Abby and Wilson at the Aquarium
Abby and Wilson at the Aquarium. Spring 2007?
Abby at the Mariners
Abby and Mamma enjoy a Mariners game. This is from 2006 I think.
Grandmama sends an Easter crocodile?
Wilson is so enamored with crocodiles that he sees them in everything. He can find crocodiles in the clouds, in his Cheetos and Pirate Booty. He can nibble them out of his toast and his crackers. The bottom line is that we are surrounded by crocodiles.
Earlier this week, a package arrived for Wilson and Abby from their grandparents. It was filled with Easter goodies, including Cadbury cream eggs, Beanie Baby Easter bears, M&M dispensers disguised as Easter bunnies, and 2 large caramel-corn Easter bunnies with candy eyes and candy carrots for noses.
Wilson is convinced that his caramel-corn Easter bunny is a crocodile. I tried to convince him otherwise, but he insisted, turning it on its back and repositioning it. And I’ve got to admit that if I use just a bit of imagination, I can see it, too. The long ears of the bunny could double as the long snout of the crocodile. We can’t really explain the carrot on top of the croc’s head, but otherwise, it’s believable.
You be the judge.
Abby is daring
Abby has a copy of The Daring Book for Girls by Miriam Peskowitz (in addition to her copy of The Dangerous Book for Boys). On page 82 she finds “The Daring Girls Guide to Danger” which gives a list of things that any daring girl should do to face her fears and push herself to new heights to inspire her to face challenges throughout her life. Here is the abbreviated list:
- Ride a roller coaster.
- Ride a zip line across the canopy of a rain forest.
- Go white-water rafting.
- Have a scary movie festival in your living room.
- Wear high heels.
- Stand up for yourself-or someone else.
- Try sushi or another exotic food.
- Dye your hair purple.
Abby has always had a strong sense of justice and readily stands up for herself and others. Number 6? Check.
Abby has a pair of high heel brown boots that were handed down to her from Chelsea. She readily wears these to everywhere but school. Maybe they don’t fit her school image, or more likely they aren’t practical for what I understand are very active recesses. Number 5? In progress.
Tonight Abby dyed her hair cherry red, her favorite color. She asked for this as soon as she read it in this book. Aside from it being a little costly, I honestly didn’t have any good reason to not do it. We went to my stylist and she used a food-grade dye for safety. It is absolutely darling. Number 8? Check.
Everyone should have such a list. Abby is lucky to have found it, and I think it is only a matter of time before she starts adding her own things to the list to personalize it to her own needs and goals.
Jessi and the three kids have a snow day
Jessi and the three kids have a snow day.
Wilson’s damned elephants
As mentioned in a previous post, Wilson carries his damned family of plastic (or maybe resin–they’re really heavy!) elephants with him everywhere he goes. The bath tub, the crib, the zoo where he proudly presents them to the real elephants, the breakfast table, to the park, and so on.
For the longest time, Wilson had 4 elephants. There was “Dah Unngh”, “Ma Unngh”, “Aa Unngh”, and “Be Unggh”. For those of you that don’t speak Wilson’s languange, that’s Daddy Elephant, Mama Elephant, Abby Elephant, and Baby (or Wilson) Elephant. Since these photos were taken, though, we’ve added 2 more elephants to the family. One is a wooden 2-dimensional circus elephant that he just calls “Unngh” and the other is a smaller baby elephant that the Romero Family donated to the collection that Wilson also calls “Be Unggh”. Abby tells him that it isn’t okay to have 2 elephants with the same name. She keeps suggesting that he call it “Jack Paul Unggh”, but he’s having none of that yet.
