Lil’ Sluggers

At the beginning of the month, Grant went away to San Francisco. He’s always really good about bringing presents home for his girls, and he always tries to bring something that signifies where he went. This time, he brought each of the girls a ball and bat set that say Giants on them. He gave me a cozy, green hoodie that says San Francisco. He gave us our gifts Friday morning before going to work, and when he got home, he took the girls out in the yard to play some ball.

Unfortunately, their game didn’t last too long, not even some batting practice. Eleanor quickly abandoned trying to hit the ball with the bat so she could pretend to be a dog. And Phaedra wandered off to collect sticks and look for bugs. Hmmmm, maybe this daddy needs a boy.    

In their defense, they did play around with them in the house during the day. Eleanor was even able to hit the ball a few times when she tossed it up for herself. Maybe they’ll develop more interest in sports over time.

Maybe not.

Sweet Little Girls

We went to Silverton on Sunday to visit with family. There was a gathering at Aunt Sharron’s for Pat’s birthday. Eleanor found her friend, Abby, there, and they were immediately inseparable. We let them do their own thing, knowing they would get along and keep out of trouble. After a while, I wandered into the house and saw these three girls sitting quietly in the library, perusing some books together. I had to take a picture. I just love how sweetly little girls play together when their personalities blend well with each other. I hope they stay fast friends, kindred spirits, for years to come. Then someday, I’ll show them these photos, and they will treasure them.

Phaedra, Eleanor, Abby, Mia 

I didn’t really take photos to document the whole evening. The food was delicious, and I was being lazy, enjoying the warm weather now that summer has finally decided to show its face around here. I played around, and took a few pictures when I saw the opportunity. That’s how I got the picture of Grant’s cousin in the previous post. I didn’t feel like making anyone smile for the camera, in fact I hoped they wouldn’t know I was taking their picture, otherwise I might have gotten that baby’s adorable face in the photo.

I do wish I had followed to get a few pictures when Studio Grandpa took Phaedra for a little walk. He has such a soft spot for his grandchildren, and you can see it in his interactions with them. But like I said, I was being lazy, and when he took her for a walk, I had just gotten back from following her around while she explored. Having Grandpa take over for a bit offered me a nice little break.

Here are a few photos I got. Eleanor was reciting her 13th Article of Faith for various people, so Abby performed also. She did a little dance. Eleanor tried to follow along with the movements so she could be just like Abby. Grandma Mills

Abby picking blueberries in the evening sun.

The girls found the blueberries just as we were about to leave. We really had to tear them away in order to go home. We had such a pleasant summer evening.

Mother and Child

(Photo: 100627_0025-1a)

I just love pictures of a mother and her baby.

I snapped this one of Grant’s beautiful cousin and her baby yesterday evening while we were in Silverton visiting family.

I intended to blog more tonight, but I just realized I have some church responsibilities that really need attention. I didn’t want to go without blogging at all since I’ve been blogging every day for 10 days now. That is a really long streak for me! I knew if I broke it tonight, I’d be less motivated to keep going. Exercising has not been going as well as the blogging. I’m blogging during the time I used to try to exercise, and I just can’t manage both. I’m going to have to try to find a balance or a time during the day when the kids will allow me to do one or the other.

Precious Phaedra

 

This kid has spunk, I tell ya.

Phaedra is so very dear to me. I love both my girls equally, but since Eleanor is such a Daddy’s girl and Phaedra is a total Mommy’s girl, I feel a bit more connected to her for the time being. She needs me more. She’s my girl.

First thing in the morning, I am the one she wants. Even on days when Grant tries to entertain the kids so I can sleep in a little bit, not a half hour goes by before Phaedra is crying for me and pounding on the bedroom door. It would be more frustrating if she wasn’t so elated whenever I open the door for her and climb back into bed. She toddles up to my bedside, and as she’s struggling to get up onto the bed, repeats the request, “Nuggo,” (snuggle) several times. How can I refuse? She lays on my chest for a bit, the duration of which depending on how sleepy or hungry she is, and then she charms me for a bit with her playfulness before trying to drag me out of bed. She is my morning sunshine.

