Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies
This is just a variation of my tollhouse variation that I previously published.

2 cups flour
¼ cup cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
14 T butter
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Place rack in center position and preheat oven to 350°. Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in bowl. Beat butter and sugar in mixer until creamy (but don't overbeat). Add egg and vanilla and combine. On the lowest speed possible, slowly beat in flour mixture until the dough just sticks together (use very light hands with the dough from this point forward). Stir in chocolate chips by hand. Gently form tablespoon-sized balls of dough and drop directly onto hollow center heavy-gauge dull aluminum baking sheet. The baking sheet should be at room temperature. (I rotate batches of cookies using two baking sheets.) Refrigerate dough between batches. Bake for about 10 minutes using non-convection heat and then another 4 minutes with convection heat to product a crispy cookie exterior. The dark color of the cookie dough makes it hard to know when they are done; so use your best judgement (e.g. guess)... but be sure not to overbake! Allow to cool on sheet for one minute, then transfer to a wire rack.

Eliana's Last Day of Preschool
Eliana finished her first year of preschool today (she still has one more year until she starts Kindergarten). She came home with a "certication of completion" and her teacher (Miss Louise) e-mailed us a picture:

She also came home with a book of projects she has completed this past year some of which included pictures taken at the time the project was completed. I must confess that she looked a lot younger back in September. She really has grown quite a lot... she looks less and less like a toddler and more and more like a "little big girl" (as Eliana puts it).

There are a few projects in the book that are classic Eliana; such as the name she gave her teddy bear at school: "Princess Cinderella Bear". Another project that stood out to me was "I wish I had one hundred..." Eliana's response to the question? "100 dress-ups".

I believe that preschool has been a net positive for Eliana. She has met some new friends, she experienced a framework of structure outside of her home where she was expected to perform tasks and behave in a certain way, and she had a lot of fun. Next year Eliana will go to preschool 4 half-days a week (instead of 3 half-days), and she will have the same teachers Berkeley had last year.

"I Smell It"
Olivia is really progressing with her language vocalization. In particular she loves to declare what she is going to do using sentences that start with the pronoun "I" (e.g. "I do it"). One of the funny "I" things she does is "I smell it." If I'm making something in the kitchen, then she'll often push a stool over to the counter next to where I am working and ask "I smell it Daddy?" The vocalized judgment that follows is either "mmmm!" or "yucky!".

The question of smell has also become part of the diaper changing routine. For example, today I had lying Olivia on the bathroom floor while I held her feet up to change her diaper:

"Phew... that diaper stinks!", I said.

"I smell it Daddy?"

(I held the diaper full of poop near her nose. It smelled pretty bad.)

"Yucky!"

Every time she's changed. Seriously... every time. It's almost as if she expects one of the diapers to smell good one day.