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.

Fall 2017

Gloria loves to do everything for herself- pouring the milk for her cereal, brushing her own teeth, putting on her own clothes, brushing her own hair, putting on her own shoes. Me, she says frequently, meaning I want to do it myself. And she is rather mechanically inclined. Taking things apart, unscrewing and re-screwing the tops on things, squeezing cream out of tubes, these are a few of her favorite things. She is obsessed with buses, most likely related to her daily experience of meeting Charlotte at the bus stop. She's also started spending a lot of time playing in the doll house with the bunny family and various pieces of furniture, the toilet and high chair being her favorites. Her lovey Po is a constant, as is Po's best friend Mimi the dog. When she plays with dolls or animals, they tend to do a lot of sleeping, dressing and undressing, and bus riding. At the playground she is very watchful, often just staying in one place and observing the goings-on of the other kids. She also likes to hang from a good bar. Slides are not her favorite thing, but she enjoys stairs. Drawing is also a favorite activity, although playing with the pencils and markers tends to take up more time than any actual artistic creation. God bless her, she's is still always happy to go to sleep, both at nap and at night -I've never met a baby so pleased to be put in her crib. She is such a sweet little thing, when I kiss her and hug her too much she tells me, space mama. When she's upset about something, usually she wants access to some item and that access is denied, I calm her down by holding her close and gazing out the window together, watching the cars, the birds, or of course the buses.

We had a blast on Halloween-we organized all the kids on our block to go trick-or-treating together in a pack. Charlotte got out my old peacock costume, Gloria was a flamingo, Matt was a last-minute Batman, and I was medusa.

Fall 2017

Summer this year was extremely hot, we mostly survived with a combination of our portable air-conditioning unit, lots of fans, and hanging out in the basement. Charlotte, Harper, and Addie took advantage of the weather by selling some lemonade and cookies on the trail. Charlotte lost not one but two bottom teeth, making her officially a big kid. Gloria's vocabulary has been growing exponentially. Her favorite words are ME and OWN. As in me, I want to do it myself, or me, give it to me, or Own, I want my own.

We managed to squeeze in one last quick weekend getaway to Carnation before school started. It almost turned into a disaster weekend- The air was full of smoke from forest fires, Matt was deathly ill, Charlotte got stung in the eye by a bee, and Gloria sliced her toe open in the shower. But somehow we managed to have a great day and Remlinger Farms riding all the rides.

And before we knew it it was time to get ready for kindergarten. We attended a bunch of play dates with charlottes prospective classmates, went backpack shopping, met Charlotte's teacher, and read a lot of picture books on the topic. When the big day came, Charlotte could not have been more ready. She couldn't kick me out of that classroom fast enough! Not so surprising as she will be six in November, I guess. Her favorite things about kindergarten so far are riding the bus home, buying lunch from the cafeteria, and music class. Gloria is extremely envious of the bus riding- several times per day she says, "bus, sissy, me!"

Summertime

It's hard to believe it's already July, June just flew by. Gloria is now running, in fact running away from me every time I try to get her to do something like change her diaper or come to the table for dinner. She has a mind of her own and is now firmly a toddler. She says no and yeah to let you know what she does and does not want. She loves playing with her sis, in a fort or sliding down the slide in the backyard, or just running around the house. She eats beautifully with a spoon and fork and loves experimenting with a cup full of water. I'm afraid I've lost track of how many words she has now, needless to say new ones every day. We have often asked Charlotte to give Gloria some space (she loves to get right up on top of her), and now Gloria has caught on and will put her hand out and say "space" when she wants us to leave her be. She loves to do everything her sis does, including applying lotion, somersaults, playing dolls, walking down the stairs, putting on dresses, and "helping" with various household chores. Her favorite summer fruit is blackberries (dap dap), which we have been picking every time we take a walk on the trail.

Charlotte graduated from preschool which of course made me cry thinking about how big she's gotten, what an amazing kiddo she's become. The caps and gowns were too much!

We spent four days at a beach house on Whidbey Island with Nanni and Poppi, Liz, Eric and the twins. It is an understatement to say that all the kiddos had a fantastic time. Sand, sea. treats, playing together. And the grown-ups had a pretty good time as well.

The girls are very excited about the playset we had built in the back yard- complete with platform swing, climbing wall, slide, and a baby swing for G. Charlotte struck up a friendship with the girls who live next door and they have all sorts of fun back there.

