Carter is changing SO FAST. All of a sudden, he seems to have put together the processes of everyday life. That sounds abstract, and it is hard to explain, but as I noted before, it has a lot to do with communication. But it is more than that. For example, the other day he woke up, got out of bed, opened his door and crawled out into the living room where Ava and I were hanging out like it was the most straightforward thing in the world. I was quite surprised. And then he did it again. Essentially, it is clear that he understands the routines of the house, as well as where everything is, even if he cannot see it. And then of course there is all of the interaction. Giving us stuff, feeding us (though he is so into his food, he is starting to be reluctant to give it to someone else...).

We went out to lunch yesterday. I sat there and looked at Peter and said "we are eating in a restaurant." It was astonishing to me. And it was a nice restaurant. Carter and Ava ate their pizza, and I relaxed with my iced tea, and Peter had his sandwich. INCREDIBLE. There is hope that we will actually rejoin the world of normal activities. No, I do not expect to have a life like that pre-children, I am not that naive, but going to a restaurant is a reasonable expectation I think. Perhaps a glass of wine on the dock by myself with a book while the kids sleep? I am really looking forward to that...

Ava is a little girl now. So amazing. And she has developed little kid humor. Yesterday she announced from her car seat that she had poopy on her shoe. I reacted along the lines of WHAT??? and then she got hysterical. And then she said "no! it is on my SHOULDER!" More laughing. If I said "EEEEEWWWWW" she got even more hysterical. She went through a list of places where poopy would be disgusting, and got hysterical at each one.

She is also getting good at playing with Carter. He is still her science experiment, but not to the extent as before. Now they 'wrestle' and play with toys together, and the all time favorite: the screaming game. This involves Ava screaming at the top of her lungs, and then Carter responds in kind. AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH! aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! They get hysterical.

Peter commented about how cute they were, and wouldn't it be fun to have more. I nearly gagged on my dinner, which got him hysterical--the comment clearly was intended to get a reaction instead of being serious. But just in case my opinion was not clear, I paused to gather my thoughts, and looked at him and said "There are sooooo many ways to say no to that idea."

Don't worry everyone, he was just kidding.

Today it is pouring, so I think we will go to the library. Ava wants to go to Donnelley's -- the local summertime soft serve ice cream stand, so we probably will do that, even though the weather is not conducive. We did that last Monday, when it was 84 degrees, and Ava had pistachio for the first time. The deal there is that there is one flavor per day which is swirled with vanilla. At first she asked me to eat the green part, but I encouraged her to try it. She ate her whole cone. With a little help from Mom in the clean-up department. Carter loved it as well.

Our other activity is toy organization. We have some clearing out to do. There is one puzzle that we have that makes animal noises when the pieces are put in place--ie the horse piece makes a horse sound when put in the horse spot. This has been something that Carter and Ava have enjoyed, but it has recently gone insane, and makes its sounds from the depths of the toybox without any input from a human. This is very disconcerting, and so I think we will retire that one. And mom has to find all o f the Candyland pieces floating around the house. Ava played that for real the other day, and loved it. She was content to play all by herself too. She looked up at me while we were playing and said "TWO RED SQUARES" and then marched her little piece along the path to the next two red squares, stopped, put her card in the discard pile and said "I am REALLY good at this Mommy!" So funny.