A fond farewell

Well, I suppose we knew this day had to come sooner or later. Today we said our goodbyes to Granny and took her back to the airport. On the way there we talked about how for some people, time seems to drag on sometimes, and to fly past at other times.

Fiona didn't seem to think time had flown while Granny was here. She could think of a number of grand adventures we had during her stay. Fiona did, however, have a lot of fun, and thoroughly enjoyed Granny's stay-- a sentiment echoed by the rest of the family and friends who spent time with her these past couple weeks.

Goodbye, Granny. We love you, and we miss you already!

Here's a cup & here's a cup & here's a cup for tea

Grandma and Toot Toot sent Fiona and Nora home with a very old tea set this weekend. My sister Carrie and I received it from our Great Aunt Marie and Great Uncle Phil in California when we were little, but the tea set had a history (and to be honest, perhaps we did too) so I think the only time I saw it was when it arrived. Here's an excerpt from a letter stuck inside the twine-riddled boot box that's postmarked 27 March 1979 from Van Nuys, California:

"...I do have an enamel tea set, that was given me when I worked for the Columbia Enamel Co. in Terre Haute in 1922-- our children used it and enjoyed it. How about yours? Would they, or do you not like antiques? The head guy gave it to me."

So regardless of how Carrie or I might've felt about an antique tea set, it already seems clear that certainly Fiona, and probably Nora as well, will thoroughly enjoy this handsome set on special days for years to come. What a treasure!

Speaking of treasures, the girls also came home with the fabulous quilt stretched beneath that family room tea party. Great Aunt Amelia, who is known for many lovely qualities and characteristics-- but the one that's mentioned most often is that she lived to be over eighty years old and never needed a pair of glasses-- made that quilt for me when I was born.

Now we have these "new" pieces of art/family history in our home, and I grapple with the idea of preserving their history vs. enjoying their beauty. I'm certain that both my grandmothers had pristine linens, china, and other items that were "saved for good" which rarely saw the light of day. Conversely, soiling, say, an antique quilt or third generation baby gown seems unnecessary at best. But we came by this last round of goodies as Mom pares down their possessions to manageable proportions; and to be able to do the same, we are trying to actually use what we have. So we'll come up with a plan to cherish these gems with the tender loving care they truly deserve.

Bubble babes

Yesterday was meant to be a sprinkler day. I had the three dollar sprinkler attachment, I found the swimsuits, I had the sunscreen. I even had the popsicles and lemonade that would've rounded out the backyard experience. Here's what I did not have: brute force to get the previous attachment off our current garden hose.

Plan B: Granny shoots water at Fiona with the kindest setting on the sprayer, while Nora and I run errands at Target. Due to her teeth and all their spinoff miseries Nora was a bit under the weather anyhow, and the change of scenery might be therapeutic.

When we came back, we had a huge bubble wand from the $1 impulse aisle, and Granny and the girls made good use of it while I made dinner; or rather, while I tried to make dinner but kept getting distracted by the Norman Rockwell-esque images just outside my patio door.

Nora's new words

Nora's been at it again with new words! Here's the new list, in no particular order:

ant
atty (peppermint patty)
k (milk)
empty

Teeth!

I have been meaning to write this for over a week, but with the whirlwind of company and exciting goings-on my blogging groove has been broken. Nora has been working on a veritable mouthful of teeth! Two weeks ago she had four front teeth and one newer top right incisor next to them. Now she has four-- count 'em-- FOUR-- new molars popped through.

She definitely woke up on the wrong side of the crib this morning! I asked her to show me her teeth for a photo for this entry, and you can see the response I got, even though she's usually more than happy to oblige. I can't blame her, though, considering what her poor gums must feel like.

By this time the bottom molars are mostly through. They had been large, swollen, angry lumps in her mouth for over a month previously. We were all ever so glad to see them come. The top molars, however, were both kind of dark horses. It was especially great to see the arrival of the top ones since she didn't seem to be heretofore directly agitated by them. How many more teeth are we expecting again? Maybe I don't want to tabulate that right now...

Now as they make their way through we're contemplating the differences this could make for the foods she could try to chew soon. Our next order of business is to find a suction plate that will actually STICK so Nora can get more practice wielding her own spoon as well.

