Long pants, long pants!: Or, Why I'm not wearing pants to church on Dec. 16th

To clarify, I will be wearing something. Just not necessarily pants.

Not sure how many of you have come across this little story. For those who don't want to read the article, here's the first sentence that sums up the story: "A group of Mormon feminists has declared Sunday, Dec. 16, as 'Wear Pants to Church Day' and is calling on sister Saints across the globe to join the effort."

Reading about this "event" and the several comments I've seen scattered across Facebook has left me with mixed feelings and I can't stop thinking about it. As I don't want to get tangled in the back-and-forth of commenting on Facebook, and I feel like I have more to express about it than will fit there, I finally decided to just write about it here.

First of all, I actually do consider myself a feminist in many respects. In some circles of the Church, "feminist" is practically a swear word. But really most people I know are feminists--they just don't realize it. They agree that women should have rights to vote or hold office, have equal access to education, be paid equally for jobs they are qualified for and perform well, should not be considered or treated as property, should not be subject to abuse, and so on. But "feminism" has taken on some angry, negative connotations and has been taken to some extremes that I don't always want to follow it to.

So this group, All Enlisted, has called on Mormon women all over the world to wear pants to church this Sunday. Now, I don't exactly see this as quite the extremity of feminism that so many people fear. I don't even think it will be that big of a deal in the end. Not exactly the "historic" event they are hoping for. Women wearing dresses to church is a cultural phenomenon, not a doctrinal one. In 1971 the First Presidency stated that, "The Church has not attempted to indicate just how long women’s or girls’ dresses should be nor whether they should wear pant suits or other types of clothing. We have always counseled our members to be modest in their dress, [. . .] We have advised our people that when going to the temple they should not wear slacks or miniskirts, or otherwise dress immodestly. We have not, however, felt it wise or necessary to give instructions on this subject relative to attendance at our Church meetings, although we do feel that on such occasions they should have in mind that they are in the house of the Lord and should conduct themselves accordingly." (Priesthood Bulletin,June 1971.)

I think what they are hoping will be a big statement will be met with more shrugs than gasps. We're not talking about Susan B. Anthony walking into a voting booth. People have seen pants before, and in a church building. There are already places where women wear pants to church. I've been in wards in the U.S. where there were some members--men and women--who came to church in their blue jeans and no one batted an eye. The reason no one cared was that everyone knew that for these new members, that was really the best they had, and we were just glad to have them there with us. In many ways, this is kind of a non-issue that these women are turning into an issue.

So my reason for declining to "attend" the "event" has less to do with its extremity and more to do with my personal worship.

A few issues arise here. A while back I read an article (don't have the link, sorry) about teaching modesty. It had some interesting points about talking about this with children, Young Women, etc. It had a lot of points I liked. One area I didn't fully agree with, though, was it's discussion about how we shouldn't be dressing for others, just dressing for ourselves. I see what they were getting at, but I don't think they were entirely right. We often dress for others, and need to. Policemen aren't wearing those uniforms just for kicks. It's for our benefit, so we know who they are. Part of why we dress the way we do is to identify who we are. When I taught, I usually didn't wear a t-shirt and jeans because I would look too much like I was just one of the students. I dressed up a bit to set myself apart, give myself a little authority with them. Soldiers in uniform have distinct markings to indicate their ranks to one another. Teenagers have all kinds of ways of doing this in high school. Gangs do this. Everyone does this. We dress for other people.

So, my question is, when we go to church, who are we dressing for? At different times in my life I probably would have answered this in different ways. Hopefully I'm to the point that I can honestly answer that I am dressing for God. That my purpose for church attendance is worship, and so I want to dress in my "Sunday best" out of respect and worship for my Father in Heaven. It's why I don't wear the same shoes to the temple that I wear to do yard work. Respect and worship. For me, Sunday best is a dress or skirt and nice blouse or sweater. I don't think I have any pants that would be as nice as any dresses I own, so it would not be respectful for me to wear them. They might be fine to wear standing up in front of an English 293 class at BYU,  but I wouldn't feel worshipful in them. The same goes for some skirts I own, which I have determined are a bit too casual for church. Maybe someone else has a killer pantsuit that is nicer than any dress they own and wants to wear that. More power to them. If that is really why these women are wearing pants to church, if that is Who they are dressing for, then who am I to judge?

