April 20, 2018

May 6, 2018

Just lately, I’ve started realizing that Selah June and I are developing a relationship. While I’ve been her parent for nearly 4 years, it’s been a dynamic of caretaking and nurturing. My focus is steering her and meeting her needs. But now it’s turning into something more. We enjoy being outside together. We like tackling projects. We feel better listening to music. We listen to each other and spend time in conversation. We find reassurance in each other. And we plan adventures together. I am fully aware that she gets many of these things from her Mimi, which is why we also have a strong relationship. But there are mannerisms and preferences that she is picking up from me. And I didn’t expect that part. It’s both frightening and awesome. She loves me, and I love her.

Right now, she’s coloring on everything. I’ve waited for this stage. It’s my opportunity to direct her into crafting and creative hobbies. I’m sure Jeremy thinks that I should discourage her from coloring on things like furniture and walls, but they’re sweet little signs of her growing imagination. She loves breaking into my clear bins full of stencils and stamps and markers and stickers. At first, I had trouble keeping her from using all the stickers and all the notecards. Then I realized that I hadn’t opened the box in at least 10 years. Did it really matter if she colored on blank notecards? After all, she needs to “make cards for Helen and Evelyn at school.”

Some of her most precious phrases right now include the following…

“It’s okay,” as an aside while she shrugs her shoulders, only to be followed immediately with “Is it okay, Mommy?”

“Can we bring my Ferris wheel?” – when she really means her pinwheel so that she can watch it blow in the wind with the window rolled down in the car.

Her outfits… She wanted to go on a walk and talk her baby (Marshall from Paw Patrol) in the stroller. So she went into her playroom and found her Blues Brothers black hat and her unicorn boots.

I found out on Thursday afternoon when I went to pick her up that she has a boyfriend now. It’s Justin Blalock. He was the boy who loved her rainbow dress so much that he made up a song about it. They apparently decided this and spent the day together hanging out and sitting outside on the playground. Last night, at Grammy’s house, I told Jules that Selah June had a boyfriend now. And he looked at me so seriously and asked “Does he love candy?” I asked SJ. “Does Justin love candy?” “Yes,” she replied. Jules seemed fine with it. Priorities.

April 16, 2018

Jeremy had an evening obligation, and I decided it was the perfect opportunity to get my library loft pulled together. We are moving from building 11 to building 53 at work. This makes the 4th move I’ve made in about 6 years. Needless to say, I’m sick of moving so many books. And my dream for the loft has always been a cozy space for finding quiet to read or craft. Since we moved into the house nearly 2 years ago, this space has been a dumping ground for laundry. I still don’t have a great system in place for that, but I do have a library underneath it all.

Once Mommy brought in all her books from the car and stuffed the shelves to the gills, Selah June needed to bring her books upstairs too and needed a dedicated spot for her library. She’s a tremendous little helper.

April 13, 2018

SJ is really into sleepovers at the moment. When both of us have to be out of town at the same time, she stays at Jessica’s, Grammy’s, or Nana’s house. And just lately Jessica and Jeremy developed a plan to trade off sleepovers on a somewhat regular basis to give the adults some quality time together. The result has been that Selah June wants to have family sleepovers every night in our living room while we all watch tv together.

“Family sleepover” means that we pile all of the pillows and blankets we can find on the floor for hours of snuggling and movies. There’s nothing like lying on a tile floor to make you exceptionally aware of how old you are.

May 1, 2018

The spring semester is finally wrapping up, and the weather is exceptionally beautiful. Selah June loves being outside, and Jeremy thinks that wearing her out a little bit after school in the late afternoon makes for a better evening for all of us. If she has a bit of adventure, she feels content to eat dinner, do bath time, snuggle and watch tv, and settle down for bedtime. So I decided to plan a week full of surprise adventures.

This is one of SJ’s new favorite spots. Jeremy doesn’t really like the beach, but she loves the water. So he took her one time to Bay Bluffs, and she fell in love. It’s now our “surprise beach” because you can’t see it from the road and have to walk through the woods and across the railroad tracks to access it.

It’s best feature is that it’s only 10 minutes from our house…the perfect distance for a post-work/school family adventure.

April 13, 2018

Friday, March 23, 2018

We bought a tracing book for SJ several months ago, but she’s just now really ready to do it. Jeremy and I both went to school to pick her up, and she told us both what she’s been telling us each separately. “Noooooo!!!!!  I don’t want you to pick me up. Go home! I want to stay here!!!!” And all the other little kids just look at us like “she’s crazy. Don’t listen to her. We don’t know why she’s saying that.”

Daddy simply replied, “We were going to go to Target, but I guess we’ll go without you.”

“YAY TARGET!!!!!” she yelled.

And all the teachers cracked up laughing. Somebody is a little bit spoiled.

At Target, we picked up some dry erase markers so that we could try out our tracing book now that we’re talking about letters. She got really into it after dinner, and we talked about “A is for apple” and “B is for ball. And making the classic do do do do do do do…. as we traced from one dot to the next, we practiced writing our letters.

tracing letters

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

We’ve been working on letters. Right now, we can identify a, b, and c. And we know what sound the letter “a” says. During her bath, Jeremy yelled, “Mommy, come see what Selah June did.”

Monday, March 19, 2018

Selah June and I wanted to spend some time on our park outside when we got home from school. But the weather has been a little nasty, and so there was dirt and grime on our swings. SJ immediately demanded paper towels to clean it up. I asked her to go get the yellow wipes from under the counter. She ran off on a mission, saying “Yes ma’am!”

When she returned, she needed to use more and more and more. Every square inch needed to be spotless.

She’s my little cleaner.

Sunday, March 18, 2018

Today is a big day for SJ.  She thinks it was a big day because she got a little baby that moves. The little baby’s name is Swirly Baby.

It’s Friday  it’s Friday  it’s Friday  it’s Friday  it’s Friday  it’s Friday  it’s Friday  I tried I tried day it’s Friday it’s Friday it’s Friday and find it by day by day by day by day by day

(Selah June demanded to play with the voice-text recognition.)

The real reason today is a big day is because we got rid of our baby potties, and we set up stools so that we could reach the big potty.

Tonight, she ran in  The bathroom saying she had to go potty, and Jeremy said that he was using the downstairs one. She would have to go upstairs. She started running up the stairs saying she had to poop. So I followed her, and after we wiped her tushy,  I told her that she needed to call daddy a potty hog. She  thought that was pretty funny and readily told him how we both felt.  Then later, she had my phone and Jeremy was watching basketball I told her she was a coloring book and phone hog and daddy was a TV hard. She said “no….” I said “yes….” She just started laughing at me.

Later, I asked her if she was my favorite girl. She said no, but she was daddy‘s favorite girl. And I said “Is daddy my favorite boy?” And she said “no.  He’s my favorite boy.” I said “ Then who is  my favorite boy?”  She said “ummmmm…. Aaron?”