Me and My Shadow.

Mama and Daddy and me all go out for walks and runs and play sessions outside a lot. I can go and ride on my little balance bike, and I can run as fast as I can, and I can go and play with the bugs under the rocks and throw little rocks into the water near our little house. I love being outside in the warm, warm sun, and I love to feel the ground beneath me when I run so fast, so fast, that no one can catch me… not even the wind can keep up. No one, apparently, but shadow me.

When I was outside last time, I noticed while I was on my little bike and I noticed that a bigger version of me had made the ground dark in the shape of me, but bigger. I said, “what is that?” because I had never noticed that I had another me following me around before. My Daddy stopped me, and he explained that it was my “shadow,” and that it goes everywhere that I go, all over the place. He didn’t get too much into the “how” yet because he said I wouldn’t understand until I was a bit bigger, but he showed me instead how he had a biggggg shadow and that when you lean down really low that you can make shapes with your hands and move your shadow around the way that you want for it to go.

Then I tried it out myself, and I made my hands move all around while my shadow-hands moved with me. Everywhere I moved, they moved, and Daddy was right… I couldn’t get away from my shadow. My Mama says there is a boy who once lost one somehow named Peter that had to have it sewed back on, but she says not to worry because that can’t happen to me. I’m glad, because I like my shadow Dorian. I am never alone as long as I have her with me after all.

My Daddy is so, so smart, and he says he will teach me all sorts of things as I get bigger. As I tell Mama, I am so, so big already that I am practically grown. I have to admit, though, that I still have a lot of things to learn, and my Daddy is the best teacher that I could possibly have as I figure everything out and as I grow.

“All children, except one, grow up.” — J.M. Barrie

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Please, Dear Horsey, Don’t Ever, Ever Stop.

Sometimes, as Mama says, you just want to freeze a moment in time and keep it going forever. This was one of those moments. I got on that horsey, and the music played, and I went around in circles to the music in my own little world. That is the meaning of happiness when it comes down to it… those little moments in life that you want to hold on to and you don’t ever want to let go of. They all must end, though, and so that little horsey stopped moving and the music stopped. My ride on the horsey was over and that moment was gone. It stopped, though, before I was ready for it to end. My Mama says that those moments in life are often like that… gone quickly but never forgotten.

So we see those moments in pictures, frozen in time, and we can relive them in our minds. That is also happiness, and beauty, the memories in our minds that live on forever. In my dreams that horsey is still moving around, making music just for me with action all around me, but I am stopped in time, moving in circles forever, with nowhere to go and nothing to do but smile and enjoy.

Just Like in my Dreams, There are Places Where We Can Fly.

You see that? That’s me jumping with my Daddy way up high in the air. We went to an entire place made just for flying like the birds called “Jumpology.” It is a big, big room full of squishy ground that you can walk on, but if you bend your knees and push, you can fly. The more you push, the higher you go, just like the birds with their wings, only my legs were my wings.

My little legs couldn’t take me but so far up unless Daddy helped me, but my family went way up in the air (especially Daddy, I had to look way up to see him flying around– he even made Mama a bit nervous). At first, like most new things that I do, I wasn’t quite sure, but Daddy took my hands and showed me how to get up in the air.

Before I knew it, I was a flying expert. I kept saying “jumping, jumping, jumping” over and over again because I figured out how to make it into the air. I then told my Mama, “I fly,” and off I went, into my own little square by myself in my little bird world. We flew and flew, my Daddy, my Mama, and my sister and brother (although they went off to fly by themselves), and before I knew it, I was a sweaty “mess” (as Mama said) and it was time to go home.

They had to pick me up and take me away at the end of our flight, and I made myself as sad as I could be and I pulled my arms towards the jumping place saying “jumping” in the saddest sound that I could make my little voice. They thought it was cute, but it was a pretty tragic moment; after all, it was probably the most free that I have ever been flying like the birds and the planes that I wave and say goodbye to every day in the air. I was those birds and those planes all at once at that moment.

Thanks, Daddy, for teaching me how to fly, and thanks for bringing me dreams of being in flight.

I am a Snow Queen! Can we Just Build a Snow House and Live Out Here?

