It’s annual bluebonnet photo time again. Poor Maya and Ian (and Sean and I) spent about two weeks with some kind of miserable crud earlier in the month, and it has taken a serious bite out of our lives. We haven’t gotten around to our springtime things yet. We haven’t hung the hummingbird feeder. We haven’t planted anything in the flower pots in the back yard. The barbecue grill is still a neglected mess (which has been its state ever since we’ve had kids).
Ian in the bluebonnets – 15 months old
The bluebonnets kind of caught us off guard this year. Once you notice them out on the highway, if you have a weekend with nice weather and no other plans, you jump on it. You never know when rain or the odd cold snap could muck up your plans. This past weekend, the weather was pretty nice and we had some time, so we cobbled together some outfits for the kids and hauled them out to our usual spot.
Maya in the bluebonnets – 3 years old
Maya and Ian individually can be coaxed into taking nice photos. Okay, to be fair, getting nice photos of Maya is more due to luck than any coaxing. But Maya and Ian together in a photo both looking at the camera and smiling is a flippin’ unicorn. It drives Sean nuts.
Our uncooperative subjects
Ian is walking now, though he’s still pretty wobbly. He’s been able to walk for a while, but he enjoys the security of a hand to hold on to. The turning point occurred when he and Maya and Anna went to a park with lots of little round pebbles. Ian was so enamored with the rocks that he forgot he couldn’t walk. That evening, walking was all he wanted to do, all over the house. It was so much fun. In the bluebonnets, he was on pretty uneven ground, so he regularly plopped down on his butt – much safer that way.
Dad has a camera!
Maya is doing some new things too. For a while now, she’s been playing this Stack the States game and is able to identify all fifty states by shape, can place a number of them on a blank US map by herself, and can call out a number of states if you give her the name of a capital city. She even has her favorites: South Carolina (it’s a triangle), Louisiana (looks like an octopus), Texas and California and Alaska (“they’re big guys”), Minnesota and Kentucky (<shrug>).
She has also amped up the drama lately. We now routinely get things like “but it’s my FAVORITE” and “I don’t EVER want to listen.” Her ability to express herself continues to grow in vocabulary and inflection. She will now deliver whole paragraphs at a time about her day, and while it’s sometimes tough to follow her particular brand of storytelling, it’s enlightening to see which things have made an impact on her and which details weren’t worth noting.
Take all the photos you want, Maya won’t give an inch
The kids are now both requesting music to listen to when we’re in the kitchen. Maya requests things by name or sometimes cryptic description (play the one Ian likes, no the OTHER one). Ian gestures. He claps his hands and then points to the speaker when he wants “Six Little Ducks,” which is his favorite. He throws his hands above his head when he wants Maya’s favorite. She calls it “the hands up song.” It’s actually “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus. Blame Sean. (Funny aside: Maya seems to think that Miley is in the room with us. She’s forever showing her things like her octopus, her brother, and how she’s dancing right now.)
Next month, we’re going to try another family vacation, this time to San Diego. Maya has been much more interested this time. San Diego already has one big thumbs up because it’s in one of the aforementioned favorite states. It gets another because there’s a zoo. And beaches (though we haven’t told her yet it will probably be too cold to get in the water much). She flips through a travel guide we bought and points out photos, “I want to go to there.” Usually it’s the beach.
For my part, I’m dreading taking Ian on the airplane. But for now, here are way too many bluebonnet photos!
