The Beanlet and Figgy Page

2009-04-24T21:03:00.000-07:00

Claire Helen got the golden egg at the egg hunt I put on a few weeks ago! It's traditional. At least if you are putting on an egg hunt for 200 kids on 2 days notice with only a Bartell's drugstore at your disposal.

She was quite pleased.

Hands off the egg, mother.

Just posting this one because Penny looks so Penny, and it's usually so hard to get pictures of babies where they really look like themselves.

Easter!

2009-04-23T17:41:00.000-07:00

I'm going to go downstairs and see if I can get any of the Claire Helen photos to upload(there are some really good ones from my professional organizations' easter egg hunt), because she is right at the age where they tally unfairnesses endlessly, and we all know having your mother not post as many pictures of you on a blog one time is incontrovertible proof that YOU NEVER LOVED ME AS MUCH AS THE OTHER TWO.

English is needlessly hard

2009-03-26T12:54:00.000-07:00

Simon has started contracting the phrase "I am not" as "I amn't." E.g., "I amn't going to bed right now." "I amn't a goofy kid." When I start to correct him I become tripped up by the fact that what he's doing is just applying rules of grammar in a completely logical way, even though we're used to putting the contraction someplace else in the sentence. He'll figure it out. I amn't too worried about it.

- M

Hi!

2009-02-16T12:02:00.000-08:00

I am 6 months old!

I can sit up! All on my own!

But not crawl. I try to scooch, but I only go backwards, away from whatever I am trying to get. (the cat.) It is very frustrating.

I have 2 teeth, that I always cover with my tongue. Don't try looking for them.

I still sleep through the night, am willing to smile at strangers, and giggle when Claire Helen shakes her hair all around. People look at my hair, and say "oh, another baldie like Simon?" but no, sadly that is a lot of hair for a Morris-Harrington baby. Simon was bald as a cue ball. I at least can legitimately lay claim to peach fuzz status. About the same amount as Claire Helen at this age.

That's it for now.

2009-01-27T11:03:00.001-08:00

Oh wow, is that the last time I posted?

Simon: How do cows sell their milk?
Claire Helen: On Craig's List, like everybody else.

I don't know about that. Doesn't Craig's List have a rule against selling your own bodily fluids?

Penny has recently started solids, and furrows her brow and makes a low, gutteral growl if you do not share food she thinks looks tasty with her. Or if you are not fast enough to get the spoon refilled.

Happy New Era! I know this is a family blog, and my better self would keep politics out of it, but we are so excited our old professor is now the president! Claire Helen thinks her teachers should get a turn next. We'll see, kiddo. I'm hoping Obama hogs it for 8 or so years.

Preschool cancelled for nonexistent snow

2008-12-17T11:29:00.000-08:00

I'm better than you!
No you're not!
I'm better than you!
But you're not 4 or 5!
But I'm 3! And you are not 3!
But you're not 4 or 5 and that's better and you're not 4!
Weeeeep. Waaaaaaaail. MOOOOoooooooooooooan.
Hit! I'm gonna hit you!

Guys. Cut it out.

EVERYTHING EVERYONE SAYS IS HURTING MY FEELINGS!!! I DON'T LIKE ANYONE SAYING ANYTHING!

Fin.

Simon got a haircut!

2008-11-14T21:08:00.000-08:00

His very first one, ever. He's going to be 3 in a couple weeks, and I guess I could have waited until then for hyperbolic effect, but it was driving me nuts, and we had a free hour this morning. Isn't it cute? I am very particular about male hair- I absolutely cannot stand facial hair or guys with long hair. It looks awful to me, no idea why. Distractingly bad. So now Simon is all clean cut and boyish.

He's dropping his nap, though, and really not able to handle it. He's started waking up at night again, having night terrors. I know it's because he's tired. He should go to bed earlier, but he can't, not if Claire Helen is still up. She goes and wakes him up to play/boss him around. Don't feel too bad for him. The other day Mat caught him doing the same thing to Penny. Round and round it goes. Hopefully it will work out soon. It's only been a couple weeks.

But hey, Penny is three months old! She rolled over for the first time today.

Go, Penny, go. Poor thing looks exhausted in that picture, doesn't she? She is. She fell asleep about 25 seconds after I finished taking pictures. I always forget to do these things until she is long overdue for a nap, so she is mostly photographed looking like this:

When she is more of a this kind of baby:

You know, happy, kicky, coo-y. She is a very contented child, I think. Not super ecstatic, not very sensitive. I think she's going to be another slow to warm kind of kid, but she doesn't show quite the same disdain for people trying to make her smile Claire Helen did. She'll do it, play along, but it's clear she finds the whole rigamarole a bit ridiculous. "Are you serious? You are going to talk to me like you are on crack, and I am supposed to smile? Ok, but this is pretty weird, dude." So far I've been pretty dead on in my 3 month guesstimates of their personalities, so I may be a bit cocky. We'll see, won't we?

She's just finally started to look more like her own person:

Very basically Claire Helenish, but with some of her own stuff too.

She's a big baby:

But not quite so Baby Of Unusual Size as Claire Helen was

Don't make fun of my sister, mama. But it's true! You have never seen such a big baby as Claire Helen was. An off the charts, extraordinarily, stupendously, voluminously chubby baby. Penny is just big. 90th percentile, and I get a feeling at her next appointment she'll be on Simon's track- 95th percentile for height, 75th or so for weight.

I worry that I am not feeding her enough. I know she's big, but she is acting hungry. She gets one bottle a night as supplement, but Mat is absolutely loathe to give her any more than that until I'm working. We tend to go with the more conservative opinion when we have a difference, so I'm trying to stick it out. I nurse her as often as I can, in an effort to get my supply up. She is super fussy at the boob, and is very likely going to yank it off one of these times. I was with a friend yesterday, who just has one kid, but had a heck of a time getting things started in the nursing department with him. She witnessed Penny's crazy thrashing, and as I was (as usual) whining about nursing, she said in almost a whisper (so the Seattle nursing police don't hear us?) "You don't have to do this, you know. I had such an awful time, and made myself keep going. If I had it to do over again, I would have just quit." But I am not sure I have it in me to quit. I can't quite suck it up and go at it stoically, so I'm going to whine, but I can't yet make the decision to quit. Probably by 6 months. Oh, I hate it so. Well, 3 months down. Even if we go a whole year, we're halfway until we can give her solids, and that should help a lot.

Claire Helen was at preschool, so she doesn't get a pictoral update. But this morning in the car, she said "Mommy, we've been going to a lot of playdates after preschool lately. I think we should try something else." Well ok then. Thanks for being direct. So I'm going to go get some candy boxes (boohoo, so sad, please do not tell me that raisin boxes would work just as well) and do the itty bitty city project from this website: http://lapazfarm.homeschooljournal.net/ Oh she will looooooove it.

2008-10-25T09:29:00.000-07:00

Simon and I were walking around in the mall yesterday getting a birthday present for cousin Ella, when we came across some Halloween costumes on super deep discount. Who on earth would wait until this late to think of Halloween costumes?

Me! My craftier friends have been felting and feathering for weeks now, but we are not a crafty people. We do, however, know a bargain when we see it.

Penny is going as: another mouth to feed at the start of a global financial crisis! Booga booga! Scary!

I think they like them, yes?

Penny had apples on her pants, so the kids think she is "Apple," an overly self consciously named celebrity baby. She does not think that is very funny.

Land shark!

I love these next two pictures of Claire Helen:

Simon was instructed to "show us your tough shark face." Ooooh! Scary!

We went to a Halloween party at the community center, and I felt bad about the dearth of Penny pictures.

Unfortunately I felt bad about it under fluorescent lights. She's not really green. Sorry kiddo.

The party was manned by college students, and I think the college students came up with the games. One of the stations was "manicure."

If Claire Helen gets her nails painted, Simon gets his nails painted. Pink, to match his crocs. My son has now had one more manicure than his mother has in her entire life.

The end.

Penny is one month!

2008-09-14T18:07:00.000-07:00

And one day, but yesterday we were hiking and barbecuing, so she'll excuse our lateness.

She was not into the whole baby model thing, so these aren't especially good pictures.

Even pissed off she's pretty cute, though, right?

At one month she is very mellow (though starting to get a little bit of a witching hour at night- gearing up for the 6 week fussies), eats well, sleeps well. Can smile at you, but does not bestow that honor on just anyone for any old thing. Another Skeptical Harrington Baby.

We have more grandparents coming in tomorrow, and we mean to try to get her to meet the extended Seattle cousins, maybe this weekend, but we sort of forgot to mention that to any of them. Are any of you reading? Up for pizza this weekend?

2008-08-31T09:10:00.001-07:00

We have a sleeper!
Let us all commence the Serbian Trumpet Dance of Joy. They have one, you know. And a whole festival devoted to trumpets. It's on Youtube. It's Simon's favorite show.
Penny sleeps! I've never experienced having a newborn around who sleeps. Gee, they are cute when you are not hallucinating bugs crawling on your skin from the sleep deprivation. I doubt it will last, but for now it's made the transition from 2 to 3 so much smoother than I could have imagined. I was thinking it would be pretty easy, too, so that's saying something. But sleep and the fact that the age gap is so much bigger means that despite
1) Simon flooding the upstairs bathroom the night we got home from the hospital, raining water and plaster down on the downstairs bathroom and ruining the upstairs one(Oh well, we meant to remodel that one anyway)
2) Mat getting a stomach virus 5 days in
3) Claire Helen getting that same stomach virus 3 days later
4) a not super fast physical recovery
5) Penny having trouble with the whole weight gain concept
6) Mat returning to work instantaneously
this is still a whole heck of a lot easier than the transition from 1 to 2. Hour to hour I'd say it's at least easier than when I was pregnant and we were a man down, and quite a bit more fun for me personally. Yay! I remember Simon as an infant very fondly, but I do not remember that time period with a lot of fondness.

Penny, doing what she does best. She also smiles and laughs in her sleep, and looks about somewhat skeptically when awake. She is transfixed by the slats on our bed and the baby on the side of the wipes box, whenever either of those are in view. She doesn't really cry, so far. We were at a thrift store looking for school supplies yesterday, and she let out a yell while Mat was holding her. I had to look around and ask if that was ours, because I don't really recognize that sound coming from her.

Looks just like Claire Helen, only blonde. Well, blonde shortly after a bath. A few days later I tend to second guess myself, but then we bathe her again, and under the preschooler-head-touching-grime the hair is, indeed blonde.

Oh, it's so tiring being a baby model.

Also, we have other children.

Donut shop run after our first successful venture out (the pediatrician's office).

At the donut shop, Penny...slept.

We like Penny!

Preschool starts up again next week. Claire Helen is just really excited to get back to her friends and the fun stuff they do there. Simon is maybe a little more nervous; let's all wish him luck.

