i know i have not written very much. this is due to a variety of factors. first, we are ridiculously busy--we had the bazaar, getting ready for christmas, ava's skating competition (2 gold medals, 1 silver, and 1 bronze), and a crazy circuit of colds through the family members. but also (and this is where the blog gets a little introspective in a slightly cloying way), i just have not felt like it. i mean, i love to write, blah blah blah, and i love to maintain a record of the kid's childhoods, but there is something that i want to change about it. the blog that is. and well, also my life. problem is, i am not entirely sure exactly what i am planning on changing. something. so, my unarticulated plan is to bring the mommy statistics to a close at the end of 09, and start something new for 2010. i am not exactly ready to say why or what it will be, and perhaps that is not the point. but i do know that i am really ready for a change.

on that note, i had better finish 09 with panache, eh?

hmmm...panache. not feeling panache-y though. feeling pretty under the weather, frankly. i am proud of myself for finishing the christmas decorations, and not letting them languish. turns out we had planty of decorations from last year's art bonanza, and so this year's glitter pine cones, felt trees, and finger knitted garland (VERY COOL), made the tree look superb. ava hung red bows along the tops of the curtains and taped up glittery snowflakes on the wall. then --drum roll please -- i made a wreath! woo hoo! we had all sorts of extra branches from trimming the tree to fit the window box, and i had a wreath frame and wire, and ta da! a wreath. i have been planning on that for years. given that they are crazy expensive -- nearly as much as the tree -- i just could not get over the nagging urge to do it myself. and it really did not take long at all. cool part was, all 3 kids enjoyed having a pile of greens on the floor--each child played with them in different ways and the littlest one never bothered to try and eat them. same thing with other natural materials like yarn and fabric and paper. but put a plastic toy in front of her? boom. straight in the mouth. it is pretty interesting.

i have done next to no baking for the holidays though. it is early i suppose. not sure what we will do for that, or for christmas eve dinner. honestly, i would love to go out. i know that is blasphemous, but i don't really want to cook. i want to relax. this is the newest issue for me. i used to love to cook. i had time to take my time, and the results were pretty decent. now, i don't really like to cook, primarily because i am usually fretting over the mess and wondering if the baby will be quiet so i can clean it up, and simultaneously fielding requests from all 3 kids, completely distracting me and all i can think is "fast fast fast--get this done and in the oven or on the table." not surprisingly, the end product is never that great. and even when i think it is pretty good, the kids never like it. the one exception would be the baking that i do with carter. usually that is pretty good. but really, how hard is it to make decent oatmeal or chocolate chip cookies?

i am plowing my way through many novels that have been on my shelf for YEARS. i cannot believe that i have not read them. so excellent. 'a history of the world in 10 1/2 chapters' by julian barnes, 'the translator' by someone else, 'anil's ghost' by michael ondajjte (or however you spell his name--the guy who wrote the english patient), and something else. also plowed through 'nurture shock' by po bronsen -- thank you grandma. everyone must read it. i want all of the teachers to read it. but my goal is to get through my shelf of of unread books. make space for more!

anna is refining her skills. she spent a full 15 minutes opening and closing her hand to herself--watching her fist open and close, as if she were waving. she also is shaking her head "no." this is good.

carter is thrilled--the mountain is open. he and dad are skiing in the rain today. and ava is not happy with school. as usual. winter stikes and she doesn't want to go. 4th year in a row. sigh. but she is learning like a sponge. well i guess that is a stupid metaphor, since sponges don't learn. she is soaking up knowledge and skills like a sponge. that's a bit better.

the christmas bazaar is over. thank god. we can think now. so busy. ava has a competition this weekend, but carter is sick and i am worried that she is going to get it just in time for that.

anna is petrified of the kitchen aid mixer. did i mention that? just in time for baking season.

in fact, she is easily frightened these days. getting more aware.

carter and i made lemon poppyseed cookies today. mmmmm. accidentally overdid it on the butter by 1/2 cup. oops. not exactly a problem.

ava lost her first tooth today! i just happened to be there at the school when it happened. VERY cool. she is so pleased, having waited and waited and waited while her classmates managed to lose what seemed like hundreds of teeth.

now, all the tooth fairy needs to do is figure out how to break a $20 at 8 pm with 3 kids asleep in their beds. otherwise she is going to set a very expensive precedent.

i don't know where to start -- anna is just leaping forward into all sorts of new efforts. first, the talking. she has so many different expressions, but my all time favorite has to be her "oooooooooooooh" -- much like chinese, the meaning all depends on her inflection. one is a request for attention: "ooooOOOh?", one is to note that something hurt a little: "OOOooooohhh", one is to express excitement: "OOOOOOOOOOOH!" and one is sort of a little dialogue with herself about something in her hands: "ooooo. ooo. oooooooo."

the other day she fed me a cheerio. i asked and she plunked it right in my mouth.

she still looks a lot like ava, but yet different. she has a much more elf-like look to her. her features are a bit more pointed. well, by that i mean her chin. her nose is just a nose. not pointy. but there is something more delicate about all of her features.

she adores playing in the playroom with the big legos--and things mixing them up as fast as possible in a pile on her lap is the best thing ever. it makes a great sound.

in the meantime, when we are not adoring anna, we have been very very busy craft-wise. we made felt balls out of raw wool which will hang on the tree, we cut out felt christmas trees and snowmen and decorated them for the tree, we put glitter on pine cones, we made cinnamon ornaments, ava finished her finger knitted scarf and yes some whiteyarn blue so that she can make carter one, i manged to make a hat (SO proud), and we are almost finished with ava's finger knitted garland. if it all works out, we will have a very full christmas tree.

carter has also been busy with his new favorite art supply: the stapler. he staples everything can get his hands on. well, paper-wise. he keeps making "books" but her staples them entirely together so that you cannot open them. it is pretty cute.

they are both at school, after a long break. none of us wanted to go back. i mean, i really really really need a break/vacation/day alone, and i do appreciate the chance to at least have 2 hours, but i felt like i was the meanest mommy in the world when they both clung to me and cried. granted, we had a rough morning, but despite everyone's assurances that this whole school thing is for the best, i harbor some serious doubts. but the one thing i know for sure is that ava is learning like crazy. so...off we go.

ok, so anna is now cruising.

well, that is an exaggeration, but not by much. today she pulled herself up on the window seat edge and moved along it sideways -- the entire length. about 6 feet of stepping sideways.

all she wants to do is practice standing and now stepping. she crawls to me and clambers up my legs to her feet. but she does NOT like having me hold her hands over her head. so i have to get down to her level and put my hands under her arms for support.

i seem to remember something similar with carter or ava, not sure which, but i know it was not at 8 months. neither child walked until 12 months, and though they went about it in very different ways, they definitely did not bother with it until very close to that point.

she also figured out pointing.

all this might explain why she is not sleeping at night, but wow. that does not help me. i am a complete zombie. i have fgured out though that she will lie with her head on my shoulder if i walk or rock with her in the dark. if the light is on though, yippeee!! time to PLAY!

however, her teething is nothing compared to what ava is going through. her molars are unbelievable. all 4 at once, and they are so swollen and bloody. AND she is cutting her 2 bottom adult teeth behind her baby teeth (apparently very common, though we are calling her the great white shark-girl), so that means 6 teeth are coming in at once. she was in tears at school the other day, and i had to go retrieve motrin so she could get through the day. she could not even chew her pizza this evening.

i had no idea this was on the horizon. poor ava is the guinea pig for all of my parenting efforts/trial by error. at least it happens in the context of genuine intention to do my absolute best.

reading-readiness? sure! but 6-year molars? no clue.

it is amazing how relaxing textiles are for kids. we have been playing with wool--felting it into little balls (ultimately for the christmas tree), and today i gave both of them some fabric scraps and scissors. i did not even need to give ava sewing materials. they just sat there and cut and tied and cut and draped--it was great.

even anna likes to get into the act--give her a piece of fabric and she plays peek-a-boo. very well i might add. she LOVES it. she pulls it over her face, i say "where's anna?" and she pulls it away with a HUGE grin. it is really adorable.

skate america was this weekend. very exhausting, but very exciting. not many chances to see the reigning world champions compete. and especially not many chances to have the men's world champion sign your skate. very cool for ava.

i spent the day in carter's classroom today. totally exhausting. no wonder those kids come home in a near-catatonic state. no wonder the teachers look like they do. i think the word is glazed.

i was sort of joking when i said that she was pulling up on things (anna that is), but its no joke now. she immediately crawls over to the couch or chair or whatever it is and tries to stand. sometimes succesfully, sometimes not so successfully.

and i SWEAR she nods.

i would have thought that my observations would be less precise with a 3rd child, but it turns out they are more so. i suppose i know what to look for. either that or anna is REALLY obvious.

right now she is singing to a frozen waffle.

last night, carter was snuggled up to me and i thought he said "mom, someday i am going to have a big appointment."

i said "a big appointment?"

and he said "no. a big APARTMENT."

i said "well, that's great carter. i think that would be wonderful." and then he said "and there will be lots of rooms and you could be there too and there would be a first room and that is the living room and it will have a tv and that could be your living room too because i never want to be without you."

the other day, he was painting/drawing or something at the table, and he looked up and said "mom! i am going to be a famous artist! isn't that great?!"

what is interesting about that is that he has virtually NO interest in art if i say "hey! do you want to do an art project?" and even less interest in writing/fne motor skills. i have to just put the materials out and not say anything.

i can honestly say that swine flu or flu flu or flu-like constellation of symptoms truly stink. we have lost 1.5 weeks of november to television and the warmth of our sweat-drenched beds.

all of us, with the exception of anna, have some variation of "an influenza-like illness."

ava was first, and sent me into the stratosphere when her temp reached 105. she got better, then carter got sick (mom and dad are less acutely ill, but struggling through the days), and then she got sick again. so far, carter has only reached 103.

they are sick in VERY different ways. ava gets so angry at her illness, and carter becomes the most snuggly, lovey-dovey kid in the universe.

ava had several episodes of hallucinations -- that was very disturbing -- and it only happened when her fever dropped to 102 or so. i finally figured out that it must be associated with the motrin. medwatch anyone?

on top of that, ava is cutting her 6-year molars. that makes her EXTRA fun.

and completely under the radar, anna is 8 months old today. and for the 1st time, i felt her teeth. they both have finally broken through.

nedless to say, we missed a whole week of school, skating, everything.

good lord. one week of crawling, and i am chasing her all over the house. and she is trying to pull up on things, and she thinks it is a riot to escape out a door, and she just LOVES the electrical outlets and cords. it took her all of 3 days to figure out that if she pulls the pillow that i placed as a barrier away, it will reveal a gorgeous nest of wires to shake.

anna has figured out how to sit, to crawl, to say mama (she already says dada, though i was not sure if it was dada or not--now that mama is confirmed, i can say yes, it is dada), to clap and to "smile!" all in the past week. crawling was today. clapping was yesterday-ish. she is not completely clapping, one hand is in a fist, but it is definitely 2 hands brought together on the center line.

