Golden Gate Bridge
∙ Have I talked about how Daisy is exactly like her brothers? People keep telling me how different raising girls is from raising boys, but so far it's almost laughably similar. All day long, Daisy comes running to me saying, "Will you come see my thing?" which is, of course, what her brothers say when they've built something they want to show off. I asked her what she'd built in the picture above, and she told me "the Golden Gate Bridge". As you can see there's one car driving on it. :) She was quite pleased with herself.
∙ Another "thing" someone built (Sebby, I think). Everything is so meticulously placed, and each part means something---I think this was a city of some kind? but I can't remember)---and the boys have to tell me what each part is and how it works, and I just wish they didn't get out every single tiny thing available to them, but they do. Of course they do. [What is that monkey in the bucket? I wish I knew.]
Junie and Balunie
∙ We ate at Brick Oven in Provo awhile ago and the Balloon Man made balloons for all the kids. Malachi asked for "a pink baby Juniper," and the man obliged (he even drew clouds on her little balloony suit to match the real Junie). It was very lifelike, as you can see, and made me wonder if there is a market for balloon family portraits? "Capture childhood's fleeting moments in Latex?"
∙ I feel like the "child-playing-with-nativity-set" image is a popular sentimental favorite this time of year---usually some soft-focus vignette showing how the child has carefully positioned all the figures around Baby Jesus, or some such heartwarming scene. What these depictions leave out is the 1,000 other arrangements in which the child also places the nativity set. The other day ours had a sheep on top of the stable, the angel and the donkey standing companionably inside, and Baby Jesus consigned to distant reaches under the couch. I tried without success to imagine some heartwarming reason for that arrangement. Then, later, there was this:
It comes of having too many people who have too many of their own ideas about things. I try to discourage any such independent ideas but nobody ever listens to me.
It appears that the whole holy family, together with their livestock, are doing some kind of tactical maneuver, or at least trying to scope out the territory in a search for escape, information or Christmas cookies. I just really love the word, "companionable," and the latex Junie, though I prefer the skin and bone one, myself. The city is at once arcane and perceivable, which makes me think that your life must be one of constant wonder.
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