Bubbles!

Finn has only recently decided that cow's milk is an interesting thing to drink. This decision is, naturally, concurrent with the discovery that milk bubbles are a lot of fun. I'm not a big fan of dried, sour milk all over the tablecloth, floor, etc., so hooray for Spring! With the weather warming up they are much more likely to take me up on the offer to take their milk outside. The winter option (the bathtub) seems to be much less attractive for some reason that I don't entirely understand. Maybe they don't want milk all over themselves, either.



But wait, there's more bubble news! I felt particularly self-congratulatory when I figured out this amazing, spill-free easy-access bubble blowing solution:


These pictures, by the way, were taken on the same day, mere minutes apart. Finn likes to wear nothing but pajamas, and he likes to change them frequently.

Dear Birth Parents...

While playing with friends this weekend, Larkin asked Taylor (her "big girl friend") to take down a letter for her:

"Dear Birth Parents,

I live in an orphanage and I hope I find you. It was Baltor, the monster, that took my birth parents. I hope you meet all my big girl friends some day. Watch out for the spit weed! It spits spit balls at you! Watch out for the screaming monkeys! If you go too close they will throw coconuts at you!

Love,

Larkin"

Park Sand

One of the parks we frequent has a rarely-used volleyball court. Translation: HUGE sandbox! One of today's favorite games was "Bedtime":

And then there was this one:

I admit that I had to ask what, exactly, this game was. "Beached Dolphin!" Well, duh.

There was also some elaborate pizza cooking game where (I'm pretty sure) their feet were buried in the oven and they took turns naming an ingredient and flinging handfuls of it over their feet.

Carnival!

One of those rinky-dink-held-together-with-chewing-gum-and-duct-tape-type carnivals set up camp at the local mall this month. I noticed it on my way to the book exchange one day and realized it would be criminal not to take the kids. Larkin has been excited about the idea of County Fairs and carnivals for some time... thanks in part, I think, to Charlotte's Web.

When we got there, it was *totally* dead. We were almost always the only people on the rides and there was no waiting in lines. With one big exception, it was a blast.

Bad news first: Larkin and I went on the "Spider" and it was deemed Totally Not Fun. It's one of those big whirly fast moving contraptions that I really didn't think she would like. We watched it go a few times, talked about how fast it was going, how sometimes spinning that way made people sick to their stomach (okay, I said "oogy"), that it was like a merry-go-round only much much more so, etc. I mean, I used every experience she had under her belt that I could think of to describe it to her. Driving fast on windy roads almost convinced her, but she hasn't really been car sick since she was 18 months old so it just wasn't enough to dissuade her. In the end, either we were getting on it or I was going to pull a power play and Larkin would forever feel like I was making her miss out on something fabulous. Luckily, we were the only ones on the ride and the kind operator stopped as soon as he saw Larkin screaming bloody murder and me waving at him rather expressively. I actually like that kind of ride, but I think the whole experience was worse for me than for Larkin... she was fine after a few minutes of cuddling on a stationary bench, but I still feel some pretty heart-wrenching guilt. I asked her the next day if she thought I shouldn't have taken her on the ride and she said she was glad I let her decide. She also said that the next time I told her she might not enjoy something, she'd try really hard to remember the Spider. Hallelujah.

They had a carousel, so Finn was happy. I think he rode every horse there by the end of our trip. They both loved the little airplanes, too. That was another one that I had to ride with them because they were under the height limit for independent riding.

There was also a mini dragon swing, bumper cars (Finn was Enraged when he discovered that he couldn't reach the pedal and would have to ride with an adult), the obligatory ferris wheel, and a climbing structure with rope ladders and plank bridges that led up to a 3 story slide onto an inflated landing. They did that last one about 5 times in a row.