"di" is this. "da" is that. "nee nee" is hungry/tired. "num num" is yum, now i am not nee nee.

i take it back. anna is sitting up. she conquered that a few days ago...

i don't know if many kids do this, but anna is definitely going to crawl before she can sit up. every last bit of mental and physical effort is going into this goal, to the point that she is practically doing it in her sleep.

oh, and i highly recommend going through old archives (in my case of personal journals, etc) and tossing nearly everything. i saved accounts of special times in my life -- travel and so on -- as well as my class notes; and was ruthless with the rest. none of it was terribly interesting, and most of it was really depressing. to get rid of reams of paper that i have been carting around for years felt GREAT. it is an extremely effective exercise.

ava jumped her first crossrail on sunday. we have a picture of her, in nearly perfect 2-point position, on this HUGE horse jumping over a teeny tiny 6" jump. her face is practically exploding with a smile.

she is really good at riding. sigh.

anna is working very very hard on crawling. when naked, and not encumbered by a humongous diaper, she actually can inch her knees forward, but then her center of gravity is too far forward and she is unable to pick up a hand. or, she can pick up a hand and place it further forward, but she just cannot summon the abdominal strength to draw her knee up from such an extended position. she has considered sitting up, but is simply too top heavy. the operative word would be "timber!"

i cut carter's hair this morning. he looks fabulous. it took me 2 hours. at the end we had such a pile on the floor that it looked like a new cat.

he is excelling in school--i can't believe how motivated he is to write. i need to get him a whole bunch of notebooks--suddenly the desire to conquer that small motor thing is kicking in. little circles everywhere!

i have never had a lot of posessions, and i have always tried to cull my belongings, due to a knowledge of the pleasure of simplicity, as well as to necessity. i have moved a lot in my life. however, there are some things that are easier for me to get rid of than others. easy: clothes. difficult: printed material. i have tackled all of our belongings recently, and dealt with all of it-- clothes, keepsakes, toys, gear, kitchen stuff (a remarkably large percentage of the total stuff), art supplies, gear, bathroom supplies, gear, artworks, and did i say gear? but i have avoided the boxes and boxes of books, and the boxes and boxes of paperwork from all of my schooling. i finally took a deep breath and started with the books. that was satisfying--we have bookshelves now, and with carefuul strategizing, i managed to fit all of them on the shelves -- each shelf has 2 rows. it was an interesting exercise in examining my history. i had to look at the various categories and decide what to keep and what to let go--reference/text books, cookbooks, nonfiction books that i had read, nonfiction books that i had read part of (many of the books from college fit into this category), nonfiction books that i had not yet read, fiction books that i had read, fand iction books that i had not yet read. when looking at the books in the not yet read category, it became very obvious that i should probably stop buying books and get to the ones that are waiting. i managed to get rid of a huge number of books that should not be part of my permanent collection, and in the process shed a bit of some wrong turns in my life. that may sound weird, but when i finally let go of an idea for a career that i might have had in 1994 and the books that went with it, it was a huge relief. kind of like 'wow. that was such a dumb idea, goodbye to that painful past existential crisis!'

of course it felt great. but i still had boxes and boxes of schoolwork. today, i started with that. it is of course interspersed with pages and pages of personal reflection, some of it very illuminating, a lot of it utterly pathetic -- i read a bit of it and cannot believe how preoccupied with certain things i was. and there is a lot of historical record of very very rough times in my life. i am so ambivalent about going through it, but i think i would be a lot better off. this definietly falls under the category of "A GIANT PROJECT" -- today i began by separating elementary/highschool/college--fairfield/college--columbia/post columbia/post-bac premed/post postbac premed. like i said, i had a lot of schooling, and managed to hold onto a great deal of the work involved. i set elementary aside--those original papers have a good bit of sentimental value in and of themselves, if anything because it demonstrates just how completely ridiculous my handwriting was. (of course, it still is). ava will benefit from seeing how much trouble i got in over that. then i had to decide where to start. i dread doing it, but i think i will just start at the beginning. high school.

i am fairly certain this will help me make a lot of sense of myself. Not that i have to do that--doing so seems pretty narcisistic, but it might be applicable in my role as a mom. I hope.

Moreover, it might be fun to see what I remember (Greek? Calculus? Art History? Literary Criticism? Latin?). I can assure you, I can still read greek--lowercase only, but definitely cannot translate it. A history of Modern Germany? Loved the class, could not tell you much about Bismarck anymore. Biology? Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy, to quote Ava.

I would imagine that many many people are laughing (or at least chuckling) at my version of fun...

not feeling too great here in lake placid. mom is definitely struggling. hence the lack of posting...

but, to summarise the past few weeks:

ava cantered for the first time last weekend--she did not mean to at first, she was just trying to get her horse to trot, but he cantered instead. at the time she was practicing without stirrups. so she cantered without stirrups. just fine. of course, i missed it. apparently, the teacher was astonished and ava was ecstatic, so the did it again, this time on purpose and with stirrups. typical ava.

she started gymnastics. not sure if i mentioned that. adores it.

she started ballet. hated it. not going to happen. can't understand it.

school drop off is miserable for her, though she appears to be doing well once she is established in her room.

speaking of school, i am now on the education council (basically a school board). that makes 2 boards that i am a part of. huh. who would have thought? kids change everything.

carter is trying to figure out the world. the questions are relentless. we recently discussed infinity,though he is still processing that. he constantly wants to know how we know things. "how did you know where my school is? how do you know his/her/my name? how is this made? is this a machine? how do you know that?"

the other morning, he announced that he had dreamt about mountain climbing. i nearly dropped the plate i was holding, and said "i dreamt about mountain climbing too!" it was VERY weird.

he is very into counting. and adding. though he makes up his own rules. for him, 0+0= 1.

and he really wants too know why 5+5=10, not 11. or 3+3=6, not 5. so we have been doing lots of visual addition with legos. but he is struggling with the fact that the word/name for a quantity of something is different from the quantity itself. it is amazing what their brains have to confront.

and anna is singing now. it is very adorable.

anna is waving. i swear. people say hi, and she lifts her arm up and down. she also is desperately trying to crawl. she gets up on her hands and knees pretty easily these days, then does the back and forth rocking that looks like she is revving her engine. she does not yet have the strength to pick up a hand or knee, but she is working hard at it. she can definitely move backwards and in a circle on her tummy. i took her to the opthamologist in burlington on monday, and she got an a+ for visual development, so that means the hemangioma has not pressed on her eyelid, which is great. she did have her eyes dilated, and that was pretty interesting. she kept looking at me with this puzzled look on her face, like "what in the world is going on?? i see you, i think, but i am not sure..." and she would wave her hands in front of her, trying to get a handle on the blurs of color and movement.

ava has got an incredible schedule these days. i almost referred to her skating as her "skating career" -- but i stopped myself just in time. she is very excited about it though. she has a locker in the big girl's locker room, she has a training notebook, and she is working hard on learning all of her jumps. the more structured, the better, which sort of is a no brainer for her. she is doing well in school, though every morning is a strain. she still cries when i leave. every day. i think this will go on for years. it kills me. i want her to love school, and i can't make that happen for her.

fall has arrived. it was 32 degrees this morning. we are planning to pick apples, pumpkins, and the cornmaze. when we are going to manage to do that, i have NO idea.

tomorrow, anna will be 6 months old. and she is more than ready to join the world--these days i walk around with her on my hip and her head swivels this way and that in a desperate attempt to see everything that i am doing, and if possible to grab it. her hands go out at everything. near, far, doesn't matter, she reaches to Get It! It is SO Interesting! Let Me Have It NOW!!

she is still pretty much happy go lucky,though she does finally understand that when i leave the room she can yell and i will return. she enjoys this power. she does not really want to be left alone these days, and while i can let her sit for reasonably long periods of time in her jumperoo, when she is ready to get out, she just starts yelling. not crying, just yelling. loud.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

at first she looks like she is enjoying the process of making the sound, but eventually her brow furrows and she stares at me, directing the force of her voice like a laser beam. but the best part is when i pick her up because she always, without fail, lunges into a huge snuggle into my shoulder and neck--she burrows her face in there and squeals and hugs with her arms and bounces with her legs and bottom. and then she looks up and makes eye contact, smiles and squeals. and that is another loud sound that she loves. it seems that her goal is to find the highest possible pitch to express her joy.

