home again...

after a week in the sand, we're diving into our summer with a fat cannonball. i'm honestly giddy about it.

we've planned lots of pool time, a sushi-making course and a few other classes {remind me to tell you why later, ok? ok.}, running miles with the girlies two without stopping or making grumpy faces, and designing beaded friendship bracelets galore. add good coffee, an art studio slash laundry room redo, finding time to read really good words, and some exciting new projects here and there for a brill summer recipe.

also, grae and i are smack in the middle of teaching esmé to read.

esmé: k-i-s-s spells kiss!

me: well done, mémé!

esmé: p-i-s-s spells piss!

me: ummm. how about m-i-s-s?

esmé: m-i-s-s? hmmm. maybe ass?



i'm starting to rethink my oh, it's all organic! parenting style with this one. she's growing naughty again lately. readers of my original blog will shudder at that sentence. worse yet, she's not even afraid of me.

she is, however, morbidly afraid of the chupacabra. don't ask me how i know this. or whether the chupacabra is part of yet another genius parenting technique making its way into esmé's upbringing.

sigh.

last night, uncle sugar came to bed after closing up the house and turning off every romantic lamp i turn on. he was trying hard not to smile as he told esmé to plug her ears so she wouldn't be scared.




"lillie? grae?" he called. "i just found a message written in blood on a roll of toilet paper in the downstairs bath."

esmé quick fake-unplugged her ears and too-brightly suggested "i bet it was written by the chupacabra! to scare gracie!"

uncle sugar looked fake-confused. "but the note said esmé."

and i swear, that little thing slowly leaned back into her pillow and sighed. like she'd just been busted robbing a bank. utterly deflated, do you know? but not down yet.

"maybe he forgot how to spell gracie," she whispered softly.

pat just smiled as she sighed again. "it was me," she admitted. she shook her head as if to say what the heck was i thinking, anyway? "chupacabras don't have disposable thumbs."

"opposable," pat corrected gently. "which means a chupacabra can't hold a pen..."

"or a red lipstick," esmé added.

another case cracked, encyclopedia brown.

she looked at me and shrugged. "it was the best i could do," she said. i agreed. but for the rest of the night, i worried. leaving death threats from the chupacabra at the age of five? i shudder to think what's coming at six.

i'm kind of taken with this tumblr, hoping for stranger things. that first photo makes me sigh in a much better way than when esmé spells piss. ok, you. i'm glad to be back here. xoxo.