Larkin was ready to play *a lot* of those skill games that cost five dollars and get you a stuffed duck... if you're lucky. After trying one for the experience (darts and balloons) she was open to the idea that a trip to a thrift store and five dollars to spend on stuffed animals would be a lot more fun. We definitely have a home-made darts and balloons set-up in our near future. We just might need to have a carnival game party. I mean, small children and darts sounds like fun, yes?

Easter

Yeah, so about those regular postings...

Easter was fun. Jim and Mary came for a spur of the moment visit and this was the first time we really "did" Easter with the kids. Jim and I had a great deal of fun hiding the eggs, and it was kind of amusing how long it took the kids to realize there were eggs all over the house the next morning.

When Finn woke up, he immediately saw an egg suspended from a rope right at eye level. (This may sound odd, but I'm not sure that including the information that usually a tire swing hangs there is going to make us look any less weird...) "Me need that egg!" Emile got it down for him and helped him (upon request) open it. He found an earth ball-- one of those grain-sweetened organic hippie chocolates that we tend to favor. He immediately brought it to me (I was still laze-a-bed) and told me the story. Finn speak is hard to transcribe after the fact, but it went something like: "Me find egg on rope with earth ball inside." I don't think he got the Easter Concept... he just thought his world had suddenly and disconcertingly become one in which plastic eggs with candy randomly sprout up.



After our morning egg hunt, during which I think Finn realized there was actually a special occasion involved with this latest miracle, it was off for a fabulous easter brunch at the Hannas. Larkin got to "paint" eggs which is one of her favorite things ever-- and the reason we had an easter party last October. And, really, why should such fun things only happen once a year?

My favorite thing about the party? The sacrificial rice crispy treat lamb!



Why didn't I think of rice crispy treat sculpture? There is definitely going to be some of this in my future. Tearing off its ears was awfully satisfying.

Marianna and the Bear

Larkin wanted to write a book. She dictated while Emile wrote the words and sketched some pictures for her to color. It's not finished yet, but it wasn't done on the best paper so I thought I should record it for posterity before the coloring bled through all the pages and made them illegible. I've posted the first couple of pages here, but the rest are available at our picasaweb photo site.

Marianna and the Bear
Story by Larkin Marie Snyder Hamilton
Words and Outlines by Emile

One day Marianna was hiking in the woods. She was a goblin, so she felt safe walking anywhere... after all, who would mess with a goblin?

Suddenly, as she was walking by a cave, she heard a loud BUMP! "Holy smokes!" said Marianna. "What was that?" She was so curious that she had to investigate.

It was very dark inside the cave. Marianna carefully felt her way forward, until she came to a warm, fuzzy wall. "What in the world could this be?" she wondered.

"Grrrrowph?" said the wall.

"Oh no! It's not a wall, it's a bear!" Marianna ran from the cave. The bear ran after her. Quick as a wink, Marianna hid behind a bristly bush. But the bear followed her footprints and found her crouched beneath the leaves. Marianna took off running again. This time she was careful not to leave any tracks for the bear to follow.

As Marianna raced through the woods she noticed a hole in the ground. "Ah, ha! Another hiding place!" she thought, and leapt into the hole. Luckily for Marianna, the bear didn't see her jump into the hole. Unluckily, it decided to take a break from chasing her and sat down right on top of the opening of the hole.

Marianna, thinking the coast was clear, ran right into the bear's bottom when she tried to come out of the hole. "Grrrrowl!" said the bear as it caught her up in its huge paws. "Oh no, I'm caught!" thought Marianna.

But she had forgotten her magic crown. She made a wish and the crown caught the bear in a cage of seaweed.

The end? Perhaps...

A Note About the Name

A few people have asked me what this whole "Hamsder" nonsense is about.

When Emile and I got married, we couldn't figure out what to do about our last names... neither of us was very happy with the traditional approach. We seriously considered both changing our name to Mary's maiden name which has disappeared due to modern naming traditions, but somehow that felt a little odd and forced. Our next brilliant idea was to combine our names into some uber-cool new name that we could both adopt. After coming up with many combinations, the highlights of which were "Snydilton" and "Hamsder," we gave up on that approach and kept our own damn names.

