Reed originals

On a few occasions, I have made up stories for Reed and Spring. The first time I did this, it was after we had a bat in the cabin at Lake Chelan. It was exciting and scary at the same time and it happened right before bed. I could see that Reed really needed to process the incident before bed, so I told him the story of Bernard the Bat. He was a very friendly and curious little bat who wanted to meet a family staying in a cabin. Bernard goes into the cabin, but quickly realizes that he has startled the family and decides to leave and not come back so he won't scare them any more.


I've also made up stories to help pass the time when the kids are bored and cranky in the car. Reed really likes the story of Sally the Schoolbus. She is a brand new bus who is so excited to take kids to school on her first day, that she gets up too early and finds there are no kids at the bus stops. Another story I tell is the story of Frankie the Fish, which is basically the story of the salmon life cycle.

So it was exciting to me today, when Reed made up two stories for me! We were playing "a snuggle up in bed game" as Reed calls it (this by the way, is my personal favorite game we play) and Reed told me two bedtime stories. They were so great, I wanted to write them down to remember them, so here they are, in as close to their original form as I can remember.



R: Once upon a time, there was a little boy. He becided [sic] to go to the duck pond, and what do you think he saw?
Me: What did he see?
R: He threw some bread at the ducks! (In a later iteration of the story, he talked to the ducks and they went "quack, quack, quack".) Then he went home and played hide and seek with is mommy and daddy.

R: Once upon a time, there was a bird and he becided to visit his friend who was called a Eagle. And what do you think they did?
Me: What did they do?
R: They went swimming in the water together! Then they went home and played hide and seek together!



Reed also has his first imaginary friend now. I think his friend may be an offshoot of Bernard the Bat, who we would occasionally "see" after we first met him at Lake Chelan. Reed's friend is Robinbird. Robinbird especially likes to play a snuggle up in bed game with us, but also likes to nap in my bed while Reed has naptime, and sometimes comes to the grocery store with us. It's very sweet!


And Reed is also dabbling in photography these days. Usually, he captures images of his feet, or the ground, but sometimes, if you position yourself correctly (as I've done here) the artist will see fit to capture your image!

And as for Spring... I can't believe she's almost 18 months old now! She is incredibly mobile (she can crawl into her high chair which is a little scary!) and communicating well. We're doing sign with her and off the top of my head, I can think of more than 20 signs that she knows (dog, cat, nurse, eat, apple, more, water, brush teeth, bath, shoes, cheese, wash hands, daddy, music, book, up, Hat, potty, bird, all done, waves goodbye and shakes her head no). There are also numerous signs that she will copy, but that she doesn't incorporate into her everyday vocabulary.

One of her tear ducts is still slightly blocked and has been since she was born. It's better than it used to be, but still not great, so we took her to an eye specialist a few weeks ago. Because her eye isn't terrible, he didn't recommend surgery, yet. We're doing some eye drops and vigorous eye massage to help her duct open fully. If not, she may wind up having her tear duct probed.

Outdoor fun

With the days getting warmer, we've been spending as much time as we can outside. We've gone for several hikes at Banner Forest. For the first few, I carried Spring on my back in the ergo till she got frustrated, then carried her the rest of the way on my hip. On the latest hikes though, she has insisted on walking! Our biggest challenge with our hikes is not going too far, since we have to turn around and hike back (instead of hiking a loop trail). On more than one occasion, I've had to carry both Reed and Spring for a part of the hike because their little legs are too tired! Makes for quite a workout for me!

Reed looking contemplative.

Spring looking contemplative.

Just this week, we went to Manchester with Grandpa to play on the beach. We all had a wonderful time!

Throwing rocks... does it get any better than this?

Yup, it does, puddle stomping!

Florida

We were really fortunate to get to go visit Gerry's parents in Florida again in February. As per their usual, the kids were amazing on the plane ride down. I always get a little tense about traveling with them, and they never fail to impress me! Gerry definitely had the more challenging role in the trip down. I thought the ever-wiggly miss Spring would be tough, but as it turned out, holding the hyper-because-he-didn't-nap, wrestling Reed was much harder.

We spent a lot of time at the beach, despite the fact that the weather wasn't all that warm (mid-50s). Thank goodness we brought our warm winter coats!!

Spring took off walking down the beach this day. She just kept going and showed no sign of stopping, so eventually, I had to pick her up and bring her back to the rest of the family. I kind of wonder how far she would have gone, but I'm pretty sure she only would have stopped when she got tired, and I thought my arms might get tired carrying her back.

It was hard to keep Reed from throwing the sand. Fortunately nobody got any sand in their eyes!

More beach fun.

Spring got Grandpa's shoes on and even managed to walk a little in them. She was SO proud of herself!

This could have been the highlight of the trip for Reed. Gerry's aunt's girlfriend brought over a train set and an engineer's hat for Reed. He LOVED it! There were all kinds of buttons that made train noises and a really loud horn that he would honk for minutes on end! Needless to say, the house got a little noisier after the arrival of the train, but all the smiles made it worth it.

Our last full day there, it warmed up a little (70 degrees I think). It was enough that we could be without our coats, so Steve and the kids and I headed back to the beach. This was a gorgeous day and there were even dolphins playing out in the waves!

Dig, dig, dig!

And dig a little more.

It was so much fun for me to get to watch my kids get to play with their grandparents! Both Reed and Spring loved digging on the beach with Grandpa and playing games like "jump on a stump" with Grandpa in the yard at home. I am so lucky to have such a wonderful family!!

Everyday photo op

When your kids are this cute, even getting loaded in the car to go to the grocery store can yield some great pictures. Okay, so maybe I'm biased, but look at these two!

Spring was so cute in her new sunglasses that I wanted to take her picture, but just as I was getting ready to take the picture, she took them off. So I started to put the camera-phone away, but she cried! She really wanted to have her picture taken!! So, I put her sunglasses back on, took the picture, and had a happy girl once again.

And I couldn't take a picture of Spring, without taking a picture of Reed too!!

I've got lots of photos from our recent trip to Florida to share and photos from a recent hike. I'll get those up soon!