It was a pretty successful Christmas. Of course, I managed to get my annual yuletide bug, and spent Christmas Eve Eve and Christmas Eve battling a wicked fever, popping ibuprofen and Tylenol as often as I could without inducing liver failure, but by Christmas morning, the worst of it had passed. Not without Christmas Eve drama though—from midnight to 2 AM, I was curled up under about 15 layers of clothing and blankets, shaking uncontrollably, desperate for the fever to break. And then my stomach finally said “enough is enough” and took over, emptying itself rather vehemently. Lo and behold, I was much better. Then Ava woke up with an ear infection. Ah. The holidays. But when morning arrived, I was ok, Ava was ok, and Carter was his usual self—happy. They both dug into their stockings, and then Ava set to work unwrapping everything, and Carter set to work running around. It took him a while to get into the swing of things, but he finally caught on to the idea that not only was this paper here for him to rip apart, it also had really neat things inside!

We had fun at Nana and Da’s, opening more presents—both kids were marvelous, given the chaos. They both did not really absorb everything that they received, but several things were immediate hits, most notably the 2 grocery carts Michaela and Carlos got them. THANK GOD Carlos volunteered to put them together, because Ava would not let anything else occur in the known universe until she could play with hers. And of course, as soon as Carter saw hers, he had to have it, so we got the other one put together, pronto. And then they spent HOURS going back and forth from one bedroom to the other (which flank the living room on opposite sides, so we watched the back and forth, like a cartoon), packing and unpacking their groceries.

Now that it has been several days, both kids have discovered most of the other things that they received, Carter especially. This has given me time to recover from Christmas, and I have completely managed to integrate the new stuff into our house. We still are brewing viruses, so it has been slow going, but I am going to just take it easy with Ava, and let her stay home an extra week, if she wants to. When they spend their days together, the kids actually play pretty well now, and are pretty creative in their activities—today they played ‘train’ by holding a piece of string between them and running around the house laughing and yelling, and this is great as far as I am concerned. It is good for Ava to go to school, sure, but if she is not feeling well, she sends the distinct message that she is feeling abandoned, and I would rather that she not feel that way. It is just the way she is.

It is finally snowing. Perhaps winter will stay.

Ava has another cold virus. This whole school thing is starting to be a little more trouble than its worth. I took her in today, because she woke up with a fever, and the doctor basically said that she had another cold, it was not pneumonia, and the fact that she was getting better between bouts of illness was good. It demonstrates her healthy immune system and he would be far more worried if she were chronically ill, never getting better. That would apparently illustrate a compromised immune system. All well and good, but it certainly did not make our present situation any easier. She did not shake the fever today—every time the Tylenol wore off, she went back up to 102+. This evening she really deteriorated—I told her to go lie down on the bed while I cleaned up Carter’s dinner mess, and when I came in to check on her she looked practically catatonic. Her eyes were ringed with red circles and when I checked her temp it was 103.4. I gave her Tylenol, tucked her in and she immediately fell asleep. Hopefully it will break tonight.

However, when her fever was held in check by the Tylenol, we managed to have a pretty decent day. I learned a lesson last week that rolling and cutting out Christmas cookies with a 1 and ½ year-old boy on the loose is really not a good idea—the flour was distributed from one end of the house to another, and it took me hours to clean up, primarily because just as I would get one part vacuumed, Carter would come tearing through, dragging flour from another part of the house through my nice clean part. Moreover, if anyone so much as sneezed, flour would sift out of every garment. It was a nightmare. White footprints and handprints on the hunter green living room chairs nearly sent me to the local asylum. Not only that, but after we had cut them out, I tried to decorate them with icing in a squeeze tube. The icing was impossible to squeeze, and would not come out. Ava’s solution was to suck on the tube. It came out that way, for sure, but obviously never made it to the cookie. After she managed to consume about 8 fluid ounces of icing despite my repeated admonishments not to (yeah, sure mom), I called it a day and put everything away. I was tired of saying “stop! Just stop! Stop absolutely everything that you are doing! Freeze!” Such a declaration is futile. Stop just means go faster to see what Mom will do. So I finished the icing later. However, we still had a batch of sugar cookies to bake as of this afternoon. Fearing a reprise, I decided to give them blobs of dough already on the cookie sheet, and handed them sprinkles to shake on the cookies. Round sugar cookies taste the same as cookies in the shape of stars and Christmas trees. Toddlers and preschoolers don’t care what shape they are. My main issue this time was with those stupid teeny tiny non-pareils. Not only do they roll to every corner of the room, but when you try to vacuum them they skitter wildly, as if they are alive, not following any laws of physics, so you have to pretty much vacuum on your hands and knees, chasing the little stinkers around. I desperately wanted to get them cleaned up though, because I had no intention of getting them in the new keyboard, our fantastic gift from Grandma.

There are lots of lessons to be learned as one plows through parenting (like the above: don’t bother with getting your Christmas cookies just so). The problem is, the practical solution often only manifests itself after you have thoroughly messed up, and more often than not, the opportunity to apply the lesson will not appear again. For example, next year, the kids will be older, and presumably Carter will not wildly fling flour all over the house, rejoicing over the sensory thrill. So, perhaps I can roll and cut out Christmas cookies. The challenge is in taking note of the lesson and applying it to the larger picture. This lesson is easy: perfection is unnecessary for happiness. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Ava had her first riding lesson today! It was great—she was so excited. SO excited. We got there, and the instructor (who looks just like Dennis Farina – the cop on Law and Order plus other things) was superb. He was very kid friendly and very patient. And it was a real lesson. No pony rides here! After he led her around, he stood in the middle and around she went. She learned “whoa,” turning (sort of), and how to move forward. She had her game face on, but beneath it you could see an irrepressible smile peeking out– she was clearly so proud of the fact that she was really riding. The funniest part was when the instructor asked her what sort of horses she liked. He clearly expected “brown” or “white” – and she replied: “um, I like draft horses, actually.” He nearly died laughing, and she got his instant approval. Carter got to ride for one turn around the ring, sitting in front of her, which had him utterly thrilled. AND he taught Ava the rudimentary parts to falling off—he had her stand up in the saddle and fall into his arms. This is a great thing—allows people to ride without fear. And she rode around with her arms out to her side—another great learning device. I was very happy with it.

Then after such a great day, Ava somehow tripped while crawling around on her hands and knees (I think she was pretending to be a dolphin), and she very nearly sent her tooth through her lip entirely. Fortunately it was all confined to the inside of her mouth, thus no stitches, but it was very deep and very traumatic for everyone. And her lip went ballistic, swelling up hugely, despite ice. It hurt her a lot. When she initially did it, the noises she made were gut-wrenching. She could barely make noise, and the ones that did manage to come out were somehow a mixture of screams, groans and gurgles all into hands held firmly against her face. I had to pry her away from me and her hands away from her in order to see what in the world had happened, and was expecting to be horrified. She calmed down a bit, but basically did not stop crying until she fell asleep an hour later.

Meanwhile Carter is thoroughly sold on strawberry ice cream, and if I so much as walk within a 4 foot radius of the freezer, he gestures wildly at it. God help me if I open it, as he will remove the entire half-gallon from the door.

And he sits on my lap for books! He has been addicted to books forever, but never would sit still to actually look through the whole thing. Now he insists on sitting on my lap (so cute) and wants to carefully go through the text, and have everything named. He points to something and says “eh” and I have to name it. Most interestingly, he will make me go back and forth, underscoring the word for him. He will point at a fish and then a truck and then the fish and then the truck and then the fish and then the truck and then the fish and then the truck, and on and on, and I say “fish.” “truck.” “fish.” “truck.” “fish.” “truck.” “fish.” “truck.” “fish.” “truck.” “fish.” “truck.” “fish.” “truck.” “fish.” “truck.” “fish.” “truck.” “fish.” “truck.” “fish.” “truck.” “fish.” “truck.” He does this without books too—especially when he is relaxing on the potty. He points to the sink, the door, and the wall, and makes me say them in order over and over and over. Sometimes he mixes it up—sink, wall, door, sink, wall, door, sink, wa-SINK! And he gets hysterical, so thrilled that he tricked me.

Speaking of the potty—it is great that he is using it and all, but he insists on using it to pass gas too—so we go through the whole rigamorole of pants off, diaper off, socks off, sit down, TOOT!, laugh uproariously, get up, pick up the empty potty cup, bring it to the big potty, dump the invisible fart into the big potty, put the potty cup back, toddle around to the flusher, flush, wave bye bye, and run joyfully bare bottomed out the door. It is cute, but a lot of effort. I know that he might not know the difference between tooting and pooping, (in this, he is not alone in the world), and just recognizing the urge is great, but I have to say that there is a down side to the early potty training. He is too little to do it himself, even to pull down a pair of underwear, so it is a labor intensive event. And he really hates the diapering that is inevitable when we go out. Oh well. This too shall pass.

Ski season began for Ava today! She and Peter hit the slopes, while Carter and I stayed home—a welcome change from last year when I had to attend with an infant Carter because Ava was not that comfy being away from me for hours and hours. It is just no fun to drive 45 minutes to a ski lodge only to stay inside and entertain a small child who cannot be put down on a muddy floor. We had a fun time by ourselves, and I think Carter relishes this time.

I recently began a few sewing projects for Ava’s doll. I cannot overstate how remarkable this is for me. As I have mentioned, I am not crafty. When the Little Dippers teacher used to bring out the craft basket full of felt, wool, embroidery thread, needles and other implements I would experience visceral panic and would do whatever I could to avoid a display of my incapacity to stitch. However, doll clothes are expensive. And it finally dawned on me that I could probably figure out how to piece together a coat and hat (it is winter after all, and it seems silly for Helena-the doll-not to have a warm outfit). And, I did it! Sleeves and all. It took forever, but it is cute and it fits. Anyway, my point is not to be self-congratulatory, but rather to make note of the impact this had on Ava. If there is anything that will keep me reaching for the sewing basket, it is how fascinated she is by the production. She constantly asks to have a ‘sewing project,’ and so I give her a piece of fabric, some thread, some scissors and a pin and she will sit there for an hour, ‘constructing’ various things. Yesterday, she made a book for her doll—she took a piece of felt and put pieces of thread on it in various shapes and then folded it over and poked at it with the pin—voila! a book!

