in the past week or two, ava won freaky friday (a fun skating competition) with her cancan routine while simultaneously turning 6, anna figured out how to splash in the bath--SO FUN!, the ironman was amazing and inspiring as usual, and carter told me that he would be finished on the computer in "two shakes of a ham's tail..."

anna's hair just went through a growth spurt. she went from practically nothing -- and that which she had was so fair, it was impossible to really see it-- to a little whorl of blond hair on the top of her head. it has completely changed her face.

she is so content. she just sits next to me looking around, happy to just be. now i see how people can do things (other than read a novel while he or she nurses) with a baby.

not that i have any objection to forced reading of novels, but it is nice to have 2 hands occasionally.

toady, ava announced that her new favorite colors were pink and gold--not pink and white. this is because her dress for her routine is pink and gold (well, it will be, if i can actually sew it).

in response, i told her "well, always remember that a little gold goes a long way. too much and it is not good."

to which she replied "oh, i know. sort of like soy sauce."

yes. precisely.

carter saw a picture of himself when he was 1.5 years old, and he stared at it for a long time, then finally turned to me and said "why am i so LITTLE in this picture?"

i told him he was only one, and he just stared at it again and said nothing else, but you could just see him processing the information that he was that little once. i am not sure if he found it upsetting or not, because it could have been interpreted 2 ways--one: look how big i am now, or two: i have not always been big and strong and was once small and weak. the former conveys a sense of accomplishment, the latter a sense of imperfection.

interestingly, he has no issue looking at pictures of himself as a baby. it is that "small person" stage that he dislikes.

anna went to the doctor this morning for her 4-mo check up. all is well, and as suspected she is huge. nearly 16 pbs, so that is 88th %ile, which is not mind bogggling or anything, but she is 27 inches long, which puts her in the 99th %ile. head circumference is big too-not sure of the measurement, but it was 95th %ile. her length is the part that keeps amazing me, mostly because she was the smallest of the 3. she also got a shot, and did not make a sound. not a single sound, not a tear, not a gulp--nothing. the only way you would have known something happened was that she sat up a bit straighter (she was in my lap), and her eyes sprung wide open for a moment -- then she just stared at poor nurse lisa with an expression of "i know you did this to me, and i am going to remember you -- trust me. i will not let you pick me up ever again."

on july 1, anna rolled over--from back to front, and then the next day she went from front to back. now she won't stop. as soon as i put her down for a diaper change she arches her back and starts to flip over. the other morning she was awake before me, and lying there in bed cooing at everything, poking me in the face, yammering on and on. i finally woke up and opened my eyes to be greeted by her face about inches from mine. when she saw me open my eyes she immediately grinned and made a happy sigh, almost like "hooray! you are awake!"

i told her to whisper and we headed out to the living room where i was able to play alone with her for a little bit. she loves big smooches on her cheeks and laughs her ridiculous low-pitched "aaaahhhh" laugh. sometimes she squeals, but that is usually when she is in her bouncy seat and sees me from across the room. when tickled or otherwise made to laugh up close her laugh is less a laugh than a guffaw. her other favorite thing to do is blow bubbles. all day long. with sound. the best part is that when i do it back to her, she thinks it is hysterical, and she does it even more. she definitely gets the "Most Verbal Baby" award in this family.

phew. the school is going to stay open. a monumental effort by parents, teachers, staff, alumni, parishoners, and kids and we did it. raised enrollment by 25%, and raised a lot of money.

anna continues to talk up a storm, and will talk to anyone or anything. i finally got her a play-yard thing, so she has a safe place to roll around in. apparently they are not for keeping kids confined, but rather for keeping them safe from marauding bands of older siblings.

carter is now completely obsessed with superheroes, and now that ava learned that there are women superheroes, she is getting into the act. today, she wanted to dress up like wonderwoman. i sort of hedged on showing her a picture of wonderwoman (they know about all of the superfriends only from me talking about them in the car -- i have been reciting the plots of as many 1970 saturday morning shows that i can remember), because i knew we had very little that could pass as a wonderwoman costume, since all of ava's clothes are pink, white, and black. finally she bugged me enough that i showed her a picture.

note: do NOT image google "wonderwoman" "batgirl" or "catwoman" with the kids around. i leave it to you to figure out why.

i found a pg-rated image of wonderwoman, and she studied it very carefully. then she pulled out a pair of navy tights, cut them so that she had short shorts, used the remaining legs as wonderwoman's boots (never mind that hers were really red, navy was just fine for ava). then she found a red t-shirt, tucked it into her navy short shorts, then drew white stars on her "shorts" and a yellow eagle on her t-shirt. no, she did not ask if she could do that, but i decided not to say anything at the destruction of the shirt in the name of creativity. then she got a lasso. all in the span of 10 minutes.

i could not believe it. if she could have figured out how to make an invisible airplane, she would have.

and even better: she appears to be growing out of the 5-year-old behavior that has been causing me to pull my hair out. all year she has been overreacting, getting very very instantly jealous or mad or or sad or frantic or whatever--if something wronged her, she would leap to the most extreme emotional state she could muster. which is typical of most small children, however, ava would then add fuel to the fire by getting even more worked up when people justifiably reacted negatively to her behavior.

for a solid year i have worked very very hard at staying calm and saying to her something like "that is a completely unacceptable way to speak to me...." or something along those lines. a clear disapproval, a statement of what was not ok, and a suggestion of a better manner of speaking or acting. i did not always succeed, but generally i managed to stay calm.

(it was a very challenging year).

now, the overreacting has not stopped, but she has stopped the snowball effect of reacting to everyone's reactions--for example, today she was sweaty and hungry and had to go potty at the rink and she came off the ice and started barking at me--just uber-grumpy. i said very little, but took her to the bathroom and then when she came out i said "ava, you can skate, or you can go home, it is entirely up to you, but i do not want to hear you speak to me like that. i did not come here to be barked at."

she looked at me and said "mommy, i'm sorry for speaking to you like that. i don't want to bark at you."

and that was the end of it.

YIPPPEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

another example: the other day, despite tons of things going her way, she was whining about everything. nonstop misery. i was extremely irritated, and it was all i could do not to launch into one of those "don't you know there are kids starving in this world? kids who have NOTHING?... " and so on. finally, in the car i turned to her and said "for the love of god, what is wrong?! because as far as i can see, your day has been pretty darn good. perhaps not terribly exciting, but not bad by any stretch!" and she looked at me and said "i'm sorry. i don't know why i am crying and whining. there's nothing wrong. for some reason, i think i just need to cry." and she did, and then it was over. i said "now i understand. i get like that too sometimes."

yesterday, carter was crying and she said "carter, please stop crying, you are making me want to cry." -- i nearly jumped with joy over that one. a clear articulation of empathy.

watching your children grasp empathy can be a very tortuous process. i think the rumblings of empathy are there very early, and you can see it often. but not always. and when it appears to be absent, you start to fret. but there are so many competing thought processes and emotions in a young child's mind, it really is no wonder that thinking about other people gets abandoned at times. it is becoming clear that as she gets older, it is getting easier to do some parallel processing of all those thoughts and emotions.

in short, it is pretty cool to see her taking shape as the person she is going to become. it is almost like she is emerging--well, i hate to use the obvious butterfly analogy here, but frankly that is sort of appropriate. as an infant and toddler, she was completely attached--practically still a part of me. then the preschool and kindergarten years have been this long, arduous process of figuring out how to be separate and independent, yet not isolated. i think (and i may be wrong here) that she is just starting to become self aware and confident--pleased to be a distinct person, and not afraid, yet still very confident in her closeness to me.

at least i hope that is what is going on.