Some of you might think this is all just steeped in tradition for me, and if I just broke out of the tradition I'd be fine wearing pants. Perhaps it is just tradition for me. If we uphold traditions without meaning, we become Pharisees, worshiping the tradition above the Lord. But I think I've explained pretty thoroughly that this tradition does still hold meaning for me. It's a tradition that points me toward worshiping, not toward itself. Clearly, this tradition has lost meaning for some women and they want to reevaluate.

Many might respond and say this movement is about more than just pants. I get that. I get that a lot of women really are struggling to find their place in the Church; they legitimately do feel pain and are feeling displaced, and I don't in any way mean to minimize that. I haven't had these struggles with finding my place in the Church. I haven't felt repressed or lesser in my position in the Church. And I haven't felt the need to make Sacrament meeting my place of protest. Again, I don't reject the idea that some women genuinely struggle with issues of equality and want to feel more at home in the Church and are not just trying to be troublemakers (some might just trying to be troublemakers, but not all). And I don't deny that women's voices need to be heard in the Church. I hope we can find this space and listen to each other in a productive dialogue, rather than divisive stances of "us" vs. "them." As long as we see each other as "those guys" who just don't "get it," I don't think we'll have an easy time being united in one heart or one mind and just keep having contentious comments circulating on Facebook.

On a lighter note, this whole situation totally reminds me of a great joke:

Knock-knock:
Who's there?
Panther.
Panther, who?
Panther on panth, I'm going thwiming!

So Glad When Daddy Comes Home

I had a conversation a while back with my mom how that Primary song about being so glad that Daddy is home is really for moms. On Father's Day they really ought to get a bunch of sleep-deprived moms get up at church and sing, "I'm so glad when Daddy comes home, glad as I can be . . ." although it is cuter having the little kids sing it and blow a kiss to their dads at the end. Not that we don't have a good time around here during the day, but seriously, when five o'clock rolls around, everyone is pretty excited around here.

Brady usually rides his bike the mile or so to work, although recently it's been pretty cold and dark on both ends of the commute, so we are rethinking this plan. He usually calls just before he leaves his office and I tell the kids he's on his way. This is how they spend the few minutes it takes him to get home (these pictures are a couple months old, before our freezing weather set in and our old laptop died):

It lasts until either Charlie starts pulling Ellie's hair or Brady pulls up on his bike and the kids race to the garage to greet him (read: attach themselves to him and not let him put anything down or take off his coat before he swings them each and gives them kisses). Then he has two extra shadows for the next couple of hours until we start winding the kids down for bed. I'm sure Daddy is so glad to come home too.

Baby in Red

This time of year I always like to get Ellie all dressed up in a fun Christmas dress for church. I'm pretty frugal when it comes to clothes for my kids and try not to go overboard, but I admit that I am kind of a sucker for all those pretty holiday dresses. I get how some people can go a little crazy, turning their baby girls into living dolls to dress up. So every year I find some kind of spectacular deal on one, and then Ellie wears it every Sunday from Thanksgiving to New Years.

This year she actually inherited her dress from her best friend Danni, who brought it over one Saturday evening in September before Ellie went to bed. The next day Ellie insisted on wearing the "Danni dress," (both to her and Danni's delight) and has already gotten quite a bit of mileage out of it.

When I snapped this picture of Ellie, I thought of her Christmas dresses over the last few years, all the red, and was reminded of a story my grandma told me a couple years ago.

Loyal readers will remember that Ellie is named after my grandmother, who goes by Betty, but Ellie calls her "Grandma Awesome" because that's how she said her last name when she was learning to talk (who's the favorite now?).

This is her. Not exactly sure what age she is here, but I like the picture. My grandmother, Betty, was named after her grandmother, who went by Lizzy.

This is Lizzy on her wedding day. Lizzy had a sister named Charlotte (Lottie). My childhood was filled with Lizzie and Lottie lore. They were like characters from a book, even raised by a wicked (well, mean) stepmother and stepsister. (Sidenote: Ellie was almost a "Lottie.")

Anyway, this particular story I had not heard until a couple years ago around the holidays. Apparently Lizzie (who was born sometime in second half of the 19th century--I know, I know, I should look up the dates for a better story; sorry, Mom) was also named for her grandmother, who I guess might have actually gone by Elizabeth. I don't know how far the name goes back, but someone ought to have used the whole thing. Apparently this Elizabeth wanted a granddaughter named for her. So when her daughter was pregnant, she told her and her husband that if they named the baby for her, she would make a new dress for the baby.