The other thing that I found interesting but will probably be profoundly dull reading for everyone else was the way she ordered a set of 10 boxes of descending size. They are nesting boxes, and thus each one is slightly smaller than the previous one. I asked her to lay them side by side from biggest to smallest the other day, and she immediately did it—no need to review big bigger and biggest! Tonight she asked if she could do it again, and since there was not enough room to lay them all in a line along the wall, she put them out in a very specific and interesting order where the 1st 2 went side by side, then the 3rd one was placed under the 2nd one, the 4th one next to the 3rd, the 5th one under the 4th, the 6th next to the 5th, and so on, maintaining the same pattern all the way to the end. And it looked like she did it without planning it—it was just a pattern that she devised and adhered to almost unconsciously. Basically it was a diagonal progression of pairs, if that makes any sense. Anyway, I thought it was intriguing.

In light of the above, it will be of no surprise that I am reading some Montessori books, where this sort of exercise is discussed extensively. It is very interesting reading, and especially in comparison to the Rudolf Steiner books. He is the founder of the Waldorf theory of education, and often these two theories are considered to be in opposition to each other. I can see why this is thought to be the case, and certainly the two authors are very different people, but honestly, I see more similarities than differences. Primarily, both are concerned with not pushing the child, not “teaching,” but rather allowing the child to learn through his or her senses/body. The difference appears to be in the conception of what is occurring in the child’s mind as he or she grows and learns. And a lot of this has a tremendous amount to do with the personal aesthetics and opinions of the two authors. A lot has been said about Maria Montessori’s negative opinion of fantasy life and fantasy play vs. Steiner’s heavy emphasis on it. But MM was a physician, a scientist and Italian, thus presumably Roman Catholic, all of which would lead one to be less than supportive of a mythical world of ‘false gods!’ RS was a philosopher and deeply influenced by his own spiritual experiences growing up and was convinced both of their veracity and their importance, and so he fashioned his educational theory around them. However, these two people, coming from absolutely opposite sides of the spectrum, ended up making some of the same observations about how children learn. They came to different conclusions as to what sort of materials are necessary, and what types of learning should take place, but they both seem to be in agreement that kids learn not through overt teaching but rather through their bodies and their experiences. MM puts a lot of emphasis on the senses and RS on imitation, but both talk of exposing the child to practical life—allowing them to become familiar and proficient at the day to day tasks that the adults surrounding them are doing. It seems to me that with careful reading the 2 theories could be compared and a powerful educative theory distilled from them that focuses on the actual methods and eliminates what might simply be personal bias resulting from cultural and personality differences.

This might already exist, and if it does, hooray, but right now that task is a tad beyond my scope.

Ava and Carter are sick again. This time Carter is really the one suffering—he has unbelievable mucous coming out of his nose. It just pours out. That plus the drooling from his teeth makes him a gooey mess all day. He is generally pretty happy though, so at least he is a pleasant gob of sticky fluids.

He is determined to talk, but only says the first sound of most words, so it is easy to dismiss him as babbling. But if you pay attention, he is trying to tell you what he wants or what he sees. However, he has definitely got the power of “MA! MAMA! MAMAMAMAMAMAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” figured out.

Our mealtimes have evolved to something approaching pleasant repasts. We continue to make an effort to light a candle and sing the blessing, and the three of us usually manage to remain seated until most of the food is consumed. I have found that if I serve dinner between 4 and 4:30 all goes well. Any later and there is usually some sort of mutiny. What I find astonishing is that: 1. I have the time to actually cook a real meal and 2. I do this 3 times a day. Clearly it is in their best interests to have the regularity and ritual of breakfast, lunch and dinner, but this is SO NOT ME. I never eat lunch if left to my own devices—my natural schedule is brunch and dinner. I tend to stop and reflect as I am cooking a mid-day meal (roughly 1 hour after finally completing the clean-up from breakfast) and start to hear the Talking Heads in my mind: “This is not my beautiful life. This is not my beautiful house…Many days go by….bah de bah de bah de dah…”(I am fairly certain that the song was not written with me in mind, but some postmodern literary analysis can remedy that.)

Anyway, I am thoroughly domesticated and I think I am doing a pretty good job of it on average—today they all had French toast for breakfast. This is so exciting for me, because it means that Ava actually likes a breakfast food other than bacon and eggs. Until now, she had eschewed anything that required syrup. That eliminates a huge amount of really fun breakfast things. She still does not really like cereal. So weird.

On Saturday we went to the “Merry Elves Gift Faire” at the Northern Lights School, and both kids had a blast. The snow queen was there, ensconced in her snow cave (sheets and twinkle-y lights) and after Ava overcame her initial fear of going in, she visited her about 5 times. We made ornaments, bought some gifts, had some food, and played. I had a parental duty to contribute in some way, so I offered to clean-up. Towards the end, Ava was getting tired, and she asked when we were going home. I told her that I had to help by cleaning up first. She leapt up and said “what can I clean up?” I told her that I did not know, perhaps she could ask Miss Kim. Miss Kim told her to ask Miss Peggy. Miss Peggy was in the other room, so off Ava went. When I finished nursing Carter I went in to find her and Miss Peggy said “Look at your daughter!” and there she was, cleaning tables with a cloth. Very happy, very occupied and very proud of herself. She then launched herself into a series of other projects, including folding the sheets of the snow queen’s cave (with another mother entirely), picking up, moving little chairs back to their proper place, and so on. I cannot emphasize how proud I was of her. All of the other kids were playing like crazy, and had she joined in I would have been thrilled with that, but it was so CUTE to watch her set to work with absolute seriousness. Says a bit about her future personality, I think. It certainly got the attention of the other adults.

Finally, I recently finished “White Teeth” by Zadie Smith. Unbelievable novel. When I started it, I almost returned it to the bookstore, because the characters in it were so miserable, so NOT what I wanted to read about, but I stuck it out and it turned out to be one of the best novels that I have ever read. She got a lot of press for this novel (as well as a teaching position at the University of Chicago, I think—it might have been Columbia), and it is well deserved. There is no way to summarize this book. London, 20th century, immigrants, working class, issues of identity, history, faith, and legacy all wrapped up in one rambling but ultimately tight little package. And funny too. Really funny. The British have such a way with words that we consider inappropriate for polite company. Somehow they can use the F-word and sound so civilized. Her ability to observe people and their emotional baggage is astounding. Highly recommended.

Now on to her next book…um, I mean, now on to statistics…

This morning, I mentioned to Ava that we needed to create an Advent calendar. I said this, though I had no idea how I would pull it off, as I am definitely not crafty. Lo and behold, what did Ava make in school today? An Advent calendar! I nearly embraced her teacher, I was so overwhelmed with gratitude.

We had a pretty good day, until I tried to make them sit still for Christmas photos. Not a good plan.

I gave up and instead I took pictures of Carter eating dinner, which is pretty entertaining. It is so nice that he actually eats dinner, something Ava did not do until she was about 2. And sometimes she still doesn’t unless I monitor each bite.

I also let them ‘clean’ the tub with a bowl of baking soda mixed with peppermint soap and some water—it makes a paste and they had a blast smearing it all over the tub. And the floor. And the walls. And the chrome fixtures. And each other.

But it all rinses off very easily, and the tub is actually clean. Really.

I have no idea what to write about these days. The kids are utterly incredibly, hysterical, exhausting, and growing up like crazy. There is so much to report, but we have been SO SICK and still have not really had a chance to relax, even with all of the sick days we have taken (Ava has spent 3 days in school so far during the month of November)—there are tons of things on the to-do list, given the holidays, and by the time bedtime rolls around, I am so tired and ill that I cannot think straight. Chronicling my children’s development is way beyond me at times.

But we weathered Thanksgiving very well, I must say. I completely gave up on the Martha Stewart routine and we all went to Nana’s this year. I rallied for the pies, the Irish Soda Bread, and the fruit salad, since Ava and Carter could help with that. Ava has been talking about this for days now, and I spent a lot of time preparing her for the formality of the occasion, talking to her about manners, and what the meal would be like, and so on. It is not like she eats with a stick off of a dirt floor here at home, but I just wanted to re-emphasize the expectations. And she was WONDERFUL. I did not really get to eat since Carter was in no mood to sit still, but I still had a great time because my eldest daughter was completely charming and a perfect little lady. It was like she turned off the threes and turned on the fours. I got a glimpse of what she will be like in a year or so.

She is full of imagination. She makes up complete worlds and stories and will spend hours talking to her creations. Tonight it was 8 donkeys that had to be taken care of and put to bed in their barn, often it is a school (?) of dolphins, sometimes it is her little sister—it can be anything. But if you watch her, she is conducting a huge story, chattering away to her characters that are nothing but thin air to the adults around her. Sometimes she will bring me into the story to meet a donkey or a dolphin, but often she barely registers my presence. It is very interesting. She makes up the craziest names too. Never Mary or Jill or David. We have animals named jaxsalasxa, avivia, solisrasita, and so on. I asked a friend that is a speech therapist about the making up of words, and she said it was a way of practicing with phonemes—the individual sounds in words. She sure is practicing.

