Sarah "frosting" a cookie

This is just going to make Brooke jealous...

...but that's not the reason I'm posting it. Well, not the only reason. (Come visit! Come visit!)

My friend Christina is in a graduate museum studies program (woo hoo!) and since she has this week off work we piled the kids in the car and drove out to Amherst, home of (drum roll, please) The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. It's a long drive — two hours without potty stops, and believe me, we made potty stops. But so, so worth it.

Why?

• Trina Schart Hyman drawings. I adored her art as a kid reading Cricket magazine: all the delicate long-limbed fairies and arching trees and picture-window borders around everything.


• A Leo Lionni illustration of his adorable mice. The Greentail Mouse was my favorite book as a kid. And it's back in print!


• An illustration by an artist whose name I don't remember of King Midas descending his staircase. It's obviously meant to be a two-page spread inside the book. The staircase is curved, and everything behind Midas is gold; everything in front of him is vibrant blues and reds and brilliant flowers. If you look at it out of the corner of your eye you can practically see him moving.


• An Arnold Lobel drawing of Frog playing the violin.


• A Kinuko Y. Craft illustration from Cinderella, hung at Beth's level, absolutely mesmerizing to a princess-obsessed three-year-old.


• Two lovely little Beatrix Potter illustrations of alternate scenes in The Tale of Peter Rabbit. My mom embroidered some pictures from the Beatrix Potter books for me when I was a baby, and they're hanging in the girls' bedroom now; Sarah recognized these as similar to the pictures in her room. Wow.

And then there's the gallery devoted to Eric Carle's work, celebrating the 40th anniversary of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Ducklings from 10 Little Rubber Ducks! Side-by-side comparisons of the art from the original (1969) version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and the redone illustrations in the 1987 version! A video of Carle showing how he produces his gorgeous painted-tissue-cutout pieces!

I also have to add how impressed I am with the staff's understanding of their audience. The pictures are hung lower than you'd expect — they're still inside an adult's viewing range, but they're also at a good level for, say, a six-year-old (I still had to pick up my kids to show them most things). Each gallery has wide benches to sit on, and a basket on each bench containing the books corresponding to the artwork on the wall (we read book after book after book to the kids this way). In the Carle gallery, the basket also holds several little stuffed hungry caterpillars that kids can carry with them — there's a note attached asking them to see how many caterpillars they can see on the walls. Given kids' need to touch things to really experience them (every time we go to a museum I find myself repeating the mommy mantra: "Look with your eyes, not with your hands") this is genius: the girls walked around looking at the art on the walls and stroking the caterpillars instead of reaching up to touch things. And there's a library in the building, with story time twice a day. We spent four hours in the museum and didn't even get to the art studio, didn't sit in the auditorium for one of the performances by students from a local performing arts high school. (We did visit the shop, though, and I can only justify the amount of money I spent there by telling myself that I did get in free with Christina's NEMA membership, the DVD of Carle explaining his art is a Mothers Day present for my mom, and Beth and Sarah really shouldn't leave a museum like that without new books. I didn't buy any Carle-designed fabric, but I suppose that's only a matter of time.)

Oh, and the cafe has caterpillar cookies. Not what you think: they're round, and chocolate-chip. But each one has a little hole eaten through the center.

Add it up: it's an eight-hour day. I don't think we'll be going again for a good long while...like, May, when two new exhibits will be up....

Recently heard around here

Beth, after throwing the bouncy ball that showed up at our house for Valentine's Day: "Sarah, go get it!"

"Bethie, are you treating Sarah like a puppy?"

You-caught-me voice: "Yeah."

Beth the budding cook

Made her own breakfast the other morning — scrambled eggs. She cracked the eggs into the bowl all by herself (sure, I scooped out a few pieces of shell) and then whisked the eggs with some milk and salt. Wouldn't cook it, since she's still not a fan of the gas stove. But oh my was she proud of herself!

A few things...

...from the last few weeks, because it's been too crazy around here to even think about sitting down to blog:

• Sarah is now talking in complete sentences. They're still largely unintelligible, but if you can understand her you realize she's actually completing thoughts.


• Beth, in a fit of insatiable curiosity, burned her finger on the iron last night.


• We were all sick with a killer stomach bug two weeks ago. Sarah got it first, then me, then Scott, and finally Beth. That was one entire week when we didn't leave the house. Did wonders for our attitudes in the middle of winter, let me tell you.