Spring 2017

It's May already and lots has happened since our last post. Gloria has gone from walking to speed walking- she is so fast! Turn your back for a second and she's swishing around in a toilet! Lots of new words, her current list includes: mama, dada, sis, cheese, hop, up, off, more, balloon, ball, dog, nanni, and egg. More every day! Right now she is obsessed with dogs, inspired by some friendly encounters with our neighbor's dog Lucy.

We took a family trip to Suncadia in Cle Elum for spring break with Nanni and Poppi. The girls had a blast sharing a room and sleeping on bunk beds. We borrowed a bike trailer from a friend and loaded them up for a ride. Smores, swimming, elk sightings, lots of fun.

We hosted an Easter egg hunt. We had a fun field trip to Carkeek with C's class. And Matt went to Jazz fest in New Orleans for 5 days- a long time to be solo mama! Nanni and Poppi had a sleepover at our house one of the nights which was a huge help. And the next weekend C, Nanni and I finally went on our rescheduled big girls trip to San Francisco! We rode the cable car to Ghiardelli Square, saw sea lions off the wharf, went to the Botanical gardens in Golden Gate Park with some friends, and even made it to see Matisse at SFMOMA.

Marching On

March has zoomed by! Gloria *can* walk, but she chooses not to. She prefers to walk around and around the house holding my finger, chasing her sister. She will growl when you ask her what a tiger (or bear) says. After a couple nights when she had trouble falling asleep, we introduced 3 stuffies in her crib with great success, which Charlotte has named as follows: Heartly the monkey, Spots the giraffe, and Dewey the dog (Dewey's name came from Gloria's most frequently babbled syllables). Plus of course Po the lovey panda. When you ask her to say Dada, she clicks her tongue and won't say the word- a mystery! We also moved her out of her high chair with tray into a kid chair with straps that pulls up to the table. It is mostly working, however she often insists on eating with one foot up on the table. Very laid back. She has also taken to Cs old baby doll Stella, whose hair she likes to brush.

Charlotte has been really into a women in science book she got as a gift- mama loves it, too. And speaking of mama, I had my first night away from G since she was born, a weekend in Palm Springs with my college friends.

Matt has been hard at work building us a mud room so we have somewhere to put all our coats and boots and hats- a must in Seattle! Our first project in our new house.

February 2017

February is often on the sunny side in Seattle, but this year it has been snowy and rainy. The Wasses were happy to have a snow day and quicky turned that snow into a snowman. We have otherwise had a pretty mellow month, celebrating Valentine's Day, touring kindergarten classrooms, and fun with friends and family. Matt has been baking up a storm lately inspired by British TV baker Paul Hollwood, with tasty results. Charlotte and I saw Moana and we have been listening to the soundtrack on heavy rotation- it's really good!. And it's the first Disney movie with no prince, no romance, no marriage, hallelujah. Charlotte has lately taken to the concept of mitzvah which she learned in Hebrew school and has been clearing the table and doing other acts of kindness and generosity, much appreciated. She is very patient and understanding with Gloria, it is really a testament to her ability to empathize with what it means to be a baby. Her creativity in imaginative play is astounding. She has two alter ego recurring characters, Fritz and Naughty Rose Red, who make tons of bad choices, are very rude and mean, and act out all of her rebellious fantasies. It is absolutely fascinating to engage in with her, and very informative! Sometimes it feels like she does not stop talking/interrogating us from the moment she wakes up until the moment she goes to bed, but Matt reminds me that in the not so distant future we will miss hearing exaclty what is going on in her little head and we should enjoy it now while we can. Truth.

Gloria has taken some steps here and there and continues to try to climb anything on which she can gain purchase- packages, suitcases, chairs, sofas, beds, anything she can summit. She loves climbing up in her little orange chair and getting down and climbing back up and standing up, etc. Right now she has 3 molars coming in at the same time but she has been a real trooper. She loves to fork and spoon her food and will make a forking motion to ask for a utensil if we don't provide one. She loves to brush her teeth with her sis and will come crawling at high speed to the bathroom if she hears the word toothbrush. No new words quite yet, but she is working on dip, Gloria, and sis. She is still sleeping like a champ- 2 2-hour naps and 12 hours at night 7 to 7, just like her sister, god bless them both.