New again

In their latest round of awe-inspiring hand-me-down clothing, Fiona and Nora wore dresses today that were made by my Grandma for my own Mom. Those dresses looked so right on the girls that it was simultaneously easy to imagine my mother playing in them and impossible to imagine anyone but Fiona and Nora being intended for them. Today they picked tiny wild strawberries in our backyard with Granny while wearing them.

The colors, patterns, and lines of these handmade gems exude joyful playfulness. They're serviceable (obviously, since they're still around) without sacrificing beauty. I can't wait to wash more of them up and get them into regular circulation. I wonder what other treasures Mom will find as she cleans out her closets?! Thank you, Grandma, and thank you, Mom!

Nora's new words

Nora is having a vocabulary explosion!
New words include, in no particular order:

"amma" (Grandma)
"ames" (James)
Luke
"ona" (Fiona)
"apey" (grape)
"acie" (Gracie-dog)
"oon" (spoon)
church
foot
"hing" (swing)
ashes (to play Ring around the Rosy)
"ight" (light) (well, or she might be saying "all right", but probably not)

From driveway to runway

About noontime yesterday, T.J. and Lori's driveway filled up with family for a huge cookout. Besides Aunt Lynn, Aunt Ruby, Granny, and our clan, we also got to visit with T.J., his wife Lori, and kids Caid and McKae. Lynn's son Steve was also able to make it, though his family sadly was not. We ate and played and colored and watched Caid do stunts on his skateboard all afternoon.

And just when we thought the day couldn't get any better, Lori sent Ruby and me upstairs to sort through clothing that was set aside for her yard sale. Fiona and Nora came away with haul that was a huge godsend for our family. Nora strutted around in her swim coverup like a bathing buddha, and Fiona had the time of her life trying on the unbelievably wonderful heap of fabulous clothing. She squealed and jumped with glee as she saw new items emerge from the bag. The fashion show at Grandma and Toot Toot's was loads of fun, and the excitement made it very, very hard to settle down and go to bed.

Big girl time with butterflies

Granny, Aunt Lynn, Aunt Ruby, and Fiona went to the Botanical Conservatory today to visit the special live butterfly exhibit while Nora and I stayed home during naptime. Not only did they see butterflies up-close and personal, they also reported seeing wonders in the rainforest room, the desert room, and in the outside gardens as well. As an added bonus, the eerie anthropomorphic tree in the kids area there was turned off. Yippee!

After naptime Nora and I joined in for a walk/ride at the park, then it was time for a hearty dinner and the beginning of bedtime routines and packing. We need to get ready to go to Grandma and Toot Toot's tomorrow after visiting Lynn's son T.J. and his family for a cookout.

Our Bisque It is ready...

Get it?! Bisque It?! Fiona just LOVES to explain this play on words to people, now that she has experienced pottery painting in-person.

We picked up Granny's fired coffee mug this evening, and we're fairly sure she loves it. She said that looking at those hand prints is going to cheer her every single morning, and that peering down into the inside of the mug is like looking at an impressionist painting. All I know for certain is that Fiona and Granny's faces are shining like the finish on that coffee mug, which is heartwarming in a way no cup of java could ever hope to rival.

The aunts came marching...Hurrah! Hurrah!

Well, they didn't really come marching, but they did come visiting today after arriving in town late yesterday afternoon at the end of their long road trip. We spent too much time eating, playing, visiting, and laughing to take appropriate pictures with Aunt Lynn and Aunt Ruby today, but we hope to remedy that situation tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Granny's choice redux

Despite having missed out on our local science center on the day we meant to have Granny select her activity of choice, the girls and I were able to enjoy it with her yesterday. If play is a child's work, then we worked past lunchtime!

Nora got pruny hands at the water table, Fiona blew humongous bubbles, we all made funny shadows and met a hairless albino rat named FIONA! Fiona and Granny made a newscast together and moved a vehicle in a wind tunnel. Nora moved clouds and made a hot air balloon go up and down. Granny and Jen found out how much water was in their bodies. Fiona and Jen pretended to be rats and climbed through a sewer. Nora pushed buttons to her heart's delight; and, not to be outdone, Granny moonwalked! And all of us laughed at our body shapes in fun house mirrors. Isn't it wonderful that learning about how the world works is so much hands-on fun?!

