta. Wanted to have some trees growing along with the littles through the years, something to feed them later, to give us all comfort. One is a regular fig tree, likely to grow big, and the other is dwarf variety.

"One is bigger and the other is more convenient," Joseph pointed out.

"Perfect!" I said, "Pasha's bigger and probably always will be, and Jack is rather 'convenient'."

"Yes," said Joseph, "So let's reverse it." And we did. (Pasha's tree is the more convenient dwarf, and Jack's is the larger one. May they never be bound by the world's perceptions!)

Family photo shoot

A rarity - I had my entire immediate family in one place this past weekend! We did a birthday-treat photo shoot (a first for all of us, I think) and the photographer, Amanda Reed, posted a few preview photos on her blog: Lovely family session. Can't wait to see the rest!

(As a mild correction, Pasha wasn't hunting for bears - he was actually being a little bear and in a seemingly separate line of imaginative play his big stick was his "hunting drill.")

Jack is one!

Big brother bird and little brother bird

That brotherly awe just melts my heart!

Snow time

Sledding! 

 

 "Let's do it again!"

Then...

And you get...

Inside..

 Woo hoo!

That's the fairy tale version. In reality there was an absurd amount of "I want to go home now!" and "Get me out of here" and "I don't want to wear my shoes!" (For that one I just let him go ahead and take off his boots and socks and take a few steps in the snow - much more quickly resolved than trying to explain to him that he wasn't going to enjoy the sensation.) 

I must admit, the three-and-one-half year old experience is putting some long-favored conceptions to the test. (Like, would it really be so bad if I just went somewhere else for a few years until this whole growing-self-awareness thing resolved itself?)

Here's Dyadya Zhenya with the "I can't believe you're complaining about something again" look on his face: 

My funny looking children..

... Because it's fun to embarrass them (or it will be, when they get old enough to be embarrassed!)