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.