Yesterday the girls rediscovered their collection of finger puppets and played with them very enthusiastically in the kitchen for a while until I banished them (the puppets, not the girls) to the living room. This morning the girls very enthusiastically pulled all of Sarah's diapers out of their box and spread them around the living room.
When I went to put away the diapers this afternoon, I discovered one little finger puppet inside each diaper.
***
This afternoon the girls were eating snacks in the kitchen while I was trying (mostly in vain) to get a handle on the chaos that erupts in this house. When I went back into the kitchen, Sarah (with Beth's help, I'll bet) had flung all of her Cheerios on the floor.
"We're planting a Cheerio plant!" Beth announced. "It's going to grow Cheerios!"
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Uh-oh!
That's Sarah's new word. She uses it as often as she can, and often manufactures incidents in which it would be appropriate (including but not limited to dropping her sippy cup at a restaurant and announcing "Uh-oh!" in a loud singsong). Her eyes get very big and her mouth rounds down to a little pinprick of an "o" at the end. Really, it's the cutest thing. It's annoying, but it's cute.
Beth has been using it, too, and her incidents aren't manufactured — they're the result of poor parental attention span. About a week ago Scott put the girls in their pajamas early (we were having dessert or something before they went to bed), and figured he'd change Beth into a diaper when it was actually time for her to go to sleep. And he forgot. Beth woke up at 12:30, crying, "No, no, no, no, no!" and when I went in to check on her she was standing up in bed, soaked, in tears.
Scott gave her a bath; I changed the bedding (really, if you have a kid this age, having two mattress pads for the bed is a terrific idea, 'cause one of them will probably be wet a good portion of the time).
During the bath, Scott said, "Bethie, did you wet the bed?"
Sad voice: "Yes. I had a accident."
"Yeah. Whose fault was it?"
Sadder voice: "Mine."
"No, not this time. Whose fault was it this time?"
A gleam in her eye, a small grin, a triumphant note to her voice: "Yours!"
Now, lest you think that Scott is the only dunderhead in this marriage, I did exactly the same thing a few days ago when she took her afternoon nap, with identical results. Uh-oh, indeed.
Beth has been using it, too, and her incidents aren't manufactured — they're the result of poor parental attention span. About a week ago Scott put the girls in their pajamas early (we were having dessert or something before they went to bed), and figured he'd change Beth into a diaper when it was actually time for her to go to sleep. And he forgot. Beth woke up at 12:30, crying, "No, no, no, no, no!" and when I went in to check on her she was standing up in bed, soaked, in tears.
Scott gave her a bath; I changed the bedding (really, if you have a kid this age, having two mattress pads for the bed is a terrific idea, 'cause one of them will probably be wet a good portion of the time).
During the bath, Scott said, "Bethie, did you wet the bed?"
Sad voice: "Yes. I had a accident."
"Yeah. Whose fault was it?"
Sadder voice: "Mine."
"No, not this time. Whose fault was it this time?"
A gleam in her eye, a small grin, a triumphant note to her voice: "Yours!"
Now, lest you think that Scott is the only dunderhead in this marriage, I did exactly the same thing a few days ago when she took her afternoon nap, with identical results. Uh-oh, indeed.
Grandpa Wes
My dad came to visit for two weeks, which was awesome, and actually gave us enough time to do a few of the things we'd planned, in between everyone's naps. (He flew out here on his 74th birthday, and I teased him that he and Sarah were on the same nap schedule.)
So we dragged him to Beth's last gymnastics class, where he took a bunch of pictures, and he helped Scott and our downstairs neighbor with the weekend yard work (I hid inside the house, which has never been cleaner), and we saw the baby giraffe at the zoo, and at some point he discovered Linda's Donuts, so we feasted on fried sugary goodness for pretty much the whole time he was here.
We also got up reeeeeeeeally early on Patriots Day (sans kids and Scott) to see the reenactment of the Battle of Lexington. Dad loved it, and especially loved the fact that the historical society rep who was keeping our corner of the crowd entertained before the battle started had a lot of information about clothing and the different dyes used by the British officers and rank-and-file for their red coats.
We spent a lot of time downtown: a trip to the aquarium (way cool, but which I will never, ever again attempt during school vacation week), a day walking most of the Freedom Trail and taking the ferry up to Charlestown to tour the U.S.S. Constitution, and one great evening when the girls woke up quite late from their naps and instead of running to Star Market to find something to cook for dinner, we parked at Alewife and took the T to the North End for Italian food. (To be fair, here, the day we walked the Freedom Trail we ended up meeting Scott for Japanese food in Porter Square, which was equally yummy.) The girls love the subway — Sarah is big enough now that she insists on climbing out of the stroller and pressing her nose to the window next to her big sister. I'll never understand this, since there's nothing to see. Keeps them happy, though.
Oh, food. We took Dad to Legal Sea Foods, which of course was good, but the hit of the stay had to be the stuffed clams we picked up at Frankie's Catch of the Day, five minutes away. It was like a clam cake stuffed back into the clam shell, and we all sat there making happy noises about how good it was.
Somewhere in the two weeks Dad was here I finally pulled together a cover for the 43-year-old cradle my mom made (yes, made) for my oldest cousin — said cousin's sister is having a baby this month and the cradle, now with a fleece-lined denim cover that was the cause of much bad language and some very sore knees (from kneeling on the floor to cut out the huge pieces of fabric), is on its way back to her in Salt Lake via UPS. I felt an odd sense of relief the day I shipped it off: I won't be the next person to stay up all night with a crying baby. Felt good to get the cover done, though.
Anyway, the day before Dad left the weather finally turned ugly (we'd had clear days in the 70s and 80s for two weeks) and we got drenched walking around Bentley. Beth got to use her new umbrella, which made her week, and I think Dad enjoyed himself. Miss him already. It's hard to be this far away from my family, especially with little girls who need to know their grandpa.
So we dragged him to Beth's last gymnastics class, where he took a bunch of pictures, and he helped Scott and our downstairs neighbor with the weekend yard work (I hid inside the house, which has never been cleaner), and we saw the baby giraffe at the zoo, and at some point he discovered Linda's Donuts, so we feasted on fried sugary goodness for pretty much the whole time he was here.
We also got up reeeeeeeeally early on Patriots Day (sans kids and Scott) to see the reenactment of the Battle of Lexington. Dad loved it, and especially loved the fact that the historical society rep who was keeping our corner of the crowd entertained before the battle started had a lot of information about clothing and the different dyes used by the British officers and rank-and-file for their red coats.We spent a lot of time downtown: a trip to the aquarium (way cool, but which I will never, ever again attempt during school vacation week), a day walking most of the Freedom Trail and taking the ferry up to Charlestown to tour the U.S.S. Constitution, and one great evening when the girls woke up quite late from their naps and instead of running to Star Market to find something to cook for dinner, we parked at Alewife and took the T to the North End for Italian food. (To be fair, here, the day we walked the Freedom Trail we ended up meeting Scott for Japanese food in Porter Square, which was equally yummy.) The girls love the subway — Sarah is big enough now that she insists on climbing out of the stroller and pressing her nose to the window next to her big sister. I'll never understand this, since there's nothing to see. Keeps them happy, though.
Oh, food. We took Dad to Legal Sea Foods, which of course was good, but the hit of the stay had to be the stuffed clams we picked up at Frankie's Catch of the Day, five minutes away. It was like a clam cake stuffed back into the clam shell, and we all sat there making happy noises about how good it was.
Somewhere in the two weeks Dad was here I finally pulled together a cover for the 43-year-old cradle my mom made (yes, made) for my oldest cousin — said cousin's sister is having a baby this month and the cradle, now with a fleece-lined denim cover that was the cause of much bad language and some very sore knees (from kneeling on the floor to cut out the huge pieces of fabric), is on its way back to her in Salt Lake via UPS. I felt an odd sense of relief the day I shipped it off: I won't be the next person to stay up all night with a crying baby. Felt good to get the cover done, though.
Anyway, the day before Dad left the weather finally turned ugly (we'd had clear days in the 70s and 80s for two weeks) and we got drenched walking around Bentley. Beth got to use her new umbrella, which made her week, and I think Dad enjoyed himself. Miss him already. It's hard to be this far away from my family, especially with little girls who need to know their grandpa.
Happy 3rd Bethday!
I've been meaning to post pictures from the two Bethday parties, which were, respectively, two and three weeks ago now. (I've been a bit busy with my dad in town — see next post).On her birthday we opened up family presents in the morning and then had our neighbors and her uncle David, aunt Chelsea and cousin Spencer come for cake in the evening. Cute little Beff-Beff! She looked absolutely radiant all day. And grown up! All the attention got to her as the day wore on, but she did a pretty good job of holding up under pressure. She just got very, very quiet toward the end there.
As for the friend party...we stole the idea from Fancy Nancy: Bonjour, Butterfly, which is one of Bethie's favorite, favorite books. We took around cute butterfly invitations to the kids she has playdates with (Beth pasted construction paper squares to the backs to make butterfly "mosaics") but had to change the date/time because two of the three little invitees couldn't come! I think three is about the last time ever that you can change a kid's birthday party to a different day and have her not notice and not really care.
I baked and decorated a butterfly cake, which I have to post a photo of simply because no one but the little butterfly girls (and Scott) ever actually saw in its entirety. The girls decorated their own butterfly wings and helped me make their antennae, and we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and then played wrap-the-girls-up-in-a-toilet-paper-cocoon and let-them-burst-out-as-a-beautiful-butterfly, and we played musical chairs and hide-and-seek and red light/green light, and they were served (but did not eat due to the excitement level) peanut butter sandwiches and string cheese and carrot sticks arranged to look like butterflies, and of course there was cake and a lot of crawling through our butterfly tunnel and then their moms came and I was EXHAUSTED. Really, that's what it felt like: one big adorab
le run-on sentence of a birthday party. Scott stayed home to help (hooray!) and Sarah blissfully napped through the whole thing. I'd made a list of possible games to play, and we ended up going through ALL of them and then some. It was just warm enough to go outside and run around for a few minutes, so we even got in some good backyard time.Bethie had a glorious time. She still talks about her butterfly birthday party. She's so, so thrilled with being fwee.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Bethisms #4
Two quick things:
Since Beth knows I get peeved when she takes her clothes OFF during her nap, today she decided to put clothes ON. Two PJ tops, to be exact. I was laughing too hard to tell her that wasn't exactly the idea either.
And on our way back from dinner tonight, Beth sang out, "Mommy, that says zoo!" Sure enough, off to my left there was a Zoots dry cleaner. Hurrah, hurrah! She's getting it!
Since Beth knows I get peeved when she takes her clothes OFF during her nap, today she decided to put clothes ON. Two PJ tops, to be exact. I was laughing too hard to tell her that wasn't exactly the idea either.
And on our way back from dinner tonight, Beth sang out, "Mommy, that says zoo!" Sure enough, off to my left there was a Zoots dry cleaner. Hurrah, hurrah! She's getting it!
Thursday, April 17, 2008
TOOTH!
Sarah has a tooooooooooth! Finally! It's just one little razor-sharp line along her bottom gum, but at least we know she has teeth in there somewhere. It poked through yesterday, and she's 15 months old today.
She's also very self-conscious about it, is favoring her bottom gum, and woke up twice last night screaming about it. I'm going to carry Tylenol with me while we're out and about at the zoo today.
She's also very self-conscious about it, is favoring her bottom gum, and woke up twice last night screaming about it. I'm going to carry Tylenol with me while we're out and about at the zoo today.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Kid freedom
I really, really need to write about Beth's birthday party today. And I will. It's just that my friend Mendy passed along the recent Lenore Skenazy column from the New York Sun: Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone. I just have to comment about this, and about all the resulting hysteria.
My next-door neighbor Kiersten and I have been talking about kid freedom quite a bit over the last few months. It started when Kiersten's mother asked if Kiersten's son Sam would be taking the bus to school. "Uh, no," she said. "He'll be walking the half-mile with Beth and Sarah." And then she called me saying, "I'm not wrong, am I? They're walking to school, right? Because it's just half a a mile." I assured her that, yes, they would be walking, and as soon as Beth was comfortable with the route she'd probably be walking by herself before Sam and Sarah were old enough to join her. Another neighbor whose kid isn't quite three months old echoes the sentiment, so there will be four little neighbor kids doing this. And we won't be shadowing them. (But then, we won't be paying for full-day kindergarten, either, and we have plans to put the kids in a neighborhood rock band, too, so maybe we really ARE bad parents.)
As a ten-year-old kid, I walked downtown every day after school (about a mile), got bus money from my dad, and took the bus out to the babysitter's house (another eight miles), where my mom picked me up after work. I knew the UTA bus schedules so well that it actually irks me now that they've changed bus routes and numbers — I don't ever take the bus in Salt Lake any more, but if I need to I'd like to know that the #5 bus is going to be at the corner of 13th South and 19th East at 5, 25, and 45 minutes past the hour (except on weekends). Taking the bus was the cornerstone of my independence. I knew how to get around by myself, how to trust a map and a bus schedule. Because I took the bus as a (pretty little) kid, I wasn't afraid to take the subway in Washington, D.C. or the tram in Moscow, Russia as a sixteen-year-old. I wasn't afraid to go back to Argentina after my mission, toting two friends who'd never been there (one who had never been outside the U.S.), for a three-week, four-city trip. I wasn't panicked about finding my way around L.A., or Pittsburgh, or now Boston. My younger sisters, who for various reasons never took the bus, have very different views of the world and their ability to navigate it.
