Boasting, or contentment. Maybe both.

This evening, Cook had a meeting/hanging-out session with one of the groups he volunteers with. I took this as an excuse to go out for dinner with the girls. They chose sushi, and they chose to bike there. Skipper has recently grown into a hand-me-down bike that still feels very large and dangerous to her, and she hasn't done much biking on the street, so this was kind of a minor big deal.

These are the things that happened:

1) The weather is absolutely gorgeous - a warm, glowingly sunny evening, with everything in full leaf and/or bloom.

2) When we walked in to the restaurant, a woman whom we've seen working there (and know to be a native Japanese speaker) greeted us in English, and Skipper said, casually and without being prompted, "Konnichiwa," and the woman politely returned her greeting but made no fuss about it, and when we left, Skipper said "Sayonara."

3) The girls liked ALL their food and nobody complained.

4) Duchess said dreamily, in conversation about her day and her future options for living in China, "Mom, I think I'm growing up."

5) All the way home, Skipper told us facts (and "facts"*) about ants.

6) The biking went very smoothly.

So there I was, biking home on a lovely evening with my lovely, safe, healthy children who are growing up, who are interested in many things, who want to know about ants and live in other countries, and we have enough money to go out for sushi sometimes and return to our comfortable, safe home where we have enough food and all the things we need, and everything just felt so idyllic that I felt completely peaceful about everything.

Of course, now I have to put Skipper to bed, so I will probably not feel so idyllic. But I did. I do. I remain very lucky.


*She says some ants eat the blood of cockroaches. While the ants in our house often bite my bare feet, I'm skeptical about the cockroach thing.

Evidence of summer

1) Duchess can swim, for reals now.
2) Skipper's legs are all tan and scabby.
3) I just ate a bowl of raspberries that Duchess picked today (at a u-pick farm with friends) and this morning I watered our yard, picking and eating strawberries and blueberries as I went.
4) Most of the garlic plants in our yard have been harvested and are drying on the floor beside me as I type.
5) We all have lots of bug bites.
6) The sweet potato left in the back of the cupboard for too long didn't get mummified - it liquefied and then fermented. Ew.
7) We're all caught up on laundry. (I can do three loads a day if I need to! Thank you, sunshine!)

Memes IRL

Skipper's been riding her balance bike a lot lately. Today she rode it while I walked to pick up Dutch at school. She typically zooms ahead of me, then gets distracted or waits for me, and I keep a steady pace, so we sort of leapfrog our way along. She had some technical trouble at one point, and fell down with her bike as I passed her. She looked at me to verify that she was okay, and then got up and picked her bike up in a business-like way and got back on, while I kept walking ahead of her. We were heading up a long, uphill block that ends at a busy intersection with two crossing bus lines, and there was a small cluster of scruffy young homeless-looking people at the bus stop. I realized that they were watching Skipper,* and they were all smiling, and one of them said "That kid is biking like a boss!" I had not realized that this is something people outside the internets actually say, so I watched them warily as we approached, just in case they suddenly turned into LOLcats. They didn't. They were beaming and they greeted Skipper warmly as we passed. She beamed back.

Skipper looks younger than her almost-three years, because she's short and chubby,** so she looks extra-comical with her bike, and the pride emanates off of her in almost-visible waves. It makes me laugh every time I see her ride, so I understand why the total strangers were delighted to see her. She totally does bike like a boss.

*It's probably worth noting that Skipper was wearing one of her favorite outfits, fuchsia leggings with red patent leather ankle boots and a short furry coat (the hood has ears on it) with a satiny, quilted pink lining, which all adds up with her rashy dry face to make her look (to me) like a tiny, plump Hollywood starlet who has recently fired her stylist and gotten a chemical peel. All she's missing is a pair of enormous sunglasses.

** For the same reason, I also look younger than my age, except for the shocking wrinkling and tragic hollows around my eyes.

There's not much point in trying to get anything done at this time of year.

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned the altered state Dutch enters every year about a week before Halloween, and sustains until New Year's Day. Because her birthday is in November, she spends the last two months of every year receiving and giving gifts, attending and hosting parties, and taking time off from school at such high frequency that it pretty much feels like a non-stop celebration. 

