carter is 'putting' now. he has moved on from taking things out of containers, to putting things back in containers. and he is into giving. he will hold his treasure up, say 'ish' and then hold it out to you.

today was a mellow mother's day--peter, ava, carter and i all piled into the car at 10:30 and headed to the grocery store. we arrived at 2. we stopped at all of the usual stops: the airport, the playground, the airport, the gas station, the hardware store, and so on. i think ava was just thrilled to have daddy on our errands. and so was mom. so much easier to assign an adult to each child! i did not get the nap i sort of longed for, but that's ok, i'll get it eventually. perhaps in november. but i got to sit in the car and read the ny times while carter slept and dad played with ava at the playground. a real treat. especially since it was the sunday times.

my only wish is that the weather had been better.

oh, and cathy: so sorry about the fire alarm--i will try to call you back soon--the thing is so sensitive and i can never cook anything in the oven!

it is so weird to be a parent--on the one hand, you spend a ridiculous amount of time dealing with the profoundly mundane tasks of day to day existence: laundry, meals, diapers and their contents, vacuuming, dressing, undressing, redressing, bathing, buckling, grocery stores, and so on. but then, on the other hand, you are confronted with the monumentally profound tasks of teaching two human beings about life: values, emotions, beliefs, society, beauty, injustice, justice, cruelty, suffering, goals, success, and a million other abstract and yet very real, very important concepts. long before one has to confront these challenges, one thinks about them--i was a wreck when i was pregnant, trying to codify my values into my own tablet of commandments -- ultimately i decided that the original 10 were pretty brilliant. but still hard to explain. ava asked me today who made me. i blurted "God, honey" (for a non-practicing Catholic, this surprised me to no end). and of course, she asked "who's god?" and then i was stuck. I finally answered, god is everything that is good in you and me and everyone. and left it at that. now i have a homework assignment. figure out god.

Today we had a quiet day--Ava, Carter and I ditched the housework and played on the floor until, oh, 2 PM. It was rainy, and depressing, and I did not have the capacity to motivate and go into town. Ultimately I did, and we did a few errands, went to the airport (of course), and then Ava wanted to go to Old McDonald's Farm (McD's) to get a juice box, which is all they give you there as far as she knows. That and coffee. And they only give you these things through a window. But I deflected, and said, "How 'bout Lake Clear Deli?" So, we all had sandwiches for dinner.

Carter is doing a frog walk now, on hands and feet, vs. hands and knees. Pretty cute.

Hopefully tomorrow is sunny. It makes all the difference around here. The towns are pretty yucky on cloudy days.

Ava got profoundly dirty today. Peter hooked up the hose (it pumps water from the lake, so every spring it needs to be connected), and Ava spent so much time playing with it that I would not have been surprised to see Green Pond reduced to a puddle. It was still there, so apparently she spent an equal amount of time playing with the dirt. Water + dirt = mud.

We then went to tumbling, the hhott house again where I spent a lot of money on plants and Ava chased Bert and Ernie, the golden retrievers (and I thought 'Barnum and Bailey' was cute), then to Lake Colby beach where there is a swing set and an ancient merry-go-round. We dipped our feet in, then went home for more mud. The black flies were out though and we had to retreat.

Peter came home at 5, and Ava summed it up nicely when she said "What are you doing here?" Coupled with "Thank you for coming home, Daddy"

Then we all got ready for bed by scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing some more, had our story-time/wrestle for posession of the book with Carter-time, and settled in, only for both kids to refuse to settle down. Out into the living room with an irritated mom, and as I was washing the dishes, Ava came over to me and said "I have a secret..." and when I bent down, she said "I love you." This is what I say to her at nighttime, ever since she was a teeny squirt. I melted.

And then we went into the bedroom where she just crashed--it was unbelievable. Chatter chatter chatter snore.

Tomorrow is Carter's 9 -month check up.

carter waves! he started yesterday. it is that curled fingers wave that they do. and everytime he does it, he stops and looks at his hand in amazement.

we all hiked up panther mountain yesterday--it is amazing how much easier it is when there is another adult in attendance.

the airport is gearing up for the summer season, thus there is a lot of air traffic in and out, and we have been able to see quite a few take-offs and landings, very exciting for ava. we visit the airport nearly every day, as it is on the way to town, and look for planes. if there are planes on the ground the visit is a success, but if they are in the air it is exemplary.

It was a beautiful day today. We spent a lot of it outside, and Carter spent a lot of it asleep. But when he was awake, he was inexplicably whiny. I figure it is his teeth, but it was irritating, only because he was not happy even when held. But once we left the house, he improved. He really enjoyed going to the HHOTT House, which is a gardening center. Ava liked it too, but was rather proprietary about the hoses and the little tags in the pots telling you what the plant was. I just had to leave because she could not resist playing with them.

She was quite pleasant today, and appears to have developed a burgeoning desire to please. This is a fantastic development, even if it is only in little fits and starts. Lots of "sorry, mom" and "are you mad?" and (after being instructed to 'LEAVE YOUR BROTHER ALONE!') "I just want to give him a kiss." Who's going to argue with that??

He is all over the place. He spent a lot of time practicing going in and out the door to the porch, which involves a small step, and he just wants to be vertical. He is into EVERYTHING. It is the most difficult part of this age. It all goes into his mouth.

What a week. I had some work to do, editing/writing stuff, with a crazy deadline. Everything else came to a full stop. Including writing about the kids. And so much has happened in the past week. Carter is at mock speed with the crawling, he has 2 teeth, he holds his hand up in a wave/pointing gesture and says zhhsh zhhsh, like ‘this this’ – he is definitely gesturing at things that he wants. He clearly says mama when sad or needy, and is pulling up and cruising ever so tentatively. He has had his share of bumps, but is remarkably resilient.

Ava is growing up so fast. We went on a walk at the VIC (Visitor Interpretive Center) today and had a ball—she thought everything was neat. It is basically a nature center with a slew of trails, and the one I took goes through several ecosystems – forest, marsh, etc., and she was very interested in the moss and the rocks. And running. Oh, and lily pads. It was nice, because we have scaled back a lot of our other activities, because she has been a bit clingy. We went to the mommy and me tumbling class instead of the teacher and me tumbling class because she was so uninterested in taking part if I was not going to do it too.

She eats like a horse. The other morning she had 3 fried eggs. Unbelievable. She has to be coached, but she can put it away. 2 of them were meant for her father!

She is swimming SO WELL. Almost has the doggy paddle down pat. In fact, she is so excited to swim, she went in at the fish creek beach the other day. All the way in. I took off her shoes and socks, and rolled up her pants so that she could dip her feet in, and she did, and then her knees, and then her hands and knees, and pretty soon she was belly flopping in. I cannot overstate the how cold the water is. It might be 50 degrees. Fortunately it was 80 in the sun, so she was ok. She also is really good on her tricycle. Cute as can be. And we went to a birthday party where the favors were bike bells, so now she is all ring a ding ding.

Oh, and Carter laughs and laughs in the funniest way. Hee hee hee—it is impossible to write it down, but it is an inhaled hee hee hee. So hysterical.