Beth is three. We already talk about which numbers we see on the buses in our area, and where those buses go. ("Look, Beth, that's a #73 bus! Is that OUR bus?") I just HOPE that by the time she's nine she begs me to let her take the T by herself. If she hasn't asked by the time she's twelve, I'm sending her and a friend to the zoo with Charlie Cards and $50 for lunch and admission.
If I don't let my kids walk to school alone, take the bus and subway alone, and learn to do things like read a map and remember landmarks, how can I expect them to be responsible drivers (and navigators!) when they're 16? How can I expect them to survive away from home when they're 18? How can I expect them to be adults who can function outside of an air-conditioned SUV?
Your thoughts, please. I'm interested in what people have to say about this. (And I'm especially interested if you don't agree with me, by the way.)
(Oh — and I love the title of Lenore Skenazy's blog: Free Range Kids. Someone actually suggested that as the name for the group that ended up being Half Day Play...hilarious!)
My next-door neighbor Kiersten and I have been talking about kid freedom quite a bit over the last few months. It started when Kiersten's mother asked if Kiersten's son Sam would be taking the bus to school. "Uh, no," she said. "He'll be walking the half-mile with Beth and Sarah." And then she called me saying, "I'm not wrong, am I? They're walking to school, right? Because it's just half a a mile." I assured her that, yes, they would be walking, and as soon as Beth was comfortable with the route she'd probably be walking by herself before Sam and Sarah were old enough to join her. Another neighbor whose kid isn't quite three months old echoes the sentiment, so there will be four little neighbor kids doing this. And we won't be shadowing them. (But then, we won't be paying for full-day kindergarten, either, and we have plans to put the kids in a neighborhood rock band, too, so maybe we really ARE bad parents.)
As a ten-year-old kid, I walked downtown every day after school (about a mile), got bus money from my dad, and took the bus out to the babysitter's house (another eight miles), where my mom picked me up after work. I knew the UTA bus schedules so well that it actually irks me now that they've changed bus routes and numbers — I don't ever take the bus in Salt Lake any more, but if I need to I'd like to know that the #5 bus is going to be at the corner of 13th South and 19th East at 5, 25, and 45 minutes past the hour (except on weekends). Taking the bus was the cornerstone of my independence. I knew how to get around by myself, how to trust a map and a bus schedule. Because I took the bus as a (pretty little) kid, I wasn't afraid to take the subway in Washington, D.C. or the tram in Moscow, Russia as a sixteen-year-old. I wasn't afraid to go back to Argentina after my mission, toting two friends who'd never been there (one who had never been outside the U.S.), for a three-week, four-city trip. I wasn't panicked about finding my way around L.A., or Pittsburgh, or now Boston. My younger sisters, who for various reasons never took the bus, have very different views of the world and their ability to navigate it.
Beth is three. We already talk about which numbers we see on the buses in our area, and where those buses go. ("Look, Beth, that's a #73 bus! Is that OUR bus?") I just HOPE that by the time she's nine she begs me to let her take the T by herself. If she hasn't asked by the time she's twelve, I'm sending her and a friend to the zoo with Charlie Cards and $50 for lunch and admission.
If I don't let my kids walk to school alone, take the bus and subway alone, and learn to do things like read a map and remember landmarks, how can I expect them to be responsible drivers (and navigators!) when they're 16? How can I expect them to survive away from home when they're 18? How can I expect them to be adults who can function outside of an air-conditioned SUV?
Your thoughts, please. I'm interested in what people have to say about this. (And I'm especially interested if you don't agree with me, by the way.)
(Oh — and I love the title of Lenore Skenazy's blog: Free Range Kids. Someone actually suggested that as the name for the group that ended up being Half Day Play...hilarious!)
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Beff is turning free!
Beth turns three today, and I'm not ready for it. I have the kitchen table piled high with presents (it's Potter family tradition to celebrate birthdays as early in the morning as possible), and we're well into the planning of the butterfly birthday party next weekend, and she's itching to be finally three instead of having her birthday "coming up in April," but I'm just not ready. I'm feeling nostalgic (and, yes, a bit weepy. Sniff!).Three years ago right now I was in the hospital with a magnesium solution IV, a headache, and an automatic blood pressure cuff so I could only sleep in 15-minute increments. I was scared, tired, and majorly pissed off because the baby wasn't due until May 10th and I'd just left a bunch of things hanging at work. When Beth was finally born (emergency C-section, five weeks early, at 4:08 in the afternoon) she was itty bitty: 4 lbs., 10 oz. Here's the mildly famous shoe picture for reference.
And now she's a Big Girl who goes on the potty (most of the time), talks up a storm, knows her ABCs and loves to figure out which words begin with which letters ("What does cookie begin with? Cuh-cuh-cuh-C! Oh, I did it!"), and is sweet to her little sister (again, most of the time, and there's nothing sweeter or more maternally satisfying than seeing her take Sarah's hand to help her go throw away a diaper). She's also a drama queen of some note (I think it goes with the age, and the fact that she's female and related to me), bossy, opinionated, defiant (daily), and, on occasion, even manipulative and sneaky.I miss my tiny skinny little Bug. I love my big girl Beff. I miss the freedom I had when I was kidless (Road trip without worrying about someone puking in the car? Sure! Three-hour trip to the mall, trying on every green sweater, knowing that everyone with me will behave? Why not?), and I love her snuggling up with me on the couch to watch the Food Network (we're both big Ace of Cakes fans, which I fear has greatly inflated her faith in my ability to adequately decorate her butterfly birthday cake). I miss the little mewing noises she made as a newborn, and I love her soft little grown-up-sounding voice from the back seat of the car telling me that her imaginary friend Mei is strapped in the car seat with her. I loved being the center of her world, and I love that her world is expanding beyond me.
While I'm thinking about birthdays: congrats to Danika and Amy, who both had baby girls this week! If the first part of this post didn't make it clear, I'm just a wee bit partial to baby girls...and the big girls they eventually become. Happy birthday, Bethie.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Bethisms #3
As I was taking a bath this morning, Beth came in bearing a loaf of imaginary bread that she had baked in her kitchen, and insisted that I try it.
I took some nibbles. "That's good bread, Bethie! What did you put in it?"
"Oh...just some melted butter."
She is so, so my child.
Sarah can now say "Uh-oh!" when she's done something worthy of the word. We've heard it a lot today.
I took some nibbles. "That's good bread, Bethie! What did you put in it?"
"Oh...just some melted butter."
She is so, so my child.
Sarah can now say "Uh-oh!" when she's done something worthy of the word. We've heard it a lot today.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Half Day Play
A group of perturbed moms met up last week in response to the School Committee's decision to charge tuition for full-day kindergarten. In about two hours, we'd come up with a rough plan to meet our kids' social/developmental/curricular needs, a name for our fledgling organization, and a scheme to spread the word around Belmont. (Oh, we can be devious, we Mama Bears.) So check out the website (still pretty rough), and think good thoughts for us. We'll need 'em.
Nakedidity
Now that she's discovered that it's possible to take off all her clothes during naptime (read: while Mom's not there to stop her), Beth has progressed to taking off her clothes every time she gets in bed. So I go in to get her up in the morning, or wake her up from a nap, and she's bouncing on her bed wearing nothing but a soggy diaper. Grinning. Giggling. "I'm naked!"
I'm pinning this on Scott and his gleeful shouts of "Naked Bethie!" when she was an even littler squirt than she is now. And to be perfectly fair, here, it's not that I object to her sleeping nude per se...it's that I can see the day she figures the diaper has to go along with the embroidered denim capris. And I'm having bad flashbacks to the poop debacle of a week and a half ago.
We've had a few Serious Talks about this issue, which she's perfectly capable of ignoring completely. By Saturday I was so sick of it I made her put all the clothes back on by herself, which she's never done before, and there were many tears and cries of "I can't do it!" involved. (I'm a big fan of consequences matching actions, mostly because it makes coming up with the consequences that much easier.) The clothes all made it back on, though the back of her waistband was doing an awkward little inward roll and was about two inches lower than it should have been. And she has a terrible time aiming for her socks — there's always a toe or two that ends up on the wrong side of the opening, which frustrates her no end.
Today, though, I had a minor brainstorm. I dug out four large-ish safety pins and attached her pink flowered shirt to her flower-appliqué khakis: front, back, and both sides. She was not happy about naptime to begin with (there was kicking and screaming involved, and many, many tears, all of which only proved how badly she needed the nap) and having her clothes pinned on her was the final humiliation. Oh, the drama! But she fell asleep pretty quickly — within 20 minutes or so — and took a good solid nap. And when she woke up she was a much happier little munchkin, and it turned out that in the 20 minutes before she conked out she had actually climbed out of bed, picked up her socks from the spot on the floor where she'd thrown them in disgust during the tantrum, and put them back on her feet. With the heels in the right place and everything. How about that?
I'm pinning this on Scott and his gleeful shouts of "Naked Bethie!" when she was an even littler squirt than she is now. And to be perfectly fair, here, it's not that I object to her sleeping nude per se...it's that I can see the day she figures the diaper has to go along with the embroidered denim capris. And I'm having bad flashbacks to the poop debacle of a week and a half ago.
We've had a few Serious Talks about this issue, which she's perfectly capable of ignoring completely. By Saturday I was so sick of it I made her put all the clothes back on by herself, which she's never done before, and there were many tears and cries of "I can't do it!" involved. (I'm a big fan of consequences matching actions, mostly because it makes coming up with the consequences that much easier.) The clothes all made it back on, though the back of her waistband was doing an awkward little inward roll and was about two inches lower than it should have been. And she has a terrible time aiming for her socks — there's always a toe or two that ends up on the wrong side of the opening, which frustrates her no end.
Today, though, I had a minor brainstorm. I dug out four large-ish safety pins and attached her pink flowered shirt to her flower-appliqué khakis: front, back, and both sides. She was not happy about naptime to begin with (there was kicking and screaming involved, and many, many tears, all of which only proved how badly she needed the nap) and having her clothes pinned on her was the final humiliation. Oh, the drama! But she fell asleep pretty quickly — within 20 minutes or so — and took a good solid nap. And when she woke up she was a much happier little munchkin, and it turned out that in the 20 minutes before she conked out she had actually climbed out of bed, picked up her socks from the spot on the floor where she'd thrown them in disgust during the tantrum, and put them back on her feet. With the heels in the right place and everything. How about that?
Friday, March 21, 2008
Marketing 101 for the younger set
A few weeks ago while Beth was sitting on the potty with her training pants around her knees, she noticed the Gerber tag in the back and asked, "Mommy, why is there a baby on my undahweaw?"
"That's the brand of underwear, Bethie," I told her, anticipating one of her big worries in life. "The company that makes them puts a baby on everything they make. It doesn't mean the underwear is for babies. It's for big girls."
"Oh." She pondered this. "They're not for Baby Sarah."
"No, they're not for Sarah. They're made by a company called Gerber, and they use a picture of a baby to tell you that they made the underwear." This was quickly getting waaaay over her head, so I dropped it and she went about her (ahem) business. But she didn't forget, and every time she sees that darn baby she says, "That's the brand," and I've started wondering how much of Marketing 101 for the Young Consumer I really should be teaching her. I mean, she's not even quite three.
She noticed the tag on the inside of her turtleneck the other day, and asked about it.
"That's the brand of clothing it is, Bethie. See the letters?" She pointed out the G, the A, and the P. "That spells 'Gap.' Did we buy this shirt at Gap?" Vigorous nod. "Every store that sells something wants you to remember where you bought it, so they put something on it that tells you what brand it is."
"Oh! My undahweaw has the brand."
I'm reminded of a story my grandmother likes to tell about my dad when he was a teenager. (Keep in mind, Grandma has her master's in home ec. and didn't finish her Ph.D. when she disagreed with her adviser about the subject of her dissertation. She taught clothing and textiles at BYU, and though my mom taught me to sew and follow a pattern, Grandma taught me not to be afraid to make my own patterns. My relationship with the woman is tense at best, but she's tough and smart and there are a lot of things I admire her for.) This was the 1950s, and everyone at BY High School was wearing Joyce shoes and Jantzen sweaters. Grandma figured that both trendy brands were cheaply made, dressed her kid in clothes that would last, and told him to look for quality instead of bowing to trends. Fast-forward to a point when someone asked Dad if the sweater he was wearing was Jantzen.
"No," Dad said. "This is real quality."
(Grandma's right, by the way: I had a pair of off-white Joyce pumps in college, and they were possibly the worst pair of shoes I've ever owned.)
Beth and I haven't had any discussions yet about trends, product quality, advertising, PR, or market segmentation. But (you know me) we will.
"That's the brand of underwear, Bethie," I told her, anticipating one of her big worries in life. "The company that makes them puts a baby on everything they make. It doesn't mean the underwear is for babies. It's for big girls."
