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.