Laowai

– We’ve been enjoying summer meals – like grilled burgers with grandma’s cucumber salad and strawberry shortcake. Oh do I love that cucumber salad – it’s just sliced cucumbers, mayo, salt and pepper and, if you have it, a little dill. You have to let it sit so the cucumbers give up their juices to mix with the mayo. Mmmm. I can’t get enough of that cucumbery crispness. I could eat it everyday.

– We’ve been going to the beach – often. Bea is in love with her swimsuit. The other day I peeked at her while she was napping in my bed. She had managed to put her swimsuit half on before she passed out. The other benefit of the beach – good long naps. She slept a long time with her swimsuit up around her legs and hips.

– Bea has given up a few of her cute ways of saying things. This morning for the first time she pronounce airplane with the p. She said airpane instead of airtane. And a couple days ago she said “mommy you carry me?” and it broke my heart. She has always said “mommy hold you” when she wanted to be picked up. At first I couldn’t even tell what she was saying but then it dawned on me she was repeating what I say to her: “do you want mommy to hold you?”. Brian and I always laughed at her phrase because it was like she was saying she was going to hold me. Anyway – it’s sappy – but it makes me happy and sad to hear her move beyond these baby things.

– We take nice long slow walks – often. This day there were people getting married in the rose garden near our house. 

– She’s been saying “pick up the pace”. One of us taught her to say it one day and now whenever someboddy is lagging behind when we’re trying to get out the door she’ll say “pick up the pace mommy”. That’s probably not a very amusing story – but you know how it is with kids. When your kid learns something – even something little – and she says it in her adorable toddler voice – well it just makes Brian and I smile.

– Bea’s been hopping on her pop. Whenever Brian gets down on the floor and especially if he’s lying on his back she thinks it is so funny to bounce up and down on his belly. Here they are – Brian was just trying to catch up on a soccer game.

– She asks us to “talk about it” all the time. I think it started before our vacation when I was telling her what to expect and I would tell a little story of our vacation. Now she says it all the time. If we see something on the street like a man washing windows – she’ll ask what the man is doing and I’ll say he is washing windows and then she says “you talk about it”. And then I’ll have to say anything and everything I can think of about window washers and when I’ve exhausted my knowledge of window washers she’ll say “you talk about it again”. So we talk about grandmas, and Baxter and upcoming vacations and Daddy and spiders and the farm and on and on and on.

– We also talk about an old black fly (she says ode back hy). We have a book called Old Black Fly that she likes and I started telling her to close the screen door behind her so Old Black Fly doesn’t come in the house (it worked). And now she’s obsessed with what Old Black Fly is up to. And we must talk about him all the time. Old Black Fly has taken on a life of his own. When something isn’t quite right Brian and I just blame Old Black Fly.

– Lastly – we spotted the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile – it must be summer. 

now, if only, I could see the MINI wienermobile my life would be complete