The After-Party



The After-Party was informal--people ate, drank, napped, and lounged around as Tad and Kit are illustrating here.

We Meet Again












It is hard to say who was more patient this weekend--our families and friends in putting up with one more event to congregate for, my mother in putting together and hosting yet another festivity, or Deacon Tom in "presiding over" a sacred occasion hijacked by toddlers Bryce and Elsie. Ultimately, it is hard to say who had more fun: us with all of our people gathered, Bryce and Elsie reunited, or Kit and Brooke as stars on their baptism day.

What we can say is that we are so grateful for the love and generosity and patience of our family and friends in particular godparents Barbara and Benji, Saint Pat, and kind Deacon Tom who married us almost ten years ago, not to mention "everyguys," as Elsie put it, who came to celebrate.

The Dress





Like Elsie, Kit got to wear the dress passed down from my grandfather Frank Howells to my aunt Andrea. Here are some shots of sweet angel Kit in the beautiful dress. Many thanks to Addie for sharing it with us.

Waterbabies

So we have been fortunate to spend some good times at HHI this summer--here are a few shots from there. We've also joined the YMCA in Savannah. Elsie is an incredible swimmer--diving, belly flopping, kicking, swimming, she really has an affinity for it. Kit has been catching on as well and just loves to kick and splash. Here are a few shots from a few weeks back. We'll start Kit's lessons in the next few weeks. Remember Elsie's?

I've also posted a few shots from our visit to the Donaldson's pool in Atlanta doing some big city swimming.

Just a Taste

of the family portraits we had done!

Dancing Bear

Bad Bloggers

We have been terribly negligent with pictures. We have just been having all of this summer fun with friends and family. In the past few weeks, we had GranAnn and Pop Roy come for a visit. Elsie and Kit adored having their grandparents here for fun times. Then, we went to HHI to celebrate Grammy's birthday with Poppa and Donna and Joe. Just this morning, Elsie asked me what Joe was doing on the beach today. Clearly, she came to know the man well if he resides on the beach even in her mind's eye. As I watched Joe playing with her, I was reminded of all of the years, many years ago, I would beg for Joe to throw me in the waves and pull me on a raft and build a sandcastle with me. Good thing "Old Joe" has still got it. Then last weekend Deavours came and it was really convenient for her to come to visit and play with Elsie for hours on end so David and I could remember how it felt to just have one child to care for.

We'll get better with pictures--and track some down from Grammy. The Pace family is coming next weekend and we have the baptism in Atlanta in a few weeks so we'll take advantage of those photo ops.

Interrogation

Sometimes it feels like we are trapped in an interrogation and sometimes I am reminded of the wonderful ways of this world. In the car after puppet camp today, we were talking about going to Atlanta for Kit's baptism:

Elsie: Does Johnny have a baby now?
Me: Yes, remember, baby Tad?
Elsie: Does Kate have a baby?
Me: Yes, the same baby as Johnny's--Tad.
Elsie: Does Barbara have a baby?
Me: Yes.
Elsie: Does Mike?
Me: Yes.
Elsie: Does Poppa?
Me: Yes, I am Poppa's baby--so's Johnny and Barbara.
Elsie: And who made you a mommy?
Me: You did.

xoxoxBear




Bear is a really bad kisser. That is one of my favorite things about her. When you lean in to kiss her, instead of closing her eyes like people being kissed do, she opens them extra wide and then opens her mouth just as wide--and doesn't pucker like a goldfish but gapes open wide like a bass. If she keeps this up, she will live at home forever. I wrote once about my delight in Elsie's uncoolness, and there is something so sweet about this lack of awareness in both of them right now--it makes them all mine somehow, girls so terribly delicious and totally uncool only their mother could love them.

Caption Contest
I love it when the McKinneys have caption contests. Any suggestions here?

Bear Babysitting

The Rhetoric of Elsie


Elsie surprises us all the time with the words she knows and the phrasing she attempts and uses. We delight in her explorations of language. I need to do a better job of recording such things and probably should correct some of them, but they are so damn sweet. I'm thinking of my rhetoric class for this fall and if I was to analyze her language use from a rhetorical perspective, here is what I might say:

• Sometimes she tries out new words to exert her independence, recognizing the relationship between language and power in the Foucauldian sense. On the potty one day, she demanded some "privacy."
• Sometimes, she coins phrases. "Doing tricks and moves" is a neologism that means dancing naked.
• She calls "Sprite" "sprout." Today, at lunch, she requested "Sprite" and I let her since we were having a special mommy/eldest daughter day. She told me "I lub Sprout, Mommy." She then paused and said "I wike Sprout on demand, too." "Sprout" is also a preschoolers channel on TV with educational shows so she was recognizing its double-connotation and the complications of homonyms.
• One day I used a funnel to make a musical instrument--a shaker--using a water bottle and dry macaronis. That same day, Daddy removed a splinter from her foot. A month later, she was marching around the house with a water bottle requesting a "splinter." Obviously, she recognized the arbitrary nature of signification--there is no "natural" relationship between words and the things they represent.
• And many times, we recognize the limits of language and its lack and absence--as opposed to the presence of gesture (in its Derridean implications). Those are the fleeting moments we'll lose long before we forget "sprout" and "splinters"--the hand gesture she uses when she is "sneaking," the side kick she fancies when dancing, and the sweet sticky sweaty smell of her generously given hugs.
  

Happy Half-Birthday Kit!

We are halfway through 2009 and, thus, halfway to Kit's first birthday. Born six months ago today, Bear is weighing in at 17.8 pounds (80th percentile) and measuring 27 inches high (91st percentile). Her dainty head is 41.5 cm around (25th percentile) and is full of MENSA brains. Big sister helped her survive the ordeal, and word is that she kept up with cousin Brooke who had similar height/weight stats at her 6 month well visit.