This means highs and lows. Very high. Very low.  This weekend she was great, because hey, playmates! and today she was great because OMG this is her last Monday as a 6-year-old!!!!!!! And OMG another box arrived for her!!! I expect this crazy-happy state will last through her birthday, with a brief crash and then another lift anticipating her birthday party this weekend. Then a week off from school! Thanksgiving! And then a few weeks of let-down, ramping back up for The Big Event. Should be pretty crazy. Also, she has three weeks off of school in the next six weeks, so even if she was emotionally stable, I think I'd find it a little trying.* 

We've been piling up her presents in the dining room to be opened on the birthday morning, and I allowed her to touch and smell them but not pick up, shake, or poke them.** She sniffed the first box and turned to me with her eyes alight with excitement. "Mom, I know what it is! It smells musty, like spell books! It's Hermione's spell books!" So she might be momentarily disappointed when it turns out that she won't get to learn real magic when she's seven.

*Luckily, I love holidays, too. Food! This year, no traveling! Days off! Anticipation! Food! Awesome. 

** These are basically totally arbitrary rules, because parenthood is all about power trips and I can get away with it. Ha!

How To Be Car-less With Kids: Sanctimonious Tedium Ahead!

Here's the question I always want to be asked, and never am: "How do you get around with kids with no car?" I want to be asked this question because I could answer it for HOURS, and I do love to talk about me. And what's a blog FOR but boring unsolicited monologues, after all? (With that said, you should all feel free to not read this post... you've all heard it all before, anyway!)

So here you go. This is how to be carless with kids, according to me. 

1) Locate yourself appropriately. Choose a home with access to bike and transit infrastructure, and a nice array of convenient destinations within walking distance. Choose all your activities, work, school, childcare, etc., based on accessibility. Don't overschedule.

2) Get yourself the right array of equipment, whatever works for you. Being car-free requires that you have options, and it's one of the great joys of escaping the car - when you walk out the door every morning, you have real choices in how to get where you're going. I love that. Here's my array.*

The Ergo. Now on its last legs, it's served us well. I now use it only when I want to take Skipper on trips involving the bus (no transit system is convenient with a stroller) and also more walking than I think she's up for. 

Trusty rusty stroller, also on its second kid. Skipper and I use this for longer home-based walking trips. Dutch, by this age, was both an excellent walker and so enormous she couldn't actually fit in the thing comfortably anymore, but Skipper is neither of those things.

Skipper's wagon, which we use for short trips or carrying large flat things home, like a bunch of tomato seedlings or a pile of wood chips we found in the street with a "free" sign on top. Notice Dutch's bike in the background. She would like me to mention that it is a very good bike. 

Our go-to Skipper-transportation mode. It fits two kids very snugly, or one very comfortably, with room for a giant package of toilet paper rolls, plus several bags of other groceries in the back. (Sometimes Cook or I take the trailer with no kid in it, if we need to fetch something really big.) Cook's bike and my bike both have trailer hitches, so we can easily switch the trailer between our bikes.

My bike. I love it. It's almost as old as me, it's this awesome shade of blue, and check out those brand-new full fenders, baby! Now I have no excuse not to bike in the rain...

This is a bonus piece of equipment. I got it super-cheap at a yard sale, and it's kind of falling apart, but excellent for kid-free walks to the grocery store to buy a gallon of milk, a gallon of vinegar, ten boxes of pasta, a giant package of toilet paper, and, you know, whatever else tickles your fancy.

3) There's no 3. That's it.

We bike for most trips.We walk for trips under a mile unless speed or cargo necessitate biking. I take transit for trips downtown, trips longer than 5 to 8 miles (depending on weather and the pleasantness of the route), trips when I really can't be at all sweaty or disheveled when I arrive,**and trips when I feel like it's too cold and wet for biking. Cook doesn't take transit at all unless his bike is totally out of commission or he's going somewhere with me and I feel like it's too cold and wet for biking. We get a zipcar occasionally, mostly to pick somebody up at the airport. We rent cars for longer trips. We get rides from friends and coworkers sometimes.