"Oh." She pondered this. "They're not for Baby Sarah."
"No, they're not for Sarah. They're made by a company called Gerber, and they use a picture of a baby to tell you that they made the underwear." This was quickly getting waaaay over her head, so I dropped it and she went about her (ahem) business. But she didn't forget, and every time she sees that darn baby she says, "That's the brand," and I've started wondering how much of Marketing 101 for the Young Consumer I really should be teaching her. I mean, she's not even quite three.
She noticed the tag on the inside of her turtleneck the other day, and asked about it.
"That's the brand of clothing it is, Bethie. See the letters?" She pointed out the G, the A, and the P. "That spells 'Gap.' Did we buy this shirt at Gap?" Vigorous nod. "Every store that sells something wants you to remember where you bought it, so they put something on it that tells you what brand it is."
"Oh! My undahweaw has the brand."
I'm reminded of a story my grandmother likes to tell about my dad when he was a teenager. (Keep in mind, Grandma has her master's in home ec. and didn't finish her Ph.D. when she disagreed with her adviser about the subject of her dissertation. She taught clothing and textiles at BYU, and though my mom taught me to sew and follow a pattern, Grandma taught me not to be afraid to make my own patterns. My relationship with the woman is tense at best, but she's tough and smart and there are a lot of things I admire her for.) This was the 1950s, and everyone at BY High School was wearing Joyce shoes and Jantzen sweaters. Grandma figured that both trendy brands were cheaply made, dressed her kid in clothes that would last, and told him to look for quality instead of bowing to trends. Fast-forward to a point when someone asked Dad if the sweater he was wearing was Jantzen.
"No," Dad said. "This is real quality."
(Grandma's right, by the way: I had a pair of off-white Joyce pumps in college, and they were possibly the worst pair of shoes I've ever owned.)
Beth and I haven't had any discussions yet about trends, product quality, advertising, PR, or market segmentation. But (you know me) we will.
Potty chronicles
I was, like, totally jealous when I read Sarah's blog last week about potty training Olivia. I've been working at this with Beth for what seems like forever (my very first blog post was about one of her first steps toward potty training), and she's almost three, and let's just say it's been a long road. We've offered bribes: a sticker for every time she sits on the potty, and a chocolate chip (or an M&M, if they're in the house) for anything that happens whilst she's sitting. I've told her that she can't go to preschool if she's still wearing diapers, and we've had discussions about the fact that her birthday is coming up and three is really too old to wear diapers. For the past several weeks I've been putting her in thick cotton training pants every morning (and sometimes after naps), but we've had several accidents and I was too chicken to let her wear them while glued to the TV for her daily Sesame Street. We even picked out a package of Elmo underwear and I told her if she went a whole day going on the potty every time she could start wearing Elmo instead of the training pants.
Yeah, yeah. Nothing doing.
And then on Monday, something clicked over. I had her in underwear in the morning (she sat on a towel on the couch during her morning Muppetfest) and then made a move to change her into a diaper so we could run some errands.
"No, I wanna weaw undahweaw."
I considered this, figured that we might make it to one store and back, had her go potty, and then ran both girls down to the car. An adventure! We'll see if Beth can make it for the next hour and a half without an accident! And she'll tell me if she needs to go!
Two blocks from home, I came to my senses. We were going to be on the turnpike, where Beth regularly falls asleep. And neither one of us could be responsible for what happened then. I pulled over and changed her into a diaper, and she spent the rest of the (sleepless) drive lamenting the fact that I'd taken away her undahweaw.
I struck a bargain with her. "Bethie, if you can keep your diaper dry all the way to the store, I'll change you back into underwear. Okay?"
"Okay." Which she did, and I did, and we had the usual tell-Mommy-if-you-need-to-go-potty talk, and then three minutes later she said, "Uh-oh" and peed all over the floor.
(If you're reading this and you don't have kids and you've been wondering what it's really like to raise 'em, THIS IS WHAT IT'S LIKE. Sure, there are times when the chubby little arms go around your neck and you hear "I wuv you, Mommy" and feel a soft cheek against yours, but let's face it: it's hand-to-hand combat every single day.)
I'm bugged about this (Mommies are supposed to be patient!), but I totally lost it. I told her how disappointed I was in her, how sad it was that she'd had an accident in a store, I put her in a diaper (fortunately she was wearing a skirt, so I didn't have to change her pants), and after cleaning up her mess and making our quick purchases we went home. Okay, we stopped at McDonald's on the way, but we went home. While we were driving I told her that she's already wearing the biggest diapers they make (size 5, and I know it's not technically true, but if Costco doesn't carry them we won't be buying them) and it was high time she started going on the potty instead of using a diaper.
I don't know which part of this sunk in, but something did. On Tuesday she lasted the whole day (except for naptime, of course, and she'll give up the nap before I'll hold her to it) in training pants, so Wednesday (huzzah!) we broke out the Elmo underwear. Now the refrain around the house is this:
"Bethie, do you need to go potty?"
"No I don't! I didn't say it!" — meaning that she'll tell me when she needs to go, and I can butt out.
Haven't had an accident since. She's told me every time she needs to go. We've gone visiting teaching, we've gone to gymnastics class, we've had friends over for playdates. I put a diaper on her last night when Kiersten was going to watch her between the time I left for a Relief Society party and the time Scott got home after class, and she asked Kiersten to take the diaper off so she could go potty. (I love this.) We've all been telling her how proud we are of her. Today's Day 4 of the Age of Dry, and I'm thrilled. (So is Beth, by the way.)
Now that I've praised my kid...there's one tiny little detail that I'd rather forget, but I know at some point I'll go back and laugh about it. (Warning: if you're easily grossed out, and especially if what you've just read has been too much for you, just close your browser now and go turn on the TV. You'll be happier.)
Ever since Monday, Beth has taken off all her clothes during her rest/nap time if and only if she has a wet or poopy diaper. I think she's finally realized that she's more comfortable in dry pants, and she's been trying to get to the diaper to get it off her skin. Fortunately, she's stopped at the diaper...until today, when she dug a few little balls of poop out of the diaper and left them in her bed. All together now: "Ewwwwwww!" We had a little chat about that. We also stripped her bed, washed the sheets, and had another chat about leaving our clothes on.
Yeah, yeah. Nothing doing.
And then on Monday, something clicked over. I had her in underwear in the morning (she sat on a towel on the couch during her morning Muppetfest) and then made a move to change her into a diaper so we could run some errands.
"No, I wanna weaw undahweaw."
I considered this, figured that we might make it to one store and back, had her go potty, and then ran both girls down to the car. An adventure! We'll see if Beth can make it for the next hour and a half without an accident! And she'll tell me if she needs to go!
Two blocks from home, I came to my senses. We were going to be on the turnpike, where Beth regularly falls asleep. And neither one of us could be responsible for what happened then. I pulled over and changed her into a diaper, and she spent the rest of the (sleepless) drive lamenting the fact that I'd taken away her undahweaw.
I struck a bargain with her. "Bethie, if you can keep your diaper dry all the way to the store, I'll change you back into underwear. Okay?"
"Okay." Which she did, and I did, and we had the usual tell-Mommy-if-you-need-to-go-potty talk, and then three minutes later she said, "Uh-oh" and peed all over the floor.
(If you're reading this and you don't have kids and you've been wondering what it's really like to raise 'em, THIS IS WHAT IT'S LIKE. Sure, there are times when the chubby little arms go around your neck and you hear "I wuv you, Mommy" and feel a soft cheek against yours, but let's face it: it's hand-to-hand combat every single day.)
I'm bugged about this (Mommies are supposed to be patient!), but I totally lost it. I told her how disappointed I was in her, how sad it was that she'd had an accident in a store, I put her in a diaper (fortunately she was wearing a skirt, so I didn't have to change her pants), and after cleaning up her mess and making our quick purchases we went home. Okay, we stopped at McDonald's on the way, but we went home. While we were driving I told her that she's already wearing the biggest diapers they make (size 5, and I know it's not technically true, but if Costco doesn't carry them we won't be buying them) and it was high time she started going on the potty instead of using a diaper.
I don't know which part of this sunk in, but something did. On Tuesday she lasted the whole day (except for naptime, of course, and she'll give up the nap before I'll hold her to it) in training pants, so Wednesday (huzzah!) we broke out the Elmo underwear. Now the refrain around the house is this:
"Bethie, do you need to go potty?"
"No I don't! I didn't say it!" — meaning that she'll tell me when she needs to go, and I can butt out.
Haven't had an accident since. She's told me every time she needs to go. We've gone visiting teaching, we've gone to gymnastics class, we've had friends over for playdates. I put a diaper on her last night when Kiersten was going to watch her between the time I left for a Relief Society party and the time Scott got home after class, and she asked Kiersten to take the diaper off so she could go potty. (I love this.) We've all been telling her how proud we are of her. Today's Day 4 of the Age of Dry, and I'm thrilled. (So is Beth, by the way.)
Now that I've praised my kid...there's one tiny little detail that I'd rather forget, but I know at some point I'll go back and laugh about it. (Warning: if you're easily grossed out, and especially if what you've just read has been too much for you, just close your browser now and go turn on the TV. You'll be happier.)
Ever since Monday, Beth has taken off all her clothes during her rest/nap time if and only if she has a wet or poopy diaper. I think she's finally realized that she's more comfortable in dry pants, and she's been trying to get to the diaper to get it off her skin. Fortunately, she's stopped at the diaper...until today, when she dug a few little balls of poop out of the diaper and left them in her bed. All together now: "Ewwwwwww!" We had a little chat about that. We also stripped her bed, washed the sheets, and had another chat about leaving our clothes on.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
My first school committee meeting, or, Mommy gets political
So, despite my concerns about looking like a crazed mama, I actually went to a school committee meeting tonight. Why? This blows my mind: the committee, having decided that the district needed full-day kindergarten, and realizing that there wasn't enough money in the budget to pay for it, was voting tonight on charging parents tuition for sending their kids to the full-day program.
There are a couple of things about this that bother me, and I'm going to try to be cool-headed and analytical about them:
After a few minutes of this, the superintendent said, "We'll take two more comments."
My friend Jen T., who clued me in to the whole they're-voting-on-it-tonight thing, said, "Excuse me, but this many people" (the room was overflowing) "showed up to voice their concerns about this and you're only taking two more comments?"
They chided her for speaking out of turn, and then refused to take questions from our corner of the room. And then they voted on the *#&@ thing, and it passed, of course.
So, since I never got to speak my piece, here's what I would have said.
"Several of you have compared this tuition to the busing and athletic fees that parents already pay in this district. I'd like to point out that what we're talking about isn't a usage fee. It's payment for something that's curricular.
"And you've also said that it's not necessary to continue hashing out the issue of half-day vs. full-day kindergarten. The reason we're going back to that issue is that you've only given us one solution: move to full-day kindergarten and have parents ante up the money for it. We're trying to explore options, and you're not listening.
"I'm not against full-day kindergarten — in fact, there are many reasons I'd support it. But I don't support a regressive tax on parents of five-year-olds. If we truly think this is the best thing for our children, then we need to pay for it as a community, not as individual parents. If you believe in this, let's take it to the town and let people vote on it. If the town thinks it's worth funding, then you have a mandate and let's by all means do full-day kindergarten. But if the town thinks half-day kindergarten is sufficient, then leave it as it is."
That's all. Really. I'd feel much better about it if I'd been allowed to say my piece. But I wasn't. At least I know they all got the e-mail I sent them this afternoon. They may not have read it, but they got it.
After the vote, Jen T. suggested something that would simultaneously get the school committee's attention and give our children a positive kindergarten experience. "We should organize a group of people who are willing to take their kids out at noon. We could form our own curriculum -- for example, on Wednesday afternoon we'll be at the Science Museum. And we make it so neat for these kids that instead of feeling left out of afternoon kindergarten, they walk out the door saying, 'See you, suckas! I'm going to Disneyland.'"
I'm going to follow up on this, see who's willing to do it, and put together a plan. I know Beth doesn't hit kindergarten for another two years, but we could have a really awesome parents' curriculum in place by then. (Note: Scott's laughing at me hard because I'm so adamantly opposed to homeschooling but I'm willing to do this. My only defense is that it's an educational cooperative, not homeschooling; I'm not protesting the type of curriculum taught, just the fact that they want to charge me for public education; and anyway I don't make my daughters wear floor-length denim skirts.)
There are a couple of things about this that bother me, and I'm going to try to be cool-headed and analytical about them:
- Education is a public good. (Okay, I know there's some argument about the semantics of this, but I'm in the Adam Smith camp, and I'm talking about the value of an educated populace rather than the day-to-day business of education.) It's something that we, as a society, all benefit from. Therefore, society as a whole should pay for it.
- Along the same lines, the committee was adamant that full-day kindergarten is the best way to educate our kids. I'm not sure whether I agree with this — I have several arguments on either side and would be happy with either half-day or full-day for different reasons. But if they think it's important enough to mandate, it should be important enough for them to fund.
