Daddy's Birthday

This was actually a lot more fun than it looks from the pictures above. The late-winter sun was giving us some spectacularly dramatic lighting, leading to the couple of chiaroscuro photos you see here. (I've said it once, I'll say it a million times: thank you, spot meter!) It just so happened that the best pictures I snapped of Elizabeth and Suzanne both show them with grumpy countenances.

Maybe they were a bit grumpy... . This was fifteen minutes before the pizza arrived, and they were probably pretty hungry. As you can spy in the first photo, above, Jasper was with us on my birthday.

It was a good day.

Cooper Spur

On Thursday of last week we got snow in Portland. It was a minimalist dusting that left some patches of one-flake-deep snow on our lawn. When Elizabeth woke up and looked out her window, she was gripped by the snow-mania so common to kids who don't grow up in grim, snowbound places like upstate New York. "SNOW!" she shrieked, pointing at the patch of white that wouldn't seem out of place in Syracuse in early June.

I was suddenly very glad that we had accepted the Long-Loughran's invitation to join them for a weekend above the snowline on Mt. Hood. It was time for Elizabeth to learn about snow.

We got a cabin at a place called Cooper Spur, a resort of sorts one mile down from a ski slope of the same name. The cabin had a deadly-t0-kids spiral staircase, a fireplace (not as deadly to kids as the spiral staircase), beds for eight, and lots and lots of snow. Elizabeth was thrilled, then exasperated (snow in boots, snow in mittens, snow up sleeves -- welcome to my childhood, kid!), then re-thrilled by the awesome novelty of it all.

She proved, once again, to be an adventurer. For instance, she wanted to take a ski lesson. (The timing, along with Mommy and Daddy's desire to see it happen, didn't work out.) When Barb wanted to hike around the cross-country ski trails, Elizabeth insisted on being carried, because the baby was being carried. No go, said her parents. Her fit was nipped in the bud by herself, and her idea to trek into the woods with Daddy. Forget the lame cross-country ski trail, let's hit the wilderness! So Daddy trudged through thigh-deep snow in his corduroys while 36lb. Elizabeth walked on top of the snow like Legolas. Delight!

Above: The Larrison girls toast the their tootsies at the fire.

Elizabeth's ideal snowsuit: purple and pink.

A couple of Larrison girls, and Charlie Poodle.

Riley is a pretty good photographer, but no match for Daddy (see below).

Suzanne Hovey on the run. Thank you, spot meter!

Elizabeth and Teresa enjoying the sun and snow.

Elizabeth on our wilderness hike communing with nature.

Barb photobombed by Teresa.

The cabin at Cooper Spur.

Happy Fourth Birthday, E!

Elizabeth's birthday parties are ramping up in complexity, something Barb and I would both like to cap. Still, just three guest kids at a fourth birthday isn't bad. Neighbors Grayson and Reed, and best friend Lily. Four kids if you count Uncle Pat, pictured below (and looking, it might be worth noting, a lot more like a Northwesterner than a Southern Californian -- finally!).

Above: Uncle Pat, looking Portland. Also, Elizabeth Rose: glamor personified in shades from Grandma.

Four for the fourth: (clockwise from Elizabeth) Elizabeth, Lily, Reed, and Grayson.

The dress: Daddy's idea, Grandma's choice. Almost a week later, Elizabeth still likes telling the story of how I wanted to buy her a blue dress, but Grandma insisted on a pink one.

Where's Ectasy? Elizabeth could not be more thrilled by Grandma's gift of a new Where's Waldo book. Just look at that face!

One of the gifts from the Wheeler-Kay-Cohen clan was a game called Headbanz. I was at first dubious of the "For Ages 7+" imprint on the box. But it was perfect for little kids. Put the card in your headband and have the other players give you hints. (They're supposed to answer your questions a la 20 Questions, but that subtlety seems to elude three- and four-year-olds. So for example I'll be wearing a dragon card on my headband and Elizabeth will give me this hint: "You're a lizard that breathes fire!!" Hmmm.)

Despite some to-be-expected meltdowns (there was a grip of three- and four-year-olds, after all), we had a great time at the party. Besides the dress and the book, Elizabeth got a (more than slightly used) 16" bike (way too big, I discovered when she got on it) called "Little Rosie." It was very gratifying for Daddy, who was worried by just how used this thing was, when Elizabeth exclaimed to Uncle Mark over the phone, "I got a brand new bike!"

Artiste

I don't think Elizabeth was drawing and painting with this level of puissance when she was 15 months. Note how Baby S grasps the paint brush: not like a baby. To this day Elizabeth, who is a pretty awesome drawer, still holds the pen/brush/crayon in her fist.

(Photo by Barb, by the way. Nice one, Barb!)

Two Friends

Elizabeth is beginning to let Suzanne into her room, into her bath, and into a chair at her art table. This seems indubitably to be a good thing. Suzanne certainly seems to think so, even if sometimes she expresses her fondness for Elizabeth's largesse by biting, scratching, swatting, and pulling hair.

Sometimes she hugs and kisses, too.

The Joester

 

Here's one of the many, many pictures of Elizabeth and her life-partner Joey the Monkey. This one is temporally notable because it was taken in 2012, the first such picture on Elizabethtown. (Note E's professional-grade leotard, a gift from Santa Claus.)

Joey is old. No one knows for sure, but he's got to be pushing 60. And this puppet gets used harder than Charlie McCarthy on a USO tour. Joey is in service pretty much seven days a week, and during the weekends I'll spend hours and hours with the puppet on my hand. Thus, he's getting worn out. The mohair on the inside of his arms is gone. His beard is nearly gone. His paws are holey.

He can't be replaced because, a) his type hasn't been manufactured in forty years, and b) they were hand made so no two are exactly alike. I'd like to get him repaired before he's an utter wreck, but I'm not sure if I can find someone locally to do the job, or if I'd want to pay what such a restoration expert would likely charge. So I began to think of vivisection. Perhaps I could buy a similar puppet and do a paw transplant. Or, as brother Mark (who bought this Joey) suggested, cackling with malignant glee, a head transplant onto a fresh puppet-body.

Mad, you say!? They said Victor Franksetin was mad!!

Long story short, I'm watching some auctions on eBay and hope to buy a cousin of Joey's soon. Particularly if he's going to be part of Suzanne's childhood, measures will have to be taken to improve his corpus.

For what it's worth, Joey is a Steiff "Jocko the Chimp" puppet manufactured in Germany. Those Germans know their business, whether it's cars, gigantic artillery pieces, or puppets. You've got to hand it to them.

Something New Every Day

Suzanne is a cornucopia of wonders. She seems to do new things every day. One day she starts walking backwards (helpful when closing doors, something she likes to do despite the imminent threat of finger-crushing), the next day she's spinning (in imitation, no doubt, of her amateur-ballerina sister), and the day after that she's signing "bath" and saying "dog."

I'm sure this happened with Elizabeth. Maybe I even blogged about it. But it's magical right now and I imagine that even if I was bearing witness to these phenomena manifesting in my ninth kid, I'd still be amazed and delighted.

Plus, Suzanne is so cute!