Five

Dear Delilah,

I can barely bring myself to type the words.

You are five. 

The tiny six pound baby I met five years ago has become a sassy, sensitive, curious, energetic, smart, silly five year old. You are thriving in your Montessori Pre-Kindergarten program; you've learned to write your own name, are working on upper and lower case letters, and are determined to reach your goal of counting to 100. Your teacher tells us that your are polite and respectful in the classroom. You enjoy playing "school" and teaching your father and I songs and dances or "reading" to us for "group time."

Your love for your family is evident. You enjoy introducing us all to everyone we meet, including servers at restaurants and random strangers on the street. You believe that your daddy can fix anything and that your mama is beautiful. We love weekend mornings when you come and snuggle with us and tell us about your dreams.

You are a loving and playful big sister, and your patience with your little brother is unmatched. That is, with him, you actually have some! You love to teach him, and are quick to jump his defense and remind us that he is a baby and he is still learning.

Your favorite foods are pasta, cereal, green peppers, apples, and ice cream. You love to check the mail and help around the kitchen. You thrive on routine and have an urgent need to prepare for what lies ahead, always asking what we'll be doing tomorrow and double and triple and quadruple checking our plans.

You're a bold and bright child; you can take command of a room instantly, and it's not unusual for people to find themselves unwittingly following your every direction without realizing it. Some may you call you bossy; I prefer to describe you as having excellent leadership skills and an assertive personality.

This morning, we woke up to the first snowfall of the season, and you insisted on going out to play in it immediately, at 6:30 am. You had no interest in the balloons and streamers your father hung with care; no interest in the brightly adorned packages that awaited you. You were interested only in snow pants, boots, and dancing in the snow. I hope you never lose that determination, and that your zest for the here and now stays with you always.

You take after many strong females before you. In your life, there will be people who shush you. People who criticize you for being too intimidating. People who tell you that ladies don't act like that. People who fear the power you emit. Do not bow to those people. Show those people that you are proud of who you are and what you do. Be gracious and kind, but firm in your convictions.

I look forward to the great things you will do in this life. I hope that you will always be as unabashedly YOU as you are now. I hope that your fiery spirit and gentle compassion will grow stronger as the years go by. I hope that your heart will continue to be filled with wacky songs, and your feet with herky jerky dance moves, and that you will OWN it like you do right now. And I hope that the next five years don't fly by quite as quickly as these last five have.

Happy 5th birthday, my baby girl.

Love,

Mama

Halloween 2014

Dear Delilah and Canon,

This is a bit late, and these photos have been shared when it was more timely, but for posterity, and in my desire to get back to the roots of this blog (to serve as a bit of something for you to look back at your childhood with), I'll share them here again. 

I clearly have not lost my penchant for run-on sentences. Ahem.

As has become tradition, we kicked it all off with the downtown Trick-or-Treating event the weekend before. Your cousin Harper joined and the three of you did a great job saying "Trick-or-Treat" and "Thank You!" The three of you did a not-so-great job of standing still and facing the camera for a group photo, HA!

Narrowing down costumes this year was a bit comedic. Delilah-you picked out a construction worker costume, and Canon, we figured you'd fit nicely into one of your sister's ensembles from years past. When we pulled the costumes out from storage, Delilah was taken with her "Foofa" costume from two years ago, and everything else was far too small to fit Canon, so he ended up getting to wear the construction worker get up he was so smitten with. 

Halloween fell on a Friday this year, and a Friday off from school, at that! As Halloween in Wisconsin goes, it was a beautiful one. You never really know until the day arrives if you're going to be sweating in the heat or trudging through an early snow. This year, it was sunny and clear, but with a crisp chill in the air, a promise that Winter is on its way. 

 As we made our way around our neighborhood, we laughed and talked together, seeking out the houses with lights on and avoiding the ones with especially ominous looking decor. You were both brave and caught up in the excitement of it all. Delilah you'd stop every so often, saying you were out of energy and needed "gas," meaning a piece of candy to give you a boost! I would occasionally remind you to say thank you, and you would remind me "I'm still learning!"

We enjoyed the costumes of those we passed by, but perhaps the most impressive was the horse-drawn carriage with Cinderella that went right past our house!

Speaking of Home, Delilah couldn't wait to get back to Trick-or-Treat at our own house, hustling us inside the house so she could ring the door bell and pick her treat from our own candy bowl. Both of you had a blast passing out candy to the Trick-or-Treaters who came to our door, and many of them were just as tickled to get it from you! 

 Your father and I enjoy Halloween in our own right, and I got motivated at the last minute to put a witch costume together.

Your father went a bit more obscure, dressing up at work as a colleague of his who enjoys bird-watching.

I'll sign off with some throwbacks to Halloween before the two of you were in the picture. 

2007

2010

Love,

Mama

#365feministselfie October

You know it's been a busy month when you go to upload your monthly collage and realize your last blog post was the previous month's selfie collage. I've got two windows open with partial posts started, but the month has been all hustle-bustle! There has been lots of work. Work-work, yard-work, restructuring-our-schedules work, house work, personal work. There have been walks to the park, hikes through the marsh, and leisurely strolls around the neighborhood to take in the beauty of the changing leaves. There have been pretty scarves and pretty nails, hallmarks of fall in my world. The whole family got in on the Halloween fun, and we have enjoyed the lovely fall weather, drinking in every last drop of warm sunshine that we can before the air takes on the biting and familiar chill of Wisconsin winters.