Eleven Months

Agatha Zinnia Clapper is closing in on one year of age. Hard to believe. As you can see from these photos, she is now wild and crazy and full of action. She does something that I remember Henry also doing: when you lay her down to change her diaper, she instantly twists around and tries with all her might to flip over, straining against the slanted sides of the changing cushion. It takes all my strength to try to keep her bottom half on the table and strap a diaper on it-- she's like a muscly python. When she succeeds in flipping she immediately takes off at a rapid crawl right off the end of the table.

She laughs a lot now, even when she's alone in her bed or by herself in a room, playing. She shakes her head "no," and means it. And my easy sleeper is now protesting her afternoon nap and even skipping it on occasion-- getting ready to give up one nap. (She combined these traits today when I tried to pop in her pacifier, her cue that it's time to go to sleep, and she shook her head "no"!)

Chef Henry

I had to post this because it is just so typical of Henry right now. He's wearing his chef's hat (made of tissue paper) and apron from last week's food-themed summer day camp. He loves the outfit-- he wore the hat all the time until he sadly left it out in the rain, and he is wearing the apron right now. Also the absorption in a task, the independence, and then the sudden tears of frustration when he realizes something is awry-- all so typical for my still-three-year-old boy!

Party food

Just had to post a couple of pictures of my buffet.

Party girl

It's been a week since I posted anything, because I was busy planning my "Mad Men" themed party, which we had Saturday night. The reason this belongs on my family blog is this: my entire family very sweetly indulged me as I threw my energy for most of a week into this project. The kids put up with less attention, Michael dug up a killer outfit and mixed drinks all night, and my mom... well, I certainly couldn't have done it without her. She took the kids on Saturday afternoon and fed both kids dinner so I could make the final preparations, and she kept Henry overnight on Saturday. Not to mention loaning me half the items in her china cupboard and her precious 1965 Better Homes & Gardens cookbook! Plus she was generally on call for the last half of the week.

Henry did so great! He watched TV and got ready for bed over at Gran's, then came over to our house to take a peek at the party. He couldn't go to sleep before he had checked out the scene. He brought down his "Rody pony" horse and bounced around the house a little to show off, then put on his pirate hat to join in with the costume-party spirit. Then he went back home with Gran and went to sleep in the giant bed on the third floor, and slept till 7 am. I was so proud of him; it was his first sleep-over at Gran's house. When I went to get him the next morning, he begged to sleep over again. So, thank you Mom, and Michael, and Henry, and Agatha for letting me throw this super-fun party!

Happy Anniversary

Michael and I were married 11 years ago today. We got out our wedding pictures this morning to show Henry, who soon lost interest. But it was fun to look at them again. Michael remarked that none of the people who were there have died. That's a pretty good run! Plus, lots of wonderful people have joined our family since then-- husbands and wives, and lots of new babies. A happy thought.

Duckie factory

We visited a Budweiser brewery in New Hampshire last month, and it made a big impression on Henry. Tonight at dinner, as we were eating our grilled sausage and rice and salad, he said, contemplating the ketchup bottle, "I'd like to visit a ketchup factory!" We agreed that would be fun. We told him there are hot dog and pretzel and chocolate factories nearby, so maybe we could go to one of those. Later, while watching his movie before bed, he said, "Is there a duckie factory, Mom?" "You mean, where they make rubber duckies? I guess there is." "No, but I'd like to see where they make real duckies, the ones that float on the water." When I figured out he meant the real animals, I told him that people don't make animals, they live in the wild and reproduce themselves, having babies. "But they had to make everything in the world, right?" "huh?" "They had to make every single thing in the world, because before that there was nothing right? For a very long day, before this day, there was nothing and they had to make everything." I agreed that every building and car and road had indeed been made by someone, but that people and animals came from nature. "They evolved, over millions of years," I said. "But how did there get to be a baby, where did it come from before that?" I began explaining eggs and sperm and then growing in the tummy, but he started to lose interest.

I guess the thing that struck me the most about this was the way he worked it out in reverse, that if people were always making things in factories, then the world must have been emptier and emptier going back into the past, until an origin point where there was nothing. His own creation myth.

Cruising

One more update for today: Agatha is becoming a real firecracker. She crawls like crazy, and pulls up on everything remotely within her grasp. At the beach she learned how to climb up onto the doorstep, so now she also tries to crawl/climb up everything-- her toy box, the folded-up portacrib, whatever is there. And today she was really working on her cruising, moving from one prop to another while standing. She is just thrilled by life on days like this, where she is mastering something new. I took her to the grocery store today and she put on her full show, holding a lemon in one hand and a lime in the other, smiling and calling out and practically giving Sarah-Palin-winks to everyone in the place.

We don't do what others do

"We don't do what others do, Mama, or say what they say." "Really? you mean like, if they do or say something naughty?" "That's right." "Did you learn that at school?" "Yes, we read that in a book." "You learn a lot of things in school." "Well, not a lot of things, but quite a few things, yes."

Brotherly love

This photo shows Henry hugging Agatha and making her laugh. The last two or three weeks they have started to play and interact together more and more, and it makes me so happy. I never laid an expectation on Henry to love Aggie; I knew it was kind of a bummer for him to have this baby taking up so much of my time, and I didn't want him to have to pretend feelings he didn't really have. And he was pretty indifferent to her (at best), for the first several months. But now he really seems to enjoy being with her, making her laugh, and seeing her accomplishments. He loves to point out when she did something all by herself, like standing up. He likes to be the one to carefully lower her to a seated position when she gets stuck standing up. And she adores him, laughing her head off when he shakes his head wildly or makes a funny noise. Oh, the joy I feel when I see them happy together!

