The Holiday Card

I remember as a child watching my mom write out holiday cards to friends and family.  She would write long notes in beautiful note cards and send them off.  Fast forward a few decades and the clear trend is to send photo cards these days.  I have heard a lot of complaining (OK, mostly on Facebook) about how impersonal these cards are, how expensive they are, what a waste of paper cards in general can be, and so on.  And it's true, many people, including me, send a pre-printed card in an envelope with a printed address label.  There's no hand-written anything, no personal sentiment, just the same card and general holiday note to everyone on the list.  I understand the complaint but I disagree that it's a waste.  In fact, I love checking the mail in December.  I love pulling out all of the holiday cards and opening them up to see smiling face after face.  I love the holiday letters, cheesy and all, I love seeing how much children grow, and I love hearing from people that I may not have been good enough about keeping up with during the rest of the year.  And sometimes I'll even pull out my box of old holiday cards and look at the pictures over the years.  Remarkable how a tiny baby one year is often a big kid holding a new sibling a few years later.  It never feels like that much time has passed.

And so every year in the late fall, we meet up with our dear friend Franklin who happens to be a great photographer for a family holiday shoot.  It often happens quite spur of the moment - the moment comes when we have time and he has time and the mood just strikes us.  I've gotten my entire family dressed in quasi-matching outfits in less than 10 minutes in years past!  Last year, we couldn't get a smile out of Ella until I promised her some of "those red and green things" (i.e. M&Ms) and she lit it up while Franklin snapped away.

This year, I'd been thinking about doing the shoot somewhere that really highlighted Durham and I had my eye on the American Tobacco Complex, a renovated area of downtown with plenty of historic features and interesting architectural details.  Here are a few of the outtakes, and then finally, the finished card.  I hope that the people who got it enjoyed the photos of the growing kids and know that even if the sentiment wasn't hand-written, it was heartfelt.

A great view of several of the old buildings in the background:

Gorgeous fall colors and Dash breakin' it down:

The blue-eyed boy:

The sweetest girl:

Ella, starting to lose her cool with the endless smiling:

And, finally, the winner! 

 

Random acts of Ella art

Ella really loves art as I've mentioned many times before.  Her latest obsessions are scissors and tape.  She has pretty well mastered kid scissors and spends a great deal of time cutting up pieces of paper into various shapes and sizes.  She has trouble with rolls of tape but I bought her a pop-up tape dispenser and now our only problem is the second mortgage we will have to take out on our house to pay for all the refills she goes through.  The best part of her creative genius, though, is that she makes new pieces of art and tapes them up around the house for us to find.  This is what I found on the porch door recently:

Young hoarder?

I count 3 pacifiers in Dash's crib and I have no idea how he got all of them in there.  Is he too young to be a hoarder? 

The Ornament

Ella spent the afternoon with her Aunt Leah (Bebe) recently while I took Dash to his 12-month check-up. 

An aside:  after months of being potty-trained, Ella somehow managed to both pee and poop on the floor of the doctor's office at a previous Dash check-up.  Since that horrendous day (do you really want to be on your hands and knees scrubbing an exam room floor at a pediatrician's office? No, me neither), I have decided that taking them separately is preferable.

But back to the crafting fun.  I'd bought a little craft kit to make a gingerbread man ornament with a picture in the middle.  I didn't have a photo printed but I figured we could add it later.  When I got home, though, I found that Ella had created something a thousand times better.  When there wasn't a photo available, she announced to Aunt Bebe that she could just draw a picture of herself.  Which she did.  And it now hangs proudly on our tree.  Kind of looks like the gingerbread man (woman?) is pregnant with a smiling seal, doesn't it?  I love it.

Holiday gifting

As the parent representative for Ella's preschool class, one of my recent tasks was to gather money from all of the parents to give to the two teachers at the class Hanukkah party next week.  The preschool board recommended that we ask each parent for $10 per teacher per child, so $20 per family (except of course for the parents of the twins in Ella's room who got socked twice).   This amount seemed very reasonable and all of the families gave their contribution readily.  With 12 children in the class, this would be a gift of $120 to each teacher.

At the same time, I was talking with a friend with whom I take a weekly semi-private pilates lesson (meaning just the two of us and our teacher) about what kind of holiday gift to give our teacher.  We agreed on a Christmas tree ornament and a gift certificate to a local restaurant for her and her husband.  Each of us agreed to put in $60, $10 for the ornament and $50 for the dinner.

That night, though, as I sat sorting out the various cash I'd collected over the day, I started to feel like there was a great imbalance.  I want to state clearly that I LOVE my pilates teacher.  I love her kind and sweet personality, I love that she makes me work-out until I want to cry, and I love that she has helped me fit back into my skinny jeans again.  She is wonderful with no caveats.   But I see her for one hour a week.  I also LOVE Ella's teachers.  They are exceptionally kind and talented women especially in the art of bringing out the best in a three-year old which is no small feat.  They listen to Ella as she tells them long elaborate stories, let her chase them on the playground, encourage her love of art and books and music, and just generally create a nurturing, loving, and stimulating environment for my child.  Eighteen hours a week.  And did I mention that their job also involves bathroom duty? 

So $120 to my pilates teacher and $120 to each teacher (but only $10 actually from me)?  It just didn't feel right. 

My solution was not all that elegant.  I returned (or will, really, if you are reading this, pilates buddy) some of the cash and got my pilates teacher a nice ornament and a $60 gift certificate for dinner instead of $100.  And I threw in an extra $20 to the envelope for each of Ella's teachers.  In an ideal world, all of these wonderful people would be getting rich from careers devoted to bringing out the best in my family.  These gifts will not do that.  But I think it feels more in balance than the original plan, and hopefully, regardless of the amount, will let all of these special people know that I really do appreciate what they do for me and my child.

