Lately

We're almost done with our Maine vacation. Here are more pictures...

Ho ho ho!

I'm not dead! I've been on an internet diet. I'm continuing the diet through the rest of my vacation, after this short break. We're having a lovely vacation. Here are the pictures, with captions. See you in January!

The Big Cooks borrowed some dress-up clothes from friends.
The weather has been cold and a little snowy.There has been lots of napping.Dutch got some used ice skates.
Dutch lost another tooth.Dutch wrote a note to Santa.
Skipper woke up at 5 AM on Christmas Day.
Dutch woke up at 5:45 AM. I read Santa's note to both of them.

Dutch got some MORE awesome dress-up clothes for Christmas.

That's the news so far.

Also funny.

Anyway, after all my whining about school, I got all As. Shouldn't somebody give me a job for that?

I think it's a really good idea to spend lots more money in Afghanistan.

Hey, did you know it costs $800 a month to send your kid to kindergarten IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL?

Neither did I. I thought something like "Hey, public school is free, right? Because we value public education in this country, right?"

That was silly of me. I've finally begun researching kindergarten options. If we want Dutch to be educated/cared for longer than three (3) hours a day, we have to pay. It's at least $300 a month for her to be educated/cared for for six (6) hours a day, and at least $500 a month for her to be cared for long enough for her parents to work a regular workweek. We would pay about the same amount if she stayed in her current daycare, which has a kindergarten class, and we paid the "community" rate.

I'm not even going to talk about how much it would cost for Skipper to attend full time daycare. That makes me feel sick to my stomach. I'm sorry to beat a dead horse, but doesn't anybody out there in the Policy World think that childcare and education are KIND OF IMPORTANT?!?!?!

Of course, if neither Cook nor I have jobs, we won't NEED daycare. The whole family can escort Dutch to kindergarten every day, pick her up 3 hours later, and spend the rest of the day foraging for food before setting up our cardboard boxes in the evening. Ha, and then we wouldn't have to pay taxes either! HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!

We're in Maine!

And it's lovely.

quick breath and...

I'm done! (With the quarter.) I did not produce any final projects of any academic merit whatsoever, but I probably didn't fail. And I'm sort of proud of the speed and confidence with which I produced some of it. The bullshit piled up pretty thick last week.

Things are kind of in shambles around here. I'm so sleep-deprived I'm unable to put together full sentences. The house was a mess until Cook put some serious cleaning time into it today. Dutch has been so angry and sad and whiny lately that we've started looking for help. (The internet,* I mean, but I'm thinking we may look into some kind of therapy, should the internet not actually magically solve our problems.) Skipper has eczema and still refuses to consider solid foods as anything but mildly attractive entertainment.

But we're going on vacation in a few short days, and that will be lovely. Dutch still believes in Santa, though only just barely. I'm looking forward to a leisurely holiday, with lots of cookies.



*This was kind of helpful, but I began to feel after reading about half of it that the author hates her son. SO my next research will be this book.

Review

The show was a raging success. Dutch took her MC duties very seriously.


She also participated in the grand finale number.

Hey, what do you call cheese that doesn't belong to you?
Nacho cheese!

Only one assignment left!

I'll be done with fall quarter on Friday at noon. Tonight I'm going to see a variety show; I've heard it's fantastic. I'll give you a review.

days of our lives

More videos, showing nothing particularly interesting except the extremely messy living room/Dutch's bedroom.

This morning, Skipper ate some pear for breakfast, then crept all around the kitchen, pausing only to pull things off shelves, fondle electrical outlets, and occasionally lick the floor. She's officially entered the Get Into Everything And Drive Your Sister Nuts stage.

Bangs

Dutch has bangs now, too. She LOOOOOVES them, even though they don't quite look like the bangs in the Barbie coloring book. You can't tell in the video, but I actually did a pretty decent job on them, in my opinion.

This is Sleepy Dutch, five minutes later.



Also, I want you all to know that I signed Dutch up for acting classes, starting in January. If the kid's going to wring every drop of drama out of every situation, she might as well do it officially.

Haircut time

I did it AGAIN! I cut my hair. It gets worse; I cut BANGS!!! I haven't had bangs* since I was maybe nine, I think. The reason I haven't had bangs since I was maybe nine is because they don't look very good on me. Fat round-faced people with very strong chins generally avoid bangs. There is a reason for this.

But, see, everybody has bangs. Bangs are hip! All the cool (white) kids have bangs! I've been harassing Dutch for weeks, trying to convince her that it'd be okay to get bangs, since it's driving me crazy that her hair hangs limply in her face all the time, dragging in her food and generally just looking awful,** and somewhere along the way I decided I should get bangs, too.***

I'm home sick today. Actually, I'm home feeling crappy and doing data entry and statistical analysis (two things I don't like to do and am not very good at), for work. And I have too much to do, and am exhausted and cranky and out of control, so... now I have bangs. I bet you wish our camera's memory card hadn't died.


*that were shorter than the rest of my hair, if you see what I've mean - I've given myself terrible short haircuts in the past, but this is different, since it's bangs with longer hair.
** "I just want to be able to see your pretty face!" - a refrain uttered by mothers of daughters for as long as humans have had the leisure to think about things beyond the next meal.
*** Dutch, in case you're wondering, is on board for the bangs now, since she found a character in the Barbie coloring book who has bangs. They're so pretty! I'm planning to cut her bangs this weekend - mine were just for practice.

The jury is still out.

Facebook has been feeding me all sorts of links I've liked. Yesterday I watched a video of a guy pretending to be lost at a basketball game.* Watching that made me feel like hey, people are kind of adorable!

Tonight my housemate came home from an evening of phonebanking to convince people to vote to raise taxes on rich people, and she was bummed. She had talked to many people who agree corporations should pay higher taxes... but who just couldn't bear the thought of raising taxes, because that's just not right. And who helpfully also told her that they don't like immigrants. Hearing that made me feel like hey, people are kind of idiots! Racist idiots! So I'm just not sure.

But then Facebook gave me this link. I'll let you know my verdict after I watch that movie. I'm guessing that my conclusion will probably be: both.

*You pretty much just have to watch it.

Scootching, up close

Skipper wants to eat the video camera. It makes her crazy - the little red light, the oh-so chewable-looking little box... that's why she's panting and hooting and flapping like a rabid owlet in these videos.

Skipper scootches, Dutch sulks.

I'm so sorry - I should have made it clear that I was just back from a wonderful, yummy, cozy family Thanksgiving. No, really! It was lovely. I was super-lazy and let my wonderful family members feed me and clean up after me and play with my kids. Dutch loved every second of it, and scored a much-beloved Barbie coloring book out of the event. Skipper loved flirting with everyone in sight.

Today we realized something important about Dutch. She's been pretty awful for the last month or so, which we've been blaming on all sorts of things- Skipper's birth, our move, bad weather, our stress levels, etc. Today we kind of put it all together, FINALLY, and realized that what's happening here is more than that - it's a major shift in Dutch's life. She has officially left behind her status as Little and Cute. This has been accelerated by her hugeosity and her new glasses, which make her look older than she is, but she was getting there anyway. She's entered a sort of a preview of adolescence, a transition from small-childhood to grade-school-childhood.