• Sarah still walks around singing, "Happy birthday, dear Sarah" (usually while wearing a mixing bowl on her head). She loved loved loved her birthday party. Tells people she is two all the time.


• Beth has begun a true obsession with the vintage Fisher-Price little people she got for Christmas. There are elaborate stories going on (she calls them "plays"), many of which involve the people sitting in the barber's chair.


• This last perhaps because I cut Beth's hair a few weeks ago. She's had it done by my mom, and professionally (if you can call a visit to Snip-Its professional), but she insisted that I cut it this time. I'd never taken a pair of scissors to anyone's hair before trimming Sarah's baby mullet a few months ago, and attacking Bethie's thick curls was nerve-wracking. It took an hour. If I do say so myself, it looks amazing. All hail the forgiving curly hair!


• Beth has learned to use scissors, which fortunately has nothing to do with her haircut.


• Scott has a paper coming out in a top-tier journal this year. Woo hoo!


• In a fit of frustration (too many people telling me, "You should sell these!" upon opening baby shower gifts) I opened an Etsy shop. Am now up to my eyeballs in fabric and other random sewing supplies, and wondering why I ever bother to listen to other people. It's been frustrating. Nice to sell a few things, but frustrating. And certainly not profitable.


• In the midst of this, I had a complete I'm-a-stay-at-home-mom-woe-is-me breakdown, which Scott countered with, "You're feeling like a trapped housewife and you're going to sew to make yourself feel better?" Guy has a point. I almost decked him, but he has a point.


• I went to parent-teacher conferences with Beth's preschool teacher. They adore her over there. She's a child who was born to thrive in preschool.


• Rose and I took the kiddos to IKEA last week, and Josh and Beth were big enough (and potty-trained enough) to go in the playspace while we did our shopping. Sarah and Lilah, free of the older siblings' influence (and bossiness) had a grand time running through the store and striking disarmingly cute poses on Scandinavian furniture. My friend Stephanie calls the parenting-preschoolers years "the tunnel." I got a wee little glimpse of the light at the end.


• My friend Lisa got us hooked up to play in the pit orchestra for a local high school musical. I'm way, way more excited about this than I have any right to be.


• Beth has taken to commenting on farts, her own and other people's. One night at dinner she did something particularly loud and juicy, grinned a HUGE grin, and said, "That was just disgusting of my gas!" I had to leave the room, I was laughing so hard. I'm waiting for her to do this at church, or at the grocery store, where I'll have to pretend to be embarrassed by it.


• I found jalapeño ranch dressing at the grocery store. Makes an excellent dip for chicken nuggets, which we've been eating with alarming frequency.


• Sarah, apparently in an effort to make up for Beth's refusal to latch permanently onto a particular stuffed animal or doll, has two buddies whom she simply must have with her: Pink Teddy and her new doll Eloise.


• Beth has become a huge fan of "Shaun the Sheep" — to such an extent that she has renamed her stuffed lamb Shauna. (This is a departure for Beth; for a long time all of her stuffed animals had to be named Beth.)


• Sarah's fascination with the potty continues, though it is unfortunately not synched with her need to go.


• Beth has happily worked with stickers and glue and markers and construction paper to make valentines for her preschool friends, her neighborhood friends, her immediate family, and her grandparents. Sarah colored half-heartedly (ha!) on two paper hearts and declared herself done.


• As usual, we celebrated Groundhog Day somewhat obsessively, complete with decorations and thematic food: sausage. (Think about it. It'll come to you.) No gingerbread Phil cookies this year, though.

Okay, this was too funny.

Know what bugs me most? I've started to write the darned note twice, and even though I click on "Save Draft," Facebook doesn't save it. Grr.

Proof that Beth's mom spends too much time on the Internet

This morning Scott was sitting on the couch reading to the girls when Beth opened her Ladybug magazine and said, "Look at this funny blog in my magazine!"

Sick day today

Sarah has been toting her throw-up bowl around with her all day today. Not that she's actually thrown up in it. She just likes to have the option, and pretend to throw up, and make fake retching noises.

