I Can't Help It

I am well aware that I should not compare my children, but I can't help myself.  

There is no mistaking a Gutsy Girl.

Here's one-year-old Jillson.  Blue eyes, two bottom teeth:

And almost-one-year-old Bronwen.  Blues eyes, two bottom teeth:

 One-year-old Madelyn:

And Bronwen again:

Madelyn:

Bronwen, Bronwen, Bronwen:

I could stare at her all day.  Lucky for me, I can.

Bridging Ceremony

Jillson has enjoyed being a Daisy Girl Scout this year, and on Saturday she bridged to Brownies.  The girls themselves designed the ceremony, deciding who would do what and what kind of party they would have afterwards. One thing I have especially loved about their troop is that it is very girl-driven.  (I also love that there was zero pressure for any kind of fund raising.  We had fun with our girls on adventures, exploring the world, and learning how to be a sister to every girl.  We did not have to sell a single thing, not even a cookie.)

So, without further ado, and mainly for the Gutsy Dad's benefit, I present to you a million pictures from the ceremony.

The girls chose J.F. Gregory park as the setting for the ceremony.

They decorated the bridge themselves.

In attendance:

They began with the Flag Ceremony.  The girls marched over the bridge and recited the Pledge of Allegiance and the Girl Scout Promise. ("On my honor I will try to serve God and my country, to help people at all times, and to live by the Girl Scout Law.")

Then they sang their last song as Daisies.  (I love that Girl Scouts still sing a lot of songs together.)

I'm a little Daisy dressed in blue

I am a Girl Scout, you are too

When I go to meetings I sing and shout

I love being a Daisy Girl Scout!

(to the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot")

Look at that cutie on the end!

Then they each bridged individually.

"Twist me and turn me and show me the elf.  I looked in the water and there saw... MYSELF!" (You can read more about the Brownie Story here.)  

Here she comes with her daisies and her Brownie certificate and pin!

Little sister presented her with her bridging badge, which will go on her Brownies uniform to show she was once a Daisy.

Once everyone had crossed over, the girls sang their first song as Brownies.

I've got something in my pocket that belongs across my face.

I keep it very close at hand in a very special place.

I'm sure you wouldn't guess it if you guessed a long, long while,

So I'll take it out and put it on. It's a great big BROWNIE smile!

Photographic evidence that I was indeed there:

Picnic time.

These are the daisy decorations that Madelyn and I made.  (They lined the route from the parking lot to the bridge and the picnic table.)

Troop banner.

One more walk across the bridge with a Daisy sister.

Closing ceremony, passing the squeeze.  (My mom and I both remembered doing that as Girl Scouts.)

And they're off!

April Round-up

I'm not going to let myself go back (too far) to play catch up. It makes me sad for all the wonderful memories in March and February that I've neglected to report here, but I'm in need of embracing an "onward" sort of attitude these days. Note to Gutsy Self: just because you didn't blog about it doesn't mean that it didn't happen or wasn't meaningful.

So, scrolling through some April photos, here's what caught my eye today.

Easter Day.  Dinner & drinks. People in various states of casualness.  The Gutsy Dad almost always changes his clothes right after we get home from church.  I tend to slip on flip-flops and carry on in my church clothes: who has time to change? Things I love in this picture: the heron carving above my kitchen sink that I found years ago while visiting my sister-in-law (before she was my sister-in-law) and her family when the GD and I were still just dating.  My parents' dog Charlotte lounging on our kitchen floor. The glimpse of Tilly's favorite toy in the background in the playroom.  My birds from Lake Constance on the wall.

I am completely in love with my own children, and I am not ashamed to be proud of them.  Their hearts, their spirit, their creative minds, their quirks, their beauty. Here they are before our Easter service with flowers to decorate the children's cross. 

A favorite birthday present.  My mother asked, laughing at me a bit I think, "You really want a beach cart for your birthday?" HECK YES and thank you!  This thing is awesome. 

She still falls asleep everywhere and anywhere.  Here she is during story time, sleeping on the Gutsy Dad. Ali Edwards once wrote a beautiful blog post about her family dog, parts of whom appeared in almost every family picture. This is one thing I love about my own photos. Our two loyal and lovable fur kids always manage to get parts of themselves in the photos.  Here we feature Tilly's back under the GD's arm and Zephie's rump by Maddie's elbow. 