Phaedra can say just about any word. There’s no reason to list her vocabulary, because she’ll repeat just about anything you say. She still has some fun, quirky ways of pronouncing things. I like how she says cereal: see-yo. Within the past month or two, she switched from calling both Grandma and Grandpa “bah-paw,” and now she says gwamma and gwappa. I might have to return to this subject since I had a long mental list of the words I love to hear her say, but now I can’t seem to remember any of them. Today was a busy day. My mind is shutting down for the evening.

Phaedra is really interested in books. There have been some books that quickly became her favorites, such as Jumpy Jack & Googily by Meg Rosoff and Cat the Cat, Who Is That? by Mo Willems. She likes to look at books by herself, just flipping through pages. She usually tries to be gentle with books, so I’m finally getting to the point where I can trust her. Every now and then, she still rips one, though. She used to sit through stories better, but she’s going through a short attention span phase. She still wants you to read to her though. At any time of day, she’ll come up to Grant or me with a book, demanding, “Weed it! Weed it!” She’ll keep on insisting until she gets a response, and if for some reason the answer is no, it’s not pretty. She likes to have control of the reading. Her independent phase is really strong right now, so she insists on holding the book and turning the pages, which causes many pages to be read out of chronological order.

Phaedra loves to be outside. She loves to play in dirt, toss rocks, and even chase bugs. She doesn’t have much fear of bugs at all.

As part of her independent streak, she likes getting down to walk rather than being carried. Grant and I have trained her the same way we did Eleanor. If we are in a parking lot or a place where she needs to hold our hand, we tell her to hold a finger. As soon as she lets go, she gets picked up and carried until she’s ready to promise to keep holding on. There have been some situations where we have told her it was safe to let go. Now, she holds a finger for a few seconds, and then comes to the conclusion herself, saying “Yet go,” and letting go to walk on her own. The main problem when she lets go is that all progress is lost. She is so easily distracted, wanting to explore everything around her. She isn’t interested in getting from point A to point B; she just wants to enjoy her surroundings. Having her hold on to a finger is sometimes the only thing that keeps her moving, but it’s hard to insist that she hold on when she can see that Eleanor doesn’t have to hold a hand.

Phaedra is a total mimic right now, watching what Eleanor does and trying to do the same thing. She also is very aware of what the adults do and say, and she tries to copy them, too.

Sometimes she shocks me with how well she is paying attention. I was driving with my kids and my mother in the car a few weeks ago, and I was talking to my mother about Phaedra having a hard time going into nursery at church. After a bit of talking, Phaedra chimed into the conversation, naming off some of the kids at nursery, mentioning snack and song.

She is such a communicator. She mostly only uses telegraphic speech, but she also puts two words together here and there. She’ll keep telling you words until she gets her point across. She loves to pepper me with words after we’ve been apart to tell me all about what happened while I was gone. She’s starting to say, “Me,” and hearing her say, “Phae,” is just about the cutest thing in the world. She says Phaedra too, but it isn’t as clear as Phae. She certainly knows to whom those words refer, pointing to her chest sometimes as she says them just to make sure we’re catching on.

Phaedra loves to sing and dance. She was so jealous that Eleanor got to go to the front of the chapel and sing on Father’s Day, and she didn’t. She usually pulls out a Hymn book during the songs at church and tries to sing along. Some songs that she tries to sing on her own are “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” “Following the Leader,” and “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam.” “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” sounds like this: “Twinko Twinko Yiddo Yiddooooooooh” and “Following the Leader” sounds like this: “Folllleader, Folllleader, Folllleader . . .” I LOVE it. I need to take more video of her!