This transition is made more difficult by the fact that Skipper has just arrived in small-childhood and the privileges thereof. Skipper is overwhelmingly Little and Cute right now, and she gets all sorts of positive attention from strangers, as well as from Cook and me. She has also just begun commando-crawling, and is starting to get into Dutch's Stuff. None of the annoying things she does are her fault, and everybody forgives her every transgression. This looks wildly unfair to Dutch, and it doesn't help to point out to her that she got all the same privileges when she was Little and Cute. It also doesn't help that her new maturity and responsibility come with new privileges, because they don't look to her like adequate compensation. I'm not sure they really ARE adequate compensation, honestly.

Cook and I are now trying to redirect our energy* toward coming up with ways to make child-middle-age look better to Dutch - some way to recognize and honor her status as a Big Kid in a way that makes sense to all of us. Ideas would be very welcome.


*from activities such as checking how much it would cost to mail a 50-pound package containing a live animal to Ecuador. Or looking into the minimum age limit for boarding schools. That sort of thing.

Thanks

We're back from Thanksgiving! Now Cook and I have to figure out how to get a big consulting project done (Cook) while also finishing a paper (me), drafting a final project (me), writing a term paper (me), and writing up a research assignment (me). Also, going to Gresham to work (me). Should be no problem, right? So I'm going to stop spending time blogging.

Bribe me.

An incentive chart is a poster on which Dutch gets to put a sticker at the end of each day that she keeps her glasses on all day, working toward prizes. If she earns a sticker each of the next four days, for example, she gets to have breakfast with me on Sunday, JUST THE TWO OF US,* at our awesome local cafe, where Dutch will eat bacon, jam, ketchup,** bread, and freshly-squeezed orange juice.

I wish I had an incentive chart. Adulthood is kind of shitty that way. My rewards are erratic, usually unearned, and often entwined with something less lovely, but they are lovely. The sight of Dutch's small, defiant face turned up to me today as we discussed her incentives, with her jutting chin, tangled hair, and lopsidedly magnified right eye peering through those despised glasses, was a reward. When she said that thinking about the bacon "makes my mouth water!" and then said thoughtfully "... I don't actually know what that means," that was a reward, too.

But I'd still like some stickers. And a prize.


*This is a very powerful incentive, because she's so sick of that damn interloping baby.
** That is a very specific list - the ketchup and jam are made in-house, and are delicious, so they have become a central part of the meal, rather than peripheral.

So...tired...

Skipper has gotten over several nights of wakeful playfulness from 11 PM to 1 AM. Now she's back to just waking up at 5 AM. Meanwhile, I am most productive with my schoolwork from 9 PM (when kids are asleep, dishes washed, random stuff tidied up, etc) to 11 PM (when my last few brain cells give up and go to bed). I am lucky to get six hours of sleep a night these days, and it's broken up with breastfeedings and comforting-back-to-sleeps. I can't remember what it's like to have a fully-functioning brain.

In the good news, Dutch has been eerily nice for the last 24 hours, as if the glasses that make her look 2 years older also have somehow matured her emotionally. She still dislikes the glasses, but her re-entry into daycare as a glasses-wearer was much less traumatic than she feared (several kids even said they LIKED her glasses, much to my relief), and I think we're on track (with the help of an incentive chart) to regular wearing.

Dutch has hidden her glasses several times. She takes them off at every opportunity. When her friends came over for her birthday party today, one of them said "You look weird with glasses on. You look like a doctor." and of course Dutch immediately took her glasses off.

The problem is that she can see beautifully with ONE eye, which has basically taken over all the vision responsibilities, so the glasses don't functionally improve her vision - they kind of boggle her poor little brain, which was happily chugging along with input from one eye. Thus she has no reason to wear the glasses; not only do they not make it easier for her to see, they actually make it harder for her to see during this transition period.

So - we have to come up with other incentives. Any ideas?

Four eyes

Here is Dutch wrangling one of her TWO new pairs of glasses. She's not very happy about the glasses thing at all...



This video, while boring, is notable because a) hey, check out Dutch in glasses! and b) hey, check out those sibling dynamics!

Girls Who Wear Glasses

I have a five-year-old. I have an amblyopic five-year-old. I have an amblyopic five-year-old princess who LOVED her birthday presents (thank you, all of you!) and is wildly excited to play her new games, read her new books, wear her new clothes, and dress up her new Shirley Temple paper dolls (courtesy of our housemates, who have had to watch all that tap-dancing). The kid loves Shirley Temple.* The kid does NOT love the prospect of getting glasses.** I cannot find any evidence that Shirley Temple wore glasses, but I'm looking for evidence to prove that people CAN be fancy and wear glasses at the same time. I welcome any suggestions for getting over this hurdle.

* The irrepressibly jaunty little-girl Shirley Temple, not the scary Republican old lady Shirley Temple
**Because she actually only needs a corrective lens on one eye, Cook thinks we should get her a monocle.

Movies

This is Skipper in the morning, again. I was trying to capture her sitting up, but she fell over.


And this is Dutch's new bike. It's huge. Dutch loves it (it's pink and superfancy!) but hasn't quite yet got the hang of it. And we haven't got training wheels. So Cook has been doing a lot of running around holding on to the back. In this scene, however, he's changing the gears. Really.


This is Skipper asleep on our bed, dreaming about breasts. Everything is yellow.


This is Dutch and Skipper this morning (we got the package, Mom!). Dutch is dressed for her first ever soccer class at the community center. She participated enthusiastically for about 20 minutes, and then said she didn't want to play anymore because she's not good at it. Alas. But I made her stay and watch the other kids for the remaining 25 minutes, and she's going to try again next week. My kid with the perfection complex...

Horrible/Adorable

Cars suck. They really do. They take up so much space and time and energy and they KILL PEOPLE. I'm sick of feeling defensive about being car-free. Not having a car (on purpose, I mean, not because you just lost your license or can't afford* a car) isn't a personal virtue. It's a way of living that is good for everybody. It's good for me. I walk two miles a day as a minimum (and boy howdy do I need to burn those calories). I chat with my family members as I walk and on the bus, without having to concentrate on driving. It's good for you. I'm not polluting. It's good for Portland. For every $1 I don't spend on gas/insurance/etc., about $.70 goes into the local economy.** And don't forget the fact that I'm gentle on the infrastructure, saving the taxpayers' maintenance money.

Portland is a weird place. Being here, and in an urban planning degree program, I find that I'm defensive about my transportation in a totally new way. In Portland, the people with whom I spend my days generally think car-free-ness is admirable. But I have to be defensive about the fact that I don't bike.In Portland, people who don't bike are losers.*** A helmet and battered bike bag are status symbols in Portland. A bus pass, not so much.

That's about all I have to say about that. In other news, Skipper is so adorable that it kind of hurts my teeth. Dutch is possibly possessed by demons, and has been behaving like that kid you sometimes see in public who is so horribly awful that you shake your head in horror and feel a pang of pity and contempt for that horrible child's parents, who are obviously incompetent or neglectful, and are definitely horrible. Dutch obviously sees that Skipper is adorable, and I expect that's one of her demons. Also, she wants us to buy a car.


* Okay, I can't afford a car. But it's also by choice!
** According to Joe Cortwright. I don't know enough about economics to even begin to assess that claim.
*** Utilitarian biking, that is. People who bike for recreation are also losers.

Err-Lie in the Morning...

