Water Bug

The Lilibug’s great-uncle David has a big pool (actually, she has two great-uncle Davids with big pools, one a Graves and one a Wenner) and she spent Memorial Day afternoon splashing around in it with her dad and some of her cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents and great-grandmothers (although her great grandmother decided not to do any splashing). She ate hot dogs and potato salad and a cheesecake made by her fabulously talented cousin Miranda.

Josh counted the afternoon a great success: not long after they got home, the Lilibug asked him to put her to bed and she went right to sleep. (This does not happen very often).

Memorial Day

Lillian explains that Yia-Yia got this pool for her, and that she will get in it when she wants to, and, anyway, her feet were hot. So there.

(loose translation from two-year-oldese by ePa)

Ghosts and Girls: The Artist Speaks

This afternoon, the chalk artist was decorating the patio (and patio chairs and her feet) again.

She drew two parallel lines and said, “ePa, yook!”

“At what, Lilz?”

She rapidly drew a series of lines above the two parallel ones, pointed to them and said, “A ghost, ePa, it’s a ghost!”

“Wow,” said ePa.

Then she drew a circle with four lines extending from it and pointed to it.

“Yook,” she said, “A girl!”

“Artfully done,” said ePa (whose fund of witty repartee for use with two year olds is quite limited), as he snapped a quick pic of the two masterpieces.

A good thing he did, too, as the artist soon covered them with a drawing of a heavy curtain done in yellow chalk.

Let’s Get Wet

Summer in Houston usually arrives early in May, but was late this year and most of May was mild, even — for a few days — cool. But, summer is here now and for most kids, that requires getting wet. Since we turned the little pool into a sandbox and haven’t yet gotten a new one, we needed an alternative, so Yia-Yia bought this cheap plastic turtle sprinkler. The Lilz thinks it’s very cool.

Sand in the Sandbox

Some time ago, Peggy and Keith brought Lillian this turtle sandbox. Until now, it’s been used mostly as a swimming pool. But Lilz enjoys digging and pouring and shaping dirt, so she and I went over to Lowe’s and got some sand and put it in the sandbox, and Lilz spent a good part of the day playing in the sand.

She seemed to particularly enjoy pouring sand over her head. I suspect that at bath time tonight, Josh found sand in most of places on her body where such substances tend to collect.

Two-Fisted Chalker

Lillian, decorating the patio, patio chairs, socks, dogs, etc. with chalk. A fine entertainment, leading to a colorful butt for any careless chair sitters.

Lillian, Age Two and Three Quarters

Picture by Lauren Roesler. Two and three quarter year olds, if Lillian is a representative example, are wonderful little engines of good cheer. (Sure, there’s some of that whole terrible two thing, too.) But, there’s always some new twist on what they say or do, some fresh way of looking at the world, some surprising little delight they bestow on you.

Today, Lillian was counting to eleven in her book with pictures of animals — she isn’t always sure what’s supposed to happen after eleven — it could be an eight or a five or a nine or a fruit snack. She spent some time examining the world while upside down — she particularly enjoys being swung while inverted. And she would spend all day watching her new favorite tv series “Shaun the Sheep”, if allowed to. It provokes belly laughs from our girl.

One Shoe Off and One Shoe On

There’s an old nursery rhyme that goes:

Diddle, diddle dumpling, my son John
went to bed with his britches on.
One shoe off and one shoe on,
diddle, diddle dumpling, my son John.

Whoever devised that little ditty knew something about small children and their whims.

Lillian, who often has only one shoe on, inspires us to repeated recitation of this rhyme — not to mention occasional lengthy searches for the other shoe when she helpfully points to her bare foot and says “Shoe is missing!”

In the Glow of the iPad

In the mornings, when Lillian’s dad drops her off with her very non-morning person grandpa, she often gets one of her canine buds, grabs Yia-Yia’s iPad mini, and settles in to watch an episode or two of Dora the Explorer or Diego or Ni-hao, Kailan.

Like all modern children, Lillian is an adept in the use of electronic devices, needing little to no instruction. Her great-grandmother sits in frustration glaring at her iPad, annoyed at the conventions and tricks required to operate it (“What do you mean ‘swipe’? I am ‘swiping’ and everything just goes away! This thing is stupid!”). It does not ease her frustration to watch her great grand-daughter deftly swiping away at games and songs and videos when she herself has trouble simply remembering which icon is the one for email.

Of course, when I was young, I used to amaze my grandmother with my ability to set the rabbit-ear antennas for the best picture on our old black and white tv. Now, that was a real skill.

Sleeping in a Suitcase

When you are two and your Companions are not the sharpest knives in the drawer, you sometimes have to take matters into your own hands to get things done. Today, for example: your slow-witted grandfather thinks you want to play and goof around, when, in fact, you have worn yourself out and just want to snooze for a bit. So, you get out an old suitcase, add a comfortable pillow with a horse stitched on it, curl yourself up inside with your head on the horse’s tail, pull a fleecy blanket on top and take a nap.

If the world was run by two year olds, you think as you drop off to sleep, we would have a lot fewer problems.