Ever since she started nursery, Phaedra has some serious “stranger danger.” She used to be pretty easy going about hanging out with other adults, but now, she’s leery of anyone with whom she isn’t familiar and comfortable. At church especially (and after sacrament especially—during the hours when she thinks all adults are trying to take her away from her mommy), she glares at anyone who tries to talk to her, and she has some pretty cold looks coming from those baby blue eyes of hers. Also, if we are in any situation where I am close by but there is another adult nearer to her when she needs any sort of guidance, if they touch her in any way (even to help her up after a fall or something like that), she looks at them, thinks about it, and comes crying to me.

I think that’s all I’ve got right now. My mind is really winding down for the evening, so maybe I’ll have to write more as I think of it.

Not Your Average Bedtime Routine

This has developed over time. It all started with Eleanor’s obsession with pretending to be a dog. Grant played along as we were getting them ready for bed, and it has just grown from there. Here is Grant giving the girls their evening gummy vitamin. We do this every night.

Article of Faith #13

Here is Eleanor, our 4-year-old, reciting the Thirteenth Article of Faith. She has now passed off all of her Articles of Faith in church.

Today, we made a snap decision to change our zoo trip from tomorrow to today. We spent all day at the zoo with the girls. I am worn out, to say the least.

As Eleanor said our family prayer tonight, she asked for blessings on our family. Then she said, “Well, it was a good day today.” I’m glad she thought so.

Beautiful Eleanor

I know I’m her mother, so I’m biased, but I think Eleanor is such a beautiful little girl. Her curls and her face and her dimples just kill me sometimes. How in the world did I end up with such gorgeous children? I think she looks a little bit like Audrey Tautou in that middle picture, and she just looks so serene in the last one. I wish she would look at me more often when I try to take her picture.

I have been absolutely terrible about keeping up with milestones on the girls once a month. I’ve still taken their pictures, but then I never post them because I can’t find the time to sit and write all that’s going on with them. I’m thinking I might cut myself some slack and just worry about pictures once a month. Then, if I have some spare time or something in particular to write about, I’ll add that to the pictures. It’s just been too hard to sit down and try to think of every little thing I want to remember, and I end up kicking myself afterward for things I forgot. So I tell myself I’ll write about it next month, and the cycle continues. Oh well.

I have some things I’ve jotted down during the past months that I haven’t written about her. Most of them seem out of date by now, but I’ll write them here so I can remember.

Eleanor got a new car seat way back in February. She was getting way too big for her convertible seat. We let her choose a booster that had LED reading lights. She was so thrilled about it. She calls it her “lighting car seat.”

She has gotten pretty good at matching socks, even some of her dad’s dark ones that all look the same except for subtle differences. I lay a few out on the bed, and then I hand one to her and ask her if it matches any of the socks on the bed. She gets so excited if she finds a match. If she doesn’t find a match, she lays the sock next to the ones on the bed, and I hand her a new one. She even tries to fold the ones she matches, and she’s getting pretty good at it. She can do the method where you fold one top over the other, but balling up the socks is still too difficult for her little hands.

Eleanor often asks me, “After Phaedra grows up, can I have a baby boy?” (as in a brother). I’ve tried to tell her I have no control over that, but she still likes to ask.

Eleanor is really developing some reading and spelling skills. A month or two ago, she would spell out her name on the table with pretzel sticks. Now, we can ask her how to spell simple words like CAT or TENT, and she sounds them out and writes or spells them. She is so proud of herself when she does, too. She can also sound out some basic words when we’re reading books and point to a word.

At breakfast every morning (and this has been going on for many months), after I pour her cereal, Eleanor scoops her cereal away from one spot so that the bottom of the bowl can be seen and asks me to please put the milk in the hole. For some reason, she gets pleasure out of having it that way, and we do it all the time.

Ever since Eleanor had a bout with bad dreams at night (or at least that was her excuse for getting out of bed), we have been praying not to have bad dreams. From the beginning, Eleanor would always bless her friend, Audrey, too. Pretty soon, she was naming off all the kids in her primary class to protect them from bad dreams. After a while of that, she narrowed it back down to just Audrey, Phaedra, and herself again. Since Phae has been listening to that for months, she naturally insists on blessing Audrey during every prayer she says.

