Dear Life:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

1. I love Lila and her new interest in talking. She's a parrot and will repeat (or attempt to repeat) anything we say. My favorite is simple--"Hi". She stares, intently, at my mouth as I say "Hi!" "Hi!" like a babbling fool and she repeats to the best of her ability.



LilaGirl's Love Letter to Life would go something like this: "Dear Whoever Invented the Dolly, THANK YOU. Love, LilaGirl"




2. I love how much Cole loves school. He is happy-go-lucky to begin with, but he is SO happy on school days and always excited to go. He loves having friends and seeing them and opening his -ogurt (yogurt, he also things I do -oga) at lunch time "all by muhself." That's some fine motor skills for ya.






3. I love how Mason is a boy now. I'm not sure when it happened, but he is a child now, no longer a baby or a toddler, but a real child. I think I'm supposed to feel sad about that, but my gut is just ever so pleased at how he's grown, and the things he's learned and is able to do, like bring me the phone when I need to call poison control.






4. I love how Rey is stoked that the boys love Star Wars now. It is fake love since they have never seen a nano second of the movies, but all the same they love to play with Darth "Favor" figurines and R2D2. If anyone sees a C3PO somewhere, hit me up. That little gilded guy is hard to come by.




5. I love the new color of the boys room, even more so because I really detested the old color. New furniture (bunk beds!) will arrive on Saturday between 8:30 and 10:30, or so a computerized phone call from Pottery Barn tells me.

6. I love the thrill of Craigslist (recently discovered). Last week I sold a couple of no-longer-needed baby items that were cramming up my space. It gave me a high. I've never done drugs, but I imagine the high I got from trading my no longer useful crap from very useful money was akin to that.

7. I love that my buddy Amber is coming to the Sunshine State, bringing Mason's buddy Sebastian, the ever-lovely Siennah, and my and Rey's goddaughter Savannah with her. Yes people, there will be six kids living in my house for a week. Come by on August 1st and there might be one or two in the front yard with a "Free to a Good Home" sign hanging around his or her neck.


(KIDDING People! Only Kidding!)

Signed,
Ashley

P.S. Take advantage of my burst of positivity. It's a limited time offer!