Today I'm joining in for {pretty, funny, happy, real} - "capturing the context of contentment in everyday life" over at Like Mother, Like Daughter (one of my favorite blogs to read).

Pretty: Craspedia - after the cut flower bouquets disappeared from the farmers' market, I was thrilled to find this little arrangement at the new Mariano's grocery store that just opened. Good, long lasting flowers, and so sunny and yellow as everything is just starting to get a little dreary.

Happy: Indigo and Alan built a table fort the other day. Alan and I were both reminiscing of when we first moved into our second apartment during a sweltering week and had only one air conditioning unit. I was pregnant with Indy at the time, and nauseous, so we ended up building a fort over this same table (it being in the same room as the air conditioning unit) and put an air mattress and cushions under there to sleep. Such good memories, only 8 months married, expecting our first child, whispering in the dark under a blanket fort in our new apartment.

Funny: Tennyson is getting more and more mobile (he's five months now, can you believe it?), and multiple times a day we find him like this. Alan and I joke that he's working on a multi-step escape plan but he's only gotten as far as figuring out step one: get out of chair.

Real: Indigo woke up with a fever on Tuesday morning and is still a little under the weather. Snotty nose, sleepy, cranky. We're loading her up on fermented cod liver oil and fresh squeezed OJ.

I promise I did not even stage these. Indy brought this balloon home from a church event on Saturday evening and has been playing with it ever since (she calls it a "bah-balloon"). Every time she accidentally let it float to the ceiling she would immediately start to panic as though there was no way she would ever be able to get it back (forget about the fact that we had already retrieved it for her 10 times already), so in between playing with it she would store it in a sideways crate we happen to keep in the office, so that it would stay at her level. Genius.

Also, you might be looking at these thinking, "awww. . . how cute. She could be a model, a little girl model."

No.

I would not wish the task of taking her picture on anyone. You might see pictures of Indy on here and think she's so cooperative. She is one of the sassiest little girls I know. She actually brought me to tears once when I was trying to get her to model a handknit for me. She jumps into pictures when I don't want her in them and she runs away when I do. "Indy, look here!" is usually met with a sly smile and a back turn. "Stay back there!" and she runs full speed at the camera. Say "come closer!" and she'll disappear around the corner. Sometimes I ask Alan "did we make her this way?" (as in, so sassy). Us Millers, well, we can be a pretty spirited bunch, and a toddlers reinterpretation of all of that can be a little. . . cheeky? saucy? impertinent? all of the above? But who knows, nature/nurture is a complicated affair. She might have been just been born with a knack for scowling, but as a mother I'm always a glutton for a good guilt-trip, so if she rolls her eyes I'M THE WORST MOTHER EVER. That was a bit dramatic. I'm deep in the Fangorn Forest of Terrible Twos. The reality is that some day, like all of us, she will learn to pass things through a filter of kindess. Sassy will become spunky, plucky, and brave, and I won't want her any other way.