Big Boy Bike (with training wheels, a cat, and a leash...?!?)

 Timmy had his first outing on his new Big Boy Bike, freshly outfitted with training wheels to assist him in the transition from the tric(ycle) to the bike.  Daddy decided that it would be an additional, well-advised precaution to keep the young lad on a short leash for his first ride, literally!

Freedom, on a short leash, that is!

"Check me out, everybody!  I've totally GOT this!"

Sam, our kitty, decided to chaperone the boys all the way down the street.  Very sweet!

A little help from Daddy on the pedals.

This was a fairly hilarious stand-off during which the conversation went something like this.  "I want you to pull me."  "I want you to PEDAL!"  "But I want you to PULL ME!"  Emily and I trailed behind at a safe distance, placing bets on the winner.

And the winner is........;o)  I totally guessed it, by the way!

Bringing up the rear, one of us amused ourselves taking pictures, the other by consuming fists full of yogurt covered raisins.

 

 

Rocket Man!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After Daddy's exhausting tow around the neighborhood, Timmy melted our hearts when he said very earnestly, "I'm doing my best."  Can't ask for more than that! He then went on to tell us we don't have to pull him in the bike trailer any more because he would like to have the trailer hitched up to his own bike next time so that he can pull Emily all by himself.  Melt, and melt again!   Got to work on that pedaling a little more first, buddy...

 

 

High five!

Proud boys!

Kitty five down low!

Should I get some training wheels for Daddy?

Meanwhile, back in the hood, Emily decides to help herself to Timmy's Gap cap, his race car sweatshirt, and to his matchbox Lightening McQueen.  Kachow from an admiring little sis who wants to be just like her amazing big brother!

Rockin' her first 15 months, Miss Emily

     It is absolutely beyond my comprehension that this little girl has only been a part of our lives for15 months!  By the same token, I can't believe how quickly it has gone by and there she is--independently motoring around our backyard as if she owns the place!  Which, in fact, she does.  She seems to own all of us.

     There is something so utterly irresistible about this 23-pound package of glee.  Once she turns those blue eyes on you, you're toast.  You WILL do her will.  If you do, your reward will be peals of giggles, and chubby little arms thrown around your neck in a baby bear hug.  She may even sweetly repeat your name as if she is saying it for the first time, "Mama.  Mama."  When she says it, it sounds like cotton candy, all soft and fluffy like spun sugar, with a long drawn out "ah" that only southern belles and babies can pull off.  If, for some unthinkable reason, you do NOT do her will, she unleashes a glass-shattering shriek so shrill and girlie that you can pierce your eyebrows with it.  No amount of "no, no, Baby" can silence The Screamer once she starts off on a rampage.  Timmy has developed the habit of stopping in his tracks at the first sound of her siren revving up, throwing his arms and hands up as if pulling them back from a flame, trying with all his might to demonstrate his innocence in whatever incident she is reporting.  Usually the offense is a toy taken away, or denied in the first place, but it may also be any number of more innocuous infractions still worthy, in her mind, of a great hullabaloo. 

     My best friend, Kate, once told me that I have a helluva big personality for such a small person.  Emily...? Well, Emily doubles or triples those digits in each direction on both counts.  She is outrageously expressive in everything she does, every expression, every vocalization, every action.  She is also utterly determined to accomplish whatever she sets out to do, no matter how unlikely the outcome.  Her current favorite trick is to bolt from her caregiver's arms to bee-line for the stairs.  She likes climbing up and down them equally well, and is most satisfied if she isn't supposed to be doing either thing but manages to do so anyway!  She will often make a break for it in plain view and with no effort at subterfuge what-so-ever, managing to get at least half-way up or down a flight of stairs before she can be subjugated.  Once caught, she just giggles.

Oh Emi, it must be delicious being you!