Eleanor loves Primary. Just last Sunday, she passed off Article of Faith #13, completing all of her Articles of Faith. Our primary president says she’s going to make a big deal of it this Sunday. I still need to get a video of her doing it. She loves the songs they sing in primary. Right now, the one I hear her sing most at home is “I Know that My Savior Loves Me.” She knows many of the words to that one, but there are other times that she just makes up her own Primary songs. I guess we need to sing them more at home. Here are a couple lines I have heard her sing at separate times while making up her own songs:

“We don’t know where the chapel door is . . . righteously!”

“Jesus taught us to be good. My appetite is good.”

Even when we think she isn’t paying any attention to what we’re teaching her during Family Home Evening, she’ll surprise us by spouting off almost our exact words in some situation the next day.

She has such a fetish for containers. If I leave a cardboard box around the house, she will play with it all day long. She has currently been playing with the same box for about a week now. She makes a bed in it, hides in it, pretends to be a baby chick in it, etc. Also, the other day, Grant set down his laptop case on the couch for a few seconds. When he went back to it, he found that Eleanor had filled it with a bunch of her small toys as if it was a purse.

Sometimes, I am amazed at how low-maintenance Eleanor is. She has such a long attention span. You can set her up with something she enjoys doing, like playing in a sandbox or working on an art project, and she just stays entertained for the longest time. Sometimes she goes to another room in the house to play, and I don’t see her for a long time. I can almost always trust that she isn’t getting into trouble; she’s just doing her own thing. Usually, the thing that puts a stop to that is Phaedra going to her to try to join in or steal a toy. Then, the squawking and shouts of “I need space!” begin.

She is certainly a daddy’s girl. She almost always chooses him over me. That doesn’t bother me because Phaedra is the opposite. Plus, she still shows me plenty of love. She’s a very cuddly girl. She loves to be held, tickled, and wrestled. She tells me she loves me at random times.

I love how quickly she makes friends. We can go to the library, and after a few minutes, she’ll be playing around with kids she’s never met before as if they are life-long friends. If we run into someone she recognizes from church, it doesn’t take long before Eleanor is holding her hand or saying, “Hey, come play over here with me.” I wish kids could stay so innocent and loving longer. I wish they would always be so accepting of each other. Most of all, I hope that my daughter retains that quality of accepting others for a long time. I also hope that she learns to recognize the difference between good and bad influences, so she won’t be a follower to the wrong type of crowd.

For now, she’s still my little girl, happy and sweet. She likes walks and rocks and cardboard boxes. She misses her dog, and tells me, “Don’t worry, someday we’ll get a new dog.” She looks forward to her birthday, and asks me constantly if it is after this month (To which I have to reply, “Well, yes, but it’s not the next month.” Then I name off the months that have to come before it will be her birthday.). She loves to pretend. She spends more than 50% of her time pretending she is a dog. She is beautiful and smart, and I love her. I hope I can give her all the happiness in her childhood that she deserves and teach her everything she needs to know to prepare her for what lies ahead in life.

Happy as a Little Girl with a Python

This is my little girl who gets terrified on the beach because the water is coming after her . . . even when she’s 20 feet from the shore.

Want to know what she said when the huge python was resting on her shoulders?

“It’s tickling me! Hee hee! It’s tickling my neck!”

(Eye roll) Heaven help me.

Last Day at the Beach

Our last day on the coast, Eleanor decided she didn’t want to go down on the beach to face her fears again. Grant was content to stay behind with her; he had a book he was enjoying. So it was just Doodle-dootz and me. When we first got down there, she kept asking for Daddy and Eleanor. She even told me she wanted to go back a few times. All I had to do was point out a cool seashell and a few rocks worth picking up, and she was convinced to stay and play. And while she played, I just did my favorite thing to do on the beach: take lots of pictures. After taking several pictures, I even messed around with some manual exposure. Yay me!

Here we go!

 

What a cutie!

After playing around on the beach for a while, she enjoyed playing Pooh sticks (minus the bridge) in the runoff water. I think I lost count of how many times she lost her balance and fell into the water. It never seemed to bother her a bit, but after she had played there a while, I took her back to the beach house to get dried off. Watching a stick float away. Just dropped one in.