Penny, days 2 through 4

2008-08-17T20:36:00.000-07:00

Penelope Lane Harrington

2008-08-16T12:13:00.000-07:00

Born August 13, 2008 at 9 am sharp. 9 pounds 3 ounces, 21 inches long, with blonde curly hair and legs so strong she jumped out of the first bath the nurses tried to give her. Has incredible lungs (going to need them in this house), but so far only cries- "Neh!" when hungry, and "Hey!" when something's bending the wrong way.

Happy Fourth of July!

2008-07-04T17:03:00.000-07:00

Every year we go to this neighborhood thing 3 blocks from here- I call it a block party, but that really underestimates the scope of the thing. I should post the schedule, dudes, because it is jam packed. They kick off at 9 am with a kiddie parade led by the fire truck from the fire station at the end of the block. Then there's hat making, a pinewood derby, sidewalk chalk art, potluck breakfast, today there were covered wagon rides(a sheet over some chicken wire on a regulation Red Flyer- very clever!), a wiffle ball tournament, gutter boat races, ice cream making, and that barely gets us to noon. We are right this second missing a potluck awards dinner (all the kids who participate in the parade get an award- Claire Helen was "best tap dancer," and Simon was "most patriotic super hero.") and a SQUARE DANCE. A square dance. 3 blocks from my house, in the middle of urban Seattle. But a body can only take so much celebrating, and we are going to fireworks tonight at 10. We need our rest.

Some years they let the kids ride the fire engine- it seems to be mainly the whim of the guys on call which determines how many kids and where. This year they let them swarm.

Can you find Simon?

That's right, he's in the CAB!

Claire Helen's yoga teacher from preschool was kind enough to sit with him (a bit intimidating, just you and the firefighter alone up there, no?), and he took his parade waving duties quite seriously.

Claire Helen decided to walk with her friends instead of getting caught up in the fire engine mob scene.

There was plenty to see- two Statues of Liberty, whoa.

Good parade!

I just love this guy. Some of the old timers go all out for this thing. A tri cornered hat! The best part is he wasn't the only guy in period costume, nor was that the only thirteen colonies flag flying. We live in Mayberry.

After the parade they let all the kids crawl all over the truck, until they had to go to an actual fire. Very exciting, and frankly good timing because the kids weren't exactly being delicate with the machinery.

They set out this crinkly paper that somehow makes excellent hats when you fold it over a bucket. I don't know. Crafts are not my strong suit. But the kids love it.

Home again home again.

On one of the hot days last weekend we went to a carnival the museum about a mile from us put on- a bunch of old fashioned toys, sack races, bubble stands, that sort of thing. Simon still loves bubbles.

Claire Helen had just gotten a check for ten dollars for her birthday from her great grandmother. After putting 5 in savings, she got 5 dollars to spend however she wished. So far she's spent the one dollar on a popsicle, and keeps the rest VERY SAFELY HIDDEN in that wallet, which she checks forty times a day, and for at least a week would not let out of her sight.

Yeah, nobody liked the mural as much as I did.

They DID, however, like the salmon boat exhibit. Fish!

Next up is Claire Helen's birthday (Sunday, at long last, Sunday. She has been planning this shindig since last October. Somehow I've gotten roped into making a strawberry cake, which is to actually resemble a strawberry. Uh, we'll see.), and then a grandparent visit. After that we coast on in to Nana coming and the baby, in just over a month. Good thing, too, because Miss Fetus and I need to have us some words about the whole rib kicking business. Enough, baby.

Camping!

2008-06-16T08:54:00.000-07:00

For Father's Day weekend we decided to pack up and head outta town, on what was probably our last pre-baby big adventure. As Mat says, it wouldn't be pregnancy if we didn't do something just a little bit stupid around 8 months. We have never been perfectly content car campers, so we found an easy backpacking trail about an hour from here (can I just say again how amazing it is to get the benefits of living in a big city while remaining less than an hour from true wilderness? Hundreds and hundreds of trails and parks to choose from- ocean, mountains, lakes, rainforest, whatever you want. We weren't the only people in the forest all weekend, but if we'd wanted to be, all we would have needed to do was drive another half hour or so.), picked up Mat after work, and had our tent staked in the woods by 8.

We are raising ACTUAL tree huggers. No prompting for these photographs at all, scout's honor.

We all had a great time, and though we are looking forward to the days of lighter packing for the trail, we're very glad we went. And honestly the pregnancy was more of a pain for packing than the kids- people who are 8 months pregnant are extremely precious sleepers, can't use plain old iodine tablets for purifying drinking water (something about the fetus growing an extra head, I don't know), and are not nearly as good at being pack mules as non pregnant people. They do, however, remember to bring s'mores supplies.

How many s'mores are you going to have tonight, Claire Helen?

Hey, don't we usually have, like, a dog or something on the end of this thing?

Children in the mist.

Simon is good at telling us when he wants a break.

Hey mom, I'm in a TENT! Not sleeping or anything, but hey, a TENT!

This is the way they really are, giggly, cuddly best friends who love to play together all day long. We know it's mostly luck, so we just appreciate our good fortune and adore watching them enjoying being together.

"You gonna eat that?" And Simon in Mat's baseball cap, keeping away from the evil sun. Did I tell you all that in addition to having every other non-serious skin malady in the book, he is allergic to sunscreen? Sweet Jesus on a stick, boy. I am really sorry about those maternal epidermal genes, but we have just got to be able to go outside every once in a while this summer. Maybe we could put him a giant UV protective plastic bubble.

Random photo dump from the last month or so

2008-05-18T09:24:00.000-07:00

Simon has adopted his sister's mostly monochromatic style of dressing.

Simon doesn't really think he needs to own a lot of things- good little middle kid- but when his favored objects get taken away, it's a big problem.

Ah, order restored to the universe.

I took the kids hiking a couple weeks ago on a mountain about 45 minutes from here.

Mysteriously, I did not remember the first 3/4 mile being switchbacks, from the last time I hiked it, not pregnant and not with two small children. They were troupers, though Claire Helen absolutely did not trust that I could find my way back to the car and kept demanding to look at the map.

2008-05-11T09:59:00.000-07:00

"Daddy, iffer a tow truck was broken, would another tow truck come and get it?"

Sunday morning

2008-04-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter!

2008-03-25T19:05:00.000-07:00

Simon has some sort of feverish plague, sucking the life out of all of us, so this will mostly be photos with captions.

The Easter Bunny brought (among other things) these little umbrellas filled with jelly beans. So the kids were using them like real umbrellas, and now use them as parasols for their dolls. Hee.

Mat tried so hard to get a picture of the two of them smiling while holding hands. This is about the best we got. That stuff on their faces, by the way, is face paint- a fairy for Claire Helen, a flower for Simon- from an egg hunt a local artsy fairy kid place hosted Easter morning. They had to go from room to room talking to forest fairies getting clues to find the eggs. Cute.

Just a random very Claire Helen picture from earlier this month. Drawing a parrot, I think. She's a very desk oriented person, and likes to hang out drawing there for a good portion of the day.

You're not going to take my soccer ball or anything, right?

Dying Easter eggs- I think we had about a 50% ratio of original eggs to final product. Simon was very serious about the whole project, as you can see.

We had our big ultrasound last week, and brought the kids along. Everything looks good! I think Claire Helen really enjoyed it. Her preschool class has been deep into human anatomy the last month or so, so seeing the ventricles of the heart up on the big screen (they have a big screen TV for parents to watch the ultrasound on. Fancy.) was a thrill for her. Simon was hours past due for a nap, so spent about half the time announcing (in a very quiet, gentlemanlike way, I should say) "I don't YIKE dat baby. Dat baby is not nice." Yeah, well, wait till dat baby kicks you out of your room, kiddo.

2008-02-25T21:39:00.000-08:00

Well, internet, it’s been 2 months. If any of you read our blog as closely as some segments of the population read the Harry Potter books, you have certainly already figured out what this means.

Right? You all know, right? Nobody here would just read for pictures, right? You’re not the type to just get the New Yorker for the cartoons, are you?

We’re going for the threepeat, people. We looked around, noticed we had things like free time and brain space not devoted to the gastrointestinal situation of people under 4 feet tall, and decided to remedy that state of affairs. The Bird is due sometime in August, and we are thrilled to bits. Well, except for the part where we probably need a new car. I do detest the car buying process. But the kid part is going to be very fun- I really feel the best thing I have ever given Claire Helen and Simon is each other I've never seen two kids so close and so thrilled to be around each other all of the time. To have decided that we have the energy and time to give even more of that to them is a really elating feeling.

For pretty much all of January I was a mess(being the one biologically in charge of reproduction BITES), but I saved up enough energy all week for us to go to the snow a few weekends. Claire Helen was an awesome sledder. The first weekend, though, Simon was not snow's biggest fan. He had an okay time, but any time the snow touched him he'd wilt and wail. The no body fat problem, again.

The next weekend, though, we took the kids up with some friends to see what they'd think of skiing. Simon apparently was born to ski. Mat would set him up on the little skis, balance him in a tuck position, and Simon would bomb down, full speed ahead. He didn't pause, look back, catch an edge, or anything else. And even as he slowed down he'd start shouting "More ski! Ski again!"

Claire Helen thinks exactly what you would think she thinks of putting giant wooden sticks on her feet and hurling herself down an icy abyss.

Vancouver, for my birthday. I was still a little green to appreciate the whole thing, but I did perk up long enough to eat dessert from the coolest chocolatier in the world. Why don't they have more of these? And we stuck the kids in what appeared to be a giant hamster cage- 2 stories of slides, ball pits, and nets to climb, which we found while wandering around their farmer's markets. Oh, those wacky Canadians.

Random Claire Helen picture. For a little while she had decided to name the new baby Solatta, but has now changed her mind to Dorothy Lightning. These are both options for a boy, in case you were wondering; she's not interviewing for a little sister. She's having a great time at preschool these days, and lately seems to enjoy playing "architect," where she makes blueprints and then carries them out with construction paper and pipe cleaners. That's my little long term planner. We've recently started both kids in soccer, and while it's fun to see both of them running around out there, it's especially heartwarming to see Claire Helen so confident with a physical activity. She's a natural at it- who knew? And really seems to have a good time kicking around the ball. It's an hour, and she runs flat out for 55 minutes of it. Awesome.

Simon has also recently started preschool- the same little mommy and me co-op Claire Helen and I participated in lo these many moons ago. It's very fun to do this with another child, and I think Simon is getting a lot out of an activity that's Just For Him. He is an incredibly inquisitive little dude, "Where that noise comin' from? What those people doin'? What that bird doin'?" and I can see the Why phase coming at us fast. His most favorite thing right now is to break into his sister's room while she's at preschool and play with the babydolls she has artfully arranged and left just so. Good little brother. We have had an epidemic of crayon drawing showing up on walls, but overall I'm enjoying 2 and 3.5.

