Pigtails

Here's our big girl in her first hairstyle: pigtails. She looked fabulous but REALLY disliked the process of messing with her hair. She's never gotten a trim in all the days she's been on this planet, and her hair is now quite uneven: the top layers in the back are long and straight, and the hair underneath is shorter and wavy. I suggested a trim to even it out to a little blond bob but her father wouldn't hear of it. "No cut hair!" Agatha agreed. But in this relentless heat, her hair annoys her. So I tried the pigtails. Hmmm. Maybe before the big, momentous First Day of School this fall, I'll tidy it up.

Agatha is looking more and more like Michael to me lately, and in these photos (taken by her creative babysitter, Kendall) you can see the concentration on her art that is also similar to her dad. She paints with Kendall almost every day they are together.
The children are definitely partners in crime a lot of the time. As Agatha gets bigger and more fun, Henry likes to play with her more. She runs around after him and does whatever he's doing, and he likes her anarchic side, the way she calmly and deliberately breaks the rules: "Aggie just dumped all the fishfood in the pond, Mom!" Gales of laughter.

Ends in "ie"

Agatha is like an Aussie: she likes to shorten most words and add "ie" or "y" at the end. So, mitten is "mitny," spoon is "poonie," shoe is "shoey," her friend Lauren is "Lornie," and so on. I take these as her terms of endearment for the world, given that her general attitude toward life is "What great thing is going to happen next?" However, I just discovered that brownie is "brown:" "Aggie ate brown. Need nother brown. Here go, Aggie!"

Sleepover

watching Toy Story before bed...

Tonight our small friend Frances is sleeping over! She's slept over before, but not since she was a toddler happily oblivious in her pack-n-play. Now it's a big deal. We made her a cozy bed inside the pop-up fire truck on the floor in Henry's room, and Henry is beside himself with joy.

We tried to do it last night, but Henry had an ill-timed meltdown and was unable to pull himself together. Sad for everyone. As a result, the possibility of the sleepover happening tonight has been looming all day. In the car on the way to camp, Frances and Henry solemnly vowed to one another to be well-behaved ALL DAY, so they could have the sleepover. By dinnertime, they were anxious with possibility-- will it happen, or won't it? This was one of those times I got a glimpse of what terrible tyrants we are as parents, with ultimate power over their schedules, their pleasures, the fulfillment of their desires. They happily went to bed super-early and were chattering away in the dark, when Henry came out and said to Michael: "thank you, thank you, thank you, for letting us have the sleepover." When I went up to check on them at 8:15, Frances was fast asleep and Henry was shuffling around, making a bed next to her on the floor with his pillow, alligator and clock. "I have everything I need, Mom!" he said.

Staycation

We took this week off from work, day camp, and babysitters with two goals: work on some house projects, and have some fun family outings. We made progress on both, although, of course, not as much as we imagined. It was also a week of a historic heat wave, with at least two days over 100, which very rarely happens here. That nixed bigger outdoor adventures like the Philadelphia zoo, but it made for lots of languid afternoons in the pool.

One afternoon I came outside to see Henry mowing the lawn nude, wearing roller skates and one winter glove. This is the only picture I could get before he escaped. For some reason he didn't want the ensemble memorialized...
Besides that trick, he also learned to climb our fireplace wall using only the mortar cracks. Seriously. He can pull up his body weight using just finger and toe-tips in half-inch cracks. We plan to take him to a rock-climbing place in Reading soon. I'm a little worried that he is in training to become a Navy SEAL.

One afternoon we went to the county park. Why hadn't we gone there before? It is beautiful, with miles of trails and streams and woods, and from the farthest point, where we waded in a creek and found handfuls of shells, it was only 15 minutes drive back home to our door. I guess we have been kinda busy the last five years. We vow to go more often now.

Agatha's new word of the week was "because," or as she says it, "cuz." She talks in a style reminiscent of a 1950s telegram: "I go for walk Gran's house. Cuz. I take baby for walk. Cuz. Baby want some chockie."

Tuesday we took a tourist outing to a pretzel factory, which Henry pointed out was not really a factory tour because they didn't show us any machines and we didn't get to go IN anywhere. But they did show us how to twist a pretzel. Did you know that 80% of the pretzels made in the USA are made in Lancaster County? And that 75% of those are also consumed right here? Oh yes, we learned some things. Then we went to the Choo-Choo Barn, a model train layout in the nearby town of Strasburg, which has several train museums and a real steam train. We also had lunch, but Agatha had no interest remaining in her seat and spent the whole meal on the little Thomas train outside.


I also had a birthday this week. Michael got me a great book on how to make my own dress patterns (copyright 1971), Henry picked out the silver peace earrings I am wearing above ("so everyone will know you like peace, Mom") and Agatha choose some bright yellow marigolds, perhaps my least favorite flower, but of course I loved them. My mom sat with the sleeping kids so Michael and I could go out for dinner. Lovely!
And here's the progress we made on the stairwell: we got pretty far along painting it a beautiful gray (the trim will be the dark gray you see on the crown molding). As I told my brother this morning, I was a little concerned about choosing a frosty gray color on the hottest day of the year-- how will it feel in February?-- but for now I am satisfied with the choice.

Spit take

Henry-speak

Mom, I'm making brick dust. Do you know how to make it? Well, let me tell you! You put the brick pieces in a container and shake them around, and the dust comes off. The dust is what bricks are made of, and when the dust comes off the brick gets a tiny bit smaller. I'm saving the dust in my fort for when I need it later.

Mom, do real zebras in real life talk? Well, how do they, like, grow up without talking?

Why do I have a belly-button? If I was inside you, and you were inside Gran... where did the first Mommy's belly-button come from? Who was she inside?

I'm so excited for Christmas, Mom. Guess what I'm going to get? I'm going to get a small Lego set with four guys. Aggie can have two of the guys, and I can have two of the guys. Aggie can have one cool guy, and one uncool-- one not cool guy. And I can have one cool guy, and another cool guy. See, that's fair!