Why we buy washable markers

Can you tell she's a lefty?

Kurt's famous squash risotto with sage

He was so proud, I decided to immortalize the moment with an action shot. It's as tasty as it looks, my friends! YUM!

She is SO playing us

Silvia's tiny, plump little hands have been weaving a subtle spell lately. That child is NOT a baby anymore. Kurt and I have sort of been parenting her on auto-pilot, not holding her responsible, not forcing confrontations, challenges or expectations. But yesterday, that "little tiny baby who doesn't understand" somehow ended up eating strawberry shortcake for dinner. Strawberry-sugar-processed-completely-void-of nutritional-value shortcake. How could that happen, you ask?

Here it is. We went out to the salad bar place we like. It's very kid friendly and has loads of options for our picky eaters. Anna had mac n' cheese with a large helping of fruit on the side. Silvia cried and shook her head and wriggled to climb out of her high chair and tried to throw everything we offered her.

So, rolling our eyes and not even thinking about it, we handed her a bowl of dessert and a bread stick. You know, to settle her. As we were getting ready to leave, she started fussing again, this time for chocolate milk, whining that she was messy and then not letting me clean her up. Kurt and I looked at each other. It was an epiphanic parental moment. You could practically hear the boot of reality kicking us upside the head.

Re-read that previous sentence about all the things Silvia was saying and doing. Saying and doing implies communication and understanding. Oh, that's no baby, my friends. That's a toddler with very well duped parents. She knows exactly what she's doing.

I picked her up, plopped her on the floor, staring into the distance just past her head as I wiped off her protesting little face and hands. Then I frog-marched her out the door, ignoring the constant whine for something, anything, on the ride home. Guess what? Slowly, with a tone of confusion, she got quieter and spaced her demands out more and more.

"I think maybe we need to turn up the toddler discipline," Kurt said on our evening walk. "She's not really an innocent baby anymore." Silvia reached over and smacked Anna, giggling. Anna screamed and reached over and pulled her hair. Then the whine for chocolate milk picked up from both sides.

"I think we need to plop her in a separate room and walk away every time she makes a noise above a certain decibel level," I said.

Staring at each other over their heads, we finally identified that heavy weight that has been pulling down against our shoulders. It is not gravity, friends and neighbors. It's the passage of time. The next stage is not tomorrow, it's here right now. And it's shrieking.

Never fear. We've done this before, it just took us a little longer to catch on the second time around, blinded as we have been by the age difference between the two girls. We're on the offensive now. Mommy and Daddy can play this game, too. Failure is not an option. So forget the shortcake and open wide, sweetie pie. You're about to get a mouthful of consequences... and broccoli.

Velveteen Rabbit Syndrome

Every couple months I get all revved up to clean out the toys- gather up the little odds and ends that accumulate from who knows where, toss what's broken, and send anything obsolete to Goodwill.

But the stuffed animals? I have trouble with the stuffed animals. We have several, lots, one might even say quite a few. Even between the two girls, they only play with a select group and I know there are some forgotten stuffed friends that need to move on to another destination. But...

I look at their little embroidered faces with their little button eyes and I just can't let go. I don't really believe that they come to life when we're not looking or that they have their own little personalities. I know it's silly. Still, I just can't help myself from wanting to give them a chance.

Poor little things. They just want to be loved. They just want to be real.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side
near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean
having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing
that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not
just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.
"When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by
bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You
become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to
people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully
kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been
loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very
shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real
you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

Excerpt from "The Velveteen Rabbit", by Margery Williams

A happy memory to brighten a sad day

Click Here: "I'm a walker now, y'all! Watch out!"