She threw up in the night last night, which we feel totally guilty about because she didn't fuss about it and then slept the rest of the night in her own vomit. Iiiiiiick. Scott found her in her rather chunk-filled crib this morning. I've spent the day doing laundry and cleaning off her various dolls and stuffed animals. Sarah has spent the day with her bowl, mostly sitting on a big fleece blanket in front of the TV (I can't even think about cleaning vomit off the living room rug) staring at her shows: Sesame Street, Over the Hedge, Word World, and now Blue's Clues. I just don't know what else to do with a sick kid. She also took a three-and-a-half hour nap this afternoon, and only woke up when Beth went in to check on her and stage-whispered, "Mommy, Sarah's still asleep."

I've also severely restricted her food and liquid consumption after she did a repeat puke on Scott's shoulder immediately following breakfast. Sips of Pedialyte, some white bread, and a little mac and cheese for dinner. She's miffed that I'm not letting her eat more. But she also insisted on having the throw-up bowl on her tray at dinner, and tells me every few minutes that she needs to throw up. Then the fake retching noises, and a big grin. So I'm not taking any chances. Poor kiddo.

Trash, treasure

I spent yesterday morning at the indoor cleanup for Beth's preschool. They do this three times a year, and it was actually pretty fun, despite starting at 8am. Waaaay too early in my book...but there you go.

As I was going through bins and bins of old curricula and books and dress-ups and toys — and throwing out anything unusable — I noticed that someone had thrown out a doll. A My Friend Mandy doll. That's part of my childhood, folks. She had ink all over her face and legs, and her hair was a mess, and her cloth body was stained, but...Mandy! So I pulled her out of the pile and held her up for the director to see.

"Are you seriously throwing this away?" I asked. "Do you know what these things are worth on eBay?"

She gave me a dubious look. "Well...if you want to sell it on eBay and give the money to the Fundraising Committee...."

So I brought Mandy home, threw her in the wash to clean her up (Fisher Price was definitely on the ball when they made a machine-washable doll), and looked up her value on eBay (about $15, though a new-in-box doll fetches around $90) as well as some ways to clean her up (thick conditioner should work wonders on her hair).

Halfway through combing out her hair I realized I didn't want to sell her. Want to know why?

See any resemblance?

So the after-nap conversation went something like this:

"Sarah, who does this dolly look like?"

"Beff!"

We went upstairs to find Beth. "Bethie, who does this dolly look like?"

"I don't know." Pensive look. "ME!" Then she had to take a look at herself in the mirror with Mandy.

She's staying. I'll write a check to the fundraising committee tomorrow. I hope Beth enjoys her half as much as I enjoyed mine.

They ARE my kids, after all

They may look like Scott, but take a gander at this picture:


That's Beth and Sarah wearing sunglasses, carrying bags and sitting on chairs in the brightest-colored room in the house. You can't see it in the picture, but they're facing the radiator.

They're playing "beach."

Atta girl.

Reality parenting

Beth came downstairs saaaaaad tonight after I'd put her to bed. Scott picked her up and hugged her and comforted her...and, over her shoulder, gave me a Look, held out his fist, and proceeded to rock-paper-scissors me to see who had to take her back to bed.

I lost.

I'm saving this story to tell Beth when she's older, some day when she tells me that Daddy is WAY nicer than I am.

Bethism #10

Beth is a Sunbeam. She's three, and it's January, and that means that at church she graduated from the nursery into the Sunbeam class in Primary. And she is so, so proud of herself.

The chorister was trying to teach the little kiddos a new song today, one about heaven, and she asked them all, "Where do we come from? Where did we live before we were born?"

No response. I think some of the kids had their fingers in their mouths. So she tried again.

"Where did we live before we came here?"

Beth perked up. "Oh!" she said. "Pittsburgh!"

Every adult in the room cracked up.

It's a valid response. Heaven...Pittsburgh...I think her memories of both are equally hazy.

Totoro!

Not quite in full-scale panic mode

I have my sewing machine back, and it's humming along beautifully, and since the girls' dress-up capes are done and all the Christmas gifts for our neighbors are put together, I spent this evening cutting out pieces for the first Totoro. There's gray fluff everywhere — the dining room table, the floor, ground into the living room rug, on my clothes.

Oh — and my back is killing me, even after taking prophylactic ibuprofen before spreading the fuzzy fabric out on the table.

I have four more days to make this happen, and I'm not really panicking quite yet, but I'm scared enough to start working my tail off.

On the plus side, I think I figured out how to make the ears stand up: pipe cleaners.

