Almost two, waiting in a basket.

On her first birthday, August 15, 2009.

Dearest Elena,

A week ago Sunday, you turned TWO! While I finished up a course in the Wallowas–eating cinnamon rolls baked over a fire while laughing with college students–your Dad gave you the greatest gift anyone can have on her birthday: freedom to choose! When asked where you’d like to have dinner, you said “beach.” So you, Sylvan, and Daddy packed up the van and headed to Florence to build a boat out of sand and eat fish and chips. Yumm, good choice. You even made it back to have brownie-flavored mini-cupcakes for dessert with Avi and Noah.

Does this really need a caption?

Elena on an E, Spokane, July 2010.

Every day, you are different from the day before. Really. What you do right now:

• Imitate any word you hear, often with amusing results. Somehow, when you say Sylvan, it sounds like “doh-doh.” Likewise, when you say turtle, it sounds like “doh-doh.” The other day, when I asked you to say “Sylvan’s turtles,” you knew how silly it sounded: “doh-doh-doh-doh.” You couldn’t stop laughing.
• Speak, knowing that you will be understood by someone. Just after I said to a friend, “My older child translate for my younger? No. I understand her, too,” your vocabulary exploded in early July. I often don’t understand you, but between Sylvan’s knack and your patience, you’re bringing me up to speed.
• Play with play-dough. You like to cut it up, put it in containers, and smush different colors together.
• Climb anything.
• Play independently, often with messy results: sleeping bag piles, drawers full of rubber band/twist-tie nests, book explosions. But, hey, you’re taking care of yourself. I think that, sometime this year, you and your brother can take on breakfast by yourself. You have the will, and he has the skills. You’ll be a cereal-eating team!
• Say “Yes, please” (“Yes, pease”) when asked if you’d like milk or blueberries or cashews. So polite I just want to squeeze you.
• Love dolls, and you’re learning to count them; one is for one, two is for anything more than one. This morning, though, you used the word three–for only two dolls, but you know it’s related to those counting words.
• Joke and laugh. You say “Noooo” with that head tilt that means “I’m not sure if I mean no or not.”
• Have very definite opinions about things. I’m sorry if you sometimes get squashed in the melee of family life. You can commiserate with Aunt Jenny, another second baby.

A rare moment of sadness. Cute, huh?

Two years ago, one of the best things in my life happened to me. You are a burst of positive energy, and we can use that in a family prone to the grumpies. You are full of joy and wonder and independence. I want so badly to be a great Mommy for you.

You told me you loved me on the phone the other night, when I was in eastern Washington. I love you, too, Elena.

Love,
Mommy

Sylvan: “Dad, when can I have a treat?”

Elena: “Doo. Minn-ditz.” (Two minutes.)

Nothing says summer like being nearly naked and eating popsicles on a trampoline.

Leslie, Wendy, and I on the summit of Diamond Peak

In case you were curious about the location, date, or elevation...

If you’ve been following along, you may remember that this is part of a set (not currently as pregnant as the first belly shot [and will never be again, thank goodness] and nowhere near as chiseled as the second). And, yes, those are thunderheads behind me. About 12 minutes after this photo was taken, I mumbled something like, “F&*#!” as I skittered down a snowfield, on the way off the ridge.

Ground squirrel asking for peanuts, in vain

Isn’t Leslie’s gaiter nicely in focus? This little guy liked her gaiter straps. He stood up for us, wondering how much chocolate he’d find in our packs if he gave all three of us patellar puncture wounds.

Summit Lake (mosquito heaven) and the ridge to the south, our exit route

We walked up on the snow, and you can see our tracks. This is my third time on the mountain in July, and the first time I’ve ever encountered snow on the walk in. We brought ice axes to glissade down the eastern side, but it’s steep, so we ridgewalked back down. I couldn’t have asked for a better pair of hiking buddies (tough, good conversationalists, not whiney, appreciative, good chocolate), but maybe next time Chris will join us to offer just enough testosterone to push me off the eastern slopes.

Boot-skiing down the southern snowfields

Still, we boot-skied down hundreds of feet of the southern side of Diamond Peak. Fun!

I don’t know what it is about this mountain, but I can’t think of a better way to spend my four-year Stroke-iversary.

The comet (sculpture) side. Note the small supports holding the comet (sculpture) above the Earth. It's not a real comet, Sylvan will tell you, but a sculpture of a comet that one day came to Earth (I think that's less scary). This is Sylvan's side of Earth at the bottom of the hydrant. The Nile River is the uppermost blue path.

The moon and ringed planet side.

Happy alien wave.

The idea for the hydrant was Sylvan’s. It came from a pair of his pajamas that have UFOs with happy aliens (that look pretty much like the guy above; I hope I haven’t committed some sort of copyright infringement), rockets, and stars on them. Chris fleshed out the idea, saying that the bottom should be Earth and requesting a comet. I just painted.