- The people who will be hit hardest by the kindergarten tuition plan are the people who can least afford it: middle-class single-income parents of small children. Rich families can write a check without worrying; two-income families have to pay for day care anyway, so who cares whose name is on the check? Families with limited means can apply for a waiver. That leaves...well, me. And a few other people I know. We certainly don't qualify for assistance, but paying for kindergarten is going to be a big chunk of already-budgeted money. Ever heard the term "regressive tax"?
- The figure they're giving for next year's tuition is $1500. Compared to other districts offering similar programs (though nearly all of them also offer a no-cost half-day program), that's low. Suspiciously low. Watch for it to rise — Arlington's tuition just rose from $1800 to $2400.
- They'll allow parents who don't want to pay for the full-day option to take their children out at noon. But that also means that children who leave at noon will only have access to part of the curriculum: reading and math. No social studies, science, music, art or P.E. If the state requires schools to teach a certain curriculum, that curriculum should be available free of charge, even if it means making a full-curriculum half-day option available. (This was one of the suggestions from rock star school committee member Ann Rittenburg, but no one else on the committee seemed interested in listening to her.)
After a few minutes of this, the superintendent said, "We'll take two more comments."
My friend Jen T., who clued me in to the whole they're-voting-on-it-tonight thing, said, "Excuse me, but this many people" (the room was overflowing) "showed up to voice their concerns about this and you're only taking two more comments?"
They chided her for speaking out of turn, and then refused to take questions from our corner of the room. And then they voted on the *#&@ thing, and it passed, of course.
So, since I never got to speak my piece, here's what I would have said.
"Several of you have compared this tuition to the busing and athletic fees that parents already pay in this district. I'd like to point out that what we're talking about isn't a usage fee. It's payment for something that's curricular.
"And you've also said that it's not necessary to continue hashing out the issue of half-day vs. full-day kindergarten. The reason we're going back to that issue is that you've only given us one solution: move to full-day kindergarten and have parents ante up the money for it. We're trying to explore options, and you're not listening.
"I'm not against full-day kindergarten — in fact, there are many reasons I'd support it. But I don't support a regressive tax on parents of five-year-olds. If we truly think this is the best thing for our children, then we need to pay for it as a community, not as individual parents. If you believe in this, let's take it to the town and let people vote on it. If the town thinks it's worth funding, then you have a mandate and let's by all means do full-day kindergarten. But if the town thinks half-day kindergarten is sufficient, then leave it as it is."
That's all. Really. I'd feel much better about it if I'd been allowed to say my piece. But I wasn't. At least I know they all got the e-mail I sent them this afternoon. They may not have read it, but they got it.
After the vote, Jen T. suggested something that would simultaneously get the school committee's attention and give our children a positive kindergarten experience. "We should organize a group of people who are willing to take their kids out at noon. We could form our own curriculum -- for example, on Wednesday afternoon we'll be at the Science Museum. And we make it so neat for these kids that instead of feeling left out of afternoon kindergarten, they walk out the door saying, 'See you, suckas! I'm going to Disneyland.'"
I'm going to follow up on this, see who's willing to do it, and put together a plan. I know Beth doesn't hit kindergarten for another two years, but we could have a really awesome parents' curriculum in place by then. (Note: Scott's laughing at me hard because I'm so adamantly opposed to homeschooling but I'm willing to do this. My only defense is that it's an educational cooperative, not homeschooling; I'm not protesting the type of curriculum taught, just the fact that they want to charge me for public education; and anyway I don't make my daughters wear floor-length denim skirts.)
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Yes, my daughter is a girly-girl
A while ago, in a nostalgic-for-his-childhood-cartoons moment, Scott recorded a few episodes of "The Pink Panther" for Beth, who did indeed enjoy them immensely.
Tonight, as I was on my way down to Target (can't do an Easter candy run with kids attached), Scott called me. "I just figured out why Beth likes the Pink Panther."
"Why?"
"It's not because he's funny. It's because he's PINK."
Ohhhhh. Yeah. We were both pretty dense about that one.
Tonight, as I was on my way down to Target (can't do an Easter candy run with kids attached), Scott called me. "I just figured out why Beth likes the Pink Panther."
"Why?"
"It's not because he's funny. It's because he's PINK."
Ohhhhh. Yeah. We were both pretty dense about that one.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Bethisms #2
We went on a shopping hunt today to find an Easter dress for Beth. (Sarah has fancy hand-me-downs, which I know she'll despise as she grows older, but for the time being I'm fine with it.) We didn't find what we were looking for, but ended up deciding that Beth can wear her Absolute Favorite Dress (cream velvet top, cream-and-gold flouncy skirt, sash) as an Easter dress, which made her supremely happy. This dress has also worked as a Cinderella dress for her friend's birthday party, so she really does feel like a princess in it.
I was holding Beth's hand (underhand reach into the back seat) while we were driving and then had to turn a corner. "Bethie? Mommy needs her hand back so she can drive."
"Oh. Okay. I need to drive too." She thought about it for a few moments. "I'm driving a pink ladybug car! It has pink spots and a pink mouth and a pink tongue."
Yeeeha! I think I want that car too. Does it have space for two car seats?
Sarah loooooves water and will happily splash her hands in the tub while I'm taking a bath. This morning she decided to wash her hair since I was washing mine — she splashed her hands in the water, then rubbed them in her hair, splashed, rubbed, splashed, rubbed. By the time she was done her hair and her shirt were both pretty wet, and she was thrilled with herself!
Guess I should figure out what the Sarah equivalent of a Bethism is...any thoughts?
I was holding Beth's hand (underhand reach into the back seat) while we were driving and then had to turn a corner. "Bethie? Mommy needs her hand back so she can drive."
"Oh. Okay. I need to drive too." She thought about it for a few moments. "I'm driving a pink ladybug car! It has pink spots and a pink mouth and a pink tongue."
Yeeeha! I think I want that car too. Does it have space for two car seats?
Sarah loooooves water and will happily splash her hands in the tub while I'm taking a bath. This morning she decided to wash her hair since I was washing mine — she splashed her hands in the water, then rubbed them in her hair, splashed, rubbed, splashed, rubbed. By the time she was done her hair and her shirt were both pretty wet, and she was thrilled with herself!
Guess I should figure out what the Sarah equivalent of a Bethism is...any thoughts?
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Bethisms #1
Today as I was talking on the phone to my next-door neighbor Kiersten (which really is a laugh, because we could probably talk just as well, and at the same volume, if we simply leaned out our windows), Beth came running into the kitchen.
"Mommy!"
"What, Beth?"
"I was in my playroom and baby Sarah goed in my playroom and I came running into the kitchen and I yelled Mommy!"
Kiersten, of course, got a huge kick out of this. "I hope you're writing down all the Bethisms," she said.
I've been thinking about it for a while, and in my head I call them Bethisms too, so I'll have to start posting them as they happen. (Wait — no — then I wouldn't have time to actually do anything, 'cause I'd just be blogging nonstop. But I promise to put up the better ones.)
Sarah — sweet, kind little Sarah — was a huge help as I was putting Beth down for her "rest" today (read "Mommy wants you to take a nap, but if she says the N word it won't happen"). As I fixed Beth up in bed with her two favorite yellow blankets, Sarah toddled over to the bookshelf, picked out a book, and brought it over to Beth in bed. Then she did it again. And again. All told, we ended up with five books and three dollies in the bed for Beth to pore over and cuddle with during her rest.
Am trying the cloth diapers my friend Jen V. sent home with me this weekend (and am realizing that I have many too many friends named Jen, and will have to commence with initials). The ones with snaps aren't too bad to fasten, but the things are gigantic — I couldn't get Beth's pants back up over the diaper. The smell's not all that fun, either, and I'm suspecting that the thoroughly non-biodegradable disposables we've been using for nigh on three years also contain a (probably carcinogenic) deodorizing chemical. Sigh.
"Mommy!"
"What, Beth?"
"I was in my playroom and baby Sarah goed in my playroom and I came running into the kitchen and I yelled Mommy!"
Kiersten, of course, got a huge kick out of this. "I hope you're writing down all the Bethisms," she said.
I've been thinking about it for a while, and in my head I call them Bethisms too, so I'll have to start posting them as they happen. (Wait — no — then I wouldn't have time to actually do anything, 'cause I'd just be blogging nonstop. But I promise to put up the better ones.)
Sarah — sweet, kind little Sarah — was a huge help as I was putting Beth down for her "rest" today (read "Mommy wants you to take a nap, but if she says the N word it won't happen"). As I fixed Beth up in bed with her two favorite yellow blankets, Sarah toddled over to the bookshelf, picked out a book, and brought it over to Beth in bed. Then she did it again. And again. All told, we ended up with five books and three dollies in the bed for Beth to pore over and cuddle with during her rest.
Am trying the cloth diapers my friend Jen V. sent home with me this weekend (and am realizing that I have many too many friends named Jen, and will have to commence with initials). The ones with snaps aren't too bad to fasten, but the things are gigantic — I couldn't get Beth's pants back up over the diaper. The smell's not all that fun, either, and I'm suspecting that the thoroughly non-biodegradable disposables we've been using for nigh on three years also contain a (probably carcinogenic) deodorizing chemical. Sigh.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Here's an event you can really sink your teeth into
This morning, shortly after he'd left for work, Scott called me from the car.
"Can you look into something for me? There's a sign up in Cushing Square that says there's a winter festival this week. We ought to go. And they're having a meat raffle."
"A what?"
"A meat raffle."
"M-E-A-T?"
I looked into it, online. I can't find anything about a winter festival (will have to walk down and read the sign myself), but there is indeed a meat raffle tomorrow night at the senior center. Scott thinks it sounds tremendous, but I think I want to stay as far away as I possibly can. I can just hear it: "Ticket number one-one-five-eight! wins the fourteen pounds of dried pepper salami. Congratulations, 1158! Now for the six ham hocks, that's a pig and a half, folks...."
More in the Totoro vein...today Beth put on her bunny backpack, had me pack two (imaginary) Totoros inside it, and then waited at the (also imaginary) bus stop for the cat bus to come. She can't get over the furry seats, which MBTA buses most definitely do not have.
"Can you look into something for me? There's a sign up in Cushing Square that says there's a winter festival this week. We ought to go. And they're having a meat raffle."
"A what?"
"A meat raffle."
"M-E-A-T?"
I looked into it, online. I can't find anything about a winter festival (will have to walk down and read the sign myself), but there is indeed a meat raffle tomorrow night at the senior center. Scott thinks it sounds tremendous, but I think I want to stay as far away as I possibly can. I can just hear it: "Ticket number one-one-five-eight! wins the fourteen pounds of dried pepper salami. Congratulations, 1158! Now for the six ham hocks, that's a pig and a half, folks...."
More in the Totoro vein...today Beth put on her bunny backpack, had me pack two (imaginary) Totoros inside it, and then waited at the (also imaginary) bus stop for the cat bus to come. She can't get over the furry seats, which MBTA buses most definitely do not have.
Long weekend
We left the girls with some friends over the weekend while we flew out to Utah for Scott's grandpa's funeral. I was so, so nervous to leave them — I'd never left Sarah overnight before, and had only left Beth twice (and not to go so far away, either). We've been here for, what, seven months? and just don't know anyone all that well. I spent most of last week waking up in the middle of the night and worrying. What about, I'm not really sure — they're sweet kids, they're resilient, our friends are delightful and attentive people (and were probably better parents over the weekend than I usually am), and we were only going to be gone for three days/two nights. I guess I was just worried about anything I couldn't think about. (Well, that, and the fact that I'm a worrywart. But that's beside the point.)
We dropped them off at my friend Mindy's house Friday morning at what my sister terms "the butt crack of dawn," still in their PJs, the two of us intending to drive to the airport and park in the economy lot. And then we had the brilliant idea: We're close to the Alewife station! What if we park there, and take the T to the airport, and save ourselves a lot of money in parking fees? And we figured, hey, we had enough time, since we weren't checking luggage and all.
So we drove to Alewife, found a parking place, zipped downstairs and got on the train, thinking, oh, how cool are we, and then somewhere in Cambridge we ended up sitting at a station for 20 minutes while they kept making announcements about how we were going to be delayed for just a minute more, and they were making a quick schedule adjustment, and we'd be on our way momentarily, and we started to think, maybe this was a bad idea. Then we got on the wrong Silver Line bus out of South Station (correctable: we just got off a few stops down and waited for the right one, but still harrowing) and by the time we got to the airport and made it through the United check-in line, the touch screen told us we were too late to check in.
Oh.
The agents we talked to tried to get us on a later flight (all full, and they wouldn't get us there in time anyway), couldn't override the system to get us on the right flight, and finally routed us to the check-in supervisor. Somewhere along the line our explanation of "grandfather's funeral" was misinterpreted by someone, and the supervisor heard "father's funeral." (We were not about to correct her.) She overrode the system, printed us boarding passes, pushed us to the front of the security line, told us to run down the concourse, turn left, and if we made it to the plane before they shut the doors we could go. Which we did, just as they were announcing the final boarding call. Oof. Lesson learned: We can take the T, but only if we give ourselves a lot of extra time.