Talk to the hand

Nora has been adding words at a pace that has probably outstripped our blog entries, as well as maintaining the few baby signs we taught her, which included eat, more, and nurse. But she's malcontent simply amassing words-- it seems she is also inventing her own sign language. One interesting sign she created was for washing hands, described in an earlier post. Today's invented sign is what our family knows somewhat affectionately as "the hand," or, as Granny so succinctly puts it, "Up yours."

We get this sign from Nora when she's finished with something. She pushes us away summarily using the back of her regal hand. Don't want any more bagel? Give 'em "the hand." Finished with the toothbrush? Use "the hand!" In the photo at left, she actually knocked food out of my fingertips with "the hand."

It's fairly clear from context that she is not only finished with the item at hand, if you'll pardon the expression-- she's actually moderately insulted that you deigned to offer more. "The hand" is usually accompanied by a self-assured "Uh-uh!" but speech does nothing to soften the nonverbal cue. How many months away do you suppose we are from "No, thanks"?

Grandparents galore

Today Granny, Ian, Fiona, Nora and I had a whirlwind visit from Grandma and Toot Toot. There was a lot going on-- it's probably true that all of us were never in the same place the whole time they were here-- but we had a fabulous (if all too brief) visit.

Besides eating lunch and (for Nora) napping, we also worked on a grill, hung a kitchen message board, drew with sidewalk chalk, rode fast on a bicycle, yukked it up on the playground, and enjoyed stories in the snuggly laps of multiple grandparents.

Kudos to photographer Granny for getting so many fun photos!

Ooooh! The zoo!

Today we took Granny to the zoo. It was a little chilly, and we thought this would mean we'd have the zoo to ourselves, but in this we were sadly mistaken. The front lot was completely full by the time we got there, and there were school buses lined up as far as the eye could see! Well, not really, but suffice to say we took in the zoo with a number of eager students today.

We saw our beloved "Oddy" on video, but weren't able to see any of the other orangutans today (for whatever reason none of them were in their exhibit-- could they be on vacation too?) We did, however, enjoy lively giraffes, monkeys, a toucan, tortoises, snakes, and a barnyard of other farm animals. In fact, the baby wallabies left us downright wistful for our own pouches.

We didn't stay long, since lunch and nap time began to loom large before us. Now we have our season pass, though, so we look forward to wearing out the pathways at the zoo this year.

Little bunny Foo Foo gets bopped on the head

Picture the idyllic scene: Granny in the recliner and I on the sofa chatting together as Fiona and Nora engage in parallel play on the floor. Fiona is pretending to be "a baby bunny that was just born" while Nora scribbles on a magnetic doodle toy.

Suddenly the vignette goes all Chucky as Nora cheerfully begins to bash Fiona's head with the hard plastic toy. No hard feelings, mind you. Understandably, the newborn baby bunny hops up in discomfort and quickly explains the crux of the problem to Nora. Fiona is a very competent big sister, and she understands quite well that Nora does not yet understand her own strength, nor that some things she does are not appropriate and can hurt like the dickens. Fiona knows exactly how to verbally share that information with Nora without demeaning her, and also knows how to simply get out of Dodge if necessary. She seemed to get through to Nora well enough today.

So nobody in the room was prepared for what happened next: after her simple explanation and provision of a little bit more physical space to Nora, Fiona gave back the doodle toy and resumed her dramatic play, only to be almost immediately bopped even harder. As I swooped down to comfort poor Fiona, even Nora looked surprised by it all. She dropped her toy and began whacking her own head with both hands in consternation, as if trying desperately to understand.

Fortunately Nora's last Three Stooges-esque act amused Fiona enough for her to forget about her poor head. We were all able to settle down together into an alternate, softer activity together. Good thing heads are hard!

Nora's new words

'anny' (Granny)
'oddy' (Dumadi-- baby orangutan at zoo)
cake
whee!

Go speed racer, go!

