update from Mollyland

things are pretty fun and exciting here in Mollyland. here are some examples of what Mollyland is currently offering...

a phrase we hear often around our house is, "you be Oscar, daddy is Cookie Monster, i'll be Big Bird" or "i'm Mary Ann, you're Mike Mulligan, daddy's Henry B. Swift" (all characters from Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton) or in the case of the picture here, "i'm a princess, mommy's a mommy princess and daddy's a daddy princess". and then we all run around pretending to be princesses which usually involves some flying and using tools to fix things. we are very talented princesses! Molly's imagination is in full swing, and i think we have a little actor here, rather than a little librarian. ah well, i do like theater!

of course she may be destined for a different kind of performance...

for those that didn't know, her father was a dancer before he started acting, and Molly seems to be following in his footsteps there as well. actually, more in the footsteps of one of her favorite books, Josephine Wants to Dance, about a kangaroo who discovers ballet and against all odds, becomes the prima ballerina! and actually, i love to boogie too, so she was destined to have dancin' feet. in the video above (and yes, it does look like maybe she's picking her nose, but what can you expect, she's a toddler!) you'll note that she's wearing a red sock on one hand. she likes to wear it around - a la Michael Jackson - and say she's Santa Claus. we may not stop talking about Santa in this house until next December!


so as you can hear, she can also really belt out the songs. one day, many, many weeks ago now i was home from work, sick in bed, and Molly climbed in with me, stood up and sang in full "abc", "twinkle, twinkle", "baa, baa, black sheep", "farmer in the dell", and "sing, sing a song". she has added many songs to her repertoire since then, including Bruce Springstein's version of Bob Seger's Pay Me My Money Down, almost every song ever sung on Sesame Street, a couple sea shanties, and a few she's made up herself on a variety of topics such as snack time and mommy's boots. singer songwriter? perhaps! here are a couple videos of two songs she made up about Clifford the Big Red Dog after she saw him at the Portland Children's Museum. the first song focused on "Clifford" and is a bit more mellow, the second is more about his coloring..."red"...and gets pretty rock n' roll. you'll note there's even a performance injury at the end!



or maybe a different art medium? like painting! for Christmas her great-grand Papa and auntie Sharon gave her finger paints. we already need to buy more, she wants to paint all the time. and our collection of "masterpieces" is growing on the wall. here is a little video of her painting. you'll note she talks about big bird, and Karl (from the Zen books with Stillwater the Panda). you'll also note that at some point she gets paint on her fingers, tries to shake it off, and then chooses to lick it off (which is where i quickly turn off the camera).


we keep mentioning Sesame Street...we had been reading Elmo books and the like for some time, but when she turned two we started watching a little "tv" (DVDs on the computer) and Sesame Street was one of the first. we instituted popcorn and Sesame Street nights on Sundays and Thursdays. after dinner, when the dishes have been cleared, i make popcorn on the stove, and we all sit down and watch Big Bird and Ernie and Bert and the whole gang. other favorite shows of Molly's are Bob the Builder, Handy Manny and Blue's Clues. Auntie Sarah recently introduced us to Yo Gabba Gabba, that for me feels like what a psycholdelic trip must feel like (and not necessarily a good one), but Molly loves it, of course, so we may need to add it to the rotation. the picture above of Molly and Zero eating popcorn totally cracks me up! check out those silly faces! like father, like daughter!

another current family tradition is going to see high school basketball games at Molly's future high school! those of you who have known me a while know that i played basketball all through high school, and loved it! Molly seems to love it too! she can actually sit through an entire basketball game, we are constantly getting comments from people who are amazed by it. we bring her pom-pom and at half time she runs around and makes friends with other little kids. she yells "Go Riders" and "Go Roosevelt" and claps and talks about the "girls running" and the "girls throwing the ball". and if the concession stand is open, we get popcorn. good times!

Molly's love of reading is still very strong. she picks up books, sits down and reads them to herself! she's memorized them word for word and as i read books to her i watch as her mouth moves along to every word i'm saying. and this is not just one or two books, oh no, this is twenty, thirty or more - she currently has over 50 things checked out from the library, and she reads them all! this very morning we co-read A Wish for Things That Work - i would read a line and then she would say a line - she's brilliant i tell ya! she asks to be read books many times a day, and she takes the stories we read about and uses that amazing imagination of hers and builds on them - it's wonderful! and i think all this reading may be the reason why we can have entire conversations with her already, which i wasn't expecting quite so young. her language ability is quite astounding. at lunch today she said to me, "i am going to walk you to work with mr. ant [an imaginary friend] and he will say 'i want to go back to Molly's house' and i will say, 'no, not yet' and we will walk you to work". wow!

she is also starting to truly make friends. not that she didn't have friends before, but now at play gym she'll actually walk up to some other little person and ask if they want to play ball with her or run around. she has one little friend named Rowan who she likes very much! due to my work schedule, i rarely make it to play gym, but lately on Fridays we've been going together. i had heard her talk about Rowan, but had never met her, so when Molly introduced me to her it was very exciting. last Friday when we showed up, Rowan ran across the gym yelling "Mollly!" and they gave each other a huge hug. this is a picture of them playing together!

and speaking of friends, last month we were finally able to see our very, very good friends Hope, Drew and Kell. the last time Kell and Molly saw each other, she was only four months old. Kell was the big boy at 15 months, and i remember being so amazed at his ability to walk, and sign, and eat solid food with all of those teeth he had! this time, Kell had just turned 3 and he blew my mind again - he is an amazing little boy! and so are his totally awesome parents - if only we could convince them to move to Portland...ah well! you'll note in the pictures here, compared to the last time they saw each other, they are much closer in size. and they played together quite well! they played with cars, listened to stories together, were thrown dangerously around by their fathers (us mothers couldn't even be in the same room), threw rocks into the water at the park, and took a bath (of which we got the best video ever, but it will forever have to stay within our two families as there is some brief nudity).

so yes, the adventures here are great indeed, and sometimes we even dress the part! especially if there are boots involved. to the left was her get up to go hike around the Columbia Slough last weekend. she's starting to get into clothes, and want to play dress up (as you saw earlier in the post). it does make getting dressed a bit easier, she doesn't always insist on being naked anymore and fighting clothes. you just have to let her pick her own thing out, which can mean you end up with something quite "loud", but hey, i'll take it! sometimes it doesn't work out so well though, as you can see to the right, we only managed to get half-way dressed (and i think those boots might be a bit big for her).

thanks for enduring this super long post - i get to it so rarely anymore and then i have so much to tell you all! and this time, thanks to my new iPod Nano with built in video recorder and my friend Steph's flip video camera, we actually had some video to share, which is nice. for our final shot today, here is Molly and her friends all cozy in bed together.
so long, for now, from Mollyland! take care everyone!