Who loves yogurt?

Hazel was hungry and cranky before sitting down to eat. After 3 bowls of yogurt, 2 bowls of oatmeal, and 1 pear, she was back to her usual cheerful self.

Christmas

We had a delightful Christmas--lots of hustle and bustle and happiness (though perhaps next year we can manage a little more relaxation). There were too many photos for a blog post, so check out this picasa album if you'd like to see more.

A bat in the manger

On Christmas Eve, Juniper had her first public performance as one of the friendly beasts in the UUCA Christmas pageant. Was she a donkey, a sheep, an ox? No, of course not.




That's right. It's the traditional Christmas bat.



She first said that she wanted to be Batman in the pageant, but quickly agreed to be a bat instead.



During the rehearsal, she was upset when another kid told her that she couldn't be a bat, because bats aren't friendly. I comforted her by pointing out that bats eat mosquitoes, which is a very friendly thing to do. When the music director called for all the friendly beasts to come down, Juniper loudly proclaimed, "I'm friendly! I'm friendly! I'm friendly!"



We are pleased to report that the pageant was a success. Juniper stayed with the other friendly beasts and moved in and out of the "stables" when she was supposed to. Baby Jesus was not bitten by any mosquitoes. And there were no proclamations of friendliness during the actual performance. She had a great time, and her parents were probably more touched and proud than is justified by such a simple performance.

Merry Christmas

There are more Christmas photos to come, but here are a couple of photos of our happy girls on Christmas morning.

Is it real?

On a recent trip to Fernbank, Juniper met the museum's Santa-saurus. She was entranced. She petted it, hugged it, put her head in its mouth, and tried to figure out the nature of its existence.

Juniper: Is it real?

Aaron: What do you think?

Juniper: Well, at first I didn't think it was real. But then it sat down, so I think it's real.


She is very interested in determining whether or not things are real. We have clarified that superheroes are not real, jellyfish are real, and dinosaurs were real but are no longer living. She recently informed Aaron that, "the problem with superheroes is that they aren't real." They talked for a while about characters and fiction and how things don't have to be real to be good. She took it all in and then asked whether or not zombies are real. After Aaron told her that they aren't real, she thought about it for a minute and then told him that they are real, because she saw them at the DragonCon parade. He explained that the zombies at the parade were just people in zombie costumes, like she sometimes wears a costume. She thought about that for a bit, and then asked him which part of the DragonCon parade is the scary part.

"I don't think there is a scary part," he replied.

"But Ms. Paula said there was a scary part."

"Did you think there was a scary part, or was it just fun?"

"It was just fun."


In a separate conversation, she announced that when she grows up, Batman will be real, because she's going to be Batman.

Dog...or that

We recently got excited that Hazel had learned her first word when we heard pointing to a dog and saying, "Da. Da." She did this with a couple of dogs, but then we noticed that she was calling everything "da." Apparently, in Hazel's world da means "that."

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Rub-a-dub-dub

Rub a dub dub,
Three babes in a tub,
And who do you think they be?
The pointer, the walker,
The superhero talker.
Turn them out, knaves all three.

Taking the cute up to 11

Hazel is wary of strangers but very affectionate with the people she knows and loves. (On an unrelated note, somehow I'd never really noticed just how very small her nose is.)

Yumm!

S-N-E-A-K-Y

Juniper: How do you spell the letters of a present?

Aaron: I don't understand. What do you mean?

Juniper: What are the letters of a Christmas present?

Sally: Like "gift"? Do you want to know how to spell gift? That's a word that means present.

Juniper: No. I want to spell something that you would wrap in Christmas paper.

Aaron: Like art? You might give someone some art for Christmas.

Juniper: Yeah!

Aaron: A-R-T. That's how you spell art.

Juniper: A-R-T is a good present.

Sally: I bet someone would be really happy to receive some art for a present.

Juniper: No, no, no. Don't say the word. Spell it. That way they won't know it and it will still be a surprise.


Perceptive kid. We did recently spell D-O-L-L as a potential present for Hazel and wouldn't tell Juniper what it meant, because we wanted it to be a surprise for everyone. After talking about giving A-R-T gifts, we went on to talk about J-A-M as a potential gift. Juniper was delighted to be able to talk about two gifts in a sneaky, spelling way. She expressed some pleasure in the fact that both A-R-T and J-A-M are spelled with letters that she knows. When we told Juniper that she already knows all the letters in all the words--that with her letters, she can spell any English word--she was amazed. There is an infinity of things Juniper doesn't know; it's perfectly reasonable for her to assume that of course there are all these other letters out there that she just hasn't learned yet.

Eruption!

We recently introduced Juniper to the wonderful kitchen chemistry of baking soda + vinegar. She and I made a flour/salt dough volcano around a bottle, filled the bottle with baking soda, water, and red food coloring, and set off our own mini-Vesuvius.



She liked it.