Here are two new videos, taken this morning at 6 AM as Skipper and I prepared for the day. (Skipper, like Arizona, does not believe in time changes.)


You have questions?

Yes, she is kitted out entirely in Swedish-ish things, including the highchair. So? She's one-quarter Swedish! It's legitimate.

Yes, she's wearing a hat inside. It was cold, and that was the only warm-ing-up-type thing I could find in the dark without waking the rest of the family.


No, these videos are not very interesting, and yes, they're practically identical. I'm serving up two because I assume that you can't get enough of watching my daughter bang things on other things. I think she's completely adorable* right now,** and I expect you to feel the same, or at least not tell me otherwise.



*in spite of the 5:30 wake-up calls...

** A friend of mine opines that babies reach their Maximum Babyness at age 7 months, and I think he's right. Skipper squawks and whacks things and smiles and says "blah blah blah blah!" and it's all just overwhelmingly adorable. She's so enthusiastic!

Halloween

Dutch was going to be a puppy for Halloween. Then she was going to be a princess. Then she was going to be a pirate. Then she was going to be "Superkitty." Then she found a pair of bunny ears in one of her random boxes of junk, and decided to be a bunny. No, a bunny with magical powers. Then today at tap-dancing class she got jealous of the kids in the store-bought Disney Princess costumes, and decided that she was going to be a ROYAL bunny.

state of zen

I am happy. It seems to happen every quarter - I get overwhelmed and exhausted and feel awful that I'm doing many things badly... and then I get mysteriously happy. Things seem kind of bright and sunshiny and friendly. (It's been raining for a week.)

I'm still frayed and weary and cranky, but I suddenly suspect that I may be, in spite of the cynicism and meanness and pettiness, a basically happy person. That's a nice thing to realize at the advanced age of 33.

I think Skipper may be a happy person too, under her crankiness. She smiles a lot.

overwhelmed

I accidentally posted this as just a title. That would have been accurate. I'm overwhelmed. Also, our camera is still broken, and I haven't seen the camcorder thingy since we moved. I'm sure it's around here somewhere. For now, though, there will be no photos, no movies, and hardly any text. Definitely no interesting text.

Nobody here has H1N1 yet, but it's only a matter of time, since practically every other child in Skipper's classroom has had it.

That's the news.

Have a nice fall!

village

First of all, this is totally true. I love the way people on the bus always want to interact with Skipper. If I hold her so she's looking over my shoulder, she inevitably ends up having a conversation with a total stranger.

Second of all, shared housing is working out very well so far. I know all sorts of weirdness could develop, but so far there's just been shared meals, shared housework, and even some marvelously shared parenting. So far they have done the following with Dutch:

1. Walked the dog a bunch of times. Apparently, one time after I warned Dutch as she left not to talk Brendan's ear off, she spent half the walk talking incessantly, then switched over to walk on his other side, and said "now I'm going to talk your other ear off!" and talked incessantly the whole way home. He has perfected the noncommital, not-really-listening "mmmhmmm."
   
2. Made a scarecrow.
3. Made cupcakes.
4. Made sock puppets.
5. Watched her tap-dance.*

They're providing some of the fun-parent parts of parenting that Cook and I are currently too stressed and weary to provide. (Actually, we never provide the let's-make-a-sock-puppet sorts of parenting. ) Dutch is a lucky kid. We're watching carefully and trying to keep her from abusing their kindness while simultaneously taking as much advantage of them as possible; hopefully we'll be able to maintain a balance that works for everyone.


* She's taking tap dance classes at the community center this fall instead of ballet. She has absolutely no sense of rhythm whatsoever, so item #5 on this list may be the most impressive.

Tomorrow, crack.

Yesterday Dutch asked Cook if he would please make a cake when they got home. Actually, could he just leave her in the kitchen with an open bag of sugar, please?

In further discussion, it emerged that one of her classmates had smuggled several small packets of sugar (the kind you get with your coffee) into the daycare. This is, of course, not allowed. So some of the kids, being old enough to understand the concept of Sneaking, hid behind a bush in the playground and furtively ate sugar. The sweetness and the thrill of getting away with such a taboo seem to have delighted Dutch. Not being old enough to understand the concept of Really Sneaking, she told us all about it, and then tried to recreate the sensation by conning us into leaving her in the kitchen with an open bag of sugar.

She's so open, still. She "sneaks," but then delightedly confesses all. But now I can see that the doors and windows are beginning to close...

Not a coincidence

I thought Dutch was a bad sleeper (night-time waking, very short naps, no naps at all at home after age 2, only sleeping the whole night in her very own bed since age 4) because of her personality. It had NOTHING to do with me. Now that Skipper is also a bad sleeper (infrequent naps usually around 20 minutes long, no longer than 40 minutes), I'm beginning to suspect that I am actually just really bad at this particular aspect of parenting. What am I doing wrong, all you parents of sleeping babies? Was there a memo that I missed?

Rather than believe that I am a bad parent, I've decided to instead believe that both of my perfect children are just so very eager for life that they can't bear to miss anything, so they fight sleep with all the substantial stubbornness they can muster, scrabbling for just... one...more... minute...of... consciousness. That's it, right?*

Part of my problem is that we downsized from a king-sized bed to a full-sized bed, and the complaining, wiggling baby somehow looms much larger at 3 AM than she did before. Also, I'm really tired.

*This is the I'm-A-Bad-Mommy-Which-Actually-Makes-Me-A-Good-Mommy,-So-Ha! school of thought, in which kids benefit from benign neglect, and my kid (who eats nail parings and off the floor ) while I blog is going to be an independent, creative, well-balanced genius, while your kid (who is over-scheduled with all that soccer and music classes ) is going to end up being a stressed-out, unhappy investment banker (a horrible fate). So Ha!

Skipper explores unconsciousness

I think my life is just going to be crazy for seven more weeks. I don't see much respite ahead!

In the hallway outside Skipper's room at the daycare, the teachers have posted one-page reports on things they've observed in the classroom. It's a pretty academic daycare, and they tend toward little stories with pictures of a baby, or several babies, doing something developmentally interesting. They're captioned with titles like "Oliver discovers the window," or "Lincoln explores his hands." There's one picture of Skipper. There's no caption. She's sleeping.

Skipper is the youngest baby in the daycare, and is having the hardest time adjusting. What she does there, mostly, is cry and sleep. (She sleeps very well there, actually, maybe because she sees no point in staying conscious.) She's always crying when I leave her there, and either crying or asleep when I come to pick her up. I'm finding this quite painful. The room is lovely, the teachers are really nice and seem very competent. There's nothing the least bit wrong about the place. It's just wrong to be leaving my very sad baby behind.

But... apparently she did better today. It'll get better. And someday, I'm going to unpack.

We moved.

It happened. We're alive. There's a lot of unpacking to do now.

On the other hand...

I find everything I'm doing to be interesting and rewarding, as a whole. Yes, there's too much going on in my life right now, but I'm pretty lucky to be overwhelmed by good stuff, rather than crappy stuff. And Skipper has the softest, most smooch-able belly ever. Plus, I've got all (!) of you people to worry about me. So, you know, I should probably stop whining. Thanks for all your good wishes!