Well, the baby came and was a girl, so they named her Elizabeth. The proud papa was traveling and stopped in to visit his mother-in-law to give her to news. She knew he would be traveling back through in a matter of maybe a couple of days or so to get home (I don't know, hazy on the details here), so she would have to hurry and make a dress if she was to hold up her end of the deal. The only fabric she really had on hand was the red gingham curtains over the window. But a deal was a deal, so she made a new little dress out of it (and you thought Maria von Trapp was so original). The parents graciously accepted the gift and put their baby girl in the bright red dress. 

 Lizzie, however, was mortified at the details of this story. Remember, this was all happening back in the 1800s. People dressed babies in white. Period. "Imagine! Putting a baby in a red dress," she always scoffed when relating this story.

Yeah. Lousy parents. Sorry, Great-Great-Grandma Lizzie. I'm going to have to side with Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandma Elizabeth on this one. I quite like my baby in red.

Birthday Boys

I was going to get some numeral candles, a 1, 3, and 4, but then I thought it would just look like I couldn't count.

We're still trying to sort out this whole sharing a birthday thing. I didn't know whether to do one cake or two cakes, if we should celebrate two different nights, or what. I think we'll figure it out more and more each year. This year we did not have enough people around to justify two cakes. I guess I should be more sentimental, but this time of year, I don't know that we can take all the extra treats. Sorry, guys. 

This has been quite the year for both Brady and Charlie. Brady's first year as a psychology professor, Charlie's first year as a person. Brady has lost about 15 pounds (just being more active, I guess, nothing deliberate, which is impressive), Charlie has gained almost 15 pounds (just shy of 24 pounds now!). Brady has developed a new line of research and expertise in ecopsychology (which he recently presented a paper for at a big interdisciplinary conference), and Charlie has developed his interpersonal skills of peekaboo and social greetings (saying and sometimes waving "hi"). These guys have so much in common.

Okay, time for Brady's prediction to come true and Charlie to completely upstage him now (which he's totally cool with having a grown-up birthday, meaning he still had to go to work and help put the kids to bed, but I did do all the cooking that day). I mean, 34 is a pretty big milestone, but . . . I didn't get a sign made for Brady, and as you can see, my toner wasn't doing great. Maybe next year.

As you can see, Charlie is starting toddlerhood off with all the right forehead bruises.

He hasn't  started walking yet beyond what he can do holding onto furniture or walls. He is a super fast crawler, so doesn't seem too motivated to find another means of getting around.

 This is what Charlie got from my parents. I had to open this one early for him because Ellie could see what it was on the box it arrived in and she was too excited. She was really good about waiting until he woke up from his nap and letting him have the first turn. Here is a video of them playing with it that I promised to post. Might be on the long side for anyone besides grandmas.

 

So after a dinner of creamy tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches (Charlie liked the first, Ellie liked the second), we blew out candles and opened presents.

I love how Charlie looks so ready to dive into the cake in this picture. Turns out he wasn't. Too much excitement. He was so ready to hit it and didn't make it to cake and ice cream.

Brady got this great cast iron combo cooker for making some amazing bread (which he's already used), along with some other cooking gadgets and books, and some gear for his bike (he usually rides his bike to work, and it's getting darker and colder for his mile commute). Charlie also got some books, cars, wall decals (he loves the ones in Ellie's room), and a mat to drive his cars on.

Here is a picture of some of the decals and the car mat/rug. Ellie loves this present too. She loves most of Charlie's presents, but has been really good about letting them be his, for the most part. She really wanted a present and to blow out candles. It was pretty confusing being so close to her birthday and there were so many presents on the table since we were celebrating two birthdays. Luckily I had a pair of Christmas socks for her that I had been saving, so I just wrapped those and let her open them. Might have to have that be a new tradition for the kids. 

So then we planned to do cake and ice cream the next day, but this is how we spent most of the next day:

Poor baby. Turns out the little cold I thought Ellie had the day before (hence the pajamas in all the pictures) was a bit more. We went in for the kids' well-check appointment and found out that Ellie had her first ear infection. Charlie had to get a bunch of shots and just wanted to sleep and be held all day. And Brady and I were both under-the-weather too. Blah. 

