Pumpkins and Imaginary Alligators

Bustly little world we're in these days. Addie has so many words, and it's nice how she can express herself more and more every day. For example, when she sees her high chair, she says a blessing, even if it isn't exactly dinner time yet (Gah Gay, Gah Goo, Amma-or God is Great, God is Good, Amen). She always asks for a cookie before dinner, which sounds like "cooo-keee" and during which her little petal lips make a little O that is quite contrived. She says mermaid in the bathtub when she wants to play with Gillian's polly pockets ("mah-may"). When she's thirsty, she asks for water ("ow-wo"), or to nurse ("boop-tee"). I love to finally hear her little voice say "babeee", and lately calling "Maaaaaaaama! Mom! Mommy!" as she runs down the hall looking for me. When she hands you something she says "hee-goe" for Here You Go, and says "Thank you" when you hand her something. But. The down side with Addie's M.O. is how much climbing she does. Almost like she goes from one thing you don't want her to do to the next. We call her Monkey, and for very good reason. She is our rough and tumble girl. She falls and hits her head regularly trying to get someplace she shouldn't be, and is forever eating God-knows-what. My mantra is "IMMUNE SYSTEM".

Gillian continues to be Gillian. Today we spent an hour playing with invisible alligators at the playground. First we were running from structure to structure trying to avoid being eated by the alligators (which, Gillian told me "even live in I-RRR-LAN") only to discover that they were just sad because they missed their mama and papa, and were crying. They didn't really want to hurt anyone, and she decided that they wanted to live with us. So, she tenderly removed a thorn from one's foot, and then she carried him gently to our ship to take care of him. Changed his diaper, gave him a bottle to make him warm and cozy.

Then, we carved our pumpkins, and Gillian carved her very own with the tiny carving tools. I didn't even start it for her. During this process, Gillian told me "this is the best day of my life". It must have been the munchkins on the way to the best playground around here. Or maybe it was having Mama to herself on the playground since other people could play with Addie, and going higher spidering on the swing than we ever had. Or maybe it was the imaginary alligators whose lives were made better because we took the time to love them. But the topper was being able to use grownup tools to carve her little pumpkins. That put this day forever into another plane of amazingness.

Gillian's PumpkinsAll of the pumpkins

Gillian-working hard
Mama and Ernie the Pumpkin