Still alive

I am still here. Now all four of us are sick (to varying degrees) and I have lots of homework and I am having terrible insomnia, and I don't know how the stuff remaining in our apartment is going to get packed. I am feeling very sorry for myself. If my entire reading audience (no, really, ALL of you) could fly out to Portland this weekend, that would be very helpful.

If you can't make it, you should take a moment on Saturday to think of us. Set down your mug of coffee and your paper, put your slippered feet up on the ottoman, look out the window at the beautiful fall weather, tip your head back in your easy chair... and think of us. Moving. All day.

I'll be thinking of you. Actually, I'll be thinking of how nice it'll be once we've settled in, and the fact that our housemates are cooking us a big welcome-home dinner on Sunday. Once I've stopped whining.

Really, what I want to know is WHY DO WE HAVE SO MANY BOOKS!?!? WHY!!!!!!!

Where IS Mama?

For want of a nail.

Holy crapola - things are crazy here. Skipper and Dutch have colds, and Skipper is sliming everything in that special unique way of snotty babies everywhere. We've finally started packing (because hey, we're moving IN A WEEK!!), and we keep having cascades of minor problems. Here is an example:

We need to sell our bed. It won't fit in our new home. In order to sell the bed, we needed to take a picture of it to post on Craigslist. The camera lens is broken, so we needed to find the other lens, which hadn't been seen in over a year. We finally found it, but it's not going to work (it's a zoom lens, and we can't get far enough away from the bed unless we climb the tree outside the window). So we're going to make a video of it instead. I just wish someone would be our spokesmodel, like maybe this guy.

Anyway, things are crazy. I have tons of homework, and tons of packing, and Skipper's snotty nose made her want to nurse all night, so I'm exhausted. I shouldn't even be taking the time to write this. I'll tell you all about my exciting new job and exciting classes when I have time, like maybe in January.

What's up with us

Today was my second day of class. I like my classes. They're going to require a lot of work. I'm also going to have to spend quite a bit of effort convincing my groupmates for one class that I'm not actually insane, in spite of the evidence I provided on Monday.*

Cook's job will be ending at the end of next week, and he's spending all his afternoons with Skipper now. (He is still doing his consulting gig, though, and will restart his job in January.) I will be starting my job on Thursday, and will be gone from 7 AM to 6 PM.

Dutch seems happy to be back at daycare. Some clinging has been happening. Skipper hates daycare. Much screaming has been happening.** Skipper also refuses to take a bottle. I'm sure she WILL take a bottle when she gets desperate (ie on Thursday), but it's hard on everybody.

Dutch has an eye appointment on her birthday, and we'll just have to wait until then to find out what's going on. On reflection, I've decided that it is very likely strabismus, which seems to be what Cook had when he was a kid.*** Dutch has decided that she wants pink frames on her glasses.



*There was a LOT of babbling. I'm pretty sure that I talked about my breasts, too.

**This is why I'm acting like an insane person. Knowing that my baby is crying her heart out while I'm in class or at work seems to have that effect on me.

*** There was an operation AND a patch!

Not the eyepatch. Please.

Dutch and Skipper had checkups today. Skipper is thriving and remains totally normal every which way. Dutch has rocketed off the charts for height, and is also thriving except! EXCEPT!!! ... she has to go to an eye doctor very very soon. She apparently can see very well with one eye, and very poorly with the other eye.* I wasn't at the appointment, and Cook wasn't very clear on the details, but it looks from the paperwork he brought home like they think she has strabismus.

I am shallow, apparently, because my absolute first thought on hearing this news from Cook was "Oh, no! Dutch will have to have braces AND glasses!" and my second thought was "I'll be damned if I don't find her the most flattering, attractive, and fashionable glasses we can possibly afford. We've got to save her from junior high misery!" After that, I had some questions about the actual implications for her health and vision.

Dutch is stressed about it - not about the eye doctor or the impending glasses, but because she FAILED A TEST.** Cook said that she had a hearing test after the eye test, and she was super-tense, with her little shoulders hunched up in anxiety.


* You may be asking yourself "How does one fail to notice that one's child is practically blind in one eye?" I'll get back to you on that.

** You may be asking yourself "How terrible a parent must one be to fail to notice that one's child is practically blind in one eye AND to have produced a child who's terrified of doing anything any less than perfectly?" ... All I can say is that Cook and I, both of whom have terrible eyesight and major fear of failure, have absolutely no idea. It's probably something in the water.

Another installment in the Boring Movie Series

Here are three videos from today, in which Skipper eats her first non-breast-milk food, and plays with toys. Exciting! Two thumbs up!

Daycare Days

Skipper doesn't care much for daycare. The teacher cheerfully told me that she thinks Skipper is now crying about half as much as when she started. She's been there for five 2-hour sessions so far, which isn't very much. The place is lovely, and the teachers are super-nice, so I'm sure it'll all work out... right? RIGHT?!

I've been spending a lot of time there, watching the other babies, and it quickly became evident that Skipper is the least relaxed baby on campus. There's one baby, round as a Weeble, with a Blagovichian head of hair, who smiles and laughs and wobbles his way around the room, whom I secretly covet. (Not that I'd get rid of Skipper, who has my heart in her sweaty little hands, but I'd like to just add Weeble-Baby to my secret baby collection.)

Anyway, I'm sure Skipper will settle in eventually. I'll be able to visit and nurse her three days a week, and Cook will be picking her up early enough that she'll do at most five hours of daycare at a stretch for the rest of 2009.

On the first day of daycare, I picked up Skipper at noonish. While I was nursing her, I looked out the window to the playground, and saw Dutch sitting alone under a play structure, wearing her I Am So Sad (Sadder Than You Can Possibly Imagine) face. I went out to say hi, and she poured out a litany of woes,* the sum of which seemed to be that it was weird going back to daycare after three months off, and she felt kind of lost. That seems to have been the only glitch, so far, though.

That's the news from here.

*"My shoes hurt me! My dress hurts me! I'm hungry!" etc.

First she loses a tooth, now this.

If you live in a city, you probably pick up the free weekly every once in a while. I do. I don't consider myself a prude. But today when I found Dutch sitting on the floor, twisted in an awkward pretzel position, carefully studying the American Apparel ad on the back of the free weekly and attempting to replicate the model's pose, I felt a little queasy. I guess I do object, after all, to having my almost-five-year-old kid learning about womanhood from a sleazy retailer. Dutch's interest seemed to be entirely engaged by the model's contortionist abilities - "How does she get her legs to go that way?!" she marveled - but still. Ick.

Today was orientation day at the daycare, so Dutch got to see many of her classmates. She's one of the oldest and tallest kids in the class, and speaks more clearly than many of her peers, so she looks much older than the others. She isn't, of course, but she looks that way. And she wants to be older than she is; she's already pulling hard toward adolescence. I can't save her from the sophisticated world of the modern American child. I guess we kind of just have to shove her out to sea and wave at her from the shore, and hope she has the right equipment.

The Prince and I

Last night Dutch and I played with her Cinderella and Prince characters. She decided that the prince was Cinderella's brother, and requested the "Prince goes to college" plotline that Cook invented a few days ago.* I complied. Cinderella made the prince come home from college to attend her wedding, and informed him that she was marrying him.

Me: I can't. Brothers and sisters can't get married.
Dutch: But there are no policemen here!
M: (laughing)
D: There is no law in movies!
M: But our children will be monsters.
D: (short pause)
D: Good BYE.
M: Now who will you marry?
D: Oh, I will find somebody on the computer.