Ever since it's been over 45˚, Fiona has been agitating to go bike riding. I must admit that I have been dragging my feet about this particular request. When I took her last year, slowly guiding the bike while trying to simultaneously steer the stroller was grueling at best.

Now, as I try to squeeze some exercise into my routine on a somewhat regular basis, the thought of plodding around the park with two children and ten wheels makes my head spin, but probably faster than any of our actual wheels would go! So when Granny offered to take Fiona bike riding yesterday, I was thrilled. I got out the bike and safety gear, and sent the two of them on their merry way with Ian the photographer as Nora and I stayed home to prepare dinner.

Perhaps you can imagine my surprise when the family came home to tell me that Granny let Fiona in on a secret that moved her from Tortoise to Hare speed in no time flat-- with no infomercials involved! Somewhere between her season of maturation and that secret whispered into her ear, Fiona had become a real bike rider. Now she's purportedly fast enough to be able to ride while I take Nora in the stroller. Tomorrow I'll see the results in-person, I'm promised.

I'm guessing you want the secret too, and Granny said it's not proprietary, so I'll simply tell you. The secret is to look ahead, not down. Try it, you'll see!

Painting party

Yesterday was Granny's Choice: Mom was to choose whatever activity she wanted to do for the day, and since Ian had the day off from work, we'd all go together! However, through a series of events too tedious to enumerate here, we managed to find ourselves at 3:30 with at least two of us unshowered and nowhere near getting to her destination of choice before its closing time of 5:00 p.m.

Undaunted, though, we made a Plan B: pottery painting! After getting cleaned up and eating a quick supper, we headed out to the studio so Granny could select a piece of pottery to paint. Then Fiona and Nora painted it and put their hand prints onto it. Fiona really enjoyed working with her Granny, and Nora thoroughly appreciated the flat space for walking around and the sponge shapes that the proprietor brought for her to enjoy at our worktable.

So while we have yet to get to Mom's original travel destination, we did have a marvelous evening, and in just one week she'll have a mug that will remind her of our painting party.

Enchiladas with a side of giggles

Tonight we took Granny to our favorite local Mexican restaurant to soak up the colors and flavors and to meet our friends Paul, Heather, Helena, and Ada. Fiona hadn't seen Helena for three days, and their mood was infectious. They colored, hugged, and crowed with laughter throughout dinner. I think they also ate something.

Nora stayed busy as well. Besides putting away part of Fiona's dinner and also my own, she went on to sample Helena's french fries and even get her first taste of ketchup. There was a lot of musical chairs and repeat dipping going on!

It was as if we'd all known each other forever. The only thing that sent us packing for home was bedtime and our kids' need to move around a little. It was a great night of fun and food and friends. And ketchup!

Marketing to babies and children

Check out this Katie Couric interview with Susan Gregory Thomas, author of Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds. The video contains one of the clearest and most compelling arguments for why television is bad for babies that I've heard. I haven't read the book ... yet.

Just realized that I can't link directly to the video, so to see it, go to the accompanying print story at the CBS News site and click the link near the top of the story (though you still have to scroll down a bit) that says "Watch Katie's extended interview with Susan Gregory Thomas".

(You can get your own tips about cool stories like this from the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, always available in our links section.)

'tan-trŭm

n: a fit of bad temper; as in when a 15 month-old named Nora Tess is sleepy enough not want her pajamas on unless she could do it herself. "Nora could not be teased into her pajamas, and could not be tickled into her pajamas, so she felt it necessary to throw a tantrum."

This spectacle took me by surprise; actually, Fiona threw her first and only tantrum just a few months ago at a grocery store. But I conferred with Granny, and it was true-- the stomping, crying into the loveseat, rolling on the floor-- all symptomatic of the T-word. Fortunately, we were able to put the pajamas on and let is pass loudly into the past. And nursing extinguished her fire for the night.

The best Mother's Day gift anyone could receive...

...a visit from one of my mothers! Granny will be here for the next two weeks. Rock on! Gentle readers, prepare yourselves for some adventures big and small.

Nora was here

I was preparing for Granny's visit tomorrow and, sadly, I think the picture tells the remainder of this sorry tale adequately enough. Those of you who have been following Fiona's interest in growing things can take heart in the fact that we have yet to build Nora's herb planter from the Home Depot Kids Workshop, so if none of these plants survive (could they?), we'll just try again.

