Winter is hard. There are lots of good things about it, of course, but many of those things are for people older than 6 months and 2 years. We tried to go for a walk yesterday, since the temperature was above 20 degrees, which is my threshold for taking the kids outside, and it just did not go well. I managed through the struggle to get dressed warmly enough (keeping in mind that we drove to our walk, which meant doing all of the prep work in the car) and getting the stroller assembled and the backpack set up, and the first 20 minutes were reasonably pleasant as we discussed the winter activities of various wildlife creatures (I was stumped over the issue of where bald eagles go for the winter—I could not remember—but made up for it with a long explanation of how loons go to the Atlantic ocean for their getaway), but then Ava hit her limit. She did not want to walk, and she did not want to be in the stroller, and of course, we were 20 minutes away from the car. Those 20 minutes were sheer hell. For her and for me. Carter slept through it all, of course. I spent a lot of the time silently cursing the weather.

Carter has not pooped in 2 days now. I swear I will generally refrain from a lot of poop-talk in this blog, but this is remarkable. And I am sure the pending event will be even more remarkable, when it finally comes. He has learned to adore his Johnny-jump up, and he is suddenly working really hard at figuring out crawling. He can’t lift his belly off the floor, but he is trying. And he is moving his knees alternately towards his torso, but this usually results in backwards motion, so frustrating. Usually, there is a toy he is aiming for, and his irritation at watching it get farther away is palpable. He is all about food, particularly doing it himself. I have this mesh thing that you can put squishy food in and he can than mash it through the mesh, and feed himself. Usually, it is bananas or avocado, both of which stain horribly. So, I put him in an old shirt, give him his mesh masher, and let him go at it. Then I just hose him down in the sink. He likes the autonomy a lot more than dealing with me shoving a spoon in his face.

Sunday was Leena’s birthday party. I apologize for misspelling her name in previous posts, I did not know it had 2 e’s. It was quite fun, and remarkable for the fact that Ava ate a whole plate of mac-n-cheese. It was homemade mac-n-cheese (as was the soup and the chocolate cake and probably even the bread—unlike me, Heidi and Andy are on the granola honor roll), and she seemed to really adore it. It took her the full 2 hours to utter a word, other than to ask Heidi if she could play the piano, but she had a good time. She is just reserved, and slow to warm up, and not keen on lots of people. This is not a negative, as far as I am concerned, but as a fellow introvert I am certainly biased. I think the title of my first book will be “In Defense of the Introvert.”

I finally remembered what Ava calls the tabs on diapers she does not like—buckles. “I don’t like the diapers with the buckles.”