This reminded me of this blog post, and this one, both of which made me laugh a lot.

*The prince decides to ditch Cinderella because he thinks balls and fancy dresses are boring, and he goes to college to study fluid dynamics.

They say the cutest things.

Today Dutch, who was sitting next to me on the bus, thoughtfully patted my flabby upper arm and said perkily "This is a fat place!"

"Uh-huh," I said.

"It's like ... a big dog belly!" she added.

She got four quarters.

Dutch didn't get pirate treasure or jewelry from the Tooth Fairy, in case you were wondering. The TF waffled about whether to pay up extra for the tooth lost 3 years ago, but decided to err on the side of cheapness. So - one down, eighteen to go!

High expectations

Ye shall receive

Oh you generous people of the internets! It has come to my attention that when I post my shopping list, it makes kind people send me gift certificates! I suddenly fear that I will receive 25 travel mugs for my birthday. I didn't mean to hint that I wanted my vast reading audience to get me stuff - I'm just thoughtless, not actually that manipulative. And you all are so nice. One of you, Mr. Currently Struggling About Whether or Not to Take a Lucrative But Morally Dubious Job, even tipped me off to an example of the beauty of the internet - a website devoted to the art of drinking coffee while biking.

I plan to spend my first (oh so very small) paycheck at a cool store where more stylish people than myself consign their clothes. So what I really need, actually, is somebody to come and give me advice about What To Buy. I have no style at all* and desperately need a personal shopper. Since everybody I know has more fashion sense than me, any of you who might be reading this are qualified. Let me know when you'd like to come.

Hey, did I mention I'd like to get a laptop, too? And a pony? With a farm to go with it?

Apropos of nothing, I was just reading a bodice-ripper (a pretty good one, too!), and it actually contained the phrase "heaving bosom." Hooray! I realized yesterday after accepting the job that my time for reading for fun is rapidly coming to a close, what with the job starting in two weeks and school starting in a week and a half. And, oh, yes, the move, in three weeks. So I'm trying to cram in as much reading (trash and non-trash) as possible, rather than spending my time, say, packing, or cleaning, or anything productive. Gosh, I'd better start rustling up boxes.


* My taste could best be described as "Clothes that aren't horribly uncomfortable, are cheap at the thrift store, don't need to be dry-cleaned, and aren't white, because all my clothes eventually turn grey and I can't be bothered to change my laundering habits." Though I do know enough to be able to recognize that Dutch's current outfit - hot pink t-shirt, green shorts, white knee socks, and ballet-shoe-slippers - is just not quite right.

Shopping my way through anxiety

This whole "working" thing has got me all stressed out. I will have real responsibilities! I will have to be away from Skipper for 11 hours two days a week! I will have NO FREE TIME! Not that my time is terribly free right now, but everything is going to get way more hectic in two weeks.

As usual, I am channeling my anxiety into consumption! These are the things I've determined I must buy:

A. Travel mug. I'll have to get up so early that I'll have no time to drink my coffee before leaving to catch the bus.

B. Clothes. My wardrobe is totally inadequate to the task of trying to convince business owners to bike to work every day. I am going to have to look more Fancy than I ever have before. Dutch is delighted

As usual, I am seriously overthinking this. I've done extensive research already on The Perfect Travel Mug (must be leakproof, must not be plastic, must not have annoying dribbly hole, must be easy to clean but not annoyingly wide, etc.). I just can't find it. My life depends on this, obviously.

Change

So. Skipper has started daycare.* I have been offered a part-time job** and will probably take it, though not without queasy feelings.*** Dutch has a loose tooth.**** We're moving in less than 4 weeks.***** School starts in less than two weeks. Cook's job will be finished in probably three weeks.

What's up with you?

* In a very loose sense - she spent 45 minutes there without a parent today, and we'll probably try for 2 hours on Monday.

** I haven't been keeping this a secret. I applied two days ago, interviewed yesterday, and interviewed again today.

***I'll probably elaborate on all this later, but it involves very low pay and a VERY long commute.

**** Dentist Google says almost-five is within the realm of normal for natural tooth loss. Which is good, because the first tooth she lost (at age 2, in a playground mishap) was seriously traumatic for me. Normal is nice.

*****AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

It's official

So we're moving. We really are. We're moving from a very small two-bedroom apartment to a house. A SHARED house. We're going to live with Emma Goldman and Brendan Behan, with whom we've celebrated a number of holidays and eaten a number of large meals. We will have three rooms and a bathroom to ourselves, and share the kitchen, dining room, living room, yard, and basement storage. (Storage! Hooray!)

We're looking forward to it, in spite of some reservations about the normal issues* involved in sharing living space. Cook and I last lived with people other than each other (and our offspring) in 1998. Now we'll be dealing with those normal issues with the offspring in tow, which means we'll have to make sure the kids don't make life miserable for Brendan and Emma (both of whom Dutch adores and would love to follow around all day every day, talking incessantly), and we'll also have to do a lot of parenting in front of witnesses. It could be good for us. It could be good for Dutch and Skipper to live with other adults, too. It'll decrease our ecological footprint. We'll be able to garden! There's a dog!

Anyway, we're moving in early October, most likely. I'm dreading the physical move, as we are moving into an upstairs space with an awkward stair situation. Should be fun!


* Chores. Dishes left in the sink. Having to wear clothes when going into the kitchen to make coffee in the morning. Having to say "good morning" in a non-cranky way when going into the kitchen to make coffee in the morning. That sort of thing. But we'll have separate phones. We even have separate refrigerators, which is kind of awesome.

I'm on blogging hiatus - family visits, hot weather, etc. Until I think of something to say, here's a picture for you: Skipper with her yuppie squeaky giraffe.

Feathers

Friday night, Dutch went on a sleepover. A SLEEPOVER! Best Friend invited her. They'd been stewing over the idea for months, and I'd been dragging my feet. Almost-five is very very old and sophisticated, of course, but I'd thought sleepovers would start when she was more like seven. Dutch had never spent the night away from us before, and I was skeptical that she'd be up to it.

Dutch and I talked a lot about what sleepovers entail, how she might miss us, what she might do if she missed us, etc. Dutch was confident she'd be fine. She left at 5, very excited. At 8:30 (an hour after they went to bed), we got The Call - Dutch still wanted to stay for the night, but was very sad and wanted to talk to me. She was almost unable to talk, because of the tears backed up in her little body, and managed only to choke out one of the most heart-breaking paragraphs in the history of my life with Dutch: "Mama, I MISS you! I WANT you! I NEED YOU!!!" And then she left the phone, because she was so desperately sad. I almost burst into tears myself. But she told Best Friend's mom that she wanted to stay, and Best Friend's mom challenged the two girls to race to be the first one to fall asleep. That was that.

We didn't hear from them again until I finally called to check in at mid-morning. Apparently, the first thing Dutch said on waking was "I LOVE sleepovers!" They made waffles and watched "Pinocchio" and Dutch bragged about how brave she was to sleep over. All was well until Dutch had the come-aparts and had to be rushed home around noon. She was exhausted and grumpy when she got home, and started crying all over again. Much cuddling was administered.

