Car Shenanigans

Lucy

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Lucy, you have been a dream baby in the car for most of your life (we'll just skim over that first 3 months when I'd wedge a binkie in your mouth and wrap a swaddle around your chin to keep it in, hm?). I am so completely grateful to you for the way you settle in, get happy and keep yourself entertained in the car. Usually it just takes a silly toy or trinket in your hands, and you are absorbed for ages. If you ever get bored with the trinket, you have Noah to keep you laughing. A couple of your car antics I love most these days:

1. When I roll down your window, you look over at the open air and get a huge smile and breathe, "Hiiiiiiii!!" to the outside. Every time.

2. You shimmy your shoulders and bop your head to any song with a good beat. Today, it was Dave Brubeck's "Take 5" and you just reveled in the beat.

I don't know if my day would be half as bright without that mirror that reflects you to me in my rear view mirror so I can see all your shenanigans. I truly delight in the moments I glance back and see you being so marvelous. Every time. Thanks, Car Baby!

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{And a self-portrait with Lulu from today. She held still and looked in the right direction, and when I showed it to her, she lit up and smiled a huge smile. :) This is a keeper!}

 Noah

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Noah, despite the days it gets to be a little too much and I surreptitiously tidy the thing up, I am utterly charmed by your "catchall" pocket in the armrest of your door of the Civic. It is within arm's reach of your carseat, so you are able to tuck things in it all the time.  You favor items from nature for this "treasure pocket"--- and at any given time I will find rocks, leaves, twigs, perhaps an acorn... Oh, and the occasional post office line ticket, all tucked into that part of the door handle that forms a pit or a well. It is YOUR space, and you claim it completely. Today's photo shows the ever-present rocks (gravel, really), a twig, and the leaf you asked me to get for you when a cousin leaf blew into Lucy's open window and made you yearn for a leaf to blow into your window. We pulled over to wait and see if one would do it on its own. When none made it into our car on their own, this is the one I grabbed from the ground just outside my car door to hand to you. I told you it looked like a rotten banana and you laughed and pretended to eat it. Then into your "treasure pile" it went. I guarantee you you've already forgotten about it. So in a few days, when it is dry and breaking into pieces, I'll slyly slip it away from the stash and onto the ground, and your "well" will remain available for the next leaf or twig or spiky gumball... or whatever strikes your fancy.

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{And my self-portrait[s] with Noah from today. I begged him to be "sweet" in the first one, and he asked if we could do a silly one in trade. Of course I agreed. I love them both.}