and then of course there is her laughter. she loves to laugh. peekaboo will guarantee it, as will a visit to the mirror. but many other things will get her going, and if another person is laughing, she will join in.

sound is basically something she loves. it is pretty much nonstop--either the aforementioned yells and squeals and screams, or mamamamamamamamama, dadadadadadadadadada, buh buh buh buh buh, ya ya ya ya ya ya , di dii di di di di di di,-- even when she is nursing, she tends to sing "mmmmmmm mmmmmm mmmmmm" -- which makes me think fondly of my friend jenny who liked to hum while she ate.

as for eating, she will not take anything off a spoon. i try at least once a day, and she just holds her tongue out and her mouth open in an expression of "ge iii oooo I ooonngguee oooww" -- (get it off my tongue now). but. she loves her little mesh bag that i can fill with fruit, and she even enjoys little pieces of cheerios. in fact, she loves that. i just don't get it. so, i am thinking perhaps we can just skip right over that pureed food part.

of course after eating all that fruit, she is a sticky mess, so we move on to her absolute favorite part of the day, her bath. she gets the prize for most enthusiastic bather. when we are in there, all she wants to do is float on her back and stretch waaaaay out, then kick a bit. she also enjoys splashing and floating on her tummy so that she can stick her face in the water, but really she tries to float on her back as much as possible--she will fling her head back into the water forcefully, and i have to be really prepared for it. it is a very weird thing for a baby to like. most kids desperately try to keep the back of their heads very clear of the water.

we went to the beach today, and she is now strong enough to lie on her tummy and plyy with the sand, which only made it into her mouth 2ce--she really adored spreading it around though--it was fascinating. and she is at the point where if you put her in the middle of the blanket she can squirm and wiggle all over it, often backwards, but sometimes forwards, always in a circle (like a clock). sometimes she even gets herself up on all fours which really makes her proud. she can sit unassisted for a few seconds, and for a long time with someone offering occasional support--she no longer just folds over in half. those stomach muscles are growing!

but truly, the thing that distinguishes anna is quite simply, her joy. the other kids were definitely always happy to see me, or others they knew, but she takes it to another level entirely. when you make eye contact with her, she explodes in a huge grin, so big you can see the muscles in her face straining, and she squeals and laughs and jumps and kicks. it is such a gift to have someone react to you that way. she basically constantly reiterates the phrase everyone needs to hear over and over "you are so loved by me! i adore you. life is so great to have brought you to me." and of course, one can't help but hold her tight and say the same thing to her. and i always add "thank you."

school is almost here...and i will once again be able to update this blog. holy cow, it is impossible to find the time. not to mention that the kid's sleep schedules have all suddenly divested themselves of any sense of harmony. ava suddenly decided that her body won't go to sleep before 9 pm. at least for 3 or 4 days, then she crashes hard at 7:30. but i am usually entertaining her until 9. then i have to run around and do the chores for getting ready for the next day, and get to bed around 10:30. then anna wakes up sometime around 11:30 or midnight and giggles for about 2 hours, and finally drifts off. then carter gets up at 5. it is not the way i envisioned getting one on one time with each of them.

anyway, this morning at 5:05, carter said to me as we sat on the couch and watched the lake placid village municipal vehicles do their job "mommy, do you remember those girls in the lake that were dressed up like watermelons?"

"watermelons?"

"yes"

"where?"

"in the water"

"when we were swimming yesterday?"

"yes"

"carter, i really think this was a dream"

at this he just looked at me, digesting this.

"i guess so"

"tell me what happened in your dream."

"well, i was swimming and i was having trouble getting out onto the dock and these watermelons came up and turned into these girls who helped me get out."

"they saved you?"

"yes"

at this point i was having a hard time not laughing at the image of bobbing lifeguard watermelon fairies, but managed to keep a straight face and we kept discussing dreams.

then he followed this surreal story with "mom, is mary everywhere, like god is?"

the stuff that goes on in his head is truly mindboggling. i love it.

ava got up on the wakeboard last night!

it was her first try ever. this is pretty darn impressive. it involves first getting the wakeboard on her feet--strapping herself into boots connected to a board that is probably bigger than she is (i am fairly certain that if she held it on end and hid behind it, you could not see her), then managing to jump off the back of the boat into the water without clipping herself on the boat itself -- i think she had a bit of assistance on this one -- then getting herself floating on her back with the board in front of her and the rope handle in her hands as the boat slowly idles away, straightening out the rope. she had a helper in the water for this part, but then she swam back to the boat, leaving ava in the water, looking at the rope disappearing over the top of the horizontal board, beyond which she could not see anything. then the boat started and pulled her right up onto the board! this means that she held onto the rope handle as the boat pulled it, and then managed to turn the board from horizontal to straight out in front of her (like a snowboard) as she is moving through the water. if you don't switch the board, you just pitch right forward over the edge back into the water. apparently (i was in the house with anna) she stayed up for 2 or 3 minutes. i am so proud of her.

though now we have skating, riding, skiing, rollerblading, swimming, fishing, rowing, biking, tennis (trying) AND wakeboarding. i am sure there are more, i just can't remember. thank god she does not want to do soccer this year.

we have a lot of gear.

carter declined the offer to ride, which is fine by me.

anna has suddenly recognized that she does not really want people to disappear--she has started to protest when she is put down. she used to follow the 'out of sight, out of mind' maxim, but now she remembers. and she hollers. she is definitely going to make herself heard in the future. she is not yet sitting up, and i think that has something to do with the weight of her upper body. she is currently working hard on small motor skills, desperate to get everything she can in her mouth. last time she was at the doctor, she was about 17.5 pounds. we tried her on solids recently (she is CONSTANTLY hungry), but that was a no go. she still has a very strong gag reflex. she looked at me with wrinkled eyebrows and held her mouth open with her tongue away from the sides of her mouth as if to say "please. get it out now."

and her eyelashes are so long, they tangle.

2 days ago, it started to thunder, and the kids had to come inside. this was very upsetting to carter, who wanted to go out in the boat. when he came inside he said "i am very mad at god right now. could you please tell him to stop?"

unfortunately i have not figured out how to manifest that sort of power, but i certainly appreciated the assumption that i did!

ok, so i have this little issue called ulcerative colitis. had it for a while, it comes and goes, usually a bit of an inconvenience but nothing more. far from glamorous, it is not exactly a condition one wants to chat about. however, today, i am going to break the silence -- just once, i promise.

when i was pregnant, the colitis flared at the end of the pregnancy--it was not painful or anything, but apparently it had a huge impact on my overall health--basically my blood registered nothing in it. ok, that is a bit of an exaggeration, but my labs were quite low. i was not terribly healthy.

so then i had the baby, and everything suddenly was better. it was great. i was full of energy, happiness, and so on.

then a few months ago, i had a weird almost fainting spell, and turns out i was still anemic. ok.

then the colitis flared again. and this time it came back with a vengeance. for the last few weeks i have been in utter misery. i mean total, absolute, "i am going to die" misery. i had all of the blood loss that i had had before, but much much worse, and this time it hurt. everything hurt. my belly was a symphony of pains, i ached everywhere, and i had no energy. this is very difficult with 3 young children. i managed it by not lying down. if i were to lie down, i would not get up for the rest of the day, so i avoided that entirely.

i was waiting for the flare to subside like it usually did, but it was not, so finally, after one particularly excruciating day -- at the end of which i was sure i had no more blood left in my body -- off i went to the doctor. got the requisite steroid prescription and a follow up appointment to schedule a colonoscopy when my "colon is not so angry" -- tell me about it -- in 3 weeks. this was all well and good, and i went on a wild goose chase to find the medicine (let's just say not many people are lining up at the pharmacy for this particular remedy), but i continued to suffer, hands on belly, bent over, trying to smile and make meals for the kids. it really sucked. excuse me.

in desperation, i re-researched dietary advice for my condition. if you have ever researched this topic, you know that "conflicting advice" does not even begin to describe it. if i made a list of all of the food out there, every last one would be on both the don't eat and the eat with abandon list. however, after sorting through a lot of the literature, i finally decided to go with an elimination diet. rather than cut out one thing and seeing if there was an improvement, i decided that the way for me to do this was to follow the advice for people with food intolerances/allergies and eliminate everything except the most non-allergenic foods out there: bananas, rice, lamb, chicken, pears, apples, and some veggies. no dairy, wheat, chocolate, sugar (!), nightshades, corn, nuts, processed foods, etc.

i did allow black coffee. i am not completely insane.

this is obviously a huge challenge. i survive on nuts, i always have a bite of chocolate in the day, and i love cream in my coffee. not to mention all of the corn products i eat, and all of the sandwich crusts and last few bites of mac-n-cheese that i survive on. oh, and the survival bag of wheat thins in the car.

today was the first day. i practically starved to death because all i had in the house that i could eat was rice, but here's the thing: today was the first day i have been pain-free in WEEKS. i cannot believe it. i will eat nothing but rice, chicken and kale (and black coffee) for the rest of my life if it means that i will not have to go through that agony again.

until now, the motivation has not been enough--i was happy to have cream in my coffee and chocolate in the afternoon even if it meant that my condition might suffer, because frankly, it did not hurt--it did not incapacitate me. this time, as i realized that this could go on for a very long time, and that it was getting quite serious, and i was looking at a lifetime of prednisone unless i figured something out, i bit the bullet.

i have no idea if this will continue to work. but it worked today, and i am very grateful for that.

hopefully carter can stop worrying about me. the other day, he asked me if i had enough blood, and where i was getting more.