I remember my first sleepover. I don't know how old I was, but I remember how stressed out I was after the other kids fell asleep. I thought I was going to be alone and awake ALL NIGHT. I waited some excruciatingly long time, possibly five minutes, and finally went down the hall for comfort from my host's parents. In the morning, I felt immensely proud of myself, like I'd survived some tremendously strenuous rite of passage. Then I discovered the true beauty of sleepovers - you're briefly immersed in another family's life, which is in some ways better and in some ways worse than your family's. This is a valuable lesson, and builds all sorts of character and whatnot. AND if the other family eats Honey Nut Cheerios (and your family only has regular bland Cheerios) for breakfast, you're in clover.

What I did not expect was how much I would miss Dutch. It was different than being away from home while she's here with Cook. It was fine in the evening, when it was just remarkably quiet in the apartment. We got to spend some quality time with Skipper, which was very nice. But Dutch's empty bedroom really unnerved me. I had a harder time sleeping than Dutch did. When the girl herself arrived home, she smelled all wrong, like somebody else's house.

That's the story of Dutch's latest step toward adulthood, which is also, of course, a step away from me. So, you know... kind of bittersweet.

Impending

For those of you who are concerned about Dutch's warmth, the pool is heated to 85 degrees. (Fahrenheit.) Also, Dutch would like you all to know that today she was promoted to the astounding heights of the Seal level, after the heady excitement of Otter. She's taking Seal lessons in the fall, and will be learning how to BREATHE while doing the front crawl. I'm impressed, since she was reluctant to even put her head in the water at the beginning of the summer, and now can (sort of) swim. Seven weeks of swim lessons will take you a long way.

I'm working up (emotionally) to the start of daycare. Dutch starts at the end of September, and Skipper starts in the middle of the month (she'll go just a few hours at a time for a few days a week for a little while - they break in the babies that way, rather than having them all start full-time right off the bat, which would presumably mean a room full of screaming, stressed-out babies all day the first day). I can't wait for Dutch to go back, since she desperately needs the socializing, and it's clearly better for our relationship to spend some time apart.

My friend CM has just gone back to work (she has a real job, fixing broken people and stuff), leaving her own new baby in daycare, and she's inspiring me to try not to be crazy about this. (Not that she's finding it easy, but that she's doing it and not being insanely whiny about it.)

Because I have no job lined up (or even any prospects), and Cook is cutting back his hours at his primary job, we're planning to leave Skipper in daycare for no more than five hours a day for at least the first month, which makes me feel much better about the whole thing. It still hurts - FIVE HOURS A DAY! And she's so little! - but I'm also confident that she'll do well.

I definitely feel better about putting Skipper in daycare than I would have about Dutch at this age. Things are different this time around. I'm older and tireder, she has a different personality than Dutch, and I've got some experience with daycare now, not to mention an emotional investment in this particular daycare, to which I am deeply grateful for rescuing Dutch from a slide into Problem Child territory. I am confident they will do as good a job with Skipper as any daycare possibly could. Considering that much of Skipper's time is spent watching me do housework and/or argue with Dutch, they are likely to do a better job at some parts of her care than I do.

Multi-tasking

I haven't had much oomph lately for doing anything so demanding as editing videos or actually writing anything even remotely interesting,* but here, for your boringicity, are some recent videos. There's nothing like modern technology to expose how deeply boring you are.*

This is Skipper meeting a baby toy my mom gave to Dutch before she was born. A friend dubbed it "the mystical rainbow horse," a name that has stuck tenaciously. Dutch still is very fond of it, and only very grudgingly agreed to loan it to Skipper temporarily.

This is Dutch and Skipper at the pool, waiting for swim lessons.

This is Skipper and the Basil-Cam.

In un-related news, this week I saw a teenager on the sidewalk riding a skateboard while texting, listening to an mp3 player, and holding a cup of coffee. I think I'm at least a hundred years old.

* I am very very busy washing the dishes and scouring the internets for cheap baby-entertainment systems, while ignoring my children.

**Not YOU, of course. I mean us. My family, I mean. We're boring. Not you.

Text and subtext

I've enjoyed spending time with Dutch this summer. One of the things I like about her is her insatiable curiousity. That, of course, is also one of the things about her that drives me crazy. Yesterday she and I browsed through a table of cards outside a store, which had one of those witty signs announcing that unattended children will be given free espresso and a kitten. We spent about 20 minutes discussing the sign. What did it say? What's espresso? Why would they give you a kitten? Why don't they want kids to be unattended? Do they have kittens in there? Why did the store owner put that sign up? Is it a joke? What do people think when they read the sign?

She wants to know everything, particularly about the thoughts and emotions of total strangers. EVERYTHING. When I'm already cranky, being asked questions about strangers' motivation ("Mom, why did he put his hand in the bag? Mom, why is she listening to music? Mom, why did he say that?") makes me absolutely crazy. I usually end up saying things like "I DON'T KNOW!!!! I CANNOT READ MINDS!!!!!!"

I think she'll really enjoy watching reality TV shows.

Poop.

Yesterday we went to Dutch's swim lesson, and left early* in order to catch the bus downtown to go to a meeting with a staffperson for one of our senators. It had been set up by a politically active mom, and there were quite a few of us there, including a number of kids. On the way there, Skipper pooped. Skipper doesn't poop very often, so when she poops, it's not in a small way. We were just barely on time, so I wasn't able to change her, and figured I'd just let her stew in her own juices until after the meeting. When I took her out of the wrap in the meeting room, it became clear that she had soiled her pants and onesie, and the wrap. (Not my shirt, fortunately.) We sat there quietly and odorifically, and posed for photos (with the big poop stains turned away from the camera) and I said my piece about the public option.

I'm glad we went, for me, but also for Dutch. I explained the concept of healthcare reform for what seemed like hours to Dutch, but she doesn't really get it (because, hey, she's FOUR). Nor does she understand anything about the whole elected legislator thing. But I'm glad I took her, regardless. It was an unusual opportunity for her to peek into the legislative machinery. I'm not sure what she took away from it - probably nothing. Mostly, she was impressed by how fancy the office was (not that it was all that fancy - geez, they didn't even have diaper-changing facilities). She was kind of intimidated. But she really likes the reward she earned for being quiet and polite during the meeting.**


* I suggested that she just skip the lesson, given that she'd miss a third of it anyway, but she was adamant about going.
** Sparkly plastic hairclips shaped like butterflies. Of course.

Morning, last week-ish.

This one really is just for grandparents, to see what Skipper's up to these days. Mostly, as I said, drooling.

Pieces of Eight

This was filmed this morning in our kitchen, as we all listened to Dutch's new CD, and Dutch tried to figure out how a recorded album works.

Skipper likes pirate music, too. The movie may make you feel a little seasick, as the kid can now make her bouncy chair bounce like crazy. For the information of the grandparents among you, she can now roll front to back and back to side. She also drools.

Carfree buccaneers

I know I complain and brag about our carfree status more than anybody wants to hear. Feel free to skip this post!

Because the kids are out of daycare (and therefore do not need to be transported to and from downtown) and I am out of the school for the summer (and thus have no reduced-price bus pass), we've been riding the bus a lot less. This means a lot of walking.

