Never fails. I could take photos of these kids all day long for days on end with my DSLR, and then Gramary comes along with her iPhone and catches a shot that blows away anything I captured. I suppose I should be grateful, and I am.
This photo is representative of a couple things. One, it’s an argument for shooting with what ya got. Granted, you won’t be making hi-res prints of this at anything greater than postage stamp size, but it’s impossible to conceive that my enjoyment of this picture would increase as its size grows. Two, the shot is another example of the formula that describes the inverse relationship between my appreciation of a picture and my ability to describe that appreciation in detail. I can tell you only that this smile sums Ava up for me. It’s how I see her in my mind, regardless what is happening in the real world, and it’s how I want her always to be.
Tonight’s our last night on Isla Mujeres. We went to an Italian place for dinner, and at one point I pulled Emmett into my lap to read him a book. Emmett cuddled in and said, “Daddy, you smell like bread and butter.”
I tend not to be as maudlin as Leah often is about our children’s fleeting youth. I will say, though, that this morning I realized (as always, like a bolt from the blue), that I’m really, really going to miss that happy little wiggle Emmett does upon popping the first bite of a long-awaited breakfast into his mouth.
I wouldn’t say I went into having kids wearing rose-colored glasses, but it’d be fair to say I’ve still been taken aback a time or two by how difficult parenting can be. Even so, after eight years, the moments of sweetness continue to make up for all the wailing, gnashing of teeth, and rending of garments. Here’s hoping that trend continues.
Sigh. The real magic of these time series shots is to know that the same little girl from the first picture is in that big(ger) body in the last picture. I’m lucky to have Ava in my life, even if she’s a constant reminder that I need to be a better person.
Ava is off at camps at her former kindergarten this week. This morning, as I was slathering her with sunscreen, she asked me to come up with a riddle that would prepare her for her “Brain Busters” camp today. [Read more →]
This is a test post for the Awesome Flickr Gallery plugin I just installed. Seems pretty neat. This gallery is based on the “tulipa” tag in my flickr photostream.
Gramary picked up Emmett from daycare yesterday and took him out for some adventure, which included riding the train at City Park and checking out some animal masks from the ICPL. I sure do love this picture of our little guy, ensconced in Gramary’s cow-themed carseat with his tiger mask on.
And also this one, which makes him look like such a big boy:
To whichever chemical process of the brain is responsible for those sudden, unanticipated waves of realization at how lucky I am for this life and the people in it, I humbly give thanks.
Hi, Emmett. It hasn’t even been a week since you turned 3, but already you seem like such a big boy. You’re mastering the potty, at least at day care, where you’re now in “the 3s” with Kendra and your friends David and Oscar. You love scrambled eggs and ham for breakfast, and you’ve taken recently to fruit-flavored yogurt, too. You ask us each morning whether it’s a “Kids’ Deeko” or a “Jabba House” day (you prefer Jabba House days). [Read more →]
Back from California as of last Friday, and it was a fairly exhausting trip. But the kids seemed to have a good time, and that’s the important thing. [Read more →]
Ava, our beautiful girl, at 13 7. *sigh* It seems like she’s losing some of her childlike ways recently, though she still loves a Garfield strip and a stuffy at bedtime. Sometimes I wish my brain weren’t wired to forget all the challenges involved in raising a child, if only so these rose-colored glasses I use to view her passing childhood weren’t so, well…rosy.
It’s impressive to see how good Ava’s become on her bike over the last couple weeks. I volunteered at the Hoover bike rodeo yesterday afternoon, so I got to see Ava in action among her peers. [Read more →]
Ava’s just started riding her bike to school in the last week. It seems like we’ve waited a long time for our daughter to take to her wheels, but now that she’s up, it’s difficult to get her to slow down. The new method of transportation also seems to have reestablished her friendship with her guy friends in the neighborhood, boys who’ve been biking for a couple years now and who literally and figuratively left Ava in the dust when they took to the road. [Read more →]
We’re certainly at a stage right now where AGP and ECP are fighting for dominance/attention at home. They can usually manage to sit together for about five minutes before one of them hits, pinches, or otherwise annoys the other to the point that a fight breaks out. So your dear narrator could be forgiven the occasional muse on whether these two kids like each other at all. This morning, however, came an affirmation. [Read more →]
AGP takes some time out to give her little nephew a snack. As cute as TLD is here and the two of them are together, I’m particularly struck by how beautiful my daughter is. Here is the person she really is. This is her steady state. I only wish she would return there more often.