The funeral was actually great — all of Scott's cousins were there (even one who works on a cruise ship and flew in from New Zealand), I got to hold a bunch of cute babies, his aunts told terrifically funny stories about their dad teasing them and hoarding plywood, his grandfather was buried with full military honors (two of the men in the honor guard had served in WWII, when he served) and we were really, really glad we got to go. My parents gave us a place to stay, were thrilled to see us for the approximately five hours we were in the house and not sleeping (there were waffles involved) and sent us home with Easter goodies for the kids.
As for the girls, I shouldn't have worried. Each time I called Beth was slightly dismissive on the phone: "Hi Mommy! We're playing." She'd answer a few questions and then give the phone back to a nearby adult. Our friends Brent and Danika, who'd picked them up from Mindy's house Friday evening, had dinner waiting for us when we got home and seemed relatively unscathed by what must have been a looooong weekend. Sarah's given us lots of hugs, and Beth had a few tantrums yesterday as part of her winding-down process, but all's well.
We dropped them off at my friend Mindy's house Friday morning at what my sister terms "the butt crack of dawn," still in their PJs, the two of us intending to drive to the airport and park in the economy lot. And then we had the brilliant idea: We're close to the Alewife station! What if we park there, and take the T to the airport, and save ourselves a lot of money in parking fees? And we figured, hey, we had enough time, since we weren't checking luggage and all.
So we drove to Alewife, found a parking place, zipped downstairs and got on the train, thinking, oh, how cool are we, and then somewhere in Cambridge we ended up sitting at a station for 20 minutes while they kept making announcements about how we were going to be delayed for just a minute more, and they were making a quick schedule adjustment, and we'd be on our way momentarily, and we started to think, maybe this was a bad idea. Then we got on the wrong Silver Line bus out of South Station (correctable: we just got off a few stops down and waited for the right one, but still harrowing) and by the time we got to the airport and made it through the United check-in line, the touch screen told us we were too late to check in.
Oh.
The agents we talked to tried to get us on a later flight (all full, and they wouldn't get us there in time anyway), couldn't override the system to get us on the right flight, and finally routed us to the check-in supervisor. Somewhere along the line our explanation of "grandfather's funeral" was misinterpreted by someone, and the supervisor heard "father's funeral." (We were not about to correct her.) She overrode the system, printed us boarding passes, pushed us to the front of the security line, told us to run down the concourse, turn left, and if we made it to the plane before they shut the doors we could go. Which we did, just as they were announcing the final boarding call. Oof. Lesson learned: We can take the T, but only if we give ourselves a lot of extra time.
The funeral was actually great — all of Scott's cousins were there (even one who works on a cruise ship and flew in from New Zealand), I got to hold a bunch of cute babies, his aunts told terrifically funny stories about their dad teasing them and hoarding plywood, his grandfather was buried with full military honors (two of the men in the honor guard had served in WWII, when he served) and we were really, really glad we got to go. My parents gave us a place to stay, were thrilled to see us for the approximately five hours we were in the house and not sleeping (there were waffles involved) and sent us home with Easter goodies for the kids.
As for the girls, I shouldn't have worried. Each time I called Beth was slightly dismissive on the phone: "Hi Mommy! We're playing." She'd answer a few questions and then give the phone back to a nearby adult. Our friends Brent and Danika, who'd picked them up from Mindy's house Friday evening, had dinner waiting for us when we got home and seemed relatively unscathed by what must have been a looooong weekend. Sarah's given us lots of hugs, and Beth had a few tantrums yesterday as part of her winding-down process, but all's well.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Can't get the music from My Neighbor Totoro out of my head
My friend Jen gave Beth a stuffed Totoro about a year ago, and it's taken us this long to sit the kid down and show her the movie. I was a little worried: Would she be scared? Would she cry at the sad parts?Oooo. She loves it. She laughed at odd moments that I didn't think were funny at all (but which are apparently hilarious to the almost-three-year-old set), she kept asking questions about the little girls, and she wants to take a ride on a cat bus.
No surprise there. Beth adores the bus. Last Monday — the last day it was really sunny and gorgeous — we walked down to the bus stop and took the bus into Harvard Square, where we ran a few minor errands and explored bookstores. I fell in love with Curious George Goes to Wordsworth, which (for you non-Bostonians who make up most of my readership) is a darling independent children's bookstore. We bought the most recent Fancy Nancy book, and Beth is now beside herself with plans for a butterfly cake for her birthday party. She chased pigeons, and had pancakes for lunch, and the clerk at Staples told her she looked like a rock star (hooray, sparkly sunglasses!) But the bus trip was the real hit.
But Totoro...she's been talking about the movie nonstop. "Did Totoro make a loud noise? And Satsuki climbed on him, yes, and they flied up high." We may have opened up a whole new world of non-princessy movies for her.
Sarah has enjoyed it too — she's started climbing up onto our striped chair any time I turn on the TV, which I vastly prefer to her previous viewing method of dragging her doll bed directly in front of the box, climbing on it, and watching from a distance of, say, two and a half inches. (Yikes!) She's perfectly content up there, hugging her doll and watching whatever's on.
The doll. Oh, the doll. I fell in love with this plush baby doll when I saw it in the Children's Museum gift shop last fall, and Santa had to bring it for Christmas. She's been christened Baby Josie (I want to add "and the Pussycats" every time I say that) and she wears a little kimono and
a diaper, along with a hospital ID bracelet. Sarah loves undressing her, though she doesn't have the coordination to get her dressed again. I frequently happen upon the little fuzzy diaper at odd places in the house. She's gotten very good at carrying Josie around with her as she toddles around the house, and last week as I was running myself a bath Sarah quite purposefully walked into the bathroom and dunked the doll in the tub. Took all day to get her dried out, including several air-only tumbles in the drier. Since then I've made daily rescues, some just inches from the water.The walking gets steadier and more assured every day. And boy is she proud of her little mobile self! I've hardly had to entertain her at all for the last two weeks, since all she wants to do is wander around the house on her own two feet.
Really: doesn't little Mei look like Sarah? (I know, I know, Sarah doesn't have teeth yet.) But the broad face! The flat smile! The cheeks! I can't wait 'til her hair is long enough for little scrub-brush ponytails.
While I'm posting photos, I should include one of Beth at her easel. I'm still looking for the great washable Crayola tempera paint and a set of brushes, but in the meantime Beth has been having a ball with...finger paints! (Remember finger painting? For some reason it's one of my happiest childhood memories, probably because there was an occasion on which I got to finger paint with chocolate pudding.) She's so, so proud of her creations — tells me what's in each picture, and insisted on having her painting of two swimming pools taped up on the door of her room, in her ongoing crusade to make her room fancier.As the post title says, I have "Tonari no Totoro, Totoro" running through my head, and it won't leave.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
It's official: she's a toddler
Seriously, Sarah's walking. All by herself. She has an adorable routine that she goes through to stand up: she does a perfect downward-facing dog, then moves into a squat, then powers up to a stand. Her leg muscles are enormous. Then, grinning like a pint-sized maniac, she takes a few steps — actually, more than a few now! — and beams us a triumphant look when she either gets to where she was going or loses her balance and sits down. It's great.
Anyway, I offer evidence from yesterday morning:
Beth had just had me read her Fancy Nancy — again — and decided she needed to be fancy, ergo the dress-ups. It was about all we could do to get Sarah to keep the hair bow in. Though, come to think of it, later in the day she decked herself out in a feather boa and refused to take it off.
But the walking! She does it without coaxing, without a need for fanfare, and purely for the enjoyment of it. She can make it all the way across the room if she decides to, drunken-sailor fashion, and she's much steadier if she has something in her hand.
She's always had a great little booty dance, but it's even better seeing it out in the middle of the floor, where she isn't holding onto someone's hand or a piece of furniture. This is also the first footage I have of Beth dancing that isn't her twirlng around in a circle. I so can't wait to see these kids when they're going to junior high dances!
Okay, that's it with the videos. I'm torturing you all, I know. (Unless you happen to be a grandparent, in which case I'm guessing this post gets e-mailed to your 40 closest friends.)
Anyway, I offer evidence from yesterday morning:
Beth had just had me read her Fancy Nancy — again — and decided she needed to be fancy, ergo the dress-ups. It was about all we could do to get Sarah to keep the hair bow in. Though, come to think of it, later in the day she decked herself out in a feather boa and refused to take it off.
But the walking! She does it without coaxing, without a need for fanfare, and purely for the enjoyment of it. She can make it all the way across the room if she decides to, drunken-sailor fashion, and she's much steadier if she has something in her hand.
She's always had a great little booty dance, but it's even better seeing it out in the middle of the floor, where she isn't holding onto someone's hand or a piece of furniture. This is also the first footage I have of Beth dancing that isn't her twirlng around in a circle. I so can't wait to see these kids when they're going to junior high dances!
Okay, that's it with the videos. I'm torturing you all, I know. (Unless you happen to be a grandparent, in which case I'm guessing this post gets e-mailed to your 40 closest friends.)
Monday, February 11, 2008
The playhouse has a chimney, and two butterflies painted on the roof
Beth and I made our first preschool visit today (and have two more lined up this week, after which I think I'm calling it quits). The school is terrific — orderly cubbies with the kids' pictures on them, lots of activity tables, slightly granola-ish looking helpful parent volunteers and cheerful, cooperative children. A playhouse with a chimney! Homemade pink play dough with sparkles in it! Kids (in a preschool version of a Groundhog Day hangover) experimenting with flashlights and boxes to cast shadows on the floor! I loved it. Beth didn't want to go home.
But.
Remember my post last week when I worried about being a hovering, pushy and over-involved parent? When I thought that my concerns about my kid's academic career might be a bit over-the-top (not to mention premature)? These parents make me look like a real piker. Compared to them, I'm a laissez-faire, let-my-kid-play-in-the-street kind of mom.
Oh, and Beth is wait-listed (wait-listed, mind you!) at this preschool. We didn't jump on the ball fast enough. 'Sokay, one of the other schools I'm visiting this week definitely still has openings. But still!
Okay, on to other, less peevish thoughts. Sarah's figured out that she can climb onto one of the chairs in the living room, and she is So. Proud. Of. Herself. She's also taking actual steps between her parents (and sometimes Beth), from chair to couch, grinning the whole time. Her balance has gotten noticeably better in the past three days. Yikes! She walks really well holding onto my finger. She stands up unassisted and stays there for a few moments before plopping back down on her (by now) rather well-cushioned tuckus.
Tonight I was lying on the floor, trying to entice her to come over and climb on my back so I could give her a horsey ride. Nope, nothing doing. She came over, put one hand on my shoulder, then leaned down so her face was right next to mine and said, "Haaaah!"
"Hi, Sarah!"
"Haaaah!" Big smile.
"Hi!"
"Haaaah!"
Delicious child.
But.
Remember my post last week when I worried about being a hovering, pushy and over-involved parent? When I thought that my concerns about my kid's academic career might be a bit over-the-top (not to mention premature)? These parents make me look like a real piker. Compared to them, I'm a laissez-faire, let-my-kid-play-in-the-street kind of mom.
Oh, and Beth is wait-listed (wait-listed, mind you!) at this preschool. We didn't jump on the ball fast enough. 'Sokay, one of the other schools I'm visiting this week definitely still has openings. But still!
Okay, on to other, less peevish thoughts. Sarah's figured out that she can climb onto one of the chairs in the living room, and she is So. Proud. Of. Herself. She's also taking actual steps between her parents (and sometimes Beth), from chair to couch, grinning the whole time. Her balance has gotten noticeably better in the past three days. Yikes! She walks really well holding onto my finger. She stands up unassisted and stays there for a few moments before plopping back down on her (by now) rather well-cushioned tuckus.
Tonight I was lying on the floor, trying to entice her to come over and climb on my back so I could give her a horsey ride. Nope, nothing doing. She came over, put one hand on my shoulder, then leaned down so her face was right next to mine and said, "Haaaah!"
"Hi, Sarah!"
"Haaaah!" Big smile.
"Hi!"
"Haaaah!"
Delicious child.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
One in the hand
Occasionally I'll find Beth wandering around the house with her two little empty hands cupped in front of her.
"What are you carrying, Bethie?"
"Princesses! This is Ariel" — she holds out one hand — "and this is her fish Flounder" — holding out the other hand.
She'll talk to Ariel and Flounder, and apparently they talk back, and all's well until she has to do something that involves using her hands, such as putting on her coat or eating. Then she carefully tucks them into her pockets, goes about her business, and if she remembers she pulls them back out to continue the conversation.
I'm tempted to get her some little pocket-sized Disney princesses to carry around, but I like the imaginary version so much that I think I'll put that off for a while.
"What are you carrying, Bethie?"
"Princesses! This is Ariel" — she holds out one hand — "and this is her fish Flounder" — holding out the other hand.
She'll talk to Ariel and Flounder, and apparently they talk back, and all's well until she has to do something that involves using her hands, such as putting on her coat or eating. Then she carefully tucks them into her pockets, goes about her business, and if she remembers she pulls them back out to continue the conversation.
I'm tempted to get her some little pocket-sized Disney princesses to carry around, but I like the imaginary version so much that I think I'll put that off for a while.
