I've been meaning for some time to write a post about Lili's relationship with her best friend Jack. They've always been good buds, from the time they were two fat babies waddling around in diapers, to the two toddlers in the photo strip to the left singing "Casey Junior" over and over again at Disneyland, but as their friendship has grown and developed over the years, it has given me so much joy and not a few laughs...
Last night I opened Lili's lunch bag to find a note she had written to herself taped to the inside. It said "REMEMBER- JACK" in large letters at the top and was followed by a paragraph of what I took to be abbreviated gibberish. When I asked her about it this was the explanation she gave: "Well, whenever I'm in chapel I always am remembering these things I want to tell Jack about, and then at break or lunch I forget, so I am writing myself a note to remember to tell him." The seeming gibberish was a series of anecdotes she wanted to share with him, including her reenactment of Bill Cosby's "
Dad is great, give us the chocolate cake" routine that she had recently watched with Luke and I, and a couple of other random stories she was sure Jack would find hilarious.
Aside from her lack of concentration in chapel, the whole incident just made me smile, and then I had to go to my purse to retrieve the note that Jack had given Lili last week:
Here's the front and back
I love how unabashedly outspoken the two of them are with their declarations of platonic love. When they say goodbye, it is often with a brief hug and a matter of fact: "Bye Lili, I love you." "I love you, too." I also wish I had a photo of the image of the two of them at one of the first soccer practices of the season. Everyone was split into pairs for drills, but I think they were the only ones who were unselfconsciously holding hands while awaiting their coach's instructions.
Like everything else with young children, I know this probably won't last...inevitably one of them is going to be teased by some older or more worldly child, but maybe not. I'm hoping that they hold on to their sibling-like affection for one another as long as they can, and that their friendship just grows right along with them. After all, they've moved on from Casey Junior to soccer and Bill Cosby, and they are still just as tight.
...our backyard. I love our backyard, too, especially during the winter. During the summer the grass bakes and gets crispy and uncomfortable, but right now it seems like our own little slice of heaven on earth, decrepit old swing set and all. Audrey spends a good part of each day swinging happily on her beat-up old swing and making "salads" out of grass and lemon leaves and rosemary. We also like to play hide-and-go-seek with her beloved Koala. Audrey and I take turns hiding him in the yard and the other person has to go find him. During a recent session of this game, Audrey came inside giggling to tell me that I would never find Koala...he was in the best hiding place ever! I did find him in fact, in a lonely corner of the yard, buried in torn-up grass...I think the fact that he is lying face-down adds to the stealthiness of it all...