Carter causes my heart to stop about 50 times a day. He is all boy. Climbing, falling, climbing, tripping. Ava never considered getting on the table. He parked himself right in the middle of it today. He has to be so sick of “Carter GET DOWN!” But he is a charmer, and appears to have more words than previously thought. He uses the first sound correctly for lots of things—so he makes a b sound for bird, bear, ball, a d sound for duck, dad, drink, and so on—today we got “AP!” for apple, and “CA!” for cat. It appears that we are on a cusp here.

We are still waiting for snow. It is finally cold enough. Would be nice to get a winter-themed picture for the cards this year…

carter uses the potty. he has been for the last 4 days. i cannot get over this. it appears not to be a random "hey, let me sit on this and see what happens" type of thing. if you ask him if he needs to go potty, he goes in there and sits and/or motions to his diaper. often he goes in there, comes back out, points to his diaper, goes in there, comes back out, points to his diaper, and so on until someone notices. if he really needs to go, he just sits down with his diaper on. he thinks it is great, i think it is great, we all think it is great. however, i am so dubious. will it really last? if it does, hooray! he definitely understands all of it though. he can identify that he needs to go, and he can tell us (with gestures), and he can go. he thinks tooting on it is hysterical (it makes a good echo-y sound), and he is pretty interested in the product.

however, he is (i am) still struggling with aim. even when he is sitting.

all in all, pretty unexpected, i'll say.

on another note, we all still have the flu. as in influenza. makes studying so hard. but i finally surrendered to the supreme magic of ibuprofen today. i have been holding out, due to the whole breastfeeding thing, but i could not take it any longer. relief was exquisite.

i have so little time to write, and am so tired, and so please don't expect much out of me for the next few weeks. i am knee deep in statistics and while i am sort of enjoying it, there is a lot of work to do.

ava has spent hours reenacting the dolphin show and the shamu show here at home. a pillow stands in for the whale or dolphin, and the living room is the tank. she has the entire script memorized. it is hysterical, though a bit tiresome to feed the dolphins for the 1,000,000,000,000,000th time.

carter peed on the potty the other day. i put him on it, since he had just watered the books, and he knew what to do--he grunted and tried his darndest to produce something, anything, and lo and behold, he did! i have no expectations that this will result in him coming up to me and saying "mommy, i have to go potty," but it was a nice step in the direction of cognition.

now that we are back, i have to ramp up for swim class. it was a lot easier when we could go to the pool in our bathing suits, instead of toting 5 bags, 2 kids, 1 backpack carrier and a life jacket or two to the locker room while wearing 17 layers of clothing. i just do not have the energy. i will find it, but right now it seems like such a ridiculous effort.

ava is fascinated by two songs recently: jingle bells and rudolph the red nosed reindeer. i made the mistake of singing them to her, and now that is all she wants me to do. that and ask me questions about the names and gender of santa's reindeer. she has pretty much memorized the songs, albeit with a little tweaking here and there and now we are serenaded by her interpretations. the most creative of them all emerged today on the way to (where else?) sea world:

jingle bells, rendered in a tone of voice usually reserved for a poetry slam, ie no tone/pitch, just spoken word--or more appropriately yelled word:

jingle BELLS! jingle BELLS!

jingle!

all!

the!

WAY!

oh!

what!

FUN!

it!

is!

to!

RIDE!

in!

a!

onehosesleigh!

OH!

jingle BELLS! jingle BELLS!

jingle!

all!

the!

WAY!

oh!

what!

FUN!

it!

is!

to!

RIDE!

in!

a!

onehosesleigh!

i was completely hysterical, and peter was about to go insane since he was trying to navigate heavy traffic and he had a small child hollering in his ear at precise intervals.

she and peter went to a few shows (dolphins, sea lions), while carter and i played in the bouncy thing again. he is normally so outgoing, but i think that environment pushes him ever so slightly past his comfort zone-he continually comes back to me and lands in my arms--just checking in, but in a very affectionate way. there are a lot of kids there, and a lot going on around the play mat-boucy thing, and i wonder if he loses his bearings every once in a while.

he officially has the following words: mama, dada, ba (baby), va! (ava), yum, HI!, de! (there), da! (that), nigh nigh, ahhhh (said with toungue out = animal, usually dog/cat), and a million variations on eeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!! this last one is a bit like chinese--the meaning changes depending on the inflection. his gestures are robust, though pointing is the most useful. he has an endearing open palmed grabbing thing that he does with his fingers that is essentially "please give me this thing that i am referring to with my outstretched hand"

he loves to give kisses, though for some reason he assumes that humans kiss like dogs. this is entertaining for people watching, not so much for the one being kissed.

it is funny--i get so used to their little foibles, the things that make life a eensy weensy bit more difficult, and then out of the blue, they disappear. for example, i am so used to him waking up at the littlest sounds, like a baby, but over the course of the past few weeks i am just noticing that he does not really do that anymore--he sleeps more like an older kid--thoroughly exhausted and out cold. it is so nice to realize that day by day it is getting a little bit easier. sometimes it is helpful to expect the worst and then one can be pleasantly surprised and how little effort an event like bedtime actually is.

i say this, and probably my entire night is now going to be punctuated by various stirrings and proddings.

as we were leaving sea world yesterday, ava asked "how does shamu sleep?"

"hmmmmm.....well....hmmmmm.....honestly, ava, i am not sure."

"does he sleep in the water?"

"yes"

"how?"

"well, why don't we find a trainer and ask them?"

"ok!"

we were unable to find a trainer, so i promised her that when we came back (a given), we would find one. we returned this afternoon. we tried to locate someone that could tell us about shamus nocturnal reveries, but were not able to. so we went to the 4:30 show as usual, but as soon as it was over i jumped up and told peter that i would meet him by the stroller, but ava and i had to catch one of the trainers. so i steered ava the wrong way through the crowd (insert witty metaphor about salmon swimming upstream here) and practically attacked the poor guy as he was cleaning up the fish buckets. i waved my arm in front of his face and yelled "can we ask you a question?" -- good sport that he was, he stopped and i turned to ava and said "go ahead, honey." ava was frozen in amazement/shyness/confusion and stood there for a few seconds slack-jawed, but recovered and very deliberately articulated her question: "how does shamu sleep?"

the guy immediately launched into an explanation that was a bit over her head, but she caught the gist of it, which was that shamu does not sleep like people. he sleeps a little bit almost all of the time--resting part of his brain while other parts stay awake. this proved to be absolutely fascinating both to me and to ava (after i compared it to her experience when she is in her car seat and sort of asleep but not really...) and i was so happy that we had made the effort to unearth the answer.

carter FINALLY was able to play on the toddler jumpy thing -- for the last week it has been closed due to paint debris falling on it, and we have had to entertain him in the large sand pit--fun, but not the same. he thoroughly exhausted himself. it was terrific. i wish i had a room with a foam floor at home. he spent hours on it. he finally lay down in the middle and said "night night."

there is nothing cuter than a baby gorilla. especially when it is less than 6 inches from your face with only a glass (plexiglass?) wall between you and the little munchkin. and his mommy and rather large daddy.

ava fed giraffes at the zoo as well. so now she has fed giraffes and dolphins. she asked if she could please ride one of the dolphins, and was not satisfied with the "you need to be bigger" response.

and of course, she picked the coldest day ever to say "please, can we sit in the splash zone? i want to get wet!" note to file: they are not lying when they say that shamu's tank is 55 degrees.

she appears to enjoy the ocean too. it is also cold, but manageable. carter likes it as well, though he adores rolling in the sand the most.

uuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....

this is how i feel, and i did not even eat any candy! this holiday is so weird. fun, but weird. it was painful to watch the sugar consumption. both kids had glazed eyes after about 40 minutes of trick or treating. caaaaaaannnnnnnnnndddyyyyyyyyyyyyy...

ava had a look of shock on her face the whole time. i don't think she remembers last year that well, and so her mental picture of what to expect was not entirely accurate. i think that the reality of hundreds of people dressed up in the most unidentifiable ways (darth vadar, princess leah, witches, skeletons, cartoon characters, the devil...) was completely beyond her ability to thoroughly absorb and process in real time. she had the candy thing down though.

carter got the idea right off the bat. hmmmm...i go up to these people, hold out this bucket, and they give me candy. terrrific! why not do this every day?

Something that I wanted to note, but keep forgetting—many of Ava’s little speech quirks have gone away. I don’t know when it happened, but at least 3 months ago I noticed that she was not using a ‘t’ sound for a hard ‘c’ and now says animals instead of aminals, and vanilla instead of vamilla. It is so interesting how this evolves. But she still says el-phalents, which I adore. And cell-o-phone.

The other day, we were in the car and she asked me a question—I forget what it was. I began an answer, and then to help her understand, I asked her a question. All I got was a sigh and a dramatic “oh, I don’t know…” Every question that I asked thereafter was met with the same couldn’t be bothered response. This drove me nuts, and I allowed it to. Finally I pulled over and turned around and asked her if she knew why I was upset. She said no. I then launched into a commentary on people that just went through life not trying to learn and better themselves and how I thought that was so awful and that one of the most important things is to always want to improve your mind and your heart, and to sit there through life expecting the world to unfold before you was outrageous and entitled and as long as I had anything to say about it I would not allow that to occur in my presence. To her credit, she listened very carefully. Clearly I sent these words flying over her head, and she is one of the most curious kids I know, so perhaps it was not merited, but I could not help myself.

Carter went to the dentist on Monday. His tooth needs to be filled, but it will not be the disaster we had expected. The dentist said that it would take 5 minutes, max, so no anesthesia (no drilling, obviously). Thank god. He was SO good. Just lay there with his head in the dentist’s lap looking up at him with these huge fingers poking around in his mouth. He is such a trooper.

He likes to hide now. He thinks it is a riot. I do not.

He also likes to scream as loud as he can, often in a contest with Ava. This is usually in the car. They can be indistinguishable, and very very loud.