Yesterday I had the kids on my own from 8 AM until 9 PM. We left at 8:10, and walked to the pool for Dutch's swim lesson. Our current transportation system is to take the stroller and the wrap, usually switching Skipper back and forth between the two. (She sometimes gets pretty pissed off when she's awake and alert in the wrap, since it interferes with her current favorite activity, Vigorous Kicking of the Legs.) On the way home, I nursed Skipper while standing up on a corner in a quiet residential neighborhood, while Dutch sat on the curb and quietly told herself a story. We passed our usual landmarks - the Library, then the Home of the Scary Yapping Chihuahuas, aka The Bad Dogs, who on Tuesday terrorized Dutch pretty badly. Then the House With the Plum Trees (today the residents, Don and Holly, were harvesting their plums when we passed by, and they gave us a big bag). Then the House with the Chicken Figurines in the Garden. Then The Gelato Place. Then The Post Office. Then The Grocery Store. Then Dairy Queen. Then the Bar Across the Street Where People Park Their Electric Wheelchairs Outside The Door and Things Get Very Loud at Two AM. Then home!

We stayed home for a while, and left again in the mid-afternoon. We went to the farmers market and bought lots of beautiful produce and a delicious berry crepe. Then we proceeded to the library, to pick up some books I had on hold, use the bathroom, and look at magazines. Then we went to the park and joined a whole bunch of other people who were there for a performance by Captain Bogg and Salty.* This is a local phenomenon- a bunch of guys who assume pirate personas and play music for kids. They are very popular - everybody there seemed to be dressed as pirates, know all the songs, AND know the Captain Bogg and Salty secret handshake, which is to make a hook with your index finger and wave it in the air. Dutch had a really great time. We bought a CD. We ate our picnic dinner (cheese-and-pickle sandwiches, cherry tomatoes, carrots, and brownies). We watched a short movie at the park, and walked home in the dark. Dutch, who had begged to stay for the movie and sworn she wouldn't whine at all, didn't whine at all.

It was a very nice day. The weather was fantastic, and the kids were pretty nice. We did fun stuff, and we were outside for more than ten hours of the day.

Here are some of the challenging effects of car-free-ness on our day. We toted all of our stuff - diapers, meals, produce, blanket, extra clothes, library books, etc. - everywhere we went. We couldn't bring an elaborate picnic dinner or spiffy waterproof blanket to the park, like everyone else, because we didn't have room. We had to allocate much more time to everything we did than car-full people do. (It's a safe bet that everyone else who left the park at the same time as we did go to their homes at least 15 minutes before we got to ours.) All the nursing and diaper-changing had to happen in public. We had to plan our bathroom trips carefully. We had to plan EVERYTHING. I researched our summer activities thoughtfully, looking for events that were easy for us to get to - yesterday's fun was a lucky combination of attractive, free, and conveniently located.

The good effects? We walked five miles.** We enjoyed experiencing, at a human speed, all the interesting sights and smells and sounds along the way. (The frog symphony at night!) We appreciated the novelty of walking home in the dark, and seeing our usual daytime environment transformed. We were unable to overschedule ourselves, because everything takes so long. Dutch and I had some nice conversation*** that we couldn't have had if we weren't walking together so much. We're getting to know our neighborhood really well, in a nice, slow, repetitive, organic way. There's lots of good to be gotten out of it. We can't cram as much into our lives as we could if we had a car, but we can eke more out of what we CAN fit.


*It turns out Dutch is woefully underexposed to live music, and her mind was practically exploding over the fact that they actually played, RIGHT IN FRONT OF US, the VERY SAME songs that we had heard on the CD we checked out of the library and listened to nine billion times on a road trip a year ago.

**Fortunately, Dutch accepts walks as a matter of normal daily living, and is unfazed by the prospect of a one-mile trip to the library or a 2.5-mile round trip for swim lessons.

***and some make-my-brain-trickle-out-my-ears conversation - here's a sample:
Dutch: Mom, is that other movie playing now?
Me: Yes.
D: What is happening in the movie?
M: I don't know. I've never seen it. I don't know the story.
D: Is it just the same as what happens in the book?
M: I don't know if there is a book related to that movie.
D: Mom, if there is a book, have you read it?

Snappy little messages to tweet.

It's human nature to focus on what's immediate to us. The world is small for all of us, and we use cellphones, facebook, and other filtering tools to keep it limited to what we want to experience. I stepped out of my bubble long enough to call my senator's office the other day (finally) to express my opinion about healthcare reform. Afterward, I felt pleased with myself, and somewhat surprised to find that my intervention didn't immediately fix the situation. It's the same way with big things that upset me, like... wars. I decide that I disapprove of them and they are terrible, and that's that. My disapproval somehow should mean they just stop.

Unfortunately, it turns out that they don't.

Sunday evening at the madhouse.

The scene: Our living room. Cook has just showered after playing frisbee and cooking dinner, and is working on the computer, Dutch is playing some sort of demented game on the couch, and I'm trying to finish up the newest book by my favorite trashy-book author.

Cook (waving a tiny object): Look at this weird thing I found in my ear! What do you think it is?

Me (totally disinterested, barely glancing at it): Um. A bug?

Dutch: What is it? Can I see? What is it? Where did you find it? You found it in your ear? Is it really a bug?

Cook: It's not really like earwax. More like... crystals!

Me: Hm.

Dutch: Wow! Crystals! Why do you have crystals in your ear?

Cook: It's almost like... a little piece of garlic.

Dutch: Why is there garlic in your ear? Is it really garlic? Is it a garlic crystal?

Me: (ignoring them both, since I've only got FIVE PAGES LEFT)

Cook (gingerly smelling the tiny object): Hey! It IS garlic!

Dutch: There was garlic in your NOSE?! Why was there garlic in your nose?

No news is good news, I guess.

I spent some time last night writing a great blog post in my head. It was great! It was witty and pithy and stuff. I've totally forgotten it, and no amount of staring at the screen will bring it back, apparently.

Anyway, I just cut my hair. Skipper keeps pulling it, and I hated the length it was at. I have super-fine hair,* and when it gets long, it gets really flat and nasty and I look like a balding hippie of the unsavory, unwashed, unphotogenic variety. Now it's shorter, and I feel lighter of heart, even though now I look like an unsavory hippie whose hair has been gnawed by rats. I always cut my hair when I'm feeling a little insane, which I am definitely feeling at the moment.

In the non-insane news, Dutch just began her last session of swim lessons, at the glorious Otter level. This means that summer is winding down. The kids start daycare at the end of September, and I am trying to write a letter, as requested by Skipper's teachers-to-be, describing her. It's pretty hard, trying to describe a 4-month-old child's personality. Cook was stumped when I told him about the assignment. "Um... she's kind of squeaky? She eats? And sleeps? And... poops?" I find myself writing things like "she really enjoys kicking her legs," which is just pointless, as I'm pretty sure that they weren't planning to bind her legs or anything. The letter will also be seriously outdated by the time she gets to daycare - she'll have lived 25% longer, and will be different in most ways. Maybe leg-kicking will go the way of the sleepy songs and the long nighttime sleeps.

Also, we'll be moving soon, to a different part of Portland. I'll tell you all about it later.







*One of Cook's physical attributes that I deeply envy is his thick, luxuriant hair. The other is his ridiculously lush eyelashes, that would be totally appropriate for a small cartoon animal of the adorable variety. Dutch inherited them, though Skipper seems to have missed that particular genetic boat.