What a summer. I swear, I think I am just going to keel over in exhaustion. And the interesting thing is, I am fairly certain that having an infant is not really the issue. Well, certainly lugging the car seat (occupied by a nearly 20 lb baby) in the crook of my arm makes things a tad more cumbersome, I will admit. I could get a stroller that the car seat snaps into, but then what to do about the flight of stairs that leads to our front door? Adding the step of bringing a stroller down and then returning upstairs to bring down the baby and bags and other children in order to make things easier seems a bit silly. Anyway, as I was saying, the exhaustion principally stems from entertaining and educating my older kids. First, there is the sheer number of activities that we manage to squeeze in each day, but even more to the point, it is the sheer mental engagement that this requires. From the minute they wake up (somewhere between 3 and 5), to the moment the last one has fallen asleep (8:30ish), it is a nonstop deluge of needs, great and small. It is not just getting them fed and dressed and chores done, which is of course massively time consuming, but it is the answering of probably 20,000 questions (most commonly asked at the same time as the other child), mediating disputes and mitigating disappointments that eventually shorts out the mommy brain. For example, in one minute of a 15 minute car ride, the 2 kids that are currently masters of the English language can manage to request drinks, food, a particular story, no not that one the other one, ask a series of questions about how skyscrapers are built, answer those questions for their younger brother, tick off their younger brother who wanted mommy to answer that and who is then crying but still needs his water, but also dropped his toy, and is yoda the little green man or the little blue and grey robot and yes mom I understand that I should not interrupt carter, but it’s just that we talked about skyscrapers in school and how much homework am I going to have, carter! If you want to go to the beach you should not whine, yes mom, I know I am not the mom—but he IS whining.

But, we are certainly a little unit of chatter, and the summer has helped the relationships—sometimes in a challenging way, but often for the best. Ava and Carter are much closer, though they still battle—their relationship is one of constant admiration and consummate irritation. Of course everyone is in love with Anna, and I feel like I have sort of figured them out a bit. Which does not make things easier in the immediate present (having a perfectionist is just very difficult, even if you know she is a perfectionist), but will help me make better decisions, I hope.

Carter is thrilled to be four—two days after his birthday, he said “mommy? Am I still 4?” He was very relieved to hear that indeed he was. He has always been good at engrossing himself in things, be it books or a story or his toys, but this summer he has taken it to new heights. He is now that child who walks down the sidewalk while reading his new favorite book. He has to take his toys with him everywhere, and after Ava, who really never did toys, this is a novelty. He can be immeasurably sweet, and turn around and snarl at someone how looks at him the wrong way. His pride is very easily wounded (unlike his forehead), and he protects it carefully. He cannot stand hurting himself in front of others, and recently I realized that he is genuinely a bit shy. That sounds impossible to believe, but I think growing older has made him aware of social structures and there are certain situations in which he so desperately wants to be welcomed and admired and accepted that he will avoid them other than risk rejection. Or, more damaging, he will act out in a pseudo-aggressive posturing way in order to establish an aura of not caring about acceptance. When people ignore this and engage him, it all gets dropped. If people react poorly, it gets magnified. But, when he makes a mistake and the tough guy routine is no longer posturing and actually has an impact, he will always apologize. Sometimes he is prompted, sometimes he does it spontaneously. Not only that, he can analyze a lot of his behavior and tell me exactly why he did something or what he was feeling. He will say that he missed me because he is afraid that I might never come back, he will explain why something made him mad, and he can easily tell you if he is afraid of something and why.

Ava does not do that. She feels her emotions and experiences and immediately translates them into her body—they completely circumvent her thinking mind. Which is interesting because she is such a thinker in other respects. But when it comes to issues involving her self, she simply does not articulate what is going on. Not to me and more importantly not to herself. And she definitely does not want anyone else to do so either. So, issues with her tend to be very frustrating, because one feels that there is no conscious resolution. But if I can let go of that need, they do resolve. But those who know me well will know that that is a VERY difficult thing for me to do. And then of course there is the fact that she will simply not leave me alone. Ever. Even if things are not copacetic between us and it would be better for all involved for her to go take a breather, she will not. And those who know me well also know that this is also extremely difficult for me. Tonight, after a very long complicated day for us, things were winding down, and I just wanted a few minutes to read something on the computer. Ava was the only one awake, and we were about to play Othello. I said, “just give me a moment to take a breath and read this, and I will be right with you”…and she said “ok” and (I am not exaggerating) walked into the next room, turned around, and walked back. Thank god it had some humor in it, or I think I might have imploded.

And Anna just smiles and laughs.

i never thought that i would ever get to the bottom of a vial of food coloring, but tonight, i did. it is the night before carter's 4th birthday, and he needed blue icing for his cupcakes. i guess you can make enough cupcakes and batches of playdough in 4 short years to actually use up a favorite color. red (ie pink when mixed with icing) can't be far behind.

for the past few weeks our tv has been "broken." before it mysteriously "broke," the kids were allowed to watch about an hour a day, though i tried to postpone that as long as possible until the day was completely over, and every few days they would go tv-free entirely. i always would consider that a great success. but they had both managed to get into the habit of asking for tv the minute they walked in the door from some activity. usually they were hot and tired and hungry and needing some down time, and i understood the request, but it was driving me nuts. because if i said no, then i was THE MEANEST MOMMY IN THE WHOLE WORLD! and if i said yes, then i berated myself for being the worst mommy in the whole world. however, i could manage the guilt a lot better than the whining and begging and general decompensation so i usually let them watch something from pbs on demand. but then i just got fed up with the habit that they were in--it became almost like a reflex -- "can we watch something?" was the automatic response to the first hint of boredom. and that distressed me. so, one day, i tried and tried but just could not get the darn thing to work. (here is where i can honestly say i love the complicated cable box scenario). 'oh well...i guess we'll just have to find something else to do!' -- and after a few seconds of disconsolate crying that is exactly what they did.

for the first week, they periodically asked if it was working, but really they have now completely forgotten about it. it is amazing. they don't ask at all. and their play time has become a lot more involved. and collaborative.

however, this has resulted in an exponential increase in messes throughout the house--which is ok--i just keep reminding myself that school is starting soon, but yesterday i almost caved. the kids were playing very nicely and quietly in their playroom, and had not emerged to raid the kitchen for supplies--food or art, so i was figuring at least any mess would be free of organic material, paint, and glue, so no big deal...until i caught a glimpse of carter two rooms away from me. i paused and looked again. something did not look right. he had on a shirt and shorts--standard uniform for him, but his hair...it had a strange aura about it. i approached and that is when it came into focus. that aura was pink. his hair was pink. "carter? what did you do to your hair?" carter only smiled, and ava answered: "it's chalk! i made him into a pixie! i ground up pink chalk and colored his hair!"

"oh." i said.

i would have "fixed" the tv then and there if i could have figured out how to avoid getting pink chalk on the living room chairs. instead, i just walked away and pretended that somewhere in the playroom there was not a small mountain of ground up pink chalk just waiting to be distributed on every concievable surface.

then we went to go pick raspberries. pink hair and all.

in the past week or two, ava won freaky friday (a fun skating competition) with her cancan routine while simultaneously turning 6, anna figured out how to splash in the bath--SO FUN!, the ironman was amazing and inspiring as usual, and carter told me that he would be finished on the computer in "two shakes of a ham's tail..."

anna's hair just went through a growth spurt. she went from practically nothing -- and that which she had was so fair, it was impossible to really see it-- to a little whorl of blond hair on the top of her head. it has completely changed her face.

she is so content. she just sits next to me looking around, happy to just be. now i see how people can do things (other than read a novel while he or she nurses) with a baby.

not that i have any objection to forced reading of novels, but it is nice to have 2 hands occasionally.

toady, ava announced that her new favorite colors were pink and gold--not pink and white. this is because her dress for her routine is pink and gold (well, it will be, if i can actually sew it).

in response, i told her "well, always remember that a little gold goes a long way. too much and it is not good."

to which she replied "oh, i know. sort of like soy sauce."

yes. precisely.

carter saw a picture of himself when he was 1.5 years old, and he stared at it for a long time, then finally turned to me and said "why am i so LITTLE in this picture?"

i told him he was only one, and he just stared at it again and said nothing else, but you could just see him processing the information that he was that little once. i am not sure if he found it upsetting or not, because it could have been interpreted 2 ways--one: look how big i am now, or two: i have not always been big and strong and was once small and weak. the former conveys a sense of accomplishment, the latter a sense of imperfection.

interestingly, he has no issue looking at pictures of himself as a baby. it is that "small person" stage that he dislikes.

anna went to the doctor this morning for her 4-mo check up. all is well, and as suspected she is huge. nearly 16 pbs, so that is 88th %ile, which is not mind bogggling or anything, but she is 27 inches long, which puts her in the 99th %ile. head circumference is big too-not sure of the measurement, but it was 95th %ile. her length is the part that keeps amazing me, mostly because she was the smallest of the 3. she also got a shot, and did not make a sound. not a single sound, not a tear, not a gulp--nothing. the only way you would have known something happened was that she sat up a bit straighter (she was in my lap), and her eyes sprung wide open for a moment -- then she just stared at poor nurse lisa with an expression of "i know you did this to me, and i am going to remember you -- trust me. i will not let you pick me up ever again."

on july 1, anna rolled over--from back to front, and then the next day she went from front to back. now she won't stop. as soon as i put her down for a diaper change she arches her back and starts to flip over. the other morning she was awake before me, and lying there in bed cooing at everything, poking me in the face, yammering on and on. i finally woke up and opened my eyes to be greeted by her face about inches from mine. when she saw me open my eyes she immediately grinned and made a happy sigh, almost like "hooray! you are awake!"