So, car-free with kids. Is it sometimes a hassle? Yes. Does it take more time? Yes. Does it put limitations on your life? Yes. Does it require more planning? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes, totally. I used to say that I expected we'd have to buy a car eventually. But I don't say that anymore; I really hope we can get away without being forced to get another car. It feels good to be car-free as a family. It is fun, it is easy, it is convenient, it is healthy, and it enriches us both literally*** and figuratively. We live in a wonderful place, and the activities and destinations to which we're "limited" seem pretty darn varied and terrific to me.**** The extra time that it takes to get around by transit and my own physical effort is not in any way wasted. We spend it getting exercise, seeing the world around us, talking to each other, reading a book, and doing all sorts of other valuable things. All the cheesy aphorisms about travel being part of the experience (The Journey Is The Destination!) feel a lot more true when you're out of the car, and I really value sharing that with my kids.

That is the end of my sermon. Thank you.


*When we get rich, I'm going to get one of these to add to our stable. We have friends who have one, and Dutch loves getting rides on it. I think it'll solve a number of our remaining  transportation dilemmas - giving a ride to a friend, getting Dutch somewhere when she really doesn't feel like riding her own bike, giving Skipper a good option during the awkward period when she'll be too big to comfortably ride in the trailer, but still too small to ride her own bike, etc. 


** I go to a lot of job interviews, after all. 


***Living without a car for over a decade has saved us  probably somewhere between $5 and $10K per year. That's a lot of money. The entire fleet in the photos above, plus Cook's and Dutch's bikes, cost us a little under $1000 total to buy originally. I get a free monthly transit pass through my job (the only benefit I get), and Cook gets a parking-cash-out benefit for not driving to work (his employer takes an enlightened capitalist approach to employee parking), so between those things, we spend very little additional cash on our transportation.  Cook does some basic maintenance stuff himself, and keeping his bike running well costs about $400/year (and that includes investment in decent raingear, lights, panniers, etc.). He rides about 50 miles a week. I ride only about 20, and Dutch about 15, so we have cheaper gear and maintenance needs. If we had none of the employer benefits that now cover almost all of our expenses, I think we could keep our whole fleet running very well, including replacement as needed, for $1000 a year, and meet all our transit needs for $800. Can a car-dependent household get by spending less than $2000/year on transportation? I'm thinking not. 


**** The one thing that I wish we could do more easily is get out of town for day hikes and camping. When we get rich, though, we'll be happy to rent cars more often to do that!

Dabbling

This month is about free trials. My thinking in setting them up was something like "Hey, free stuff! Cool! Also, it's fun to try new things and see what you like." It's been a reminder for me of what a dabbler Dutch is by nature. She loves all activities - if it involves social interaction and getting to experience the intoxicating first slope of a learning curve, it lights her up, and she gets really excited. I can't think of an activity she DIDN'T like trying since she got past infancy. The problem is that she can't do everything, due to constraints on parental time, money, and energy.*  I think we probably have just stop introducing her to new activities, because You Just Can't Have It All. Stupid free trials.

I also see that we will soon begin really experiencing what it's like when she finds herself on a flattening learning curve. We've had that a bit with school, and also with swimming. She really doesn't want to do swimming anymore, because she ran up against trouble (with side breathing) that she couldn't easily get past. That dilemma is on hold, because the wintertime (indoor) pool is much harder for us to get to than the summertime (outdoor) pool, so I don't really want to deal with swim lessons until spring anyway.**

Free Trial #1: Tomorrow she will finish up her 4-class trial at a kung fu center in our neighborhood. She absolutely loves this class, and came home from class yesterday ecstatic to have been granted a white belt.***

Free Trial #2: Today Dutch had a trial piano lesson. I bought a cheap digital keyboard off craigslist last week, and it's been getting a lot of action, mostly in deploying all the silly "voices" to their maximum annoyance capacity. Cook also taught Dutch how to do a couple of scales, and she really likes that. The piano teacher she met today was about 15 (okay, maybe 25),**** and very cheerful and nice, and she loved spending half an hour with him, messing around with a piano.

So... I'm thinking this kid is not going to be an expert at anything, but she will have tried a LOT of stuff.


