karma for laughing (silently, while looking away, so as not to traumatize her further) at ava when she exploded at the sight of a spider:

tonight, after swim class, i was rooting around in the bag for my socks when, you guessed it: a spider marched right out of ava's pull-up and onto my hand. all i can say is THANK GOD i found it and not her. we would never ever ever get a pull-up on her again.

i was pretty proud of myself for remaining under control and not bellowing "mother f#$%er!" in the presence of 14 other toddlers. i just contained my heebie-jeebies and flung it into the trash. then i gave a little shudder and spelled out "S-P-I-D-E-R" to all the other mothers, who then went "whhhohoohhohaahhaaaa" all together.

i will never get over how much laundry there is. everyone says that when you become a mom, laundry increases by a power of 10, or 100, or 1000, but i never really could picture it. now, i can, but i still don't understand. it is all i do. sort, carry, switch, load, pour, start, de-lint, start, carry, fold, put away, sort again (start over). it is ok on one level, but so profoundly boring on another. sometimes i gag at the sight of a pile of clothes to be folded. but i do it. blech.

1. carter has figured out that if you feed rose triscuits from the high chair, it is ridiculously funny.
2. rose has been trying to convince him of this since the day he was born.
3. ava is up to her eyeballs in that weird surreal existence of toddlerhood where dreams and waking are confluent, and her daily conversations reflect this--most notably, she kept asking me about the dragon i caught the other day and why did he like those itty bitty oranges. i was truly stumped for an answer, since i was not there. but this has repurcussions, in that she is a lot more fearful these days. she panicked in dance class today, and would not return. and bugs are just awful. she shot off the floor the other day like a little firecracker lit by the presence of a spider. i tried so hard not to laugh, but it was so funny. not funny, but still funny.
4. she and carter are neck and neck for their physical development when you control for the 2 year age difference--i figured out today that she was doing the same EXACT stuff he is doing when she was his age--down to the appearance of the first tooth. so, despite their differences in physique and personality, they are similar in development. that means he should be clapping and waving soon.
5. their is one exception: he bangs things, and she never did. if he can make it make noise, he will. as loud as he can. all boy.

ava, carter and i are still recovering from our all day trip to plattsburgh on saturday. talk about exhausting. when you live in the tri-lakes area of the adirondacks, if you want supplies, you drive and hour and a half to plattsburgh where all of the big box stores are. so, we loaded up, and drove up there and spent the WHOLE DAY at sam's club, walmart (all of 5 minutes in there, just too much for me to take), old navy, and periodic refreshing stints at border's. oh, and petco for entertainment. it was so exhausting, but i did accomplish some necessary stocking-up. pretty depressing too. not for the kids--ava thought the display bike at k-bee toy and hobby was there just for her to tool around the mall, and peeling her off it took some doing. we finally changed into jammies in the petco parking lot and drove home, stopping at dunkin donuts for some ill-advised caffeine. i still am feeling the ache from carrying carter in the backpack all day. ugh.

carter is pulling up on everything that he can, and is thrilled with it. he also loves to loot the basket of board books, by throwing them over his shoulder. pretty cute.

he is supposed to be big, according to measurements, but to me he seems small. yes, he is in 18 month clothing, but there is something little about him. i felt this way when he was born--he was 8 lbs, not huge, but as many people said, 'healthy' -- or 'that's a good size baby' -- but his little legs were soooooooooo skinny, and his hands were so thin, all of his weight was in his torso and head i guess, and it still seems that way. he is tough as nails--today a little toy bounced right into his face and he crumpled up his lips, looked at me, i told him it was ok, and he just did the infant equivalent of shrugging his shoulders and went back to it, but he is still little to me. i don't know, it is weird. he is getting to be more little boy-ish, and i am starting to see the sibling connection and relationship emerging.

he is still scooting along on his tummy though! i am not sure if he will ever even bother with regular crawling. he can go so fast as it is, it might not be worth it to him. put rose's water bowl in his sights, and he is off lickety split for some more water play.

ava is sleeping very soundly these days--last night i looked over at her bed and she was not in it, and neither were her blankets--i had a brief moment of panic, though i am not sure what i thought might have happened--until i looked on the floor, and there she was in a little nest of blankets, sound asleep. the funny thing about this is that i had just walked into the room and gone over to the bed where carter was, and to do so, i would have had to have stepped over her. it was very disconcerting. i scooped her up and depositer her back in her bed, where she slept until 6 am. good girl.

if carter is small, she is getting tall-- rose actually looked small next to her the other day. ava was standing next to her and was towering over her--it seemed so dramatic. the only other time the dog has looked small is when she was very intimidated by a great dane with a functioning reproductive system.

and ava can pilfer the counter top these days. now everything goes on top of the fridge. (except for wine racks--wink wink nudge nudge mom).

It is so physically exhausting to haul a 20 lb infant around all day. I am in a state of amazement at the general ache in my body, and often think about the sheer pleasure I will experience when he no longer needs to be hoisted up somewhere on my being. I mean, how great is it going to be when he has total mobility and I can relax in the joy of having two children running at full tilt in opposite directions.

