A not quite thanky thanksgiving day post.

...6 months have gone by since I've updated this. Not for lack of desire, or absence of something to say (if you're reading this that means you know me and also know how ridiculous that is), but for a number of other reasons. None of these reasons, however, are particularly interesting and you've likely heard them a million times (ie., no time, fatigue, procrastination). What sense of grief I feel concerning this blogosphere silence is that this is one of the few ways I'm able to somewhat reliably archive our daughter's ephemeral childhood. I have more than a few times returned to my own blog as a source reference for these gone-by moments. It's the age of electronic scrapbooking, and so here I keep coming back (although I really must navigate away from this application given the mysterious demise of the first post of same name.) Now our rather conversant 2 year old is spitting out words at a rate I can no longer retain in short-term memory alone. I have been meaning to get these flashbulb memories down before they begin to push one another out of my already dwindling mental real estate. So I'll start there.

The day before V's 2nd birthday, she was sitting on the grass running the green blades through her fingers when she looked up at me smiling and said matter of factly, "I toe happy mama." 

When I asked her the other day if she was ready to have dinner her exclamation was, "Of course!"

Just before a much anticipated date night, Clark and I were both upstairs getting ready while V watched tv downstairs. She called up to us from below only to be met with "just a minute!" She tried several more times before she refuted our replies with a very astute, "Your minute gone!"

After coming back downstairs following a shower tonight, V came and asked me "what doing?" I said, 'well, I just took a shower', to which she replied "good job, mama." 

She ate 25+ mussels in as many minutes and launched into a mini-meltdown after being told that she needed to save some for the adults. (both cute and really not so cute)

Watching the expressions of gratitude float across my facebook feed today reminded me to continue to pay attention to the little things. It also reminded me to take a few moments to archive bits of the toddler narrative playing out in front of me. So lest I forget what else we did this Thanksgiving day... we took a walk in the backyard with a friend (in blinding preparation of potential trespassing hunters) in the sun, and wind, and warmer than usual temperature. We watched two black dogs in flashing neon playfully romping through dry brown grasses. I spent 6 hours in the kitchen preparing a meal for just the 3 of us, blatantly pretending that butter, salt, cheese, and cream are in fact healthy in large doses. I cuddled with my little girl in my favorite grey chair before I listened to the murmurings of her father tell bedtime stories and tuck her safely into bed.