It is a day to go down in history: Ava and Carter took their evening bath together. This is so huge--finally, Carter is stable enough to sit in the tub and play while I help to wash Ava's hair or her toes, or whatever else has been chronically neglected for the last seven and a half months. Before, he was so tippy that it was dangerous to have her in there with him, and when he was finished, I had to bathe her with one hand. Tonight, I have finally achieved two clean kids nearly simultaneously.

On an equally fabulous note, we made it through the WHOLE day without a tantrum. Even Carter only cried when he had to go in his car seat or stroller. AND I got to squeeze in some yoga after they fell asleep.

Oh, and I got my eyebrows waxed. Can life get any better?

today i completed phase one of my reorganizing effort, and managed to get all of the art supplies sorted into bins, grouped roughly according to function--thus there is a paper and sticker bin, a painting bin, a drawing/cutting/gluing/etc bin, and a random materials to make into things like space helmets bin. this is a vast improvement over previous method, which was to shove everything into a dresser in an increasing state of randomness. i would try to keep the dresser organized, and it seemed like a good idea, but it pretty much turned into 4 junk drawers. which i hate. i have never freed myself completely from junk drawers, but i do hate them. i am not a person that is 'out of sight, out of mind' -- if there is a mess in a closed drawer or closet, i feel like i can somehow see through it, and it is mocking me. it is basically one of my neuroses. anyway, this successful reorganizing inspired me to launch into phases 2 through 5 all at once, a phenomenally bad idea. this meant that EVERYTHING was pulled out of every drawer/closet/nook/cranny and all over the place. and it was at this point that both kids decided that they needed 100% of my attention. and i needed to get ready for the afternoon's outing, to boot. sooooo...i grabbed everything and shoved it in the pack-n-play, and put it out on the porch. now i don't have a junk drawer, i have a junk playpen. brilliant.

ava went to tumbling today--this was 'big kid's' tumbling, where the mommies were supposed to stay out of the room. this was not up her alley, so i stayed in the room, on the sidelines, while she sat next to me and considered joining in. eventually she could not stand watching any longer and the urge to have fun overtook her. she parted with me and had a great time. but i also was in sight at all times.

i managed to overcome my own separation anxiety, and did not go running after her, but i sure did want to join in. it was SO HARD to let her go off on her own.

after class we went on a walk around the lake. this was a 2.5 mile walk that took us, oh, 2.5 hours. set up the stroller, nurse carter, pack stroller with essentials, dress carter warmly, dress ava warmly, put carter in backpack, hoist backpack on back, realize i am not dressed warmly, take backpack off, put coat and backpack back on, push stroller, go a couple hundred yards, stop, talk to dog, push stroller, stop, get ava out so she can push stroller, go insane at pace and put ava back in, push stroller, stop and talk to mom friend from dance class, let ava out again, suggest that she run, put my gloves on ava, put ava back in, push stroller, realize carter needs an adjustment, take backpack off, adjust, put backpack back on, look at a red fire hydrant and explain the concept, get stumped at how they get the water out and cannot answer where the internal pressure comes from and suggest looking it up, am reminded that i am also supposed to look up why the zamboni is named as such, push stroller, let ava out, hold her hood as she tries to walk backwards, put ava back in, go past playground, explain that it is a pit of mud and we cannot go, watch the skateboarders (who have HORRENDOUS potty mouths), and repeat the in-out routine til we finally make it back to the car. introduce twizzlers and skittles to ava in an attempt to make sure she does not fall asleep in the car on the way home so that she does not ruin her bedtime which is only 2 hours away. it worked. it also conveniently induced a sugar crash at roughly the bedtime hour. three cheers for sugar. make up for it by making her a hummus-avocado-shredded carrot sandwich on 12-grain bread for dinner. this was not as enticing, but she did eat it.

funny part of this is when i told her i was going to make her a hummus and carrot sandwich when we got home, she started poking her leg and saying 'like this?' -- i could not figure it out, and she kept jabbing her leg and finally she said 'like candles?' and i realized she thought that i was going to poke the carrots into the sandwich like candles on a birthday cake. which made me laugh, and contemplate the idea--but decide to go with the original notion of shredded carrots inside the bread.

carter continues to work on his crawling. he has finger foods down, and is constantly hungry. he is just so cute. he will not sit still for anything, and his frenzy of arms and legs is usually accompanied by "dai dai dai dai mmmmmmm ya ya ya blllblbllblllll buh buh buh dai dai dai DAIIIIIIIIIIIIII.

and if ava screams, he screams. and laughs his head off. i look at the 2 of them and think "uh oh..."

I have long suspected that Ava 'reads' from right to left. This was confirmed yesterday as we approached a stop sign, and she said "look, Mom! A STOP SIGN! P...O...T...S...STOP!" With a lot of praise I said, "That's right, S..T..O..P, stop!" But sometimes she follows along while I am reading books with her finger, tracing from left to right. I suppose it will fall into place in good time.

To carry on with the reading writing arithmetic theme, we were working our way through 9 bites of a sandwich, and had managed to whittle it down to 5. At this point I said to her, "you have 5 pieces left. If you eat this one, how many will you have?" (note that she could not see her plate). She looked at me, turned her hands up in the air, cocked her head to the side and said "FOUR!" I swear to god, I fell to my knees while practically shouting "THAT'S RIGHT!" and enveloped her in a bear hug.