And he loves to run. When I take him out of the tub and set him down, he takes off, with me in pursuit, chasing him down with jammies and a diaper while he tears around at top speed, laughing with glee. And recently he started stomping without holding on to something. He used to do this while he held on to a chair or the bed or something his height—he would hold on and stomp stomp stomp stomp as fast as he could—essentially running in place. Now he can do it by himself, so often he will come into the kitchen, get my attention and then do this little stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp dance/jig thing for me with the biggest smile on his face. And then he claps for himself.

Ava has figured out how to pile up a bunch of pillows so that she can dive off the couch into them.

Tomorrow is her ‘special day’ at school. There is a bucket that is sent home with each kid in rotation, and we are supposed to bring in 2 photos, a book and snack. She had a hard time choosing the photos, but we got that squared away. The bucket was a total source of conflict for the kids, so that went on top of the refrigerator, and then picking a book was impossible. We have 4, and I hope the teacher does not mind. And then there was snack. My suggestion is that you always have a back-up plan (read: store-bought), should your great idea of making pumpkin bread result in something that makes you say “aaaaahhhh” while holding your mouth open so that the bread touches as little of the inside of your mouth as possible before you can get to the garbage can. At 6:45 PM (bedtime) I was making an emergency batch of pumpkin cookies. Thank GOD I had purchased an extra can of pumpkin goo. They turned out fine. I have no idea what went wrong with the bread—I did follow the recipe, I know that—it was a simple quickbread in theory. Whatever. It all worked out.

For all of the RealSimple readers out there:

Salad Spinner

Original Use: Flinging excess water from dark leafy greens.

Ah-ha! Use: Sit and Spin—remove the top, invert it and sit on it (provided you fit—Moms need not try) and spin and spin and spin. Reserve the bottom for later use as a basket for inside basketball. Who needs Hasbro or Mattel?

i watched 'hotel rwanda' last night. i stayed up way too late and exhausted myself, but i just had to finish it.

this stuff happens, IS happening, and here we are, still going about our business day to day. sometimes i cannot fall asleep because i lie in bed and think "right now, someone is freezing somewhere in deplorable conditions, or someone is being subjected to unspeakable violence--or right now someone is in agony, dying from a disease that is fully preventable, and while all of that is probably happening at this very moment to men and women, it is also happening to little children--at this very moment, somewhere in the world." and here i am, in bed, warm and cozy, next to my kids and i look at them and my heart nearly explodes, and it all gets magnified, and i nearly go nuts trying to understand not just why these things happen, but why i cannot feel empowered to do something. which is sort of the point of the movie. we did nothing. but who is 'we?' -- how does one do something when governments (not just the usa) are enacting policies that either cause the social conditions that lead to desperation, or they perpetuate the desperation for their own (our own?) gain, or they simply do not provide the only sort of help that might stop a crisis that is out of control. from the movie, it appears that the only thing that might have stopped the genocide in rwanda was military intervention. perhaps there were many other things that could have been accomplished prior to the moment of crisis, and perhaps military intervention would not have prevented later conflict, but it probably would have prevented the slaughter. And there was no help on the sort of large international level that was necessary. I know this touches upon the complexities of international relations and politics and blah blah blah, and I certainly am in no position to evaluate if such action would have been in the united states’ best interests or britain’s best interests, or belgium’s best interests, but that is not my point. My point is that since governments only act in their best interests, how do we manage to prevent/assist/arrest crises that do not fall into that category, when the way to do so inevitably relies upon resources that often only governments can provide (like an army)? It just makes me feel helpless. (Note that I am avoiding the rather pertinent example of when our government and its military is the cause of suffering—that is a whole other ball of wax). And it is not just genocidal situations like Rwanda or sudan, but what I call chronic crises—illness, hunger, human rights, poverty, (hurricanes) etc. Yes, I know there is debate galore about how to best promote economic development, health care, the free market, world trade. fair trade and how that all is interconnected to food production and human rights and illness and so on—academics are incessantly evaluating these connections, and if I hear that there is “a need for a new paradigm” one more time, I think I am going to explode. FINE. Someone needs to come up with that new paradigm, and there are thousands of people trying hard to do so, and it is important, and it is pertinent, and it will be debated for years and years, but it is not changing the fact that people are suffering RIGHT NOW.

People will always suffer. I know that. There will always be poverty and violence. I know that. I am not hoping for a utopian miracle. But knowing that is not the same as resigning oneself to it.

but the question is, what works? how does one really work effectively against a system that seems to exploit and promote suffering? all of the NGOs and non-profits and development projects and peace corps and health clinics and schools still cannot stop genocide or hunger or poverty or torture or violence when there is a powerful government or group that wants such a crisis. clearly these groups provide help. I am not suggesting that they do not. but they have no power when it comes down to it, like the UN in Rwanda. They are an important component, but not a solution. How in the world aid workers manage to stay sane when their work in never-ending and so monumental is entirely beyond me.

Also, there is the perpetual issue of those with privilege (the haves) deciding what is in the best interests of the have-nots. The book Mountains Beyond Mountains is a good exploration of this issue.

And then of course, here I am. Not a member of an aid group, not running off to devastation to help. I have small children, and of course I am not dragging them off to some disaster. Can I give money? Yup. Is that effective? Perhaps.

So, from my clearly privileged vantage point, I am left endlessly perseverating on what actually works. I have no conclusions to speak of, but I have some thoughts.

One thought is regarding information. Which boils down to the media. Journalism, fiction, non-fiction, movies, etc. This can be rather powerful, once a critical mass has been reached. And it can be used for evil very successfully. And obviously governments fear it. It can be used for good, and has been. But people do not want to know about the crap that goes on in the world. They do not want to be bothered. How do you bridge that gap?

The other thought is regarding faith. Yes, most wars are fought over religion, at least on the surface. But if you stand back and think about it, the same power that has destroyed so many is also the same power that has been able to intervene. Clergy of all faiths appear to have leverage (and resources) that many secular groups do not. This is obviously extremely dangerous in the wrong hands, and we are struggling with so many repercussions of such abuse, both within our country and world-wide, but there are truly powerful people that have effected tremendous good in the world simply by being faithful and recognizing the light/god/divine/buddah/universe/goddess/etc in each and every person. It is easy to turn to faith for one’s own benefit or enlightenment, and while there is nothing inherently harmful in that, it is still self-centered. It is a bit harder to turn to faith in a self-effacing manner that puts the ego to rest and instead focuses on others, but those who do so are rather empowered, I think.

Perhaps therein lies the answer to my question. it seems so simple, and yet so very difficult.

it snowed today. carter, ava, and i went outside after it truly accumulated (0.5 in), and the look of absolute amazement on carter's face was priceless. it was great because it was still snowing and the snowflakes were huge and clumpy, so he could really see it coming down. he looked at it, looked at me, looked at it and pointed, and then looked at me again, jaw gaping the whole time. ava walked around scooping it up and eating it, and would not stop asking when she could go skiing.

Ava is suddenly having a hard time with my departure when we get to school. I know that as soon as I am gone she is fine (because I stand outside the periphery and peer in secretly while shushing Carter’s attempts to get Ava’s attention), but you would never guess that from the meltdown that occurs. She cries, flings herself at my leg and will not let go. It is VERY hard to peel away from that. Fortunately, all of her teachers are incredibly kind and nurturing. At St. Agnes, the teacher distracted her by asking her to help her with the guinea pig (they went to the school kitchen to get lettuce), and at Northern Lights, one teacher held her for 10 minutes and the other one got her a little robin made of felt to keep her company. I am not sure what is going on, it really could be a million things. I think it is all just catching up with her. She is the sort of child that needs so much attention and so much comforting that perhaps she is feeling that lack. The excitement and fun of school probably got her through the first month, but now it is a bit more routine and perhaps she is recognizing that the teachers cannot be with her all of the time the way Mom is. And this leaves her with the burden of filling that absence. Which means reaching out to the other kids. Which is really not easy at any age. I certainly don’t want to project my own memories onto her, but I do remember preferring the company of my mom and teachers (and later my sister) to that of my friends when I was small (I don’t remember being 3 that well, obviously, but I remember kindergarten). But, I also was, and continue to be, a total social anomaly. However, she has upped the ante on cuddle time with me, and her behavior had been very deliberately attention-getting.

I do try to remember that the motivation behind it all is the desire for my undivided attention, and I have made a conscious effort to provide as much of that as I possibly can, and there have been noticeable changes in her behavior. But I cannot take all of the credit for that—I have to say that Northern Lights (the Waldorf school) has had a profound impact on her behavior. A positive one. Respect for and kindness towards other people is a huge part of the curriculum/philosophy, and it is showing. They accomplish this with very gentle teaching, using songs and rhymes and traditions that Ava is absorbing like a sponge. She sings songs for different things that she does around the house, and not only that, she can fold a blanket expertly. Today she called me in to look at her folded blanket and I nearly fell over. It was outstandingly neat. They also make a big deal of mealtime, and make it a point to have a distinct gathering, set the table, say a blessing, and have a candle. So, today I made a point of doing the same for dinner (very hard with Carter), and I SWEAR she ate like a horse because of it. It made her so happy to sing the blessing with me—we sang it 10 times. And the candle was a huge hit. This is primarily because of the fire fairies inside that fly away when you blow out the candle, but I know she thought it was extra-special because they were there. I used to chafe at what I (as a jaded adult) saw as the hocus-pocus stuff that we did in the parent-child group at the same school, but now that she is old enough to appreciate it, I can see the wonder and joy that she gets out of it and it seems perfect. And it reminds me of how I used to feel about the possibility of magic.

On Friday we came home and made strawberry jam. Not exactly seasonal, but fun. She has a toy knife that she used to cut up the strawberries, and other than driving to Nana’s to raid her cupboard for cornstarch, it was great. We will eat it tomorrow morning. We also have pumpkins to carve. Carter should find it interesting.

