After Aidan and I got back from a weekend doing some Hiking Laser Bearing, and Julia and Mommy got back from a weekend at Yaya and Baba's, the two kids were ready to get back to hanging out and being together.
You two quickly got to business, wrestling, talking, catching up, and doing some creative works outside on the deck.
Aidan, you and I were pretty wiped out from our weekend in the woods, but Julia, you got an AMAZING burst of energy, agency, and creativity.
You ran into the house, emerged in a costume...
...brought one for Aidan...
...and then hopped in a tree before crashing on mommy's lap and watching what happened next with as much wonder and amazement as the rest of us...
For about 45 minutes, Julia, you conceptualized, practiced, practiced, and repeated your production over and over and over again.
"1, 2, 3...follow me...march this way...girls curtsy, boys bow. Follow me. 1, 2, 3"
We watched in amazement as you perfected your performance, and then willingly joined in as you invited us to the stage.
Your creativity, your passion, your energy on full display. You are a magical fairy butterfly, Julia. And I pray that you never forget that.
You might recall that as our remodel was being finished up, that we wound up living with Yaya and Baba for a week or so (after a week or so living with Mimi and Pops).
One Friday while you all were still on winter break, I texted Mama and asked her what y'all were up to. She replied "They were geologists for most of the morning."
What followed were some amazing photographs that brought such joy to my soul. You two are so creative, such an amazing team, with complementary super powers.
I love that you have your Mama's creative oomph and such insatiable appetites for play, and creative play at that. Let that be a lesson for you: boredom is a great thing...look what can come out of it! AND you have so many hats you can wear, if you put your mind to it. You can be/become anything you want!
So...what does playing "Geologist" actually look like?
Well, Aidan was the excavator...smashing rocks and crystals into smaller pieces:
Julia and Aidan were the gatherers, collecting, washing, and polishing samples:
Julia, you were the organizer and cataloger of the geological samples. As well as the label-maker. You created the Museum exhibit for the samples (totally your idea too, apparently!)
This hammer cracked all of these crystals open.
Please no touching!
This bench is special too. It belongs to the Queen and King!
These crystals are ____ and that are cool!
Way to go super geology team! Next stop...Grad School! Next stop...Smithsonian!
Julia, a few weeks ago you started asking for something very interesting: a tablet.
We asked you what you wanted one for, since you don't really like to play with the iPad like Aidan does.
You said you wanted one - even one that doesn't work- to buy a pretty case for and play pretend with.
I offered you one of the near-dead iPads. But you didn't want one of those. You wanted a silver tablet...to play pretend with.
A few days passed.
Then, your Mom and I were talking in the kitchen when a scroll appeared on the counter.
What was inside was 100% written, spelled, and conceived by you. And took us by surprise!
Later, the notes appeared taped to the computer screen with one additional letter.
Your tactics sound, your motivation clear, your cuteness and puppy-dog eyes off the charts...
...your mother came up with a great idea: you could MAKE one.
And so, the weekend came and you got right to it. You chose not to walk the dogs or go to the playground, because you wanted to stay home and work on your tablet. All day Saturday you spent working with Mommy: cutting, paper mache, drawing, coloring, gluing, researching...and you created your very own, amazingly awesome, Julia-imagination powered TABLET!
Candy Crush, Netflix, Amazon, Calendar, Disney oh MY!
You were so careful in which apps you wanted.
You picked "Tuesday the 5th" for your calendar because "Tuesdays are when Aunt Sham used to pick me up from school and we had so much fun. Tuesdays are the best.!"
Later that week on a walk you asked me if I had my phone. I said no. You said "Good thing I put the phone and text messages on my Tablet!"
Saturday afternoon you spent your allowance and ordered a pink tablet case to go along with it!
Saturday night at dinner you came up to mommy with a concern: the case will prop the tablet up horizontally...but the tablet screen won't automatically re-orient itself. So Mommy suggested that you make a NEW horizontal-oriented tablet screen on the back of the tablet you already made.
You were so gung-ho about it that you spent a lot of Sunday morning and Monday afternoon hard at work!
And you even inspired Aidan to work on one too!
You are so creative, so dedicated, so driven, and so amazing, young lady! There's an app for all that: it's called Julia version 5.0!
Then you emerged, Julia, with pretend money in-hand. You distributed the money, and told us to use it to buy our tickets to see "the show" you had created.
So Mommy, Aidan, and I bought our tickets to the show, waited for the ticket taker to run upstairs and get into 'costume and character' for her big debut.
