Little Moments

A few things to share before they slip away to thoughts of what did she say that one time about frogs and Jesus and watching sporting events on the iPad?

This is also a good time to remind myself that I'm not only exposing Louisa and Cora to girly things. Some of you may have seen my FB post about the pirate festival. My comments got me thinking about what other not-specifically-girly things the girls are exposed to. So first-off, we raised a tadpole in our kitchen! He mostly made it to frog-hood, then died one month after we snatched him from his habitat at a birthday party. Maybe his diet of basil and mint leaves was too limited? After we covered him with dirt, Lou asked but mom, where will the frog play now? I told her that to die is like sleeping forever….that he won't need to play anymore.

Way to miss a chance to talk about heaven, Alicia!

(that was me, critiquing how I handled the situation. Lou doesn't call me Alicia)

Thankfully Lou redeemed it though and said that's okay, Jesus still loves the little frog. The timing of the frog burial was apparently perfect! We had just picked Lou up from vacation bible school, where the theme was even when you feel left out, Jesus loves you.

So there's frog rearing. We also watch plenty of sporting events, mostly ultimate frisbee, in-person and on TV. We've been to all of the home games at Foothill College, and even watched some of the away games on ESPN3. Anne and I were commenting on how our children are growing up thinking it's normal to watch aunts, uncles and fathers play ultimate frisbee on TV. How true! Louisa confirmed that this is normal by asking if we could watch Nate's Apple-league basketball game on the iPad. Funny.

Third, our backyard is a large, parched, dirt yard with only two wide steps going down from the porch to the patio and yard. I can't recall now, but I think Cora learned how to crawl down those two steps way before she learned to walk. Now she has free reign of the house with her big sister Lou, including the dirt yard, where they love to dig, collect rocks, and make various make-believe foods. Telling you that all of the digging tools are pink and purple doesn't help my case, but at least I'm not forcing them to stay clean all day, right?

Seeing Louisa's pink tank top in this picture made me think of another funny thing she said recently. We were getting ready to walk to her first dance class, so I told her to pick something to wear. Someone has to wear a pink shirt, so I'll wear mine! It's probably true. Someone has to wear a pink shirt!

You can probably guess, but I'm interested in avoiding princess-obsession and I'm afraid I'm failing. Louisa has seen Frozen and would probably watch it daily if we let her. That was the beginning of loving princesses. Then our wonderful friends bought her a princess dress up kit, complete with three different dresses and matching accessories for each dress. Now Nate's been offering special movie nights once every couple of weeks, so she's seen Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid and Aladdin. Her favorite princess to pretend to be is Belle. At least she loves books, started out as a poor peasant, and fell in love with someone ugly but kind (instead of Gaston, who Louisa says, isn't very nice). Instead of denying Louisa her princess fix, our strategy has been to remind her that princesses need to be useful too. They can be doctors! Chefs! Engineers! Speaking of engineers, here's the book on the top of my wish list. Ironically recommended by the friend who gave Lou the princess dress up kit. I guess I need to believe, truly believe, that princesses can also be smart, kind and useful too.