I've been meaning to write about the physical beauty of our church.  It is my style. Of course, it's not necessary for a church to be beautiful for me to love it, but it certainly makes church all the more enjoyable. This is the church's playground. I would have LOVED this swing set/arc as a kid.

 Perfect blue skies for Easter. The sanctuary was filled with lilies and blue hydrangeas. Perfection. They didn't need to tell me twice when they mentioned we could take the flowers home with us after the service. I currently have a GIANT hydrangea potted plant on my dining table.  It must have 15 blooms on it with more to come.  I need to get this thing in the ground.

I made a frozen key lime pie for Easter dinner.  (Ina Garten's recipe.)  Since it uses egg yolks but not the whites, I channeled my Nana and made meringues with the whites. 

I love that my parents were game to join in our weekly "Five of Us" photo on Easter Sunday.

Reading with Jillson

In addition to my own reading plans for 2012, I am cooking up a reading plan for Jillson and me.

For a while now I've been worried that Jillson is missing out on one-on-one reading time with her parents, since we combine story time for the girls at bedtime. I love our bedtime routine and don't want to mess with it, so if I want to read aloud with Jillson it has to happen at another time.

But when? Monday through Friday she gets home at 4pm. She is exhausted from school, and it is not as though I can ask Madelyn to take care of Bronwen while I have one-on-one time with Jills.  More often than not the time between Jillson coming home and dinner time slips away in the blink of an eye: snack time, going through the back pack, a little horsing around, and then it's time to start dinner.

Soooo... we will be carving out some time on the weekends during which we can escape into a good book together. We're starting of course with Little House.

I'm a little worried whether we'll be able to sustain the plot of a book from week to week, so maybe we'll sneak in a mid-week read here and there. We'll have to see.

We're getting a head start right now over Christmas vacation. The other day, I had the Gutsy Dad dig out a box of books from my childhood that we have been hauling around with us for ten years. (I cannot tell you how satisfying it is to finally be justifying that haul. And how lovely and comforting it is for me to see and touch and hold and smell the very books I loved as a child, that my mother held and read to me, too.)

As soon as we opened the box, Jillson saw the Little House books, snatched them up and--I kid you not--said "Oh, Mommy, Mommy, can you read this to me?" Be still my beating heart.

We've been reading a chapter a day since then, each time at Jillson's request. I love it. I absolutely love reading with her. I love the way she stares off into space and I can tell by her eyes that she is imagining it all. I love hearing the stories again myself. And I really love Garth Williams's illustrations. Man, am I in dork heaven or what?

I think that after we finish this first book we may start a notebook together. (Okay, we can call it a scrapbook.) We might just write down the title and a few sentences about how we each felt about the book.  Maybe draw some pictures? We'll have to see. Oh, the possibilities...

(Don't worry, I've got a plan for some one-on-one time with Madelyn, too.)

Family Time

We are enjoying a few days of family time, what with the Gutsy Dad home on vacation. We don't have a lot of plans, just enjoying each other's company. And sleep ins!

I am trying to relieve myself of the pressure of feeling we should be "doing something" with this time. I am trying to just "go with the flow," which Jillson informs me means: "don't worry about stuff, Mom."

Speaking of the kiddos, Madelyn recently informed me that the Baby Jesus loved nutella and that is why I should give her some nutella for breakfast. When I told her no, she told me the Baby Jesus was sad at me about that. Way to bring out the big guns, kid. But still, no nutella for you.

That is all for today. I need to hurry off to do nothing with my family.

Two Great Dates

Today I got to enjoy one-on-one dates with two of the people I love most of all. 

First, I attended Jillson's holiday party at her school. This was a highly anticipated event. She was up at 5:50am, asking if I could help her with the buttons on the back of her nightie so she could put on her party dress. When I said "hold on a second" as I fumbled for the clock, she replied something along the lines of: "oh sorry is it still the middle of the night well I'll just put it on anyway and try to sleep a bit more that way there is less for you to worry about in the morning mom if I put my party dress on right now okay?"

