I like to imagine that she was going full blast into this tunnel and skidded to a stop to see what was behind her.

I just noticed there’s a watermelon on the ground next to Scarlett. That isn’t some kind of asian ritual, shame on you if you thought that. Anyway, Scarlett had her first day of school a while ago. I guess it can be an emotional time for some parents - that’s what I’ve heard on the grapevine. For me the only emotion was excitement! I was curious to see how she’d do in school and what she’d think of it. She’d never been in daycare, but we did do a couple one-week classes this summer and she seemed to enjoy those. Turns out that school appealed to some of her nature - wanting to know things and wanting to be around other kids. She’s excited about school every day and sad on the weekends when she doesn’t have school. Couldn’t ask for a better start to her educational career.

Nothing more to add.

It’s a recurring theme that we forgot that our kids are people, just tiny people who perhaps haven’t finished developing all of their mental and emotional abilities yet. You expect them to eat the same thing every day and like the same TV shows and songs. But we aren’t like that, why should they be? That’s often made pretty evident to me with Scarlett and photos. Sometimes she’s dying to be in photos and ends up photo bombing everyone. Other times it doesn’t matter how much it means to me to have a photograph of a particular event or moment in her life. She does NOT want to be photographed and nothing can make her participate.

Sam constantly reminds me of Linus from The Peanuts. He loves nothing better than to cuddle with a nice soft blanket or toy and he can’t keep his thumb out of his mouth. I was successful in keeping Scarlett from getting into that and we had to make Stella stop because she kept throwing up. No luck with Sam, but I’ve yet to see a mentally stable adult sucking their thumb, so we’ll get through it eventually. (First time parents should remember that with everything - like potty training - have you ever seen someone who doesn’t have mental issues who isn’t a potty trained adult?)

I am flabbergasted at the level of detail in the items created for the Calico Critters toy franchise. I’m not surprised it’s Japanese (although I wouldn’t have been surprised if it were German either). But what fascinates me more is how Scarlett uses the toys to approximate her life. It reveals what she pays attention to and what she imagines is going on in the heads of the adults around her.

Scarlett’s first time at the beach was much younger - five or six months - but with the twins it was just a lot harder to go on vacation. There are two of them to deal with, to pack formula for, etc. Also, for a long time Stella would spontaneously throw up. We’d dealt with that with Scarlett when we went on the trip to her first Christmas - where she kept throwing up in the car. It’s not fun.