Giving it a little encouragement.

After we had all our stuff packed up, we went to the outlets to get some clothes for the girls. We also found some great deals on work clothes for Grant. After that, we drove home from there. We had such a pleasant trip; it was so nice to just get away as a family for a while. I could have stayed even longer. We’ll have to go back again soon.

A Threat to Regret

I’m sure we’ll look back and laugh at this someday.

Someday.

On Saturday, the third night we were at the coast, the evening after Eleanor decided she was terrified of the ocean, we had some serious bedtime drama.

We had gone out to dinner, and Eleanor ate really well. She might have eaten too much, and the food was rather greasy. When we were trying to put the kids to bed, she kept complaining that her tummy hurt. We told her she probably ate too much, and it would feel better with time. She just needed to relax and get some rest to help her tummy. We put the kids to bed. Phaedra was really tired and ready to sleep. Eleanor kept trotting back down the stairs to complain to us that she couldn’t sleep because her tummy hurt.

After sending her back to bed several times and still having her come downstairs, Grant figured she was tired enough that he could let her lay on the couch by us and she would fall asleep. We were both settling in to having time to ourselves without kids. I was uploading pictures from the day, and Grant was reading his book. Eleanor continued to whine and complain. We told her she needed to be quiet if she wanted to stay downstairs with us. She just wouldn’t quit, and she was showing no signs of relaxation that would indicate there was any hope of her falling asleep. We both tried to ignore her for a while. She kept up all the same racket. We kept telling her she had to be quiet or she would have to go back to bed. Finally, I was fed up. She was whining no matter what we said, and Grant didn’t seem like he was going to do anything about it. I scooped her up and took her up to her bed.

Poor Phaedra had fallen asleep in the quiet while Eleanor was gone. She probably could have fallen asleep with all of Eleanor’s noise if Eleanor hadn’t been allowed to stay downstairs, but she couldn’t stay asleep now that Eleanor was screaming in what used to be a quiet room. Phae woke up crying. Eleanor came right back downstairs, so Grant stepped in. As I sat downstairs, above me, I heard the stomp, stomp, stomp as Grant marched her back to bed, Eleanor’s screams of protest, Grant’s softer steps as he walked to the door, then more stomp, stomp, stomps and screams. This happened over and over and over. The whole time, Phaedra was screaming her guts out (Grant had to pass by her bed each time).

I went up to comfort Phaedra and try to help her relax again. That’s when it happened: the threat.

“Eleanor, if you don’t stay in your bed and go to sleep, I’m going to put you in the car, and you and I are going home.”

I won’t mention which one of her parents made the threat since it was a low moment. We were both angry. We were both desperate and trying to think of anything that would strike fear into her heart and make her obey. Besides, it doesn’t matter now. The words were spoken. There was no going back. The air was still like a standoff on an old western movie as we waited the long half second before she responded, hoping she wouldn’t call our bluff.

Our worst fears confirmed, Eleanor wailed, “Okay. I wanna go home!”

Grant did all he could to make it sound like a less desirable option. He went on a rant somewhat like this:

“Fine! We’ll get in the car and go home right now. Mommy and Phaedra can stay at the beach and play, and we’ll come back to get them in a few days. They’re going to play on the beach and eat candy all day and watch all of your favorite movies. They’ll play games and buy toys and wrestle and tickle each other. You will go straight to bed when we get home. You don’t get to sleep with any animals. You will be in time-out the whole time until we come back to get Mommy and Phaedra. Do you still want to go home with me?”

Okay, so those weren’t his exact words, but you get the picture. He was desperate.

She just cried some more and said, “Yes. I wanna go home and sleep in my own bed!” It was quite clear at that point (if it hadn’t been before) that Eleanor was at that state of exhaustion where she cries and throws irrational tantrums and disobeys until she gets her way or until she completely wears herself down to not being able to continue her fit with the required gusto and sniffles her way to sleep. But since we were still in the throes of her tantrum, we had no choice but to see it through.