Yesterday Mama, Dada, and me woke up to everything being white all around us. The grass was all gone and the cars and everything looked like big lumps of white, too. It looked like God had painted the whole world white. Dada told me that this was called snow, and he promised me that I would get the chance to play outside when it was a bit warmer. I kept looking out the windows at it all morning, but Mama said that the best time would be after my morning nap time because it was still a bit too cold for really little people.

I am too little to think about when I get tired… I just do. I wore out early from all of the snow watching, and when I woke up, Mama said that lunch would happen and then we would get bundled up to go outside. Mama wasn’t playing around with that one– she got me in my regular clothes, a pink slick suit called a “snowsuit,” a jacket, extra socks, mitten gloves for my hands, and a little hat. She laughed and said something about me looking like the little kid from A Christmas Story and “I can’t put my arms down!” I don’t know what any of that means, but I know that I sure was warm and ready to brave the cold.

When we got outside, though, I didn’t know quite what to do. My feet sank into the white world, and my legs weren’t long enough yet to be able to get them out. I got stuck, but I wasn’t scared. Mama and Daddy, after all, were right there to help me with that walking part. I got to use my mitten hands to pick up snow and I put it right in my mouth. It was like a soft ice cube, and I wanted to keep eating and eating it. Daddy took off the sharp part of a long ice stick that he called an icicle and helped me to snack on that, too. It was like a snow snack party, and it was my very favorite part. I love cold things, and there is an entire world of cold things outside right now.

Then Daddy had to finish working on the driveway to make sure that it was safe to be able to venture out into the rest of the world. He took a giant stick with a wide thing at the end that he told me was a snow shovel and he took the snow from our little driveway and put it in our yard. The snow got higher and higher around our little driveway, and Daddy let me play in the loose piles that were easy to get to. Daddy works too hard, and I like to help out, so I got the big stick and helped him get the snow away. I think that I did a good job, and Mama and Daddy both laughed and told me that I had a good shovel “technique,” which they said is a fancy way to say how you do a certain thing. I think by the end that I was quite the professional.

When Daddy’s work was all done, although Daddy says it never really is, he got down in his big work snow suit and played with me. Daddy made balls out of the snow and handed them to me to throw, and he threw some really hard across the yard and on our little Winnebago house on wheels, too. We laughed and played and played until Mama said that I must be a frozen Dorian-cicle, and she took me inside to do my other favorite thing… take a warm bath and get all toasty inside.

I think that snow might just be my favorite thing right now. This changes a lot… after all, I am still seeing new things all of the time, but playing in the snow with my Daddy? That just might be one of the best things that I have ever done. Love you, little white world in my backyard. Can’t wait to have another playdate soon.

On your mark. Get set. Go!

I love shoes, and Mama got new running shoes the other day. They are my new favorites. They are so bright and colorful, and they have all sorts of creatures on them like kangaroos and fish. They are the lightest shoes in the house… Even lighter than my little learning to walk shoes that are way smaller.

Mama says that because they are light helps with running and that she needs all the help she can get. I don’t know what she means because she just has to go and keep going while I am in my little jogging stroller machine, but she said something about running being really hard.

All that I know is that I look fabulous in her new shoes and that I am going to work on running next- just as soon as I get that walking thing down completely. After all, it’s just one step, then another, then another, just like working on anything. Marathon runners beware, because training begins… Now.

Music and Dancing Brings Families Together.

This past weekend was a rainy and cold one and the sun hardly came out to play at all. When that happens, most of the time we all stay inside and we have to find lots of things to keep busy. I can most always find something to do and I just become a little baby hurricane, taking everything in my path and putting it somewhere else. My older brother and sisters, though, they can get what is called “stir crazy” and want to go somewhere else and just not know what to do with themselves. We can all run around the house chasing each other and our little doggie or jump up and down or all become little hurricanes, but Mama says that since there are four of us that then it gets to where we are “bouncing off the walls” and that you begin to not be able to walk anywhere without having something in your way. I can do this by myself, too, but with them helping me…. it is pretty amazing the beautiful mess that we can make.

My Daddy is always trying to come up with things for us to do, though, and he is really good at making fun when there wasn’t fun before. Mama says that he never completely grew up himself and that he remembers how to play more than some big people, and she says that this is the best way to be in life. She tells me that we all have a little bit of child in us forever, but she says that some people push it way, way down and that they don’t let it out much. She says her child is in her head and that it comes out in words and reading and in her dreams. Daddy, though, she said is really special because he doesn’t hide his child much and it is still right there, and so he can play with us in a different way than the people that have pushed their child deep down where they can’t get it anymore.