Friday, February 08, 2008
"The crocodidle was scary, so I keeped my penny."
That was Beth's take on the Rainforest Cafe. We were walking around the mall today with two other moms and their kids, and the kids were entranced with the animatronic animals and had to go see them. Josh and Kay were fine with the big crocodile and even threw pennies in the water to make wishes, but no way was Beth going to go near that thing. She tucked her penny safely in her coat pocket. But she's in looooove with the gigantic butterfly flapping its wings on the restaurant roof.
The mall walk was a totally impromptu thing that evolved out of a much-needed (and almost canceled) playdate, and it sounds nice and lively and fun (and it was), but there's a darker side: all three of us confessed to being absolutely stir-crazy and desperately needing interaction with other adults. Boston's a great town, but winter lasts For. Ever. and is horribly, bitterly cold. So we all sat there while the kids ate their Chick-Fil-A meals (still the best fruit cup out there in the fast-food world) and told each other how hard it's been. I'm the lucky one: I see my husband every night. (I've also weaned Sarah and have no plans to be pregnant any time soon, so with any luck at all I can go back on my antidepressant/Ritalin cocktail that so effectively managed my ADD. But I digress.) Scott doesn't travel for work, and he doesn't have 80-hour work weeks, and he's usually home for dinner and putting the girls to bed. So I'm not as alone as many of the women I know are. But it's still hard being in a new town where I still don't really feel connected to people yet, and where the weather is a pretty good barricade to getting outside and doing things. The fact that I have two small kids and need twenty minutes of concentrated attention (without Ritalin) to get them ready and outside and bundled in the car doesn't make it any easier.
Someday, we told each other, our kids will be in school. They will be able to dress themselves and feed themselves. They won't climb on us all day long. But until then we must keep each other sane.
The mall walk was a totally impromptu thing that evolved out of a much-needed (and almost canceled) playdate, and it sounds nice and lively and fun (and it was), but there's a darker side: all three of us confessed to being absolutely stir-crazy and desperately needing interaction with other adults. Boston's a great town, but winter lasts For. Ever. and is horribly, bitterly cold. So we all sat there while the kids ate their Chick-Fil-A meals (still the best fruit cup out there in the fast-food world) and told each other how hard it's been. I'm the lucky one: I see my husband every night. (I've also weaned Sarah and have no plans to be pregnant any time soon, so with any luck at all I can go back on my antidepressant/Ritalin cocktail that so effectively managed my ADD. But I digress.) Scott doesn't travel for work, and he doesn't have 80-hour work weeks, and he's usually home for dinner and putting the girls to bed. So I'm not as alone as many of the women I know are. But it's still hard being in a new town where I still don't really feel connected to people yet, and where the weather is a pretty good barricade to getting outside and doing things. The fact that I have two small kids and need twenty minutes of concentrated attention (without Ritalin) to get them ready and outside and bundled in the car doesn't make it any easier.
Someday, we told each other, our kids will be in school. They will be able to dress themselves and feed themselves. They won't climb on us all day long. But until then we must keep each other sane.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Some Sarah pictures, birthday and otherwise...
Sarah decided to take a nap one day at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Just put her head down on a doll and conked out. She loves that doll. It's nearly identical to Baby Josie, the baby doll she got for Christmas. I'll find her sitting in the living room hugging Baby Josie, then holding her out at arm's length, then hugging her again. Like this:
Sarah's birthday party at Grandma's was a hit too...especially the cupcakes!
And the tutu from Aunt Gigi was, of course, delightful:
Last night we finally had a mini-party for her here. She opened presents from Beth (a bathtub book), and Grandma and Grandpa Boss (that's a Raggedy Ann doll getting loves from Sarah),
and a tunnel from us. Both the girls think it's great. Beth crawled in it today and said, "This is my cocoon!"
Monday, February 04, 2008
Parental involvement
Beth is turning three soon (if you ask her when her birthday is, she says, "Coming up in April!"), so I just sent applications in to two preschools. One is run by the local school district, is relatively cheap (about $2,000 for a three-day program — and yes, if you haven't looked into preschool costs recently, that's cheap), and therefore has an abundance of applicants and will be selecting kids on a lottery basis. The other is more expensive, but it's just a few blocks away and is a co-op preschool. I like the idea of a co-op — I went to a co-op elementary school and having my dad in the classroom once a week made things comfortable. He knew my teachers, he knew the other kids, he knew what went on in class. Coming home and telling my family about my day wasn't like telling them about a foreign country.
I bring this up because I know a few people who are much less concerned about the preschool thing than I am. Scott has said a few times that since he didn't attend preschool, it wouldn't even have occurred to him to find one for Beth. As for me, it's been on my mind since I was about two months pregnant with her. I researched preschools in Pittsburgh, knowing that we wouldn't be there when she was old enough to start. I read the Boston Magazine best preschools issue (and hyperventilated at the waiting lists and the prices). I talked to other parents about their preschool experiences. I even wondered (very briefly, mind you) if we should do the Waldorf route and whether giving up TV and our beloved Fisher-Price plastic toys might not be better for the girls in the long run.
Now, does this make me a) responsible and forward-thinking, or b) hovering, pushy and over-involved?
Before you go ahead and say, "Libby! Gosh! Of course you're responsible and forward-thinking! Not a weird helicopter parent at all!" consider this: last night there was an open meeting at the local elementary school about various elementary-school-related issues, including the full-day kindergarten proposal and the town's plans to build a new elementary school to replace the one where the girls will go (which was originally built as the high school in the 1930s). As soon as I heard about this meeting, I planned on going to it. To find out who is for and against the full-day kindergarten, and why. To find out what the school construction timeline looks like, and (if it will overlap my kids' attendance at the school) where they'll be sending the kids during construction. To put in my two cents about things, if I felt so moved.
And the only reason I didn't end up going — and ended up making a much-needed Costco run for diapers instead — was that I realized it was just a bit silly for a parent of a not-quite-three-year-old to show up at a meeting about issues that had already been decided (face it, most public meetings are for information-sharing and grievance-airing, not for actual decisions) and decided in a way I was pretty okay with. Beth (and probably Sarah too) will do fine in full-day kindergarten. We need a new school, and chances are that if it's built while my kids are there they will be well taken care of. There are architects' plans already on file. People in the neighborhood have been thinking (and presumably arguing) about these things for years.
Mind you, once my kids are in school, I'll probably be the parent who shows up at all the school board meetings. I'll just wait until they're school-age so it doesn't look quite so weird.
I bring this up because I know a few people who are much less concerned about the preschool thing than I am. Scott has said a few times that since he didn't attend preschool, it wouldn't even have occurred to him to find one for Beth. As for me, it's been on my mind since I was about two months pregnant with her. I researched preschools in Pittsburgh, knowing that we wouldn't be there when she was old enough to start. I read the Boston Magazine best preschools issue (and hyperventilated at the waiting lists and the prices). I talked to other parents about their preschool experiences. I even wondered (very briefly, mind you) if we should do the Waldorf route and whether giving up TV and our beloved Fisher-Price plastic toys might not be better for the girls in the long run.
Now, does this make me a) responsible and forward-thinking, or b) hovering, pushy and over-involved?
Before you go ahead and say, "Libby! Gosh! Of course you're responsible and forward-thinking! Not a weird helicopter parent at all!" consider this: last night there was an open meeting at the local elementary school about various elementary-school-related issues, including the full-day kindergarten proposal and the town's plans to build a new elementary school to replace the one where the girls will go (which was originally built as the high school in the 1930s). As soon as I heard about this meeting, I planned on going to it. To find out who is for and against the full-day kindergarten, and why. To find out what the school construction timeline looks like, and (if it will overlap my kids' attendance at the school) where they'll be sending the kids during construction. To put in my two cents about things, if I felt so moved.
And the only reason I didn't end up going — and ended up making a much-needed Costco run for diapers instead — was that I realized it was just a bit silly for a parent of a not-quite-three-year-old to show up at a meeting about issues that had already been decided (face it, most public meetings are for information-sharing and grievance-airing, not for actual decisions) and decided in a way I was pretty okay with. Beth (and probably Sarah too) will do fine in full-day kindergarten. We need a new school, and chances are that if it's built while my kids are there they will be well taken care of. There are architects' plans already on file. People in the neighborhood have been thinking (and presumably arguing) about these things for years.
Mind you, once my kids are in school, I'll probably be the parent who shows up at all the school board meetings. I'll just wait until they're school-age so it doesn't look quite so weird.
Monday, January 28, 2008
"Because it's there"
Sarah is a CLIMBER. Maybe, instead of the butterfly tunnel I'm planning on giving her for her birthday (party delayed until ??? due to the fact that we're still getting our heads around being home again), I should just take her to an REI and let her have at the climbing wall. 'Cause she'd have a blast, and she might even break some records getting to the top.
She climbs everything — us, her dolly bed, the stairs (up and down — ulp!), and now she's discovered Beth's stepstool that we keep in the kitchen so Beth can help me cook.
Which goes like this: I'm making lunch, and Beth says, "Mama, I want to help you!" and then we go through the process of dragging the stepstool over to the correct counter, and she climbs up on it, and then she gets to "help." This does actually take the form of help when I'm baking — she dumps in the pre-measured ingredients: a teaspoon of vanilla, or cups of flour. More often, though, she just has tastes of whatever I'm cooking. Cheese for sandwiches, say. One of her favorites, for some reason, is salt. Today she got up on the stepstool while I was putting away the groceries, and she ate a bunch of salt without asking, and the sheer quantity she'd consumed made her gag and cough. So maybe she's learned a lesson....
Anyway, Sarah can climb the stepstool too, all the way up to the top and back down. It's only two steps, but they're big steps, and they're open at the back, and I remember being terrified of ladders and steps and such when I was a kid. Not Sarah. Today she discovered that there's a purpose to the stepstool — it lets her get to the counter. So she stood there and played, gleefully, with a container of mixed nuts, a sippy cup, and a few recipe cards. She'll be hitting us up to fund her K2 expedition when she's about nine.
She climbs everything — us, her dolly bed, the stairs (up and down — ulp!), and now she's discovered Beth's stepstool that we keep in the kitchen so Beth can help me cook.
Which goes like this: I'm making lunch, and Beth says, "Mama, I want to help you!" and then we go through the process of dragging the stepstool over to the correct counter, and she climbs up on it, and then she gets to "help." This does actually take the form of help when I'm baking — she dumps in the pre-measured ingredients: a teaspoon of vanilla, or cups of flour. More often, though, she just has tastes of whatever I'm cooking. Cheese for sandwiches, say. One of her favorites, for some reason, is salt. Today she got up on the stepstool while I was putting away the groceries, and she ate a bunch of salt without asking, and the sheer quantity she'd consumed made her gag and cough. So maybe she's learned a lesson....
Anyway, Sarah can climb the stepstool too, all the way up to the top and back down. It's only two steps, but they're big steps, and they're open at the back, and I remember being terrified of ladders and steps and such when I was a kid. Not Sarah. Today she discovered that there's a purpose to the stepstool — it lets her get to the counter. So she stood there and played, gleefully, with a container of mixed nuts, a sippy cup, and a few recipe cards. She'll be hitting us up to fund her K2 expedition when she's about nine.
Baby Moonbeam
We all went to a baby shower Saturday for some neighbors, and it was fabulous — Bethie found a four-year-old to glom onto, Sarah flirted with the other babies, and Scott and I got some much-needed adult conversation with people who don't already know all the boring daily stuff about us. And the food was great, and the people were smart and interesting and had fascinating jobs and amazing kids, and Beth and Lily (the four-year-old, a bit chagrined to have a curly-haired parasite) helped Ana and Jeff unwrap all their presents.
Ana and Jeff have been calling the baby "Moonbeam" for a while now, and we passed that info along to Beth via the nametags at the shower. ("See? Ana's wearing a sticker that says 'Ana,' and her tummy is wearing two stickers that say 'Moonbeam.'") And this morning I got a phone call that Ana had had the baby, six weeks early. (Yikes! But he's fine, nearly six pounds, a whole pound bigger than Beth was when she was born.) So I told Beth. "Bethie, guess what? Ana's baby came out of her tummy. His name is Miles."
"No," she said, quite serious. "Her name is Moonbeam."
And that's where we are, as far as Beth is concerned. I figure all's well as long as she learns to say his real name by his first day of kindergarten.
(Congrats Ana!)
Ana and Jeff have been calling the baby "Moonbeam" for a while now, and we passed that info along to Beth via the nametags at the shower. ("See? Ana's wearing a sticker that says 'Ana,' and her tummy is wearing two stickers that say 'Moonbeam.'") And this morning I got a phone call that Ana had had the baby, six weeks early. (Yikes! But he's fine, nearly six pounds, a whole pound bigger than Beth was when she was born.) So I told Beth. "Bethie, guess what? Ana's baby came out of her tummy. His name is Miles."
"No," she said, quite serious. "Her name is Moonbeam."
And that's where we are, as far as Beth is concerned. I figure all's well as long as she learns to say his real name by his first day of kindergarten.
(Congrats Ana!)