He is a total riot. His personality is really starting to emerge. He has always been happy and outgoing and the life of the party, but he is even more so now. He just loves to laugh. He is also very physical, so a lot of the playing he does revolves around doing something silly to get a laugh—hide and seek, running in circles around the table, lifting his own shirt and tickling his own belly, farting (yes, he thinks it is a riot), tackling me/Ava/Dad/whomever, throwing things, riding his bike backwards at mach speed, and last, but not least, sneezing. He gets a huge kick out of sneezing. I laugh too, so that is even better. The other day we were leaving the library, and in the parking lot he stopped and got the pre-sneeze look on his face and then let loose with a doozy. I cracked up and he cracked up, and then that made me crack up more, and then he cracked up more, and so on. It is even funnier when he is about to sneeze and I laugh and make him lose the sneeze. He laughs and laughs and then tries to do it again. I could sit there and hold him and make him laugh all day. He loves it.

And it is so different from Ava. Ava laughs a lot, obviously, but not in the same way as Carter. She has a very serious, quiet side that gives her pause—she thinks everything through. He launches right in. But he holds my hand while doing it—he is solidly into making sure I am there and paying attention. If he needs me, he reaches for my hand, and expects me to come wherever he is going. If my hands are full, he drags me by my pant leg.

And he has a total book fetish. He is obsessed with them, and demands—DEMANDS—that we read them. Which is great, but he will destroy the entire bookcase to find the one book that he wants.

Update: Ava officially got sick last night, so perhaps the “I don’t wanna go to school” behavior was related to feeling sort of yucky. It is the usual—cough and goo everywhere. Though she got very upset after falling asleep, kicking and screaming at the bed in frustration over not feeling well. This is usually reserved for an upset tummy. But that appears to be ok today, so who knows?

Ava is completely obsessed with dragons. She is dying to know what they are, see one, read about one, anything. I keep telling her as much as I know, and promising that we will go to the library, but we have not had a spare moment to get there this week. She must ask me 40 times a day what a dragon is. I have started the narrative each time with “well, a dragon is a mythical creature…” Tonight, she asked me what a mythical creature is, and if a zebra was one. (How random, since we have not discussed zebras in a long time). So, I began to tackle that question. I pondered it a bit, since saying “it is a creature from a myth” would really be circumventing the question, and then I said that it was a creature that only existed in stories, because so few people had ever seen a mythical creature, and so all we have are the stories that those people have told about them a long time ago. She was satisfied, and I was pleased that I could get away with not squashing the hope that there really might be dragons and fairies and unicorns and all of that. That is the best part of childhood. We have also discussed fairies to quite an extent, thanks to some stationary from Grandma (thank you, Grandma), and the other day she asked me what a goblin was. That one stumped me, because I really don’t know what they are, exactly.

We went to Octoberfest at Whiteface Mountain last weekend, and that was great. I went alone with the kids, which made it rather exhausting, but it was nice for Ava to see the mountain again – gearing her up for ski season. We went on rides, she rode the ponies, Carter rode the ponies, we pet the animals, had a snack, watched an oompahpah band, went on the gondola (a hit with Carter), rode the ponies again, then went to the main tent to dance to a band that was the most amazing mix of genres ever. It was basically an ooompahpah band that mated with a ska/reggae/rock/gaelic/folk band. They were fabulous. Ava danced with a friend from school, and we had a great time. Carter was nearly catatonic at that point, so we finally went home and collapsed into bed.

Last night we had swim class again. Carter was mellower, easier to maneuver, but Ava was cold and did not want to get in. She is so in love with her purple bathing suit that she will not wear her wetsuit. I finally asked her if she knew what a wetsuit was for, and when she looked at me quizzically I told her. Upon learning that it was for staying warm, she had a change of heart and promised that she would wear it on Tuesday. We will see. If she does not start getting in the water, I will take her somewhere for private lessons or take her to open swim and just let her splash around when I am in with Carter. Frankly, that might work better anyway, because the class is large and even if she does comply with the getting wet part she still does an awful lot of sitting on the side of the pool waiting for her turn. And she did an awful lot of learning to swim over the summer. It is not like she needs swim classes. She needs to have fun, and if they are not fun, well then there is no point. As she put it herself: “But I already know how to do that…”

It looks like my courses are going to be very hard. This is good. My peers include an awful lot of physicians and pharmacists. Also good. I think I may be going to bed at 7 with the kids and getting up at 3 to work.

Life is very very full right now. Ava is getting a run for her money, and is probably right on the cusp of doing too much (part of the swim issue too, I would think). My goal is to keep our afternoons as free and as quiet as possible.

Carter’s fever broke during the night—it was basically an eight-hour flu. It was REALLY high at one point though—very close to 104, which is so radically different from Ava. Her highest temp, once, was 102.3. I was mentally preparing to go to the ER at 11 PM when his underarm temperature read 101.9, and that is (on average) 2 degrees lower than a rectal temp. When I moved him, he screamed. He just hurt. But then at 1 AM, I woke up, felt him, and he was cool as a cucumber. It was bizarre.

Ava has a cold too. She has had it for a while, and it is in the lingering phase. The “my child may look sick, but really, she is not contagious even though she clearly needs to blow her nose’ phase. But is has lodged itself in her throat, and her voice is being affected. In a moment of careless verbiage I said to her “you are losing your voice, Ava.” Her face lost all traces of animation as her mouth gaped, her eyes stared and her hand slowly drifted to her throat, and she slowly said “I am losing my voice? Why?” I quickly realized my mistake and tried to undo the damage caused by allowing my daughter to think that she was never going to talk again.

Carter is scheduled to go to the pediatric dentist in Vermont so that they can look at the missing enamel on his front tooth. Presumably they are going to look at it and say “he is missing the enamel on his front tooth, and we need to fill it in. Can you come back in 2 weeks?” At least it will be taken care of relatively soon.

He fell asleep last night without nursing. He stopped, stared at the ceiling and blew raspberries for a half hour while I rocked him until he was blowing them in his sleep. He still is not speaking in English, but is rather effective in communicating in his own language. One of the cutest things he does is to widen his eyes, open his mouth a little and jut his lower jaw out a bit as he raises his eyebrows and says eeeeehhhhh!, which translates to “would you get a load of this!”. He understands everything we say to him, and I learned the hard way not to ask him if he wanted to go swimming 2 hours before the first class was scheduled to begin. He went straight to the sliding glass door, gesturing vehemently toward the lake, and lost his mind when I said no, not yet.

Fortunately, swim class started last night. Carter goes from 5:30 to 6 with me while Ava waits patiently on the side of the pool with a life jacket on, and then she has her class with the teacher. She was very patient while I was wrestling with Carter during his class, and I tried to alleviate some of the boredom by playing with her during the free play time (we squirted water at each other, and Carter thought that was a riot). Swimming with Carter is like swimming with an octopus. He wants to be set free, which is out of the question. His favorite part is being tossed way up high, and climbing out along the wall. However, when Ava is in her class, he is miserable. He just wants to get back in. I am not sure what I am going to do with him, because I obviously have to be there while she is swimming. I just might end up back in the water. Fabulous. But Ava did really well, until she got cold and ditched the jumping part. They all line up and each one gets to jump in to the teacher, and Ava decided that she did not want to stick around for that. Later, in the car, she asked me why they had jumping in the class. I told her it was to practice jumping, and because it was fun. Her response was “but I already know how to jump.” I almost told her that such logic was sure to get her in trouble in the future, a la her mother who got detention in fifth grade for not doing her long division homework for the very same reason. But instead I laughed and reminded her that it was also for fun. If she decides to bail on long division homework because she already knows how to do it, more power to her.

I think school is going well. I can only assume so, since she wakes up every day and asks which school she is going to. Tomorrow they have school pictures. Amazing. She is getting a school picture. I am still in shock. I guess I did not think that they had pictures for little ones. Or I forgot. It is so ‘big girl-ish.”

And my school has officially begun. After a month of panicking because I had not received anything from London, a very nice, very British email came my way, welcoming me to the program, and letting me know that my course materials were on their way. Phew. I am only taking two courses, and honestly, I forget which two. I know I am doing the preliminary epidemiology class, but I cannot remember if the other one was statistics or another core course. I think it was statistics. There is no end to my pleasure at this new challenge. Finally, I feel like I am directing my brain in the right direction. Clearly mothering is a brain challenge, and very much the ‘right direction’, but in a drastically different way. There are whole sections of my grey matter just dying to be utilized, and in my humble opinion, I think that can only have positive ramifications for the kids and my ability to steer them through life. And it also offers a connection with the rest of the world, something often hard to find in this area.

We went to the blessing of the animals today at St Agnes. I am unclear as to what made me think that bringing both kids and a 13-year-old incontinent dog all the way to Lake Placid so that I could nearly lose track of them in the chaos of 100 dogs and 200 elementary school-age kids was a good idea, but I did it. I guess I figured Rose deserved it. Fortunately, Peter walked up from the office to help out. It was almost as difficult as explaining to Ava what a blessing was. That led to a discussion of St Francis, which led to a discussion about St. Nicholas and his connection to Santa Claus, and their connection to Christmas and Jesus, which of course looped back to St Francis, and somehow I managed to bring everything together into one tidy, relatively logical explanation of God. Sort of. It passed the time in the car nicely though.

The other day, after Carter fell asleep, I let Ava come out into the living room with me (a treat, since she usually has to go to bed at that point), and I pulled out the map of the world. She has been bugging me about where things are, and it has been a while since I last had it out, so I thought that would be a good time. When I brought it out, she got very serious, and said “now, where is Mexico?” (based on her knowledge that Monarchs migrate to Mexico) and then she said “I know this is China, and I know this is Florida, and what is this again?”

