Little Fox

R drew this fox during art time on Friday. I love the reddish coloring in the face. We love foxes, as long as they stay outside our fences and away from our chickens.

Littleton Historical Museum

An afternoon at one of our favorite places, the working farm at the Littleton Historical Museum.

And now for something completely different.

R and I have both been sick this week, so lunches have not been very photogenic. I read this morning about this owl who is afraid of heights. He fell from his nest as a baby and has been raised by a human handler. Now that they are ready to release him into the wild, they discovered that he won't fly any higher than five feet ten inches--which is exactly the height of his handler.

I wish them luck. Maybe it's because I spend a lot of time with a six year old and a puppy, but I love the look on his face: "No, I won't do it. Talk to me all you want, but I will not. It is too high."

Hylie and Flower

Last week, R walked into the house cradling a stuffed animal. I was distractedly thinking "Which toy is that? It looks so lifelike." Something about R's mesmerized facial expression made me look more closely. Then the toy's ears twitched.

That's how we found out we have baby bunnies living in our backyard. My heart was pounding out of my chest as I helped R get it safely back into its burrow without hurting it, and we invoked every dire consequence we could think of to make sure she never touches one again. Still, they're her little friends. She lays out trails of carrots and lettuce leaves for them. She studies where they go and leaves cups of water where they are likely to need them. She picks grape hyacinths and honeysuckle and leaves them by the entrance to the burrow "so their house will be beautiful." She will lie on her stomach in the grass for an hour, watching them hop out of the burrow, eat some grass, and hop back in. So far it looks like there are only two babies. She named them Hylie and Flower.

Every morning before R wakes up, I check the back yard for the mother rabbit. I always see her hopping around, so I know the babies are ok for another day. And every night before she goes to sleep, she whispers, "Mommy, that baby bunny was so soft. The softest thing I've ever felt."

First Post

February, 2009. This month, my 5 year old starts kindergarten full time, and I start a blog. She is starting halfway through the year, because she kept begging us to go full-day. She said it would be "like having a play date all the time." So far, she likes it.

This is our life in our new (since June '08) house, just south of Denver.



Halloween '08. I didn't cut Papa Bear's eye holes big enough, but he was a good sport.



This is my R., feeding a lorikeet at the zoo last week. She is an Animal Girl. She wants to be a vet when she grows up.



She even likes goats.



This is my favorite baby picture of her. She was quite a baby. She kind of knew it all already. She was self-possessed and had a strong sense of her own dignity, but then she would lose it in epic colicky episodes. She had night terrors where she would stand up in her crib and scream and point into a dark corner until the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. It was always unsettling to catch her looking at you like this.



Here is the note she wrote to me last week, to say thank you for sending her to school full-day. Not bad for a five year old, sounding it out on her own!



Here she is with my Dad in December, this past Christmas. They have the same sense of humor but they like to talk about serious things too.



This is her best little school friend. They go to Catholic school and love to have free days where they don't have to wear their uniforms.




Now that R. is full day, I pack her a lunch for the first time. We used to sit at the kitchen table together while she ate leftovers from her dinged-up Peter Rabbit plate. I read that Japanese mothers pack elaborate bentos to show their love for their children. I don't think I will ever be making lifelike anime characters out of pepper strips and colored bonito flakes, but I love to make it healthy and appealing for her to eat. I miss her in the afternoons. Last week I volunteered in the art teacher's room, and she said "Oh yes, I cried the first time I ate lunch by myself."

I started taking pictures of her lunches, and it made me want to start a blog.