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.