little black journal

Thursday was another gloriously sunny day and while we were tempted to set up camp at the beach, we decided instead to break out of our idyllic Santa Monica bubble and check out some of LA’s other offerings (after grabbing coffee at tried-and-true Blue Bottle on Abbot Kinney).

We found ourselves at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art mid-morning – we haven’t done the grownup museum thing with Juliette before and decided to give it a go, since we heard LACMA was pretty kid-friendy.  This forest of lampposts was certainly a hit!

And once inside, we breezed right past a beautiful Matisse and landed squarely in the middle of the children’s painting room.  Once again, it’s all about Jules…

Although truth be told, she’s one of my favorite artists!

We wandered back outside once Juliette had finished her masterpieces and let her run circles around this Calder.

She got a kick out of throwing pennies into the fountain, begging for more coins to “make them wash” (the concept of “make a wish” was lost on her).

Finally, we made it over to the contemporary collection, which was incredible.  And incredibly stressful with a three year-old in tow!  It’s hard to trust a kid that age not to put their sticky paws on a multi-million dollar painting – I felt like I spent much of our time there asking Juliette not to stand so close and not to touch anything and not to run and not, not, not…we might NOT be ready for the big-time museums just yet.  That said, Shane did camp out on a bench with her for a bit so that I could spend some time with Dubuffet and Motherwell.

One more lap around the lampposts, and then we sprinted right out of there in search of lunch.

We chowed down on tacos and slurped mondo margaritas at Sonorities…

And then, because it’s a must any time we’re in LA, shaved ice at Blockheads.  Their green tea shaved ice with mochi and a drizzle of condensed milk is the dessert of my dreams.

All three of us dreamed sweetly that afternoon, taking a big ol’ family nap in our big ol’ king-sized bed.  Rested and refreshed, we were back out again in the evening to Tongva Park, which is another Santa Monica staple.  Juliette has bumped down this roller slide for three years running.

I asked Shane if he was up for walking to the pier, which is so not his thing, what with the crowds and the noise and the tourist shops, but he obliged, because he’s the best dad ever.

Juliette pleaded with us to take her on the roller coaster, but it looked a little fast even for me, so we settled on a few whirls around the wheel, which ended up thrilling her to no end.

Each time we hit the bottom and then headed back up Juliette looked over at me with a gleam in her eyes.  “Again, Mommy?!  I’m so exciting!”

Alas, all good things must come to an end…

By the time we’d wrapped up our tour of the pier, we were in prime golden time, so, of course…

Sayonara, sun.  I LOVE YOU SO MUCH.

We’ve been talking about our April trip to California with Juliette for a few weeks now and while it was fun to see the anticipation build, we eventually grew weary of hearing her ask, “When will it be vacaaaaaation time?”  So it was awfully fun to walk into her room last Tuesday morning and tell her we were finally heading to the airport; when I said “Let’s go to Santa Monica!”, she literally started applauding (truth be told, she was clapping because she thought I meant we were going to meet Santa, but never mind).

We made it through the Lightrail-Airplane-Rental Shuttle shuffle smoothly, tossed our bags in our minivan, and hightailed it to In-N-Out for our requisite welcome burger.  We checked into our cozy bungalow in Venice mid-afternoon, peeled off our long sleeves, and settled in.  We had arrived!  Juliette found a beachball in the yard and Shane taught her the art of the volleyball spike while I sat on the patio, feeling my shoulders go from white to pink.

Make yourself at home, Jules!

We drove over to the beach in the evening – Juliette was pulling off her shoes and squirming excitedly before we’d even parked.  This is so much better than Santa Claus, isn’t it, kiddo?

Shane and Juliette quickly assumed what would become their typical stance for the week:  hands held, surf lapping at their toes.

Shane and I stretched out while Juliette ran circles around us, flapping her arms like a seagull, jumping and spinning until she collapsed on the sand in a fit of hysterics.  No doubt, the beach has incredible happy-making powers for this girl.

She quickly soaked her first set of clothes and changed into the spare I was so glad I’d packed.  And then, to tempt fate, back to the water’s edge…

We went back to the house to hose the sand off of Juliette and I headed out for a run.  In the evening!  In a tank top!  Springtime in Cali is so so good.

Wednesday was bright and sunny – perfect weather for strolling down Abbot Kinney in search of donuts and coffee.  Mission: accomplished.

This street is almost painfully hip, with its urban art and vegan cafes and handmade wares.  I’m not sure we fit in there.

(Actually, Juliette totally fit in there.)

After dragging a disappointed Juliette out of a children’t boutique that sold $50 rag dolls, we headed over to Will Rogers State Park for a leisurely hike up to Inspiration Point.

Juliette was totally enamored with this horse named Lily, thrilled to pieces when she was invited to get up close and give that lovely mane a few pats.

And lizards!  So many lizards!

Hungry and hot, we drove over to True Food Kitchen for a veggie-packed lunch – it felt good to follow up that morning’s Blue Star donut with a big kale salad.

Juliette was too amped up to settle down for a nap when we got back to the house, so we agreed she could do an hour of “quiet time” in her room with her books and colored pencils.  She lasted indoors for all of…ten minutes.  The pull of warm sun and cool grass was just too much to bear.