I hung up our toddler swing today. Of course, NOW Ava loves swings. For almost 3 years, she despised them, then suddenly she finally recognized the pleasure of having one's vestibular system challenged by gravity and centripetal force. I cannot get her off the swings at the playground (FINE BY ME, I don't need to climb all over everything with Carter on my back), and now that I have hung the swing that I thought would be a great place to park Carter while Ava and I played outside, she wants to be in it. So, now I still have to hold Carter, or monitor his intake of pine needles while he sits on the ground. Pine needles though are not that bad--they are hard to get in one's mouth and are almost impossible to choke on. It is the pine cones and wood chips that I worry about.

Putting the swing up was interesting--we have one decent branch on our entire property, one branch on one tree out of approximately, oh, 1,000,000 trees. But it is conveniently in the play area of our yard, and currently holds the birdfeeder. I managed to purchase 2 lengths of chain at the hardware store, and then basically tied Rose's leash to one end, then hooked a toy to the free end of the leash and spent a good amount of time trying to wing that up and over the branch which is about 16 feet in the air. But I did it. Twice. I had to really struggle to reach the toy once it was over, but it was nothing some plastic bins and a swiffer could not handle. And then I hooked up the swing and felt a surge of pride and independence as I finally accomplished something that has been on the to do list for over a year. And I thought I needed help!

Today was beautiful--sunny and 70. Almost made me want to go swimming. But the water is still roughly 40 degrees, so nah. Both Ava and Carter were dying to go in, even after they felt it with their hands. It should be a fun summer. Especially when Carter can walk.

It is weird to want your child to grow up, but I do. I am anxious for the gap between their abilities to close a bit. And Ava's personality is so interesting right now, I really want to see what he is going to be like when he starts talking.

We were in the grocery store, and whenever we passed someone, she would loudly say "excuuuuuuuse us!" or "Ex-Scuse ME maaammmm" -- but the best was when we were finishing up by the deli and the fancy cheese case and the beer case and I said "I think we are all done, Ava!" and she said at the top of her lungs: "Mom! We forgot to buy beer for Daddy!!"

And it is VERY important to her that everyone knows that she is 2 and a half. "I'm 2... And a half." And then she nods very knowingly.

But my favorite is "You know what?..." I cannot believe that all kids really do that.

Yes, I did answer Ava each and every time she asked about Ferdinand. We read the book in the morning, and that was the part that made the biggest impact (not the pacifist message of the story, unfortunately). If you are not familiar, he sat on the bee because he was not paying attention because he was thinking about the other bulls that were running and snorting and butting in an effort to show off for the guys in funny hats who were there to pick a bull for teh bullfight, and how he had no desire to be picked.

Carter has officially crawled more than moving one hand and one knee. He finally linked the sequence on Tuesday while Ava was tumbling and I was sitting with him on the mat. However, if he is in a hurry, say when he wants to go swimming in Rose's water bowl before I snatch it up and put it on the counter, he still drops down to his tummy and does his one-handed one-footed pull-kick.

Easter was quiet and peaceful. Michaela came to visit and the kids had a blast with her. She helped me with the laundry--just the perfect Easter for her, I am sure. I kept it very low-key: a few plastic eggs with jelly beans, some chocolate, and a new train for Ava's train set. Though she also appropriated Carter's basket, but he was none the wiser.

However, when she does take something from him that he is already in posession of, look out. He HOWLS. Today it was a sippy cup with water in it. I thought he was hurt, he cried so hard. But as soon as she gave it back, he stopped. I cannot wait til he is old enough, and big enough to have a little bit of an intimidating effect. Just one that will make her pause for a moment and weigh the risk/benefit of doing whatever it is she is about to do to him. Along the lines of "Hmmmmm, he might slug me if I take this from him..." or, "Hmmmmm, if I bonk him on the head in an effort to 'crack' my plastic Easter egg, he just might bonk me back...maybe I won't do that..."

8:54 mommy why did ferdinand sit on the bumblebee?

9:14 mommy why did ferdinand sit on the bumblebee?

9:49 mommy why did ferdinand sit on the bumblebee?

10:27 mommy why did ferdinand sit on the bumblebee?

11:01 mommy why did ferdinand sit on the bumblebee?

11:58 mommy why did ferdinand sit on the bumblebee?

12:34 mommy why did ferdinand sit on the bumblebee?

1:17 mommy why did ferdinand sit on the bumblebee?

1:43 mommy why did ferdinand sit on the bumblebee?

2:31 mommy why did ferdinand sit on the bumblebee?

2:59 mommy why did ferdinand sit on the bumblebee?

3:16 mommy why did ferdinand sit on the bumblebee?

3:48 mommy why did ferdinand sit on the bumblebee?

4:37 mommy why did ferdinand sit on the bumblebee?

5: 28 mommy why did ferdinand sit on the bumblebee?

6:01 mommy why did ferdinand sit on the bumblebee?

6:47 mommy why did ferdinand sit on the bumblebee?

good night ava

Here is the quote from the book (I found it in the NY Times book review, obviously they think highly of it too):

''Henry thinks the city is a success, a brilliant invention, a biological masterpiece -- millions teeming around the accumulated and layered achievements of the centuries, as though around a coral reef, sleeping, working, entertaining themselves, harmonious for the most part, nearly everyone wanting it to work.''

How utterly magnificent.

Oh, and duh: Virginia Woolf was so very Joyce.