The Me Hour

A few months ago, Josh and I were fretting about how little time we "get S**T done".   When the kids are awake, our days are a blur of playing with blocks, filling sippy cups with milk, and wiping tushies.  When they are asleep, we do the mad toy clean-up/laundry/dishes/make lunch dash.  So we decided to start getting up earlier than the kids to enjoy what we've termed The Me Hour. 

Our kids get up by 7:00 usually, so we set our alarms for 6 a.m. and get to enjoy an hour of quiet time to ourselves.  Josh, being just generally a much better person than I am in all regards, has strict rules for his Me Hour.  His rules are No email, No Internet, No Twitter, and No Work.  He does things like read, meditate, and write.  Sometimes he even goes running in the freezing cold.  Hmph.  My general activities are shaping up to be: read online celebrity gossip, do copious online shopping, edit photos of the kids, and frantically catch up on work.  So we have two different approaches to our Me Hour but we both love the found time. 

And here's the part that I find fascinating.  Before, when I dragged myself out of bed to the sound of an awakening child (usually Ella, and usually to the tune of "Mommy and Daddy!  I am a-wake now! I am A-WAKE now! I AM A-WAKE NOW!"), I felt so groggy and grumpy in my first daily interactions with them.  But now, after enjoying the Me Hour, I am so excited to greet them, have much more patience and energy for their needs, and yes, I just feel more awake and alert.  So less sleep means I feel more awake for the kids. I don't get it but I'm going with it.

See you tomorrow at 6 a.m.

Dash's First Birthday

Today is Dash's first birthday. Yesterday I kept thinking that a year ago today, I was still enormously pregnant.  I remember that day, Dec 6, 2010, so well.  It was cold already (very unlike today when it was 70 degrees and I took a walk in short sleeves!) so I went to the Y for a loooong walk on their indoor track.  I was 39 weeks pregnant, two weeks more than I'd been pregnant with Ella, and I was determined to get that baby boy moving.  In between laps, I'd stop and do squats which must have been quite a sight for all the folks in the weight room overlooking the track.  I came home, did some work, and hosted Ella's playgroup that afternoon.  An uneventful evening was followed by four very eventful pre-dawn hours and Dashiell Rowe was born at 7:16 a.m. on December 7, weighing in at seven and a half pounds and with a head of golden hair that made all the nurses at the truly wonderful NC Women's Hospital swoon.  Fast forward a year and we have a twenty-five pound babbling, scooting, kiss-blowing, bye-bye waving, giggly ball of little boy.  All those changes in the first year sure seem good reason to celebrate.

So that we did.  This past Saturday, we hosted thirty-something friends and family in a celebration of Dash.  Amidst the busy holiday season, we decorated the house with brightly colored paper lanterns, lots of framed photos of the birthday boy over the past year, and a colorful banner from Etsy, my most favorite source of all things unique and lovely.  The decorating seemed unnecessary for a baby's party but when I carried Dash downstairs on Saturday morning after he woke up, he pointed excitedly at all the colored lanterns and let loose a long stream of babbling that could only have meant "Wow, Mama! I love what you've done with the place!  It looks so bright and colorful in here!  Time to par-tay!"

Decorations for Dash

I gave a lot of thought to Dash's first bite of cake.  Josh is not a fan of giving sugar to small children so in the end, I made him a tiny layer cake all of his own with a pumpkin cake base and cream cheese icing (heavy on the cream cheese, light on the sugar).  The mini-cake was so darn cute but I thought it needed some decoration.  Sprinkles were out (all that sugar!) so I decided on Puffs, those airy cereal-like snacks that babies seem to love and I personally think smell like fish food.  To satisfy my own sweet tooth and for the non-puffs loving adults, I ordered beautiful cupcakes (full of yummy sugar!) for the adults from a dear friend who just happens to be one of the area's best cupcake bakers.

Cupcakes for grown-ups

Birthday boy's special cake

For a boy who likes to bang toys together and will turn just about anything into a drum, Dash was mighty circumspect about his cake.  First he plucked off the puffs around the top and ate those.  He poked a little at the cake but there was no great show of cake bashing or icing flying.  I finally put some icing on my finger for him to try and picked off some bites of the actual cake.  He seemed to like both all right but was definitely more interested in the big, shiny Mylar balloon his friend Sofia brought for him.  OK by me.

Birthday boy starts to dig in



Icing?  Maybe.

For his actual birthday (today), Josh and I got him up at 7:16 a.m. and cooed over how big he is, how special it was to celebrate the minute of his birth, and generally fought over who got to hold and snuggle him.  Dash just pointed around his room (his new favorite skill), repeatedly said "Ba! Ba!" (his favorite word), and seemed generally unimpressed with all of our emotion.  Tonight we'll let him attempt to open a few gifts and see how quickly he tries to eat the wrapping paper.

Happy birthday, my sweet little guy.  I love you to the moon and back.

When she grows up

I took this picture of Ella at the fabulous Philadelphia Please Touch Museum.  When I showed it to Josh, he said that she looked so much like a doctor that he could just see her in the future in that role.  And it's true that from the time she was tiny, Ella has always been thoughtful and inquisitive and so very bright.  She could easily grow up to be a brilliant physician.  But when I showed her this picture and asked if she was going to be a doctor when she grows up, she looked at me scornfully and said "No, Mommy!  When I grow up, I'm going to be a princess!"

Sigh.

Hostage situation

I wrote earlier about Ella's first ballet class and the unsuccess of it all.  I am happy to report that now, at week 10, she is very happy about dance class.  She loves to see her teacher, she participates with gusto, she comes out at the end of the hour with a huge smile on her face.  There's just one problem.  The problem is that Dash and I are her hostages.

Every week, an hour before class, we have the same conversation.

Me:  Ella, time to go pick out your dance clothes!

