Rachel Writes

I tried to paint my nails the other morning. Within 15 minutes, half of the nails had smudged polish. Still, I press on to try to beautify myself. You can't stop me, children--Hahaha!

There is a man who walks down our street peddling yummy ears of corn. They're warm, golden, fresh, and according to what he shouts, big. " Maiz (corn), maiz malaki (big corn)!" Lately, Sojourner has taken up mimicking him. The problem is that this is what you do if you want to buy what they are selling. Soj was horrified when the vendor turned and came back to our gate. She ran inside and said to me (I was watching from the living room) "Man at our gate." Here is Sojourner eating the corn that she called for. Hmmm . Maybe I should learn more Pilipino , she is thinking, then I can get ice cream instead. I finished the corn. Now Sojo waits till he is out of earshot to pretend to be the corn seller.

Sojo's birthday party was a lot of fun. We teamed up with her friend Silas and his family since his birthday is just a week after hers. The five toddlers (and some older siblings and friends) painted and swam and then ate a cat birthday cake. Enjoy the pictures!

Soj and Whitty are funny kids. That's why I like this picture. Whit is bug-eyed and Soj is making a goofy face. Oh yeah, and the balloon hats are great. I want to remember things about them-- the way that Whit gets stuck between the mattress and the wall during nap time (He's in no danger-- the mattress is on the floor) and instead of crying, just coos at me until I wake up. Or the way that Soj makes sense of the world-- she calls my razor a hammer, because I click it against the side of the shower as I use it. She asks so many questions and loves the sound of her ow n voice. Some days I feel like I don't have the energy to do fun things. Some days I day dream about nap time for the first 6 or 7 hours of the day. But some days we do things right. Some days we laugh, A LOT!! We don't have many holiday plans. We'll go to the beach on Wednesday the 23rd, Sojo's birthday. We will have one night at a mountain "resort" (I use quotations because, ...

Soj and I made a scarecrow today. We stuffed some of her old clothes with wood shavings and used a manila envelope for the face. She helped me put in about two handfuls of wood shavings before saying, "Dirty." Heaven forbid! So I finished it. I do love a good random craft. Sojo is also enjoying saying that she is scared of things lately as it means that I will pick her up. So as soon as the scarecrow was brought to life (stuffed and standing) she reached up for me. "I scared of scarecrow." "No you're not," I said ( invalidating her feelings) with a smile, "But I'm happy to hold you." Everyone is in better health! We had a Thanksgiving meal with Soj's babysitter and our house helper and their families. It was a lot of fun! Missing many of you at this time. Be blessed.

My favorite kid moment of late is Sojourner's desire to include Whitaker in almost every activity. "Whitaker want a turn?" she asks. "Whitaker want to eat this? play with this? do this?" Yes, they are practically the same size-- Whit at 5 months. Soj almost 2 years.