i told her to whisper and we headed out to the living room where i was able to play alone with her for a little bit. she loves big smooches on her cheeks and laughs her ridiculous low-pitched "aaaahhhh" laugh. sometimes she squeals, but that is usually when she is in her bouncy seat and sees me from across the room. when tickled or otherwise made to laugh up close her laugh is less a laugh than a guffaw. her other favorite thing to do is blow bubbles. all day long. with sound. the best part is that when i do it back to her, she thinks it is hysterical, and she does it even more. she definitely gets the "Most Verbal Baby" award in this family.

phew. the school is going to stay open. a monumental effort by parents, teachers, staff, alumni, parishoners, and kids and we did it. raised enrollment by 25%, and raised a lot of money.

anna continues to talk up a storm, and will talk to anyone or anything. i finally got her a play-yard thing, so she has a safe place to roll around in. apparently they are not for keeping kids confined, but rather for keeping them safe from marauding bands of older siblings.

carter is now completely obsessed with superheroes, and now that ava learned that there are women superheroes, she is getting into the act. today, she wanted to dress up like wonderwoman. i sort of hedged on showing her a picture of wonderwoman (they know about all of the superfriends only from me talking about them in the car -- i have been reciting the plots of as many 1970 saturday morning shows that i can remember), because i knew we had very little that could pass as a wonderwoman costume, since all of ava's clothes are pink, white, and black. finally she bugged me enough that i showed her a picture.

note: do NOT image google "wonderwoman" "batgirl" or "catwoman" with the kids around. i leave it to you to figure out why.

i found a pg-rated image of wonderwoman, and she studied it very carefully. then she pulled out a pair of navy tights, cut them so that she had short shorts, used the remaining legs as wonderwoman's boots (never mind that hers were really red, navy was just fine for ava). then she found a red t-shirt, tucked it into her navy short shorts, then drew white stars on her "shorts" and a yellow eagle on her t-shirt. no, she did not ask if she could do that, but i decided not to say anything at the destruction of the shirt in the name of creativity. then she got a lasso. all in the span of 10 minutes.

i could not believe it. if she could have figured out how to make an invisible airplane, she would have.

and even better: she appears to be growing out of the 5-year-old behavior that has been causing me to pull my hair out. all year she has been overreacting, getting very very instantly jealous or mad or or sad or frantic or whatever--if something wronged her, she would leap to the most extreme emotional state she could muster. which is typical of most small children, however, ava would then add fuel to the fire by getting even more worked up when people justifiably reacted negatively to her behavior.

for a solid year i have worked very very hard at staying calm and saying to her something like "that is a completely unacceptable way to speak to me...." or something along those lines. a clear disapproval, a statement of what was not ok, and a suggestion of a better manner of speaking or acting. i did not always succeed, but generally i managed to stay calm.

(it was a very challenging year).

now, the overreacting has not stopped, but she has stopped the snowball effect of reacting to everyone's reactions--for example, today she was sweaty and hungry and had to go potty at the rink and she came off the ice and started barking at me--just uber-grumpy. i said very little, but took her to the bathroom and then when she came out i said "ava, you can skate, or you can go home, it is entirely up to you, but i do not want to hear you speak to me like that. i did not come here to be barked at."

she looked at me and said "mommy, i'm sorry for speaking to you like that. i don't want to bark at you."

and that was the end of it.

YIPPPEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

another example: the other day, despite tons of things going her way, she was whining about everything. nonstop misery. i was extremely irritated, and it was all i could do not to launch into one of those "don't you know there are kids starving in this world? kids who have NOTHING?... " and so on. finally, in the car i turned to her and said "for the love of god, what is wrong?! because as far as i can see, your day has been pretty darn good. perhaps not terribly exciting, but not bad by any stretch!" and she looked at me and said "i'm sorry. i don't know why i am crying and whining. there's nothing wrong. for some reason, i think i just need to cry." and she did, and then it was over. i said "now i understand. i get like that too sometimes."

yesterday, carter was crying and she said "carter, please stop crying, you are making me want to cry." -- i nearly jumped with joy over that one. a clear articulation of empathy.

watching your children grasp empathy can be a very tortuous process. i think the rumblings of empathy are there very early, and you can see it often. but not always. and when it appears to be absent, you start to fret. but there are so many competing thought processes and emotions in a young child's mind, it really is no wonder that thinking about other people gets abandoned at times. it is becoming clear that as she gets older, it is getting easier to do some parallel processing of all those thoughts and emotions.

in short, it is pretty cool to see her taking shape as the person she is going to become. it is almost like she is emerging--well, i hate to use the obvious butterfly analogy here, but frankly that is sort of appropriate. as an infant and toddler, she was completely attached--practically still a part of me. then the preschool and kindergarten years have been this long, arduous process of figuring out how to be separate and independent, yet not isolated. i think (and i may be wrong here) that she is just starting to become self aware and confident--pleased to be a distinct person, and not afraid, yet still very confident in her closeness to me.

at least i hope that is what is going on.

where have i been?

www.savesaintagnes.blogspot.com

i am not sure if i have posted this before, but anna has a strawberry hemangioma on her eyelid. this is basically a proliferation of capillaries that sometimes can grow quite large, then eventually cuts off its own blood supply and goes away. technically it is a benign tumor. kids get tehm everywhere, and they are usuay nothing more than a cosmetic nuisance. however, the one place you do not want it is on the eyelid or near the mouth. mouth because it can obstruct nursing, and eyelid because it can obstruct vision. so on tesday the kids and i went to the opthamologist in burlington. that was a blast. 3 kids under 6, forced to sit still for 2.5 hours then asked to behave in a doctor's office for an hour. mommy was not the most composed human being by the end of the day. but the doctor felt that it was not impacting her vision, and she was comfortable seeing her in 3 months. the hemangioma is not on the eyeball part of her lid, so is not pressing on it, and it is not preventing her eyelid from opening. so, another watch and wait thing.

she was 3 months old almost 2 weeks ago, and almost right at that point she gained the use of her hands. her dexterity just imcreased on a logarithmic scale--first she was aiming her fist at things and within days she was almost using a pincher grip (almost...). The joy she expresses when she sees one of her toys is so infectious, and as soon as she finally succeeds in graspint part of it she urgently shoves it into her mouth to complete her investigation of the object. she is also desperately trying to roll over.

but the best part is that she is now truly laughing. especially when i blow raspberries (little ones) on her cheeks. and her laugh is this sort of yell/raspy exhale that doesn't exactly match her appearance.but it fist with her pattern of using her nasal passages to make noise. seh still makes this grunt from the back of her nose in greeting. it is the weirdest and cutest thing.

she is also HUGE.

carter managed to break the turtle's tank. fortunately the glass held together and nothing leaked (praise be to god), and we happened to have a relatively comfortable plastic bin lying around. i am tempted not to replace the glass tank until the end of the summer, but i have no idea if a turtle can survive in plastic.

when ava was younger, she peppered me with a ot of intriguing questions, but the standard-issue kid queries were never part of them. on the other hand, in the last week carter has managed to ask me why the sky is blue, how anna managed to actually get inside my belly, and if god really is in tucker. the questions are never ending and tend to be accompanied by a series of follow-up questions to further clarify the answer. it just amazes me how different they are.

another example is how they deal with my absence. ava just doesn't deal with it at all--she tends to completely decompensate and when i return she never provides any self-analysis or insight into her struggle. carter never bats an eye, but when i come home he usually goes on at length about how he missed me, and how he loves me, etc. the other night he even went sofar as to say "mommy, i missed you so much, i was so afraid that something would happen to you and you would never come back!"

i was floored and almost said "YOU? you were worried about THAT? but you are so confident!"

and then i looked at ava, who was busy drawing, and wondered if she has ever even allowed herself to articulate that fear in a dream, let alone consciously.

yesterday it was announced that ava's school is going to close, unless they manage to find 10-15 more kids in the next 2 weeks. that is about as likely as me heading off to paris for the weekend, so now i am left with the biggest sense of dislocation i have felt in a long time. the only other option is the public elementary school, which has a decent reputation, but would mean putting her in a huge class. or at least huge for her.

which might work out, but the thing that kills me is that both kids have come to identify st agnes as their school. despite all of ava's struggles this year, they see it as a wonderful place, they know everyone, it is just their school. it IS school. they have known no other, really.

AND i just adopted the pre-k turtle for the summer. i'll be damned if i am going to permanently adopt tucker. even if he does not bark, smell, or jump on me in the middle of the night.

he really does not smell. that is the interesting part. his food however is another story.

i just cannot believe it. and to do this to all of the teachers at the absolute end of the year is just terrible.

carter had a staph infection on his foot. we think it was an infected blister. he woke up yesterday complaining about his foot. i thought his leg was asleep. a half hour later he was still complaining, and since he rarely complains like that, i took a look. there was a rather large whitish, raised circle on the ball of his foot, and it was very tender. i could not tell if it was a blister, a wart, or an infected splinter or other object. but pretty quickly it got redder around the outside and larger, so as soon as the doctor's office was open, i called. at 10 am, i looked again, and it was disgusting, and really astounding at how rapidly it had progressed.

by noon, at the doctor's office, he was in tears, curled up in my lap. that is really not normal for him. the nurse and the doctor looked at it and both said "eeeww." and then they both asked me how i could have possibly resisted the urge to pop it. i admitted to desperately wanting to open it, but that i really did not want to risk doing so, in the event that 10,000 baby spiders crawled out or something (it was that big and gross looking). i was really really really afraid that it was MRSA (resistant staph), and the doctor knew this and told me that she had had plenty of kids with MRSA who were just fine.

the doctor drained it, cultured it, and prescribed major antibiotics. today she told us it was almost certainly staph, and tomorrow we will know if it was MRSA. there is nothing like a brush with a major bacterium to unsettle you.

