Four years ago you made me a Mama. For this, I am forever thankful. You are teaching me to be patient, slow down, enjoy all that we have right in this moment. You are helping me to be more in love with each moment by showing me a true enthusiasm for life. You are a big ol' burst of loving, intensely engaged energy. You are thoughtful and loving, feisty and strong-willed, independent and so cuddly, gentle and ferocious. In so many ways you are so different from me, but you are my heart. You are a reflection of me everyday. Daddy and Mommy and Eloise love you so much. You are so wonderful. Happy Birthday, Dalia!!!!
There's just so much fun stuff going on around here. Eloise is climbing up on everything (practicing mostly), squealing, laughing, loving life day and night. Dalia is loving her new school. They are just being great sisters, loving each other and having so much fun. For awhile I was worried that the age gap wouldn't be good, but now I'm starting to see how wonderful it is. Dalia is really coming into a new way of being. It's truly remarkable how just days before she turns 4, she's become a little more rational, a little more knowing. I felt a sort of deep exhale the other day, like I made it through something. I know Eloise will go through her toddler years too, but probably not quite as intensely. I don't know, it's like arriving. I love it here. Dalia plays with, encourages and helps Eloise while simultaneously entertaining herself and helping me, too. What luck! Anyway, here are some pics from my iPhone that I couldn't resist posting.
Both girls are growing leaps and bounds! Dalia learned to ride a two wheeler bike a few weeks ago and Eloise is crawling now. Dalia could ride across the neighborhood now, but here she is learning to turn circles a couple of weeks ago. Eloise can make it from Dalia's room to the kitchen in about one minute now, but I've yet to catch her in the act. Her favorite new past time is eating whatever she can find on the floor. Today happened to be the tip of a crayola marker. Dalia's new infatuation with the scissors is to blame for that one.
Also, Dalia stared a new preschool today! After a rocky start at our old preschool with a teacher and group of kids that weren't a good fit for Dalia, we got her enrolled at a great school just a bit farther away. She was so excited, she ran to the door. I'd never seen her get ready to leave the house so quickly or effortlessly. She can't wait for Thursday! It was a great lesson in listening to intuition, not listening, listening again and then making maybe not the most convenient decision, but the best one for our family. I'm proud of Dalia and her ability to adjust. She's just rad and I want her to stay that way. This is as close to a school picture as we're going to get right now.
My friends are wonderful. All of them. But recently, my best girlfriends in the world have visited me to find solace, and connection for themselves and their lives. What's wonderfully amazing is how much it did for me. I'm so thankful for the truth of deep friendship. So grateful to watch my daughter fall in love with Rachel's daughter as we did each other so many years ago. They've already talked on the phone. . . not nearly as long as Rachel and I can manage to stay talking, but someday, I'm sure they will.
We had planned to take a hike in the Mt. Hood forest area yesterday, but due to a big ol' fire, we decided against it because of smoke concerns. That left us with a beautiful day with nothing to do but chores (blech) and knowing that summer is coming to an end, we knew we had to do something. So, we got the idea to go to the coast for a few hours. When I asked Dalia if she wanted to go to the coast she looked at me like, "who are you and where's my Mommy?" She actually said, "No, it's too far." And when I said, "No, no, let's do it. Won't it be fun?" she said, "You're just joking." Eventually I convinced her I hadn't gone out of my mind and that Mommy and Daddy could be spontaneous sometimes and she got excited with us and jumped up and down and started collecting all the things she wanted to bring. It was hard for her to wrap her head around the fact we wouldn't be staying down there, but eventually she understood and had no problem making the most out of our afternoon at the beautiful Oregon coast.
Eloise was equally thrilled about the fun outing, sleeping as she needed to and discovering the sand and surf. She's so mellow, it's just crazy. At one point a man behind me said, "Isn't that age great, when the just sit there and enjoy what's going on around them." I told him, yes, but that my first daughter never did that. She just made a mad dash on hands and knees to the waves when she was this age. He looked out at the ocean and said, "is that your daughter out there?" I looked out and, sure enough saw Dalia running into the waves, her dad a close clip behind.
On the way home Dalia asked if we were in a rainforest and we were able to confidently tell her that out of the 365 days a year, we were pretty lucky to be driving through there without any rain. It was an amazing warm and sunny day that we are thankful we took advantage of. Dalia exclaimed a little later, "we are so lucky to have got to go to the coast today." It was the first thing she talked about this morning, too.
We went to the Sellwood pool today for the last day of the season (our wonderful dear friends Rachel and Adele are here). It was a blast (totally crazy) and tomorrow we're hoping to try and take that hike afterall. We're trying to make the most out of our last days of summer. We seem to be doing a good job.
I hope we'll take this as a testament to doing things spontaneously more often.