     Recently Timmy has taken it upon himself to help her augment her vocabulary, which currently consists of the following words:  Minnie (as in Mouse), Elmo (also a favorite with her big brother), Mama, Dada, Nana, Gaga, Baba (big brother), baby, ball, Yes, No, and Uh-oh.  Timmy will amuse himself, and her, for hours saying "Baby, can you say 'ball?'"  When she successfully says, "bawl (again, with that drawn-out southern baby drawl)," he applauds and turns it into a grand celebration.  They both explode in laughter, then he pitches her a new one, such as, "Can you say 'Minnie,' Baby?"  The other day I encountered him spicing up this game, as he coached her to say, "'Pee-pee.' Baby, can you say 'pee-pee?'"  When she did, indeed, say "peeeeeee-peeeeee," he let out such a victorious squeal of delight that it provoked me to come investigate.  By the time I broke up the game, he had progressed to a second-tier of "dirty words", such as "poopy" and "booby."  But what are big brothers for, right?  Lest you think it is all dirty play between these two siblings, later that night, Timmy chose to include Emily in his bedtime prayers, offering thanks for "Baby who giggles with me."

     Of course, the irony didn't escape me that yesterday I was reminiscing over my father's would-be-seventy-fifth birthday, and today I am celebrating my daughter's 15-month benchmark.  The two of them will always be inexplicably intertwined in my heart and in my mind.  I can remember the quality of his voice when I announced to him that I was pregnant again.  He said, "this time it is going to be a little girl, and you are going to be a wonderful Mommy to her."  He said that she gave him a new reason to try to live a little longer.  He adored Timmy and wouldn't have traded him for the world, but he had always had a soft spot for little girls.  Knowing that she would enter our lives and bring us great joy made it easier for him to exit with grace.  Emily was my constant comfort during the dark days of his impending loss.  Even as he began actively dying, she churned and turned inside my tummy, reminding me of this incredible life force longing to burst forth.  Death isn't just a moment:  it is a process.  As his breathing labored, I realized that death is in every sense of the word LABOR, and that the moment of passage is a delivery.  Delivered from this world, delivered out of pain, liberated...  She was there for all of this, preparing for her own labor and delivery, delivering me in the process from my grief.  REJOICE, REJOICE, AND AGAIN I SAY REJOICE!

     My only regret is that he didn't get to meet her.  But he already knew he loved her.  When we went through his belongings, we came across a book that he had set aside for her.  It is by Billy Crystal, and it is a little love story from a grandpa anticipating the birth of his granddaughter.  It opens with, "I'm going to be your grandpa, I have the biggest smile.  I've been waiting to meet you for such a long, long while.  I have so much to tell you before you slide into home plate.  I already know I love you as I sit right here and wait."  I stamped the book with  "from the Memorial Library of Jerry M. Lane" and put it on the bookshelf in her nursery.  I intended the book to be a sentimental keepsake, perhaps more for me than for her.  We read it to her as a bedtime story.  She loves it.  She cherishes it.  It ranks alongside binky bunny and breast-feeding as her greatest source of comfort, nourishment, and connection.  Any effort to take the book out of her hands results in one of the aforementioned scream fests.  He isn't here to read it to her, and yet, he is.

So, here's to the first fifteen months of Emily.  You've rocked 'em, kiddo!  Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings...

Old Dog, New Dog Birthday Remembrances

     My mother gave this stuffed dog to my dad for some special occasion or another, and he fell immediately in love with it.  With out hesitation, he named the dog "Rufus" and demanded to have his photograph taken with him.  They looked good together, like two outlaws ready to rob a train and split the spoils.  Or at least like two retired outlaws ready to curl up on a comfortable couch somewhere. They had the easy camaraderie of partners. Somehow, there was almost a sort of family resemblance.  Rufus made Dad laugh, which was harder and harder to do back then as he struggled to accept his cancer diagnosis.

   
     Dad got such a kick out of his photo shoot with Rufus, he decided to reenact it with Isabel, our yellow lab puppy.  He showed up one day at the house giggling and obviously very pleased with himself, and took out a costume cowboy hat and bandana that he had purchased for this purpose.  She obliged, and we got a photo that he referred to affectionately as the "Old Dog, New Dog" pic.

     It also happened that Isabel and my father shared a birthday.  They were a few days apart, but close enough to be birthday buddies, and I got the idea to throw them an Old Dog, New Dog birthday party. Isabel was turning one, and Dad was turning seventy-one. It seemed meant to be.

