“Whoa. What are you looking at, Mommy?”

Oh, nothing, dear. Just how big that silly helmet looks on your melon. Think you have enough padding on yet?

“Yeah, you’re not nearly as funny as you think you are, Mom. Don’t worry, I’m fine over here.”

Lest you think otherwise (like they were joining the roller derby or something), the girls were suiting up for a new game of…dodgeball! We had been playing it in the street in front of our house a couple of days ago, and Maddie took a spill and scraped herself up a bit. So, we thought (I *was* joking, however) that maybe some extra padding would help. Clearly Sophie (and Maddie, too) took it seriously and dug out every safety device they could find. And Josie, well - she just tried to copy them as well as she could. She even figured out how to put on her helmet herself! And trust me - they were quite the spectacle in the front yard. Sorry I don’t have any pictures of THAT - I was too busy being “it” and pegging them with the ball! I bet you can still hear them yelping now.

“MOMMMMM!!! NO FAAAIIIRRR!!!”

Revenge really is sweet.

Rather than just having three sisters together, lots of the time it feels like we have five. The girls’ cousins, Megan and Sarah, are amazing friends, mentors, and caregivers to all three of ours. Especially with Josie being so young, it’s been awesome to see how much they look after her without even thinking about it. No wonder she asks about them every day!

Josie even calls Sarah “jie-jie”, which is Chinese for “big sister”. She started off that way because she couldn’t get the “S” sound at first, but it has stuck all this time. And very fitting, indeed.

The weather was so mild this weekend we took as many chances as we could to play outside. Our local playground has one of those merry-go-round things that I have vivid childhood memories about, all involving feeling sick afterwards. In fact, I got a bit queasy just watching them go! Obviously there must be some immunity of small people to spinning, because it was endless fun for them! Just look at Maddie go…

Then of course, Josie had to have a try at being the engine.

“I think I can, I think I can…”

And whoooosh! she got that thing going pretty fast, actually. It was even funnier when she tried to push it in the opposite direction it was already going - she looked just like a little fish swimming upstream. And yes, she slept very well that night!