Ella: OK!  <Long and involved process of picking out the perfect leotard/tutu/tights combination>

Me:  Now, Ella, today during dance class, Dash and I are going to go take a short walk while you have fun with teacher Danielle and all of your friends.

Ella: <Immediate tears.  More tears.  Big loud sobs>  Mommy, I feel so unhappy when you leave.  Mommy, I will be so sad without you.  Mommy, I can't be by myself.  I neeeeeed you, Mommy.

Me:  OK, fine, this week I will stay.  But next week, I am going to go for a short walk, OK?

Ella:  <Sniffle>  OK, Mommy.  Next week.  I promise.

She has been promising that I can go for a walk "next week" for the last 8 weeks.

So we go to ballet class every Monday afternoon, Dash strapped onto my chest, and after I deposit Ella (happily, I might add) in her dance studio, I watch all the other mommys leave to go get a latte or enjoy a nice walk.  Dash and I, the hostages of the almighty Ella, we wait in the lobby.  And we're not talking about a large, open, clean, cushy lobby.  I love this dance studio, I really do, but there's just no getting around the fact that it is old and it is crusty.  And it is small.  The lobby probably measures 5 feet by 10 feet with doors on all sides, to two studios, the outside hallway, the small bathroom, and the reception desk.  There is one small wooden bench and a few metal folding chairs.

For the first few weeks, I brought a blanket for Dash and a bag of toys and we just plunked down on the floor.  Then I saw two siblings puke on the lobby floor (really) and I very quickly stopped putting Dash down.  So now we just wait, standing, me and my boy.  He hangs out in the Ergo or occasionally on my lap on the wooden bench.  We might read a story, he eats some Cheerios, we do some wrestling when he very clearly wants to get down.  And I fumigate any toys or pacifiers that fall on the floor.  It is not very fun. 

Here's another reason why being the only mom who stays through the whole class bites... I'm the default potty mom.  At some point during the class, some little girl has to pee which inevitably starts the potty parade.  One by one, the teacher lets the girls come out of the studio where they stand helplessly in the bathroom door until I brightly say "Need some help?"  There's some sort of unwritten motherly code that if another child needs your help, you give it.  And I was really OK with my potty duties for the first weeks of the hostage situation.  I just saw it as part of my job as A Mom, Any Mom, the Mom who is there at the moment of need.  But today when the receptionist said to me "You really seem to know all the children in this class!  Do you see them outside of ballet?"  and I laughed and told her the only reason that I know them all is because I have watched their class for the past 10 weeks and I have helped most of them peel their leotard on and off in a small cramped bathroom stall while trying not to drop Dash on his head. 

Do you see why this is not my favorite hour of the week?  But Ella LOVES this class.  When I watch her through the studio window, she is smiling and talking and, most of all, dancing with such obvious joy that it always makes me grin. She comes home and shows me all the ballet steps she is learning.  Her lisped French is so cute it almost kills me.  So we keep going.

I fully expect to be a hostage again next Monday afternoon and the one after that. But you never know.  My captor has promised me that "next week" I can take a short walk to Whole Foods.  I'll let you know.

Two hostages.  At least we're smiling hostages.

Here's another picture I found on my phone.  Every week I entertain

myself tryiing to take pictures of me and Dash in the ballet mirror. 

I'll be the Nutella

We were at my parents' house recently and it was time for Ella to go upstairs to read stories before her nap.   Ella picked her grandma (Mimi) to read her books, and her grandpa (Biggie) asked if he could come up and listen to the stories with her.  Ella thought about it for a minute and said "Um yeah. You can lay down on the bed with me. You be the bread and I'll be the nutella."

First World Problems

So many things have been frustrating me lately. 

We have a brand new, fancy schmancy dishwasher and the dishes aren't coming out clean. 

It's so lovely and warm this fall that I'm still wearing sandals everywhere but I'm a little embarrassed by my naked toenails because I haven't had time to get a pedicure since Labor Day. 

Our housecleaners keep leaving the plug protectors on the floor when they unplug their vacuum and I have to stick them back in the wall.  Every. Single. Week.

I've been so busy at work and with my kids and traveling that I haven't had time to go shopping for the new boots that I really want. 

Seriously, these are my problems? 

Once again, the funny ladies at Rants from Mommyland share my pain.  And they named it, too.  I have First World Problems, people. 

It's definitely time for a moment of gratitude for all that I have.  I am extremely grateful for the modern appliances that make my life so easy; for the myriad of people who clean my large and comfortable house, mow my soft green lawn, and trim the ridiculous number of ornamental trees in my lovely front yard.  I am grateful for a job that I enjoy, that lets me challenge myself, travel the world, work with kind and interesting people, and oh yeah, pays the bills and then some.  I am grateful to have been born into a loving, irreverent, and always supportive family.  And for goodness sake, I am insanely grateful for my supportive and hilarious husband and for our beautiful, healthy, happy children asleep in their beds at this moment. 

I am VERY grateful, First World Problems and all.

Armpits of the legs

Ella has reached the age where she wants to do everything, and I mean everything, herself.  Do you know how much extra time this takes for everyday tasks such as brushing her teeth, pouring her milk, and putting on her shoes?  A LOT.

Tonight, she was in the bathtub and I could hear Josh coaxing her along to wash her various body parts, one slow part at a time.  "Now it's time for your arms, your legs, your feet, your neck" and on and on.  At one point I heard him say "Now it's time for your knees.  And the back of your knees."  To which Ella replied, "No!  Those are the armpits of my legs!"  A lengthy discussion ensued in which Josh suggested various other terms for this body part:  kneepits, legpits, and so on.  But Ella seems to be holding strong with "armpits of the legs".  I guess it has a nice ring to it. 