     By the time my father's seventy-third birthday rolled around, the cancer had advanced considerably and he was in a lot of pain.  He didn't want any fuss made over his birthday, and liked to joke with a wry humor that, "this birthday business is for the birds.  In fact, after this one, I'm not going to have any more of them."  Never-the-less, I cajoled him down to Yappy Hour, an off-leash puppy playtime at a local winery, and we had some chocolate cake while Isabel devoured a can of Alpo, turned upside down like a cake with a candle in it, candle and all.

    Last year was the first time that his birthday came around, and he was no longer here to celebrate it, just as he'd predicted.  Dave took the day off from work, and we drove upriver to the special site where we'd scattered some of his ashes.  We took Isabel with us, and the kids.  Timmy threw the chuck-it for Isabel, who ran and played happily.  We gave her a can of Alpo, dutifully, with four candles in it.  This time we managed to prevent her from consuming the candles along with the cake.  It was, I believe, as he would have wanted it.  The old dog may be gone, but the new dog still remembers.

    He would have been seventy-five today.  I decided, after some deliberation, not to reenact the ritual.  This year, I didn't want his birthday to be a commemoration of his death.  I wanted it to be a day of celebrating life--his life, my life, the gift of life itself.  The old dog will never be gone.  He is in everything we do--Emily's passion for books, Timmy's new found obsession with the Sound of Music, my efforts to play songs for the kids on the guitar he gave me, my mother-in-law's thoughts as she watches another season of his favorite t.v. program, Dancing with the Stars, Dave's consideration as he treats me with extra tenderness today...

     Happy Birthday, Dad.

A five-star day

Do you ever have one of those days that is at the same time ordinary and extraordinary?  Today was one of those five-star days, all for simple sweet reasons, like lunch with friends followed by a fun play date, chuck-it  in the rain for the puppy with a reappearance from the sun in time for an early evening run, and a family outing to Froyo Yogurt for dessert.

Mommy's view in the bathroom mirror this morning--sibling revelry in the bedroom.  Standing on Timmy's favorite book.  Shedding the new Mary Jane's to put on big brother's tennis shoes instead.

Timmy was excited to be going to Nana and Pop's house while Mommy went to the Olive Garden for lunch with friends.

Emily and Amelie playing on the stairs.

Amelie is an excellent little Mommy to her dollies.  I think she thought Emily was one of them!

 Nicole and Emily go way back.  Minnie, on the other hand, is a new friend.

Fun with Grady!

A gorgeous drive home through the orchards.  By the way, this image is mine but the idea for the in-the-rear-view-mirror scenery shot was shamelessly stolen from Mary Collier of MKC Photography.

  This is the sign of a successful play date!  Another stolen photo idea--the sleepy kiddo taken from the front seat (NOT while driving, by the way)--thanks Kristi Brons Ahrens of Be Fruitful Photography for this one!  No credit for originality, but I should get a few points for practicing what inspires me :o)

Nothing beats chuck-it in the rain, except watching from inside and at a safe distance!  The view of the hills from our backyard and the puddle on the lid of our (broken for over two years why do we even still have it?) hot tub.

Then the sun came out long enough for Isabel and I to enjoy a lovely late afternoon run.

Froyo yo yo!  It's frozen yogurt, so it must be good for you, right?  Never mind the copious quantities of chocolate syrup and peanut butter cups adorning it.  Baby made a break for it, but was lured back by temptation!  Like I said, nothing out of the ordinary, yet everything just perfect to make it a five-star day!

Hockey Dad

How did Big Dave spend St. Patrick's Day?  Playing in the St Hatrick's Day Hockey Tournament, of course.  He had a great day playing to his favorite audience in the stands because the Daddy Fan Club was out in full force.

Timmy says that "someday, I want to be Big Timmy."

Who's Daddy winking at?

There she is :o)

Applause and a mouth full of bunny.

Team Hulse!  Go Big Dave!

Proudly waving to his fans.

She enjoyed the game and is proud of her Daddy, but baby's favorite part of the game was...

...the Bunny Boni.

Lucas' eyes

I had a wonderful time photographing member families at our Greater Wenatchee Parent Child Preschool's night out at the Wenatchee Wild hockey game.  I thought that this young man's eyes were especially sensational!