*We expect to be somewhat richer soon, once various tangles of red tape are untangled and Cook and I get to start our new jobs. Not rich enough for Dutch to take lots of expensive extracurriculars, however.
**I am, however, going to force her to keep doing swimming, for many reasons, including my belief in the value of working through plateaus (a belief I rarely put into practice in my own life, but I still BELIEVE in it). I'm going to work pretty hard to bribe/force/cajole/trick her into doing swim team this summer.
***This class is perfect for Dutch - it's great exercise, the teacher makes it really fun, and it involves rigid hierarchies and rules, which is pretty much Dutch's favorite kind of learning environment. However, it's crazy expensive, and there are all these martial arts weirdnesses, like everybody bowing to the photo of the founder of the discipline. So Dutch will not be signing up until we win the lottery, and even then I'd have to work through my feelings about the cult-y elements. 
****The place is a co-operative music studio. It's adorable. I think we'll probably sign her up - both Cook and I, in spite of our personal lack of musical training or talent, believe that learning music theory and gaining some competence on an instrument are really valuable, even if you are, like Dutch, pretty much devoid of musical aptitude.

Okay, NOW it's fall.

Here's how you know:
1) It's raining! At last.
2) Today I get to wear, for the first time, my incredibly awesome new boots.*  They're like tall, clunky rainboots, which I needed, but made of leather, so they're comfortable and don't make my feet sweaty.** (I did feel like a Nazi character from an Indiana Jones movie when I first tried them on, but the faint desire to slap a riding crop on my leg has since faded away.)
3) Sweaters! I missed them.
4) School has resurfaced Dutch's hatred of being seen to do things wrong. The paperwork she brings home is more challenging than last year's papers, and includes marking of errors, and if we try to talk about it with her, she bursts into tears and says "It's all my teacher's fault! She isn't teaching us right!" Sigh.
5) Halloween trappings are on sale everywhere.

In unrelated news, Dutch has announced her career plans. She's going to move to Hollywood and work "on movies somehow."


*And, to make it all even awesomer, I got them at a very steep discount, thanks to a reward coupon I got for volunteering. Volunteering is good for more than just karma, apparently!
** Did you think I meant sexy boots with heels? Oh no. I walk and bike everywhere, you guys. Plus I have weak ankles and fat calves, and no fashion sense.

Covetous

The house behind ours was recently sold and renovated (it was already pretty nice), and the new owners held a birthday party for a child this afternoon. I noticed the decorations earlier, and then when Cook and I were out in the backyard wrassling with the grape arbor,* we realized that they had a full-on inflatable bouncy house set up. Dutch didn't notice it for a few hours, but when she saw it, she cried "No fair! They have a bouncy house!" That's a classic Dutch response - anything anybody else that she wishes she had is automatically NO FAIR. I gave her a mini-version of the Not Fair/Vincent Test lecture she's heard a billion times before.**

Later, she and Skipper and I were out in the yard watering the plants with the water from the wading pool, and listening to the really-fun-sounding party on the other side of the fence. We worked quietly for a few minutes, and then Dutch said firmly "Well, we have a better life than theirs."

I laughed, because I had just been thinking along very similar lines. Their house is very nice, you see. And I've been feeling really covetous of all sorts of things lately, and very poor. My response to other people's enjoyment of their Stuff is to grumpily scramble to inventory the ways in which I can still feel superior to them. I am completely ungenerous and don't in any way celebrate their pleasure of their Stuff that I wish was MY Stuff.

We talked about it a little, and the conversation wound up with Dutch happily listing all the things SHE has that she's pleased to have. "And I have LOTS of books! And... I have LOTS of BLOCKS! And... I have THREE swimsuits!" - I tried to redirect her into a more zen state, but it was hopeless, probably because of my notable lack of zen-itude. Dutch and I are maybe not very good people. No matter how much we do the Vincent Test, or remind ourselves of how unbelievably fortunate we are, we still want your Stuff for ourselves.

* Cook and I both thought that grapes were sort of delicate and finicky plants. Turns out they're really, really not. Cook is worried the grape vines on the north side of the house might break the next-door neighbors' bedroom windows and strangle them to death.

