Copper Anniversary

DP and me are not married. And the day after tomorrow we are not married (but together) for twelve and a half years exactly, and we decided to throw a big party.
On a boat.
this one:

The weather is very autumny but the ship has a warm and cozy interior:

I will wear my mothers wedding dress (yes I am a slightly insane.) She will wear her mother's evening gown (waste not, want not?) DP bought a giant pirates hat and a frilly shirt.
I am equally terrified we are overdoing it or not doing enough. (Should we not arrange thank you gifts for our guests? Is the boat not too big/do we have enough guests? Flowers instead of balloons? Late evening french fries? Good bye chocolates?)
So happy my parents will be there, grateful they are happy and healthy. And a bit fearful: DP's father was there for his brother's wedding last year, and died within three months. Yes he was older and much less strong and healthy than my parents. But still.
We are reaching this age where more and more friends are losing a parent.(DElia, Twangy) (or two, poor HB and J)

I made the faux pas of pressing Lily to come, but she confessed that being recently divorced she couldn't face a party full of wedding dresses. Ouch. Here I was thinking myself such a considerate person, having learned from my infertility journey and all that.

J is doing pictures, Suzy can be a flower girl again. HB is party planner/ master of ceremony without a ceremony.
And I am wearing my new party shoes while I write this, in hopes the remain both new looking and are broken into.

Four-and-a-half in August

Summer Holiday was great.
Suzy picked up on riding a bike quite suddenly, so lovely to see her go.
We were in Switzerland visiting my brother and his two boys (6&8) for a week, doing lots of mountain walks. My brother thought it safer if we put good boots on the kids, and my mother was so kind to buy pink Meindl mountain boots for Suzy.

It is hard to express how proud I felt seeing Suzy jump and run and climb and walk on real boots. I was sixteen before I had my first real pair of Meindl boots.
It is also weird to see little cousin being the same height as Suzy. He is miles ahead, can read write and do math (even better than his older brother). He is also a champion manipulator, refuses to walk and my brother carries him. But I told Suzy to use her own legs, would only carry her as a token of affection or attention than any real meters. And my oh my, the girl can hike!
After one of the hikes the boys were scheduled for a horse riding lesson. Again, the youngest went on strike, but Suzy took his place without missing a beat. She was thrilled to be on a horse for the first time. Now she tells me she wants ' horse lessons' .
We knew she could walk well on flat land, we did the 'Four Evening Walk' in June, four consecutive evenings of walking 5 kilometers in the early evening. She might have been one of the youngest walkers among a thousand of schoolkids. (oh yes, she goes to school now.)
We also spend ten days on a French campground with swimming pool and kid-disco at 7pm.
She knows the moves to Shakira's Waka Waka now. :)
She can do hopscotch, but only on her left leg for single leg.  (although she can finally skip-hop on alternating legs. And what do you call those 2 person hand clap games? we can do straight and cross, but one hand up and other hand down confuses her mightily.
I find it easy to express my love to her, and do so every day. She knows from my intonation that I am going to say it (cause I always start with a bit drawn out Suzyyyyy?) Sometimes she even asks me to tell her. I still sing the same seven bedtime songs before she goes to sleep, I must have done it about two thousand times now.
On the story of the eggs, I told her she also has her own eggs in her tummy. A bit later she told me she was going to poop them out....
I know it is high school biology, so pre-K might be a tad early, but we have some work ahead of us. ;-)
Summer is over now, let the autumn begin.

She is Four now

She is four and so full of energy.
So bursting full of it that I did actually buy a trampoline for her and put it in the room next to living/kitchen. We also had a kid trampoline party in a trampoline place.
She can almost write her name (and I am so proud of the creativity with which she makes mistakes with letters)
She can almost ride a bike, but fear of falling is stopping her.
She cannot colour within  the lines, but she can dress herself, even pick her own clothes and shoes.
She knows our normal routes through the city and tells me if I am going the 'wrong way'
She can say the days of the weeks but time is still such a difficult concept. ( in the evening she will ask me if she goes to school today." No, tomorrow " I answer. So today after we wake up?
um, yeah, by that time tomorrow has become today.)
She needs glasses if we are to believe her eye test. We will take her to the eye doctor to have it checked.
I went to 4 supermarkets to make sure I would have a Frozen themed chocolate cake for her birthday party. I did ask if DP wanted to give Suzy a birthday gift. He said no. I love buying gifts for her. And I made myself realise that everyone expresses love in their own way. Buying gifts is not the only way.
But every so often I am pleased for knowing Suzy well enough for getting a good gift that she loves.

I do regularly tell her the story of the doctor receiving an egg of a nice lady, adding a seed from DP to make an embryo to put in my tummy. and that grew into baby Suzy who then came out of my tummy.
She knows the story and likes to hear it, but it doesn't mean much yet to her. only when I get to the baby in tummy stage she kind of understands. And she likes to hear how sad i was when there was no baby. I guess she understands crying, and babies. the rest, o well, part of the story.