We grabbed tacos and margaritas at Casalinda for dinner and then found ourselves back at the beach, just in time for the glory of the golden hour.

Juliette reminds me of one of those little birds that skitters along the tide’s edge, so fast and light on her feet that she hardly makes footprints in the sand.

Oh, Santa Monica.  COME ON.

Cheers to days 1 and 2 in our happy place!

Psalm 118:24 was read aloud several times over at church on Sunday morning and rattled around in my head throughout the day:

This is the day that the Lord hath made.

We will rejoice and be glad in it.

Indeed, it was a weekend full of rejoicing.  Because…Easter!  And sunshine!  And this sweet kid’s 7th birthday!

We spent Saturday morning at the Rusts’, ringing in Isaiah’s 7th.  There were lawn games and presents and pizza and popsicles.  And smiles.  This! Boy’s! Smiles!

Happy birthday, Bups!

Post-party, Shane and Juliette went on a 1.5-hour bike ride while I wandered the aisles of Target in blissful solitude.  I expected Juliette to be antsy and tugging at her bike helmet by the time they got back as she’s never spent more than 30 minutes in the bike seat, but this girl was such a good sport.  It seems she’s cherishing Daddy-Jules time more than ever.

I hated to spend the day’s last few sun rays indoors, so Juliette and I took a stroll through the Greenbelt before dinner – this little patch of woods has become our go-to when we want a nature-fix.

The birds seemed particularly exuberant that evening – one jay (?) had Juliette a bit spooked with his extra-loud calls.

Eh…no worries!

There are times when I open up a photo I’ve taken and my stomach flip-flops at the sight of how grown-up and lovely this girl has become.  Hard to believe she’s only three.  And yet hard to believe she’s already three!

We ushered in Easter Sunday with pastries at Cafe Besalu, sensing God’s goodness in the form of buttery croissants and rich coffee.

After church, we headed over to Discovery Park to do some exploring with the Rusts.

The woods were bursting with bright, bright green, poignantly heralding signs of new life.

After a few wrong turns, we finally landed down at the beach, where we muddied our shoes and flipped over rocks in search of crabs.

Jules and I hung tight in this driftwood fort while Shane trekked back uphill to get the car.

We all snoozed through much of the afternoon and then woke up rearing to go again.  I hid a few eggs out back for Juliette to find and loved watching her react like she’d won the jackpot every time she cracked one open.

She quickly amassed all 15 jelly beans, looking into her bucket with bright-eyed wonder and exclaiming, “I think I have a thousand jelly beans, Mommy!”.  I put together a grander basket this year as the ultimate prize, stuffing it with art supplies and a new doll.

We headed over the Rusts’ again that evening for an egg hunt with the bigger kids.  I was glad Juliette had gotten her own private hunt at home, because she didn’t stand a chance against these rascals!

The boys were actually pretty great about sticking to their 10-egg limit and leaving the easy-to-find ones for their kid sister.

We feasted on roast chicken and then let the kids run off their jelly bean high.  Isaiah was kind enough to share his birthday walkie-talkies with Juliette, who spent 15 straight minutes jabbering into the thing without letting him get a word in edgewise.

Sometimes rejoicing comes so very naturally – my heart is full.  Thanks be to God.

Springtime in Seattle!  It’s when all of those gray, rainy winter months pay off in the form of beautiful new blooms.  And man, the blooms were hard-fought this year, as we’re coming off a particularly dark and stormy season (please tell me we’re finally coming off this dark and stormy season!).  We usually kick off our Spring-soaking with a trip to UW to visit the cherry blossoms – Jules and I headed out there on a sunny(ish) Friday a couple of weeks ago to take in all the pink and white.

The quad was packed with other petal-peepers, but we managed to get in a few laps.

Even on cool and cloudy days, the flowers beckon – we spent a gray Saturday romping through our favorite spots at the Arboretum.

This little magnolia grove is some kinda magic…

“I’m freeeeee!  And it feels so good!”

And then, one more post-church trek over to UW, since we missed having Dad with us the first time around.

Not to project too far into the future, but this kid looks good on this campus, doesn’t she?

There are other signs of Spring around here – like the reappearance of the trusty bike seat!  This is by far Juliette’s favorite way to commute to school.

And flower-filled murals gracing the walls of our church – Emily and I spent an evening last week chalk-arting in the kids’ ministry area.  I forgot how fun it is to doodle!

Jules and I have taken some epic walks together lately, marching up and down the hills of Montlake at Interlaken Park…

And logging over five miles on the Chief Sealth Trail near our house (there was a boba stop somewhere in the middle there, for sustenance, of course).

We’ve been hitting the Spring birthday circuit pretty hard – this party at the gymnastics academy was a hit.

And last but certainly not least, hellooooo GIANTS!  Baseball season is upon us, and though our guys are hardly off to a rip-roaring start, tuning into the games together is still a favorite weekend and evening pastime.

Inspired by the likes of Buster Posey and Hunter Pence, this little slugger has been working on her swing.

This face, though!  Breathe through your swing, Jules!

