Swing

How do you like to go up in a swing,

Up in the air so blue?

Oh I do think it the pleasantest thing 

Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,

Till I can see so wide,

River and trees and cattle and all

Over the countryside --

Till I look down on the garden green,

Down on the roof so brown--

Up in the air I go flying again,

Up in the air and down.  

--Robert Louis Stevenson, The Swing

 I call this the Smolder.  Ow! You broke my smolder... (I'm certain that's what he was thinking here)

The cold never bothered me anywayyyyyy!  (She was actually singing that in this picture)

We love Tangled and Frozen 'round here. We don't technically own Frozen yet since it is set aside as a birthday gift but the excitement on everyone's faces when that gift is opened in a couple weeks and then watched again will be a fun experience.  These girls don't even have exposure to the Frozen craze out there; they have just fallen in love with it on their own and have no idea how crazy everyone else in the world is about it too.  

As evidenced by the pictures above, Jesse got the swing portion of our swingset built this past week and the swings have gotten so much daily use already.  All day I hear cries of "Mommy, push me!  Push me, mommy!"  I try to make time several times a day to push and push and push, and maybe I should think about doing lunges while I'm pushing swings to get all four limbs a good workout. When I'm not free to come push, they have found other ways of using the swings: pushing each other, standing and twisting, swinging on their tummies.  And then when everyone is really tired of swinging for about 3 minutes, attention is diverted to bubbles or sidewalk chalk or the tricycle or climbing around in our juniper hedge.  And then back to the swings!  Rosie sat on my lap this morning to swing together with me for the first time, and I am hoping we might be able to get a bucket swing for her too.  Our weather has been really lovely: in the 60s and really breezy in the afternoon but that doesn't seem to bother anyone enough to halt the outdoor play.  I am so thankful to Jesse for the hard work and time he already has put into the swingset.  He is still planning to build a playhouse and little rail around the platform (not pictured) which will ensure even more outside creativity but the swings have added a really nice dimension to our days, of which we spend several hours outside as soon as it's warm enough. 

Rosie has no interest in standing or walking independently which surprised me after she starting cruising along furniture at 9 months!  But she is interested in all sorts of beautiful babble, and the way she claps her chubby little hands and imitates my finger wagging for "no-no" is incredibly wonderful.

In other news, that little tunic I was knitting for Rosie is soon to be completely unraveled even though I'm about an inch from the end, which shocks even me!  I am quite sure I am about to run out of yarn again in spite of the fact that I should have had plenty for this pattern from all my calculations, and decided that after buying four skeins of this yarn I didn't even love this pattern enough to rip back and figure out a new way to make the yarn last, so instead, I am going to tear it out and knit a little In Threes cardigan, modifying it to use DK weight yarn.  It's a pattern I really loved when I knit it for Millie and which I will be able to use for Rosie all summer and fall if I knit it big enough.

Well, I better go wake up some sleepyheads for some afternoon fun or they'll never sleep for me tonight!