end of 2009

The rest of Christmas was lovely: gifts under the tree on Christmas Eve, paella, gingerbread cookie decorating, sledding (Sam and Opa), swimming (Sam and Omi and Opa), fewer sleep interruptions (Frida and Sam), and roast goose on Christmas Day. Sam had a few solfege/ear training lessons with Omi and was picking out Do, Re, Mi on the piano before we left (and I loaded up a suitcase with a bunch of my old piano music to start playing again, gradually, on our brand-new (old, but nice) upright piano). On the day before we left, we met my friend Denean and her two younger kids (one Sam's age, the other almost 2) at the Como Conservatory for some nice warm humidity. Sam was briefly excited to see a real live sloth, having learned about sloths in a preschool unit on the rainforest. The trip back to MA was blissfully uneventful, and though it was sad to leave Omi and Opa, it was good to arrive home.

No more pics from MN, though, because I didn't bring the good digital camera, and the batteries were dead in the little one I did bring (and since there was plenty of general picture-taking I was too lazy to replace them). I did bring the videocamera, and when I'm done downloading video I'll post some clips.

Our new nanny started with us on the day after we got back, and she seems great: Beanie is regularly taking an ounce and a half (but not ever more) from bottles, and she (the nanny, that is) is very comfortable carrying her both in a sling and in the ergo, and has easily rocked her to sleep a couple of times. We'll see how she juggles both kids without me there... but I'm sure she'll get the hang of it.

Here's a map Sam drew of a race track he constructed yesterday evening, through the dining room and into the kitchen:



The dots are the race cars:



As they start out, they pass, on their left, a construction site. Then, rounding a corner, they encounter the Forest of Stools (all names, btw, are his):



and just as they make it out of that-- if they do!-- they have to navigate the Garden of Baby Toys:



after which it's a short shot to the Finish Line, designated by not exactly a checkered flag but instead a panda because it was the closest thing (black and white!) Sam could find.

Tonight we had a quiet New Year's Eve just the four of us, with a fabulous cheese fondue for the solid-food-eating among us (and a nice little snowfall, as well).



J's now reading Sam a great newly-borrowed library book on evolutionary transitions, including Tiktaalik, which Sam is excited about because, really, how could you not be, and Josh is excited about because he and I just read a fascinating book on similar topics this summer. And then, I think, we'll do the dishes and go to bed, maybe play a little Scrabble and drink some herbal tea. And, frankly, not feel like we're missing any excitement at all.

I've been reading The Happiness Project (both the blog and the newly-released book) and have been inspired to make a similar series of resolutions for myself this year. I won't be blogging about them except for this one: the author writes about her realization (or rather acceptance) of her love for children's literature, and her decision to start a book group devoted to it. A lightbulb went off for me: I would love to do the same-- I love to read children's and young-adult novels, and would love to chat about them with friends, both connecting with current friends/acquaintances over this hithertofore unknown mutual interest, and meeting new people with whom to do the same. But I don't want to post fliers in the children's floor of the public library and hear from random strangers. So: anyone know anyone fun and interesting in the area who'd like to read (or re-read) young adult novels and chat about them on a monthly-or-thereabouts basis? I should be clear that I am not interested in doing this in order to choose books for my kids, but simply because I enjoy them myself.

Happy New Year!

chocolate covered pretzels

Sam dipping and decorating with friends at their house yesterday:



Latest forecast: 48-60 HOURS of snow. I foresee lots of cookie baking, marshmallow toasting, Katamino playing, and snot sucking.

Hello from MN

We're visiting Omi and Opa in Minnesota. It's not any colder than it was in Massachusetts... but we're due for a foot or two (!!!) of snow in the next 3-ish days, so that should be interesting. It's been a travel-delay-a-palooza: our flight here was canceled and we were rebooked on a flight the next day (due to the East Coast's big snowstorm, though Sam had a BLAST sledding with J. at Fresh Pond), then our flight to Detroit was delayed so much that we missed our connection, and came *this close* to spending a night there, but made it standby onto a later flight. Whew! and Beanie only screamed for 15 or so minutes total, and here we are. She's got a cold, poor thing, so we are loving the NoseFrida (we left ours at home, silly parents, but my mom had bought us one for Christmas, and gave it to us early, and boy is it useful for sucking the snot out). Plan for tonight: marshmallow toasting over a nice fire, hot cocoa, and gingerbread cookie baking. Plan for tomorrow: more of the same, but substitute decorating for baking, and add paella (a recently-added Christmas Eve tradition of my mom's), tree-lighting (with real candles, making J. hover with the extinguisher for the entire 15 minutes they're lit) and gift-opening.

Hope you're having warm, bright, sweet, and relatively booger-free times, wherever you are and whatever you're celebrating...

poop

Because it's been too long since I last mentioned poop... what kind of baby blog is this?

Today I was at lunch with a colleague-friend, with Frida sitting on my knee entertaining herself by checking out the other folks in the cafe. I noticed Frida pooping, but figured I'd deal with it later. Nursed her. Noticed her sock felt a little wet-- had she spit up? Nope-- bright yellow with poop. Yep, her sock. She was still wearing a thick fleece bunting; I'd just taken her upper half out of it for comfort. Niiiiiice. Left fairly quickly, because trying to get her tidied up in a little cafe bathroom would have just made more of a mess. Now just hoping the (washed) bunting dries quickly enough to wear again outside in an hour...

o come...