Charlie rebounded and we had another party on Saturday. So here are the obligatory first year messy cake pics.

And here's video because I have it and this post just isn't getting long enough, right? I think he looks kind of muppety here with the bib rolled up. This is pretty much how mealtime with Charlie goes. A bite here and there, punctuated with clapping, his "go nuts" trick (shake his head back and forth real fast), or saying "hi."

Anywho, strung out over three days, we did get a pretty good celebration in. Charlie returned to the usually, happy-go-lucky, playful boy we adore; we marvel every day at what a blessing he is to our family. And he learned how much he loves cream cheese frosting. To quote Ellie, "it's delectable."

Look who's . . . turtle(?!) years old . . .

Ellie's third birthday came with great fanfare. We had decorations, balloons, the works. (Okay, so a few streamers and a tablecloth from the dollar store, but when she saw it after she woke up in the morning, she was super excited: "Wee-hee, wa-hoo, it's my birthday!"). Some of her cousins called mid-morning to wish her a happy birthday. She was a good little parrot and told them just about everything I told her to say: "It's my birthday . . . I got presents . . . I have a balloon . . ." When I told her to say, "I'm three," Ellie protested and said, "No, I'm not being numbers! [then back to the phone] I'm a turtle!" So I guess she has a little different reckoning of aging than the rest of us.

Ellie opened presents over a lunch of chicken nuggets (her favorite). She got Tangled, some great books, a puzzle, a color pad, Hooper Humperdink and a purse and mirror from my parents (she used to always play with the hand mirror in my mom's room, so now she has her own and sleeps with it most nights). And then there was the football from Charlie. I took the kids to the dollar store to pick out presents for each other, and Ellie insisted that Charlie wanted to giver her a football. She also got They Might Be Giants DVD Here Comes the ABCs. That one was supposed to be for Christmas, but Brady couldn't wait. She looooves it.

Ellie and I had an impromptu playdate at the park with Ellie's best friend from the ward, Danni (Danielle). Her birthday is the day before Ellie's (she is one year and one day older), so we took her a balloon on our way to the park and she joined us. Ellie had to bring her purse and football and is showing Danni the family picture inside.

Climbing on the stagecoach.

Magic wands and climbing in the trees.

Ellie wanted a cousin party for her birthday. We were worried about that since we moved away from all the cousins (she was used to going to cousins' birthday parties). But then we remembered we do have cousins right here (my cousin Brad and family). So Ellie had a second-cousin party. The night before she was running around in circles telling Charlie, "the cousins and coming, the cousins are coming!" Of course, just before they got here she woke up from a late nap (which she rarely takes anymore) super cranky and not the greatest hostess. But she perked up for the cake (every time I asked her what kind of cake she wanted, she answered, "chocolate frosting"--good girl). By the end she was running around with Brad's girls and playing with the balloons (and all of this I of course failed to get a picture of). Those girls were pretty good sports to come to a three-year-old's birthday party. Ellie has adopted a few families of cousins since we moved here, but these we could prevail upon since they are actually relatives, right? Plus, we fed them dinner and Brady cooked.

So we had a pretty successful day and a pretty happy three-year-old. We're glad to have her in our family!

A couple of trickers

Ellie was pretty excited about Halloween this year. A couple months ago she started piling blankets into a box, telling me she was packing all her clothes up (playing "moving" I guess). The she told me she needed to put a star on top for a "decorape." Once she pronounced it complete, she exclaimed, "Happy Halloween!" She has a funny concept of holidays, but it motivates her. Even today I was able to get her to finish all her "pumpkin" peanut butter triangles and "turkey" applesauce (gross, I know, but it works). She was so ready to "go to Halloween" about three weeks ago. 

Last weekend we got to go back for a quick, whirlwind trip to see family and take Ellie to the temple open house. So we had a cousin costume party. Ellie was done with the hat by the time we gathered everyone for the picture.

So we tried it on Charlie. He doesn't love hats either.

Halloween day was pretty good. We actually had great weather (a week ago we had a pile of snow, so not bad!) it was around 60 degrees when we left for trick-or-treating. Didn't even have to cover up the costumes with coats! 

Charlie was tired and clingy all day and wouldn't let me draw the Charlie Brown curl on his forehead again. But he was a pretty good sport.

