Nieces in August

I got to spend a day and a bit with Layla and Allie this past week while I was home. Layla is well into potty training, and insists on dressing herself and bucklin herself into her carseat. She talks a lot and negotiates for sweets, as in this conversation:

Layla: Can I have ice cweam?
Grandma Sandra: After you eat your peanut butter sandwich you can have a little ice cream.
L: Don't want peanut butter.
GS: Do you want cheese?
L: I want ice cweam.
GS: Not until after. How about some mac'n'cheese and peas? You like that!
L: Ummm... can I have ice cweam?

Allie, who participates in every team sport known to kid-dom, has cheer practice three times a week after school. She started school Monday and conversed with me at length about the school lunches and her fear of accidentally wearing the same thing as another girl. She quizzed Mama and me on ways we would and wouldn't like to die. I said I'd like to die being defended by a giant ape; Allie, more sensibly, wants to die after living a long time, but specifies that she wants to die fashionably. She also likes making forts, and we set up tents in the yard and slept in them quite well Wednesday night, with the moon lighting the yard.



Persistence and a good lunch scored Layla an ice cream cone; she was fascinated by her messy face in the mirror.


Truman is not one to be moved from a favorite napping place by a mere baby and her toys; Layla acts out stories with my action figures.


Tent city in the front yard; Big sister antagonizes little sister, who storms out of the tent.


Allie holds a flower for me to photograph; shows her true colors; and imitates the sunflowers next to her.


Mama and Layla compare their flowers; Allie gets ready for the third day of fourth grade. (She wasn't satisfied with her outfit, but I am fashion impaired and didn't understand why.)


From a walk down the dirt road: wild sunflowers and pines; fallen sweet gum leaf.