The Little Finns: Playing together

A rare photo of me and both girls. At Cal Academy of Science.

The girls being cute together.

Maija loves the oranges we get from our orange tree. She scrapes off little bits of the peel and chews on them. Yum.

Anja and the bounce house at the farmer's market.

Anja and I sometimes go for little hikes "up the mountain" at a little county park down the road from us. From the top you can see downtown Petaluma. She brought her baby flamingo (flingy-mingo) this last time. She is carrying her in her pouch. Because flamingos have pouches. To keep their babies warm.

Anja loves insects. I mean she LOVES them. She is petting this darkling beetle she found. Every morning she saves pillbugs on our sidewalk and puts them in the grass, sometimes with little nests made out of a leaf. Also sometimes she feeds them with things like a blade of grass.

Lately Anja wants to wear dresses all the time. Like Cinderella. She also still likes stickers.

Maija runs around.

Every night after dinner the girls have some sort of running around game. Ideally they wouldn't get all worked up right before bedtime, but we usually don't have the heart to stop them. At times like this I wish I could freeze time.

Maija says, "Don't stack blocks!"

Maija loves dragging things around.

Anja loves to be the mommy. At the children's museum she is protecting her duck babies on her lily pad.

Maija doesn't have any real words yet, but she really likes making noises and imitating us. Or getting us to imitate her, as in this case.

The girls sure like chasing each other around.

I let them think they were playing alone in their room. Anja is really great with Maija, now that she is realizing she has someone to play with. Covert video below:

Anja's comments:

Jay: (on Mother’s Day) We are doing secret card-making activities. You can never guess what we’re doing. Can I have an envelope?

Me: I like living here Anja. What do you think?

Anja: I would rather like a flying house. With some balloons.

Anja: Mommy, do you like cimmamon? I do. I like Cimmamon. It starts with the letter “cimma”. It’s kind of like chinchilla!

Anja: (to her Tyrannosaurus Rex) What do you like to eat?

Me: (as Rex) Squash, and ants on a log. And other dinosaurs.

Anja: No, that’s not nice. Other dinosaurs are fossils. But some dinosaurs are not fossils.

Me: Okay, I won’t eat other dinosaurs anymore, I’ll just eat grass.

Anja: No, that’s yucky.

Me: Let’s go home and have a snack.

Anja: Yeah, brachiosaurus is hungry for a snack.

Me: What do brachiosauruses eat for snacks?

Anja: Pinkets.

Me: Peanuts?

Anja: No, PINKets.

Me: Oh, pinkets. What are pinkets?

Anja: They just come from birds. From the sky.

Me: What do they look like?

Anja: They’re just round. They are also ROUND. They are just ROUND, like a donut.

Me: Oh. What do they taste like?

Anja: Like strawberries.

Me: Oh. Okay.

Anja: Why is that car there?

Me: That car is broken, someone has to fix it. Do you know who is good at fixing cars?

Anja: Yeah, Daddy. And Rob is good at fixing cars too. And Ian is good at washing cars!

Me: And what am I good at?

Anja: Uh, work.

Me: Oh yeah? And what do I do when I work?

Anja: Um. Just that work that you do.

Anja: Daddy let’s play a game called RUN! (runs away)

Anja: This is my flingy-mingo. Flingy-mingos can’t fly. They climb trees. They have sticky wings and feet. Like snakes!

Me: Sticky wings and feet like snakes?

Anja: Yeah!

Anja: (playing with a penguin puppet that she put on a stick) This is a potty stick!

Jay: A potty stick?

Anja: Yeah, it’s for going potty.

Jay: You can’t use a stick for a potty.

Anja: Yes you can. The poop just comes out, and goes down the stick (elaborates with her finger) and it stops here. And you can look at it for a minute. And then it turns into food!

Jay: Oooh. Usually food turns into poop, not the other way around.

Anja: (puts a santa hat on my head) You’re Santa. Do you have any presents for me?

Me: Yeah, here’s a baby for you (gives Maija to her).

Anja: Oh. Yeah. Hey, my present is walking away!

Anja: Mommy, this is my breast. It’s where I feed my baby! I need to get something. I need something for my breast.

Me: A bra?

Anja: Yeah! We should get one of those!

Me: (driving past the high school) When you get bigger, you will go to that school.

Anja: Yeah. And I will drive cars too!

Anja: Bones are inside our bodies.

Jay: That’s right. Do you know what else is inside our bodies?

Anja: Brains!