We thought we would figure out something brilliant by the time the kids came along.

Not so much.

When I was pregnant with Larkin (we didn't find out sex before the kids were born) we decided we would dole out last names according to the baby's sex. Again, there were decisions to be made. Do we do the obvious thing and name girls Hamilton and boys Snyder, or the opposite since that would really just be delaying the problems inherent in patriarchal naming lineages? We decided on the former because the whole thing was already plenty confused.

Think that was the end of it? Oh, no...

So what about baby #2? Does the last name of the first baby dictate the last name of all subsequent babies? Should the second baby get the unused last name in the interest of fairness? Would it be weird to have two kids with different last names and the same parents? Well, yes, but that was what ended up happening. We decided to stick with the sex-based last names and toss the other last name in as a middle name (just to keep it exciting).

We ended up with Larkin Marie Snyder Hamilton and Finn Victor Hamilton Snyder. I expect we will be hearing some complaints in the future when they realize the enormity of what we've laid on them. Obviously, there will be no protests from us if they choose their own name modifications in the future.

Hamsder remains our favorite name that isn't. We use it as a convenient way to refer to all four of us, but we were not so unkind as to make it official for the kids.

The end of email updates

For some reason, I have long been loathe to jump on the blog bandwagon. Apparently, I have finally gotten over my initial reticence and am ready to go. I tried to keep up regular email updates, but would end up putting them off until I was overwhelmed by the prospect of actually getting far-flung friends and family up to date on daily happenings. This way, hopefully, I can do shorter, more frequent posts whenever the mood strikes. I predict this will be quite frequent in the first month and then taper off considerably. :)

This will also serve as a record-keeper of sorts as the kids continue to get older and we continue not to enroll them in school.

I just noticed that this forum apparently feels official enough to make me capitalize.

So, here's the interesting stuff-- the collection of anecdotes I've been saving for my next update:

• Larkin tells us (and most people) that she loves us. A lot. Finn does everything Larkin does. One day in the car, after everyone had repeatedly expressed their undying affection for Emile, I made some comment about how he must be one of the best loved people around. Larkin: "Yeah! Emile's the best lover in all the nine states!"
• More on free love. This morning Emile mentioned the possibility of seeing a local friend, Josh, and Larkin exclaimed, "I LOVE Josh... [long pause] who is Josh?"
  
• Many many months ago, when Finn was still pretty new at putting multiple words together, he came out with this after I zerberted his belly while helping him dress: "you cheeky Jenny!"
  
• Larkin enjoys telling stories, jokes, etc. There was a brief period of time when she particularly liked telling Scary Stories. "Listen to this one... this one will make you shake with fear!"
• Some idiomatic faux pas are too amusing to correct. Larkin likes to race to a goal shrieking, "Whoever gets there first gets a rotten egg!!" Quite the motivator.
• Me: "I was thinking about making some popcorn." Larkin: "Me too! My brain was just winding up to think about that!"
• We have been dealing with our annual ant infestation and the kids have been very vigilant about checking the perimeters of the house for ants. They've learned they should distinguish between live ants and dead ants, the former getting more immediate and direct attention than the latter. I was summoned from across the house by Larkin's excited shriek of: "Half a live ant!!" Huh?
• Our kids rarely say "yes." Finn's standard is "Yeah, sure!" and Larkin says "ya-yuh" (imagine a drunken redneck affirmative).
• And, one of our recent favorite parental amusements: Finn constantly asks Larkin "why?" To her credit, she usually tries to come up with an answer, and I've even heard her say "I don't know, let's ask Jenny to look it up online." Sigh. I think I've already noted the passing of the simple "I don't know" as an acceptable answer.

So that catches us up to date. I'll try to post relatively frequently.