Tomorrow is Lillian's birthday. She's going to be four. She has spent more time in New Zealand in her little life than anywhere else. Lillian is a sweet yet strong little soul. She shows her internal workings on her face, particularly her eyebrows. Lillian gestures musically when you smile at her. While Desmond is a whiz at numbers, already getting into multiplication, Lil has a verbal advantage. The things that come out of her mouth often have us in hysterics. She has several dolls which she devotes herself to, many of them are named Cynthia. Her favorate bear is a crusty old care bear that someone gave her at a garage sale. Sometimes I think Ill compensate it and give her a newer, more pristine or perhaps a classic bear. I just haven't found the heart, though. I suppose if we were going to get typhoid or smallpox or bugs from the thing we'd have gotten them already.
Lillian has her second festering spider bite. She climbs trees. She was born during the year of the monkey in the Chinese horoscope. Lil often disappears up. Recently when we were scouting about on a trip, looking for nice place to spend a few days with future visiting family we lost Lillian to a sculpted hedge bush. I left the chat we were having with the host of the B&B to find Lil. The place was a garden, so I rounded paths and looked into neighboring pastures, populated with cows and pigs (are they nice?) My voice had taken on the higher pitched "Im not finding you" tone. Finally when I went back to Jordan, still engrossed in conversation, I saw an uncharacteristic wiggle in a spherical bush just 10 yards away. "Ah hah!" There she was, taking things in, in the privacy of her own little chamber of a tree. Out in front of our new house we have 4 big evergreen hedgey type trees that someone planted for privacy. They are a little ragged on the top and remind me of owls sitting together. Lillian has been known to climb up 20 or so feet in them. She has a favorite perch at the daycare in a small orange tree. She is, thankfully, celebrated there for the tree climbing conversationalist that she is and not confined to the doll house or the 'educational' toys.