Skipping Town

Dear Baby Grets, Where to even begin with the cuteness? Every day, it’s something new: running up to us with arms outstretched, saying “Cull!” for a cuddle; saying “Hi!” and “Bye!” to anyone and everyone, repeatedly and at a volume too high to be ignored; yelling “Kee!” when you stumble on a Squinkie; walking up quietly with your stethoscope and pressing it to our legs while saying “Thump thump…thump thump…” And, of course, your gleeful, joyful, precious, toothy smile. You are saying new words at a more rapid clip now. Not fully clear—you get the first syllable, but haven’t quite gotten the hang of final consonants—but anyone around you all day (me) can understand what you’re saying. New entries: help, bite, big, fly, chalk, Kee (Squinkie), kie (cookie), cake, snack, round (around), down, out, eye, bird, broom. You love playing doctor. You love when Lucia paints your nails. You love reading books, and you have an amazingly long attention span, just like your sister always

Matching ladybug sundresses and front-porch pedicures. How did I raise such cute girly-girls?

Greta now approaches us with her arms spread open, saying “Cull. Cull.” This means “Cuddle. Cuddle.” She comes right up and gives a snuggle. It is cute enough to be almost manipulative. Greta also says “melon” in a hilarious way. She somehow hears the L of “melon” as a difficult stumbling block, so she just keeps sticking her tongue out, saying “mlmlmlmlml,” like she’s lapping up milk. Hilarious. We went to a library book sale last weekend on $5 bag day and brought home a ton of new-old kids’ books. Some have been hits, like The Princess Who Never Laughed and The Poky Little Puppy . I also bought Thumbelina , which I remember liking as a kid, but I read it to Lucia without perusing it first and found it pretty disturbing. That one might get tucked away. Both girls continue to be obsessed with the Barbie accessories I keep in a bin on the porch. They are worth their weight in gold. They are often so absorbed in playing with them that I could easily read the newspaper if I

Dear Little One, I’m amazed at how much different you are now that you’re getting so close to four. A real turning point came just after three and a half, and though we’ve had a rough week here and there (and believe me—when they’re rough, they’re really rough), for the most part, it’s a sea change from where we were just six months ago. You’ve always had an enormous personality, but it’s becoming even more entertaining now. You sing and make up songs; you dance; you close your eyes dramatically when you dance; you say things like “There’s only one problem. I have to get my water.” You pick out your own clothes each day, almost always a dress, and accessorize with headbands and jewelry. And you are showing pronounced strains of me: I recently put up my shelf of small things, very small things, and sometimes you look at it and say, “Mama, I love your tiny treasures!” We’ve put two large sections of our new card catalogs in our bedroom until we get the rest of the pieces here, a

We finally got something accomplished with the house: the curtains in all the bedrooms are hemmed, the broken curtain rods are replaced, and we now have a bona fide outdoor living space on our front porch. Progress! Of course, the only reason we made such progress is that my parents were here all week while Andrew was on a business trip. Dad undertook the curtain project, cutting and pinning and ironing and hemming and running to Target for curtain rods. Mom worked hard as well, endlessly entertaining the girls. Everyone had fun. And when Andrew came home, he assembled the porch furniture, and we gussied it up a little with curtains and a lamp. The girls love the new space. They like to bounce on the chairs and throw the pillows around. Lucia also likes to lounge around on the loveseat, “getting cozy” with her Bibi and favorite pillowcase so she can “have a relax.” “I’ll just get my Bibi and have a relax,” she says. I have no idea where she got this phrase, but Andrew and I ha