feed the lion

i hate to pull a "too busy" but it's been an unusually hectic work week, so i'm just going to post some recent pics with little more than caption. i'm sorry to deprive you of the scintillating wit and profound parenting insights to which all 8 of you have become accustomed. in my defense, i have four children these days. look, there they are on the swings: schroeder, violet, lucy and christopher robin. we hit the park during a downpour just to make sure all the kidlets could get on the swings at the same time.

a big thank you to grandma linden for violet's new doll, andi (as she's been named). here she is having dinner with us last night. for the record, andi does not like salad, but she does like chocolate and pasta and donuts.

violet's must-have pjs have been these "donut jammies" for a few weeks, although a friend from school gave her a mermaid set that have been her jam the last couple of nights, paired high fashion with some ladybug crocs. she's really getting into "dress up" - not so much for imaginary games, but just to admire her various outfits in the mirror. OMG.

here's kevin's latest trick to encourage greater fruit consumption in our child that dislikes all fruit - especially in sauce or cocktail form - except for apples and berries (but definitely NOT applesauce). champagne tastes.

speaking of, here's the donut lover enjoying her donut of choice - a beignet - in the vip seating section of bottega louie (or, as she declared it, "my den"). we hadn't made a bottega louie run in so many weeks that the staff literally fawned all over her. maybe it was her lunge at the jordan almonds as she screamed "candy! candy! candy!" that charmed them, but they gave her the beignet for free. and so it begins.

the only other pics that kevin and i have from the past couple of weeks are a testament to our new status as official soccer parents. one of my coworkers told me about this program that her 3-year-old daughter loves - it's called super soccer stars - and when we learned they have one at our park on saturday mornings, we decided to try it out even though we realize these kids are pretty young for formal organized activities. they group the kids by age, so it's just violet and a few other two year olds learning to kick soccer balls into nets with games like "feed the lion the steak!" i think the best part for the parents is laughing as the coaches - one brash brit, and one mild-mannered brit - try to teach the toddlers the big rule: "you can never touch the ball with your hands!" that's the chorus of the song they sing at start and end of class, which is 40 minutes. i'd say violet's got about a 50% participation rate. the other half of the time is spent trying to steal the perimeter cones or "escaping" at a sprint towards the beloved water fountain. although she's very anti-authority when it comes to "sitting on her spot," which they're supposed to do as they transition between drills, somehow her little butt is always planted there at the end when they hand out the stickers.