Jillson was a darling hostess when I met her in the lunch room. (It was my first time visiting her at school; I can't bring the younger kids into the school with me so I cannot volunteer or meet her there for lunch.) She introduced me first to Haley's mom, so that we could set up play dates. Then she stood up and walked around the table introducing me to all of her friends. She was so excited, so sparkly. I could tell how much she was enjoying showing me her world.

Together we made cute little reindeer candy canes.

Fast forward a few hours and the Gutsy Dad and I were hittin' the town for a date night. This time we tried out Tangerine, an Asian fusion place with some of the best pad thai I've had in years and a lovely house merlot.

The Gutsy Dad had the tangerini, and before you start making fun of him for ordering a chick drink, let me say these two things in his defense: 1) there were no manly cocktails on the menu and 2) it was a damn fine drink.

How lucky the GD and I are to be able to escape the craziness of our schedules and the mundanity of routine to be able to get away together once in a while. Luckier still to know that our children are in the hands of some very capable babysitters. And that the babysitters, in turn, are in the hands of these three, fine assistants.

What Were You Before You Were You?

Jillson recently asked me what my "little girl name" was.

"What do you mean?" I asked her.

"I mean what was your name when you were a little girl?"

"My first name?"

"YES." (Annoyed by my slowness at comprehending the question.)

"My name was the same as it is now, " I replied. "Margaret."

"Mooom," she giggled, seeming embarrassed by my answer. "You couldn't be Margaret when you were little, that is your grown-up name."

Okay.

I asked her if she meant nicknames. No.

I asked her if she meant people who change their last names when they get married.  "No, Mom. I mean first names. What were you before you were Margaret?"

Rather than waxing existential, I tried to explain that people didn't have different names based on whether they were young or old, that first names are first names no matter your age, but I'm not sure she believed me. I think she thinks I am weird because I have the same name I had as a kid.

I am totally fascinated by my child's ideas. I wonder how long she has assumed that we all change our first names when we grow up.  Is this a new idea or something she's held for a while? Is this--her name--just one more area in which she is trying to gain control?

Jillson informed me that she is, indeed, planning on changing her name when she grows up, like everyone else does.

"What will you change your name to?" I asked her.

"Well, I'm not sure, Mom. It's going to be really, trilly hard to decide because I really, trilly like the name Jillson."

At least I know she likes her unusual name. Really trilly.

Performances, Planned and Un

All five of us were in the Richmond Hill Hometown Holidays (or something like that) Parade yesterday morning. All children performed beautifully.

Madelyn rode with her preschool classmates on their float, with the Gutsy Dad and Bronwen trailing behind. Here she is modeling her reindeer mask.

 And singing:

As you can see, she is wearing the same outfit as Friday. She's been adamant about dressing like "Santa's daughter." She took the Christmas-y jacket from one ensemble, paired it with a different red dress, and added black boots. (At first she said she wanted to be Santa, then Jillson said Madelyn couldn't be Santa because Santa was a boy, so I suggested she pretend she was Mrs. Claus. Maddie explained that she couldn't be Mrs. Claus because she didn't want to be a grown-up, and so she settled on being Santa's daughter.)

Do you remember those days? Those days when you just wanted to wear your favorite thing over and over and over again?

(When I was somewhere around Maddie and Jillson's age, I remember being very attached to a t-shirt that had a few little fish on it. I think there is a photograph of me somewhere wearing this shirt. It was in Florida, and I was picking grapefruit. In the photo, either my mother or my beloved Nana was leaning down to help me. I wore either blue or yellow shorts and, I think, sandals. I'd love to find that photograph.)

But I digress.

Jillson rode on the Daisy Scout float with her troop, and I walked alongside with the other Daisy moms.

It was a gorgeous day, and for a small town, Richmond Hill had quite a showing.

We spent the afternoon and evening with good, new friends, who drove in from Skidaway with their three kids to share some barbecue, conversation, and chaos. It's always good to find friends with whom the whole family seems to get along.

At one point, five of the six kids put on quite the impromptu Christmas-Ballet-Princess-Fairy-Fashion Show, popping out from behind our still-undecorated tree, proclaiming what they were supposed to be, and doing little dances. (Bronwen slept through it.)

I love this time of year.