We also own this one.



Sophie.
Our first-born is now four and a half and she is a piece of work. just like her mother some might say (someone does say).
Searching for the right words to describe her and her unique sophie ways…
Emotionally high strung and sensitive. Linguistically gifted. Wild and silly, yet cerebral. A mastermind of imagination. She's quite skilled at inventing extravagant stories that leave you wondering if she hasn’t gotten a hold of some potent LSD, or quite possibly she’s just schizophrenic with multiple personalities. with all her imaginary toads and whatnot..

She loves furry animals, anything pink, doing crafts, and things her way.
While she can be cute, loving, and downright adorable,
she also has the ability to drive me to the brink of complete insanity.
Literally, one day I told her I was going to take her out to the woods and leave her there if she didn’t stop screaming.
Because her screams can shatter windows.
And her barking is even worse. Barking, I said.
My daughter has been a dog for almost half of her life.
Back when she was three it was kind of cute that she pretended to be a dog.
She would crawl around on all fours and ask us to buy her and give her a name. We'd have to groom her and throw her a stick. She'd bark out answers to us (in English and Spanish) and want to go pee outside like a dog.
But now that the dog phase has carried on well past four, it is no longer cute.
Just. freaking. annoying.
Her shrill, piercing barks are like breaking glass over my head.
For the love of god why does my child have to scream and bark at a level far beyond the normal range allowed before you are rendered completely deaf.
Can’t she pretend to be a tree or something? Trees don’t bark. Trees don’t insist on pooping in the grass.
I just wonder if we can have her kenneled so we can take a vacation…

beginning again

See this guy?



That’s our boy Holden.
After meeting Holden, one might describe him as a boy of high energy exploding and rebounding off all walls/tables/doors/people in the room at all hours of the day (and sometimes night).

He’s an imp who constantly seeks out trouble. If he’s not tearing into all forbidden items in the house, he’s perpetually practicing evil deeds on his sister and making her cry.
and all the while perfecting his sinister villain laugh. Ha ha ha ha ha

Don’t try and tell him differently. about anything. you will not win. he‘s two (almost three) and that’s how it goes.

Arising near dawn everyday, he has mastered the skills of secretly creeping from his room while we’re asleep. With flashlight in hand he heads downstairs scheming, plotting, arranging stools and chairs and whatnots, and then…
each day holds a new surprise as to what Holden has been into!

Some momentous discoveries-

all the Christmas presents holden unwrapped, before Christmas.
Tossing those aside he deemed unworthy (aka-all of sophie’s presents)
he gathered his favorites and lugged them upstairs. At 6am we awoke to holden dragging a giant truck around our room whispering, “please Mommy you open this?”


the candy fiesta holden hosted at 6am in Sophie’s room.
Shortly after Halloween, he retrieved the Halloween baskets high atop our mantle and a pair of scissors from the drawer. He ventured to Sophie’s room to wake her. then convinced her to cut open all the candies.
They were busted at 6:15 with their massive candy picnic- half devoured and half spread across the floor in colorful arrangements.

the masterpiece in our master bathroom.
Holden was quite proud of the world’s largest green-tea-bath-gel mosaic he’d created all across our bathtub, floors, and countertops. Overwhelmingly fragrant and sticky, at least the bathroom smelled fresh and pretty.

the list goes on and on.
and we are the proud owners of holden. full of creativity and boundless energy.