Baby Dora and Baby Beluga

For quite some time now, Ella has taken to calling herself Baby Dora (named, I can only surmise, after Dora the Explorer whose television show is one of Ella's favorites).  If we call her Ella, she will quickly correct us. "No, Mommy, I'm Baby Dora."  This is cute as long as she is not milking the 'baby' part of her new name to avoid doing a task she knows how to do.  Neither Josh nor I has a lot of patience for her refusing to put on her shoes or go to the bathroom because "Baby Dora doesn't know how.  She's just a baby."

Then a month or so ago, she heard the French children's song Alouette and started calling herself Baby Dora Alouette.  This was frequently accompanied by her singing Alouette which is charming in all of the adorable mis-pronounciations of the French words.

Most recently, she has told us that her name is Baby Dora Alouette Bad Guy.  And sometimes Baby Dora Alouette Bad Guy Bad Man Bad Fish.  I blame the boys in her class at school for teaching her about bad guys although, rather adorably, when you ask her what a bad guy does, she tells us that he is someone who throws other people's things in the trash.

Somewhere along the way, she decided that her brother needed an equally good name to go along with Baby Dora so she started calling him Baby Beluga.  There are frequent references to Dash being a little white whale which is actually pretty spot-on.  He is little and he is white.  And he is (kind of) on the go.  Are you singing Raffi to yourself yet?

Tonight I said to Dash, "You are such a sweet boy!" and Ella replied, "No, Mommy, he's such a sweet WHALE!"

Omar, lost in the woods

Based on my recent posting about Ella and the last number, you are probably thinking that Ella is some kind of math genius.  I am here today to tell you that we still have some work to do.

This afternoon we took a walk around the block because the weather was so darn perfect.  The sun was shining and the fall leaves were dancing to the ground in the wind.  As we were walking on the street, I asked Ella to hold my hand and she asked me why.  I explained that I wanted her to be close to me in case any cars came by.  She then explained to me that Omar did not hold her hand when he was on a walk and he got lost. 

Me: Lost where? 
Ella: In the woods!

Me:  How did he get home?
Ella:  Someone else found him and brought him home.

Me:  When did this happen?
Ella:  Um, thirty years ago.

Me:  How old is Omar?
Ella <with a look that says Come-on-Mom-why-do-you-ask-such-ridiculous questions>:  FOUR!

Teaching about giving

I've started thinking about how to teach my children about giving.  On a daily basis, I hope that Josh and I are passing on the message that helping other people is an important part of life.  But as the gift-giving holidays are approaching, I've been trying to come up with more concrete ways to show our kids that giving to others is an important part of the holidays.  Ella has been asking a lot about Santa and what kinds of presents he might bring.  I try to bring the conversation back around to gifts she might like to give to other people in our family but I can tell this is going to be an uphill battle.  And I don't want her to only think about the people in our family but about our larger community and people who might really need things that we take for granted every day.  I know that Ella has no idea how lucky and privileged she is, and that's OK.  She's three, so her world view is not exactly, well, worldly yet.

But how to really show her how to give?  That's a tough one.  Josh and I have taken the easy road in the last few years - we take our holiday bonuses and give a large portion of them to a few charities that we really believe in.  Each of us picks one or two organizations each year and off go the checks.  It takes almost no time and almost no effort and it makes us feel like we've done something good.  I hope we'll always be in a position to give to worthy causes but somehow writing a check doesn't seem like a lesson that will mean much to our three-year old. 

So lately I've been feeling like we could do more to actually show our children some helping activities in action. You know, that whole 'kids learn by watching their parents thing'. The reality is, of course, that we are painfully busy with our everyday activities and I haven't yet come up with a good volunteer opportunity that Ella could actually witness.

One thing that I love about Ella's preschool is that one of their core principles is Tzedekah (the practice of justice and charity) and they actually act on this concept quite a lot.  This week the children are bringing in cans of food for a Thanksgiving canned food drive in conjunction with the synagogue where the school is located.  They line them up in the hallway and make a huge number line to count all the cans as they come in.  It's a good numbers exercise, at least, and maybe it's starting to plant the right seeds.

What are some good ways to teach a young child about giving back?  I'd like to know what other parents with small children do to start instilling this important value.

[An addendum.... one of my favorite irreverent parenting sites had a relevant post about this topic that made me laugh: Lydia's Plan for the Holidays]

Mama, is a hundred the last number?

This past weekend, I took Ella on a trip to Philadelphia to visit my dear friend Kate and her two-year old son.  I'll write about that adventure soon because it really was just that, quite an adventure.

But a quick story now that happened while we were in Philadelphia.  Ella and I were both sleeping in a double bed in the guest room (a topic for yet another post) and when I opened my eyes on Saturday morning, there was Ella's smiling face, not six inches away from my own face.  Her first words were not of the "I love you, Mama, and <in my fantasy> can we go back to sleep for another two hours?"  but rather "can I have candy corn for breakfast?"  After a quick explanation that pure sugar is not considered an acceptable growing food, she then, in her very Ella way, looked at me and asked very seriously "Mama, is a hundred the last number"?  

Quite the question for a dark, cold, early morning.

I mumbled something about a million, billion, trillion, and then infinity.  And then I suggested we go downstairs and make some cinnamon toast.

A fantastic drawing

The other day, Ella spent quite some time working on a drawing on her easel.   She called me over to see her very elaborate drawing and described all the parts to me.  There was mommy and daddy, Ella and baby Dash.  She not only drew each of us but wrote our names around the edges.  Then she drew our beds (at the top in the big circle) and our house (at the bottom in the big circle). 

I love seeing the art she comes up with on her own.  This is the finished product:





Apples, apples, apples!!!

I've mentioned before how distressing I find it that Ella eats so few fruits and vegetables.  The fruits are especially mysterious to me since I see so many children her age who will eat apples, bananas, berries, watermelon, and so on.  Her fruit intake lately has consisted of raisins (sometimes), dried strawberries, fresh strawberries, and well, that's it.