**Vincent is a kid featured in one of the excellent, earnest DK books she owns - he lives in rural Rwanda, is an orphan, and is raising his brothers and sisters. Is it fair that Vincent has such a hard life and other people have such easy lives? Is your Not Fair problem as substantial as Vincent's? If it is, then it has passed the Vincent Test, and you're allowed to complain.

This week started out a little hectic, but Thursday and Friday have been just lovely. The weather was gorgeous, and Skipper and I took it pretty easy. It was a little Portland-style idyll, with some walking and biking,* some gardening, and some cooking. Today my lunch was a sandwich of cheese, bread from the bakery around the corner (which is as cheap as the decent kind of grocery store bread), mustard, and kale from the front yard. It was delicious. I ate it sitting on the steps in the sunshine, watching my laundry dry and my kid get dirty, and I felt so lucky.

This weekend we're going to walk the Red Wagon over to the nursery a mile away, and bring home some summer vegetable starts. SO LUCKY.

Anyway. Enough gloating. Here are pictures. Skipper enjoyed the back yard, and a bucket of water.

Skipper and Dutch posed for photos. Dutch wore her new (to her) soccer cleats, which arrived in the mail today, plus her usual weird layered fashion stylings.

Cook came home.

Everyone played soccer.

*Dutch made her first ever utilitarian bike trip this evening, to the grocery store with Cook, for a round-trip total of 1.3 miles. She was pretty intimidated initially, but came home thrilled with her new powers.

More Things!

1) Bulk-food bags. Cook and I got sick of using so many lightweight plastic disposable bags for our bulk and produce purchase. (We had already gotten an assortment of reusable sandwich/snack bag things, so our ziplock bag consumption is minimal.) During the brief period when we lived across the street from a co-op grocery store, we carried big glass jars over there and put the bulk stuff straight into them, but when you have no car, it's pretty hard to tote those around with you. So I got a few nylon bags that you use just like the plastic bags in the bulk section - fasten them with twist ties, with no need to tare them because they weigh so little. These would be really easy and cheap to make if you had a sewing machine and even rudimentary ability to use it, but I don't have those things, so I had to buy them expensively (off Etsy, no less). They're terrific. They aren't good for storage, just transporting food from store to home, but they meet our needs perfectly.*

2) Wheeled collapsible pushcart. We have been car-free for more than 10 years now, and we've NEVER had one of these carts before. That was really stupid. I went to a garage sale a few weeks ago, and bought some random homeowner stuff, including a really big wheeled cart.** It's transformed my shopping! When I see that our preferred pasta is on sale IF you buy 10 boxes, I can buy them! I can buy diapers in big boxes. Everything is different now.

And while I'm on the topic of car-freedom, I just want to say how happy I am with where we live. Within a 20-minute walk, I can get pretty much everything I need for daily living. Today Skipper and I dropped Dutch off at school, then went to the coffee shop across the street from our house to ask for grounds to add to our compost. Then we went to the hardware store, a 10-minute walk away, and got some primer and a paint roller. On the way home, we stopped at a shoe-repair place (my shoes need resoling so I can keep walking everywhere) and watched a construction site for a while. After Skipper wakes up from her nap, we'll probably walk over to the grocery store to buy coffee and to the library to get some new books about horses, before walking back over to the school to fetch Dutch. That's pretty much the way I want my life to be.

*I'm on a mission to reduce our trash production down to 32 gallons a month (we're currently at 80, because certain people refuse to use the toilet and we haven't been composting). I think we can do it without too much difficulty, but maybe not until potty training is complete.

**And a snow shovel. We may need to use it once or twice, and then it'll be really worth the $1 I spent on it.

Report card.

Yesterday I went to Dutch's parent-teacher conference. Dutch is apparently a model student, and the teacher had nothing but good things to say. "Whatever you're doing at home," she said "keep doing it."* She also presented us with a collection of "work samples" that included a fabulous drawing of a pegacorn, a "small moment" story about how happy Dutch was when Skipper was born - "I like my sister. She is fany. She is frenly."** - and an essay on trees - "I like trees. The tree ring shoes how old it is."

I knew she's doing well in school, but it was nice to hear the teacher telling me how pleased she is with Dutch as a student. We can worry about other stuff, instead.

