Remember a month ago when we bought all those herbs and the tomato and cucumber plants, with the intention of potting them and having a nice little container garden?

We finally potted them this past Sunday. Yeah, I know. I KNOW. A month! But we were a little busy with the birthday parties and everything.

The good news is that all the plants managed to survive a month of semi-neglect and too-small containers. A few days ago I realized I hadn’t watered them in a while and when I went out to check on them I wasn’t sure if a couple of them could be saved. I watered them anyway, and they were fine the next day. Plants are resilient.

Annalie totally loved potting the plants. She’s always loved gardening. See?

When we were using our hands to scoop soil into various pots, Annalie said to me, “I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve ever helped you plant some plants!” I laughed and told her that actually, she’s been digging in the dirt, planting flowers, and watering gardens since she was old enough to walk. I guess since we didn’t do it last summer, in her mind that means it never happened at all. I had to dig out these photos (ya like how I say “dig out” like I’m rummaging through boxes of photos, when in reality I just clicked a mouse a few times to open archived files on the computer) to remind her of all the gardening she’s done in her short life.

Not afraid to get her hands dirty, this girl.

Annalie was also excited to plant her “bee seeds.” One of her birthday gifts was a kit for growing lavender from seeds. The brand name was “Buzzy” and there was a little cartoon bee on the package, so to her they were bee seeds. It was cute so I didn’t try very hard to correct her.

So…lavender, three kinds of basil, thyme, oregano, garlic chives, tomatoes, and cucumbers. We’ll see how they grow.

One of the presents Annalie got for her birthday was a cool hangman game from my Aunt Gayle and Uncle Frank. Annalie got it out today and asked me how to play. I explained the basics of the game to her, then drew three lines on the dry-erase board at the bottom. She happened to guess the letters c and a right away, so she quickly figured out that the word was cat. Next I had her guess the words dog and Troy, both of which she got.

Annalie wanted a turn at being the hangman, and asked what she had to do. I explained she needed to think of a word she knew how to spell, count up the number of letters in it, and draw that many blank lines on the board. I suggested that she could even write the word, draw the lines underneath, and then erase the letters. She nodded, then shooed me out of the room so she could write.

When she called me back in, I could see that she’d drawn seven lines, and laughed to myself. I was certain her word was Annalie. I drew it out, deliberately guessing incorrect letters and exaggerating my dismay. She ate it up, giggling at each wrong letter. To my amazement, when I guessed a correct letter she easily wrote it in the right blank without saying a single letter out loud. When eventually I had gotten all the letters and her name was revealed as the answer, she gleefully asked, “Boy, you didn’t know how good I was gonna be at this game, did you Mom?”

Annalie wanted another turn at being the hangman, but her name is pretty much the only word she can consistently spell without help. I suggested we play another game. Lately I’ve been trying to work with her on certain words that she should probably know by sight without having to sound out, so I wrote a few of those on the board for her to try. She didn’t recognize any of them (and, is, it, on, off) without sounding them out—but she DID sound them all out correctly. I wrote a few pairs of opposites for her to read (on/off, up/down, tall/short, left/right) and she was able to read all of those as well with only a little bit of help on right.

After that Annalie was done with the game and just wanted to write and draw on the dry-erase board. We moved from the bed to the desk in the office, which is an arrangement I wish she would agree to more often. I love sitting in that sunny room with a cup of coffee and my laptop, facing the open window with a breeze coming in, listening to music and hanging out with my kid.

We hadn’t been sitting there very long today when Annalie piped up, “Look, Mom! P-O-P, pop! I sounded it out!” I looked over to see that she had indeed written the word pop on the dry-erase board.

“Wow, Annalie, that’s exactly right!” She beamed at my praise, and rightfully so. That’s the first time she’s sounded out and written a word completely on her own, and to my knowledge it’s not a word anyone has ever spelled out for her before. Since the camera was handy, I grabbed it and documented the moment. Please excuse the vacuum cleaner and inflated air mattress in the background.

Annalie wasn’t done yet. “I know another word to sound out! Watch.” She carefully wrote APL then used the pen to point at each letter as she recited it. “A-P-L spells apple!”

“Annalie, that’s almost exactly right! That’s great!” I showed her where to add the extra P and the E, but she airily waved me off. She erased the board and wrote TAI, then looked expectantly at me. “Tie?” I ventured.

“Yes! That’s exactly right, Mama!” Annalie grinned at me. Close enough, babe. Close enough.

I think our days of being able to spell words out to keep secrets from her are severely numbered. She’s going to be reading in earnest any minute. I can hardly wait!

This afternoon my mom, Annalie and I decided to go out to lunch. Then we decided to take the trolley to the restaurant, just for kicks. Annalie had wanted to take a trolley ride for her birthday and we didn’t quite fit that into the schedule, and my mom had never ridden a trolley before.

When we bought our tickets at the machine, it stiffed us. We were supposed to get two passes and $10 change, but it only gave us one pass and no change. I did get a receipt with a phone number to call to get my $15 refund, so that’s something. It’s a good thing I had another $5 to buy the second pass we needed, and that Annalie could ride for free.

We boarded the car and made it to our stop uneventfully enough. We had to walk a couple of blocks to get to our chosen restaurant, but it was worth it for the delicious hummus we ate. And we were right next door to my new favorite coffee shop so of course I had to get a latte while we were there.

We walked back towards the trolley station, stopping on the way there at a little park where my mom and I sat in the shade and sipped our drinks while Annalie ran around in the grass. Really the “park” was just a greenspace in the middle of a shopping center/apartment complex, but to Annalie if there’s grass to run on, it’s a park.

This was quite a pretty park, with a huge fountain and stone tables and benches all around and bougainvillea providing splashes of bright color against the green of the palm trees and shrubbery. Sitting there and taking it all in, I couldn’t help but think about how much I like Southern California, and how different my attitude is from when we first lived here as newlyweds.

Back then, when we moved here I had lived in Nebraska my whole life. All I could see was that the palm and eucalyptus trees weren’t maples and cottonwoods; I turned my nose up at the bougainvillea and birds-of-paradise that bloomed year-round; and the weather annoyed me because there were never any thunderstorms and all that sunshine just wasn’t natural.

I did learn to grudgingly tolerate the sunshine and palm trees eventually, even admitting that I liked it here by the time we moved to Ottawa. Since then I’ve lived in four different states and one Canadian province, and have found something to love about each place. When we moved back here a year ago I was thrilled because it was familiar, but I also looked around with older, wiser eyes and found much to love right from the start. I’m happy here and will be sad to leave, but I know that wherever we go next there will be things to love there too.

After we hung out at the park for a while, we walked the rest of the way to the trolley stop to wait for the next trolley. We had some time to kill so Annalie made faces for the camera.

We boarded the trolley when it got there and managed to find seats together despite the rush-hour crowds. Pleasantly tired, we watched the city pass by through the windows. My mom commented that she was glad she finally got to ride the trolley before we move again. I thought about how glad I am that I get to call so many different places home, and that Annalie and I get to be California girls, even if it’s only for a little while.