Notes

Bernadette really likes purple. And pink, too. But especially purple. She's still chatty in her own language, but she's also repeating sentences back to us. And she can replicate rhythms and melodies and songs after hearing them once or twice. Often she does this with her own words or shorthand.


At dinner, a fussy Kateri refuses to be calmed. Finally, she nurses. And then Bernadette becomes upset because something is wrong with her drink or her food. Kateri pops up, now happy and looks over. "Feeling some schadenfreude, Kateri," I say. She smiles broadly.


Sometimes when you are 4 months old a lamp catches your attention and you talk to it with all your pre-verbal abilities.


On a day of snow
As ice builds on rocks in streams
Store sign: summer hours


You've heard of rage against the machine? This morning Bernadette is rage to her mother's machine.


The whisper of tiny snow pellets hitting paper-dry leaves clinging to a tree in January: the continuous sound of thousands of unsynchronized tiny snare drums, audible no more than five feet away.


 Just a note about the house rules: the two older Friedrichs children are now banned from playing with forks.


Isaiah: Please write a note to Peter and Magda and tell them I want pirates next Christmas.    


The most amusing thing a 3-month-old has ever seen: Her older sister jumping on the bed and singing.


Sung loudly with a growl: "we are pirates sailing on a silver sea (treacherous pirates)"


Isaiah's career plans: be a quilt maker and when he's too old for that he'll be a race car driver.


How you know the conditions are perfect: The sled wants to go before you even sit down.