Merry Christmas, y'all

2007-12-25T10:22:00.000-08:00

It's all fun and games until somebody swallows a penny

2007-12-01T15:09:00.000-08:00

And what did you do Friday night? Hang out at the Children's Emergency room with a purple helicopter princess and her pet monkey/kid brother? No? We did. She's fine. You could see the outline of the penny in her stomach REALLY clearly. Odd.

Today it snowed, and at first didn't look like it was going to stick.

Simon pretty much hates snow. It's hard having no body fat.

These are pictures from my folks' house over Thanksgiving. Checkers is a little above their heads at the moment, but they definitely get "jumping from square to square."

The closest we got to a picture of Thanksgiving dinner- but leftovers are as venerated a tradition as the turkey, right?

Kids and giant wooden mallets, what could go wrong?

Simon the miner.

Simon wearing a woolen suit my parents brought back from Great Britain for my brother when he was Simon's age.

2007-10-20T13:19:00.001-07:00

Claire Jane is over right now, and she and Claire Helen are negotiating/playing in the living room. I wish I had gotten this on tape.

CJ: I'm the fox, and you're the hunter! No, no, I'm the DOG and you're the hunter! No. I'm the hunter, and YOU'RE the fox. OK. You be the fox, and I'm the hunter. Go! OK. You're the fox! You're a fox! I'm a hunter, and you're a fox!" (makes move to chase Claire Helen)

CH: I'm a beet. (sticks up arms, squats into a ball, like a beet, I guess?)

Simon: Hey, that's mine! (runs out of room to the notice of nobody, grabs baby doll, declares himself victorious)

Quiet Time in the City

2007-10-17T16:12:00.000-07:00

Well, not exactly quiet time, per se, so much as "Simon passed out in the car on the way home from lunch with Mat, and Claire Helen is playing with a puzzle" time. Either way, I am free to amble about on the internet.

And internet, I have a question. Why are all the animal habitats farm animals? Why are there no swamps with alligator nests or rain forests with tree houses? Simon and Claire Helen play amateur biologist with about 40% of their free time,* and seem to really want to play pretend with stuff we see at the zoo or on our front steps, wanting to know who lives in nests or burrows or caves. You'd think there would be more pretend animal habitats out there, wouldn't you? But no. If you see one, let me know. Triple bonus points for meerkats, puffins, or snails. Also, what do you do for a frustrated beginning pre reader? Claire Helen seems to be really, really annoyed that she can't sound out the words in books she likes read to her (who knew that Amelia Bedelia had such an advanced vocabulary, right?), but I am having trouble imagining an interesting book made of words with 3 letters, besides which I think what she's really looking for is success sounding out new words, not really getting whole narratives out of it yet. Games? Non electronic ones?

And for all those questions, I will give you some answers:
Number of times each child has slept in their own bed over the last week: 0
Number of times they have had a sleepover on Simon's floor: 2
Number of times they have swapped beds: 4
Number of times 1 child started out in our bed and the other went to their sibling's bed: 1

Forget musical chairs, we have musical beds. They are awfully sweet when they have a sleepover, though. Awfully. They're so close, lately. Last week Claire Helen was at a playdate when it was time for Simon's nap, and he missed her so much he made me sing her special song to him(they each have their own), and go lay down in her room while he fell asleep.

*other options include in order of frequency: lego house building, Simon plays with doll house while Claire Helen tries to convince him to do anything else(which has actually led to her declaring she only wants Santa Claus to bring Simon his own doll house so she doesn't have to share hers anymore. Despite the fact that she never plays with it.), dress up, puzzles, or art. But animals are number 1 by far.

2007-10-12T15:11:00.000-07:00

Just dropping off some braids photos from the afternoon. Claire Helen all the sudden loves them, and wants them in her hair all the time. Simon does not get to show up in this post as he is sleeping; good thing as it's so hard to explain to him why he, too, can't have braids. Or even a sparkly purple clip, poor poppet.

He is, however, completely potty trained, and getting into Big Boy Speaking mode. Example (scintillating) conversation from our car ride this morning:

Si: I see a bus!
Me: I see a bus, too.
Si: WE see a bus! Daddy rides a bus. I ride a bike.
Me: You rode a bike yesterday, with Jack.
Si: WE see a bus!

Scintillating, like I said, but the cute part is it's like he only knows one way to intone a word. So "We see a bus! Daddy rides a bus." sounds more like "WE see! A bus. DADDY! rides. A bus." like those old timey automated customer service phone menus before they had digital voices. Please push! one? for an operator.

2007-09-26T16:38:00.000-07:00

Hello! I have been working on this post for three whole days. I do it every day in the afternoon, after 4 o'clock playdates, thinking the kids will like to look at the pictures for a couple minutes, and Mat will get home so I can crank it out. Then every day at 6:30, instead of ramping up my productivity, I crash hard, jetlag style, and barely manage to keep my eyes open until 8 in an attempt to adjust just a little bit to our time zone. Oh well. The good part is I can be the morning person I have always aspired to be, even if it's just for a few days.

Aaaaand, we're back! This may have been the best vacation of my whole life. This despite 2 transcontinental flights with small children (they were awesome, slept the whole way there, colored for 8 hours on the way back), strep throat for 3 members of the family, meaning navigating the British medical system as a foreigner, a fever so high I hallucinated the wallpaper moving, and penicillin (which Simon is allergic to and must be basically hermetically quarantined from) schedules to rival a space shuttle launch. I tried, I really did, to keep on keeping on, but apparently strep throat is not just a sore throat. I spent 36 hours in bed, and Mat, also getting over The Strep, gamely took the kids out, with no car, in a strange city, to all kinds of crowded tourist sites and hunting for any morsel of food that sounded appealing to me, all by himself. What a mensch.

And now I can focus exclusively on how amazing and wonderful the trip was. Claire Helen really didn't want to come home, which did absolutely nothing for my "I want to live in Great Britain" bug. We spent a couple days in London, a couple days in Edinburgh, and then took off for the Scottish Highlands. That is hands down the most gorgeous place I have ever been, and I have had the good fortune to go to a lot of pretty places in my life. I kept trying to take pictures to memorialize places, but even as I saw them on the viewfinder, I knew they were wrong, wrong, wrong. We have places like that in the states, and I've visited them abroad, beautiful waterfalls and vistas, some of them. You either have to hike for 3 days to get there, or maybe they are along the road, with guard rails, interpretive plaques, and tour buses all in a line. In the Highlands, you just pull off the road any old place, and wander up a hill, and there you are. 200 foot waterfalls, sea cliffs, and nobody but you and the sheep. As far as you can see, as far as you can imagine, it's just you and the sheep, as though people have never existed. Pure awe. I got to watch my children frolic through Highland grasses looking for fairies**; huddle up together against the vast Atlantic Ocean, all of this, for 4 days.

But it's really done better with pictures.

Outside St. Paul's cathedral, in London.

At a pub after a long day. The kids were so great out and about. We got compliments in almost every place we went and at every meal about how sweet and well behaved our kids were. This warms the cockles of my uptight little heart, as I am definitely one of those people who thinks there are appropriate and inappropriate ways for kids to behave in public.

St. James park in London, after a visit to the prime minister's house, and assorted other important governmental places. Note the themed shirt.

Elephant sculptures in Hyde Park.

The top of a double decker bus in Edinburgh. They looooved all the public transportation, and got to be little experts at hopping on and off the tube/bus. My little urbanites.

Simon and the penguins at the Edinburgh zoo. They have the largest penguin pond in the world, and every day at 2:15 let the penguins out for a parade. How cool is that? I wouldn't know. I was in bed. But it sounded awesome.

In the background you can see Edinburgh, but the picture doesn't do it justice at all. It's 100% gothic and cool, no poorly thought out 60's architecture at all.

The Highlands!

I tried the whole trip to get just the right picture of sheep, with just the right sheep-y expression in just the right light, showing some of the isolation of the area. I failed, but after taking all those pictures, how could I not post even one?

Okay, maybe two.

Fairy Glen, with all kinds of lichen covered rocks and mossy hillsides and whatnot.

Caterpillar hunting on some random hill just off the road.

Simon next to some sea cliffs with a pretty rainbow you apparently cannot see. Nana nana boo boo.

Our hotel room in York, on the way back down to London for the flight out. Someday I'll tell you about how the whole freaking country was booked up, and we went from town to town on the train to find a room for the night. We got really lucky, and ended up in this rockin' spa with the best breakfast ever served, and as you can see, great beds for jumping on.

Not in any way above bribery for good behavior while traveling.

**Not actually, as when pressed as to whether we were going looking for fairies, Claire Helen replied, "Well, I don't think so. Fairies are only real in books." I checked later, and THANK THE LORD, Santa Claus is still real. Not the elves, though. How ridiculous.

First day of preschool!

2007-09-05T10:49:00.000-07:00

Well, it's old hat by now, but we took pictures anyhow the first day. She is so attached to her teacher from the previous year that she wants to get littler and go back to her class, which I am taking as a sign that the place she goes is fantastic, if they can arouse such passion in little hearts.

Excerpt of an e-mail to a friend who asked about Claire Helen's and Simon's personalities*:

For CH, creative and inquisitive, probably. Her imagined world is very complicated, and very complete, and she demands her knowledge of the world to be similarly complete. She throws herself more fully into her imaginary play than the average bear. She's into cool stuff- meerkats and prime ministers, not the princesses and dinosaurs of her peers. I dig that. Claire Helen is very, very slow to warm up, according to those little quizzes. She does not like it AT ALL when everyone in the room is looking at her, and it's a rare grown up (and frankly a rare kid) she bestows her favor upon. But I am kind of surprised to learn that she is a leader, once she gets her bearing, generally the architect of whatever 3 year old plans are afoot. But a surprise one- other moms are always telling me their kid doesn't let other kids boss them around, right before Claire Helen successfully bosses them around. She doesn't really get het up as often as other 3 year olds; has a great sense of perspective for her age. She's insanely stoic- BROKE HER HAND and wouldn't cry about it, for god's sake. I think these things are kind of linked, because she has always really *gotten* social cues- a stern look is enough to get her to stop behavior; she stops a rare performance the nanosecond someone looks bored. She can tell when you're trying to pull one over on her. And now she is learning to use that skill to get her way. She is in no way meek, but the force of her personality gets underestimated, at least by grown ups. I think that will come in handy for her, actually.

I would say she is like me, but she's not as much of a pleaser as I was, and I wasn't as creative as she is.

Simon is too young to write an exposition, but something about social and perpetually sunny. Is convinced in a very fundamental way that the world is his oyster. I think it's going to be very easy for him to be happy in life. He assumes that everyone is delighted by him, and so they are. He likes PURPLE and SPARKLY and BUBBLES. Flashy.

*A totally self absorbed and narcissistic little exercise, but what else are blogs for, than narcissistic ramblings about your children? Nothing, I say.