And then...the show started!
And then...the RULES for the show were presented.
And THEN the show really started.
It became an interactive affair; and was your longest Purple Curtain Theater production yet.
So much creativity and amazingess...5 stars! The audiences loved the show!
I proudly present... a Julia Weinstein production...live from the Purple Curtain Theater...
In 2017 you two have a favorite new game. It's called "questing," and it involves a quest master (such as me) sending two young adventurers (such as you) on adventures around the house. You have skeleton keys (like literal ones from Home Depot...see below) and you have amazing imaginations. That, plus a caffeinated dad when y'all need him, makes for hours of questing to jungles and caves and pyramids and dungeons and towers and space. And it's amazing to behold.
One crisp and cool November Saturday, the three of us grabbed our lunches and headed to the Woods playground.
Low-and-behold...Julia and Aidan found a REAL QUESTING MAP stuffed into some of the playground equipment!
Some of the handwriting was hard to read, but luckily I could help analyze that with my dad-skillz. And we found several "x marx the spots".
And an amazing quest down past the playground, under the old bridge (which the map maker mistakenly remembered as a tunnel, but we figured out anyway) and down to the water-front...
We got a bit off mission to throw acorns, play in red tree fluff, and explore the shore and look for wildlife...
But that's okay that the mission had evolved and grown to include some cuddles and selfies and hand-holding and strolling. The map maker might have even intended for that to be part of the mission anyway!
Back on track on the quest, the two of you explored...
...until the trail lead us back to the playground...
where you spent the rest of the afternoon barefoot and adventurous and kind and hungry and playful...
... and that reward is infinitely better than whatever might have been buried under those x-marks-the-spots.
You asked me to set it up just the way you wanted.
I did!
Then you got to work.
At dinner you asked us for help spelling a few words, and then presented us all with MENUS:
Then you needed a partner. You asked Aidan if he could help you and if he wanted to play.
He did!
So the two of you discussed the plan, got the crayons and markers and got to work:
Before your Mommy and I knew it, the two of you had built a RESTAURANT in our LIVING Room!
Presenting: Julia and Aidan's Sweet Shop!
The restaurant walls were decorated 100% by you, with designs of ice cream cones, cupcakes, and other delicious sweets and treats.
This restaurant promised to serve REAL food! And the two of you got to work - by yourselves- grabbing bowls, and waters, and pickles, and cheese, and grapes from the fridge to stock your restaurant's kitchen.
Special care was taken to make sure that two four-legged friends couldn't invade the kitchen.
...but...there appeared to be two other pests in the kitchen who ate the rest of the food. 'Who?' you may ask. Let's find out the answer to that, and many more of the mysteries and joys of Julia and Aidan's Sweet Shop in this informative commercial for the restaurant:
You guys crack us up and inspire us with your creativity. It is so much fun being your dad or your customer...even if you ate all my dinner!
Let's just be up front about this. You both LOVE Legos. You've both been playing with them - both the big ones and the regular sized ones- for years. In fact, both of you started playing with the little Legos- the real Legos- for years.
You were well under the recommended minimum age on the box. But, you've always known what to do with them. Your dexterity and dedication have grown, but your creativity has flooded the floor! And grown to the ceiling (the sky is the limit!)
Aidan, your favorite part of the Legos used to be stacking the heads up on top of each other and putting them in a PEZ dispenser.
Then you graduated to building and collecting the little characters- sometimes with multiple heads, sometimes with one. Now, you've recently gotten into building little vehicles and ships and 'PEW PEWs' for your characters. In fact you just made this beauty all by yourself the other day:
It's a "wormer harvester" that "cleans the whole house." Pretty cool, huh?
And look at this cool one too! It looked like this yesterday...
...and this is what it looks like today with even more modifications!
Julia, your favorite thing to do is make the tiniest most intricate, colorful abstract creations you can. Of course, you like to build big, and make spaceships and shooters and 'Pew Pews' too...but your humble beginnings were in manipulating the smallest of pieces - usually colorful little circles- into amazing creations.
Here is your mermaid which you made all by yourself. So amazing.
And check out this creation I found which you had made. You said it's called "The Million Falcon!"
Legos- to me- are so great because they're like you. They're colorful, they're kind of a mess, and they can be anything in the world!
I love it when we play Legos as a family. Everything is awesome when you're part of a team!
And I love it when I hear that familiar 'crash' of a cascade of Legos being poured on the floor- even if it's just to find one head or to build for hours- because I know that Legos leads to creativity...and love.
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