So tonight for dinner, as I often do, I put slices of apple on her plate (next to her grilled cheese sandwich. I know, I know, not exactly family dinner fare but to my credit, it was on whole wheat bread and had mashed squash mixed in with the cheese, OK?!).  She and I sat chatting during dinner and she told me several times that she doesn't like apples and was only planning to eat her sandwich. 

At some point during the meal, I told Ella that starting in a few days, we were going to have a new rule, the One Bite Rule.  I told her she would need to take one bite of new foods just to see if she might like them.  This just came to me while we were talking, born certainly out of my annoyance that she wouldn't even try the delicious, mountain-grown, fresh, crisp yummy apple on her plate THAT I KNEW SHE WOULD LIKE IF SHE WOULD JUST TRY IT.  Deep breath.

Anyway, after being told about the One Bite Rule, Ella gave me a lengthy spiel about how she has a Two Bite Rule with her babies and how they don't like to try new foods and how they just take teeny tiny nibbles.  Typical Ella.  I asked her if she wanted to start the new rule tonight or wait until tomorrow.  She said tomorrow. Typical Ella.

And then she started nibbling the apple.  Tiny bites, no microscopic bites.  And then she started taking actual bites.  One piece disappeared, then the next, and as I sat there, practically tap dancing on the inside, she proceeded to eat the entire serving of apples.  She told me how it was sour and then sweet and how much she liked how it went crunch, crunch, crunch.  And then.... wait for it.... SHE ASKED FOR MORE!

I'm not entirely sure why I am so (ridiculously, some might say) excited about my three-year old eating an apple.  But I sure am!

[And in an unrelated noted, for those keeping track at home, we're on night 4 of sleeping shirtless] 

No shirts at night

Pajamas have long been important to Ella.  She has gone through several phases of 'mix-up' (i.e. only wearing mismatched pajama tops and bottoms, and mismatched socks), 'match-up' (all matching pajamas and socks), various odd layering phases such as wearing a summer nightgown with long pants and long sleeves on top, and some very specific decisions on short versus long pajamas depending on the various injuries she may have incurred and where a bandaid might be located.

Two nights ago, she woke up crying at 2 a.m. and when Josh went to investigate, he found her in bed with a wet shirt from a water cup she'd had in her bed.  She insisted on changing her shirt and everyone got back to sleep.  The next morning, however, she announced that she was no longer going to wear shirts to bed since they could get wet.  She told us that pants and socks don't get water on them in bed but shirts do.  There was no amount of arguing about how other clothing could get wet or that she could avoid all water spillage in the night by not insisting on keeping a water cup in her bed.  Nope, shirts are the problem in her mind and that's that.

And sure enough, last night, she went to bed in her pajama bottoms and socks and no shirt.

Wonder how long this phase will last.

Omar

For her second birthday, Ella received a stuffed cat from Josh's parents.  The cat didn't come with a name but as she discussed her new kitty toy with Mimi Jody, she informed us that the kitty liked to eat hummus and this eventually resulted in naming the cat Omar.   Mimi has a knack for giving Ella's toys good names.  Prior to Mimi's intervention, we'd ended up with a green elephant named Green and a pink chair named Pink.  So Omar was an improvement in the toy-naming creativity department.

Over the many months since Omar has come into Ella's life, he has taken on a level of importantance that is almost like family.  In fact, most of the time, Omar seems to be some sort of brother-husband-father-son in Ella's world.  This sounds creepy, but if you can follow the constant blurring of reality and outrageous imaginary play that goes on in Ella's world, this actually starts to make a lot of sense.  Omar is important.  Omar is family.  Omar is often the lens through which we can see how Ella is processing the world around her.

There are many many wonderful stories about Omar and Ella's adventures.  Frequently, Ella tells us that she is preparing to move across the country to live with Omar.  She always follows the moving announcement with a hanging of her head and then delivers, in her most pitiful voice, the declaration that she will no longer be living with us.  For awhile, the move was to Baltimore.  A few weeks ago, Ella's preschool teachers actually told me that Ella had informed them that she was moving to Baltimore.  I think they were fishing for information on how legitimate this claim was.  This week, Ella has been talking about a move to California with Omar.  They will be driving there, first on 15-501, then on Hillandale Road, followed by many turns in 'dis' and 'dat' direction (according to Ella).  California is VERY far away.

Today when I was feeding Dash, Ella was playing very busily and very quietly in her room.  When I went in to see what was going on, I found Ella making beds on the floor for all of her babies out of blankets and pillows.  She was busy putting baby bibs (undoubtedly taken from Dash's bottom dresser drawer) on her many babies.  I asked her what was going on and we had the following conversation:

Ella: “We are having a disagreement. About the bibs”

Me:  “Who is having a disagreement?”

Ella: “Omar’s Daddy and me. He says that the babies cannot wear bibs while they sleep. But I say “YES!” They CAN wear bibs!”

Me: <Large grin>

Stay tuned for more adventures with Omar.

Ella and Omar, December 2010

The Art Table

Ella working hard at her art table in the dining room

There are a lot of things about parenting for which I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing.  One thing that I do think I've done right, though, is to give a large portion of my dining room over to Ella's art corner. 

When I was pregnant with Ella and in her early infancy, I entertained fantasies about how my house wouldn't be taken over by kid stuff.  I thought I could neatly tuck away every last toy, blanket, and diaper so that my living spaces at least, would never look like the inside of a Babies R Us. 

Then of course Ella got bigger and the tiny rattles morphed into play kitchens, and the one little lovey became a gaggle of a dozen large stuffed animals.  I kept buying more and bigger crates and bins to contain the STUFF, but eventually I admitted defeat.   Within 0.2 seconds of walking into our house, you will know that children live here. 