2007-09-03T11:41:00.001-07:00

Claire Helen and I agree this is the perfect little girl's dress. Green corduroy, good for running and climbing, not too pricey. My way of demonstrating affection is to buy it, though we don't strictly need another dress. Her way is to wear it 5-6 times per week.

Running with feathers, and Mat's Aunt Jane and Uncle Mark in the background. We had a great visit with them, and only wish we'd gotten more non-blurry pictures.

Hiking in the cascades this weekend. Kind of a trippy sideways picture, yes? Kids did a great job, not fazed at all by the fifty billion mosquitoes, and even walking on their own 50% of the time. Go kiddos.

And I wondered what on earth we were going to do today

2007-08-23T08:33:00.001-07:00

Off to ride bikes. I think Claire Helen would sleep on her new bike (a hand me down from a cousin) if she could.

2007-08-19T18:18:00.000-07:00

Claire Helen and Claire Helen's fuzzy mommy in a bouncy house at a neighbor's birthday party earlier today(a buddy who was at creative arts camp with her a couple weeks ago, and who yells from her backyard to ours to see if Claire Helen and Simon are available to play. Good fun.) . You want to be all curmudgeonly and, "Oh, what ever happened to pin the tail on the donkey and a sheet cake?" but MAN that was fun. Claire Helen and Simon were in there for hours, bouncing higher and higher and higher, too out of breath to laugh. You can't quite tell from the angle, but she's about 2 feet in the air in that picture, grinning like a fool.

Claire Helen's birthday party, lo these many months ago. Don't try anything stupid, lady. My muffin. Arrrr.

Blowing out the candle on her cupcake tower/cake. She was VERY concerned about getting that top one up there.

Last night we hosted Mat's cousin's family overnight for the second weekend in a row. The kids are now convinced that's what happens on weekends. They're going to be mighty disappointed next Saturday, with an empty top bunk and only Mom and Dad to chase around.

2007-08-12T15:56:00.000-07:00

Wow, it’s been a busy couple of months. We’ve been flying all around the country, cousin hopping, hosting people here, and generally powering through the summer. It’s been great, but we’re glad to be at home for a month before our big (National Lampoon’s) Great Britain Vacation.

What prompted me to sit down and write today is fear that I will someday forget Sumya, Claire Helen’s imaginary friend. She’s always been an imaginary friend sort of kid, but in the last month “Sumya” has really become the archetypal imaginary sidekick you always hear about. She in present at every interaction, and even gets the blame for transgressions I’m fairly certain were not her fault (unless you know of a lot of gnome-fairies who can draw on walls).

Sumya, who is apparently half gnome half fairy, has purple and green hair, wears purple and green clothes, and used to live in a purple house, but now lives in a green house. She has a baby brother and sister named Funny and Binty. She lives in the forest and has a birthday every single day, but doesn’t yet know how to blow out birthday candles. She’s 4 feet tall and sleeps underwater. Her mama doesn’t appear to be very on the ball, letting her baby brother “take her ball when she was still using it” and “not letting her play big kid games because she said they were grown up games but they weren’t.” Other than that glaring difference (ahem), she is apparently much like Claire Helen and Simon’s mommy. Sumya attends Claire Helen’s preschool, as well as another preschool where she learns French and eats cookies. She eats at a table in our living room, under the rug.

Pretty neat, eh?

2007-06-19T15:27:00.001-07:00

Hello! Hope you all had a lovely father's day. We had a nice visit from my folks (our garden certainly looks a lot better for it), though the kids did go through a little bit of attention detox the morning they left. I believe Claire Helen thought they were going to live here now, and was very disappointed to learn that 2 adult's full attention at all times as well as cake and juice breakfasts were not now going to be par for the course. They also brought their camera, and I am thrilled to share some pictures with you all! Isn't Claire Helen huge? All the sudden she is so tall.

I am, ah, just lookin' at this cake. Just, you know, watching it. Nevermind me.

Ack! Kids are up. I will post more substantively again soon. For now, it is good grandparent reinforcements are coming soon, as it a lack of cake snack turns out to be wildly disappointing.

2007-06-07T20:51:00.000-07:00

Hello from lovely gray Seattle. I don't think there are too many ways it's clear I'm genetically British, but a love of cold and gray is certainly one of them. After all that heat it's so nice to have a break. Possibly also this is a sign of not having air conditioning.

As Mat was taking the kids up to bed tonight, he said to me, "Simon can snap! He just did it! Can you believe it?" Simon having been able to snap for a month or so now reminds me I really should get an update in, if only for his parents' sake.

Simon, at 18 months, can:
snap, loudly and intentionally. Hip little guy.
Jump, and catch a couple inches.
say his name (zee-zye)
and a bunch of other things. Is past the "I can list out the words he knows" hump.
some phrases, usually with stock words at the beginning- more, mine, no, dada/mama. Just on the edge of more complicated sentences, I think.
use some pronouns correctly. Mostly "I," as in "I share," or "I turn." Actually, only "I" now that I think about it.
follow directions of the "go get babydoll and put her in the stroller" variety.

Pretty toddler-y. I think 18 month olds are irrisistible. They speak a language only you understand, are delighted by basically anything you do while looking at them, and you can still fool yourself into thinking they just didn't understand you when you told them to stop drawing on the walls, otherwise they would have cheerfully complied. I had pneumonia last week, and was housebound and bored so half potty trained him. I suppose most people would have done crosswords, but most people probably don't mind diapers as much as I do. It's not true progress or anything, but we're that much closer to being a zero diaper pail household.

Claire Helen is turning 3 next month, and her Grandma Margaret is coming out at the end of the month to help celebrate(Claire Helen has been planning this party for MONTHS- guest list, who will sit near who, whether or not to have cupcakes- a resounding yes, you'll be happy to know). At least she probably thinks that's why she's coming; Mat and I secretly think it's so we can go out to dinner on our fifth wedding anniversary a couple days before, if you can believe that. Five years!

I would make a list of what she can do, but really, what can't she? A couple weeks ago at the park she hopped on a tricycle and started pedaling, making me realize I have been duped for QUITE some time, pushing her with the parent bar on her little tricycle all the way to the grocery store and back. We've had a couple little parent swimming lessons, and now I'm giving her over to her favorite babysitter, who as it happens is also a lifeguard and swim instructor at a local private pool. I think it's better this way- my biggest blind spot is surely fear of the water. What's to fear? It's so great! Oh well. She's getting me back with her new defiant thing when she's mad- getting right up in my face and yelling "Jop!!" before turning around and flopping on the couch/a cushion/a chair and hiding her face. I am pretty sure I am supposed to be Highly Offended, but mostly I just cock my eyebrows and re-explain about the no paint on the rug policy.

The other night we turned on PBS so I could give her a haircut, and The Winged Migration was on, a documentary about a bunch of different birds and their migratory patterns. She can already name so many different kinds of birds(and any other animal, really, bugs too)- different species of puffins, terns, and herons, and always very thoughtfully absorbs more. I don't think it will be too long before she's teaching us species names. She's a little biologist.

2007-05-22T12:23:00.000-07:00

Last week we had a hot day, so we set up our little wading pool(which Claire Helen will tell you is basically a country club in our backyard, and in fact couldn't even wait her turn at circle time to tell all the other kids about the marine installation.). Setting these things up always attracts the neighborhood kids, and one of their moms caught some pictures of Simon and Claire Helen snuggling.

Simon's swim trunks, which I like very much, were really only for show. I guess the pool was a little bit chilly for mister 2% body fat, so whenever I'd try to plop him in, he'd do that polarized magnet thing toddlers can do with the ground when they don't feel like being put down, where no matter how I'd try to move his body toward the surface of the water, he would always keep it exactly 12 inches away. All while pronouncing the whole thing "IIIIIIIIIIIIIce! No! No! Iiiiiiiiice!" Yes, obviously, Simon, as your mother I have decided to dip you into a large bucket of ice. This is my idea of fun. Hold on, I'm going to go get some fire ant hills for you to walk through.

He did very much enjoy throwing dirt into the pool, hopefully onto another toddler.

Not getting through...

2007-05-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

Claire Helen: Can I have the monkey plate?
Mama: I don't know. Simon gets to pick first because you took away the doll stroller*, and that made him sad.
CH: Otay. Simon, can you pick not-the-monkey-plate?

* When Simon is in the same room as the doll stroller, all the other toys disappear, and it is just he and his muse. Sometimes he likes to just stand with it, holding onto both handles, revelling in the power that is the stroller. No one else is allowed to touch it, or heaven forbid PUT anything in it. He just wants to push it around. There is something about this age and doll strollers. Claire Helen's first, and luckily so far only, flailing on the ground flat out in the parking lot tantrum was inspired by this very same doll stroller at right around this age, when I had the audacity to *touch* it to keep it from rolling into oncoming traffic as we took it from the toy store to the car.

2007-05-16T08:07:00.000-07:00

I keep forgetting to mention that Claire Helen's hair has gotten curly. I wouldn't say it's exactly sudden, because it's always gotten curly when it's humid, but a couple months ago she finally got enough hair that it can stand on it's own, instead of the slightest breeze flattening it out.

Simon, alas alack, still lacks hair.

He doesn't seem to mind.

And lately, actually, he is willing to wear a hat which was my whole problem with him not having hair anyhow, how to keep his scalp from fricaseeing in the summer.

I hope you all had a wonderful mother's day. I did. Mat and the kids made me waffles in bed(I'm sure Simon and Claire Helen were a great help), and then we went for a run around Green Lake. I got to get myself some new pajamas (did you all know I have kind of a pajama thing? My everyday clothes come from Target and Old Navy, and I roll my eyes at the thought of children wearing clothes that are more expensive than grown up clothes, but we all have nice pajamas. Sleeping is where it counts most to be comfortable, right?), so all in all a good day.

I would love to tell you all more about Claire Helen and her bountiful love for our new plastic backyard wading pool and first out- of- context - not- her- or - Simon's - name - sight - word (fish), or how Simon still only has maybe 50 words and a bare handful of two word phrases but seem to be learning his letter sounds(a second child thing, I think, though of course he, as all children here in Lake Woebegone, is above average in all ways). But today is Wednesday, and that is special Simon and mommy fun day, and we are headed to the toddler play center, where word on the street is they got a new, bigger bouncy house, and took out the much adored mini roller coaster. Serious drama, let me tell you.

2007-05-02T16:40:00.000-07:00

Hello! I am, alas alack, still cameraless. At least still stop-motion camera less. I keep not posting because I think most of you really just humor me putting up text to get to the photos, but really, in addition to being a photo repository this is also the kids’ baby books. So I should jot something down. And get a lead on this You-Tube business, because the other night Mat and I took a video of Claire Helen pretending to go camping (with “Charlie” and “Real Claire Jane,”) who were both lucky enough to get their own cakes made out of diaper wipes. There was a whole tent, and a river, and some raccoons. I love how involved she gets.

