tumbledry

Trike

Ess loves this. Doesn’t know how to pedal yet (her legs don’t reach, which doesn’t help); so we’re going to add in the ‘Ess gets to steer’ feature soon.

Birthday Selfie

Birthday Selfie

Cake

Cake

“What do you want for you birthday, Ess?”
“Pink deek.”
“Pink cake? Anything else?”
“Pink deek.”

Custom-baked by Mykala.

Monkey Book

Monkey Book

This book is called I Know a Monkey and it is about Ess’ stuffed monkey Marge. In the book, it calls the monkey “he” but we change it to “she”.

Reading

Reading

Cards #4

Cards #4

Cards #3

Cards #3

Cards #1

Cards #1

Cards #2

Cards #2

Birthday Smiles

Birthday Smiles

Here she is, on the morning of her second birthday. She knew it was her “happy day!” but didn’t quite know what that entailed.

Birthday Crawling

Birthday Crawling

Wasn’t interested in opening the present, just wanted to crawl on top of it.

Honestly Sweet Potato Avocado Banana Cake

Honestly Sweet Potato Avocado Banana Cake

Honestly Sweet Potato Avocado Banana Cake from Nadia Cakes.

Marge Monkey

Marge Monkey

This is Marge the monkey, from Katy.

Personal Cake

Personal Cake

Esmé’s personal cake. Made with love by her mama.

Gossie

Gossie

Birthday Rocks

Birthday Rocks

Essie loves rocks. Even on her birthday. She’s showing these to Mykala right now.

Four Things about Ess

Hi Essie,

It has been so long since I have written to you! I must record a few things here that I fear we will forget:

(1) You have some things right now that make you unreasonably excited. When you are this excited, you’ll sit on the ground, stare at the object of your affection, stick your arms and legs straight out, tiny hands balled into fists, and go “AAAAAAAAH.” You’ll do this until you get to hold the thing, or until it is taken out of your sight. These things include:

Continued

I Turned 30

I’ve been taught to avoid excuses, first by my parents and then later in the wisdom of those I read. It was the latter that taught me an excuse for many things should never be offered when this a better explanation: “I didn’t care enough to produce the outcome you were looking for.” This is especially true when one is late. For years, if I was late, I would compose the reason in my head, what the extenuating circumstances were, why this was unusual, how I would correct it in the future. Then, with embarrassment, I realized these thoughtfully-composed reasons skirted reality: they were simply another way to say I hadn’t cared enough to be on time. So, while I have many interesting reasons (excuses) why I haven’t written here lately, it is quite simply because I haven’t cared enough to do it. But, I can’t let my birthday weekend come and go without listing the details of it. And also, I should write here more frequently.

Continued

Esmé

Esmé

Family of Three

Family of Three

More