Her parents’ faces were turning all shades of red, purple, fuchsia, and any other shade previously associated with extreme anger. There was a brief interchange between parents as to whether or not we were actually going through with ruining our family vacation because of our 4-year-old. The parent who made the threat might have felt a slight lack of spousal support at that point, and Grant, exasperated, went downstairs with no intention of returning, leaving me with a tired, crying 1-year-old and a belligerent 4-year-old who wanted to go home.

Eleanor kept crying, “I wanna go home and sleep in my own bed! I don’t want to be at the beach house anymore! I’m scared of the tide! My tummy hurts!”

I laid down the law. I said very clearly, “NO one is going home. We came here to have a good time as a family, and we are GOING to have FUN. I know it’s hard to sleep in a different place in a different bed, but that’s just something you have to do if you want to go to fun places like the beach. You are just tired, and you’ll feel better once you’ve had some rest. Going home is NOT an option.” I explained to her that we wouldn’t stay at the beach house forever, that we would go home to our own beds in a few days so Daddy could go back to work. And I tried one more time to explain that she didn’t need to be afraid of the ocean. I also explained to her that she was so tired because she had been getting up with the sun every morning, and if she would just roll over and go back to sleep for a bit in the morning, she might not be so exhausted.

I honestly don’t remember all of what happened next. I eventually got Eleanor into her bed, but it wasn’t without a fight. I had to threaten her with losing privileges such as watching some of her favorite shows we had brought with us for her to watch on the laptop. I also told her I would sing her a song if she would lay down in her bed, and then I had to tell her many times that I couldn’t sing her a song because she wasn’t cooperating. I went back and forth between threatening and soothing; I was good cop and bad cop. Eventually, I acted like I was done trying to help her get to sleep because of her lack of cooperation, and I focused on helping Phaedra get back to sleep (I had been holding her during most of the drama with Eleanor). I think it was the idea that I was no longer willing to try to work with her that made Eleanor slowly, bit-by-bit, decide to do as she was told. I sang her a song (even though she didn’t deserve it). At the end of one of her major meltdowns, all it takes is a little comfort to get her to sleep. She calmed right down, and we didn’t hear anything else from her for the rest of the night.

Sadly enough, this isn’t the first time we’ve dealt with major drama when Eleanor got too tired, and it probably won’t be the last. It is the first time we’ve had to deal with it at the beach, and it was the first time it nearly ruined an entire vacation. At least the next night went smoothly. She was worn out and ready to sleep after our long day hiking on Sunday.

Cascade Head

On Sunday of our beach trip three weeks ago, June 30th, we took a family hike up to Cascade Head. We left soon after breakfast and packed a picnic to eat on the hike. Eleanor is such a great hiker. We have only had a few bad experiences with taking her hiking. Most of the time, she is just a trooper, walking along with us the whole way without complaining. This was one of those times; Eleanor walked the whole way up, setting the pace for the rest of us. When we got to the lower view point, she was the one who wanted us to keep on going up to the top.

I didn’t take pictures until we got to the top because Phaedra was not such a trooper. I couldn’t blame her; it was her naptime. The hard part was that she did NOT want her daddy. I carried her most of the way. I gave Grant one turn to ease my burden for a bit, but since Phaedra screamed and clambered for me the entire time she was with him, I figured we were all much less miserable if I slowed up the group by carrying her myself. So, I didn’t try to carry her and get the camera out.

Did I mention that Eleanor was pretending to be a dog the whole time? She wasn’t Eleanor; she was Bolt. We convinced her to walk on her “hind paws,” but she had her hands crooked like paws the entire time. She amazes me with her dedication in pretending.

Phaedra fell asleep on me somewhere around the lower view point, so I got to carry her as dead weight the rest of the way (not that she was much help before). Even though I was exhausted and really laboring to make that final climb while carrying her, it was such a good feeling. There’s such a flattering feeling of trust and comfort when a little one falls asleep on you. When we set up for lunch, I almost didn’t want to put her down, but my hunger took control.