Now I’m feeling list-y.

1) Simon is in the middle/at the start of an insane must have EXACTLY what Claire Helen has in EXACTLY the fashion she has it thing, whether or not his tipping up the steamed milk cup with a straw in it results in all the milk spilling all over the floor or not. It all started with Cheerios a couple weeks ago, and permeates every aspect of their shared life. Kind of nice that they’re close together, actually, because there’s a lot of overlap in what’s appropriate.

2) Simon demonstrated the fastest word acquisition I have ever seen the other day. I gave him a marshmallow, while saying the word once, I think, and now all day every day he goes over to the corner in the kitchen where I keep my secret hot chocolate stash, and peeps “Mah-meyow? For the rest of his life he’s going to have a whiff of positive association he can’t place with that corner, all Proustian, because I am never giving him that much sugar at one shot again. Yowza. He can get worked up.

3) I just discovered you have to have carseats to travel in San Francisco cabs, and this makes my whole hippie dream of only using public transportation while visiting the hippie mecca as well as my hippie alma mater much less tenable. Hmph. New York doesn’t have this problem.

4) Claire Helen’s preschool buddies, Indra and Delphine (cool names, no?) told her if she said she liked orange she must be a boy, with accompanying genitalia she is not interested in having, because girls only like purple and pink. So now purple and pink are “her best.” Sigh. Textbook gender socialization, and ugh, not a purple or pink fan over here. Let’s hope this is a short phase.

5) But! They ordained Claire Helen “Prime Minister of the Horsies” today, meaning she got to tell them where to go, and got the super special pretend horsey with the plush head, so I will forgive them. I don’t think hearing about her pretend games will ever get old to me.

6) Simon has been doing this rage-y tantrum-y thing when he wakes up from his nap, lately(hence the marshmallow above, ahem). Apparently what he wants me to do, when I get up there, is to sit in front of his crib, nottouchingitatall, while he squirms and plays with his nearly dead aquarium toy on the side. Okay, weirdo. Whatever you say. I do it, though.

7) Claire Helen can now get herself dressed head to toe- socks, shoes(even buckle ones), shirts, tights, coats, whatever. She doesn’t always want to, and it’s not always super fast, but I’m pretty proud.

8) Simon is kind of past the stage where when Claire Helen is at preschool it’s cool to just let him wander around while I do laundry or whatever. So we’ve been going on little adventures instead, getting a muffin at a coffee shop or hitting the toddler playcenter. I don’t think we appreciated our clean, folded laundry that much anyhow, and Simon gets all puffed up with his me ‘n mom time.

9) In two days he will be the age Claire Helen was when we had him. Wild.

Camera store trip was a bust

2007-04-18T15:50:00.000-07:00

But it is not the worst bit of technological news I have for the day. About half an hour ago I failed miserably at getting the video recorder to work so I could record the best example of baby dancing I have ever seen.

Simon was not just dancing- oh no- he made up a routine to "Here Comes Your Man" by the Pixies.* It included this very slow butt bounce while snapping with both hands, and at appropriate intervals walking around in a circle with exaggerated nods. MAN. It was awesome. I tried to at least webcam it to Mat, but by then Simon had lost interest and only wanted to fix "peanut butter (sandwiches for) dada." Oh well.

He also for the first time today pretended his diaper wasn't poopy when it was, a reliable indicator of ability to manipulate consequences(if I say "no," I don't have to get my diaper changed). Sniff. They grow up so fast.

Off to a pro-choice rally downtown, assuming I can get Claire Helen up and navigate the bus system, which are both pretty big assumptions. She sleeps away the afternoon, lately. I think she must be growing.

* FINALLY, a child who shares my music tastes! Claire Helen's girly music gets a little old, much as I love the Indigo Girls.

I'm taking the camera to the camera store today, I promise.

2007-04-12T08:36:00.000-07:00

Just as soon as I tell you all about Mister Just Like Big Sister.

Simon is currently sitting in his high chair, eating a bowl of puffins*. This is after rejecting MIGHTILY first dry puffins on the tray, then dry puffins in a bowl, then puffins with a little bit of milk, then puffins with a bit more milk, then puffins with the (wrong) metal spoon, and finally, puffins in a bowl with the right spoon with Simon not as tall as his sister. I get a feeling I am going to be spending the next 16 years explaining that fair does not mean exactly the same. To the molecule.

His favorite thing to do after a meal lately is climb up on Claire Helen's chair, pick at her (not yet cleared, ahem) leftovers, and generally preen and Be Big. I have been trying to focus on getting him some friends his own age, but he completely eschews baby playdates in an effort to reach his life's goal, Twoness.

Claire Helen is in the middle of week two of preschool spring break. I admit we entered it with some trepidation, but it's gone very well. Except that despite having total control over my own schedule, I did not leave the house at all from Sunday afternoon until Wednesday morning, because of hosting playdates and playgroups and friends for dinner. All lovely reasons for hanging around my own (non-gravel! Non-coated in shards of glass! Grass! That we can PLAY in!)backyard, but we were all a little squirrelly by the time it was over. Claire Helen quite literally since what she does all day lately is pretend to be animals. This is wicked cute, but I have to tell you I am not really that familiar with the eating habits of a porcupine or the noise a lemur makes, so she may be getting misinformation along the way. Hopefully she'll get a good biology teacher to set her straight.

Off to the camera store. Hopefully it will get fixed in time to memorialize cousin Greta's ballet debut this evening. The kids are very excited, and have been preparing for the last two days by putting on my old dance costumes(why oh why don't I have two of each one?) and demanding I sing for them, so they can bounce and spin in time.

*a hippy kids' cereal, not some furtive way of telling you all we have gone carnivore on you.

Camera still haywire

2007-04-05T14:50:00.000-07:00

I walked into the playroom a minute ago to find 17 stuffed animals on 17 dishtowels having, apparently, their first "yoga lesson," taught by Claire Helen, yoga instructor, extraordinaire. After leaving to get her brother out of his crib, I came back to find the stuffed animals replaced by bunnies and bunny like objects, for participation in a specialized, Easter Bunny yoga class.

This morning we went downtown to drop Mat off at work, and stayed for a little adventure and the Central Library storytime. It was all relatively smooth, except that Simon is completely fixated on escalators, desiring apparently to hurl himself off the top of them at full speed or stick his fingers in the moving parts. I am beginning to think downtown is made only of escalators. Poor little guy. He was like a diabetic in a candy store, so forlorn and lonely for his deadly escalator play.

2007-03-31T14:30:00.000-07:00

Camera on fritz. Be back soon.

2007-03-07T18:29:00.000-08:00

Hello! I wrote an entry the other day, but didn't post it because it was just too grumpy. We've been sick, and there isn't a whole lot of lite 'n cute that goes on when we are all sick. But! We are getting better now, enough that the six hours we spent at the park yesterday appears to have no ill effects other than mild sunburn on my part. Oh well, it's Seattle, I'm sure the sun won't reappear for another 6 months, and I'll have time to heal.

Making hot chocolate after a good afternoon digging in our backyard, and SOMEONE about 3 feet tall was caught transferring hot chocolate mix from my cup to hers. Not a very good poker face there. Her diversionary tactic, other than squinting, was to order me to hop like a frog. CIA here she comes.

Today we got Betty a new bed, and everybody tried it out. It's purple, and matches the purple Original Art in Marker and Wall we have all over the living room right now. They are so fast when they get ahold of nonwashable markers.

Little mister language spurt. Today I taught him to hold up 1 finger when asked how old he is, which I expect to accomplish exactly nothing since neither of them answer questions in public. Yesterday, however, he put two words together on two separate occasions. 1) "Cat up!" which translates to "Cat please come down here!" as "up!" means both up and down in Simonese, and 2) "Mama no!" (pronounced Meme naynay) when said mama plucked him off a 6 foot ledge he was enjoying leaning off precariously.

Claire Helen, indignant at bedtime one night, demanded to sleep on Betty's bed. So she did, and I took pictures to frame and show off to all her edgy, sophisticated college friends. I think she thinks she won.

2007-02-24T15:06:00.000-08:00

Does anybody but me think Britney Spears has Post Partum Depression? I'm surprised Brooke Shields hasn't gone knocking down her door, it seems so obvious to me from all the little pamphlets I read at my doctor's office* and various New York Times Styles section articles I've read over the years. Possibly Ms. Spears is not as big a fan of Modern Love as I am.

Last week we had our first ever parent teacher conference. You will all be pleased to know that Claire Helen is on track for such auspicious preschool goals as "putting lunch chairs back after lunch" and "cutting with scissors." It is always nice to have people besides yourselves who not only are willing to talk about your child for half an hour, but are in fact required to by their job. We're happy that her teachers seem to like her and think she is a very bright and kind child, though we are still wondering what exactly being "mature" for a two year old means.

After an exhaustive search and several fretting phone calls with her playmate's friends, we've decided to sign her up again for this same school next year. She's happy there, and they do some awfully cool projects (and are having an art fair this weekend! Pretty neato for a preschool, if you ask me). And really, the fact that she is learning about Jewish holidays and counting in Hebrew is kind of a bonus. Next December I'll have to make latkes for you all, as I made 200 for her class last Hanukkah. Fried potatoes, mmm.

A couple weekends ago I went on my first ever weekend without the kids- 36 whole hours of non nose blowing and non snack making and non plastic-dinosaur-picking-up and non hostage level negotiation over bedtime. Instead my friend Latika and I did all kinds of adult things requiring quiet and not touching walls. It was really really fun, and I hope she comes to visit us soon, because who wouldn't want to read Jemima Puddleduck 46 times in one afternoon? Mat's mom came to visit/help while I was gone, which was great fun for everyone involved, I think. I hope. Supposedly we have pictures, but those are on the big computer in the living room, and as we are having our first low key weekend since, oh, November and the kids are napping SIMULTANEOUSLY I am keeping my behind attached to the couch, and you all will just have to visualize grandparent bonding for the time being.

Lately whenever Simon hears music, he bounces his butt out and tries to snap in time, all while walking around in a big circle. He's actually doing it, snapping, rubbing his third finger against his thumb, but he doesn't make any noise.

*You all read all the pamphlets at your doctor's office, too, don't you? Otherwise what do you read? 5 month old issues of FitPregnancy or Fisherman's Weekly?

2007-02-01T18:50:00.000-08:00

So, the thing that took the fight out was apparently a double ear infection and pneumonia. Man. He's a stoic little guy. I never would have guessed. But I feel terrible, so we all spent the day in pajamas, putting mohawks on all available members of the family, and allowing our holier than thou No TV In Our Home rule to be broken EXTENSIVELY. And also I spent time being a White House chef making any food His Royal Illness might deign to whiff, as he had apparently lost 3 pounds (down from 26 to 23) since we were last at the ped's. Rice pudding, cheesy bread, banana pancakes, peanut butter cookies...he'll gamely fling the food around his high chair before whining the saddest little "Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup" ever. Betty and Claire Helen are eating well, at least.