Update: This happened before lunchtime, and while Ian and I were changing some photos on the blog this evening, Nora saw the plant upheaval photograph and said, "Uh-oh!" Exactly.

Fiber arts festival fun

I tried SO HARD to get this post written on Friday so I wouldn't have to say "yesterday". Missed it by eight minutes. Oh well!

YESTERDAY we took in the annual Fiber Arts Festival at our local historic farm/park with our amazing friend Sara. There couldn't have been a nicer day to enjoy goats, sheep, alpacas, or even the fuzzy brown bats that snoozed in the top of the barn. While Fiona tried her hand at both quilting and basket weaving, Sara and Nora perused booths for knitting, crocheting, dyeing, felting, carding, weaving, spinning, rug hooking, storytelling, and much more. What an amazing afternoon!

While I was volunteering at this farm location on Thursday morning, the Community Center had dropped off five huge looms they wanted to donate. Unfortunately, the farm didn't have room to store them, so the plan was to sell them. Oh, how I wanted a loom! Not that I could really afford to pay for one, though. So while the volunteer coordinator offered to sell them dirt cheap, I told him to try to make some good money on them at the festival; and barring that I'd take one off his hands for $25 at the end of the weekend.

Sadly for us, others saw the value in these wonderful treasures, and they were all sold by the time we got to the event. But the woman at the basket weaving booth was amazed by Fiona's facility and comfort with weaving at her age. It's not that she didn't make mistakes, but she noticed them immediately on her own and could even begin to work backwards and try to fix her work. I was surprised by her relative dexterity and conscientiousness in a medium she'd never tried before. It really made me wish I'd been successful in securing a loom. One of those looms would've been a homeschooler's dream-- did I just say that?

Midnight snack?

This evening while Jen was at her book group, I was working downstairs after the girls had gone to sleep. The monitor was on, as usual, so that I could hear any inkling of someone starting to wake up - often I can intercept that process and get Nora back to sleep before she wakes up fully, which, left to her own devices, she does quite often, and she follows it up with sitting up or standing up in her crib, no matter what time of night.

So I was listening for any little peep. What I got instead was her full-throated roar that she sounds when she wants more of what she's eating and you haven't given it to her yet, or possibly when she just wants that fudgesicle you're eating. "Aaaah! Aaaa-aaahhh!" I dropped what I was doing, grabbed her sippy cup full of water hoping that was what she meant, and dashed up the stairs, thinking "Was I concentrating too hard on what I was doing? Did I miss any wake-up signals? What if she's actually hungry in the middle of the night? She ate a big dinner! ... didn't she?"

When I got to her crib, I whispered softly "What is it sweetheart? Do you need a drink?" Then I realized why I hadn't heard any early cues: Nora was fast asleep, probably dreaming that Fiona had a fudgesicle and wouldn't share.

P.S.: Fiona really was sharing for the photo shoot the next day, but not fast enough for Nora in this particular shot. Aaaaaahh!

Do not disturb

Last night, something happened that has only happened a handful of times for the past fifteen months: Nora slept through the night.

Last night, something else happened that may never have happened in the past fifteen months: Fiona slept through the night on the same night as Nora!

If only we had had the foresight to know this was going to occur! We might have gone to bed before midnight to fully enjoy the experience! Ah well. Nora also has a new tooth erupted this morning, so perhaps we can look forward to more nights such as these?

Obviously, we have no pictures for this post. WE WERE SLEEPING!

Here's Toad, where's Frog?

Yesterday we went to drop off some stuff at Helena and Ada's house, and they told us they had seen a couple toads in their garden. Our interest was piqued, and an adventure ensued. We didn't find the big toad, but were thrilled to find this smaller one.

Ready, set, grow-- our 50th post!

I now volunteer weekly at a historic working farm and park where I am caring for farm animals and (hopefully) learning more about organic gardening . As you know, the word "volunteer" implies "unpaid", but wow! This place sends us home with thank you gifts of heirloom fruits, veggies, and flowers-- all grown without the use of pesticides! I'm learning a lot, and the people are great, and it's buckets of fun.