The trouble with the damned elephants is that they are too heavy and too bulky for Wilson to actually carry around. We tried introducing him to several different bags, but as you can imagine, with all those legs and trunks and big ears, they are hard for a 2-year-old to get in and out of most bags. We finally settled on a bag from Godiva Chocolates. His first one got used so much that it was as soft as cotton before one of the strings finally gave out. Wilson’s Grandmama was looking out for him, though, and has gotten him several spares from Godiva, so he will not be without. The bags are not a perfect solution, though. With all the elephants in it, and we never move without the whole family, it is really too heavy for him to carry for any length of time. But being an independent sort of boy, he also doesn’t want our help in carrying the bag. Even when he is dropping the bag and spilling the elephants every 10 steps or so and crying in frustration.
In desperation, I spent a whole morning going down to Ikea to find Wilson a wagon-like cart for him to push his elephants in. It seemed a perfect solution. Clearly I hadn’t thought it through. The cart is good until Wilson decides that the cart must be carried for some reason. If he sees a curb, an escalator, a bump, or any obstacle ahead, he insists that the cart be carried over the obstacle. This wouldn’t be unreasonable, except that the boy has 20/20 vision and can see these obstacles hundreds of feet in advance and wants the cart lifted as soon as the obstacle is spotted. And most recently, he’s come to the conclusion that I should just carry his cart as soon as we get out of the car, as if I don’t have enough to tend to.
So I’m currently on strike as back-up elephant keeper and it is creating a lot of uproar around here. Wilson is overwhelmed by the burden of caring for these beasts and he really can’t understand why I won’t succomb to his cries for help. Sigh.
For the plastic animal lovers among you, we’ve posted a tasteful gallery of Wilson’s pachyderm parade.
Abby receives the Panther Pride award
Proud Miss Abby received a Panther Pride award from her grade school for, among other things, “Tackling every learning experience with enthusiasm. For being dependable, honest, talking, laughing, learning to work out things with words. Lego queen. That’s our Abby!”
That about sums up Abigail’s approach to everything, from breakfast to bath to baseball. All out, all the time. Big smiles, big tears, very noisy. Lots of moving parts. That is indeed our Abby!
Manisfam Halloween Party 2006
By all verbal and electronic mail accounts, the Manisfam Halloween Party 2006 was a success. If volume-level of delighted squealing and laughter is the measure of a good party, then Abby’s classmates and neighborhood friends sent this party straight to the top of list. The costumed boys and ghouls ground their fangs through pounds of red meat, set their claws to spooky Halloween decorations to take home, and boogied their fright wigs off to howling music.
Some highlights include:
Max, Jr. being sent upstairs to his crate where he barked as loud as he has ever barked his girly chirp-bark only to have his irritating cries utterly swallowed up by the din of laughing children.
A terrifying grim reaper racing from room to room screaming “Die! Die!” to the terrified delight of his squealing victims.
A full-on, get-down-on-the-dance-floor-get-back-up-again Halloween dance party in which every costumed guest laid it down so fearlessly and thoroughly that the scene bordered on performance art.
The primal terror of hearing kids crying out to hear “that watching song” one more time. The “watching song” being Rockwell’s early 1984 dance masterpiece “Somebody’s Watching Me“. If that doesn’t make you shudder, a guest actually knew the artist, album, year, and some trivia involving the recording of the song! There are some memories that should stay repressed.
Sweet, sweet, pumpkin juice in the kitchen (for parental consumption only).
Michelle channeling the ghost of Amelia Earhart to the slack-jawed amazement of her guests.
Just kidding on that last part, it was actually Doug who contacted the dead. Still kidding!
Photos from the party
Photos are posted online. For the sake of privacy, this photo album is invitation-only. If you were at the party please drop the Manisfam a line with your e-mail address and we’ll send you an invitation with dead-easy instructions for logging in.
Manisfam photos now on flickr
We’re experimenting with publishing our photos to flickr.com. Check out the first photo set at http://www.flickr.com/photos/manisfam/. You can leave a comment for any of the photos and we’re hoping that our friends and family will share their thoughts online. So give it a try and let us know how you like it.
To Wallace and back
Wilson joins Abby and the rest on the annual voyage to Harrison, Missoula, Clarkston, and back. This time we dropped in on historic Wallace as well.