July 2018

Summer is finally here and we have had lots of excitement in the Wasse household. We took a trip to Southern California for spring break for some beach time and some family time. Charlotte and Gloria had a blast with their cousins and extended family.

Gloria started preschool at the same school where Charlotte and her cousins attended, and needless to say she was VERY ready. I don't think she even gave a second glance when we dropped her off for the first time, and all reports from her teachers indicate that she is having the time of her life. She is not super verbal but definitely manages to get her point across. Her oft repeated sayings include: wazzizit? For me? Me do it (a million times per day). And she still says wawee for water which I find endlessly adorable.

Gloria is very gymnastically inclined and will flip over anything she can flip over. I'm definitely going to have to get her enrolled in some classes this fall! She is totally potty trained, which has been pretty amazing for a two-year-old. She still wears a diaper at night and during nap but has very few accidents at this point. She is firmly convinced that she is a big girl, and so we try hard to do everything we can to support that vision for her, even though to me she of course is still my little baby.

After 2 weeks of relaxing, Charlotte is off to camp which she loves- sweet freedom/ minimal adult supervision. She had a great year in kindergarten, made lots of friends and really enjoyed school every day. So hard to believe she will be a first grader next year! Her reading has really picked up, although I wouldn't say she enjoys reading quite yet, it is still hard work. Charlotte loves: anything sweet, playing ponies, our next-door neighbor Harper, being silly (and rough and tumble) with her sister, being read to, and snuggling and chatting at night before bed. Matt and I have realize that we are probably a little too hard on Charlotte, that our expectations for her are probably more advanced than is actually age-appropriate. So we have been trying to lighten up and to have more patience for her shenanigans and her complete inability to do what we ask her to do when we ask her to do it :-) I went on a spring field trip with Charlotte's class for the day to Camp Long on Vashon Island, and it made me realize that she is actually fairly cooperative compared to most of her classmates. All in all she is a really easy kid – no major problems of any kind- so I'm trying to be more appreciative of her.

We had a fun 4th of July parading in our neighborhood parade, complete with popsicles and a firetruck! What more could a kid ask for :)

We squeezed a lot of fun into this summer- a trip to Camano Island with the Alexanders, blueberry picking, another trip to Vashon with the Maloneys, lots of beach time and biking. We finished summer off with our annual trip to Remlinger farms. We also managed to squeeze in a Yes Day for Charlotte- a day when she get to plan everything we do and eat and we say yes to all her requests (within a few basic rules). Kids are such simple beasts- Charlotte's dream day entailed going out for breakfast, a visit to the candy store, selling cookies on the trail with our neighbor, and having a sleepover with her bestie. 

Spring 2018

Yesterday Seattle broke a Record for warm weather, and the weekend was very warm as well. We took the opportunity to get out and do some bike riding, and Charlotte had a breakthrough. She rode her two wheel bike all by herself around and around the playground, it was a very exciting moment for all of us. Gloria meanwhile was scootering up a storm, going really fast and loving it. Other goings-on lately: we had a fun trip to Suncadia with the whole family, Charlotte and I went snowshoeing, lots of sledding. Gloria was not a big fan of the snow, so I put her in my carry pack and carried her around, which she loved. The cousins had a great time playing together and invented a game called "you're getting on my nerves."
we all got together for Purim for some hamantaschen making, the girls were very focused both on the process and on eating the product.
Developmentally, Gloria has been making leaps verbally, she chatters constantly, although she has a pretty strong toddler accent which makes it a little hard to understand her. Her most frequently used sayings are me see it, me do it, what's that, and why? She has also demanded that we stop using diapers, and she pees poops in the potty with some consistency. She has also now entered that toddler stage where she insists on picking out her own clothing, but she does a pretty great job of dressing herself. Unfortunately she has started to resist going to sleep at night, we usually have about an hour of callbacks and various other shenanigans. But at least when she's asleep she's quiet until morning. She has also really started dancing up a storm after she saw Charlotte perform in her school's talent show to Katie Perry's roar. Gloria requests dancing sessions almost daily, and of course insists that her audience is seated, not singing along, and paying rapt attention to her moves.

