celebrate good times, come on!

i'm channeling kool & the gang.

our bug has been getting some negative press from the land of whine lately, so i thought i'd take this opportunity to note some celebratory moments. first of all, we had an emotional but lovely family reunion when anne got back from her mom's. we were eager to welcome her home whole-heartedly, as mom-sick and grief-torn and exhausted as she was. this loss has been difficult on so many levels, but adah The Great Distracter attached herself right back onto her maddy's hip, and they immediately got to playing. a flubber party on the floor was time-sensitive and task #1.

we spent the weekend at the beach, for anne's birthday, where it is so much easier to breathe. we spent lots of time enveloped in sand, and lots of time playing games in the cabin, toddler-style. this involves an attention span of maybe 2 minutes per game, and lots of little playing cards getting all scrambled up and strewn on the floor. anne taught adah how to play chess, scrabble, and checkers (HA!) while i got the lasagna ready, but adah's favorite board game of all was candy land. those cute little candy pictures on the cards almost put her over the edge. i had to squelch the teacher in me when i busted back into the room, ready to teach the kid how to count 2 double purples and so on, when i quickly realized that she had her own special system to abide by: pick up a card, put it down if it didn't have candy on it, pick up another, etc. if she wasn't getting lucky, it was time to simply ransack the deck for the rest of the gumdrops and peppermints. plain colored squares just wouldn't do.

in other news, our little local-vore has quite an interest in what's currently growing in our little part of the world. the other day, when gathering just about the last pail of blackberries from the bushes surrounding our house, she mentioned that she was going to see if the raspberries or strawberries had grown back yet. i could hear her talking to the berries from a few feet away: "you're still not back yet. you're not in season anymore, but maybe next time!" and on the way to the coast, right at the tip of garibaldi, she began reciting a litany of what was currently growing: tomatoes, grapes, potatoes, pears, apples, plums... she makes me proud.

it's also been an incredible joy to watch her play lately, mostly with animals and dolls. here is her new favorite baby, who she named "judy anne." jude is scary and rouge-doused and HUGE. adah actually grunts when she picks her up and tries to carry her around. i got her at a kid's clothing swap a couple weeks ago, almost as a joke, but she fell in love with her immediately, so now we can only call her "chucky's bride" behind adah's back. anyway, it's fascinating to watch her play out and rehearse life's little joys and dilemmas. bedtime dramas, for instance. she brings her babies in bed, bounces them, has them do this pathetic little whimper, and then, pretending to be their mama, says in a sort of stern voice, "it's time for bed. you have to go to sleep now. i'm sorry!" apparently she's picked up on some of my own sadness and reluctance when i'm trying to put her to bed when she'd rather be at the park across the street. anyway, 2.5 is hard. cherishable. hard. cherishably hard. like that.