napkins

elenora is suddenly a "big girl now". she sits at the table without a high chair, and sometimes without a booster seat. she likes to have a napkin during her meal and wipes her own mouth and hands so well that we barely have to clean her when she finishes. she's been pulling her own clothing on. she can go down the steps in our home without holding my hand (with me hyperly spotting her, of course). she helps me to do the laundry. and she is back on the potty training track. 2 days in a row she has gone poop on the potty. and this afternoon she kept her training underwear dry from the time she got up from her nap until her bath. she lets me know when she has to go pee on the potty, and she holds it until she's there.

she's napped the last 3 days, too, which is nice.

friday afternoon elenora and i went to s.'s house and it had been such a muggy day that s. pulled out a small kiddie pool and filled it with water for the girls to play in. i stripped ella down to her panties, and aurora went buck naked. i found 2 old blankets in my car and the girls alternated between jumping in the pool and making forts or rolling in the blankets. meanwhile, s. and i drank homemade sun tea and sat in the late afternoon sunshine. then we all had watermelon.

s. caught a few of these magical moments on camera.

it was the quintessential childhood afternoon experience.

a question elenora's been asking me lately is "where do people die?" i think that it is on her mind because momby's dog, crystal, is very old and has been sick and is likely going to die soon, so we've been preparing her for that. spud, another dog, passed away in the past year, and then ella went to h.'s grandfather's funeral a month or so ago, so i guess this is the third death that she is dealing with in some way. anyhow, on our way to s.'s the other day i think we passed by something that reminded her of crystal and her next, very serious, question was "where do people die?" i told her that people die all different places, but that mostly people die when they are both very old and very sick. i told her "you and i are not very old." and she said "is daddy old?"

god bless her. i reassured her that daddy is not old.