Curses!

Foiled Again!

The Written Word

The Boy is really taking off with the alphabet these days. He's learned all the letters and their sounds and can write most of them without help. He really likes to write things out if I spell them for him, and I get a kick out of the liberties he sometimes takes with the letters. Sometimes they are REALLY tall and skinny; sometimes they run around the perimeter of the paper instead of in lines. He recognizes some simple words on sight (like "yes" and "no"), so we've started sounding out longer words just for fun. Grandpa S. gave him a great set of books on rhyming and word families a while back, and thanks to these, he has become a Master Rhymer. I used to enjoy playing the rhyming game with him. I'd give him words to rhyme like "cat" and "bear". Then he started giving me words like "cigarette" and "armadillo", thus proving to himself I am the lamest rhymer ever. Here he is with his stylin' self at the library.


The Girl also enjoys reading material, despite her tender age. Magazine pages are a particular favorite, as you can see!

A Day in the Park

What a beautiful day it was yesterday! We met Superboy's regular Tuesday playdate B. in the park. The Boy seems to be making some sort of sand demonstration below; you can see B. in the background taking a snack break at the bench.

Supergirl kept sucking her entire upper lip into her mouth, she looked so silly. We tried to get a picture, but every time the camera clicked, she'd stop. Oh well!

Petroglyph National Monument

Boy, are we ready for winter to end. We headed outside today for a walk in the Petroglyph National Monument (Superboy's suggestion), which stretches about 17 miles along the West Mesa, where we live. These pictures were taken at a spot about 10 minutes drive from our house. The monument is home to five volcanic cones (you can see one of them behind Superboy below), hundreds of archaeological sites and more than 20,000 petroglyphs created by native peoples and Spanish settlers. The place is pretty cool. Sad to say, the wind picked up, the temperature plummeted, and it began to rain (yes, it rains!) shortly after we got there. Blech.

I think the quality of the light at this altitude (near 6,000 feet) makes us look almost as if we were cut and pasted into the scenery. But we were really there, honest!

Ta Da!

Well, here it is, my first finished diaper! The yellow thing is a liner, which slides into a pocket running down the center of the diaper. The workmanship is far from perfect, but hey! It turned out wearable, so I won't complain! And here's Supergirl, modeling my handiwork (now let's see how it stands up to her best effort!). And, of course, here also is the charming Superboy, who always lifts my spirits by enthusiastically admiring anything I make.

I guess I got a little too cocky as a result of my success, however. I confidently embarked upon a second diaper with a slightly different design--and promptly sewed the pocket into the wrong end of the diaper. So, now I'm ripping it all out to start over again. Sigh.

Johnny Jump Up

She's gettin' down in her groovy pants, with plenty of growling and screeching to go along with the squeaksqueaksqueaksqueak of the spring in the jump-up and the slapslapslapslap of her little bare feet against the floor. Superboy calls this Supergirl's "Jolly Jumper". I think that's a much better name, anyway.

Bon Apetit

The boy likes to eat. You can see from his menu selection that he takes after his mother. Good boy. Sensible boy. Did I ever tell you how much I love spaghetti?

The girl also likes to eat, although she's still finding anything but mother's milk to be more an amusing curiosity than a form of sustenance. Her favorite thing when food makes it into her mouth is to make a crazy face, gag and cough, then bust out laughing. Here she is "eating" mushed up apple. Somewhere I read the suggestion to give baby her own spoon while you try to feed her with a separate spoon. She gets practice and entertainment; you get less interference. But somehow our girl seems to end up in possession of both utensils. Ah, well.

Nappy Happy

I've been cloth-diapering Supergirl part of the time for a while now, mostly using diapers loaned to me by a kind friend. But recently the girl's poor little behind has begun reacting badly to disposables in so many different ways, I figure no time like the present to really take the plunge.

Cloth diapers today are nothing like I remember--no pins, no nasty rubber pants, no diaper pails reeking of ammonia. If you want to spend $20 a pop, you can get some truly luxurious "All In One" diapers that don't even need waterproof covers. And then there are the "pocket diapers" you can stuff with just the amount of absorbency you need. Got a heavy wetter? No problem! Just stuff two diaper liners in there, and you're all set. Red diapers, blue diapers, pink diapers, flowered diapers, organic diapers, fuzzy diapers, cotton diapers, wool diapers, bamboo diapers, hemp diapers--it's truly amazing what kinds of options are out there--for a price.

I'm not exactly rolling in dough, so, I thought, in all my spare time (that's a joke), I'll make my own. Yep, that's it, I'll make my own! I'm probably just inviting disaster, but here are the pieces for my very own handsewn fitted pocket diaper, all laid out and ready to go. I'll let you know how it turns out!

Platypus

Making art is one of Superboy's more recent interests. Well...there was that time in 2006 when he decorated the whole house with red dry-erase marker (including one of the cats, the lighter-colored one, the one on whom red dry-erase marker shows up beautifully). I suppose that kind of activity counts as making art...I suppose. Anyway, this platypus is of late-2007 vintage, and I just love it.

Funny Valentines

Here are a few from the great Valentine photo shoot of 2008. Had we waited even one more day, I may no longer have been able to stuff the girl into that sweet little red dress. Despite some unauthorized prop-eating, a little power struggle over the nifty heart-shaped balloon-wand, and the photographer's 103-degree temperature, we managed to get some good shots, don't you think?

The boy attended his first Valentine party this week and actually made all of the Valentine cards he took for his friends. He cut out the hearts, glued them on the cards, decorated them, and then...he signed his name in all THIRTY TWO of them. He was fading a bit towards the end, but with a little parental encouragement he made it through. Not too shabby for a 4-year-old, in my unbiased opinion. That's my boy!