Meredith Carson... Across the Pond and Back Again...

Every spring Dow Gardens play host to a wonderful assortment of colorful butterflies in an on site greenhouse.  A tropical environment is created in our not-so-tropical Mid-Michigan town, and butterflies and moths of all colors and varieties can be observed and even handled with care if you happen to be a Butterfly Whisperer .  (Surely there is such a thing.)  This year my two year old enjoyed chatting with each butterfly that she met, and despite the fact that they didn't answer back, she enjoyed herself immensely. "Say, 'Cheese,' Butterfly!!"

No, I am certainly not talking politics for heaven's sake.  We had the kind of tea party with little cakes and tea sandwiches and pots filled with lemonade (since my daughter Sophia correctly assumed that her eight-year-old friends would want nothing to do with proper hot tea).  The last big birthday party we had for Sophie happened when she turned five.  It was a pirate-themed party .  There were lots of boys and girls there, and it was energetic and wonderful.  There was plenty of energy at today's party also, but the guests were all female and slightly older and wiser.  Prior to the party the guest of honor and her big sister were supremely helpful, and that was a very pleasant change! First thing this morning we made two full trays of chocolate-dipped strawberries, and when we sat down to tea, these were devoured almost instantly by the eight little girls sitting round the table.  I managed to snag one of them, and it was perfectly wonderf...

None of us knows what happens before we become conscious on this earth.  I will be the first to admit that I know very little about anything.  All of the girls at my house, however, like to believe that we come from the same place to which we will return when we leave this earth.  My little girls like to imagine that they were all friends in a different realm before they met on Earth as sisters.  We like to collectively tell the story of how the three of them looked down from heaven where they were probably seated on a cloud and surveyed life on the earth below. "Look," one of them says, "Those two are going to be our parents.  They seem nice."  The other two agree.  Emma, being the dominant, adventurous type, decides that she should be the firstborn child in our family.  We pause to reflect on what a stubborn, grouchy, and serious baby our beautiful Emma was, and she reminds me that she was obviously just missing the sisters that she left...

All of those thankless, sleepless nights when she was a thankless, sleepless infant are paying off.  I'm so glad I didn't send this girl back with the stork when he dropped her off on my doorstep nearly ten years ago.  I might have seriously contemplated it one night when I hadn't slept in 72 hours and found myself aching, leaking, and staring into her purple, inconsolable, squalling face.  Yes, I am glad I stuck it out because she finally did stop crying, and now she is a perfectly delightful companion.  Yesterday my oldest girl and I had a day of fun doing nothing particularly special.  I think there was a moment in the grocery store parking lot when we both looked at each other and silently thought, "I really like being with you."  Then we resumed skipping toward the store in our flip flops and sunglasses (in March!  I know!). Yesterday also happened to be St. Patrick's Day, so we found the traditional Irish music station on Pandora, and I made...

Yesterday morning while she was sitting at the kitchen table, my two year old very casually blurted out an expletive when she dropped her pink play dough on the floor.  Later in the day, when I removed a dirty nickel from her mouth, she looked me in the eye and playfully declared, "You're a jerk, Mommy."  This morning I sent her into her room to find and put on a pair of socks.  She did her best, but her efforts resulted in a backward, twisted and obviously uncomfortable sock configuration on her little feet.  "Oh no!" she wailed dramatically from inside her bedroom, "My socks are RUINED!!" I rushed in to help with the sock situation since I recognized her words and her frantic tone.  She learned them both from me.  In fact all of the phrases I quoted above could have come from my mouth under different circumstances.  Is it any wonder that a two-year-old's favorite word is,"no"?  That is the word they most often hear coming from their ...