Now, I am not constantly drilling my daughter on her letters and numbers, and please do not think that I am cracking the whip while screaming COUNT! But every once in a while, I throw one of these questions in, just to see where she stands. She has been able to add to and take away from quantities up to 3 or maybe 4, but after that, quantity tends to merge into one big blob of a lot. 6 bites looks like 8 bites, which looks like 12 bites, and so on. Compare 6 to 20, and she is obviously able to discern the difference, but it is more in terms of more and less, and not 20 and 6. So, it was really neat to see her apply adding and taking away to larger blobs.

swim class was last night. carter's first time in the pool. he LOVED it. the smile on his face was so cute, and he was just like, this is so great! look at all this water! i can splash, i can drink it, i can dunk my head in it (yes, he even did that), dad can throw me up in the air, and i can sit on the side and play with these cute toys, this is so cool. why have we never seen this before???

ava had to wait for her class, as she had been promoted to the next level--which was 'real' swim class--3 kids with the teacher, who sat them on the side of the pool and took each one in turn. this was not the exciting experience that we had hoped it would be. ava looked a little upset that it was not fun anymore, and more than anything, she looked COLD. so, i might let her go back to the fun class. i mean, in carter's class, they sing, and play, and jump and laugh, and in this one, they do back floats, and reach and pull, and 'don't jump, slide in on your tummy'--all interesting, but slower paced and no singing. she might be a little young for it. also, she might have been more receptive to it if she had not watched carter's class, where all of her other friends were.

she was very happy to go to little dippers yesterday though. and carter enjoyed it too. i gracefully bowed out of the craft project, which was making an easter egg out of wool. i think i still have 1/2 an egg from last year somewhere.

today ava asked me if we could snuggle for a bit while carter was sleeping--and i said "in just a second honey, first i have to run around like a crazy person and get all this stuff picked up" (the house was a mess, a load of laundry needed to get done, dishes washed, toys picked up etc). so, she patiently waited, and i washed and straightened and picked up as fast as i could.

then just as i started to sort the laundry, she came up to me and said "mommy, when are you going to be a crazy person?"

carter went for a follow up appt. today and appears to be on the mend. he is a ridiculous ball of energy.

and of course it is inevitably a good day when "jack's big music show" is the version with "mel's super swell dance party--YIPPEE!" picture a puppet dog, normally a drummer, now being a dj, hosting a dance party with house music. and with all the best moves, to boot. i cannot get enough of it. especially with the character "dancy nancy" -- an actual human that is superbly groovy. i think i get more out of it than ava. she looks at me like i am nuts as i bust a move with carter on the living room floor.

we are all sick, and all running ourselves ragged trying to simply breathe. carter is having a very rough time because, as the american academy of pediatrics would say, he is an obligate nose-breather. not anymore.

he HATES taking medicine, loves that he can actually eat some finger foods, and is scooting all over the place. books are his favorite objects, and he had peter in hysterics tonight as he wiggled after an "olivia" book from the library--he kept grabbing at it and it would slide along the floor and then he would have to wriggle all over again. he covered about a mile circling around the room.

ava was very sad to leave grandma, but ecstatic to see snow.

the plane trip home was as good as it could be. no tears, a few antsy moments alleviated by some carefully rationed treats, and no hassles. we even got to ride in one of those little electric cars that carry people around in the airport and toot their horns at the pedestrians. thus we made a 35 minute layover in newark.

we have not tackled much other than the doctor for carter (he has 2 ear infections now, plus a new cold and is now on a sulfa-drug, vs. the rash-inducing penicillin). i had to listen to a long lecture from the doctor about drug reactions, and throughout the thing i kept trying to figure out how and when to introduce that i had worked in drug safety. in the end, i stayed quiet. it was easier. we also went to the library, i checked out 2 books in a fit of industry, and got ava 3. we also fed their fish, the whole point of going to the library in ava's opinion. today we managed the grocery store without any drama whatsoever.

and then we came home and ava and i made lasagne. a HUGE mess, but a ton of fun.

tomorrow, who knows. perhaps skiing.

Well, we are headed out tomorrow, back to NY. We have to get up at 4 AM again, but I think that will be the hardest on me--the kids seemed to handle it just fine on the way here.

Carter is really growing up--not only is he almost crawling, he had his first finger foods the other day. We went to Chuy's, an Austin institution (it is a Mexican place), and had lunch. Carter was antsy, so I gave him some shredded cheese. WOW was basically his reaction. He was thrilled, and he managed to get a good bit of it into his belly. Today he tried Cheerios, another huge hit.

The crawling is so cute--he wriggles to get where he wants to go when he needs to actually move, but when he has no destination, he just practices getting on hands and knees, lifting his belly off the floor and rocking back and forth, making it look like he is revving himself up for the actual crawl. So far he has not done a face plant, leading me to what is, I am sure, a false sense of security.

Today we went to the Children's Museum, spent HOURS there, went home for lunch, and then went back. This is a really cool place with lots of different exhibits--this time there was a whole room about wind and air, with all sorts of things showing the power of moving air (ie wind), and there was a 'kitchen,' a 'store' (where Ava appropriated the cash register), a doctor's office, a display about milk and cows, a water table room, an art room--really a collage room, a quiet room, a big digger thingamajig, lots of blocks, and lots of other toy type things. Ava got a lot out of it, and did not want to leave.

She fell asleep instantaneously this evening.