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.