Ellie was pretty happy with her costume. When I went to get her from her little preschool party, she was barefoot (in her "feet shoes," as she would say) sans hat and chaps. The moms in charge told me it all gradually came off one piece at a time throughout playtime. Guess Ellie has a thing or two to learn about being a cowgirl. When she saw Charlie's costume she thought she was going to be Linus (she's a huge Peanuts fan, both of the food and the cartoon). It took some bribing to get her to wear this costume the first time. Next year, I think I'm not going to get so invested in costumes. Something that just goes on, zips up, has a hood, that I don't have to make. Done.

 Ellie showed Charlie on her dollhouse how to ring the doorbell and say "trick-or-treat." It was pretty cute.

So excited to get out there.

Probably the best shot I got of Charlie's costume. This kid does not hold still, so everything is always a blur.

Also, note for next year: probably do a costume that is a little more generic. Sure, she looked just like Jesse from Toy Story, but all the really old people in our neighborhood (and we have a number of old timers) had no idea who that is. Plus, if the braid was behind Ellie's head, they couldn't tell she was a girl. Do you know how many, "Oh, a cowboy!" comments we got? Finally, my little girl has hair and she's still getting called a boy!

But look who we did run into while trick-or-treating. Ellie was really excited to see Buzz and Woody (no idea who they really are). She cried when they left.

She actually cried more than once last night (she wanted Daddy to carry her, she wanted to ring the doorbell, no one was home at that house, time to go home for Charlie's bedtime, etc.) It was kind of a rough, emotional, but so fun at times night. Once she got home and settled, she was happy again and loved opening the door for the kids coming to our house. She wouldn't give them the candy, but she would listen and open the door sometimes before they had a chance to knock, saying, "Another tricker! Look! More trickers came!" She was just telling me about the trickers coming to her house. So all in all, a pretty successful (but glad it's over) Halloween. On to birthday season.

Aaaand . . . we're back

I have been getting pretty behind on my record keeping lately. I have quite the back-log of blog fodder. (Say that three times fast.) Before I dive into my first session of catching up, let us all take a moment of silence to note the passing of our family's (Brady's) laptop.

Being without a computer for a while was not so bad now that I have a new smart (read: smarter-than-me) phone. But I wouldn't go so far as to blog from it I think, and now I have yet another source to compile pictures and videos from. So now I have to get organized too, creating folders, importing, downloading, remembering passwords. Maybe I should have skipped doing all this electronically and opted for the paper version. But blogs are forever, right? Right?

Lots of other things have kept me from keeping up with the blog. Most notably, this mess:


Yeah, Ellie has quite the independent streak in her. She thought it a good idea, while I was changing Charlie's diaper, to just get herself some fruit juice. And to carry it to the living room first before trying to pour it. What a little helper. Awesome.

I think this is the first time Ellie has really been in serious trouble, like destruction-to-the-house kind of trouble. I didn't lose my temper with her, but I was pretty direct and put her in her room while I tried to figure out what in the world to do. She realized this was serious business, and kind of freaked out. She came out of her room, all panicked, saying she needed her jammies on (her comfort when life feels out of control). I told her no, we weren't doing that now, and she lost it. She started crying and talking all at once, took all her clothes off, ran to her room, grabbed a couple pair of underwear and pulled them on her head and came back out and ran around frantically, and then finally collapsed. Meanwhile I set Charlie up in the exersaucer (which he doesn't love anymore) and a show to keep him out of the mess and just had to ignore Ellie's antics. It was hard not to laugh even in the moment, as mad as I was at the mess.

Needless to say, we now have a fridge lock.


Here is the "after" picture. Not bad when you consider how old and used the carpet already is. I'd say given a week, the generous use a my cousins' steam cleaner (thanks again Brad and Carrie!), plenty of ammonia, vinegar, white cleaning cloths, a steam iron (yep, a steam iron), and 90% of my housekeeping energy devoted to three square feet of floor, I think I could even get away with murder.

* * *

So the main catch-up for this blog post is Charlie's month day. 11 months already!



This kid is hard to keep up with. He is a super fast crawler and I think he wants to be walking soon.


He stands with very little support and sometimes, unwittingly, lets go altogether. Once he realizes, though, he falls. It's like watching Wiley Coyote run off a cliff. Totally fine until he looks down, then gravity kicks in.


Charlie is so laid back and happy-go-lucky most of the time. He absolutely loves life when he gets to be outside.