She still looked so sweet on the blanket next to me.

Here we all are at the top. Good thing we packed the tripod the whole way, right? I don’t know if Grant thought it was worth it. Phaedra slept the whole time we were eating, only waking up as we were shifting jackets for the walk back down. Since she had slept through lunch, she was really hungry, and we handed her food as we walked down. The weather was perfect. It stayed cloudy the whole time, and it was just cool enough that it was just right once we were warm from walking. It started to sprinkle on us just slightly at the top when we were leaving, but then it stopped. We did get our first sunburn of the season that day, in spite of the clouds. I don’t think we burned except when we were at the very top. Grant and I were fairly red, while Phaedra was only pink on the one side of her face that was uncovered while she slept. Eleanor, who amazingly has more olive-toned skin, only had a small pink patch on the back of her neck.

The view was gorgeous! This is facing south, and the green jutting out to the ocean is the other side of what we call “the point” on the beach where we stay in Lincoln City. We couldn’t see much to the north since we didn’t go to the very highest point. We were really dragging toward the end (probably me the most), and it might have been cooler up at the top with more of a breeze. We were relatively at the top, you might say. I’m not sure that there is much you can see to the north, but I’ll have to go back and find out someday. On one side, you have the gorgeous ocean, and to the left, you see the Salmon River meeting up with it.

The Salmon River going back into the valley.

After our rest, Eleanor must have realized how tired she was. She wasn’t as cooperative when we were ready to go down. I was surprised she hadn’t worn out earlier; it had been quite a workout climbing up that hillside. Daddy carried her for a little bit, but she started throwing a conniption to be with me. I couldn’t carry her because I was holding Phaedra and by that point, I was too weak to try to manage Eleanor’s weight anyway. Finally, she came crying to me, and I told her I could hold her hand. That was good enough. She immediately snapped out of it. I love/hate when she does this. I love it because the drama is done and gone without a trace. I hate it because it seems like if it was that easy to get over, why did she have to get so upset in the first place? I walked, holding her hand for a while before she was completely herself (Bolt) again and decided she didn’t need to hold my hand. We were going downhill, and it was pretty steep. I was really nervous she would tumble and keep on rolling down, so I walked in front of her (thinking I could catch her if she fell toward me). I kept offering her a hand, but she would say, “No. I don’t need it. I’ve done this before,” as if going up gave her all the experience she could possibly need.

We stopped at the lower view point for a breather and to let Phaedra get some more food.

 When I finally had my hands free, I decided to record what my view looked like on the trail.

Eventually, Phaedra decided to get down and walk with us. It slowed our progress considerably, but it was fun to see her feeling like such a big kid. The whole way up, she would beg to get down to walk when we crossed a bridge (and there were quite a few small ones). She liked stomping across; then she immediately wanted carried again. She got mixed up about what to call the bridges, so each time we came to one, she would say, “Bench! Bench!”

Eleanor became a “true hiker” on the way back because she had to go potty in the bushes. I made Grant hold her because he’s always telling me how he can’t stand to take her into a public restroom, but when it comes time for her to go in the woods, he’ll hold her up while she goes and make sure she doesn’t get her pants wet. I finally got to cash in on that promise, and it was oh so nice.

Out on the road back to where our car was parked. Phaedra loved picking things up as she walked along.  

 

There was this pretty little field by the parking lot.

The girls played in the flowers while Grant talked with one of the other hikers.

      I love this one.

I actually wanted to get them standing side-by-side to get their muddy pant legs. While trying to help me, Grant played around with them to keep them happy. Their happy faces were much more interesting than their pant legs.

I did make another attempt at getting their muddy pants, but most of them were out of focus. Blurg!

This one is in better focus, but I like the front shot better. Oh well.

It was a wonderful hike. Not too difficult but still a challenge. Eleanor walked the whole way down after that short time being carried by her daddy. They both slept in the car on the way home. That’s one hike I’ll certainly like to do again.