Cute Kid and Other Assorted News

Elise's desire to communicate oftentimes exceeds her verbal abilities. For a while now, her requests to be held have come out something like this: "I want Mommy/Daddy to hold you". It is absolutely adorable. She'll run up to me, hold up her arms, and say, "Mommy, I want to hold you"...meaning, of course, "Mommy, I want you to hold me". Very cute. Well, like I said, this has been going on for a while now, and Andy and I have started trying to teach Elise to use the pronoun "me". So this morning when she made her usual request, I corrected her. "Say, 'I want Mommy to hold me'." Didn't work. Oh, well. Then, a couple of hours later, she surprised me. She ran up to me, held up her arms, and said, "I want Mommy to hold you-me." How could I resist?

We've had such a lovely time these past few days. The weather has been so beautiful that we've eaten dinner outside the last three nights in a row, and friends have been involved each time. That's my kind of summer. Casual dinners eaten outdoors with friends. Last night's dinner was a going away of sorts for our pastor and his wife. It was a bittersweet time.

Tonight Andy and I will be going to the Mariners' game. When we were dating and first married, we went to at least one game a year. In recent years, though, we haven't made it. I'm excited! Elise will get some good Grandma and Grandpa time, and Andy and I will get some good child-free time. And maybe a hotdog. Keep your fingers crossed for the M's.

Mid-July. That means it's time to start thinking about Christmas...