Oh, yeah, potty wonder girl!

Agatha, who was so happy to get her potty, is already putting it to good use: she peed in the potty on Sunday and again this morning, and-- wait for it-- pooped in the potty on Monday. She says, "pie! pie! pie!" which sometimes means "I want some pie!" but in this case means, "I want to sit on the potty!" And when she says that we go sit on the potty and she reads her little books. She loves the whole routine. Mommy finds it a bit tedious: we sit there many, many times in a day. Sometimes she doesn't sit, but rather just takes off without her clothes, and then we need to get dressed yet again. But it's a start-- a great start, especially considering my other child only pooped in the potty for the first time a year ago, at age 3.

Napolis

Posting a sign at the entrance to their fort: No Good Guys (later crossed out and replaced with: No Bad Guys).

Two kings, checking out the boats downtown.

Gabriel and Henry on the tandem slide.

This past weekend we went to Annapolis to see our dear friends. Henry and Frances spent a lot of time together when they were between a year and three years old, and have had an intense, sibling-like relationship. This used to make for a lot of scrapping and freaking out, but this time was different. They have blossomed into a lovely, four-year-old world of dress-up and make-believe (that's a lot of hyphens) and they played together all day and all evening and shared a room all night without fighting once. Frances even graciously offered that Henry could take home the glittery gold cape and keep it until he was five. Only the adults misbehaved; over dinner, we had a boring argument about how idealized our baby blogs are. So there: I put that unidealized detail in, at least! Thanks Mike and Meagan, and we look forward to our next trip to Napolis!

Assorted

Hide and seek

Posing for Mom

Aggie and her guy

An unearned treat

Today was a day of one pain-in-the-a%# thing after another. It started at 4:45 am, when Agatha woke up (teething?), followed by Henry getting up at 5:15 having wet his bed. Everyone seemed whiny and unreasonable today (insisting on wearing Mom's new red gloves while eating his pesto for lunch? really? why go to the mat on that one?). I was blindsided by some annoying political maneuvering at a meeting; Michael messed up the finish on the frame he's spent hours working on; you get the picture. At 3 o'clock I decided to shake things up and take the children out to the local cafe for a treat. No onedeserved a treat, mind you. But we needed one. It turned out to be just the ticket. The children sat and ate their frosted dog-shaped sugar cookies, which made them feel good, and the other patrons admired and praised them, which made me feel good. We went across the street to the used book store and they played with the train set and I browsed, and all of us (including Michael at home, having a break) could lose ourselves for a few minutes in what we were doing. Which was nice.

The one triumph of the day: I got Agatha a new potty, on clearance. It is shaped like a frog, and she LOVES it.

Ode to Agatha

Is there a more darling child in all the world? I think not. Agatha is a joy and a delight. Here she is in the child's desk from Elk Grove elementary school, first painted yellow and used by Eric and me and then repainted by Grandma and Grandpa and used by Ian and Jill. Mom brought it from California and we just got it up from her basement yesterday. I noticed Agatha went bonkers for child-size chairs and tables at Thanksgiving, and I'd been looking for a set on Craigslist for Christmas but didn't find one. Then we remembered this desk, and she does indeed love it. She climbs in and does her coloring, very seriously. Henry likes it too; this evening after I put Agatha to bed I observed him sitting and drawing a pattern from an oriental rug that Michael was looking at on the computer in the chair next to him. Very sweet.

O Agatha! Never any bedtime ritual; we just say "it's time for night-night!" and she cheerfully blows kisses and says "bye-bye!" I put on her pjs, nurse her, and lay her down in the bed. That's it, and that's all it's ever been since she was a tiny girl. Never any protest (am I tempting the Curse of Blogspot by writing this?). She is vigorous and spirited, loud and determined, but always full of a deep happiness.

She is also full of surprises lately: today I noticed a molar glinting in the back of her mouth! She only has five teeth in the front-- two up, two down, and one bonus little one on the top-- so I didn't even think to check for molars, but lo and behold one came in without us even noticing it. She is saying so many words now: new ones lately are "uh-oh!", "down" and "guy." Today she told me she pooped-- she got my attention (by standing up in her desk) and then very clearly and deliberately said "poo! poo!" (this is an improvement over "ppp," which was what she used to say, a kind of spittlely-raspberry). "Did you poop?" I asked. She grimaced, said "uh," and pointed to her diaper.

Agatha, the Good! You delightful girl. We love you!

"Carefree" Day

Yesterday afternoon was the doldrums of the winter holiday. Everyone was tired of being home together and doing the same things; Agatha woke up from a too-short nap irritable and cranky; Henry was clinging to me because he has suddenly developed fears about playing alone in his room; and Michael and I were burdened and bored by our household chores. At one point I caught him watching a movie on his computer upstairs while he folded one of the six loads of laundry he did that day. "Enjoying yourself?" I asked frostily-- but keep in mind at the time I was making bean soup, baking bread, reading "I Spy Bunnies" to Agatha for the 43rd time that day and helping Henry do his puzzle book-- simultaneously.

I decided I needed to be more carefree for a change, so we declared today a "Carefree" Day. I put it in quotes because it really means: we are just going to go out and have an adventure, and we don't care if it ruins the nap schedule or makes for a cranky car ride-- we're going to do it anyway. We don't care! We'd be cranky at home, so let's be cranky out!

We went to Longwood Gardens, which was fabulous and beautiful, and of course I forgot the camera (carefree!) so I don't have any pictures, but this is one I found on the net. The one-hour ride down there was fine, and we all had a great time going through the beautiful greenhouses and seeing and smelling the flowers and plants. We ate lunch in the cafe, and then left for home around 1 pm. Agatha fell asleep in the car on the way home.

But wait, there's more! We got home about 2:15 and I was actually able to put Aggie back to sleep in her crib. Henry also fell asleep-- and both kids slept till 4:30 pm. I didn't know what to do with myself; I knitted and watched two episodes of "30 Rock," made pizza and contemplated remodeling the bathrooms. So it really was a carefree day!

Happy New Year!

2009 was a pretty bad year for the country, I guess, but it was a fantastic year for our family. Michael got tenure, Mom moved around the corner, Henry continued to flourish and Agatha grew from a small infant into a walking, talking, smiling, playing little person. It was the Year of Family Vacations: for the first time we took two real vacations, one to the beach and one to the woods. It was the Year of Yoga: after receiving a package of classes as a Christmas present, I went pretty much once a week all year (that's as often as I can manage to get there), and it has been a wonderful part of my life. It was the (first) Year of Being a Family of Four: very intense and exhausting, but also so exciting, interesting and fun. In fact, getting more fun all the time. And it was the the Year of the Blog: I started it in January and was surprised by what an important part of my life it became, as a way to record, memorialize and make sense of the fleeting minutia of family life. It was also often my only creative outlet during periods when I had little time for anything but the basics of survival. Thinking about the subject and tone of the blog was also helpful for thinking about my expectations and standards for myself as a parent, and what was realistic and what was a culturally-imposed phony facade. I have tried to make the blog at least a little bit honest and representative of the ups and downs of life with two small children, because if it's not true, then what's the point? Yet after a busy and stressful day, I was sometimes surprised about the topic I decided to write about-- often a small happy moment or parenting victory was what I ended up blogging, not the hours-long slog or wild tantrums. When that happened, I think it helped me focus on what was important and lasting about the day's work, not on its frustrations, and in that way the blog has helped me understand, remember, and enjoy these busy days more. At any rate, I have certainly enjoyed doing it and I plan to continue in 2010. For our country, I hope for a better year; for myself, I just hope for enough sleep and energy to be able to keep up with the many joys and opportunities of my life.