“Africa”

“Oh. Where is Kenya?”

“Here”

“Where is Alaska?”

“All the way over here”

“And what is this?”

“Russia”

“Russia. Hmmm. And this?”

“Brazil, South America.”

And on and on and on. I must get this child a globe.

carter is sick. 103.4 degrees. and then 102.9 after tylenol. but he still has a great attitude, the little guy! it is incredible--he obviously feels like doody, but can still muster a smile and blow raspberries on my belly. he has finally fallen asleep after 4 hours of struggling to do so, and i have rushed out here to brush my teeth (floss too), grab a snack, a glass of water and some chocolate before he wakes up again.

yes, i am eating after i brushed my teeth.

it promises to be a long night.

never, in a million billion years did i ever think i would hear the following sentence:

"Mommy!! My caterpillar fell in my poop!"

Yes, I did rescue said caterpillar.

The amount of dirt that we trek into this house is beyond comprehension. Between the garden, the parks, the sandbox, the yard (no grass, just pine needles), and, oh, I don’t know, perhaps the dust from the universe, I end up sweeping a mountain of dirt every evening. It almost makes me look forward to winter, where all of the dirt will be covered by snow or ensconced in ice. Carter manages to stash it in the most unlikely places, such as his diaper, or his pockets, so when he gets undressed for tubby-time an entire beach tumbles out. This is so disheartening if I have already swept. And it is not just the floor that suffers. You should see what happens to the tub.

Both kids got up at 5:45 today. Which was fine, since I got into bed at 8:30 last night, but it made the latter part of the afternoon a little interesting. Ava went to St Agnes this morning and slipped into the black hole of preschool, where she does things that I will never learn about. I know for certain that she fed the turtle, and she pet the guinea pig. Carter is terrified but irresistibly drawn to the guinea pig. We have to go look at it every time we get there, and he gets within 2 feet and stops and starts to make the funniest noises—pretty much a nervous giggle, but he won’t get any closer, and if the thing so much as moves, he jumps a mile.

While Ava was at school, Carter and I went to the gym. I actually went to the gym. This was superb. There is a little class for itty-bitties, and Carter stayed there, tumbling, while I spun my feet in the fastest ellipses I could make for 20 minutes. This was sheer heaven.

The rest of the day was mellow—we came home and relaxed, and brought more dirt into the house, but Carter never took an afternoon nap. So they both were in bed before 6:30. This may come around and bite me in the tushie tomorrow, but I really had no choice—he was flinging himself at me, screaming for night night.

Fine by me. I am going to go read my library book. I am amazingly out of magazines and I have not started a new novel, so I cheated and got a book out of the library, further setting myself back in accomplishing my goal of reading everything in the boxes labeled “to read” in the basement. The book is ok, it is called “Hothouse Kids” and is about gifted kids that are pushed to excel too early and suffer later in life. It is a pretty predictable book, but offers little tidbits of useful information. A mush better book was Howard Gardner’s book “The Unschooled Child.” This was outrageously dense with educational, psychological and philosophical theory, but very illuminating and helpful. All of these books will do a good job of scaring you away from mainstream education though. And if I read another scathing assessment of The No Child Left Behind Act, I am going to scream. If it is as awful as it appears to be, we are in a whole lot of trouble. I will go out on a real limb here and suggest that perhaps there are a lot of people in this country that have a vested interest in seeing a large swath of our population doomed to failure, and thus they come up with programs that guarantee that-- and then they put the old sugar-coating on it. I suppose this is not surprising, but it is so reprehensible.

Today Ava had her first day at “Morning Garden” – the waldorf-based pre-school. She marched right over to the kids, joined in (everyone was playing outside) and barely glanced in my direction. I asked for a hug and a kiss, as well as one for Carter and that was it. She gave me an exuberant wave when I got to my car in the parking lot, and Carter and I headed home where he fell asleep. I cannot express my sheer joy in this development. Obviously it is great for her, making friends, learning new things, etc, but I am so happy to get 3 hours on 2 days of the week to play at home with Carter. Not to mention that he is still young enough that cleaning the house can still be turned into “playing” – though I got Ava to swiffer tonight—she did really well until she thought the walls needed dusting. So, Carter and I cleaned, finally moving furniture to dust under it, something that makes me ridiculously satisfied and clear-headed. He and I stopped often to send a ball through a little ball-ramp thingamajig, but we got the vast majority of the house clean. Though I refuse to clean the sliding glass door. There is no point. Fingerprints and dog-nose prints are there to stay, until the kids stop peering through it with hands splayed and noses smushed and mouths breathing steam for drawing. It looks terrible, but it would kill me to clean it to watch a greasy palm go after it 2 seconds later.

Today on the way to school, Ava asked an open-ended question about dinosaurs. I do not recall what it was, but something along the lines of “what is a dinosaur?” So, I tried to explain, and she kept asking me to tell her more. Now, I know a decent amount about dinosaurs, but there is a lot that has happened in paleontology since I was 10. So, I suggested that we go to the library after school to find some books on said reptiles. We got three, and she is fascinated. Honestly, so am I. I never, ever thought I would be reading a book about dinosaurs and saying, “huh! I never knew that…” She is piecing together the plant eaters vs. the meat eaters, and is sort of getting the whole food chain concept, albeit with a little wrinkling of her nose.

Carter is walking around vocalizing in Carterese, but with such vehemence, it is not hard to figure out what he is saying. When he is really enthusiastic about something, he opens his mouth a bit, juts his lower jaw out a bit, and says eeeuoooouuurrrraaaahhhh! Ehhhhhh! Uh! And his eyes widen even wider and he points at whatever has his attention. And then, if you answer him, he calms down a bit, lowers his voice and ‘talks’ while nodding his head at you, having a complete conversation, with such sincerity in his eyes, it is just adorable. And then the car seat is a complete opportunity to have a running monologue on the 500,000,000 trees that we pass on the way to town. But often all he wants to do is see how many ways there are to blow bubbles/spit/do raspberries/yell. And of course, Ava is more than happy to encourage him.

The circus is coming to town. How about that? We are actually going to the circus. (insert joke about how life is a circus here…).

so very tired. ava was up from 2-5 am last night, and then carter got up at 5:30. it has been a hard day. i walked in circles around the house desperately trying to arrive at bedtime.

what total exhastion will do to you--i let my 13 month old watercolor unrestrained. he did pretty well, getting at least some of it on the paper. most of it went on him. ava was a very good mentor.

we decided to also enroll ava in the waldorf preschool. she knows all of the kids, and i think it will be a good experience for her. essentially i had felt that on its own it would not have met all of her needs, but it will be a fabulous compliment to her more mainstream experience. besides, this keeps all future options open, which is nice.

There is so much to write about—this whole school thing has been so monumental, but I really do not know where to start! I guess the best thing was that the big day, the day where I left her there all by herself, went off without a hitch. She gave me a hug and a kiss and barely flinched. No tears. I, on the other hand, was a total disaster. When I returned, she leapt out to get me, yelled “we painted CORN!” and ran back to her teacher who was getting her dressed in her outerwear. I think the weirdest part for me was that I had no idea as to what was going on in her life for 2.5 hours. When I have left her with a grandparent, I get the full report at the end. Here there is no time for the teacher to elaborate on everything that happened. And Ava tends to report things with a twist of 3-year-old logic, which says that events need not be in sequential order, nor do they need to occur on the same day with the same person for them to be earnestly relayed as exactly what happened just a half hour ago. But I got enough consistency out of her to piece together the happenings of the day, and it sounds like she really grasped the routine of things pretty quickly.

I am very proud of her.

Carter and I spent the big day in Lake Placid, waiting for her and getting outrageously dirty. It was drizzling, and the playground was wet, and we just got muddy. And later in the day, after I picked her up, we all went to the playground in Saranac Lake, blessedly empty, and got even dirtier. There is something very satisfying in getting really dirty—the process of getting clean is so much more rewarding!

After the summer where there were very few structured activities, it is sort of a relief to have an externally imposed schedule on our lives. The days FLY by.

so, we got our second butterfly. 20% success rate now. we have one more chrysalis, and so we are anxiously awaiting the emergence of our third, making it a whopping 30%. (though the fact that i smashed one inadvertently makes me want to remove that one from our statistical analysis, but i decided to leave it in, because it was a casualty of captivity and more to the point, it makes an even 10 caterpillars, making the math a lot easier).

both are boy caterpillars. this has been a very important observation for ava.

she has done fabulously at school. apparently my concerns about her ability to weather the separation from mom are not warranted. to note, i have not yet left her there on her own, but today i might as well have been a light fixture for all the attention she paid me. i am very excited for her. she loves nearly everything there and appears to be quite comfortable with the teachers. today we lined up to go outside, and she parked herself squarely on the very tippy end of the red tape that was on the ground, perfectly balanced at the end, and waited with baited breath to be released. when they started walking out the door and down the hall, she leaped forward and ran up to the girl in front and leaned in to ask "do you want to hold my hand?" and with that the 2 of them walked out the door, hand in hand.

so adorable.

we are really looking forward to all of the fall activities--swim class, movement class, tumbling, but especially a new development: play group at green pond! it is only the 4th monday of every month, but i think it will be very good for her given her sudden preoccupation with friends.

carter continues to be all boy. he is obsessed with rocks and his feet. as for the latter, i think he is so amazed that they provide him with locomotion and he is just overwhelmed with gratitude for them. it is as if he wakes up and looks at them in sheer joy that they are still there.

today he sat in the sandbox for the longest time, dousing himself with it. he knows he is not supposed to eat it, so every once in a while he will look at me and practically wink as he tosses a fistful into his mouth, as if to say "HAH! Watch this!" and then he laughs and goes "blaaaahhhhhhhh" with his tongue out. for the life of me i cannot get him to recognize that the sand prohibition is strictly for the benefit to his quality of life.

