Melting Away

Julia will smile for any picture if you say, "Don't smile!" first. She can buckle her sandals and now puts her face in the water during swimming class. She is really missing the frog we met on our camping trip, whom she has named Buttercup. She'll burst out with, "I miss Buttercup" at the most random times. She's big into coloring these days, that kid that wants, needs, excites in coloring in the lines. As always is her ability to assert her own will, right down to scripting my speech. Tonight on a bike ride she said, "Please can we run among the grasses? Say, 'I'll think about it.'" She wears only dresses, and doesn't want to be called cute, only "beautiful." She tells me I'm the best in her heart.


Avery rides a trike like nobody's business. She is also pooping and peeing on the potty pretty regularly and with much pride. "Want to come see it?" She sits and reads to herself nonstop. She is really into drawing and the people she makes, with huge eyes, arms and legs, are priceless. Over and over again, using sheet after sheet of paper she will draw these people and I will marvel at them. After swimming she gets really excited about standing under the hand dryer to dry her hair and most of the time she is shoeless. Tonight when I was tucking her in she said something like, "I am going to grow up and have blue eyes like you and I will be your mommy and read to you and tuck you into bed."



We made this together. Doesn't it look like a jelly-fish? It's made of metal thrift store kitchen utensils. The breeze makes it undulate and tinkle.

It is hot here and the evenings are warm, like summer showed up to give us a goodbye kiss before it disappears. I want to stop and breathe it in because it's fleeting, as are purple popsicles in the park after a neighborhood parade and days with young beauties, learning, breathing growth and possibility into each day.