Wish me luck. How are your Christmas preparations going?

Eating my words...

After weeks of openly and roundly mocking Scott for playing "My Heroes Ability" on Facebook (at random hours of the day and night)...I'm going to have to eat my words. I admit it. I'm hooked on "Nobility."

Sigh.

I am such a nerd. Let the mocking begin.

NIMBY

So I called the town health department today, out of curiosity:

"I have a strange question — I've been looking on the town website and I see licensing requirements for dogs and cats, but nothing for other animals. Specifically, I'm wondering about getting a miniature pig."

"Um...not in Belmont."

"I see. What can you have in Belmont?"

"Just chickens."

"Huh. Well, thank you."

Well. There goes that idea.

Cautionary Tale, or: Never move to a new city to be with a guy

I have this cautionary tale that I tell occasionally, usually when I'm talking to someone who's besottedly in love and making hasty decisions. (I used it several times when Scott and I were assigned to the singles ward in Pittsburgh.) It goes like this:

Once upon a time, about nine and a half years ago now, I was dating a guy who lived in Los Angeles. I'd known him since high school, when he was geeky-cool and funny, and we'd kept in touch as he took more and more interesting artistic jobs (ending up as a storyboard artist for Disney) and I'd floundered through my twenties trying to figure out what I wanted out of life. Somehow we ended up dating at the same point that I found myself between jobs and between roommates, and it was my mom who suggested that I move to L.A. to see if we could make things work romantically.

So I lined up a job (I thought) and an apartment, and moved myself down to Southern California, and then the job fell through and the boyfriend's endearing quirks started to really grate on my stressed-out self, and within a month I found myself jobless and boyfriendless.

The lessons are these:

1. Never move anywhere for a guy. (And the corollaries: Never make drastic life changes based on body chemistry alone; Major life changes will usually result in too much stress on the relationship.)


2. Your mother always wants to see you happy, and she's not going to be above pushing you into a romance if she thinks it's going to put a smile on your face or pictures of grandchildren in her brag book.


3. Sometimes you end up doing something right for all the wrong reasons.

Anyway.

Here's what the guy in question is doing now. And I'm taking the kiddos to see the movie this afternoon. (If you're in the area, I'd love some company.)

Mean streak

My baby sister just called me with her newest Grand Scheme: in her bid to become Favorite Aunt, she's going to buy our other sister's daughter a miniature horse.

And, since we're the city-dwellin' folk that we are, she's buying my daughters a teacup pig.

Not this Christmas, mind you. She has some saving to do.

I think she has a mean streak.

Two girls and an easel

Okay, these were just too cute not to share:


Beth and Sarah decided they both wanted to paint today. Beth had brushes; Sarah had her first giddy foray into finger painting. It works particularly well when there's an easel between them, and plenty of newspaper on the floor.


Instead of putting these paintings on the wall, we'll use them as wrapping paper for the grandparentals, who will no doubt appreciate them way more than we do here. (Too much of a good thing at the moment.)


Oh, and Beth decided she wanted to be "a lady with a baby in my tummy." That's her hat tied around her middle. I had to stop laughing before I could take the picture.

And the award for best technologically-integrated customer service goes to...

Anyone called Amazon.com customer service lately?

Or, rather: Anyone been called by Amazon.com customer service lately?

Scott bought a number of our Christmas gifts on Amazon, which is typical, and the order got split up, which is also typical. One of the shipments, unfortunately, got sent to our old default address in Pittsburgh. We called some friends who still live in our old apartment complex to see if they could head it off at the pass, but apparently the U.S. Postal Service is savvier than UPS: they know we've moved. The package was marked "undeliverable" and sent back.

All of this I can see by clicking on "Track your package" on Amazon. But we still don't have the package. So I go through the Amazon web page to contact customer service. Up pops a page that says "Talk to us! We'll call you. Right now. Really."

I enter my phone number. The phone rings immediately. I also get a popup screen that's managing the telephony somehow — if I want to hang up the call, I click a button. I'm also connected (again, immediately) to Nitu, a very nice customer service agent in India, who confirms that the package is in Amazon receiving limbo somewhere and sets me up with a replacement order.

Let me just say, since I've done my time (two years!) in the purgatory that is phone-based customer service, that this is Very Impressive. Now, granted, they're estimating that the new shipment won't arrive until the 18th (bummer). But I'm still impressed.