so, bandaged foot and all, he graduated from pk3 today. as expected, this prompted a lot of reflection on the past year, and it really is amazing how much he has grown up. he was still nearly a toddler then, and is a kid now. three was a weird year for me as a mom. it is hard to explain. with ava, even though she is so so so different from me, she is still a girl, and she identifies with me as such (despite her utter disappointment in me when i put on the same old yoga pants and grey t-shirt one morning: "mo-om, why do you always have to wear that?"), and i identified with her. so, as she has grown up and away from me into her own person, there has been a struggle to untangle her from me. in other words, she wants to be unique and independent, but she is so fundamentally similar to be just by virtue of being a girl that she struggles to carve out her own identity--and if she goes too far in doing that she gets frightened and snaps back to me like she is wrapped in a rubber band. it is very tangled and complicated with her. her identity and my nurturing are too mixed up together. i say that like it is a problem, but when i say too mixed up, i just mean too mixed up for this to be an easy process. it is what it is. there are things that are easy with her, and things that are not, just like with anyone.

however, with carter, it is the absolute opposite. he is a boy and very much a boy at that. he just comes with an entire fundamental identity that is very different from me and he knows it and he does not really care that he and i are not connected in that way. his connection to me is very clear--i nurture him. so, he has no problem separating his existence as a person from his need to be snuggled and comforted and taken care of. when that need is met, he pops up and runs off to go be the little guy he likes to be. i am not sure this makes sense at all, but from my point of view it was a weird realization that i might not have to go through years of separation anxiety with him. granted, he still has some days when he does not want me to go, but generally he does not behave like i am tearing out half of his personna when i leave.

however, it has taken some adjustment on my part as i watch him connect with the men in his life in a way that i simply cannot grasp. i can certainly identify the things that interest him, and some of them even interest me (dinosaurs, space), and willingly learn about those things that do not interest me (vehicles, superheroes), but this year in particular saw the evolution of a very different way of thinking about these interests. to explain that would take perhaps a whole book, but suffice it to say that it was not a way that i immediately understood. there was a lot of interest in things that conferred power, and a lot of interest in good guys and bad guys, and there was a lot of interest in building structures out of blocks and running through the house holding a plane or helicopter aloft and making engine noises, and basically sorting out how the world works. now, i will not state that this is definitely gender based, but interestingly it was a means for him to connect with other males.

now, for a part of this year--pretty much in the beginning--i was the one with the separation anxiety, as i watched him apparently growing away from me, becoming more foreign to me. i could see that i simply was not as fun or exciting or interesting as some other male individuals in his life were, and i was left sort of bummed out. of course, every evening he would curl up with me, and i filled a need that was still rather acute, but i knew that this would eventually end, and i definitely did not want to end up not being able to relate at all.

as the year has drawn to a close, this as ever so subtly changed. he is still interested in a lot of things that i would not normally even notice (again, vehicles), but his way of thinking has changed. he has suddenly become more abstract in his analysis of the world, considering things more deeply, and wants to have conversations about them. for example, when i said "god is everywhere" (i refrained from launching into a full-scale physics lesson about the nature of energy and the connection between god and energy as i see it), he spent about a week asking me if god was in the various things he saw in his environment--the lake, his sneaker, the bricks, dogs, his bike, the rain, trees, fire hydrants, mailboxes...the last one giving me fits of giggles that were very hard to explain, but isn't it funny to think of god arriving in your mailbox? open it up and out pops the divine.

he has always been interested in god, existence, etc., but his thinking has taken on a new complexity. also, he tends to be a kid that really trys to decipher everything. the meaning of things, the way everything fits together--and this he and i can connect on.

the way i look at it, 3 was the year that he pulled away from me, and then returned as a kid that might be unique and different from me on the surface, but still a person that i can understand and who can understand me without confusing that for being the same person. he is not tangled up with me. i will never be able to play good guys/bad guys with true enthusiasm, and i will never drive a race car, or a big digger, but i have a certain weath of knowledge due to my greater number of years on the planet, and he likes to tap that. that is pretty cool. and he still snuggles up with me.

kindergarten graduation is tomorrow. i cannot believe that we have made it through the year. it was a very very difficult year for her in many many ways. i am not sure how valuable her school experience actually was. there is a lot that she loved, and a lot that she is proud of, and she obviously learns very well from other adults, but all that came at the expense of a lot of her happiness, confidence, and frankly, health. and i am not sure how much the experience exacerbated the above-mentioned tangled-ness with me. i love school, i am a total nerd, but in hindsight i think that if she had not gone through these past 3 years she might have untangled herself a lot more slowly and in a way that was not too scary to her. her school experience was very rewarding in many ways, as i said, but if i had known how it would impact her i probably would have done it differently. i am not sure i am thrilled with where we are now, and i am not sure if the summer is enough time to remedy some of the snarls we have found ourselves in. she is just not like most kids. for example, we had a very toned down stranger danger discussion because she wanted to use the beach bathroom by herself. i did not go into any details, but made the point that there are some people that are not nice and i don't want her alone with them. her reaction? absolute FURY with me. i mean she was livid. clearly it was absurd and a manifestation of her fear, but wow. i let it go. but that sums her up--she is so incredibly intense that sometimes she gets angry at me for upping the intensity. i don't know, it is very hard to figure out.

(speaking of fear, the other day carter and i read "are you my mother?"at the doctor's office, and when i finished it he declared that it was a very scary book. frankly, i have to agree with him. i never understood why that little bird was so cheerful as he fell 30 feet then went on a search for his missing mother).

at any rate, we'll see where the summer leads us. right now, she is pretty proud of herself and looking forward to first grade.

i wonder what anna is going to be like.

today was very summer-y. carter went around the lake on his bike with peter, and ava nad i met up with them at the beach. then peter left and the kids and i stayed at the beach for 4 hours. very nice.

however, my little speech to carter about sharing backfired on me. i told him that if one brings toys to the beach, one must share them. period. if a toy is precious, then don't bring it.

i forgot to add, "if you want to use someone else's toys, you must ask"

he marched right up to a mom and kid with some very compelling toys and said "you know, if you bring a toy to the beach, you HAVE to share it."

oh god, ground swallow me now.

so we revisited the topic, with a little more nuance to the conversation.

then we came home and made rhubarb crisp. that was fun. messy though.

the whole time, anna slept. basically she was asleep from 9 am to 3 pm. this is disconcerting, but she has no fever and is happy and laughing and trying to get my attention right now by blowing bubbles at me.

school is almost over--pk3 graduation is tuesday and kindergarten graduation is wednesday. this is both superb and worrisome. i am fairly certain that emotions will be on a more even keel when we do not have to get up and ready to go, and ava is not subjected to her self-imposed perfectionism for 6 hours a day. that tends to exhaust her and she comes home ready to explode. i am so ambivalent about this whole school thing--i loved school as a kid, and still do, but as a parent i can now see what a tremendous drain on a kid it actually is. i can't stand that we have no time to do things together, and i despise that her best behavior is reserved for other adults. and it is only just starting.

however, i am definitely going to miss the time with only 2 kids, or 1 when carter is there, and i have to admit that i enjoy tapping into other people's creativity. it lessens the pressure.

we got a plot in the community garden! we turned the soil yesterday, which gave me even more respect for all those women with children slung on their backs and hips as they toil in the fields. i can tell you, 2 hours of shoveling soil with anna in the sling was backbreaking. it was worth it though--the kids love it, and ava calls it the imperial garden -- based on a magic treehouse book in which the characters visit ancient china and land in the emperor's imperial garden. i love that.

our day was cut short though when a storm blew through, bringing high winds, hail, and snow -- everything was blowing sideways, and we ran to the car in suddenly 30 degree weather (the temperature probably dropped 30 degrees in a matter of minutes) only to find that the battery was dead. that was really fun. 1 hour later we were up and running again, but not before the kids had exhausted their patience and goodwill towards each other. we arrived home hungry, grumpy, freezing and filthy. casting aside our concerns about industrial food, we immediately called main st pizza.

hopefully that has not dampened their enthusiasm for gardening--i tried to explain that it really doesn't often snow on may 31, but i am not sure they believed me.

last night carter was playing with a feather from our down comforter. after a blowing it up in the air a few times, he decided to lick it. the result was predictable--it stuck to his tongue and lips, but it was pretty funny. so he asked if i wanted to try it.

i said "no thanks, i don't really feel like licking a goose."

(this is something i tend to do when the kids put fingers that have recently been somewhere unsavory in their mouth--i say "well, you might as well be licking the sidewalk/windowsill/cat/etc")

cater looked at me for a moment, then said quietly "a goose?"

i said "yes, these feathers came from a goose."

he looked at me, very very seriously, then tearfully said "a dead goose?"

i paused, wishing for a rewind button, and finally said "yes, a dead goose."