Winter 2017

The winter season is always busy at the Wasse's house from Halloween to charlottes birthday, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, our holiday party, Christmas, New Year's and then Gloria's birthday, we have a lot going on. Mercifully, we did not have to travel anywhere this year, which was fantastic. Thanksgiving was a lovely local affair with the family- Charlotte made place cards with everyone's names on them which is her new trick. Her reading skills have really taken off, and she has a lot of sight words and can sound her way through a surprising amount of words. Charlotte is taking gymnastics on Saturdays and Hebrew school on Sundays, neither of which she is terribly enthusiastic about, but we persist.

For her birthday this year Charlotte wanted a rainbow cake and a pottery painting party, so we of course delivered. Or should I say Matt delivered the cake- gorgeous as usual. Charlotte asked for an American girl doll, inspired as she is in many things by our neighbor Harper, so we obliged, not knowing the fury it would unleash in our home. Needless to say, the moment that Gloria laid eyes on that doll, it was love at first sight. She wanted to put her to bed, pat her hold her, visit her every day, and Charlotte was has been absolutely as generous as any six-year-old could possibly be, but still it creates a lot of tension in the house. This tension was not resolved when we got Gloria an imitation American girl doll from target, and trimmed her hair to look just like charlotte's. Gloria took one look at her, noticed the slightly inferior quality of her hair and said "scalp." As in I can see her scalp, don't try and fool me, people, this is no Ramona.

Gloria has taken off in terms of language development. Lots of three and four word sentences going on. The things she says most often are: sit down, me do it, eat it, have it, sit close to me, and happened? She also wants everything "biggie."

For vodkas and latkes this year I had the genius idea to hire a neighbor's home from college student to do the latke serving and bar management, which made all the difference in terms of our enjoyment of the party. Charlotte had her first sleepover at Carrie Ellis house that night, and when we picked her up in the morning we were not a little surprised to hear from Kate that she was the most generous, flexible, and accommodating child at the party. Gloria spend the night with Nanni and Poppi, much to her delight. I have never met a two-year-old who is less clingy to her parents than this girl, I'm hoping that is a good thing.We were ahead of the game because we saw the Nutcracker and got our tree Tday weekend, so we had to work a little bit extra to generate that holiday cheer. Cookie decorating entailed Charlotte and I frosting the cookies while Gloria essentially ate a bowl of sprinkles. In my eternal quest to implement family traditions, I got us an advent calendar with little drawers into which we put a piece of candy for each night, quite a hit with the Girlies. We had lots of Hanukkah fun with the family; our annual trip to Swanson's to see the reindeer and get a picture with Santa; we had the Maloney's over for Christmas eve dinner, and then the twins over for Dutch babies Christmas morning. Our attempt at Jewish Christmas was almost a total fail- we waited for two hours at the Chinese restaurant but luckily managed to have enough appetizers and soup to keep the girls happy before we had to cancel the rest of our order and run out of there. And most exciting of all, we had a white Christmas this year, the first time in 10 years! Charlotte and Harper and Gloria all got on their snow gear and were out sledding down the driveway for hours.

Matt's parents were supposed to come after Christmas, but they got bad colds and couldn't travel. So since Matt and I had already planned on taking the week off, we just did a bunch of stuff around town: Seattle Center, wild lights at the zoo, Museum of flight. We celebrated Gloria's birthday on the 31st, with bagels and lox and a puppy cake for the whole family plus Liz's in-laws were in town. Gloria has been singing happy birthday to herself ever since. When asked how old she was she replied without missing a beat, six. And for New Year's Eve, we took the girls out to dinner at Ivar's on Northlake, looking out over the water at the space needle- they loved it, although Gloria was a little more squirrely than usual. all in all, I would say we had a very lovely season, although I think some of us were a little bit glad to get back to school and work and our usual routines.