Dirty words

I forgot to report that Dutch recently, during a heated game of Candyland (sounds sticky!), said "Oh, fuck!"

Then I had a little chat with her about appropriate words. My position on this is kind of unenthusiastic because it really doesn't bother me to hear people use bad words, and hey, they're actually pretty useful! But I don't want her using them in front of other people, lest they not take her seriously.

Yesterday I told her cheerfully during yet another game* that she was "kicking ass and taking names," and then I had second thoughts and told her she shouldn't really say that in front of other people, but it was okay to say it at home with just us. (I TOLD you my position was unenthusiastic!) A few minutes later, she said "I'm beating butts and forgetting names!"

So I guess I don't have to worry too much about it.

* She's REALLY into board and card games right now, thanks to Auntie V. She can beat me at Memory about half the time. Not so much other games. She's become a much better sport over the last few weeks, mostly since it quickly became clear to her that nobody would ever play with her if she kept throwing tantrums whenever she lost. And hey, Auntie V., she announced to me that the word "weird" is a secret word that you and she share. "It's special for me and V." she said.

Book report

I think everybody who reads this blog knows how much I love to read. I started reading really early, and read lots of Good Books for many years. Then I got pregnant and used the hormones as an excuse to read every bodice-ripper I could find at the library. I never stopped. I occasionally read a Better Book, and sometimes a Good Book, but mostly I just read brainless crap that I forget as soon as I read it. Which is fine with me; I have no feeling of obligation to read Good stuff. Cook reads enough of that for the both of us. But I truly love reading, and the escape it provides me.

Dutch seems to share my passion. She loves old-fashioned books, especially. Now she's reading the Marguerite Henry books I loved as a kid - they're all about horses. Cook hates them ("Oh my GOD this is boring!" he whines to me after she goes to sleep), but he stoically plods through them without letting Dutch know his feelings. I'm reading the Grimm fairy tales to her, in order. Oh my GOD, they're boring. Also misogynistic and violent and creepy. Whee! At some point in each story, she looks at me with a wrinkled-up face and says "Why did they do that?" and I say "Because it's Grimm!"
I found this great blog about children's books - the author provides recommendations and discusses books, and she totally likes the same books I do. If you're looking for book ideas, check it out.

Skipper's side of the story

According to Cook, this is more or less how Skipper experienced our first prolonged separation:

10 AM: Mmm, that was a nice wrap nap. I'm hungry! What's this? It has milk in it, but it smells wrong, it looks wrong, it feels wrong. Take it away! Horrible thing! Where is my beloved Breasts-with-Head-Attached?! Where is it!? I haven't seen it in a while! Oh no!!!!! I'm going to DIIIIIEEEE!!!!! BRING ME THE BREASTS-WITH-HEAD-ATTACHED!!!!

10:30 AM: So the Breasts-with-Head-Attached really doesn't seem to be available. Okay, bring the horrible thing with milk in it back again. I'm really hungry.

1:30 PM: Oh my god THERE IT IS!!!!!!!! MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

3:30 PM: AGH! SHOTS!!

4:30 PM: I'm hungry, I guess. I don't feel that great. I'll take some sips from the horrible thing.

6:00PM: Oh my god THERE IT IS!!!!!!!! MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM! (repeated for 90 minutes)

7:30 PM: I'm so sleepy, and I'm so happy to have the BWHA back again! Cuddle me!

How to spend your first day away from your baby when she's 4 months old

1. Every night for three weeks before the big day, pump the 1-2 ounces of breastmilk you can squeeze out after the kids are asleep, before you wash the dishes and go to sleep. Freeze lots of very small portions.

2. Make a plan for pumping and storing breastmilk while you're at the conference. Assemble your equipment.

3. When the day comes, leave home at 8:15, in a hurry to catch the bus, and then deeply regret that you didn't take the time to give her a kiss goodbye.

4. Run into an acquaintance onthe bus, and talk to her very rapidly about how happy you are to be away from your kids and how much you miss them. When she gets off (mysteriously a few stops earlier than you thought she was planning to get off), say "BYE!" really loudly and then feel like an insane person.

5. Think about the baby a lot all day. Get sweaty every time you think about her.

6. Tell everybody who comes near you how crazy weird it is to pump breastmilk. Wonder if this may hurt your chances of getting a job from anybody attending this conference.

7. Spend your breaks finding a bathroom with an outlet and chairs and then setting up your pump. These bathrooms will be the most crowded ones. Pump as much breastmilk as you can as quickly as possible without missing too much of the sessions, while ignoring the people staring at you and the conversations they have about you subsequently as they go out the door (really). Try to smile at them and remember that you are NOT DOING ANYTHING INAPPROPRIATE. Smile extra big at the nervous-looking pregnant women. Appreciate your interactions with the four women, all older, who stop briefly or lengthily to say things like "Good for you!" and "I remember doing that! Gosh, it hasn't gotten any easier since then, has it!" and, memorably, "Namaste!"

8. Be very very happy to see your entire family when they stop by during the lunch break so that the baby can visit your breasts. Enjoy your baby's radiant smiles and murmurs of appreciation as she nurses. Kiss her many times and smell her head. Don't forget to also kiss your older daughter's sticky cheek and tell her how happy you are to see her (which you are, but your hormones are way more concerned about the little one).

9. Talk to adults, think about interesting things not related to your family or home life, learn stuff.

10. Enjoy being able to get through your day without having to care for anyone. Except for those pumping sessions.

11. Discover when you go home that the baby turns her head toward you and tries to gnaw through your shirt to your breasts every time you pick her up for the 1.5 hours between your arrival home and her falling asleep. Nurse her about six times during that period.

12. Wash the pump and bottles, and pack up your equipment for day two.

Growing up

Skipper is on her way. She laughs! She tries to eat everything! She's sitting in the high chair to join us at meals, and this week I started putting her on my back in the Ergo for short periods. She seems cool with all of this. She's pretty cool.

The weirdest thing about having a second kid is how she worships the first kid. She watches Dutch adoringly, laughs at her antics, and almost always enjoys even Dutch's most invasive dealings with her,* things that REALLY irritate me. This is both good, because Dutch entertains Skipper marvelously well for remarkably long periods (no need for electronic toys when you've got a demented preschooler on hand!), and bad, because... well, I don't know. It irritates me! I try to give Skipper little intervention-type lectures, like "Honey, I want you to know that there are many different ways to behave, and you don't have to grow up to be like Dutch. Really. You don't have to wear dresses all the time. You don't have to be a princess. You don't have to be a drama queen! You can be a camo-wearing engineer. Please explore your options!" Of course, Dutch herself may not grow up to be like Dutch-right-now, and I know that siblings can be wildly different from eachother, but somehow I find it impossible to imagine that Skipper won't be just like her sister, and when I watch her tracking Dutch's every move, it seems even more likely.

Also, Skipper has stopped sleeping well. JUST LIKE DUTCH.

*Mostly putting her face right up next to Skipper's and squawking manically at her. Also flailing wildly two inches away from Skipper's face.

Awkward Family Photos

I've always thought coordinated-outfit family photos are silly (though I have some awesome ones from my youth). But today Dutch dressed in a shirt that totally matched Skipper's onesie, and I had to take pictures. Voila, I am a hypocrite.



Also, this totally cracked me up, later in the day.