My learning curve is steep, though. I'm sure some readers are aware of my dearth of gardening skill, but as long as someone approaches a row with me and says, "Weed this row; but potatoes are already coming up here, and potatoes look like this," I'm fine.

Today, as luck would have it, one of the supervisors called out from a corner of the garden, "Would anyone like some sunflowers?" Technically speaking, our yard isn't ready for ANY planting; it needs a total weed overhaul. Understanding and taming our weed-ridden yard was one of the things that brought me to the farm in the first place! But it's springtime, and I have a preschooler who is very interested in things that grow right now. The herb seeds Fiona planted last week at the Home Depot Kids Workshop are, much to her delight, now coming up; and she's watching them with keen interest. She has also recently read Eve Bunting's Sunflower House, and I reread Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening Together with Children as soon as Spring arrived. So without another thought to the lemon layer cake I'm supposed to be making for tomorrow's book discussion group, I piped up that I'd love to have those volunteer sunflowers to try to make a sunflower house for Fiona and Nora in our backyard this year.

Time will tell whether this project takes off; in fact, we'll see whether my transplanting skills were even good enough to get the little plants home in good enough shape to plant! But Fiona watered them today, and I'm fairly sure we'll have an interesting time with them no matter what. Next step: planning our sunflower house "construction site"...

Nora's new words

Additions/changes include, in no particular order:

more
cake
knee
apple (replacing "bopple")

Truck Legs?!

Yesterday I saw a squirrel resting flat on its belly, front and back legs splayed out in all directions just outside our kitchen door, but Fiona couldn't get to the kitchen to see it before it moved away. Minutes later, I saw a very similar scene-- most probably the same squirrel-- out our kitchen window. This time not only did Fiona see it, I even managed to get a picture of the little lazybones laggard.

As strange as it may seem to have a reclining rodent getting R&R just outside one's home, I found Fiona's reaction to it to be even stranger. "Truck legs!" she shouted. I asked her to repeat herself, but she said the same thing three times. She was so excited!

According to Fiona, our wonderful friend Sara describes her cat Jack Neck as having "truck legs" when he rests on the banister and his legs stick out from his body like the wheels on a big rig. So now you know. Truck legs!

Nora's first sentence!

Ian had a late lunch hour today, so we were having "appetizers" while we waited for him to arrive. Nora's beloved pieces of extra sharp cheddar were cut into tiny rectangles, and before eating them she was amusing herself (and us) by holding them to her ear like itty bitty cordless phones and bellowing, "Hi! Hi! Hi!" into them. Every once in awhile she'd drop a warm little piece onto her shoulder, and look quizzically down her front for it until I retrieved it from her blind spot.

I had segued to setting the table and filling cups with milk when I heard it. I'm glad Fiona was my witness or I might not have been completely sure I really heard what I thought I did. Nora chriped, "Hi, Toot Toot!" She only said it once, but she was still holding the "phone" to her ear when I looked at her in astonishment. I'm pretty sure she was waiting for him to reply.

Nora's new words

Additions include, in no particular order:

hop (rabbit/bunny)
sauce (applesauce)
chahtch (wash hands)
Abby (friend/babysitter-in-training)
jump

Another decoding feat

Trying to figure out what Nora is saying sometimes takes some detective work.

This morning, as Fiona went up to the bathroom (4 year olds announce this, so that everyone knows), Nora shouted "Chahtch!" Jen remarked that she had heard this before, but hadn't figured out yet what it means ... but that it often accompanied Fiona going up or coming downstairs.

As Fiona came down again, Nora shouted her word again, accompanied by a hand motion ... clapping? No ... rubbing together. I asked Jen if it could be something to do with washing her hands, because I thought I'd seen that motion before. Jen said maybe ... since sometimes Fiona came down from the bathroom and washed her hands in the kitchen sink.

So I asked Nora: "Do you need to wash your hands?" and she smiled and replied "Chahtch!", accompanied by the hand-washing motion. "Wash?" said I, rubbing my hands together. "Chahtch," she agreed, nodding her head. Then she held out her hand so I could see, and there was a little spot of blue marker on one finger.