So Daddy put on music videos to have us listen in and sing and dance. Daddy and Mama both have me listen to music and watch music videos every day, and they pick a lot of different types of music– soothing slow music, fast and loud music, dance music, old music, new music– and they tell me that the more that I listen to and love, the more I will understand that music is beautiful in a lot of different ways and that it is art. I thought that art was painting like when I make pictures on paper, but they said that art is someone putting their heart into something so much that it is part of them, and they said that there are a lot of ways that can happen.

Because we were all going to dance this time, though, and to get all of our attention (which is really tough to do), he put on fun and fast things that he knew we would get into like Daft Punk and Taylor Swift. I really love the Taylor Swift “Shake it Off” song because it is so bouncy that I can’t help but dance. It was a good choice, too, because it brought all of us in together in the same room.

At first it was just me standing alone in the room looking at the video and bouncing.

Then everyone saw me there and heard the music, and magic happened. Everyone stopped what they were doing and gathered around me in a little circle and danced along with me, and I got to look around and see that they were doing what I was doing and that they were laughing with me and having fun. Stopping to have fun together doesn’t always happen, but when it does… that is real magic that you can feel in your belly. My big sister Addie threw all of herself into it, because that is what she does for everything, and my big, big sister Lilli danced a lot like the people in the video, because Mama and Daddy said that she takes dance and is “graceful,” which means that she can move like water. My giant brother Jonah even danced along, too, but he might not have if I hadn’t been there I don’t think because he is getting bigger. He had his little phone machine video taping me and trying to get me to laugh and dance while he danced along with me.

It was so much fun that when it was over I was still bouncing up and down to the music that was still in my head (music can get stuck in there sometimes like glue).

Mama tells me that music brings others together and that her and Daddy will show me more and more how powerful it really is as I get bigger. I believe her, and I think that it just might be one of the most powerful things on Earth. After all, my brother and sisters and me are all so, so different in what we love, what we do, and who we are… but we can all feel the joy that music and dancing on a rainy day can be.

Working on my Dishpan Hands. They are Little, but they are Strong

As much as I like to watch my Daddy cook and to pretend that I am cooking in my little kitchen, I am not allowed yet to help the way that I want to. I reach out to the stove to stir, and Daddy has let me very, very carefully, but he says the word “hot” and “ouch” and “careful.” He gets scared because I get close to the hot pan, because even though I say “hot” back to him, I don’t know exactly how “hot” things can be yet. I know when food is hot I have to blow on it to get it cool before it joins my belly, but that is not the same kind of hot as a pan or a pot gets apparently.

One thing that I can do, though, that my Granny taught me, is to wash the dishes in our little kitchen. There is a sink full of water and the other side runs water and has the dishes that have our food germs on them. I take all of the things that aren’t sharp or scary and I run them under the water after they have been washed to get the soap right off of them. I do this until the sink is empty, and then I get sad because I want to do it all over again. I don’t understand why we can’t just do everything twice just to make sure that they are clean. Mama tells me that there are lots of things to do to keep the house clean that that they aren’t really fun for big people, but I don’t understand. After all, after Mama folded the clothes this morning, I took some of them and put them on the floor for her to do over. She said, “oh Dorian, please,” and I was glad that she appreciated the work that I was doing. I let her have laundry fun all over again.

All that I know is that all of the “chores” that Mama and Daddy seem to do all of the time really don’t seem bad at all. After all, I am now a dish expert, and those are fun. Mama and Daddy just need to find the joy in every day life like me.

I am a Downward Dog… Practicing Balance and Stretching my Muscles.

I have seen my Mama and Daddy do yoga sometimes. From what I can tell, it is like being a cat, a dog, and a bird all at once. You stretch, you balance, and you work on becoming peaceful and stronger.

I know that calm is not my strong suit, but I am peaceful all the same, and I am strong for my little size. So when my big sister Addie wanted for me to practice yoga moves with her, becoming a dog in a dog stretch called “downward dog,” and she told me what it was, I had to try it. I think that I did pretty well in our little kitchen doing yoga. We had obstacles, yes, like the little bowl on my foot, but that just made it more of a challenge.

Watch out, Mama and Daddy, I am fast becoming a yoga master, and before you know it, I will surpass you. After all, I have youth on my side.