I’m cherishing this age when good sportsmanship comes naturally, when swinging and missing is no less enjoyable than hitting a homer.

Welcome, Spring.  We’re thrilled you’re here.

I started this post a few weeks ago but have had a heck of time sitting down and putting words to Juliette’s latest and greatest – everything I write feels so inadequate.  She’s not just picking up a few new words each week, not just getting taller and smarter and more fun.  She’s becoming her own full-fledged, complex, awesome little person.  And it seems impossible to capture all this change with a few funny quips and a reel of pictures.

Dang it, though.  I’ve at least gotta hit the highlights, right?  For my faithful readers (Juliette’s grandmas!) if nothing else…

After months of resistance, once the post-bath tangles had become too much too bear, we finally bit the bullet and headed to the local salon for Juliette’s first haircut.  She was a little anxious, but once she was snuggled into Shane’s lap with a lollipop and an episode of Puffin Rock, she hardly noticed the stranger with scissors hovering about.  I sighed a big sigh as those first curls fell to the floor – the hours I spent stroking those baby highlights as she nursed or slept in my arms!

The bulk of her red-gold tresses made it through the cut unscathed, though.  Thank goodness.

She’s growing like the proverbial weed – one day I’m shuffling her stool around so she can stand on it to wash her hands at the downstairs sink, the next day she just walks right up to the counter and flips on the faucet, a little smirk of pride on her face as she catches my surprised reflection in the mirror.  It feels not so long ago that I was awkwardly balancing her on my hip at the sink, scrubbing her hands myself.  She likes watching the numbers appear on our digital scale and was thrilled when the 3’s turned to 4’s – little lady is 40.8 pounds as of this morning.  Must be all that broccoli!  (Turns out she’ll eat just about anything she can grab with her trusty chopsticks!)

That same proud smirk lit up her face a few weeks ago when she came home from school one evening, grabbed a maker, and wrote J-U-L-I-E-T-T-E on her whiteboard.  It was as if she’d been secretly working on this with her teachers for months, prepping for a dramatic surprise unveiling.  We had no idea she knew how to go any farther than J!  (She’s working on her lower-case e‘s, but her “apple-case” ones are solid!)

She continues to thrive at school, though it does feel like we’re starting to tread in more emotionally complex waters.   Juliette’s buddy L walked up to her one morning and said, “You’re not my best friend – M is my best friend now.  You can’t play with us.”  Waaaahhhh!  The crestfallen look on Juliette’s face!  My heart!  I had a calm but ever-so-slightly stern talk with the two little excluders about how their words made Juliette sad and made me sad.  I think Juliette sensed how firmly I had her back, as she nuzzled into me afterwards and said, “But Mommy, you’re still my best friend, right?”  Always and forever, kiddo…always and forever.  The whole thing blew over in a few days and it turned out to be a good opportunity to reinforce the importance of kindness and inclusion with Juliette.  A new coffee shop opened up around the corner from Juliette’s school and we’ve made a ritual of popping in there a couple of times a week for an Americano, a vanilla steamer, and a good heart-to-heart before we head into her class.  We’ll chat about the day ahead and the latest happenings with her school buddies; sometimes she’ll ask me what I’m going to do at work that day.  These few minutes are especially precious on days when I come home to a tired or cranky girl, or when I don’t make it home at all before bedtime.  When I’m frustrated with her or missing her, I remind myself at least there was the coffee shop… 

Fridays with my little bestie are as good as ever.  We’ve added the swimming pool to our rotation of Mama-Jules activities, and whenever I put that on the list of potential outings, it always wins, over the bakery or the library or the park.  As we walked in the doors of the pool a couple of weeks ago and breathed in that first whiff of chlorinated steam, Juliette squealed, “I’m so exciting, Mommy!”  She’s embraced the independence that comes with the arm floaties and loves bobbing around in endless circles at the whirlpool.

Bonus:  post-pool naps are easy-breezy, as she crashes in no time.  Usually in my bed.  I’m still a sucker for snuggles.

On days when we don’t get out of the house, we do craft projects or watch (too many) episodes of Sarah and Duck.  Juliette has recently gotten really into drawing and will whip out a family portrait in just a couple of minutes.  I always have the biggest head, Shane always has the baldest one.

We’re constantly marveling at the how adept she’s become at expressing herself, how self-aware she suddenly seems.  She scooted her chair right next to mine at the cafe yesterday and said, “Mommy?  I’m so happy to be here with you.”

On the flip side, when I turned off the TV that afternoon, she wailed, “But that makes me so frustrating!  Now I’m going be sad foreverrrrrrr!”.  She climbed to the top of a monster slide at the playground the other day and as she perched there, high above my reach, she yelled down, “I’m being brave, Mommy!  You don’t need to worry about me!”  She’s probably right – I don’t (but I do!).

And now, the full photo reel!  These next few are from a sunny Saturday at Magnusson Park:

And there was a fun romp at Mount Baker Park last month:

And an “adventure walk” on the new trail that just opened in the nearby greenbelt – she was insistent that Amos the bunny come along for the ride:

Happy three and a half, Miss Juliette Grace!  I’m so happy being with you.