Conversations you are probably not supposed to have with your two year old:

2007-01-31T10:52:00.000-08:00

Mommy can I eat this?

Sure..................What is it?

I'd offer pictures, but Si is still so sick he is allowing me to wipe his face after eating and sleeping in more than 20 minute increments. All the fight's gone out. I doubt he wants this memorialized. Poor poppit.

2007-01-27T13:13:00.000-08:00

I was going to write this and immediately after post pictures, all “nothing to see here! No blow hard list making parents around our house!” but last night Simon decided to practice not throwing up into a receptacle, so nobody’s taking pictures of anything around here. Damn, I am so sick of stomach viruses. If some of you weren’t actual members of the clergy I would be using a lot of much more colorful language than “damn” right now.

But some of you are, and we’re not going anywhere today, so I can write the state of Claire Helen, 30 months. Technically she’s still a toddler, but she’s well on her way to little kid status. Most of her development is now in concepts she’s getting rather than new things she’s doing.

At the end of last year, Mat worked a lot of late nights. When Claire Helen would get a little blue about that, I’d say we could “have a party with the kitty cats,” which meant pajamas for everybody, hot chocolate,* and pillow forts with flashlights. They caught on, and now Kitty Cat Parties are something we do on rainy afternoons, dark nights, and boring Tuesdays. Recently she’s added “Turtle Parties” to her celebratory repertoire, which are just like Kitty Cat Parties, only with basketball instead of forts.

I probably should have noticed when she started using modifiers like “actually” and “probably,” but I didn’t, and now she does. The other day I asked her to get a diaper for Simon**, and she said “Um, actually, I’m reading right now.” Ha! I’m so proud of my little lawyer’s child, crafting relevant arguments and knowing her audience’s points of persuasion. Her grammatical structure is mostly adult now, and she uses all the parts of speech as well as every kind of sentence structure (subjunctive clauses, quotations in fantasy dialogue, proper question formation, etc). She’s got a big vocabulary, especially when engaged in pretend play, and is very specific in her language. Yesterday when we got home from the park she was whining and holding her hands, and I asked her if her hands were cold. “No, dey are FWEEZING mommy! My hands are FWEEZING!”

She really likes to talk about what’s “the same” and what is “different,” and I am always interested to see what catches her eye. The grass outside is the same as somebody’s shaggy carpet; the print on a shirt is the same as the birds on the electric wires. She’s also very clued in to who has “more” and “less.” God forbid she get 3 raisins when Simon got 4.

She can count to 14 and knows all her letters(and they sometimes make appearances in her fantasy play, with their only spoken lines being the sounds they make. “An L scampered into the room, and said in her outside voice “LLLLL!” so her teacher banished*** her to the playground”), though not on cue. If you ask her what letter you are holding, she will only say “A,” but if you try to hand her an O when she asked for the S, she makes fairly clear that she is just nobody’s trained monkey. Yesterday her class at preschool hosted All School Shabbat with the other 2-3’s class. The idea was for the kids to stand up behind a table, sing some songs with motions, and pass out the bread. It was the stuff of Kodak commercials, 22 tiny little heads peeking over the butcher paper covered table, “knocking” on the door and blinking their pudgy hands like stars in time. 21 off them, anyway. Number 22 stared imperviously out at Mat and I, refusing to move her hands away from her sides for even a second or make the vaguest pretense of singing any of the songs she's known for over a year. Occasionally she would leeeeeeeean into Claire Jane, and the two of them would burst into fits of giggles when they’d fall a little, and when the time came to pass out challah, she tried her very hardest to stuff the entire loaf into her mouth before it got to be her turn to hand some out. Nobody’s trained monkey.

Other than for actual performances, she is excellent at following directions and is almost always the first in her class to line up, clean up, and put her dishes back after snack. She’s not a ringleader in the traditional sense, but if we are at a park with friends, and the kids are out of view, 99 times out of a hundred, Claire Helen is leading some kind of nature walk off in the woods or pulling somebody up some far stairs. She’s an explorer. I think it’s going to be great fun to go camping with her, so long as I install one of those microchips with a GPS system in her neck. Though she and Simon have very different responses to social situations, the both of them, when confronted with an open space to walk in, just take off. No looking back, no pausing to play, just walking walking walking. I’ve let them go for minutes at a time, and have not yet reached the point when they might pause or change course unless faced with an immovable object. When people see Simon do this they tend to make some crack about it being a “boy thing” which pushes 98% of my hot buttons,**** but mostly it’s that Claire Helen is the original wanderer. It’s the funniest trait, and it seems to be almost specific to Mat’s and my children, the total absorption and degree to which all other developmental attributes fall away when they go to wander. Going through separation anxiety and usually won’t let me get more than 10 feet away? Not a problem, I’m wandering. Really interested in fish and going over a stream stocked with them? Eh, I’m wandering.

She is still, though I can hardly believe our luck, extremely gentle with her friends. She doesn’t push or shove or steal toys, and her only response to the rampant toy thievery of 2 year olds is to eventually cry and want to sit in my lap if there’s been a particular lot of it. This is not to say she doesn’t wig out entirely if somebody else gets on the airplane rocker at the playground(her version of wigging out being coming up to my knees and saying “I was USING that. I NEED it. I was USING that.” ad nauseum until the other child gives her a turn), and we’ve had to try several approaches to stop the “I am playing with whatever Simon picked up 2 seconds ago” pattern that emerged for a little while, but out in the world she is the most gentle soul I’ve ever seen. She’s also extremely stoic, and a couple weeks ago when she twisted her ankle, her doctor was coming up with all sorts of wild diagnoses because he couldn’t believe a toddler wouldn’t be hysterical at someone touching an ankle that had been twisted. But she has very stringent rules about public conduct, and if she can keep it together, she will.

I still feel like we have been so lucky with both the kids’ temperaments. I am sure Claire Helen’s stoicism and extremely subtle mood changes would be a challenge for some people, and Simon’s separation anxiety and weird showing-affecting-by-head-butting habit would be crazy making in the wrong house. But they’re such a good fit for me. The stuff they need help with(strangers are scary; why are you all looking at me? MOMMY DON'T GO!) is the stuff that’s easiest for me to give, and they’ve taken a pass on the loud, attention hogging behavior I have the hardest time dealing with. Their generally mild dispositions and even tempered way of being make for a generally serene, harmonious house, and even just the fact that they yell less than any of the other kids we know is enough to make any other challenges easy as pie. Except for regurgitated pie. Man I hate stomach viruses.

*Which for Claire Helen means heated up milk plus 2 drops of vanilla. Don’t tell her.
**Not because I’m trying to make her into a “little mommy” or anything creepy like that, just because you know, little people like to be helpful. Except when they are busy reading.
*** Yeah, I know. Banished? Very medieval “classroom” she had going there.
****I went to the neatest lecture on gender and education the other day, and came out with the most coolest factoid: though there are some – far fewer than most people think, but some - generalizations you can make about the two different sex’s brains, only 75% of each sex has that type of brain. The other 25% has the type generally assigned to the opposite sex.

2007-01-26T15:10:00.000-08:00

Earlier today I was talking to some people about how we used to explain rules to Claire Helen, and at what age what worked. I was going on about this month versus that month, and decided to look back at some old posts to see about all that, and it turns out I had no idea what I was talking about, and in the span of a year have completely forgotten what she was up to. Which would be pretty helpful to know, as there’s another toddler in the house. All this to say though I am not really a fan of “Look what my kid can do!” brag lists, I’m going to post one for record keeping, at least of Simon. We’ll see how far I get with Claire before she wakes up. You can avert your eyes if it smacks of egoism to you, and I’ll put up some pictures soon as cover.

At 13 months, Simon can:

Walk! Very quickly and sturdily, though still a bit like baby Frankenstein. He can climb on basically anything if he has his Robeez (little leather shoes with grippy leather on the bottoms) on. So I keep him in socks in the house, just to keep him off the mantle as long as possible. Would that I was kidding. I’ve just started letting him walk beside me when we run errands, and he is so proud of himself. He balls his hands up in fist, stares straight at the ground 2 feet in front of him, leads with his belly, and does his little Busy Man hum (Mmmm. Mmmmmm. Dummmm. Mmmmm.)the whole time. He would probably keep walking in a straight line until he got to Tibet if I didn’t turn him at corners.

Talk! Maybe, oh, a dozen words? More than 5, less than 30. Many of them sound remarkably similar- I don’t think any of you could tell the difference between “there” and “Claire,” for example, and the biggest difference between “no” (Neyney) and Dada (Nahnah) is the shaking head that accompanies the former. He also signs “more” when he wants more singing/playing, “milk” when he wants milk, “diaper change” when he wants me to come with him somewhere, and “please” when he wants anything else. I’m not really pushing the signing thing this time because I kind of have mixed feelings about how it went with Claire Helen. But he’s doing it.

He’s right in that early toddler language explosion stage where every day you feel like Anne Sullivan* because your kid said “gaaaap” right after you handed them a grape. And! He just said “Woof!”After I pointed at Betty! Sign him up for Yale right now!! SURELY HE WILL CURE CANCER BY AGE TEN BECAUSE HE SAID “CUH” WHEN I POINTED TO THE CUP! All the back patting that goes on over this stage is probably in the top 20 things that annoy non parents about parents, but is why people are willing to have more than one child after realizing they don’t know how to throw up into a receptacle for four solid years after they are born.

Think! He just this weekend gained the ability to follow two part directions (pick up the shampoo, and put it on the shelf), including directions about objects not in sight. He can recently be calmed not only by objects/activities such as motion and singing, but also stories about things he likes or the idea of an activity he would like to do in the future. I consider that kind of a big Age of Reason thing, and one of the hallmarks of toddlerhood versus babyhood. He can also identify the letters C and S, though I’m pretty sure has no idea what their being “letters” signifies, just that they are the big pieces in Claire Helen and Simon’s name stools, and that Claire Helen puts on a pretty big show for him when she discovers he has one. Oy.

He’s also developed some insane toddler preferences. He treats an open refrigerator like Mat and I treat episodes of The Wire, and will freak right out if you try to close it while he is busy staring at it. He doesn’t try to get anything off the shelves; he just wants to study the food, enjoy the fact that this week we bought the purple yogurts instead of the blue ones, and did you notice those parsnips are starting to look funny? His favorite place in the house is the bathroom, and if he manages to move the stool next to the sink and get up on it, he screams like someone is poking his eyes out until you rush in terrified, at which point he smiles calmly and points to the faucet for you to turn the water on. If he wants something food oriented, and you have something else food oriented in your hand, he will chase you around the house trying to get it out of your hand so he can throw it angrily on the ground. Weirdo.