Monday, January 21, 2008
Christmas aftermath
As requested, Beth got her kitchen. Sarah got her dolly and a cute little bed for the dolly to sleep in. Thanks to grandparents, a whole mess of aunts and uncles, neighbors who for some reason love our kids, and the fact that I'd been saving things back for a few months ("Sure, they need hats and mittens. Let's give 'em to them for Christmas!"), there were a LOT of presents under the tree. We'd consciously tried to keep the craziness to a minimum, but we and Santa were greatly outnumbered by everyone else who loves us. (Hooray!)
This was our second Christmas at home — so relaxing — I highly, highly recommend it. Now that we're that much farther away from family and have to pay for three seats on the plane, it's getting less and less practical to travel. We warned our families that we aren't traveling for major holidays any more, and instead of spending Christmas with my parents we went out for a week and a half in mid-January — just in time for Sarah's first birthday!
So I guess the real story here is Sarah and her ceremonial destruction of a Mrs. Backer's cupcake (yum, frosting!). Cute kid! She dug right into it, spread frosting and white cake everywhere — in her hair, on my parents' dining room carpet, all over the antique high chair, and definitely all over herself. (This was quite unlike her big sister, who daintily picked frosting polka dots off her first-birthday cupcake, plucked off the rest of the frosting with her thumb and first finger, and then declared herself done.)
Sarah's vocabulary now includes a back-of-the-throat "She she!" that either refers to her Aunt Gigi or to any photo pasted to the fridge (we're not sure which, because my mom was pointing to pictures of Gigi on the fridge at the time). And just as we got home last week she started saying "Mama!" She reaches out her arms and curls her fingers in over and over when she wants us to pick her up. She's almost, almost walking — just needs a finger or a wall or an edge to hang onto — and she still grins like a maniac and lights up when anyone pays any attention to her. (She got a lot of that at Grandma's house, and is letting us know how much she misses it now that she's back home.)
We also got to see a ton of friends and relatives, some of whom we haven't seen since our wedding six and a half years ago. (And then there was the girls' cousin Chloe, whom we haven't seen since April, but those nine months are a big chunk of the girls' lifespans. Beth kept commenting that Chloe is now a "big girl" because she can walk. Is that all it takes?)
Sarah went for her birthday checkup this week, and the news is fantastic. At her previous visit three weeks ago she'd gained two pounds and an inch in five weeks — out of the underweight danger zone — and now she's gained another pound, putting her squarely in the 15th percentile for weight (whew!) and around the 45th for height. She's learned when to stop eating when she's full, too, which means fewer throwing-up incidents: good news for all!
This was our second Christmas at home — so relaxing — I highly, highly recommend it. Now that we're that much farther away from family and have to pay for three seats on the plane, it's getting less and less practical to travel. We warned our families that we aren't traveling for major holidays any more, and instead of spending Christmas with my parents we went out for a week and a half in mid-January — just in time for Sarah's first birthday!
So I guess the real story here is Sarah and her ceremonial destruction of a Mrs. Backer's cupcake (yum, frosting!). Cute kid! She dug right into it, spread frosting and white cake everywhere — in her hair, on my parents' dining room carpet, all over the antique high chair, and definitely all over herself. (This was quite unlike her big sister, who daintily picked frosting polka dots off her first-birthday cupcake, plucked off the rest of the frosting with her thumb and first finger, and then declared herself done.)
Sarah's vocabulary now includes a back-of-the-throat "She she!" that either refers to her Aunt Gigi or to any photo pasted to the fridge (we're not sure which, because my mom was pointing to pictures of Gigi on the fridge at the time). And just as we got home last week she started saying "Mama!" She reaches out her arms and curls her fingers in over and over when she wants us to pick her up. She's almost, almost walking — just needs a finger or a wall or an edge to hang onto — and she still grins like a maniac and lights up when anyone pays any attention to her. (She got a lot of that at Grandma's house, and is letting us know how much she misses it now that she's back home.)
We also got to see a ton of friends and relatives, some of whom we haven't seen since our wedding six and a half years ago. (And then there was the girls' cousin Chloe, whom we haven't seen since April, but those nine months are a big chunk of the girls' lifespans. Beth kept commenting that Chloe is now a "big girl" because she can walk. Is that all it takes?)
Sarah went for her birthday checkup this week, and the news is fantastic. At her previous visit three weeks ago she'd gained two pounds and an inch in five weeks — out of the underweight danger zone — and now she's gained another pound, putting her squarely in the 15th percentile for weight (whew!) and around the 45th for height. She's learned when to stop eating when she's full, too, which means fewer throwing-up incidents: good news for all!
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Beth says:
Scott, to Beth: "I remember when you were so little that I could hold you in one hand, like this."
Beth: "And what were you holding in your other hand?"
Beth: "And what were you holding in your other hand?"
Thursday, December 27, 2007
More about gingerbread
We finished the gingerbread house last Saturday:Like it? We do. Bethie was soooo proud of herself helping hold up the house pieces while the icing dried, and helping to put on the roof tiles, and planting gumdrop bushes. (She was also so, so sick after eating tons of candy off of the communal candy table! She came over to where I was working on the house, climbed up in her chair, and said, "Mommy, I throwed up." Poor kid. I felt horrible not letting her eat any more candy...but....)
I mentioned to the girl who'd organized the whole thing that I thought the concept of a gingerbread house party was hilarious — she said, "Oh good, I'm glad somebody got that!" Apparently mine isn't the only warped mind in Belmont.
On Christmas Eve we made more dough — for eatin' cookies this time, not construction cookies — and cut out dozens of gingerbread men, Christmas trees, candy canes, angels, stars, snowmen, holly leaves...any Christmassy cookie cutter Beth found, we used. That afternoon we decorated them with royal icing and goodies (red-hot buttons and holly berries, raisin eyes, lots and lots of sprinkles). Beth set out a plate for Santa. Glorious.
I love love love having a two-year-old who's just learning about Christmas! She's terrified of Santa (but intrigued), wants nothing more than to help me bake cookies, and is impressed with the ritual of it all. Happy stuff!
(Oh, and the cookies are GOOD. Really, really good. We took a bunch of them to our downstairs neighbor, and Santa ate three, but I've been snacking away at the rest...unfortunately.)
Friday, December 21, 2007
Some things I've learned about gingerbread in the last 2 1/2 hours:
Bethie and I are going to a gingerbread house party tomorrow (which I think is endlessly funny: it's a house party, right? But it's a gingerbread house party. What tunes do you bring to that? The elves be gettin' funky, yo) and after dinner tonight we started making pieces for our gingerbread house out of the dough I'd oh-so-thoughtfully made and chilled last night.
Alas, I'm a novice at this. But, thankfully, a quick study.
Okay. Off I go to take the right-sized gable end piece out of the oven. And to cut out a door, and some more trees, and some chimney pieces.
Alas, I'm a novice at this. But, thankfully, a quick study.
- The great elastic-band-over-the-rolling-pin-to-roll-dough-out-to-the-perfect-thickness slide thingies that you gave your husband 'cause he's enamored of That Man and His Cooking Show? They're great. Just have the husband put them on the rolling pin, 'cause they have a mean snap.
- Don't try to roll out large construction-ready slabs of house and then transfer them to the cookie sheet. Roll everything out on the back of the cookie sheet. Or, better yet (I love this solution), use the elastic bands on the rolling pin and roll out the dough on a Silpat, cut the dough, and transfer the Silpat to the cookie sheet.
- After you learn Rule #2, above, make sure to redo the first gable end piece you cut out, somehow peeled up off the counter with a pastry blade (which you own thanks to the husband and his Food Network obsession with That Man), and baked. Sure, it looks nice, but it's an inch shorter than it should be. Getting it onto the pastry blade squished it.
- But the squished piece doesn't have to go entirely to waste/waist. It happens to be just the right size to cut two trees from. Even with a rather dull-edged plastic cookie cutter. (We now own a set of eight Christmas-themed cookie cutters, a dollar store find. I have quite a few more dollar store finds that are going to make it into the girls' stockings. Beth was sitting in the cart playing with the 30 or so tins we'd picked up to put homemade hot chocolate mix in, and Sarah's oblivious to everything but trying to kick off her shoe, and I snuck lots of good stuff onto the bottom part of the cart without them noticing. I think.)
- A pizza cutter doesn't leave messy edges like a serrated knife does. (And it contributed to a major flashback to high school sewing class, when I first used a rotary cutter to cut out a pattern. Bliss.)
- Gingerbread dough ALWAYS tastes better than the cookies. Mission accomplished, then, because I introduced Beth to gingerbread dough and she loooooves it. "Can I have another window, Mommy?"
And I knew this one before, but:
Okay. Off I go to take the right-sized gable end piece out of the oven. And to cut out a door, and some more trees, and some chimney pieces.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Two-year-olds, and logic
"Beth, why is the jingle bell ornament on the floor again?"
"I was using my imagination."
"I was using my imagination."
Sunday, December 09, 2007
I thought I heard Christmas music!
Remember the video that made its way around the Internet a few years ago? Some guy in Ohio rigged his Christmas lights so they'd sync with holiday music he (considerately) broadcast on low-power FM so people driving by could hear it.
Well, apparently Ohio doesn't have a monopoly on tacky. This afternoon I could hear Christmas music, and I knew it wasn't coming from my house, and my downstairs neighbor is away for a few days. I finally looked out the window — and, well, it's pretty awful. I took this from my deck a few minutes ago:
If you turn up the volume, that's "Jingle Bells." I'll try to get a daytime video of this tomorrow. They're amateurs compared to the Ohio guy, but imagine having this on your street!
Well, apparently Ohio doesn't have a monopoly on tacky. This afternoon I could hear Christmas music, and I knew it wasn't coming from my house, and my downstairs neighbor is away for a few days. I finally looked out the window — and, well, it's pretty awful. I took this from my deck a few minutes ago:
If you turn up the volume, that's "Jingle Bells." I'll try to get a daytime video of this tomorrow. They're amateurs compared to the Ohio guy, but imagine having this on your street!
Thursday, December 06, 2007
I'm pretty sure this is a federal offense, but...
Last week I had Beth write a letter to Santa: she told me what to write, I wrote it, and she drew the pictures. It's darling. Something along the lines of "Dear Santa, I need a kitchen please" and going on from there. She's been a good girl, so has baby Sarah, and baby Sarah wants a dolly.
We then folded this up, placed it in an envelope, and let it sit around the house for several days. Last night we finally put a "stamp" on it (a Christmasy stamp-shaped sticker that came in the piles of junk mail) and this morning Beth drew a picture of Santa on the front (a few red and brown squiggles) and helped me put the letter in the mailbox.
I then told Scott it was his responsibility to take the letter out of the mailbox before the letter carrier came — you BET I want to save my kid's first letter to Santa! — and the girls and I headed to the mall to do some Christmas shopping.
Well, the husband forgot. And the mail came before I got home (at top speed, racing up my quiet suburban street hoping to beat the mailman). And it just broke my heart, and I told Scott it was his job to call the post office to see if maybe, just maybe, there was any way we could get the letter back.
"They won't do it," he said. "There's no point in asking."
"Just ask," I said. "I don't care if they won't do it. I want you to do everything possible to get that letter back."
(I should explain, too, that I'm royally pissed off with Scott for forgetting this, and that he's likely to be sleeping on the couch tonight regardless of the outcome.)
But Scott was teaching a class, so I figured I'd have a stab at the post office (with Beth safely ensconced in front of The Wonder Pets! and me upstairs feeding Sarah her pre-nap bottle), and I finally got through to the little post office in my town and explained (in a whisper, in case Beth wasn't as glued to the TV as I hoped she was) what I needed. They couldn't have been nicer. "We keep all the letters to Santa right here," the woman on the phone said, "until it's time to, um, deliver them to Santa." But she didn't have the one I was looking for. Everything was addressed to "Santa, North Pole," or something similar — nothing with just two-year-old scribbles.
"Is it possible that you don't have all of today's mail from the letter carriers?" I asked.
"Oh, you want today's mail? They're still out. Let's see...what street do you live on?"
So I told her, and she looked up the carrier on my route, and called him on his cell phone, and it turned out he'd just put the mail from my street into the outgoing mail box, and Beth's letter had gone in with it because it looked like it had a stamp on it. But he was perfectly willing to go back and (get this!) dig through the outgoing mail until he found the letter. Which I'm pretty sure is a federal offense.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you," I told the postal clerk. "Tell him to ring the bell when he comes by and I'll have some cookies for him." Cookies! I could have kissed him. I will never, ever, ever complain about postal workers again. No more jokes about mail traveling by postal squirrel.
Scott, as it turns out, felt guilty enough that he called the post office right after his class let out (without checking his e-mail, where he would have learned that I already had the letter back). They told him he was a few steps behind the game. Bethie's letter is safely tucked away in a file drawer, and when she's about twelve I'll tell her this story.
We then folded this up, placed it in an envelope, and let it sit around the house for several days. Last night we finally put a "stamp" on it (a Christmasy stamp-shaped sticker that came in the piles of junk mail) and this morning Beth drew a picture of Santa on the front (a few red and brown squiggles) and helped me put the letter in the mailbox.
