i bought a sewing machine. i figured it was time i did so. seems like a good skill to have.

it arrived, and i have spent 3 days staring at it. someone might as well have given me the keys to the space shuttle and said, "here. drive this around the earth a few times."

It is amazing to observe all of the different skills that Ava has to master in order to learn how to read and write. The nature of signs and symbols, moving from left to right, syllables and phonemes, and on and on. All of a sudden she seems determined to do it, and has had a dramatic increase in interest in writing her letters and spelling words—we do this a lot in the car—she asks me how you spell a word, and we sound it out together. The other day, it was “lavender,” which is a long word, but has some easy sounds in it to decipher. She managed to sound it out all the way through. This is interesting compared with 6 months ago, when she really only identified the first sound of a word and was unable to tease out nearly all of the other sounds or letters in it. And her sudden interest in writing letters other than those in her name is interesting. She was writing a whole bunch of stuff on paper and when she called me over I was astonished to see that she had been practicing letters. Until now, the whole writing thing was sort of “eh” for her. Just not interested (other than of course A-V-A). Now, it is all she wants to do. I guess the whole idea of written communication has finally come together in her consciousness, and it has been deemed interesting and valuable.

We recently pulled out The Minpins by Roald Dahl (I have been reading it incorrectly as The Minipins), and I was reluctant to read it to her as it has a big scary monster in it that has to be vanquished, but I gave it a shot. She was transfixed. It is a long book, and takes at least an hour to read, but she sits still for the whole thing, staring pretty much slack-jawed at the book while I read. Looks like we are able to advance to books with more suspense and tension. The best part was when I was reading the scary bit for the first time. There is a quiet “what is that noise” sort of moment, and then there is a SUDDEN SCARY BIG NOISE!!! moment, and when I read that part with appropriate dramatic panache, she pretty much jumped a mile. I was concerned that I had frightened her, but then we both completely cracked up. Good fun. Roald Dahl is great.

a quick way to elicit total amazement out of two small children is to take them to a castle made entirely of ice. and then add some colored lights. both of them were running around the ice palace in astonishment--they both thought it was just about the most incredible thing in the universe.

to give an idea of scale, a large adult can sit comfortably in the windows flanking the entrance. pretty neat.

valentine's day is huge when you are 3 1/2. it is practically as exciting as christmas. the whole notion of writing valentines to everyone you know as well as anticipating them from everyone you know is almost too much. she was practically exploding this morning.

it has brought back vivid memories of covering a shoebox in construction paper, cutting a slot in the top, decorating it with doilies, and watching it fill up with all sorts of little notes.

carter had his 18 month checkup today. all is well, 91st %ile for height and 39th for weight. he continues to hate the little scale, and when i put him up there on it, all naked and perched on the metal tray and told him that he had to let go, his little lip started trembling, and slowly his face crumpled, but he never made a sound. he just hovered on the edge of crying, quivering lips and all. fortunately it took about 20 seconds. of course, he had to get shots, as we are technically 5 behind--we begged off when we were in for his 15 month appointment, because he was sick, and we were already behind at that point. i hate to do a bunch at a time, so i kept generating a debt with each visit. so he had chicken pox (both of us are still grumbling about that one), and 2 other boosters. mmr has been successfully put off til he is 2. i just looked at her and said, "i have an irrational but psychologically significant fear of that vaccine, and i would be a much saner person if we could put it off." she was fine with that. and now he walks around patting his legs and saying "mmmmhhhhmmmmmm" --translation: "some insane lady inflicted tremendous pain on me right here in my thighs, and i remember it, so now can i have some candy?"

the other day, i made roast beef for dinner. it was a pretty big production, thus lots of anticipation. ava was intensely interested in where the meat came from, and asked me several times throughout the day. i kept it simple and said a cow, vs. cattle, but got the point across. at dinner, as we were all settling into a ridiculously large cut of beef, she paused, looked at me, and said, "mommy, does the cow mind if we are eating its meat?"

pause...pause...pause...finally, i replied:

"not anymore!"

we went to the winter carnival parade yesterday, and it was great fun and both kids LOVED the characters (like the characters at Disney World), and both got a lot of hugs from various fuzzy creatures. on the way home, we were discussing minnie mouse and the superb hug she gave (i think we may have known her in her human form) and then ava stopped, thought for a moment, and said "mommy, why did all of those puppet things, those um, those um, those um THINGS that gave me hugs..." "characters?" "yes, characters. why did all of those characters have boots like i do?"

BUSTED.

i contemplated revealing the pretty evident truth, then decided to keep it simple: "because they need to keep their feet warm, ava."

on the way home, she also noted that she preferred girls because "they look nicer."

shovelling 10 inches or so of snow from a spot about 20'x20' on the ice is a lot harder than it sounds. but i did it, and now we have an ice rink. pre-school size, but adequate. i actually started really enjoying the process of scooting around on the ice, pushing the shovel at top speed. call me a human zamboni. ava scooted along too, doing really well. she eventually got tired, and started falling a lot, making me very glad that i had the helmet. carter had his helmet on as well, but no skates. he did miraculously well, never falling once on the ice, despite vigorous attempts to run.

his hands are sensitive to the cold now. more than before. i know he is at greater risk for thermal injury, so i am a mitten-nazi, but he also seems to be less tolerant of cold sensations.

his injury has been a very difficult experience. for him, obviously, but for me too. it seems that as the treatment regimen tapers off to merely applying lotion as much as possible (a favorite activity), the emotional trauma has rushed in to fill its place. when it happened, i had a job to do--bandage, medicate, go to the doctor's. now that part is over, and i am left staring at him, and i am unable to stop crying. and i don't even know what i am crying about, really. it is not just relief, and not just guilt that i was not 0.5 seconds faster, and not just compassion, but something that i cannot describe.

i am pretty certain it is fear.

tonight, ava held a fork to her nose, prongs sticking out, and said "look at me! look at these horns on my nose! i am A DINOSAUR!!!"

and later when she protested going to school for the bazillionth time, i reminded her that "we said that we were going to stick it out til the end of the year"

and she said: "what does it mean to stick it out of the end of your ear?"

we played outside today with the leftover spray bottles of paint (from her birthday party), coloring the snow. very fun.

however, you know you might be overextended when you glance at your legs when getting dressed and realize that the hair on one is noticibly longer than the (also overdue) hair on the other. or when, at 3 am, you look out the bedroom window at the plow going by and wistfully think about how great it would be to get to drive around all by yourself, even if it is in a giant plow scraping along in the middle of the night.