New Skills

Sometimes photos just don't capture the essence of it all. So here are a couple of videos for you.

Ellie has been enjoying the scooter she received for her birthday. "Kick and coast" is the rule, along with "Look where you're going!" Crystal found a really nice Swiss-designed model that intuitively steers wherever you want to go. (Even through puddles....) The detail you don't want to miss is at the end, after the dismount, when she gives the brake a little press — I guess just to make sure she's stopped, or maybe to set the parking brake!



Isla has been learning her signs. She's got four of them down for sure: Milk, Eat, Sleep, and Cheese. She also signs All Done, but its meaning is a little dubious. (I've always thought that this one is too ambiguous, since we use it both for The Food Is All Gone and I'm Full Stop Feeding Me!) One more is Bird, which Crystal taught her by pointing to all of the birds in a picture book. But now she refers to every picture everywhere as Bird.

One subtlety in here is that right after she asks for more food, she sticks her finger in her mouth and blows. That means Please Blow On My Food To Cool It Off, or possibly, I Think Mummy Does Funny Things Like This Sometimes. One is never quite sure.... Also, don't miss the sleight-of-hand at the end where it looks like she's eating that bean, but she slyly drops it into her chair for snacking on later. I'm not kidding.

Birthday Girls

'Tis the season for birthdays in the Barrett house. Isla reached the milestone of her first year and Ellie will proudly tell you that she is now four. As you can see, Isla had no problem diving into her cake with gusto. She was also thrilled with her Bobby car, especially the horn!



Along with becoming one comes some other new abilities. She's happily signing away with her own style and flair. Here's "more", which is usually in the context of food, so is largely superceded by "eat". One of her favorite signs recently is "sleep", which she has been doing lots of. Instead of calmly placing her hand on one side of her head and leaning to that side, she just grabs her head with both hands in a classic "Oh no!" look. But we know what she means.

The other thing that goes with turning one is going vertical. Isla is now the pull-up queen -- anything that will hold still for a few seconds is a viable candidate for pulling up on. Fortunately, she's now mastered the art of getting back down, which makes for a bit less frustration.

Ellie is bursting with personality, creativity, and chattiness these days. She wants to know why? and how? about everything. Some of my favorites are in the theological domain, including such things as: "When God makes people, does he have a bunch of eyes and arms and things that he puts together?"; "If God made Adam out of mud, what does he make peach (i.e. Caucasian) people out of?"; and one night around Easter time when I had prayed that God would bring Mummy home safely from her German class, Ellie said, "God will bring Mummy back safely because that's what he does -- he brought Jesus back from the dead!" Sure 'nuff, Ellie.

Bursting with creativity and opinions can also pose challenges. Ellie drew a picture of her birthday cake a few weeks back and then explained to Crystal that this is what she wanted it to look like. It's on a green plate, with pink cake, yellow frosting, and red candles. Hmmm....ok, where to find a green plate? The pink cake was made with a couple of pounds of strawberry puree. It was a definite hit.

I know I'm biased, but I think our two birthday girls are amazingly beautiful.

Artists in the Family

Ellie produces artwork at much too high a rate to properly document — or even store! But I particularly liked this one, so thought I'd share it with you. It's a favorite activity: making pizza with Mummy. (Crystal might describe it more as Ellie's excuse for eating lots of olives before they make it on to the pizza).

So here's Crystal (in her stripey sweater) constructing the Friday night pizza with Ellie -- you got your pepperoni, your mushrooms (the T-shaped black things), olives, and cheese. The reddish purple line coming out of Mummy is her arm, but the purple shape behind them is the door to the dining room, where undoubtedly I'm ready to eat the results!

While packing up for the move, I ran across my "Watercolor a Day" calendar that I was supposed to be painting each day (back in 2006....oops!). Well, I did do two of them, so only 363 to go. I thought I'd share them because they're more fun to look at after they've mellowed in a desk drawer for a few years.





While we're talking watercolor, our church home group gave us a lovely going-away gift last night: a painting of the Welwyn Garden City fountain, where Ellie has enjoyed many a run. This will be a nice reminder of our time here.



And to finish off our artistic packing break, here's a photo of the same fountain that I snapped a few months back while trying to learn how to use my camera.

Unceasing Amazement

Ellie decided to do some Lego work today. But since she's new at it, her attempts to build a house were frustrating. "Ohhhhh. I just don't know how to build a house out of these Legos [she actually calls them dominoes]. Oh I know! I'll draw a picture of what a house looks like and then I can look at my picture and know how to build a house!" "What an excellent idea," respond her parents.

After building the bottom bits, she was studying her drawing and said, "But I just don't know how to build a roof...." However, undeterred she kept at it and out popped this bit of construction work, as per the architectural drawings. Complete with the chimney at a bit of an angle. (Ok, well the builders did improvise a bit and add a second chimney).



Meanwhile, Isla is crawling up a storm. One knee, one elbow, a scooting technique, and off she goes. The main draw for Ellie to crawl was to knock over towers of blocks. While Isla enjoys that sport, her main draw is anything with wires or buttons. Here's the stretch for Crystal's computer power cord.



Then there are the awkward falls flat onto your head that make you look back at Daddy with his camera and say, "Put that thing away!"



Sometimes sitting up and kicking back are safer and more relaxing.

Body by Milk

Tomorrow is Isla's 6-month birthday—where does the time go? So it's time for a half-birthday party complete with a half-birthday cake.


Her present was a lovely lovey. Ok, so I had no idea what a lovey was when Crystal said Isla needed one, but I'll assume I'm the only ignorant one and won't insult you by explaining. This one is a bunny-like thing and she's peacefully sleeping with it right at this very moment.

Six months also means it's time to start branching out from the monochromatic cuisine of mummy's milk. First up: banana! Fun to squish. Fun to lick. Fun to smear in your sister's hair. Just all around fun. I'm a big fan of bananas, too, so we thought it might run in the family. She went at it with gusto—much to our surprise.

She started with the ice cream cone approach and since that seemed to be going well, decided to try her gums out with a little gnawing action. From that, it progressed to licking her tray where the banana had been sliding around. Ellie, of course, loved every second of this, so ran around cackling and pointing. Isla checked in every one in awhile to make sure she had Ellie's approval and to get some coaching points on her solid food technique. Of course, the downside of all of this is that the delightful days of non-stinky poo are over!


It is truly remarkable that Isla's entire (and quite sizable, especially by Ellie standards) body is completely made from Crystal-made sustenance. Well, ok, I contributed a few chromosomes to the process, but let's not get picky. Each and every one of those rolls of squishy, chunky, delightful babyness were built out of milk. It's a bit hard to swallow.

Sitting Around

Most people think Ellie looks like Crystal, but she thinks she looks like me and Isla looks like her mummy. Regardless, I think she's perfected my "writer's block" look.


Meanwhile, Isla is pretty proud of her new ability to sit up on her own. She's decided to just skip the rolling over thing (although there are rumors she can do it, she seems to prefer shouting until one of us rolls her over!). By the way, don't try this pose at home—she's a trained professional. I'd hate to see you in traction.

Finally, in the beautiful-shots-from-the-garden department, Crystal told me to bring my camera with me one morning as I came down for breakfast. The back garden was filled with pearly-dewed spiderwebs! It was amazing.

It Was Bound to Happen

A conversation.

Ellie: Mommy, why don't we have a T.V.?

Me: Well, we really don't want one.

Ellie: Well, I want one.