I then told Scott it was his responsibility to take the letter out of the mailbox before the letter carrier came — you BET I want to save my kid's first letter to Santa! — and the girls and I headed to the mall to do some Christmas shopping.
Well, the husband forgot. And the mail came before I got home (at top speed, racing up my quiet suburban street hoping to beat the mailman). And it just broke my heart, and I told Scott it was his job to call the post office to see if maybe, just maybe, there was any way we could get the letter back.
"They won't do it," he said. "There's no point in asking."
"Just ask," I said. "I don't care if they won't do it. I want you to do everything possible to get that letter back."
(I should explain, too, that I'm royally pissed off with Scott for forgetting this, and that he's likely to be sleeping on the couch tonight regardless of the outcome.)
But Scott was teaching a class, so I figured I'd have a stab at the post office (with Beth safely ensconced in front of The Wonder Pets! and me upstairs feeding Sarah her pre-nap bottle), and I finally got through to the little post office in my town and explained (in a whisper, in case Beth wasn't as glued to the TV as I hoped she was) what I needed. They couldn't have been nicer. "We keep all the letters to Santa right here," the woman on the phone said, "until it's time to, um, deliver them to Santa." But she didn't have the one I was looking for. Everything was addressed to "Santa, North Pole," or something similar — nothing with just two-year-old scribbles.
"Is it possible that you don't have all of today's mail from the letter carriers?" I asked.
"Oh, you want today's mail? They're still out. Let's see...what street do you live on?"
So I told her, and she looked up the carrier on my route, and called him on his cell phone, and it turned out he'd just put the mail from my street into the outgoing mail box, and Beth's letter had gone in with it because it looked like it had a stamp on it. But he was perfectly willing to go back and (get this!) dig through the outgoing mail until he found the letter. Which I'm pretty sure is a federal offense.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you," I told the postal clerk. "Tell him to ring the bell when he comes by and I'll have some cookies for him." Cookies! I could have kissed him. I will never, ever, ever complain about postal workers again. No more jokes about mail traveling by postal squirrel.
Scott, as it turns out, felt guilty enough that he called the post office right after his class let out (without checking his e-mail, where he would have learned that I already had the letter back). They told him he was a few steps behind the game. Bethie's letter is safely tucked away in a file drawer, and when she's about twelve I'll tell her this story.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Winter blues
We're all sick: runny noses, sore throats, grouchy temperaments. And it snowed really wet thick snow, which is now icy and frozen-0ver-ish on the top. And my car, which wouldn't even start yesterday morning, is in the shop, probably to the tune of several hundred dollars. And on top of everything else, Scott got an e-mail from a creepy ex-girlfriend. Ick.
I suppose I should be grateful for a bunch of things: my awesome next-door neighbor Kiersten who's more than willing to trade babysitting while I run the car to the mechanic and she goes in to work for random things; having a snow removal service (even if they don't come when we expect them to); getting the last mostly-full bag of ice melt at Home Depot (and getting a discount on it); getting the Christmas tree up and decorated; the fact that my kids, even with colds, are mostly healthy and happy. But I just hate the onset of winter, and how much more difficult it makes everything. I mean, going to the grocery store should be a snap, right? But worm two kids into winter coats, and troop out to the car, and get your feet wet in the process, and then bundle them into the shopping cart, unzip the coats so they don't overheat in the store, wipe their noses while you make your way around the store, bundle everyone and everything you just bought back into the car, and then try to get it all inside without leaving puddles all over the kitchen floor. Yeah. Things are much easier in the summer, which is why I think everyone should live in Southern California.
(C'mon, what were those Pilgrims thinking? They couldn't head farther south? Couldn't steer the Mayflower a little to the left and wind up in, say, South Carolina? These guys were seriously into martyrdom, if you ask me.)i
I'm just not ready for winter, even if it does mean Christmas and hot cocoa and teaching Beth to make snowballs (if I ever get the will to go outside with her). Think I'll go turn on my halogen lamp, and bask in its nice bright sunny light, and pretend I'm on a beach somewhere.
On another worrisome note, I took Sarah to the doctor last week and she's all of 15 lbs. 4 1/2 oz. (that last 1/2 oz. was her binkie, I think, but let's just let it be) — which puts her off the bottom of the chart for weight. I'd be okay with it if she were even in the fifth percentile, but off the chart has me worried, especially because she eats constantly. Where does all this food go? So I'm gradually weaning her onto formula, and we'll see how it goes. She's obviously healthy, developmentally speaking. She waves, claps, raises her hands over her head and throws herself at us while giggling. She says "hi" occasionally, and this morning Kiersten swears she said "Oggie!" when she saw the doggies next door.
I suppose I should be grateful for a bunch of things: my awesome next-door neighbor Kiersten who's more than willing to trade babysitting while I run the car to the mechanic and she goes in to work for random things; having a snow removal service (even if they don't come when we expect them to); getting the last mostly-full bag of ice melt at Home Depot (and getting a discount on it); getting the Christmas tree up and decorated; the fact that my kids, even with colds, are mostly healthy and happy. But I just hate the onset of winter, and how much more difficult it makes everything. I mean, going to the grocery store should be a snap, right? But worm two kids into winter coats, and troop out to the car, and get your feet wet in the process, and then bundle them into the shopping cart, unzip the coats so they don't overheat in the store, wipe their noses while you make your way around the store, bundle everyone and everything you just bought back into the car, and then try to get it all inside without leaving puddles all over the kitchen floor. Yeah. Things are much easier in the summer, which is why I think everyone should live in Southern California.
(C'mon, what were those Pilgrims thinking? They couldn't head farther south? Couldn't steer the Mayflower a little to the left and wind up in, say, South Carolina? These guys were seriously into martyrdom, if you ask me.)i
I'm just not ready for winter, even if it does mean Christmas and hot cocoa and teaching Beth to make snowballs (if I ever get the will to go outside with her). Think I'll go turn on my halogen lamp, and bask in its nice bright sunny light, and pretend I'm on a beach somewhere.
On another worrisome note, I took Sarah to the doctor last week and she's all of 15 lbs. 4 1/2 oz. (that last 1/2 oz. was her binkie, I think, but let's just let it be) — which puts her off the bottom of the chart for weight. I'd be okay with it if she were even in the fifth percentile, but off the chart has me worried, especially because she eats constantly. Where does all this food go? So I'm gradually weaning her onto formula, and we'll see how it goes. She's obviously healthy, developmentally speaking. She waves, claps, raises her hands over her head and throws herself at us while giggling. She says "hi" occasionally, and this morning Kiersten swears she said "Oggie!" when she saw the doggies next door.
Friday, November 16, 2007
A few of my favorite moments from the last week:
- Jeffrey crawling into bed with us one cold morning, huddled between our knees like a sleeping puppy, with his blanket over his head.
- The girls in their hammocks at the USS Constitution Museum
- Beth and Eleanor "taking a nap" one afternoon (oh, the decibel level on the giggling!). I heard Beth get out of bed at one point, and when I went in to wake them up (they did finally fall asleep), Beth's doll Baby Margie was in the crib with Eleanor. I guess she decided her friend needed a doll to snuggle with.
- Snuggling sweet baby William
- Rub-a-dub dub, three kids in a tub
- The "We did it!" moment when Brooke and I got to the Children's Museum on the T. I've already written about this, but wow! were we impressed with our cool streetwise urban mommy selves.
- Bethie and Eleanor giving each other hugs, over and over, and falling down almost every time.
- Discovering the Danish Pastry House with Brooke ('cause I never would have gone in by myself). Cream-filled marzipan frogs...yum.
Radio Jeffrey: all talk, all the time.- The morning our friends left, when Scott was pushing the trundle under Beth's bed, and she wailed, "Where's Jeffrey going to sleep?"
- The chaos of the playroom
- The Swiffer Brigade, in their newspaper hats!
Some growing up...
Sarah actually started real hands-and-knees crawling the day after I posted the video clips of her scootching around the kitchen. She's getting terribly fast, and is even more daring with her standing-up maneuvers: pushing her belly into the back of the pew at church so she can lift up her hands and grin at the people behind us; attempting the same while leaning against the bathtub (she nearly went over backward that time); actually trying to climb in the bathtub to get to the rubber ducks inside.
Oh, how she loves those ducks! Beth loved them at this age too (her first word was "Huckies!"). Sarah's dragging them with her everywhere, and rolling around on the living room floor with them, and stuffing their rubber heads in her mouth.
Bethie and I both got haircuts today (serious short cut for me, a trim for her) and she got lots of attention from the orange-haired old ladies in the salon. "Oh, look at that curl!" "We used to look like that, huh?" Beth sat atop two cushions in a salon chair, a cape with pictures of doggies on it thrown around her little shoulders, gnawing on an Italian sesame cookie someone had given her. This haircut was serious, grown-up business, not to be taken lightly.
Oh, how she loves those ducks! Beth loved them at this age too (her first word was "Huckies!"). Sarah's dragging them with her everywhere, and rolling around on the living room floor with them, and stuffing their rubber heads in her mouth.
Bethie and I both got haircuts today (serious short cut for me, a trim for her) and she got lots of attention from the orange-haired old ladies in the salon. "Oh, look at that curl!" "We used to look like that, huh?" Beth sat atop two cushions in a salon chair, a cape with pictures of doggies on it thrown around her little shoulders, gnawing on an Italian sesame cookie someone had given her. This haircut was serious, grown-up business, not to be taken lightly.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
She speaks! (Kind of)
So, this morning I was getting wiggly little Sarah dressed, and Bethie came over to say hi, and as her head got close to Sarah's, little bitty Sarah exclaimed, "Beh!" With major glee and excitement and obvious pleasure. Sarah loves her sister.
I think she knows her sister's name, and she just has to work on the "th" sound ('cause, you know, even Beff can't say it yet). That's my story. And I'm sticking to it.
I think she knows her sister's name, and she just has to work on the "th" sound ('cause, you know, even Beff can't say it yet). That's my story. And I'm sticking to it.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Five kids, two strollers, and a trip on the T
My friend Brooke, and her three kids, and (until yesterday when he took a train down to Philly) her husband Brian are staying with us this week, and it's been a whole heap of Adventure Days in a row. Beth is thrilled. Exhausted and all, but thrilled. She has two friends to run around the house with, which is what they've done for HOURS — they run shrieking and chasing each other around the loop in the house. It's going to be Very Lonely when they leave, and I'm not looking forward to the tears and the hangdog looks. (Beth may handle it fine. The tears may be mine.)Today we took them to the Boston Children's Museum, and we had the extra-brilliant idea of doing the trip on the T. We are INSANE. And it was FUN. We walked down to the bus stop, wrangled the strollers onto the bus, got off at Harvard Station, took the Red Line down to South Station (the view as you're crossing the Charles is gorgeous), got off, found the right elevators to get out, and walked three blocks to the museum.
Silly us — today is Veterans Day, and every kid who was out of school was at the Children's Museum, and the Boston Ballet was doing a special Nutcracker presentation. The museum was packed. We holed up on the upstairs floors, avoided all the little ballerinas standing in line for the performances, and had ourselves quite the good time. I think Beth's favorite thing was playing with the gigantic chess set. And we're going to have to take Scott back just so he can see the Japanese house (shipped in pieces from Kyoto) they have on the third floor.On the way home we piled all three girls on the double stroller, and since they'd played hard and hadn't had naps, they all conked out. That's a successful outing!
Saturday, November 03, 2007
To the tune of the Yogi Bear theme song...
Sarah Bear is smarter than the average bear
Sarah Bear is always pulling Mommy's hair
Sitting in her high chair you will find her there
Stuffing down more veggies than the average bear
Beth-Beth is Sarah's sister and they're in cahoots
They giggle at each other and it's really cute
Sometimes a girl gets jealous, but it's always moot
'Cause when they work together they know they get more loot
Mommy's here to try to keep our girls in line
They push their bedtime back until it's after nine
Sure her job is tough, but you won't hear her whine
'Cause she gets hugs and kisses, and that suits her just fine
(If you've seen the High School Jim "Yogi Bear" video on Cartoon Network's Boomerang, well, that's what got us going.)
Sarah Bear is always pulling Mommy's hair
Sitting in her high chair you will find her there
Stuffing down more veggies than the average bear
Beth-Beth is Sarah's sister and they're in cahoots
They giggle at each other and it's really cute
Sometimes a girl gets jealous, but it's always moot
'Cause when they work together they know they get more loot
Mommy's here to try to keep our girls in line
They push their bedtime back until it's after nine
Sure her job is tough, but you won't hear her whine
'Cause she gets hugs and kisses, and that suits her just fine
(If you've seen the High School Jim "Yogi Bear" video on Cartoon Network's Boomerang, well, that's what got us going.)
Sunday, October 28, 2007
This is what we've been up to lately....
Sarah's scootching everywhere using her arms to propel herself forward. She's FAST. Fast enough that she got around me Thursday and fell down the stairs, but that's another guilt-ridden story. On nice non-carpeted flat surfaces she goes like sixty:
She's also walking around furniture (and, in some cases, walking with the furniture, as seen below).
She's also walking around furniture (and, in some cases, walking with the furniture, as seen below).
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