Note: This project, the painting of the South University Neighborhood Association’s hydrants, was done with permission from the city. I can’t promise you won’t get in trouble if you just decide to paint yours.

We saw one great horned owl; one sign warning of a blue-green algae bloom in Diamond Lake; maybe one hairy woodpecker, just glanced through the trees; countless mountains in our 360 degree view from the summit, including the Three Sisters, Jefferson, Washington, Diamond Peak, Mount Scott, the remains of Mount Mazama, and also Mount McLoughlin, Mount Shasta, and probably Mount Ashland; lupine, paintbrush, pasqueflower, bleeding heart, blooming manzanita, mountain dandelion, tiny yellow mountain violets, their blooms the size of my thumbnail, and grouse whortleberry.

Chandra was bitten by 207 mosquitoes (okay, that’s a guess), and we were both driven nearly mad by many thousands of other bloodsuckers. She taught me about roadless areas and the poisoning of Diamond Lake. Last night, we saw oodles of stars from our tent’s skylight. We were awoken by many fishermen at 5 a.m., after they’d finally gone to bed at 11 p.m., following quite a bit of discussion about “franks.” I only threw one snowball at Chandra; I missed on purpose.

Here are a few photos from our trip:

Our first peek at Bailey from the trail. The summit is the bare area in the middle along the horizon.

Chandra not swatting at mosquitoes for a moment, with Diamond Lake and Mt. Thielsen beyond.

Looking through the summit ridge's window to Thielsen.

Cinder saddle, rock wall, talus slopes, then easy walk to summit.

Mount Bailey across Diamond Lake. I found this photo at a thrift store. It looks like it might have been taken a little earlier in the season than now - maybe May or June.

S: I’m painting the longest river in the world. It’s in Africa.

J: The Nile?

S: Yes.

J: How’d you learn about the Nile?

S: I read it in a book (with a grandparent).

Note: I’ll post photos of our hydrant when we’re done. Baby steps.

Sylvan's high school senior portrait

Dear Sylvan,

Today, Elena and I waited in your classroom while you finished up your cinnamon toast and fruit snack. You washed your hands and gravitated toward the touch table, filled with cornmeal and black beans (mmm, tamales). Ready for resistance, I reminded you that we were on our way out the door. “Okay,” you said. No problema.

We headed into the lobby, because Elena wanted some milk. You settled into building and stacking with the wooden tree house, keeping yourself fully occupied. When she was done having milk and wanted to play, you grabbed wooden discs from her, snarling, “No! I’m playing with that.”

I loaded you and Elena into the double jogger, with a little coaxing necessary for the toddler one of you. We crossed the street right behind a 5-year-old girl. You leaned out and said, “That’s Julia.” You and Julia smiled at each other, and Julia told me a story about a skunk and a raisin (not really, but it was a 5-year-old’s story; it could have been about a skunk and a raisin).

We reached University Park, and Elena practically stopped the jogger by sheer force of will: slide, slide, slide, slide, slide, slide. “If I think it enough, I will make it happen.” You hopped out of the jogger and walked directly toward the 9-year-old girl building teepees with sticks in the sand, trying to avoid her own little sisters. As I tried to make sure your daredevil sister didn’t tumble off the slide, I occasionally watched your interactions with the girl. You talked, she talked, she built, you watched, you knocked down her structures with a stick, she clapped, you talked some more. When I approached you once, you said, “I don’t want you here.” She told me, when you came over to slide, that you reminded her of a much older boy she knows and that you’re sweet.

At home, you played in the sandbox for 30 or so minutes on your own before coming in to make your sister cry.

All this is to say that you’ve become a complex and interesting little man, not easily distilled into a few words, but I’ll try anyway.

• You offer little resistance to suggestions that make sense or that are routine: leaving school, leaving the playground in 5 minutes, getting into the jogger.
• If you’re building or digging with items that interest you and with which you feel competent, you’re content to be on your own for 30-60 minutes at a time.
• You don’t like to share with Elena, especially when you’re playing with a toy first, despite the fact that the roles are reversed quite often, and you become insistent that the 1-year-old should share with you (Let me tell you something about role modeling, Sylvan…).
• You enjoy the company of girls quite a bit. I have seen you play with boys, and you seem to play best with boys a little older than you, boys who don’t threaten to act like little brothers, swiping your stuff or dumping sand on you. You worship those well-behaved boys , at least a little, making Star Wars ships that look exactly like Robbie’s, for instance. But I’ve seen your eyes light up when you talk about girl friends at school (and Camilla’s in a whole other category, really, one that makes you jump up and down).

Sometimes, you still say funny things: “We’re going to Mars. If we smell a bad smell, it might be Martians.”

I love you, even if I can only get a kiss by telling you I don’t want one,
Mommy

This kid is so delighted. Can you tell?

Chris: “What’s God?”

Sylvan: “A person who if he gets eaten by a orca has the power to make the orca spit him back out.”