And then there are the art supplies.  I don't know if all children share Ella's proclivity for art projects, but what began as a small box of crayons and some paper has become massive piles of markers, colored pencils, play-doh, construction paper, glue sticks, scissors, chalkboards, paint sets, and more.  Early on, probably before she turned two, we invested in a small wooden table and chairs for her.  We got them at a local wood furniture store, had them stained the color of our dining room furniture where they were put in the back corner, and for a time, I continued to operate in my fantasy world where they would be a barely noticeable bit of kid-dom in our otherwise grown-up (and only) dining space.

Quickly, though, we realized that Ella LOVED her art table.  The art table was joined by a large easel for chalk, painting, and coloring on a huge roll of white paper.  A set of shelves was installed to contain the supplies.   And truly, more than anywhere else in the house, Ella occupies herself for long stretches of time at the art table.  Rather than try to limit her ever-expanding supplies, I have given in to the belief that the never-ending piles of colored paper and hundreds of marker colors are imagination boosters.  She will sometimes take 30 pieces of paper and draw the same shape on each one.  One little circle, over and over.  Is this a waste of paper?  Should I be encouraging her to conserve her resources?  Maybe.  But I like to see how her brain works and I think those repetitive pictures must be her version of practice-makes-perfect for new letters and shapes.

She draws elaborate pictures these days to send to her friends and family far away.  She makes all sorts of food out of play-doh (she recently made me pretend to eat a whole mess of carrots made out of orange and green play-doh.  Does she actually eat carrots?  What do you think?).  Guests to our house are often found sitting in the little chairs engaged in an Ella-directed painting project or sticker extravaganza.

There have been art table fails, too, of course. There was a day fairly recently when Ella and two of her buddies were quietly playing at the art table while the moms were chatting in the living room. After awhile, one mama jumped up and ran into the dining room. She said later that she heard the silence and knew it couldn’t mean anything good.  She was right.  The quiet kids had been quietly drawing on the dining room walls with markers, an activity Ella had never done by herself but was perfectly happy to engage in with her friends. Ah, the negative power of peer pressure.  As an aside,  I would like to say a public thank you to Crayola for making washable markers.

Overall, though, I think the opportunity for endless creativity, developing fine motor coordination, and self-directed play have made the Art Table, no the Art Corner, no, really, the Art Room, a success in my parenting book.

Just before her second birthday, Ella plays with playdoh on the uncluttered art table

Making elaborate Valentines for out-of-town friends and family

Big people in little chairs

Fortunately last summer's gluestick obsession has subsided somewhat

Mama friends

Last week I wrote about the trauma of Ella's first ballet class.  I am working up the emotional fortitude to write about the second week.  I'm not sure whether there will be a third or fourth week.  But that's for another post.

Tonight, I'm thinking about how amazingly grateful I am for my fellow Mama friends.  I am lucky, so very lucky, to have many friends who are amazing mothers, and I learn so many things about parenting from all of them every single day.  After all the ballet angst of late, I desperately needed someone to help me decide what to do next.  Fortunately, after my book club gathering tonight, I walked out with a few of my dearest mama friends and within moments of standing together in the darkened suburban street, I had been regaled with multiple stories of other children having similar challenges with dance class, swim lessons, music class, and a soccer team.   It took only a minute for me to unload the basic details of my situation and only moments for my friends to respond with everything I needed - validation on the emotional challenge, personal anecdotes of similar situations with positive endings, and some really helpful practical advice.  I wanted to dance under the streetlight. "I am not alone in finding it hard to navigate a shy child's interaction with the world! We will get through this and Ella will not sit on the sidelines of life and cry for the rest of her life! I need to go home and Google 'Exposure Therapy'!" As I drove home, I felt lighter than I've felt in a week.

Thank you, Mama friends, near and far.  I am so grateful for you all.

Ella enjoys

This morning, Ella sat down at the dining room table and said "Dada, yesterday for breakfast I enjoyed cheerios, a napkin, raisins, and cream cheese.  I'd like that again today please."

There are so many things I love about these sentences.  First, her use of "enjoyed".  Second, her listing of a napkin as the second-most important component of breakfast.  And third, her excellent manners.  Watching her language develop over the past two years has been one of the most fun parts of parenthood.

Peppery Cake Salt

In the bath the other night, Ella was carefully measuring out small cupfuls of water and pouring them into a big boat.  As she measured and poured, she gave me the recipe for the dish she was cooking.  I grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled it down because it was the kind of recipe only a little kid can come up with.  In case you want to make Peppery Cake Salt, here's how you do it:

Ingredients:

Four and a half pinches of salt
One half baking sugar
Two pepper
A little more baking sugar
A few scoops of rice makes it really good

Bake 45 minutes at a really cold temperature but when it's done in the oven, it'll be a little warmer.

Vegetables revisited

We have been trying really hard to have family dinners as many nights as we can.   Last night, I made roasted salmon, roasted diced sweet potatoes, and sauteed spinach.   After inquiring about the night's menu, Ella told me with great enthusiasm that she "loves sweet potatoes!"  And indeed, she did eat a pretty good serving of them and only asked for ketchup twice.  That's a vegetable win in my book.  

Tonight, though, we had salad as our vegetable and there was an actual meltdown about the lettuce even going onto her plate.  I guess you win some, you lose some, especially when it comes to willful three-year olds and green stuff.

But, hey, check out the baby and his fave new toy.  At least one of my kids likes vegetables these days:

Morning Pleasantries

With a three-year old, I am finding there is no such thing as morning pleasantries.  When Ella wakes up, she sits in her bed calling "Mommy, Daddy, I'm awake now!"  She says this over and over, at an increasingly loud volume, until one of us appears in her room (With a cup of milk in hand.  We are so breaking that habit in the next kid much earlier).

When we come into her room, there is no "Good morning, Mommy!"  "How are you today?"  "Did you sleep well?"  Morning pleasantries are lost on Ella.  But her first words each day are usually pretty entertaining.  Some recent examples....

