Happy Valentine's Day!

Mark got the girls chocolates for Valentine's Day (thank you, Mark; I did nothing) and the girls turned  the chocolate eating into a picnic.

What would we do without Daddy?!

Oh, food!

Chandler was crying and crying at church.  Really unusual for her.  We stopped in at our new Eataly and fed her.  Lo and behold, she perked right up!

Could she say the words, "I'm hungry"?  No, apparently not.  But it was a joy to see her eat heartily.  Her pediatrician said at the thirteenth percentile for weight, Chandler was "solidly on the chart" and seemed completely happy with that.  Thank God, since I have no control of my kids' weights.

A Snow Day, Or Three

School was called off, so the girls colored their faces.

When the snow stopped, it was time to dig.  I didn't want the girls inside all day (instant recipe for insanity) so I bundled them up and took them out in all their gear.  Chandler had on four head coverings.  Both girls had on proper ski pants.

They messed about for a bit, then Frances actually helped me dig!  Minor miracle.  Then they got hot and started stripping off layers.  If you'd have told me, as a child in Arkansas, that I would one day have children that got hot in 17 degree weather, I'd have laughed long and hard.  But then again, I too got hot in 17 degree weather.  Major miracle.

Evil Spawn

The small child has been dressing herself more, which is great, don't get me wrong.  But it means some days, we pick up Frances from school in ballet tutus, like so:

Frances's school friends love the tutus, of course, and swarm around Chandler, who then hides under my jacket.  Oh, well.

Chandler is interesting, I'll give her that.  She seems perfectly comfortable wearing blue and chatting about Spider-Man one day, and then dressing in three kinds of pink the next.  Versatile, we'll call it. As our arachnid friend Charlotte says, Chandler "can turn with ease from one thing to another."

Eighty-Seven Months of First Grader Frances

Eighty-Seven Months Fun Fact

• Maturing:  I think!  She's bursting into tears a little less frequently.  She's somewhat more willing to help out (not without whining, but still).  She's taunting her sister slightly less.  Surely just a phase that will be replaced with some other phase, but hopefully it won't all fall away.  The taunting, in particular, I don't miss At All.

Forty-Eight Months of Preschooler Chandler

We finally made it to Chandler's actual birthday, after a lot of preamble.  It was a Tuesday and Frances had school, so we didn't have too much time to work with, but I did want to do something.  So we went to the local ice cream shop and we brought along our 4 candle.

Chandler isn't actually an ice cream fiend, but she humored us.

The Four Year-Old Interview

• What is your name? " C-h-a-n-d-l-e-r."  [She spelled it!]
• How old are you?  "I'm four."
• Who do you live with?  "I live with Frances, Morgan, Dada."
• What is your favorite color?  "My favorite color is purple." [After saying this, she looked at me, hard.  She knows my favorite color is purple.]
• Who do you like to spend time with? "Uh, Dad. Hmmm, and, what's next?"  [She wasn't really enjoying this experience.]
• What do you like to do with your family?  "I like to play in my room.  I like to go where they want to go with my family.  I like to go to Toys-R-Us and that's it."
• Where do you like to go? "I like to go to Toys-R-Us and buy stuff."  [The girls got very generous gift certificates from their Uncle Eric at Christmas.  It has taken a couple trips to Toys-R-Us to spend them.]
• What makes you sad?  "Sad?  Who screams at me.  Who's mad at me." [She gets really upset when she thinks people are mad at me.  She's taken to wailing, "Everyone is mad at me!"  Luckily, these bouts of wide-reaching calamity are short lived.]
• What is your favorite toy?  "My favorite toy is my big red car."  [It goes with a doll house.  It doubles as a picnic table.  It is actually cool.]
• What is your favorite fruit?  "Fruit? Frances."  [I guess I need to try harder.  Poor kid.  She ate a pound of strawberries recently.  It's not like she's never seen a fruit.  She just can't identify it.]
• What is your favorite TV show?  "My favorite tv show is new movies."
• What is your favorite vegetable?  "Grapes." [Closer!]
• What is your favorite lunch?  "My favorite lunch is spisacios." [Known to the rest of us as "pistachios."]
• What are your favorite clothes?  "My favorite clothes is Elsa dress."  [Also what she happened to be wearing when she was asked the question.] 
• What is your favorite game? "My favorite game is How to Train Your Dragon II."  [Chandler and Frances run around hissing at each other, as dragons are wont to do.  I won't pretend to love it, but I know it could be so much worse.]
• What is your favorite snack?   "My favorite snack is peanut butter."  
• What is your favorite animal?  "My favorite animal is anything."
• What is your favorite song?  "My favorite song is No One Knows How Far I Go." [That's Chandler's take on the Moana song."
• What is your favorite book?  "My favorite book is any book, any book from the library [laughter]."  [The laughter seemed to indicate that the library stipulation should be obvious.]
• Who is your best friend?  "My best friend is Peanut."
• What is your favorite sport?  "My favorite sport...I don't know what sport means."
• What is your favorite thing to do outside? "My favorite thing is run around in the flesh air."
• What is your favorite drink?  "My favorite drink is apple juice."
• What is your favorite holiday?  "My favorite holiday is watching movie."  [Maybe I should have given examples.]
• What do you like to take to bed with you at night?  "I take anything i want to sleep with for five days and five nights and seven days and five nights."
• What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? "My favorite thing is noodles."  [She gets the meal names confused.] 
• What is your favorite dinner?  "My fav...I'm getting tired."  [She also rarely eats dinner.]
• What do you want to be when you grow up?  "I want to be...I want to go back to my fort."  [She was pretending to be asleep in a pillow fort when I roused her to ask these questions.  Too many questions for a sleepy four year-old, clearly.]
• What is your daddy's name?  "Mark."
• What is your mommy's name? "Morgan."
• What is sister's name?  "Frances."
• Where do you live?  "We live in a big house."

Yes, more birthday

On the Sunday before Chandler's birthday, we took her to the movies to see Moana.  Frances and I had actually seen it already, but we sorta love it (the sailing!), and Chandler wants to do anything Big Sister does.

Before the movie started, we opened a couple presents.  Chandler has asked me over and over to buy her a Spider-Man Pez dispenser from the grocery store.  My sister Lindsay finally obliged her.

She liked it.  We got a bunch of popcorn and candy.  Our friends Michele and Sophia joined us.  And we had a great time at the movies.  Chandler talks about Moana and Maui sort of incessantly now, but I really don't mind.  I cannot believe I'm saying that about a Disney movie, but there it is.  The sailing's fantastic and the women aren't twigs.  Halleluia.