We continue to be impressed with his ability and interest in art, specifically drawing. Given a roomful of activities, he will invariably choose to draw in some way. He’s got a great little grip on pens and pencils, and when you tell him to “draw a circle” will draw a slightly more curvy line than the squiggles he’d been drawing before. And then look expectantly for mountains of praise. I kind of love that about him. He is so sure that everything he is doing is SUPER and you are going to be SO EXCITED TO SEE THIS. Ironically, though paintbrushes are still highly favored objects, he has no idea what to do with them, art wise. I think he thinks you should eat the paint off them, maybe like they’re special spoons, just for your watercolor eating needs. They’re actually the only non food object he ever puts in his mouth, but it comes up about twice a week when we drop Claire Helen off at preschool, since they generally have some kind of painting out as a choice for free play(morning provocation), which he makes a beeline for, assuming Elmo the class guinea pig isn’t within view for some good poking. She loves that.

Still a preternaturally cheerful little dude. I’ll try to get to Claire’s write-up tonight, but you know how we parents of young children are. We might be too busy out whooping it up. Friday night! Par-tay! Woooooo!

*Helen Keller’s teacher. Is that obvious? I couldn’t decide if that was obvious.

2007-01-24T16:54:00.000-08:00

Pictures from a cross country ski weekend. We got a little cabin-y thing in the woods and could quite literally put our skis on right outside our door and take off. In my infinite technological un-wisdom, I did not realize the camera was working until the last day, when we took these.

Claire and her "Big Girl Skis" that got used for approximately 5 yards of "skiing."

Here you can see the sled contraption that allowed us to Get! Outside! With young children! Miraculous.

Supposedly I'm working on a post about how Simon has become quite the little toddler the last couple weeks, and Claire is rewarding us for that year of sleepless nights with oodles of affection and mind blowingly mature statements. Supposedly. But Simon did just pee on the dog, so that might have to wait.

2007-01-15T12:17:00.000-08:00

Hmm. Guess we were too busy having fun on Christmas to take too many pictures. Here are a few, plus indoor sandbox day (this morning; I'm not telling you what time, because we were still in our pajamas, and no, it wasn't 6:30 am.).

OK, indoor sandbox day is giving me guff. Will try those later. Technology: 549378236784, Stephanie:0.

2007-01-09T18:21:00.000-08:00

Simon is at the age when, at home, he only wants to be picked up, and out in the world, he only wants to walk by himself(he walks a little like a marionette, with the top half of his body mostly still, and his hips swivelling out to the sides to hopefully kick his legs forward a little. Not the most efficient mode of transport ever.). What's wrong with the floors at our house, little Si? Lucky for him he's so cute when wandering the sidewalks of Seattle. He walks a few steps, then looks back and say "HA ha!" just like Johnny Carson when a guest made an off color joke. Ooooh, pretty risky there, being 5 steps away from mama.

Claire Helen would like to know where snow lives, what fish use for pillows, why paint sticks to other paint, and what mad eats. I would like to know where I can find an extra hour in the day, so I can more regularly update this blog, and maybe put some pictures on it.

I am being phased out

2006-12-14T13:41:00.000-08:00

A minute ago, Claire Helen got thirsty, so she went to the cupboard, got herself a cup, opened the refrigerator, got out the (right) milk, and poured it. She got a drop or so on the ground, so she got a dish towel out of the right drawer, cleaned it up, and threw the dish towel down the dirty clothes. All without asking me for help with any of it.

Sweet! And also, sniff, where'd my baby go? Thank goodness we have an extra.

2006-12-12T08:53:00.000-08:00

Behold! Photos! I have been neglecting the objects of my blogging affection all morning trying to get this stupid thing to work. But it did! For your viewing pleasure, reject Christmas card photos. Hopefully I'll add more soon, but my brain is melting from all the technology change. I'd make a snide comment about my age and all these new fangled computer thingies, but my parents are actually both far better with computers than I am, so it's not just age. Clearly some kind of genetic defect.

2006-12-05T08:56:00.000-08:00

Almost forgot to add the insanely cute way Simon throws temper tantrums, which is to say loudly "Aaaaaa!", and ball his little fists up and shake. Then he collapses to the floor and puts his head on the ground, utterly bereft at having lost the cord or choking hazard he had been happily playing with. Then he puts his head down and says "Mmmm. Mmmmmm." until he realizes he is looking at you sideways, at which point he starts to giggle.

Happy Birthday to Simon!

2006-12-05T07:41:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody! It's been a little while, but as of today, there are no babies in the house. All toddlers. Simon woke up this morning quite cheerfully at 6 am, I think making sure he didn't miss a second of his special day. This morning we are having a little impromptu baby party, and tonight we are making a dinner with his favorite foods- bananas and cream cheese. An epicurean dream, I am sure.

Simon is still the very happy, enthusiastic guy he was starting around 7 weeks, and he brings such a great energy to our little family. Every single thing he does he is convinced is going to be the best time ever, and every time he spies a familiar person, he lights up and starts to bounce as though he just can't physically contain his joy. He worships his sister, and is thrilled beyond words(good thing as he only has about a dozen) when she deigns to allow him to play with her, and is basically nonplussed when she is not in a sharing mood (unless she has a big red ball or the hippo walker).

He is still only walking 70% of the time. He has been walking some percentage of the time for the last 3 months, and internet, bad, impatient mother that I am, it is driving me crazy. It is cold and wet here in Seattle, and I have 57 pounds of small child to cart places. It's so much better if either one of them can be put down at times. With him only walking barely most of the time, if I put him down in a new place, like on a sidewalk, he drops down to crawl. And gets his pants wet and slimy, so he's cold which he haaaaaates, and it's a bad scene all around. Not least because he is so skinny that his pants fall off him constantly when he crawls. Between the potty trained exhibitionist and the boy-with-no-waist, we rarely have a pant filled afternoon. Who needs pants? Pants are for plebeians.

I would love to share pictures with you all of Thanksgiving and of Claire Helen putting the very first ornament on the tree, but blogger seems to have changed something about pictures, and I am not good with change. Hopefully I'll figure it out soon.

The Last Ever Baby Update

2006-11-17T16:03:00.000-08:00

11 months! Next month Simon will be an official toddler, and we will have no more babies in the house. He’s already showing signs of toddlerdom- a bizarre growl/shriek when his sister takes a toy he was interested in, a pointer finger always at the ready to direct the adults carrying him around, and cute little banging games he amuses himself with.

24 hours later I’m posting again and find myself apologizing- again- for my son’s complexion. We took these pictures after a trip to the park * which he was probably a little underdressed for. He’s one of those people who gets cold and turns purple at the drop of a hat, and I am one of those people who thinks jackets are for wussies. Toughen up, boy. Kind of sad when his hands are all bright red on the swing, though.

He does really enjoy our little park outings, now. It’s so nice now that he’s getting old enough to enjoy the places we go- parks, playcenters, museums, et al- I feel less like he is just getting dragged around and more like he is having fun too. He especially likes if there is a ball or ball like object, and if it’s red will just horde it the whole time we are out. At Gymboree all the other kids climb up and down the ramp and play bouncing games with their mothers, but Simon just locates the big bucket of balls, and sits in front of it with his red one, fending off all “invaders.” Until the bubbles come out, and you can see his little head nearly explode from trying to figure out how to fit every single bubble into his mouth while keeping guard on his balls. It’s a hard life, baby.

Aside from the Gymboree bubbles, he is actually not that oral. If he finds something small on the floor he will stop to inspect it, and then usually bring it over to me and say “mamaMA.” I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do with it, but this is a godsend because with a 2 year old around there are lots of small objects on the floor.

He’s got a few other words besides “mama,” but it’s so hard to count at this age since they pretty much all sound the same. I’m pretty sure he says:

Duhduh- Dada
Ah duh- all done/get me out of here
Bop- pick me up
Baubau- nurse**
Keer- Claire
Dot- that
And possibly dog, but then again, maybe not.

I think I am forgetting some, but they are probably ones I am only half sure of anyway.

He says many fewer words and is much more physically advanced(oh the climbing! He can climb on anything) than Claire Helen was at this age, but the neat thing is how they still seem developmentally the same, when I think about her then. There is something about not quite one year olds that hold more similarity than difference, but the only things that are easy to quantify are the differences.

He’s such a funny guy, so good natured. I never see him getting upset about things the way the other babies do. He protects his stuff, for sure, but to be honest that is a relief after watching Claire Helen get bullied for two and a half years. He is basically delighted by any new thing put in front of him, and has a charming persistence and optimism that he can accomplish anything he feels like, even and almost especially if it is something he has not once managed to do despite daily attempts, like catch Sadie’s tail when she’s running away from him.

He is, however going through some medium bad separation anxiety. In theory this is so flattering- Mama! All the time! No one else! Will do! But in practice it S-U-C-K-S sucks. Last weekend Claire Helen’s preschool had a parents’ night out, so we conned a friend into watching Simon while we went out to dinner. Apparently he cried on her shoulder for 40 minutes (after 10 minutes of having no idea we were gone) before just passing out from the sheer tragedy of it all. He knows my friend well, and sees her at least once a week for 2 hours at playgroup, but apparently that’s not enough for Mister Oedipal Man. We hope it passes soon.

If I had more time I would tell you all about how Claire Helen locked me out of the house on purpose the other day, and then tapped on the window brandishing a new bag of cookies, “Mommy will you open this for me? I want some cookies.” Yeah, I bet you do.

*There was SUN! In Seattle! After Halloween! The whole city is walking around disoriented and confused. What is this bright light up where the rain comes from? Will it harm us?

**two more weeks, buddy boy! I swear I am going to throw a party when we are done with this.

2006-11-17T15:12:00.001-08:00

2006-11-17T15:12:00.000-08:00

2006-11-17T15:11:00.000-08:00

2006-11-17T15:09:00.001-08:00

2006-11-17T15:09:00.000-08:00

2006-11-17T15:08:00.001-08:00

2006-11-17T15:08:00.000-08:00

So ruddy! I really should keep more hats in the car.

2006-11-17T15:07:00.000-08:00

2006-11-17T15:06:00.000-08:00

2006-11-17T15:05:00.000-08:00

I bring you the two year old jitterbug.

2006-11-16T17:20:00.001-08:00

I obviously have no idea how she or my shoes got into the bath tub, or why she turned it into a dance club. Ah, two.

Still serious about that 11 month picture and update for Simon. As a preview, I will tell you that his word for his sister is "Keer." Rhymes with "here."

2006-11-16T17:20:00.000-08:00

2006-11-16T17:19:00.000-08:00

2006-11-16T17:18:00.001-08:00

2006-11-16T17:18:00.000-08:00

2006-11-16T17:17:00.000-08:00

2006-11-16T17:16:00.000-08:00

Wants-to-be-two

2006-11-16T17:15:00.001-08:00

2006-11-16T17:15:00.000-08:00

The red stuff on his face is strawberry nutrigrain bar, not some horrible disfiguring rash. Bad mama, not quite despicable mama.

