Happy Mother's Day!

I have had a wonderful Mother's Day with my girls, despite a fit that Julia had which led to her sitting under the table lamenting that it's not her lucky day because I gave her yogurt instead of grilled cheese for lunch. The day started with a pancake breakfast and home-made cards, then later in the afternoon we took a family trip to the New England Aquarium. Madeleine was fascinated by the sea creatures, especially since she was too young to really grasp what she was looking at the last time we visited. She spent a lot of time loudly and excitedly declaring what she was looking at: "Fishies! Bubbles! Penguin! He's fwimmin'! Penguin!" etc. After hearing Ethan remark to Julia, "Look at that guy!" as we looked in one of the tanks, Madeleine began referring to everything in the various tanks as "guys." As in: "Madeleine, what do you see?" "It's GUYS!"

On our drive home, Julia began singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and when she finished, Madeleine erupted into applause, crying "Yaaaay! Twinkle!" One thing led to another and before you knew it, we were all singing the song in 3-part harmony for Madeleine's enjoyment. Julia's comment afterwards was "Mommy! Were we singing in a ROUND?" She was so excited about us singing in harmony that we carried on with our family singing for the remainder of the car ride, and took a video once we got home:



I'm not surprised Madeleine enjoyed our singing so much, as she has been extremely interested in music in general lately. She continues to ask for "mucus" as soon as we get in the car, and the other night as we listened to a CD of a recent performance Ethan and I were part of, she burst into applause at the finish of the first piece and exclaimed "Yay! Da MUCUS!!!"

On another note, she has continued with her Little People pretend play; today instead of Mommy and Daddy, she played with these two cows:



The cows had a great time trotting up and down along the window glass, while Madeleine provided the dialogue between them:

COW 1: (trotting along the window glass) Up a down! Up a down! (returning to the windowsill) Aunt turn, Cowie?
COW 2: Uh-huh! (trotting along the window glass) Up a down! Up a down! (returning to the windowsill.) Aunt turn, Cowie?
COW 1: Uh-huh! (trotting along the window glass) Up a down! Up a down! (returning to the windowsill) Aunt turn, Cowie?

And so forth.

As Ethan is cooking me a special Mother's Day dinner, I am feeling truly blessed to have my dear family and thankful for the wonderful day we spent together. I leave you with a family portrait we took by the Boston Harbor. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!