Girls, Ghosts, and Gardners

These days the twins are really and truly best friends. They follow each other around endlessly, they hold hands when they go exploring outside, and they love playing "Ring around the rosy" together. I have to say, they get along marvelously. Sure, there is the occasional dispute (usually preceded by Linda stripping her teeth) but honestly, it happens maybe once a day. The rest of the time it's just a whole lot of love going around.


This is the "all fall down" part of "Ring around the Rosy." Behind you will see the lovely orange protective wall my parent's have put around the pool... the twins are getting more savvy, however, and are endlessly finding ways to jump the fence. Linda put the gardener's ladder up against it the other day and was able to begin the ascent before I caught up to her...

Here are some of my favorite phrases these two are throwing around these days:

1. "Yay! You did it!"
2. "Tell ghost jump in lake" (explanation to follow).
3. "Nope."
4. " Help me. I'm stuck!"
5. "No se puede." (It can't be done)
6. And sometimes if you ask them which one they are, they both answer "uno los dos." (one of the two).
   

Linda is becoming quite the singer these days as well. She knows all the words to "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and also loves Winnie the Pooh's "I'm just a little black rain cloud" which sounds just like this: "I'm just a lalalallaaaaa cloud, la la la la la la la lalala." It's really quite endearing. I don't know the lyrics myself so this is how I've been singing it to her and now it's become our song. I wish you could hear her say "cloud" in her soft, high pitch, crackling voice--it's just about the sweetest sound I've ever heard. Her favorite book (and Lucy's) is the Tale of Peter Rabbit and her favorite part is when Peter squeezes under the gate. Oh, she also loves it when he loses his shoe amongst the potatoes and later cries when that rotten mouse is too busy to tell Peter how to get out of the garden because he's got a pea in his mouth. A close second for favorite books is my own personal favorite, Tikitikitembo. A classic. At this point, she can only say, "tikitembo" but I guarantee that by the end of the year, she'll be able to say his whole name: Tikitikitembonosarembocharibariroochipiperipembo.

Lucy has shown a recent interest in the supernatural, i.e., ghosts. We saw some guy in a car the other night on the way to Sulma's wedding who was wearing a Halloween mask. Since then, she keeps telling us, " Sulma Jimmy married, ghost in car, remember?" Which is quickly followed by "Tell ghost jump in lake." (That was our way of brushing off the potentially traumatizing incident but it has apparently stuck).

Today at church, we were looking through one of the twins' favorite books, "The Best Word Book ever" (thank you Grandma Findlay-- she said it was one of Dave's favorites as a child too). Here you find illustrations of animal caricatures doing everyday chores and they do just about everything you could possibly imagine. It even has things like, mosquitoes and bagpipes. Anyway, all of a sudden, Lucy starts saying (over and over and over and over again), "Lucas, Mommy, look, Lucas."
Yes, every man with a hammer, ladder, or lawn mower is Lucas, our gardener. Did I mention that was one of Lucy's first words? Lucas.