2006-11-16T17:13:00.000-08:00

Hurray Hurray, the democrats have taken back congress!

2006-11-09T08:20:00.001-08:00

Now I know how Red Sox fans felt when they won the World Series. Is it nerdy to say politics is way more fun as a spectator sport than baseball? Probably.

Just now, Claire Helen and I were coloring, and she got out the white crayon. After swirling it around (on the Big! Giant! PIZZA! she was drawing), she looked at me very very seriously, and said "Mommy this one doesn't work. It needs new batteries." It's a good thing she says cute things like this, otherwise when she does things like break a window pane on the front door by kicking it during a fit, I might just leave her on the front porch for gypsies. We had friends over yesterday afternoon, and none of them believed me that Claire Helen 1) ever had a tantrum or 2) even if 1, certainly not with kicking and property damage. It was a surprise to me, actually, since lately she's been a great little egg, but I guess two is two.

Claire Helen is working a lot on relationships lately. Claire Jane* and Claire Helen have recently blossomed into great little friends. I think I always would have said they were good buddies, but I would have meant that in the sense that they were slightly less likely to bonk each other on the head than some of their other aquaintences. They've got a cute little bond going right now, and Claire Helen even made her first long distance phone call (to Claire Jane) while we were in California. They light up to see each other, and almost anywhere we go, Claire Helen says, "And prolly Claire Jane will be there?" No, Claire Helen, I don't think Claire Jane is going to be on the ferry. Good try, though.

We had a really great Halloween. In the morning we had some toddler buddies over all dressed up (Simon is pretty sure he's one of the toddlers, too). The highlight of that little party was seeing two bumblebees, a cowboy, a unicorn, a bee, and a kangaroo all huddled around the playroom window trying to get a looksee at the jackhammer working out back. In the afternoon we went to the outdoor mall near here to trick or treat with some friends, which Simon found invigorating, and Claire Helen found terrifying. After we got home, Mat and I took turns goin with Claire Helen around the neighborhood, which was one of those iconoclastic parenting moments. She loved picking out which houses were lit up enough to go up to, and just being outside in the dark with a parent.

Below are some very poorly taken pictures of Halloween. Slightly less terrible 11 month photos of Simon, and a proper baby update, coming soon.

*Claire Helen has known Claire Jane since they were 4 weeks old, and her mom and I were in the same mom's group. Definitely it would have been easier if Claire Jane's mom had just named her kid Natalie, but it's cute to hear them talking about each other in such formal terms. "Where'd Claire Helen go?" "Mommy I wanna see Claire Jane!"

2006-11-09T08:20:00.000-08:00

Halloween, and a series of about the worst pictures I've ever taken. Moving objects, and all.

2006-11-09T08:19:00.000-08:00

2006-11-09T08:18:00.000-08:00

hee.

2006-11-09T08:17:00.000-08:00

2006-11-09T08:16:00.000-08:00

Note the still firm grasp of the lollipop and candy package. This is half and hour after the first picture was taken.

Simon's favorite things

2006-10-28T16:24:00.000-07:00

I think if Simon were on a desert island, all he'd really want is a box of paintbrushes and big red balls. He could play with paintbrushes and big red balls all day long.

Babies are so funny.

2006-10-23T19:03:00.000-07:00

Oh internets, we have not been well. I mean that in the literal sense. Figuratively we are doing fine. But shortly after I last wrote someone put a pox on our house. First Claire Helen brought home some sort of cold, which Simon and I got, and then while we were in California visiting my folks* last week it turned into an ear infection for Simon (who was fussy and clingy, which I blamed on separation anxiety or "teething" which is what you blame every peep on during a baby's first year, and which at least in my children's case is never to blame. They don't care about giant shards of calcium shooting through their gums. It just doesn't bother them).

Anyhoo. He got an ear infection, which I discovered after I got back and Mat had left for San Francisco on business(also sick, but not getting a whole lot of sympathy from his wife, because sick or not 8 straight hours of sleep waking up whenever you'd like is pretty freaking nice. Not to mention we had armageddon going on here at home.), so he started on antibiotics, but the next day was not feeling any better, and in fact was kind of going downhill, fussing with his head and unable to sleep either Thursday or Friday nights. Hours before I took him into the doctor for what would turn out to be an allergic reaction to penicillin Saturday morning, Claire Helen started vomiting from a stomach virus. Toddler vomit, yech. Why does it always start in the middle of the night, usually in my bed?

We were very happy to see the return of both daddy and health this weekend, and it is particularly good to see Simon on the mend. This is the first illness he's had that's really affected him (he's a second child; he gets plenty of colds), and for 5 days all he wanted to do was sit on my lap and lean his head on my shoulder. A far cry from our usual Mr. Bouncy.

Speaking of Mr. Bouncy, he's up to a lot these days. The last few weeks, if he wakes up sad or a little vulnerable, he likes to bite on my shoulder a little as I carry him down the stairs. He can walk, but still generally chooses to only if there are cats to catch. He knows how to use chalk and crayons, but is not really into being limited by using only chalkboards and paper as surfaces. Just this second he is trying to draw on a post bath Claire Helen, who doesn't really seem to mind. Have I mentioned he can bounce on command? It's the cutest thing in the whole world. I should really get a video of it. He's generally very bouncy, and in fact most of his baby injuries come from bouncing excitedly when he sees me or a cat while forgetting he is holding onto the hard edge of a table or tub, and so ramming his face into the hard edge. You would think this would be a lesson quickly learned, but he has a lot of enthusiasm. Sweet little guy. I'm glad he's better.

*wouldn't it be nice if I had pictures of that? Hint, hint.

2006-10-23T17:55:00.000-07:00

Sunday we had Mat's cousins over so their dad could go to a football game. We tried to get pictures of everybody carving pumpkins, but Simon is really into the camera, so this is how most of them turned out.

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This is the best we could do.

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Kangaroo and Giraffe got to a party. Hopefully there will be a better picture taking opportunity soon.

You be the judge

2006-10-11T17:23:00.000-07:00

Today for snack the kids had feta cheese and pomegranate seeds. Good, earthy hippie mama who exposes her children to interesting tastes, or bad, thoughtless mama who really needs to have more in the fridge besides salad toppings?

2006-10-08T19:15:00.000-07:00

Oh internets, it has been a long time. I have lots of excuses (who doesn't?), but I have to tell you that getting those pictures up has been an epic journey involving Costco, multiple technological failures, and some very colorful German language. Hopefully the little people didn't pick up too much, or if they did it will be unintelligible when they repeat it at preschool.

I would say we had a great September, but those pictures you see under Claire Helen's first day of school portraits are of our trip to Minnesota and Iowa for Mat's grandma's funeral. She was 99, and in great health for 97 of those years. We dearly wish Simon had gotten to know her, but were grateful for the opportunity the funeral gave for us to visit family. It was particularly thrilling for me to see Claire Helen and her cousin Mara get to know each other. I'm excited for a few months from now when Simon, who is even closer in age to his cousin than big sister is, can play too.

Speaking of the mister, he's been walking lately. Not a whole lot- about a month ago he started taking a step or so, not really on purpose, but not just a toe brush while on his way to falling down either. For about the last ten days, he's been taking 3 steps once a day. It's a baby training regimen. It's a little dance he does, chasing the cat as she tries to escape his freakishly strong grip. Step.....stepstep, then drop to crawl. I keep waiting for him to take off; he's got the balance now, and has had the strength for a while, but he just doesn't. He's a pretty fast crawler, and has a healthy circumspection regarding newly acquired bipedal abilities and toddler sisters. He's probably wise to wait.

He's also a little chattier. At 10 months, Simon says* Mom-mom (mama, there is something wrong, give me that waffle), bau-bau (nurse), Hay-o (hello) and bop (pick me up). He loves sparkly things, rocks, the dog bowl, "Old Macdonald Had a Farm," chasing big balls around, and lining up baby dolls(we have 3- he collects them from around the playroom and lines them up, occasionally covering them with a blanket, often pausing to gnaw on a nose). Much to Claire Helen's chagrin, he is also utterly smitten with her doll stroller(What IS it with babies and doll strollers? All of them, to the child, they all love them.), and schemes and schemes to get to play with it when she's not looking. He does not love getting his face washed off, extended carseat rides, and when I walk away. He's 29.5 inches tall and not quite 21 pounds- a long skinny string bean of a boy.

I believe I have also been remiss in not mentioning that he is mellow. He actually is, and in fact when other people come across him in the world that's they way they describe him. "What a mellow little guy! He's quite serious, isn't he? Well, I don't think I've ever heard him cry!" And they are right, he is mellow, extremely so. Just not as mellow as Claire Helen was, and since she was my first it turns out she's my set of norms for baby behavior. His brand of mellowness also has a different sort of character. Claire Helen has a lot of things going on when she's quietly looking, and I am often astounded by the connections she makes when she doesn't appear at all involved in a situation. There is judgment behind her impassive gaze, as well. Strangers are either to pass or fail, and are generally sized up for their potential to address her directly (the horror). She's happy enough, of course, she just doesn't see why she should perform at some strangers request. I can respect that. Simon is just...waiting. He's just watching, and if he's looked at enough will start bouncing and smiling, but for the moment he'll just watch, thanks. He finds this all very interesting.

Claire Helen is enjoying her new preschool, and talks about her friends there constantly, even begging to go on off days. I take these as good signs. She has lately taken another leap in imaginative play, and I am enjoying it very much. One of her favorite games is to pretend she's a fork and tell the inhabitants of the living room(animate and otherwise) that she might try to eat them. Who thinks of that? When she is not asking me to read her a book (rare) or to go see Claire Jane(rarer still) she spends a lot of time building different kinds of boats with her legos and dressing up as a ballerina.

She has never had a smooth relationship with sleep and has recently decided to forgo daytime sleeping altogether. Thank God for preschool days, man, or we would probably all 3 be liquored up by dinner. 13 hours is a lot of hours in a row of mommy and toddler time. I can only read so much Olivia before that little pig starts to look pretty darn annoying. She's not very nice to her mother, you know.

I hope you all are well, and that I can get myself back here sooner next time. A whole month of life is a lot to cram into one little post.

* Hee hee. Simon says. Get it? Ha.

2006-10-08T15:31:00.000-07:00

10 Months!

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2006-10-08T15:27:00.000-07:00

So, what are you doing up there? Are you trying to get me to walk to you?

2006-10-08T15:26:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not going to walk to you right now. Do you think I don't see that camera or something? I see the camera. I'm no trained monkey. But here, gimme that finger. I'll bite it if you want.

2006-10-08T15:23:00.001-07:00

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2006-10-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

Claire Helen's first day of Preschool. She picked out her party dress to wear, I guess so the other 2 year olds would know she's a party girl.