Anna rides a big girl bike!

Anna was keen to get outside right away in the morning, despite the fact that it wasn't precisely warm, so she dressed for it. But first she needed to fix her stick.

Victor and Anna play outside in the hopes that the neighbour kids will soon appear.

Anna really wanted to pick the “big flowers”, the regular flowers that were in the flower beds. Despite not knowing what I'm going to do with them, I did not allow her to do that. I told her that she could pick the flowers growing in the lawn. She picked this bouquet and presented it to Caity.

I had sent Victor up to clean his room and was chatting on the front step when Victor flung open the screen door with considerable panache and presented his new fashion statement. I was impressed, he did it well.

Anna runs to get more water because she and C need more mud. I think the issue is that they coated themselves — quite deliberately, make no mistake — liberally with the existing stock of mud, leaving none to fill the mud car. Meanwhile, Victor heads into C's backyard due to the compelling, for him, lack of water and mud.

Anna picked up this friendly guy she found while playing in the dirt. Don't know what it is, but, yuck. I made her wash her hands in case it was something unsanitary, although my uneducated guess is that it is wasp larvae or something like that.

Mid-afternoon seemed like a good time for a freezie.

And finally just before supper Anna tried out the “big girl bike” that a friend delivered in the morning. Anna was quite happy to have three bikes, one little runner bike (which is on loan), one toddler bike with training wheels, and this bike which I told her would not get training wheels. She kept trying to hold onto me when starting instead of the handlebars. I pointed out that if she was holding on to me, who would be steering? After sufficient convincing that I would ensure she wouldn't fall even if she wasn't holding onto me, she gave it her best. Which was pretty good indeed! She still needs help to get started and to turn corners, but she was going by herself on the straight stretches and stopping by herself as well (via feet on the ground, not the brakes). She was very proud of herself and insisted that everyone had to watch: Victor, the neighbour kids, and the neighbour parents, not to mention the neighbour's out-of-town guests. After I explained to her that she would be just as awesome even if not everybody saw her do it, she toned down her well-projected announcements to just a brief statement of the stunning feat of prowess she was about to display, and that fact that nobody particularly needed to watch it, if they didn't want to.

Quotes of the day

Victor, after being herded inside for dinner and being told that the rest of the evening was “administration duties” (bath and cleaning his room, with perhaps a small amount of screen time afterwards): “I don't like the end of the Sunday.”

Anna, after I read her a book that involved an airplane flight: “I'm really tired of never going to Jamaica!” Both kids really enjoyed the February 2012 Jamaica trip.