the only negative thing that happened today was in the parking lot in lake placid. i was clearly jumping through mommy hurdles to appease 2 antsy and sort of fussy kids: diapers, sippy cups, where are my keys, oh sure, here is the ball, don't throw it in the car, ok, here is your book, do you want a banana? how about a cookie? raisins? ok, raisins. now, where are my keys? as i shut the door to carter's door and went to walk around to my side, i turned to the guy standing next to his car, 2 spots down and said "it takes an hour to get a cup of coffee!" -- now, this was in no way a complaint about having kids--it was strictly reality, and i still am astonished by the complexity of the simplest of tasks, and it was a little "can you believe this" sort of comment to this guy as he had watched the entire scene. in response he looks at me and says "you're lucky you have one." presumably he meant the child, not the cup of coffee. i was so astonished by his sweeping judgment of me, i smiled and said, "yes, i am, very lucky." but in my mind i was steaming. why is it that when a mother simply makes an off-hand comment about the very real management issues inherent in having 2 small children everyone has to leap down her throat and accuse her of being ungrateful? there is nothing ungrateful in what i said, as a matter of fact, i was smiling when i said it. it made me so mad. you do it for a day, mister smarty pants, and tell me what you think.

my recent experiences have really led me to be rather cynical regarding humanity's capacity for goodness.

we got a butterfly!! we had 5 chrysalides (there it is again, that latin plural, go jesuits!!), one turned an awful shade of brown, sort of like coffee inside a teeny tiny plastic bag, one was squished into oblivion by the overly enthusiastic carter, and 3 stayed green for a really long time. two days ago one of the green ones appeared to be slightly more transparent, though i restrained myself and did not get too excited. but yesterday it was all too clear that it was going to become a butterfly, and this morning it was completely clear with a very identifiable butterfly all rolled up inside it. so, we went absolutely nowhere today, all in an attempt to see this happen. and it happened. we missed the actual opening, but saw the butterfly all folded up right outside the now empty chrysalis--apparently their bodies are full of fluid that they pump into their wings to straighten them out. then their bodies become slim and butterfly-ish as their wings become strong. and then they rest forever. after an hour or so, it appeared that it was having a hard time on the plastic container, and so i moved it to a tree. its feet were surprisingly sharp. it crawled up the tree trunk, and eventually, after 4 hours, made it to a branch, where i think it is going to spend the night.

everyone was duly amazed. ava was finally more interested in the butterfly part of the process than the caterpillar part, and carter was SO EXCITED. he knew exactly where that butterfly was on the tree and kept going over to it and pointing and grunting. as for myself, i was astonished. i mean, one can go through life just accepting the fact that caterpillars become butterflies and moths and never really think about it other than the off-hand "yeah, that's cool" thought, but when you watch this actually happen, it definitely makes you stand in wonder at the process. it is such a weird and amazing thing. that a caterpillar--a worm practically--can turn into a butterfly?? how? i know, DNA, but then WHY?? why in the world is that its life process?? it makes no sense, really, other than that the universe has a profound sense of aesthetics.

and we have all learned a lot. we know the difference between a chrysalis and a cocoon--a cocoon is spun, a chrysalis is essentially skin--the caterpillar sheds its last batch of skin, like a snake, and what is underneath becomes the chrysalis. we know that a male monarch has 2 dark black spots on its lower wings (we got a 'daddy' butterfly), and we also know about the migration patterns, or lack thereof, of the monarchs. turns out that only the last batch of caterpillars will turn into migrating monarchs. all of the other ones only live 2-4 months and stay in their hometown. the migrators live 8-9 months and fly thousands of miles. and nobody knows why. obviously there is some trigger, but no one has figured it out. could be temperature, length of day, lack of a food source, or some other external cue, but, as the woman in the butterfly house at the VIC (Visitor Interpretive Center) said "it's a total mystery." because even if there is an external cue, it still does not explain the difference in lifespan. why shouldn't the early ones also get to live as long as the migrators, provided there is adequate food? it is all very interesting.

as for other outdoor excitement, rose finally caught a squirrel. she has been stalking the things for about 13 years now, and they always get away. i have long suspected that this is part of the game for her, but turns out that if the squirrel is young enough (ie a baby), rose will catch it and toss it in the air with a flourish, much like we toss carter up in the air at swim class --"wheeeee!!!!"

the baby squirrel was not of the same mind as rose and was clearly upset, making that "i am a small animal in distress" sound that i have heard from many little creatures that normally don't talk (rabbits, chipmunks etc) but do when caught in the jaws of a much larger animal. anyway, i said "ROSE! NO!" and she dropped it and ran off, leaving ava, carter and i staring at a very upset, very small red squirrell lying on its back with its arms up over its head absolutely still, save for the involuntary trembling. i tried to look at it, but it went up a tree, and while slow, it was agile enough for me to conclude that it was ok. barring PTSD, of course.

i hate to reprimand a dog or cat for doing what it naturally does, but i am glad that i stopped her. not too keen on starting the "wild kingdom" lessons with ava just yet. and the darn thing was really cute.

today was ava's first day of school. it was a mommy and child visiting day, and it went really well. she appeared to have nothing but positive commentary. she knew a lot of kids already, and absolutely loved the guinea pig. when we arrived at the school and we were walking in together, i managed to get an attack of nerves that was identical to the anxiety attacks i always got on the first day of school. leave it to me to be the nervous one!

today was a tough day. two things happened: first rose ran away a half hour before she was to go to the vet. and when i say ran away, i mean ran away from me as i lunged after her through the woods, which is not an easy task, as the underbrush is relatively thick. she was remarkably agile, given the huge lampshade collar she has around her neck, and i almost caught her when she pulled a slick move and dodged through a hole in the fence along our southern property line. it was at that point that i bellowed "GOD DAMN YOU!!!!!!" and retreated. the neighbors are now aware of the exact depth of my frustration. and then, since i could not take her to the vet, and the rest of our day was completely free, we all got dressed for swimming. we had about a half hour down at the dock, frolicking and having a good time, when, for absolutely NO REASON whatsoever, a bee landed on my elbow and stung me. i leapt up, tempered my verbal outburst to "GOD DART IT!" and gathered the kids up and retreated for the second time. i left a huge mess down at the dock, because i was not sure where the bee actually went, and if there were more. all i have to say is holy cow, bee stings hurt like crazy. it really is overkill on the bee's part. half of that pain would be sufficient deterrent to would be honey-thiefs. and it does not stop! my elbow still hurts. and to add to the irritation of it all, it is on the tip of my elbow. i look like popeye with that silly little elbow blip that he had. and i cannot see it without the aid of a mirror. which was interesting to ava.

ultimately, it was probably a good thing that it was me. had it been either child, my life would have been awful. neither of them would have known what happened, and would have been so upset. and this prepares me for adequate compassion when it does happen to them.

carter has decided to not nap--40 minutes/day is all i have been able to extract out of him. it stinks. because he is still tired. so, not pleasant. and all he wants to do is escape down the driveway. i put a barrier of the car, the dog crate (obviously empty), and the grill across the main access point, but he pieced together that he could just walk around the house. all day, all i do is redirect him back to the yard, which is apparently a prison. oh, and he refuses to 'sit down to get down' in order to descend the steps. he HAS to walk down them, and will pitch a huge fit if you do not give him a finger to hold in order to do this. or, he will pitch himself down them, which is not a viable option. he is teething though, so hopefully that explains it all. you know--the link between teething and all irritating behavior is scientifically proven.

There is nothing like living in a small town with a bunch of, excuse me, dirtbags, to make you question your committment to living a life of help and love for all mankind. Long story, not necessary to go into it, but suffice it to say, a raving lunatic dirt bag made my life hell today.

Rose's foot is doing well. We went to the vet today to get her dressing changed, and the first thing she said to me was "WOW! Good Job!" in reference to the rebandaging that I had to do. I was pretty proud. Then it turns out that the wound is doing really well, so well that she does not need a new bandage -- though she needs one of those cones/lampshades/elizabethan collar things. Then she said to me again "that was a really great job! what is your background?" and I said "horses." But the inner vet/MD in me was glowing.

Ava and Carter had a nondescript day--all we did was go to the grocery store and the vet's then out in the boat. They both just tagged along. Quite happily though.

the amputation of rose's toe has proven to be a complication on an exponential scale. i have no stamina to write in detail (those of you that know rox can ask her for the four-letter word infused details, the rest will have to wait for me to narrate it sufficiently). but to give a synopsis:

1. pick up at the vet: "do not let her get the dressing wet"
2. home, out of the car: rose bolts to the pond and swims, about the last thing rose ever does upon exiting the car.
3. i have to change the dressing without the benefit of general anesthesia. rose rises to the occasion after protesting and finally allows me to wrap it. horses are decidedly easier.
4. next day, early am: walk the dog. put a baggie on her foot, put carter on the bike, get ava in shoes, we all go down the road in our jammies and bed-heads for a torture session for rose who apparently needs her privacy to poop. no poop.
5. sort of early am: try again. no poop. dog remains agitated when inside though.
6. carter falls asleep: dog REALLY has to poop, she swears, this time. out we go, with monitor turned up really loud. poop success.
7. rest of morning: dog hates being inside, pees everywhere because she is incontinent, whines desperately to have her freedom.
8. capitulate and let her outside on leash, tied to deck. get dirty look.
9. walk her periodically throughout day.
10. early evening: leave to do errands for 1 hour, go to nana's house. kids fall asleep in car on the way back, transfer them to bed, go to get rose, see if she needs to poop. take her for a walk around the property, and watch as entire dressing falls off her foot. rose is in the woods without a bandage. upon further examination, notice that she chewed it off. make mental note to call vet and ask for lampshade collar.
11. evening, in woods, with bandage-less dog: lean over rose, pick up her left front foot and hold her steady and gallumph with her, three-legged, back to the house. rose's agility surprises me, my balance comes in handy.
12. back in house: re-bandage her foot. call dad, the surgeon and hypothetically ask if it is better to change a dressing a lot or a little. "as little as possible," he says. oh. never mind.
13. medicate her. worry about tomorrow am. not liking poop potential.
14. give her a bone and scratch her ears, because after all, it is not her fault.