*I consider that this gives me free license to continue doing things like yell "Stop singing that song! It's just pissing me off!"

**The teacher provided this as an example of how sophisticated Dutch is - apparently, a standard-issue AVERAGE kindergartener would just have said that he/she liked his/her sister, without any supporting explication. Of course, standard-issue kindergarteners apparently are not expected to be able to name all six basic shapes yet, and you have to admit that's a little bit sad.

Me, free to be me. Whee!

Today I took Dutch to a birthday party, and left Skipper at home with Cook. I left Dutch at the party for a while and walked over to a nearby park, where I sat on a bench in the shade of a tree and read a book BY MYSELF. I had no time-keeping device* but I believe I did this for about 30 minutes before I got to feeling guilty and had to go back. It was blissful.

*I just can't handle these new-fangled contraptions.

You can call me Master.

I'm done! If I didn't fail that last final,* I have now fulfilled all my requirements to be a Master of Urban and Regional Planning. I am a MURP.**

So who wants to give me a job? You? No? How about you?

What are you waiting for! I'm a MURP!!!!



*I probably didn't. Though I did choose to spend yesterday evening not studying for the exam. I chose instead to bake cookies for today's potluck at Dutch's "graduation" ceremony. Priorities, you see. Priorities.

** This is not a degree that people usually put proudly at the end of their names, like PhD. I don't think it's because they're not proud of the degree, it's just because of the ignominy of the acronym.

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?

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.

baby

Skipper is a terrific baby. She is needy and frustrating* and all that, but really by far the easiest baby we've ever raised. Mostly, she SLEEPS! For about a month, she's been going to bed around 8 or 9 PM, and staying asleep usually until about 3 AM. She is able to fall asleep on her own, given certain conditions. If we can't get her to go to sleep on her own, we can put her down in the crib even when she's not completely asleep, and she can wake up a little and go back to sleep without screaming. When she wakes up, she usually doesn't instantly freak out (AAAAAAHHHH!!! I'M AWAKE!!!!!!!) like her sister did for her first two years of life. This amazes me. Dutch was a miserable sleeper. She completed her transformation to a decent sleeper about six months ago (finally staying in her own bed, or at least her own room, all night), more or less at age 4. We lived through it, but I hope it won't take Skipper that long.
Skipper likes to sit in her chair or lie on the floor and kick her legs madly while watching us, and is especially fascinated by Dutch. She likes to "stand" with us holding her hands. She tries to crawl, but can't get her rear and front ends to cooperate. She still talks, and sings herself to sleep. What a great baby.


*WHY do babies NEED so much!? No self-respecting giraffe baby would be this pathetic at 3 months of age. Stupid upright posture and giant heads.

holy shlamoly

I want to say that the only thing worse than coming down with a horrible stomach bug and barfing nine times in eight hours is coming down with a horrible stomach bug and barfing nine times in eight hours when you're nine months pregnant. Yuck.

First, though, an update:

1) Antarctic Uncle and Green Thumb Auntie are visiting! Hooray! Dutch is thrilled, and tortures them every minute she can get her hands on them. I had a lovely time with them yesterday, dragging them along on my own special guided Portland tour, in which I made them come along while I did errands and ate icecream. 

2) Still no baby.

3) I got a free haircut from the Paul Mitchell School of Hair Design. My hairdresser spoke very little English, and spent a great deal of time styling my hair into a shape it will never achieve again.

Anyway, I had my first ever Public Vomit at the bus stop yesterday* (after that guided tour), and I wasn't sure if I was coming down with the stomach illness** Dutch brought home last week, or if I was in labor. That question got straightened out pretty quickly, since no baby was forthcoming. By midnight, though, I was pretty sure that Anaximander was going to have to be cut out of my dessicated corpse, and I was deliriously speculating about what kind of person I'd like to have Cook marry to be my children's stepmother. 

Being very pregnant while your intestines tie themselves into knots is really weird and awful. The Braxton Hicks contractions and Anaximander's ill-timed dance party, plus just not having a lot of room for gut gyrations, made the whole experience much more active, and unpleasant.