"the POOR GOOSE!!!" carter cried.

as happy as i was that he had such a profound degree of empathy for the suffering of the goose, i did not want nightmares, so i tried to do some damage control, and talked a bit about using all of the goose, thanking the goose, hoping it had a good life, etc. that seemed to mollify him.

interesting that the feathers were the connection. he has been eating meat forever, without ever asking about the origin (though i do make a distinction between ok meat and not ok meat--ok meat comes from happy cows, not ok meat comes from sad cows--that is a tremendous oversimplification, but i figure he has a lot of time to learn about the evils of CAFOs). i suppose feathers are a lot more obviously part of an animal.

with the exception of the time it was on in the ER when carter was 2.5 years old and getting sutures, the kids have never watched spongebob. ever. i have a thing about spongebob, though i am not sure what, because i have never watched it either. it has something to do with media and consumerism and marketing and well, frankly, the aesthetics of it all. i just don't like the way spongebob looks i guess.

anyway, there are enough mommy-sanctioned shows on tv that i do not feel in the least like i am depriving my kids, even when their peers look at them oddly when they admit to not knowing that sponge bob or hanna montana (another rant entirely) are actually tv shows.

so, imagine my surprise when carter made a beeline for the spongebob fruit snacks in the grocery store. now i also hate fruit snacks, though with a grudging appreciation for their usefullness. they represent a confluence of literally all the things i can't stand about kid-culture: tv, sugar (or really high fructose corn syrup), loads of other ridiculous ingredients, deceptive marketing (fruit? how many times do i have to explain to the kids that they are NOT fruit???), industrial food--and so on.

but did he go for the diego fruit snacks? the spiderman fruit snacks? scooby snacks?? oh, no. he went for the manic yellow sponge. and THEN he had to sing, at the top of his lungs:

"sponge BOB! i love sponge BOB! spuuuuuuuunnnnge Ba a a a a a a a aaaaaaB! SPONGE BOB!!!"

oh my god.

for me to say "but carter, you don't even watch sponge bob!" would have technically been true, but it would have sounded like a mother trying to cover up her parenting lapses. so, i let it slide, and threw the box in the cart only to put it back on the shelf next to the triscuits when carter wasn't looking.

i am just floored by the power of that god forsaken sponge. and i am starting to grasp that unless we move to namibia, he is going to win. which really ticks me off.

carter and i were walking home from dropping ava off at school, and he looked at me and said "mommy, remember the dream i had when you were driving the boat and i told you to push the throttle forward and you pulled it backwards and we started going backwards and then you pushed it really fast forwards and then we went really really fast and then we went so fast we flew into the sky?"

now this dream is very interesting for a few reasons: first, he assumes that if he dreamt it, i have access to it in my head. obviously he is still working under the assumption that what he thinks i think. or, to put it more bluntly, that i can read his mind. this explains a lot.

second, i NEVER drive the boat. i am glad to hear that at least carter has the confidence in me to trust me with the controls.

third, wow, what a dream!

so then i asked him if he had other dreams that he remembered. "oh, yes! i have lots of dreams" he said. ava never shares her dreams, and i get the impression that although she keeps up a running audible commentary throughout the night, she does not ever remember her dreams. carter went on to tell me about the dragon in the cottage, but it was a baby dragon, otherwise it never would have fit in the cottage, as well as a really scary dream about an old man that was finished living in his body (an expression i have used when he asked me about dying), that could not die and underwent a particularly harrowing series of attempts at death. this one stopped me in my tracks because carter is so carefree and happy that it is very hard to imagine him having such an intense existential dream. there were a couple others that i cannot recall right now, but the entire conversation was very illuminating.

on saturday we all went to the movies for the fist time. the kids have been to several IMAX films, but never a feature length--the disney nature film earth was playing and we figured this was a good start. very national geographic/mutual of omaha wild kingdom- esque. in other words, it had some educational value. the kids loved it, felt very special, and clearly paid close attention. it made a deep impact on both of them--the whole event of going to the theatre, getting popcorn, etc. very different from the tv.

of course as we were leaving, we walked past the other theatre where some very loud intense music was going on--carter was dying to know what it was, and i said "i think that is a scary movie" and both kids really wanted to peek in. over my vehement objections they ran to the door and pulled it open a crack--fortunately you cannot see the screen from that perspective -- and just as they got it about 4 inches open an absolutely deafening explosion of terrifying noise flew through that crack and into their surprised heads and they both turned around and ran away as fast as they could possibly get. i could not help but laugh -- though i kept the "i told you so!" to myself.

anna is 13 pounds, and still sniffling, though she has no idea that this is not normal. when she starts to feel better, i think she will be amazed at what breathing is actually like. she loves to talk--as soon as you appear in front of her, her face lights up and she just starts oooing and ahhing and now she is starting to squeal and laugh a bit. and she can face forwards in the bjorn, which is a treat for her as long as she is not sleepy. i always wonder if she knows she is next to me when she is facing that way though.

today it is supposed to be in the high 80s. woohoo! beach day!

ok, i finally have a moment to write about ava's skate competition. approximately 3 weeks ago, ava had her fist skating competition. the weeks that led up to it were filled with an unbelievable amount of parental stress that we tried desperately to hide from ava--between figuring out how to transfer a family of 5 one of whom was a newborn, plus a coach, plus assorted gear approximately 5 hours south for 3 days, and making sure ava was ready to actually compete, and trying to figure out for ourselves exactly what this would entail (not to mention fretting about the hotel room reservation, what the exact color of ava's tights should be, and remembering to buy bobby pins and hair nets, and worrying if ava would pull it off) we were sort of nervous. however, ava was not. she dutifully went to practice every day, and did her routine over and over and over again. the prep was rather intense for her, yet she never batted an eye. towards the end several of her peers atarted saying "i hope you win!...i hope you get a gold medal!...etc" and this created a bit of a snafu when ava internalized this and started pressuring herself. so we very quickly did some emergency sports psychology and intervened with our own mantras: this is supposed to be fun--that is the most important part--if you go out there, have fun, do everything you have been taught, then it will be a success. winning is not the point, and so on.

on the thursday before the competition, ava stayed home from school, and while carter was at pre-k, we loaded up our stuff. the kids and i left lake placid at 11 am, and moseyed on down to darien, ct, on the way picking up her coach at the albany airport. at 8 pm we arrived at the hotel. the 5-hour drive took us 9 hours, but it was accomplished without any major meltdowns. after a mandatory swim and dinner, the kids crashed at 10 pm. very late for them. like 3 hours late. and then at 6 am we were up, because the only practice ice was at 7 am. ava grumbled about it, but once she was on the ice, she was focused. she was out there with 25 other very big, very advanced skaters and she held her own, doing her spiral right through all of their spins nad jumps, never flinching. i, on the other hand, cannot watch that chaos. at least with riding, there is a set protocol as to who goes where--who takes the outside line, etc. here it is just a free for all. after about 20 minutes she was ready for swimming and breakfast so we headed home and got the most bizzare roomservice and nearly blinded the kids with the chlorine in the pool. it was a beautiful day so we went to the norwalk aquarium which was generally a success, but since the kids were so incredibly tired we had a few meltdowns here and there. nothing ice cream and chicken tenders couldn't fix. that afternoon nana arrived, and so we then had 3 adults for 3 children. a beautiful ratio. peter arrived later, after the kids had fallen asleep

early to bed and early to rise the next morning, and ava awoke with a very obvious sense of purpose. i did not have to ask her to do anything--we just got ready for the competition. we got to the arena, and ava and lorna headed off to get ready and get on the practice ice. ava never wavered--it was like she had done it a billion times before. carter, anna, peter and i went to the snack bar, where peter's nerves were obviously influencing him--he was an absolute bundle of tension, so i made every effort to find things to do. i figured leaving him alone was for the best. ava finished her practice, came off the ice, ate breakfast and got ready for the start of her first event. she was in the first event of the day, and ended up being the first skater too. they have a 5-minute warm up where the competitors all go out together, then they come off the ice and the first skater stays on to do her program. so, ava was literally the first skater on the new ice--as they announce the warm up, they announce the kids, and so ava was the first to step out, leading her group around the perimeter of the rink. here she was, at least 10 inches smaller than any of the other girls in her official lake placid jacket, leading the pack around. then they all dispersed to do their thing, and then it was time for ava to go. i was truly shaking with nerves. they announced her and she went to her spot in the rink, her music started and she did one of the most beautiful programs i have yet to see her do. and lo and behold, the audience clapped for her too! she hit every element, and was poised and beautiful. at the very end, right before her final spin she sat down, and yet she got right up again, finished her spin and her routine, curtseyed and was done. i could not believe how well she had done. she did not forget anything, she did everything very well, and was like a tiny professional. it was pretty obvious that the other skaters were more advanced than she was and that she would probably not place in the top 3, so we did not make a big deal out of results and just whisked everyone to the hotel to jump in the pool. after a long swim, a change of outfits and some lunch at wendy's, we went back to the competition. while she and lorna were getting ready, i snuck a peek at the results. she came in 6th, however, one of the judges had ranked her 1st. (how they figure out the final rankings is very confusing). i was beside myself with pride. so i ran off to tell lorna and let her tell ava--i was sure it would confuse her that she got a 1st from 1 judge but still did not get a medal. this really energized both of them, and they finished getting ready for ava's second event, "interpretive" -- this is a clever event, where the coaches are not allowed anywhere near the kids--all of the kids go on the ice and are presented with a piece of music chosen by the event staff. they hear it 2ce, and then they are all ushered off the ice. then they are put somewhere where they cannot see or hear the competition (in this case outside) and each skater comes in one by one and hears the music one more time before they go out on the ice and make up a routine to it. it is judged not on how many jumps etc the skater does, but how well they interpret the music. ava sat all the way on the other side of the rink, all by herself, and when she went on the ice for the first listen the song ended up being one that she had practiced to at home. this was superb. as she listened the first time, she did not skate--she just watched the other girls. then she started to put some stuff together for the second listen. then when it was her turn, she went out there and skated beautifully, doing one of the best spirals i have ever seen her do. she included all of the things lorna told her that she had to do (change of direction etc), and ended it exactly at the same time as the music. we erupted in cheers. 20 minutes later, they posted the results, and ava got 2nd place. so she medaled, got to stand on the podium, and was beside herself with pride.

by 4 pm, we loaded everyone into the cars, and by 10 pm we were home. with the help of several disney dvds...

it was a smashing success. when i asked her how she liked competing, she said "I LOVE IT."

