Too

Posted on March 26, 2014 by squinks under Della and Daddy, Della and Friends, Della and George, George and Mommy

Too is the new one. Used to be, “I want this one!” Now it’s, “I want it, too!” Which means, “I want this one AND that one,” or “I know you want it; I want it, too.” Too can also be used to add emphasis. Can mean, “I want it a lot,” “I want it now,” and/or “I want it more than you.”

Or, more traditionally–

Bappa, after getting a hug from Della: “I needed that!”

Della: “I needed that, too!”

Speaking of also, Nanny and Bappa came to visit.

Clothes off; playground, finito!

Dinosaur birthday party. Bappa didn’t think he wanted to go, but afterwards he wouldn’t stop talking about it.

Look, it’s my friends Steve and Amanda. Even though Nanny and Bappa missed their plane and got in too late to babysit, we got to go out anyways, that’s how much fun we have. Thanks, Linda.

Here’s Della threatening us with a knife while George sucks on a lid loosener

Announcement: George is getting cute and friendly.

So attractive, Della tries to sit in his lap.

Thanks for the visit. We needed that.

The Glory of Nice Days

Posted on March 22, 2014 by squinks under Della and Friends, Della and George, George, George and Friends

George is being exceptional.

More of This

Posted on March 17, 2014 by squinks under Della and Daddy

Here she’s mad because I said I wanted to take her picture but she thought I was talking about pretzels.

Kidz on a Bed

Posted on March 16, 2014 by squinks under Uncategorized

Commencement

Posted on March 14, 2014 by squinks under Della and George

Maybe the only photo of them both smiling? Della has graduated! Today, after a month and a week of transitioning to the big house, Della spent the whole day on the other side. And now there is no going back. Her picture has been taken down at the Caterpillar Club, her box of extra clothes and the name on her cubby removed.

Daylight Savings

Posted on March 10, 2014 by squinks under Uncategorized

It was a great day! When “the days are long but the years are short,” you don’t mind losing an hour here and there. We started off with a special mother/daughter trip to the bakery, which Della calls “bacon.” It was good bonding, as was this post-nap warm-up.

Later we went to Adrian and Beatrice’s house for kafta. Those kids woke up early too! Beatrice got touchy-feely with George, and Della got a little rough with Adrian. Della has gotten very good at saying sorry, which I think only further infuriates her victims. Say you’re sorry, Della. Oh, sorry… she says and then pets your head. Adrian was like, don’t touch my hair.

Home Again, Home Again

Posted on March 5, 2014 by squinks under Della and Mommy, George and Mommy

Another snow day! Della’s new thing is wanting to nap at 10:30 a.m. Maybe George, who recently moved upstairs, is keeping her up at night. Also new: She wants cream cheese and chocolate milk for snack. She asks to watch Madagascar 3, “Gasca!” She spends about half of her play time going through my jewelry, which my mom once carefully untangled and separated into about 30 tiny Ziploc bags. Della loves those little bags! She drinks lemon tea. She wiggles her lower jaw. She still can’t spit or jump. She’s a gear head.

On this snow day, George visited yet another therapist. We’ll get you straightened out if it kills us. Here, a rare photo from a therapy session. As you can see, he loves it!

Della Explorer

Posted on March 3, 2014 by squinks under Della and Daddy

This is Della, ready for sledding.

In spite of all the gear, the wind and cold made Della sad. She didn’t last long, and when she came in she needed a cuddle in the big bed. From that vantage point, she caught site of two reserve duckies at the top of the laundry closet. I pulled one down, which she quickly inspected. “Yummy spots!” she said, referring to duck’s dirty wing tips. She recognized immediately that this duck, not the clean imposter duck she had been sleeping with since her birthday, was the real duckie. Later, she brought us the clean duckie and held him up in the direction of the the laundry closet. Her gesture seemed to say, Put him away, and I’ll forget about this whole screw-up.

Bavarian Date Night

Posted on March 2, 2014 by squinks under Uncategorized

I wish we had a picture of Steve and I dancing the polka, which we did once around the dance floor of Blob’s Park in Jessup, Md., last night. We don’t get out for a lot of date nights, but when we do…

I don’t want to get too snarky in my commentary. It looked like, under the right circumstances, a lot of fun, and I wish we had a family-friendly dance hall with pub food in beautiful Hybla Valley. Unfortunately Blob’s Park Bavarian Beer Garden, est. 1933, is shuttering its doors at the end of this month, so we’ll never know if our experience was uncharacteristically bad or par for the course. You might be asking, what did we expect?

In the above candid photo captured by our friend Bruce, the masked damsel in the middle, winner of the evening’s Best Woman’s Costume award, has just dropped her plastic bottle of vodka, and the Viking and the beer wench are wiping up the contents.

You’re familiar with the size of my exclusively breast-fed baby, so you must know how hungry I can get. We ordered wiener schnitzels at 8 pm, then changed our order to weisswurst because they were out of schnitzels, and when our food came at 10:15, we learned they were also out of weisswurst. I don’t have a picture of the kind of wurst they did bring, but let’s just say it wasn’t the best wurst.

Substitutions were also made in our appetizer course, which came out after our entrees. I ordered the bayerishcher raditeller – Bavarian salted white radishes with buttered rye bread and chives. But they were out of rye bread and butter and even, as far as I could tell, salt. The radishes were good though.

Meanwhile, Della, Annie, and George had a slumber party at Ama and Gus’s house.

Steve, I appreciate the creative thinking that went into the planning of this date, which was meant to celebrate both our birthdays and even valentine’s day. It was kind of the wurst, but it was the best wurst.

George, Gigantic Baby

Posted on March 1, 2014 by squinks under Della and Daddy, George and Friends

Our somewhat accurate scale says that George, four months old today, weighs 23 pounds. Della weighs 25 pounds, sometimes 24. This morning, Steve put George on Della’s lap, and Della began to whine. Steve said, “Don’t you want to hold your brother?” “Baby…big!” she gasped.