Sibling Love (video)

Man alive, if I were this productive all the time I would succeed at world domination!  Or, at least, household organization.  A long to-do list knocked out and we're ready (as ready as we can) for our travels.  I have one last selection of home movies and outtakes of various projects for those as interested in my kids as I am.  After this recent flood of journaling I may seem to have disappeared.  Never worry!  We'll be back soon with loads of European adventuring to recall.

Letting Kids Be Kids

I've had all these profound thoughts that I wanted to put in writing and illustrate with (what else?!) pictures of my own lovely children.  So I've saved and saved all these hundreds of imperfect, hardly edited photos and now I've just got to get them out, unaccompanied by any remarkable words on my part.  Or perhaps just a few, since this is me.

I set a pretty low expectation for myself and my kids with pictures, even as I know I expect a lot out of them frequently for cooperation of a very boring thing.  As my boys often complain, I'm always only interested in pictures, never about anything else.  One morning when I looked around after our morning chores were done and lo and behold it looked like I'd dressed them in coordinating outfits--though I really and truly didn't!--I called out for everyone to hop up onto my bed where the light comes in nicely from the window.  There I forgot myself and tried to get all three to sit just so and smile at the same time at me.  Of course that didn't work very well, as you'll see.  As I saw their best tries at a mom-approved smile turn into strained grimaces I remembered.  Let them be kids and follow their lead.  They began to wrestle and giggle and interact with all that blissful sibling love.  And my children came alive again.

Little Girl, Big City

We've become comfortable here in London, and Eliza as much as anyone.  She's a real big city pro, this little girl of ours.  I've collected a few photos of her navigating the tube, sans push chair (I'm still trying to get used to that name.  It's kind of weird to me.  Okay, I'll call it by its American name: stroller.) which we've started to do from time to time.

Still waiting for the next train.  Time for a pose?  Right then, time to hop on!

Flower Child

 

Hampstead Village

Hampstead Heath

Victoria and Albert Museum

Smallest Strawberries

Pigeon

 

We love Mo Willem's pigeon.  So much so that for a time Eliza would only calm down when we quoted the pigeon to her.  Davy has written several additional adventures of the pigeon.  One was so well composed and completed that we decided to send it to Mo Willems at his publisher's address.  We hope he enjoys it!

Liza and Her Bright Red Boots (video)

We love Gossie and her little goose friend, Gertie.  I think the books sum up toddlerhood sublimely.  Eliza and I have been collecting clips of her and her own red boots to make into a video.

Bear Hunt (video)

One of our favorite books is Bear Hunt.  One afternoon I was reading it to Eliza for the upteenth time when suddenly I was hit by the vision of a moving picture video.  And I knew just the family to model for me!  Our friends, the Colvins (lesleycolvinblog.com), have the perfect kids and the perfect attitude for a project like this.  Luckily they agreed and we went out to the Heath one fine afternoon for our own bear hunt.

Mom Moment (video)

I've had this footage since my birthday in February and it's just sat around collecting dust.  I slapped in some music quick last night and I think it turned out rather nicely, to remind me I like being a mom to these three.

London Bridge (video)

We're leaving in a few days for our big big trip of Europe (well, a part of it anyway!) and I'm trying to clear space on my hard drive for the influx of pictures and movies I know is coming.  So, I've hastily finished a few projects that may not have all the polish I'd love them to, but I'd rather be done and move on.

First up is our rendition of London Bridge.  And I know the bridge we're playing in front of is Tower Bridge.  :)

Davy at Six (and a bit more than half)

Davy's been perfecting the fine art of tooth wiggling for his bottom two front teeth.  It's hard work, learning a new skill.  He was so worried about it hurting a lot when it came out, because I warned him there might be a little tug or blood.  But it ended up being just fine (with details down below).

Davy continues to amaze us with his brain.  He's so smart.  Today we were driving along and he was asking--word for word--why cars still had to drive with petrol (gas), and why couldn't they just find another way to run cars so that we could conserve the oil and protect the Earth's atmosphere.  I asked him where he had learned all of that (thinking maybe a kid's PBS/BBC show on Netflix) and he said I told him that a year ago in Boston.  Wha???  The child has super sonic hearing and incredible memory storage capacity and recall I tell you.

Eddy took this picture of us.  I love it, blur and all.  Davy loves with his whole being.  He can be prickly from time to time, but when he's feeling it he shows it.  My favorite is his most real laugh.  It is genuine and contagious.  It takes over his little body and he isn't big enough to contain it.  Sometimes he is so overwhelmed by the energy of his laugh that I can see in his eyes he is alarmed by its power.  He has even started to cry because it's just so big a feeling.

He's as creative as they come, imagining inventions and creations with recycling and rubbish.  Everything can be used for something.  I've drawn the line at rusty metal, but he's still drawn to it like a crow for shiny objects.  I've allotted him his own box for keeping his supplies and creations but he thinks much bigger.  Someday he can have a garage or something to tinker with his tools and make amazing things.

He likes to have his socks pulled up high.  He's constantly adjusting them.  He likes his wardrobe just so and I really have no say anymore about how to wear something or which combination of clothes looks best.  I guess I still have a little control over what is there in the first place, but not really all that much at that.  He calls the shots on what he's willing to wear.

He finally did lose that first tooth!  It was a little anti-climactic, sadly.  We think it slipped through at lunch or snack and got swallowed because it just disappeared.  In any case, it's out of his mouth and the tooth fairy made a first (and maybe only prompt!) visit.

We have a true reader on our hands.  Davy's always nose-in-a-book and flying through with incredible speed.  He will read a book he likes over and over.  He loves the "Famous Five" and "Secret Seven" series by Enid Blyton, a vintage British author.  He's started saying things like, "clear off, you" and "I do believe we have some parcels" and "how shall we solve this." 

Other funny things he's said recently:

"Excellent work, Eddy!  Excellent is better than great and better than brilliant."

"Mom, I wish you'd get a memory replacer."

"Mom, I can't be quiet for two minutes if you're not being an example."

After reading about how some of the mysteries of the ancient peoples of the Americas will never be solved, "until I use my brain to solve them!"