uhhh...let's see. anna went to her well-child visit on monday, she is 12.5 pounds and 24 inches, 88th percentile for weight, 95th for height--basically a butterball. and since she has carters structure, her buttery-ness is all in the middle, so she does look a bit like a ball when in her bouncy seat. it is very cute. everything else is fine, except that she does have a strawberry hemangioma on her eyelid. generally, a strawberry mark is not an issue, as they eventually go away, but often they grow fast before they go away, and in this case it could interfere w/ her eye opening. and thus it could interfere with her vision development. which means treating it with steroids. the doctor said "it seems like it is always the parents that are the least likely to be ok with steroids (ie crunchy no medicine organic-y folks) that are put in the position of having to use them." we are by no means in that position yet, but it is a possibility. currently it is wait and see.

ava had her second riding lesson, both kids adore the barn because it means free space to run around in, bunnies, cats, kittens, a pile of dirt and lots of trucks, and an 8-year old very happy to play with the kids.

riding and skating. great!

carter is going to have his first playdate today. his friend is coming over after school, and will be here until i bring them both back to the school for elder-sibling pickup. it will be interesting. it is so nice though that he is finally not relegated to playing peripherally with ava's friends. because when that happens, ava is very quick to prove to her friend how much older she is. "oh, carter...why don't you go play with your helicopter or something? we have some important things to do..." or something like that. then she will turn to her friend and say "i love my brother and everything, but sometimes he is really annoying."

i think the experience of motherhood is nicely described by the following:

this evening, after changing anna's poopy diaper, i set about the task of clearing her nose, since she has caught the next round of viruses coming from kindergarten. as i bent over her, delicately pulling on a rather large, gooey booger so as to get it out intact, i paused and looked at her little nose, in particular her little teeny tiny absolutely perfect nostrils, and i was moved nearly to tears by the perfection and symmetry and incredible-ness that somehow these were created from just a tiny little bunch of cells, and for the millionth time i sat back and wondered at the magic of it.

and then i finished pulling the crusty bits out of her nose.

anna is absolutely huge. she is officially out of her 0-3 month clothes. when she is fed, well rested and dry, she spends most of her time smiling and laughing. she is still quite soft spoken, preferring to stare at you and quietly say "goo...ah goo...glah gooo" and "ooohhh...oohhhh...allloooo" (which of course sounds like hello) in a teeny tiny voice. and of course "aabllllleehhh"

my only major concern is that she still does not appear to have tears--there was a point where her eyes watered early on, but that stopped, and now she seems to get an inordinate amount of crusty gunk, and i am wondering if her tear ducts are blocked. she has a well-child visit soon, so i will ask then.

carter is currently making snickerdoodles. technically i am helping him, but he has been tasked with filling the 1 cup measure with sugar, and i can't watch. i will just end up hovering and saying "no. no! noooo! careful!" as the sugar goes everywhere, and since that is completely inevitable no matter how much micromanaging i do, i think it is best that i not ruin the atmosphere and step away.

anna was congested all week, but no fever or anything other than a stuffy nose, but i called the doctor anyway, just in case. they said they wanted to see her, so we traipsed to the office again and as expected, she is fine, and as a matter of fact thriving. in 4 days she managed to gain half a pound, and is now a solid 10 lbs. that made the visit worthwhile.

we spent the weekend at the paul smiths pool (pauls smiths is a local college), and the kids were in absolute heaven. it is really great there--very relaxed, fun, the lifeguards all seem to love kids, they cheered carter when he went off the diving board (a real springboard about 4 feet or maybe more off the water), -- more to the point, they actually HAVE a diving board, and they supply a ton of floatation and swim accessories for everyone to use.

tonight, i was helping carter put on his jammies, and i said "you know, we really have to get you doing this yourself...you know how..." and he said "but mom! i am only half older now." i queried this, asking him to explain. he said "i was 1, then 2, and now i am 3. half older than when i was 2."

i sort of stared at him, trying to figure out if her really had grasped the concept that he was describing and i truly think he did. the other day, he looked up at the clock at the arena and announced "it's 2 o'clock!" and it was. but the most hysterical thing he does is to 'help' ava with her reading. every night i try to have her read a book to us -- sometimes she wants to, other times no. but when she does, if she pauses even for a nanosecond, carter fills in the words for her--or even the whole line. he has probably 30 books completely memorized, and he won't let her actually read them--he narrates to her. as expected, this pisses her off. i think it is a riot (though i don't dare let on), and he has even done it to me--there was a book that had the word "stupid" in it--"stupid something or other"--and i edited it out--"something or other". he immediately corrected me--"no mommy, it is a STUPID something or other..."

ava has a cold, and now carter and anna have it. both of them are snotty and miserable. we have been up since 4. carter frightened me at breakfast when he just looked terrible--pale and lethargic and refusing to eat. i am used to ava and what she looks like when she is sick, but carter never is sick, so i was unprepared. then he rallied and ate a ton of food about 2 hours later. seems to be ok, other than runny nose and cough. anna is all junky, and i really ticked her off when i used the nose syringe.

we actually were just at the doctor's the other day, because her eyelid was swollen, but the dr did not think it was serious. but we did get a weight and she is 9lbs 9 oz. so she has gained 2 lbs.

we are preparing for ava's first competition. it is very nervewracking for me, but she is totally excited. we are trying to keep it FUN. not serious. but the time, money and effort is hard to ignore as an adult, and i have to constantly remind myself that this is not something she can even begin to grasp or appreciate.

anna is reaching somewhat successfully for things now--she seems to have understood how her arms and hands are for, and now when i hold her, she holds on. this may not sound earth-shattering, but there is nothing that feels so good as when a baby suddenly returns the hug. granted, her 'hug' is not infused with the same emotion as mine, and is more of a 'oh thank god, mom is here and i am not alone' but it is still a wonderful recognition.

she can obviously see more now too--when she is awake, her eyes are wide open (she has huge eyes), and she cranes her head around every way she can to take in her surroundings. and she makes tons of noises at us when we make eye contact. she does this funny thing in the back of her throat which is her first greeting, then she usually makes some coos and gurgles.

and her neck is getting strong. when she is on her tummy or on my shoulder, she can easily pick up her head and turn it the other way.

but the funniest thing is that she pumps her right leg up and down just like ava used to. when she is getting her diaper changed, she looks like she is pretending to ride a scooter or skateboard. she is starting to look more like ava too. though she still looks like she might be more of a redhead. i don't know why, because her hair is not really red, but there is something about her coloring that makes me think that. it might have to do with the red stork bites on her eyelids. when those fade, i think we might have a better idea of what/who she is going to look like.

anna lost her umblical cord stump yesterday. now we can have real baths! her first one was today and despite the initial grimace, once she got over the shock, she adored it.

today i was driving carter home, and he said "mommy, how do people get up there?"

"where honey?"

"up there, where they play that game"

(???)

"what game?"

"that game where people wear shorts"

(??? now, it is still winter here, so i can see absolutely no visual cues to what he might be thinking of)

"shorts? can you tell me more about the game?"

"yes, shorts...you know...oh, what is it...TENNIS! yes, tennis! mom, how do you get to that tennis court?"

he had spotted the fence of a court high on a hill, a court i have NEVER registered as existing, despite driving by it daily. i told where the door was, and then, of course, he announced that he wanted to play. i guess we need to get some shorts.

tonight was the science fair at school. ava had a blast. though i made her wear her uniform which apparently was not required. she was a bit mad at me for that for 10 seconds, then was drawn into the hustle and bustle. more on her project later...

before we left though, she maade anna a dress. she chose to glue it, vs sew, in order to save time, but she really, honestly fashioned a dress out of felt for her. and she was VERY PROUD.

it is mud season. carter is very pleased about this. mom, not so much. however, both kids are so ready to be outside, i grit my teeth, put them in their waterproof rain pants, warm coat, mittens (rolling my eyes at this step, since it will be all of 5 minutes before tehy are soaked), and boots and off to the playground we go. most of the playgrounds are drying up, but they all have some spectacular puddles, and after an hour or 2 we return home where i chase them up the stairs to the house, saying "do NOT go inside until every last stitch of muddy clothing is off!"

given that i have an infant, sometimes it is a good 4 hours until i remember about the pile of muddy clothes outside our front door, and i cringe at what the neighbors think.

speaking of said infant, she is definitely getting longer and bigger and more engaged. she has spent lots of time just looking around, curious, and she continues to coo at the radiator. she is desperately trying to reach for things, and spends a lot of time concentrating on her hands -- without looking at them though. occasionally her hand will make its way to her cheek, and she will freeze, contemplating this new coordination of touch--2 surfaces communicating to her brain. and she is getting stronger--when she is lying down on her tummy, she can pick her head up and turn it from one side to the other, and when she is on my shoulder, sometimes she will pick her head up to turn and look at me. she also has been more responsive to my arrival when she wants to be retrieved from her bouncy seat, and seems to have begun to snuggle a little. of all 3 kids, she appears to have the fairest skin--carter is obviously the darkest, with his father's olive skin, and ava has nearly translucent skin, but it has a warm cast to it, that seems to be due to some yellow undertones like mom, but anna has superbly fair skin--with blue undertones, i think. it obviously remains to be seen, but her hands are incredibly porcelain-ish.

and, if i may say so (after 2 kids that look nothing like me, i think it is fair for me to say so), there is something that i cannot put my finger on that makes me think she actually might look like me. albeit with different coloring.

and the other thing that she has developed is the genuine crumply lower lip. she used to just holler, but it was not distressing--it was just indescriminate noise creation stating a need. but now, if she is startled or something hurts, she will first crumple up her lip and before she cries will sort of say "mmmmmmmmmm....aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!" and then truly cry. it nearly makes me cry all the time.

both kids continue to adore her. phew.