Phoebe and the Pelican

I pointed out a pelican to Phoebe. He was resting on a rock, 20 feet or so out in the water. "I want to pet him," she said and told me to go across the water so we could find him.

Take my shoes off!

When we arrived in La Jolla today, we took a walk down the street toward the beach. At the first break in the rail between the sidewalk and the shore, Phoebe took off across the rocks toward the sand. Then she sat down, took off her shoes and socks, and announced, "I want to go in the ocean!"

Child of my heart, you fill me up. What a joy.

Hopie

We said goodbye to Grandma's house today. When Phoebe walked into the living room, she said, "What happened to Hopie?"

Making Christmas Cookies

She's wearing Grandma Dene's apron--handmade by her mother Mae.

Lighting the Tree

Happy Hanukkah

Fireside Cookbook

Apparently there was also a Fireside Cookbook. My father writes, "Sometimes my mother played the piano while we sang from The Fireside Song Book. . . . . I remember a similarly designed cookbook, in which I saw scrambled eggs or omelet recipes, including one with sauteed tomatoes."

Fireside Book of Folk Songs

Lately, Phoebe asks to read the Fireside songbook before bed. Sometimes we look for animals. There are two birds in the introductory pages that we especially like to talk about and a nice lobster across from "Cockles and Mussels."

She likes to turn the pages herself and demand, "Sing this one! Sing this one!" She doesn't understand, "I don't know that one," a response I remember finding very frustrating when I was a kid leafing through my parents Fireside songbook.

The other night she discovered "Oh, Susanna!" Big hit. She seems to like the fast ones now. I can't get more than the first few words of "Scarborough Fair" or "Au Clare de la Lune" out before she's saying, "No, Mommy. I don't like that." With "Oh, Susanna!" on the other hand, she asks me to sing it again and again, while she chimes in on the last word or so of each verse: ". . . on my knee," she'll sing with a big smile.

Whoa!

OK. This really has very little to do with Phoebe, but I just couldn't resist posting this amazing picture that I found on John's facebook. I hope Phoebe grows up to have such awesome glasses!

Welcome to Dear One

Surely I should be grading papers or working on my grad school portfolio, but here I am creating a blog for my dear one. Today before nap she insisted on holding both Mr. Peanut banks. First she told me he was dancing. Then she said he was NOT on his "tipper toes."