EDITOR’S NOTE:

A month later, Pinhead’s skin was removed. Iris, no longer so fond of her, stitched thread across her face and through her mouth and cheeks. Pinhead became a boy and married Baby Bear, who is also a boy. Iris tells me that it is okay for two boys to marry; they just can’t have any children. But Iris is no longer fond of Pinhead, without her-his skin. Pinhead is thrown across the room. I was going to make the head into a proper pincushion— one with a felt-sculpted face— but now I am not so sure. I don’t need another pincushion. I would like to just wrap more wool around it and use it as an inner head for a doll, but I am not certain if that is right. What if someone took their doll apart, to find another doll inside? What if someone found out about the head inside the head?

“Mommy, should I put green pins in her eyes? And yellow in her ears?”

Each pin is placed with definitive precision.

There had been a lot of strawberries in the bowl.

But, for one reason or another,

that didn’t last long.

The drupes (not berries, really,) looked much better in the grass than in the bowl.

And what, with the one child handing them to the other,

and the eating,

and the coveting,

and the other child taking them from the first,

and some sharing,

and— hey!

That’s okay. There’s more.

I used to wear this hat.

Martin did not find it so flattering on me, so I bought myself another.

It looks Magnificent on Iris.

Akiva does not have a hat that fits him.

Or clothing that fits him.

Every pair of shoes is not round enough, and his hair is too big.

I don’t think I’ve been photographing my children enough.

Or, maybe I’ve been photographing them plenty but not looking at them enough.

I’ve been off, absorbed in my own little world of tiny dolls.

They are so wonderfully sweet together.

So amazingly wonderfully sweet.

I’m so lucky!!!

We

put

up

some

swings!

Iris did not like swings very much until just recently.

She likes the security of being in a bucket swing.

Akiva would rather be practicing his walking skills.

Akiva pushed Iris all the way to Joshua’s house.

As of today, he officially takes only one nap per day.

Joshua has been acting a bit off since his daddy lost his job a few months ago.

We’ve hardly seen him in the last year, since Akiva was born.

Now Iris asks if we will ever see him again after he moves.

Probably not. But I don’t say that. I say, “I don’t know.”

She asks how far away he is going.

I tell her, “As far away as Gramma and Gramps, but in a different direction.”

When we broke the wishbone after Thanksgiving, she wished to see Joshua more.

She got the bigger half, but she didn’t get her wish.

I still remember when I was four and my best friend moved away.

Then I didn’t have a friend.

 Then we moved away.

One of the things in life I am most grateful for is my little sister.

I don’t know what I would have done without her as a child.

I have never wanted to be an only child.

It would have been a very lonely little world for my child-self.

Stick together, children.

You never know when you might need each other.