A Little Piece of Christmas for Us to Cherish Always

Daddy decided years back, before I was born or was even in Mama’s belly (so ages and ages ago) after Christmas was over that it was sad to just make the Christmas tree go away after Christmastime is over and done. It has to come down, as Mama explained, things end and new things begin when they do. Because Daddy got sad those years ago, though, he cut a little piece of the tree that year, made the wood dry out in the oven and over time, and then had everyone sign and date the tree to make into an ornament. Since it has been done every year since, it has become a tradition. We have lots of those, and I like them. I like when the same things happen the same way sometimes. It feels good on the inside.

So last year, when I was really, really, little, Daddy got a piece of our little tree, and this time he let it dry out all year so that I would be big enough to draw on it for the ornament , too. Although I can’t write like the big people around me can, I can take a pen and Mama and Daddy have practiced with me making beautiful art. I got to make art on our little piece of tree all the way back from 2013. Here I am drawing on it.

Now our little tree from this year got a cut piece too and now it is busy getting dry and ready for us to create to go on our tree next year. I am working steadily on my handwriting skills, so I bet I can do even better than I did this time around, although I think that my little marks are beautiful and so do Mama and Daddy.

What traditions do you all out there have with your family? Mama and Daddy tell me that all families are different and have different things that they do different things but that all traditions are beautiful when shared with the ones that you love most.

Thanksgiving, a Celebration of Food, More Food, and Family

We celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday, which was Friday. Mama and Daddy and me hung out together on Thursday, which is apparently the day when almost everyone has all of the food and the sleep and the playing together, but we waited to celebrate.

We spent the whole morning instead watching the big parade at Macy’s, which is a giant department store in a giant place called NYC that I haven’t been to yet but I am going to soon. Mama says that is where Santa is, and I know that is true because I saw him coming to town in his big sleigh at the end of the parade.

Daddy then spent the whole day making food a day later than most people because he was getting ready for our food happening for Thanksgiving on Friday. You see, Mama and Daddy have explained to me that we have a blended family, which means that everyone isn’t all together all of the time because those people have to be shared with their other family, too. That means that holidays, like Thanksgiving and Christmas, sometimes happen in pieces and sometimes happens on days that aren’t the days that almost everyone else celebrates. Our Thanksgiving, then, changed to a new day—yesterday—because that is when my big sister Addie, my big, big sister Lilli, and my giant brother Jonah were able to be there together with us.

Mama and Daddy told me that it doesn’t matter what day you celebrate—it matters when everyone can be together. That makes it a holiday, and it isn’t a holiday unless you can be together with the people that you love so, so much. Our own little family is all of us, even though we don’t see each other every single day. That just makes that time even more special, because everyone realizes how much they have missed each other and how much they love each other. When we get together we play and play and play and play and play.

When everyone got to the house, which this year was my sisters and my brother, Mama and Daddy, and my Granny, Daddy started making food happen again, complicated giant piles of food that Daddy made with love, and Mama helped him and she made more food happen, too. Mama and Daddy are vegans, which means that they don’t use any things that come from animals. They said that this is because they try to make it so that they try to do as little harm to others as they can. Daddy is such a good cook, so he can make delicious food happen with whatever his magical food hands touch.

After the long time of food happening, we all sat down to eat. Before that, I had a lot of Mama’s sunflower macaroni and cheese that she loves to make. I got to eat first, but that is because I am little and when my tummy says that food needs to go there, it has to go there right that moment. Waiting is not something that I am good at yet.

We had a cranberry “jello,” soy Turkey, homemade stuffing, mashed potatoes swimming in yummy Earth Balance butter, Brussels sprouts made with cinnamon sugar, pears in a sugar sauce that was so, so yummy, Mama’s macaroni, rolls, and brownies with SO Delicious ice cream on top.

I ate until I couldn’t eat anymore, which is what Daddy said that I am supposed to do, and then we sat around and laughed and talked, which is the other thing that Daddy said is supposed to happen. I think that I like Thanksgiving, because two of my favorite things are food and laughing, and that is what it seemed to be all about.

The important thing, Mama said, is that we are all together and all playing and spending time being happy to get to love one another. Our time goes by fast, but we still all get to play and to hug and to celebrate. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, no matter when and how you celebrated with your group of people that you love.