Ms. Bossy Pants on the Slide

Juniper, Violet, Luke, Thomas, Ocean, and a host of other kids have gotten an immense amount of joy out of our climbing structure. (Not to mention Aaron and his siblings, who played on the same structure when they were kids.) Hazel has shown a surprising lack of interest in it, and only recently began to go up the steps. She'll happily climb to the top of the steps and then mewl for assistance, unwilling to go back down or climb onto the platform. "Up, up" means pick me up and put me back down on the ground. "Weeee, weeee" means pick me up and put me on the top of the slide.

It's pretty obvious that she's physically capable of doing this. The barrier may have been that she hadn't figured out how to do it, or that she was a little hesitant to try, but it clearly wasn't a lack of physical skills. So today, I left her mewling at the top of the stairs while I went about my business in the kitchen. She became more and more insistent in her requests for up, up, UP, but she never started crying or got upset. After several minutes, she obviously figured out that no one was coming to her rescue and carefully climbed from the stairs onto the platform. Once she was on the platform, she had another round of asking for me to put her on the slide. When she gave up on that, she tentatively put one foot and then the other onto the slide, pushed off, and slid down approximately as fast as a sandpaper block on a rough and gentle slope (she was naked, except for a diaper, and the friction from her skin meant that she basically had to scoot herself down). When she got back to the bottom, she gave a giant grin, yelled "WEEEEE!" and toddled quickly back to the steps. Repeat. Again. For the rest of the day.


I have no idea what Juniper was doing at the end of the video that earned such harsh disapproval from Hazel. Hazel loves to discipline Juniper, Luke, our dog Kayla, her blankets and other inanimate objects, but almost never her parents or other adults. She's clearly learned that this particular manner of speech is reserved for people at or below one's own level on the totem pole. We weren't quite sure where she picked this up, until one day when I heard Juniper give her sister a harsh NO! in exactly the same tone of voice that Hazel uses to discipline the people and objects around her. If I were in a cartoon, there would have been a light bulb over my head at that moment.

Hunting for Eggs

This was the first year we dyed Easter eggs. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Juniper enjoyed the dyeing process. She was particularly fond of the dipping wand.

We hid most of the eggs in the back yard for Juniper to find, and we got Juniper to hide a few in the front yard for Hazel. Juniper got into being on the grown-up side of the hunt and enthusiastically helped Hazel look for her eggs without wanting to take any of the easy ones for herself.

We weren't sure how Hazel would do with the hunting, but she quickly understood what was going on and was quite serious about looking for eggs. She even found a couple in the back yard.

Juniper also had a good time on the egg hunt, but with her more difficult to find eggs there was some whinging at the end. She's vehemently opposed to the hotter/colder game these days, which made it a little more difficult to give her clues without coming right out and telling her where the last few eggs were hidden.

We usually try not to have too many photos of the exact same thing in any one blog post, but Hazel hunting for eggs in her little spring dress was just too darn cute. We can't resist.

For more egg-hunting cuteness, check out this photo gallery.

Waiting

Juniper Buniper

Holi

Last month, Juniper's preschool celebrated Holi, the Hindu Festival of Colors. Colorful mess + preschoolers = a big crowd of happy kids.

Shoe, shoe

Shoes might not make it onto Hazel's top 5 list (since the top 4, in no particular order, would almost certainly be Juniper, Aaron, me, and DeeDee), but they would definitely be in the top 10. She loves shoes, and "shu, shoe" is a common refrain as she points them out, carries them, puts them on, holds them, and delights in their constant presence on her very own feet.