A few days ago, Peter brought home a cache of junk food, including a box of chocolate covered oreos, which are very very delicious. I hid most of the stuff that Ava would recognize (skittles, starbursts, gummi bears), but since Ava has no idea what an Oreo is, I figured that box would not need to be hid. Well, this morning, Ava looked up into the cabinet when it was open, saw the box and said "Mom, can I have one of those chocolate hamburgers?"

We went up Floodwood mountain today. This was a 0.5 mile hike to the trailhead, then a 1.0 mile hike to the summit, with some considerable scrambling at the top. Ava did it all, the whole way. 3 miles total. I pumped her full of sugar at the summit (after suggesting some wheat thins and apricots, no deal), and then we went back down--she managed most of the tough stuff by sliding on her bottom.

We came home and had cheesy scrambled eggs, peas, and sliced peaches--from start to finish, 11 minutes of preparation. I did a little victory dance at that new record.

Carter spent so much time in the backpack this afternoon that when we got home, all he did was walk laps around the house, holding 2 cloth napkins and waving them--celebrating his freedom, I suppose.

The other day, I learned that you can paddle a Lost Pond Boat (like a very lightweight open kayak) and nurse an infant at the same time. Ava, carter and I were in the boat on our maiden paddle together and Carter was really fussy. I pulled over to the bank, but pretty soon realized that with his lifejacket on he was in an easily maintained position. It was sort of like driving a car with your knees. I had both hands free, and so I just paddled away. I spent most of the time hoping no one came along, because there really was no hiding the effort, but figured most people out there would be crunchy enough to shrug and smile.

There is so much that I want to write about, and I have had so little time! Yesterday we went to the Burlington, VT air show and thoroughly traumatized the kids. Everything was great until the Thunderbirds showed up (the part we were most looking forward to). Then they did this super low fly by as a surprise to scare the audience. Well, yeah, it sure scared the wits out of Carter. I got his ears covered, but it was still outrageously loud. He erupted in tears and would not stop. And Ava was apparently not a fan either, though Peter had her up front so she could see better.

So, we will wait patiently for the Saranac Lake Airport air show next year, since that one has quiet planes, sitting on the ground for Ava and Carter to explore. They did not have one this year because of runway construction. Bummer.

Onto other topics: Reading. I put 2 words up on the refrigerator, AVA and MOM. I then asked Ava what they were. “Ava and Mom” she said with a big grin. Then I put up STOP. She got that one too. Aside from my excitement that she was getting the idea, this totally rocked my convictions about how kids read. Because when I put up another easy word (I cannot remember which one, but it was not familiar to her in written form—something like BAT or ME) and asked her what it was, no dice. I did not expect her to get it, but when I showed her how to sound it out (I know it is very early to ask her to do that, I was just seeing what she would do…), she did not get the idea. Even when I said MMMM EEEEE…MMM EEEE…MM EEE…M EE…she still did not ‘hear’ the word that I was saying. This experience will be familiar to Michaela and my mother—remember “Bird-duh”?

Originally, when I had heard the debate about phonics vs. whole language, I had a hard time accepting that kids really did recognize whole words and that teaching the sounds of letters was not as important. To be precise, I thought that both approaches sounded pretty good, but that both should be used in tandem. But I did have more doubt for the whole language approach. It must just be my scientific reductionist nature. But now I have more doubt for the phonics approach. Not that phonics should not be a part of the learning process, but I am gathering that it might be something that comes to be understood after the gist of reading is obtained. And then that night, as I read, I tried to think about how I was reading. This was remarkably hard, and I was already biased, but I certainly do not piece together each letter individually, even with a new word. The only time I do that is when I am really trying to grasp the pronunciation. I am fairly certain that I am looking at the word and breaking it into familiar letter groupings. It is all very interesting. At least I have been doing what the whole language people advocate, just because it is fun to have Ava interact with the books that I read to her. Always question your assumptions.

But then, she is doing the virtual opposite when it comes to music. She listens to her songs and asks me what each and every sound is. I do not ever remember thinking about this. To me, music was a whole experience, and I never analyzed it. But I am not auditory in the least. Ava is. And she listens so carefully, and I have to really be on my toes, because I need to know what each and every instrument is (and explain it to her too). I find it very interesting that she can hear individual layers of sound in a relatively complex song. And that she is motivated to do so.

The other day she asked me “mommy, what is a train?” I said “you know what a train is!” And then she said “NO! A TRANE!” And then I remembered to substitute ‘c’ for ‘t’ and realized that she was talking about a crane. I had to talk about cranes (the machinery) for hours. And only now am I wondering if she meant the bird. I will ask her tomorrow.

Carter is really truly walking now, albeit with a lot of falls. But he can navigate turning and relatively long distances. The funniest thing is that we have a radio flyer trike (it is essentially a ride-on, with no pedals) that he zooms around on, with remarkable agility. We actually have two, since the first was Ava’s and we had a real proprietary issue with it. Now they both roll around the house at crazy speeds. Ava got hers at 18 months, and was not proficient on it for a while after that—or at least not motivated to be proficient since I made the mistake of pushing her on it in the beginning. Carter, on the other hand, screams and pushes at your hand if you so much as dare to help him. He is also a big fan of driving the chairs and small tables around the house. Between him moving furniture for ambulatory purposes and Ava moving furniture for architectural purposes, my living room is in a constant state of upheaval.

As for our various science projects, we now have 4 chrysalides (yes, I looked up the plural form of chrysalis, because chryisalises was just not right—what I learned was this: chrysalis has only the Latin plural, but chrysalid, which means the same as chrysalis, takes the English plural, chrysalids), and there is one more caterpillar doing its thing. Our robins have grown up and left their nest on top of the exhaust fan, a remarkably interesting place to build a home. I wonder if they will always have a fondness for the smell of bacon. Our garden is growing, though nothing is quite ready, so interest has waned.

Rose has a sore foot and we brought her to the vet only to learn that it was potentially an osteosarcoma. Potentially means most likely. So on Wednesday she is going in for x-rays to confirm and surgery to amputate her toe. She got some killer pain meds and is suddenly the dog she used to be. I had attributed her odd behavior to age, and now I am realizing that it was pain. Poor thing.

One last note: Everyone must must must read “Garbage Land” by Elizabeth Royte. Aside from being ridiculously entertaining, it is a real eye-opener.

carter is really going for the walking thing. he is so proud of himself, and can nearly get across the room. but what is really great is that he can catch himself when he is about to fall, and get back in an upright position.

i cut his hair yesterday, and he looks so very cute. amazingly different. now he looks like a boy again.

regarding ava's lack of kinesthetic awareness...i am not trying to say she is clumsy, or not athletic. she is extremely athletic. but she is extremely in her head, and that sometimes interferes with her physical presence.

We went to the Visitor Interpretive Center today for the “Wildlife Festival” – this was pretty cool, very fun for the kids. Low-key. The best part was the musician who had a guitar, a banjo, 2 different dulcimers, a fiddle, AND taught us how to play the spoons. Both kids were thrilled. I learned that 2 spoons can occupy Carter for a long time.

Then afterwards, we were walking along Stanley Drive on a mission for more milkweed for our caterpillars (we got a chrysalis!!!!!!!!!) and two kids came running up the driveway of the camp 2 doors down, yelling “stop! We know you!!!” Turns out they saw us at the festival, and wanted to meet us, since they were also on a milkweed mission. We were invited down to their camp, and Ava had a great time with the 8-year old girl and her 5-year old brother. I was happy to meet our neighbors.

Though I was not thrilled at the slow and tortured dissection of a crayfish that the 2 older kids engaged in. Ava took it in reserved stride, and actually ended up finding some enthusiasm for it, so on the way home we had a little Buddhism-oriented chat about the principle of ahimsa, (non-harming). I was astonished that the kid’s mother was fine with it when she announced “and now we are going to KILL it!” I would have blown a gasket. Fine, it is a crayfish, and people kill them all the time, but not for the sheer pleasure of simply killing. This was a bit morbid, as far as I was concerned.

On to other topics: Ava is confirming her status as a ‘sensitive’ child. It just seems (and always has seemed) that everything is heightened for her. Loud noises are louder, hurts hurt more, tastes taste more, bright light is brighter, smells smell more. Lately, when she has hurt herself, she has essentially overreacted. But I think it is an overreaction relative to what we experience. She cut her hand the other day, and screamed for close to ½ hour. And I think it really did hurt her. I do not think she was blowing it out of proportion because she was tired or hungry or whatever. Several times she stopped to breath, and she said quite clearly, “mom, it REALLY hurts.” I guess this is what a low pain threshold is.

For someone who runs while looking over her shoulder, this is not good.

Carter had his lead levels tested (part of the standard 1-year old physical) and after much hand wringing on my part for no adequate reason other than fear, the letter came, and he was perfectly fine. So, all of that dirt eating he participated in was not damaging. Let’s hear it for clean dirt.

He spent the entire day laughing – and it is a new laugh. Very much like Ava’s hee hee hee hee, done with an intake of breath, not out. He just practiced and practiced at every opportunity. He’s getting better with the walking, though he sort of goes sideways. He is a bit lopsided anyway, with his right foot rotated almost 90 degrees when he walks, so it stands to reason that he would go in the direction it is pointing. Once he is stable on his feet, I will see if there really is an issue or if it is just a matter of developing the strength to straighten out.