This morning, she said to me "Do we have any eggs? Can we make deviled eggs? I'll only eat the white parts." (So much for the deviling).

When Josh got Ella up yesterday, the first words out of her mouth were "Daddy, can I help you put away the dishes?"   I'll take this one.  If she wakes up and asks to do her laundry, I'll bring her a cup of milk in bed until she's 12.

In response to my query about whether she slept well, Ella recently shook her head, frowned and said "No, my babies kept woking me up."  I believe she was talking about her stuffed animals.

I hosted my book club a few weeks ago and I served cupcakes from our favorite local bakery for dessert.  I had a dozen cupcakes and wasn't sure how many friends were coming, so the night of book club, I told Ella that she could have a cupcake in the morning if there were any left.  The next morning, I went in to Ella's room to get her up and she asked me immediately "Mommy, are there are any cupcakes left?"  I wonder if she thought about them all night long.  I can't blame her on this one.  I probably would have done the same thing if someone promised me a cupcake in the morning.

Dance class FAIL

For weeks, months really, Ella has been talking about how much she wants to take a dance class.  She watches the Dora ballet class episode almost daily.  She calls every dress a dancing dress.  She spins and twirls and leaps and (tries to) balance on one leg at every opportunity.

So being a Type A kind of mom, I researched all of the dance studios in town.  I made a spreadsheet with class times, distance to our house, cost, and my perception of the vibe of the school.  I agonized over how long of a commitment to make (a month, a semester?) and once I finally picked a school, I agonized over what ballet outfits to get for Ella.  Should I get her tights?   Ballet shoes?  How many tutus (clearly, she would need tutus!)?  Oh, the hours I spent thinking about this.

We have talked about dance class for weeks now.  Finally, today, the first class rolls around and we seem to be off to a good start.  Ella is super excited about her new leotard and her new tutu.  She demonstates less clinginess than usual when we get to the studio.  I leave her in a little circle with the other tutu-clad three-year olds listening to Teacher Danielle read a story about Angelina Ballerina.  I wait in the tiny lobby with 10 other moms for a good five minutes, peeking in the window every now and then.  Ella seems great.  The school encourages us to go browse along Ninth Street until class is over.

So hooray!  45 minutes to take a walk with Dash!  Since the dance school is on the second floor of an old building (no elevator), I've brought him into the studio in the Ergo baby carrier.  I run down to the car, change out the Ergo for a stroller, and start walking.  20 minutes in, I'm hot and sweaty but feeling good.  Exercise for me!  Mommy-time for Dash!  Ballet fun for Ella!

And then my cell phone rings.

Caller ID says it is the dance studio.

This can't be good news.

The receptionist tells me that Ela has come out class and "misses me".  I promise to be back in 5 minutes.  Dash and I run back to the studio, stop at the car to take apart and load the stroller back in the car, put him back in the Ergo (good times in 90 degrees, under time pressure) and race back up to the studio.  I walk in, sweating and out of breath, to find a crying Ella surrounded by the 10 good moms who didn't leave the studio after all.

All I can think is Epic FAIL.  Dance class was a FAIL.  I am a FAIL as a mother for leaving.  and I am probably a FAIL as a mother for raising the only three-year old in town who can't last through one 50 minute ballet class.

Ella cries, I rack my brain trying to decide what to do.  Should we leave?  Go back in the classroom?  Just sit in the lobby?  I spend 5 minutes talking to Ella, the other mothers kindly averting their eyes (but surely not their ears) from my blubbering speeches to Ella about dance class being a special fun time for little girls, how mommy is sorry that she wasn't in the lobby when Ella needed her, stammer, stammer, stammer, beg, beg, beg.

Finally, Ella agrees to go back in the studio if I will go with her.  We sit on the side for the last 15 minutes while we watch Teacher Danielle lead the other girls through delightful routines of growing flowers, robot dances, and finally, the perfect ending to every preschool class, the doling out of stickers.

On the way home, we have a long talk about how things will go next week.  Ella will stay in the classroom during class.  I will stay in the lobby so she knows I am nearby. I have no idea if this will work

Before we left the studio, I texted Josh and asked him to have a cold beer waiting for me when I walk in the door.  I downed it in about 30 seconds. 

Here's hoping next week is better.

 On the way to dance class.  So much excitement. Sigh.

The light at the end of the two kid tunnel

In the early weeks after Dash's arrival, I could not believe how much harder having two children felt than having one.  Admittedly, Ella was a pretty easy baby.  She slept well and ate well and was generally pleasant and patient.  The summer she was born I remember as a rather blissful, dreamy time of roadtrips, lunches out with friends, and shopping excusions, all with her cuddled up in her little seat, just along for the ride.  But I also remember that she was still a baby with all the attendant baby needs!  She got tired, she got fussy in the evenings, she needed to eat every two hours and needed to be rocked at inconvienent times, and she even had her share of 3 am parties.   Even so, I was not prepared, not even a little bit, for handling all those baby needs on top of toddler needs. 

Dash was a good newborn, too.  But dear lord, having a newborn and a toddler was hard work in the early months.  There was very little blissful enjoyment of the world with him.  From the moment he came home from the hospital, Ella needed snacks and naps and potty breaks and clean clothes to wear.   It felt like someone always needed something, and more often than not, two someones needed two somethings at the exact same time. 

My least favorite moments were finally getting Dash latched on to nurse at the exact moment Ella would chose to poop and need help with wiping (some jobs just cannot be trusted to a two year old).  Or when Dash's evening scream-fest would coincide exactly with Ella's lovely, sweet nighttime routine on a night when only one of us was home to put them both down to bed.  I would find myself in tears, not knowing which meltdown to attend to first so I'd just add a third one, my own, to the heap. 

