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Friday, July 13, 2007

Week in Review

Well, to start things off how about some pictures?

How is that for cute? That's Chupalupa the mini-donkey baby born at the Bunny's horse camp this week. The Bunny is loving her horse camp and dh and I are puffed up with pride (to say the least) that each time we go to pick up her instructor tells us what a natural she is. Her cousin is joining her and it's great that they both have something to occupy their afternoons when they would otherwise be needy and cranky I'm sure.

Her cousins have been visiting for a week and sad to say the older of the two girls is as strange and hard to reach as ever. Dh and I can't quite put our fingers on what is going on with her. It isn't at all clear if she is simply uninterested, totally narcissistic, or somehow developmentally delayed but something seems off. I haven't had the experience before of watching a child develop from an infant into a toddler into a little girl, except with the Bunny with whom I have little objectivity, and it saddens me that every encounter leaves me feeling uneasy for this child's future. The Bunny adores her though, in part because they have always been paired due to their very close birthdays and because they were both the first children for this side of the family. She hasn't seemed to notice anything amiss in her cousin's reactions or enthusiasm but instead is sure that her own love and enthusiasm is all they need. I hope that that insensitive love continues to be strong and blinding and perhaps in time it will help her cousin to pull through the gauze which she so often seems wrapped in.
The little sister is a real study in normalcy by comparison. She's cute and impish and likes to be the center of attention. She is the first little tomboy I've had the pleasure to know in this new generation. All the girls the Bunny knows from school are heavily into princesses and dresses and pinkness. This little one prefers Spiderman to Ariel and baseball caps worn backwards to chiffon and sparkles. It is a breath of fresh air to say the least! When we were out at the pond swimming last weekend she would launch herself off the edge of the shallows onto a boogie board toward the middle of the deep end, completely sure of her own ability to kick herself back to the edge when she was ready. I was keeping close to her as she was so far out and so small but if I put a hand on her board to steady her she would push it off with a stern reminder that she was not in need of assistance.

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