Apropos nothing, Sam asked me yesterday: "What does adore mean?"
I said, "It's when you really, really love someone or something."
Sam: "Know what I adore?"
me: "No, what?"
Sam: "Frida."


He's been working a lot at school on following directions, listening, and doing things the first time when asked, and we've been working on those things at home a lot too. He's spacey the way certain other members of our family are spacey (ahem!), which is to say, he's often so absorbed in his own thoughts that he misses what others are saying to him. It's tough for him, but these are good skills to learn.

Our piano arrived today! And now we can barely turn around in our living room. I'm excited to start playing again, though-- haven't had a piano for 14 years. Sam's excited, too.

We've been opening gifts daily/nightly for Hanukah, and had latkes the first night (and Omi's dumplings last night-- a bit funny to eat fried pork dumplings for a Jewish holiday, but hey, they're fried!) Sam's gotten Katamino, which we're all enjoying (OK, not Beanie yet), some watercolors (expanded color options), and a cool t-shirt with a beetle screen-printed on it. Bean's gotten a couple of little wooden toys and a Bumbo (yay for Craig's List), which unlike her brother at 3.5 months,


she actually fits in at 4 months.



She's getting too long for a lot of her 3-6 month clothing, stretching her legs with irritation in her toe-confining sleepers, so it's time for another clothing rotation before we go to MN for next week (brr!).

Sam's home from kindergarten today with a cold he's been fighting all weekend. He was up a couple of times last night coughing and stuffy, so given that I was just planning to run errands anyway, we're hanging out at home. I'm sensing an approaching piano lesson...

And finally, at the risk of jinxing myself for the rest of time, a report of a successful late-afternoon in 2-child parenting: after picking Sam up from school on Friday, I needed to run three errands in Harvard Square. After finding parking (no small feat in itself), I bundled a bunting-clad Bean into the fleece sling and hefted a big bag of boxes to mail. First, because Sam hadn't had a post-school snack, we went to Burdick's chocolate shop for the best hot chocolate in the world (and a couple of gifts). We enjoyed our respective treats, and then headed back out into the darkening cold to the post office around the corner. On the way, Sam announced that he had to pee... but Chipotle's free bathroom was just a block away, and I managed to keep my cool even when Sam grabbed the nasty edge of the toilet. Back at the post office, the line was long but moving quickly, so we played a game of 20 questions while I juggled the Bean, Sam's coat, and the big bag of boxes, until I had to fill out a customs form. At the counter, I discovered that I needed to fill out the deluxe, longer customs form-- so, bouncing a now-impatient Bean, I started writing while Sam began the Whine of the Impatient Four Year Old... until I remembered the customs form clutched in his own hand. Handing him a pen, I suggested he fill one out too. "Oh! sure!" and he carefully wrote something like "PLZ RAP WF RED PPR" (please wrap with red paper), finishing just as I finished mailing 3 packages and buying stamps. He gravely handed it to the clerk, who just as gravely accepted it, and we were on our way. One extended stop-with-bonus-nursing-break later, and we were done, headed home for candle-lighting and latke-frying with no lost tempers or hats. And just one parking ticket.

haircut, pushups, bottles

Sam got a haircut tonight. This is how he looked a month ago, while enjoying a Fun Dip from his Halloween stash:


And tonight, enjoying a packet of organic (!) gummi bears, part of a Halloween gift from Omi:


It's a bit shorter in the front than I intended but otherwise probably the best haircut I've given him. Last year we tried a barber and it was just way too short all around. (And yes, I think it might have been a year since his last haircut-- by late spring it's curly enough that it doesn't really matter, and we kind of like it long, but this time of year with the dry air and the wearing of fleece hats, it gets so straight that the raggediness shows and it's time for a cut again.)

Meanwhile, Beanie is rolling from back to front, doing a pushup there (if she can get her lower arm out from under her),



and then getting tired and squawking because she's stuck. That, or falling asleep.

In the morning after I get her dressed, I prop her on a pillow and make the bed. The other day she was playing with her hands (another recent favorite activity) while I was doing so and folding laundry with her hanging out there:


Our new nanny did a trial week but ended up not being a great match, though she is kind and warm (and experienced); she got physically tired a lot because Bean is used to a lot of bouncing, rocking, and carrying, and since she's older (though not *that* old) and also has some sleep problems, she also got fairly tired by the end of the day, which was a bit hard for Sam, though she was funny and loving with him. (We *just* hired someone new who is very used to wearing babies and who seems to be more on our page in terms of childcare style; it's interesting the things one doesn't realize about one's style until one sees someone taking care of one's kids with a very different style, and finding it just doesn't work that well. Obviously it's a luxury to be able to be this flexible, and we're grateful for it; we're also grateful for the fact that Sam's first babysitter, when he was this age, was so similar in approach to what we were doing anyway that it didn't take much examination of styles on our part to make things work then (hi, M.!)

Anyway, I worked from home all week and we discovered that Bean HATES bottles. We finally got her used enough to them again to take an ounce or two at a time, but yeesh. She'd taken a couple of ounces 3-4 times before, so we got lazy about continuing practice. Whoops... Here's what I bought during one late-night Target run, having listened to two days of screaming Beanie angrily rejecting the two kinds we'd had before:


(She's now ok with both Avent and the Playtex drop-in kind, at least occasionally, when she's hungry but not too tired... so we'll keep working on it, and I'll donate the other, unused ones somewhere.)

Whew! What a week.