She thinks she's Isadora Duncan

We made our first trip of the season to Governors Island. Rosemary and a few other kids took advantage of an empty stage and a little ambient music. The video quality on this is so poor and she's so far away, I don't think it will translate just how fully in her own world she was. She is in a red dress in the center, moving at half the speed of everyone else. Anyhow, it was a beautiful, perfect spring day. My folks were visiting, the babies got to run around on a huge lawn (and Rosemary too, somehow less exciting), and while we picnicked we got to watch a old timey baseball game with old timey baseball reenactors. We also bumped into Henry, one of Rosemary's oldest pals. I know I have a post to this effect every year, but I continue to be totally charmed by this place -- so easily accessible with a short walk from our house (though some might call it long and hot on certain days) and a free ferry ride. Central Park and Prospect Park are great, but somehow Governors Island always has something unexpected and magical happening.

Leave Everything to Rosie

The other day, in a (mostly successful) effort to cheer up sick Sylvie I found Bye Bye Birdie on television. Music always works wonders with her and movie musicals are even better. Rosemary--who will plop down like a stone statue and watch anything except the news, and sometimes even the news--caught the end of Bye Bye Birdie and then stuck around for Hello Dolly. She didn't follow the plot, but afterwards she remembered her favorite quote along with Dolly's general attitude toward the world.   

Then in the throes of the Hello Dolly phase this display magically appeared around the corner from us. I think it's probably a memorial of some sort, since Carroll Gardens is known for it's over the top funereal displays (I once saw a logo of Reese's Peanut Butter cups made in flowers being driven around on the back of a black El Camino, following a black hearse. Why? I don't know.)

Rosemary gets more and more kid swagger every day. And kid swag. The two combined make for a lot of comments/compliments as we walk down the street together. I have mixed feelings about this, but it is fun, I admit. Last weekend, on the way to go swimming at the Y, we found a stoop sale and she hit the mother lode of tween accessories. Even before this stoop sale, she has taken care each morning to put on her rings, bracelets, and necklaces. Blue butterfly ring goes on one hand, peace ring goes on the other. This has become her thing, so much so that the very sweet crossing guard who we see every day on the way to school brought her a few of her (more grown up) daughter's kid jewelry collection.

Maggie likes the new blue hat too.

The babies are of course full of energy, into everything, climbing, walking, etc. Maggie loves to SIT on things. Stairs, laps, little chairs. She will back into your lap from three feet away. Not much in the way of words from either girl, I think, or at least not many I can understand. They both seem to say tree -- or at least say something and then point to a tree, but it's not anything a person could understand.  They get more and more independent, although Sylvie still insists on being held a LOT. You pick her up, and the next second she starts insistently signing "more-more more more more MORE" and then starts pointing to things. Which really just means "I want it" -- outside, more Daddy, food, your coffee mug so I can splash it around, you name it. It seems to us she often starts signing more before she's settled on what she really wants - she'll sign first and then look around, deciding what to point at.

Maggie gets more and more helpful (theoretically). She tried to actually pick up Sylvie the other day, when I was asking Sylvie to come over to me. It's clear she's understanding what's going on, and wants to do something about it. However, she is an unrepentant toy taker. And Sylvia needs to get a better grip.

Silly sniffs

So this is a video from January, when our cousins Helena (in this video), Brooklyn, Mike, and Lisa were visiting. Oh, but that was a fun few days. Anyhow, this video demonstrates one of those essential truths of babyhood: kiddos will do something obsessively or often for a few days, or weeks, so much so that it is their THING, and then - blip - they stop, never to do it again. At the time of this video, Sylvia was crawling up to everyone, looking them in the eye and then doing these funny, scrunchy enthusiastic sniffles. She looked like a member of the Lollypop Guild.

Guaranteed to Make Mama Smile

Poem by Rosie, written at school today.