One late winter morning when Dash must have been about 3 months old, Ella was at preschool and I decided to take advantage of the sunny sky and slightly warmer temperatures to take Dash along for the kind of morning-of-leisure I remembered having with Ella.   I was determined that he and I could have a little fun instead of spending our few remaining days of my maternity leave on household survival missions like running endless errands or folding bottomless baskets of preschool and baby laundry.  We went to Guglhupf, a lovely little cafe in Durham, where I ordered a hot chocolate and a pastry and sat down on the patio to enjoy a bit of peace with my peaceful boy. No sooner had I taken a bite of that croissant than my phone rang. It was, predictably, the preschool director calling to tell me that Ella was complaing about "a sore tongue" (seriously?) and needed to be picked up. So much for blissful pastry eating with my newborn. There were preschool germs to deal with. And so off we went.

Finally, though, Dash is almost 9 months old and I'm starting to see that 1+1 is not always >>>>> 2 times the work and effort and emotion.  There are moments now when Ella entertains Dash, for 30 seconds or a whole minute, and his adoring, ear-to-ear smile as he watches her twirl, march, and sing tells me that there is a big ole bright light at the end of the two kid tunnel.  There will be times, many more in the future, I expect, when their attention is on each other.  They will amuse and entertain each other and I might have a minute to myself during their waking hours (or even 10!  What would I even do with 10 minutes to myself at 4 pm on a Tuesday? Is Oprah still on?). I know there will be fights and tears and rivalries.  But right now, I'm imagining the fun they will have together, the secrets they will share, the mischief they will make.  All while I'm on the couch letting out a big ole deep breath that I took in 9 months ago and haven't yet fully exhaled.

Vegetables

I love fruits and vegetables.  I really do. I like them at breakfast, at lunch, and at dinner.  I enjoy their variety of colors and flavors and all the different and interesting ways there are to eat and cook them.  Don't get me wrong, though... given the choice of a piece of chocolate cake or a pile of peas, I'd pick the cake 9 times out of 10.  But overall, I'd say Josh and I do pretty well in consuming a wide variety of fruits and vegetables on most days.  My Buggy, however, she does not like the fruits and vegetables.  Not really at all.

I've tried to follow all the advice out there about teaching a child to be a healthy eater.  When she was a baby, I spent hours making homemade purees, then soups and casseroles, all chock full of wholesome, organic produce goodness with just the right textures and seasonings for a budding eater.  She ate it all with gusto.  As she got older, we continued to offer her a variety of fruits and vegetables and as the months passed, she rejected more and more of them. 

In her 2s, she went through a phase of loving broccoli.  She'd only eat it steamed, pureed, and mixed with salt, pepper, olive oil, and pam-zan cheese (freshly grated, K?).  She liked to add all the seasoning herself and then she'd eat big bowlfuls of this concoction.  I told myself that if she was eating a bowlful of broccoli every other day, I didn't really care what other fruits and vegetables, if any, she would eat. Sadly, one day she rejected the broccoli and it is only in recent weeks, after many months on hiatus, that she will eat this dish again.

And other than broccoli, she is willing only to eat peas, roasted sweet potatoes, dried strawberries, the occasional fresh strawberry, and sometimes a smoothie.  This leaves, well, an entire universe practically of produce items out there that she will not eat.

I read that if you grow vegetables in your garden, your kid will pick them and eat them right up out of a grand sense of pride at growing something.  Ella helped me plant tomato plants, waters them with glee, runs outside to pick 'her tomatoes' whenever she spots a new one ripening on the vine.  She feeds them to us with great pleasure.  But will she eat them?  Not even a teeny tiny bite.

I also read that if your kid picks out their produce, they are more likely to eat it.  Ella has been to the grocery store, the Farmer's Market, and the pick-up for our share in a local farm countless times.  She loves to help pick out our produce, see how it feels and even how it smells.  But eating this bounty?  Ha.

I try to make my parenting mantra "this too shall pass".  But when?

Blogging begins

For months, maybe even years, I've thought about writing a blog.  I like to read other people's blogs, both people I know and others written by strangers that I've just stumbled upon.  I even admit to liking Facebook (so not cool, right?) and the chance to share my thoughts with a wide world of friends.  But sometimes, the Facebook format is too short for my big (or really, not so big at all, but just long and wordy) thoughts.

So a blog.  Sounds like a good idea.  Except that I have lots of fears about... THE INTERNET.  What does it mean to have a blog that anyone can see?  Is it better to set it to be permission only?  Will anyone really read it if they have to sign in? Do I even care?  Mostly, this blog is for me.  Kind of an electronic journal except a journal that I won't be mortified for my mom to read.  And maybe my family and friends who live far away will enjoy the chance to hear stories about the two cutest kids in the universe (unbiased opinion, of course).

So a blog, great, it's been in the back of my mind for months.  Along with a list 100 items deep, like buying new bedside lamps and finally painting the downstairs powder room something other then boring beige.  Tonight after baby and preschooler bathtime and the 4000th reading of Knuffle Bunny Too and Free (good gracious, I will be able to recite those books when I am 100) and the giving of at least 50 kisses, I sat down at my computer to buy an airline ticket, check on ticket availability to a baseball game, and catch up on some celebrity gossip.   I got the airline ticket but then somehow stumbled my way into setting up a blog. 

The first conundrum? Picking a name.  Naming a blog is hard!  I want the blog, and thus its name, to have something to do with my children or raising children or just generally be cute enough to remember but not so cute that it makes me gag a little every time I sign in.  After a few minutes of free association about my babies, I came up with the name "Buggy and Buddy".  I like to have nicknames for my kids, and now that I have two, I find that I like to have nicknames that go together.   They are often "Tall" and "Small"  or "Buggy" and "Buddy" or some other combination of silly words and sounds that only a mother would call a poor little person.  So Buggy and Buddy it is.

Looking forward to the blogging adventure with you.