Poor Antarctic Uncle and Green Thumb Auntie spent the evening playing heroically with Dutch*** while I shuttled hastily between bed and bathroom. Cook cooked a meal, acted as host, and took care of me, mopping my face with a washcloth and saying reassuring things like "I love you" as I sat on the toilet, sobbing, with vomit dripping out my nose, cradling a plastic bucket of disgusting slurry.  Oh, was that too gross for you? Sorry. It was a pretty gross night. 

However, I feel better today, and have drunk some water and eaten a piece of toast. And now I'm going back to bed, having overshared with the internets yet again.

* I felt kind of bad for the people who watched the giant pregnant lady barf in the grass and then get on the bus with them. But I made it home without a repeat incident, luckily.

**Yes, the one I've been gloating about avoiding - "Oh yeah, I almost never get stomach illnesses, and I always get them more gently than Cook!"

*** I could hear things like  "HISSS!!! I'm a hisser! I'm a poisonous snake! No, I'm Darth Vader! No, I'm Princess Leia with a lightsaber!"

An appreciation (another list)

Things Cook has done this weekend:

1) Cleaned the bathroom

2) Scrubbed the kitchen floor

3) Closed himself and Dutch in our bedrooms for four hours while I had an endless group meeting for school in the living room

4) Played "horsie" and "black-stripe pirates" and "the English girl from South Arabia" and other weird games for many hours

5) Made three tasty and healthy 

dinners

6) Made bread with Dutch

7) Reassured me, with patient kindness,  that I'm not going to fail one of my classes

8) Grocery shopped

9) Washed lots of dishes

10) Bathed Dutch

11) Made me laugh a bunch of times

12) A billion other helpful, joyful, thoughtful things

He has lots of faults (which, in other moods, I'd surely be happy to list*), and he knows all my faults, but in the end, I find myself awfully happy to be married to a man who says to me from the kitchen, where he's making yet another meal,  "No, wait, I'll take the laundry down. Why don't you sit down on the couch for a little while?" 

It's been a long few weeks. Or wait, maybe a long month. But I'm feeling lucky today.

*For example, he cannot learn to put his glasses in one place consistently, and we're always having to scramble around to find them at the last second. Yesterday I heard Dutch telling him firmly "Daddy, you shouldn't leave your glasses on the floor; somebody might step on them!"

I'm done!

Just with school, I mean, and just for three and a half weeks. Hooray!

What a kid.

Today was kind of a marathon. First, there was Dutch's last circus class, which included a 10-minute "performance" at the end for parents to watch. Dutch, in a sparkly leotard,* with her hair in pigtails, like a small, very very unathletic Nadia Comaneci, followed all the directions scrupulously, beaming. Other kids tumbled around chaotically, or were distracted by their parents in the audience, but not my girl. She had a fantastic time, and she worked really hard. I was pretty proud of her.

Then she and I went to the library, the bakery, and the grocery store. Then we went home, ate a quick lunch, and went to a birthday party. Then we went straight downtown, where I handed the kid over to Cook so they could go to a play together. I came home, made dinner, and am now sitting down for what feels like the first time all day. I rode seven buses and waited an hour and half at bus stops. Which brings me to my second point of pride. That kid can WAIT. Due to some combination of personality and 4-years-and-one-week of waiting for buses, she's really great about waiting. She plays weird games (today she was, among other things, a robot, Velvet Brown, and a kid in desperate need of surgery [as would you be, if your liver was IN YOUR HEAD]) and she sings tuneless songs that surely drive the other waiters nuts. I don't mean that she's terribly well-behaved or that she's always so patient; she often whines and complains and demands attention. But if you've got to wait in the rain for half an hour for a bus with any 4-year-old in the world, I think this one's a great candidate.


































And, wait! There's more! There was a pinata at the party, and Dutch whaled the bejeezus out of that thing! I was so proud! The other kids her age tentatively tapped the thing, but not my girl. Screw ballet lessons; this kid is ready for baseball!













Anyway, she's a great kid. That's all I wanted to say.


* We inherited a box of gymnastics and ballet clothes from a classmate of mine who has three daughters, and Dutch loves them. They make for a hilarious contrast between Dutch's appearance of competence and her ACTUAL competence.