He actually doesn't love having anything on his head, but puts up with it. He sure puts up with a lot. I think his role in our family is to be the good sport. As the weather has gotten cooler I have been making him wear his hood. I will come around to get him out of the stroller and find him calm, content, but pulling at the hood with one hand, straight up. He'll ride that way for blocks. He'll wear the hood, cooperating enough, but he won't like it.


He has developed some new hobbies this month. One is to crawl around and pry all the safety covers off the outlets. I'm so glad we took that extra measure to draw his attention to the outlets. He doesn't seem too interested in the outlets themselves, just the covers, which he likes to put in his mouth and crawl away with while laughing. The plastic prongs stick out like two little fangs. I have admassed a pile of covers in the living room and dining room. I think we got about all of them now.

Charlie also loves playing patty-cake and will do it on command now. He loves to coax us into playing with him and is becoming quite the little charmer.

He and Ellie love playing together more and more each day it seems. This is one of their favorite games. Ellie likes to "laugh" Charlie by racing around the table. (I included the video where her mouth is full so you could hear more of Charlie). I think the best thing about having more than one kid is watching them make each other happy.

10 months

I am getting behind. The last few weeks a lot of my computer time has been tied up in church stuff (they already had us speak in Sacrament Meeting and gave us callings; I'm a Gospel Doctrine teacher). I need to figure out how to blog from my phone.


Charlie really seems to be growing up all of a sudden. He's still a baby, but is starting to feel more and more like having another a little kid around. (Except he still only has 2.5 teeth. He's been teething forever and finally this week had one on top barely cut through. Nice little jack-o-lantern smile for Halloween if he doesn't get more in soon. But at the rate this kid teethes, we'll be luck if he has a full set by age 14.)


He's getting more independent as he's gotten better and better at crawling and is now pulling himself up to standing. The worst is when he pulls himself up and holds onto the backs of my pant legs. He's trying to get me to pick him up, but I can't move to get him without him falling flat and we're both trapped. Kind of funny actually. He pulls himself up on everything (whether it can support him or not).


And I mean everything. He loves to reach up to the TV and the low windows in the living room. I've decided that little hand prints on the glass are just part of our lifestyle right now. I try to clean them off once a week or so and call it good. I remember a story my mom told me once. After her baby sister who was around 2 died in an accident, some ladies from the Relief Society came over to help with meals and cleaning, etc. One of them wiped all the little hand prints off the window of the screen door, and it was so sad for my grandma that those little fingerprints were gone. I remember that when I see the fingerprints on the TV and don't really mind them.


Charlie has become quite the explorer lately. He is figuring out his world pretty well. Opening and closing cupboards, wandering off to different rooms, playing with open doors, shutting himself in the bathroom and scaring himself to death . . . He seems more adventurous than Ellie was at this age, more willing to wander off. Probably because he doesn't have stairs to deal with, so nothing is blocked off like it was for Ellie. It has made for some interesting moments where we've had to go hunting for Charlie.


I think he's going to be a funny kid. The Grandpa Charlie sense of humor seems to be making itself manifest. This kid is a tease. I'll put him down to change his diaper and, like most babies his age, he immediately flips over to his tummy. But then he starts cracking up, like he played this great joke on me. If someone is resting on the couch, he will pop up like a jack-in-the-box, grab  their hand (or face) and laugh like he's just done the funniest thing.

One time when I was singing to him before putting him to bed, he started crooning along, "Ahhh-daaah-ooohhh-baaahh." Either he thinks he's a terrific singer, or that I'm not much of one.

Lately he's been having a hard time just falling asleep for his naps. One time I heard him in his room just playing all through his morning nap. I finally went in to get him and saw that he had somehow reached up and dismantled his mobile and was playing with the pieces in his bed. Instead of crying for me when I walked in the room like he usually does, he burst out laughing. He thinks he's pretty funny anyway.


Ellie is starting to see Charlie as more of a kid too, someone to play with and not just a baby. She loves to include him when she is getting into things, but not so much when it comes to sharing objects. They are both learning about sharing. But they are both really excited when it works out and they play well together. Today seemed like a good, rainy, drippy-nose, blanket fort kind of day and they just loved it. I think Ellie has taught Charlie her affinity for being "in" things. He's also started humming when he eats sometimes. I think she might be more in charge of him than we are . . .