Last day at the beach

On our last day at the beach, our dear friends who have moved to Annapolis came to spend the day with us. We ate, talked, and waded, and Henry and Frances fought remarkably little (they have an intense relationship). Today when my neighbor asked Henry how his week at the beach was, he said, "We saw Frances there!" It was a highlight.

Beach beauties

One more post: happy Clappers at the beach. Everyone should try walking through town wearing Agatha in a baby Bjorn like this, facing out. People go nuts; she is so smiley and is waving and grinning and kicking her little feet. But you can't see any of that, and you kind of forget she's there. So you're just window shopping, checking out the beaded necklaces, and you wonder why everyone in town is stopping and pointing at you, stopping and smiling, leaning out of their cars, dismounting their bicycles...

Arrrrgh

Today Henry went on a pirate adventure. You can see his pirate ship here in the Lewes canal, heading out to the bay, and being besieged by a bad-guy pirate in another boat who wanted their treasure. They had to shoot water cannons at the bad guy, and then follow their map to find the sunken treasure. I think there was much yo-ho-ing as well.

This whole thing was nearly a disaster, a classic case of parental expectations clashing with a kid's real-life experience. Michael thought this would be a super-fun thing for Henry and him to do together, and Henry seemed really excited about it, but when they went yesterday, he was flabbergasted when Henry wouldn't do anything, just clung to his leg and said he wanted to go home. Michael was really disappointed, and Henry felt bad. Big bummer for everyone. Luckily, the pirate captain said we could come back today and give it another try, and this time everyone was more prepared for the scene. Henry didn't want any part of the face painting or costuming, but he did want the sword, hat, and eyepatch, and to ride on the boat and get the treasure. So that's what they did, and the whole episode was redeemed. Henry was still a little shy at first, but by the end he was "arrghing" with the rest of the kids. Michael was so happy that it worked out, and Henry was too. "That was fun, Mom!" he said several times, when he got off the boat. "I was just a little scared the other time, and I didn't want to do it that day, but I did want to do it this day."

It was touching to see. He is so confident and capable that we often forget what a little boy he still is. It was also just interesting to see what is scary or overwhelming to him. A few days ago we toured a lightship (the Overfalls, which can be seen in the photo above), and he was completely comfortable, scrambling all around the ship, following the tour guide, answering and asking questions. My theory is that was more of a teaching-learning situation, with a tour guide telling us stuff that was true about the ship, and he's very comfortable with that. The pirate adventure was theatrical, a mix of fantasy and reality, and it demanded that he interact and participate in the fantasy, which I think was weird and overwhelming to him. He's very into imaginative play at home-- carrying on conversations with various characters and so on. But it is odd, when you think about it, to extend that into an interactive play of sorts, with other real people.

All that said, it was a good learning experience for us as parents (it seems they never end, these learning experiences), and Henry loves his pirate gear. He's taken the sword, kerchief, and eyepatch to bed with him the past two nights, and wears them around the house as much as possible!

Birthday cake

The 40-year-old Mom

It was a pretty good birthday. I was trying not to pay too much attention to it, to just enjoy our vacation, but of course I did. Michael tried very hard all day to give me a special day, but Henry was a complete %*&#! this morning and threw a public tantrum and did other difficult things, which made it a little bit of a bummer at times. Nonetheless, we persevered. By the end of the day, we'd had a nice visit to the local historical museum, two excellent outings to the beach, chili beans and homemade guacamole, and a pink birthday cake.

Despite the slight lack of wowza on my actual birthday, I'm feeling pretty good about turning 40. Of course, the mere passage of time is strange and dislocating, and birthdays always make you think about that-- big birthdays more so. But I truly have it all, and Michael and I realize we're now in a kind of golden period-- we have our kids, good, secure jobs, plenty of friends and projects and plans and good health to enjoy it all with. And so we are trying to savor it as much as possible, even when-- as today-- it feels a bit hard to catch your breath and "be here now." I have to say, the prizewinning family member today was Agatha. Despite not having napped quite enough and woken early (for some reason, the kids aren't sleeping as well as they usually do), she was chipper and smiling and patient and curious all day long. I aspire to her Zen mastery!

Joy

Agatha eating Spanish rice...

Henry at the beach...

Wildlife

Henry and Michael have been collecting crabs and other small animals. Here Henry is pointing to his "wildlife sanctuary": a couple of hermit crabs and a snail kept in the shell of a horseshoe crab. When he deposited a second, shell-less hermit crab into the sanctuary, there was much crab consternation. The unshelled crab tried to back into the snail's shell, and the crabs were feisty and tussling. Henry started narrating the fight: "hey, you Hermit Crab, hey you Hermit Crab, what are you doing there? why do you have no shell?" (Don't worry, no crabs were harmed; everyone was returned to the sea at the end of the afternoon.)

I've been quite surprised how much wildlife there is here at the shore. Tons of huge conchs (above), crabs, little silversides fish, jellyfish, clams, and so on, right here where we're sitting with our beach umbrellas. I think that's a good sign for the health of the ocean and bay-- at least I hope so!

We're at the beach

We are in Lewes, Delaware, doing what middle-class people do on the East Coast in July: renting a house for a week at the beach. It is GREAT! We rented the cheapest, smallest beach house I could find in this very old, historic small town, and it turns out to be a 1950s cottage totally untouched by renovations, as snug and sweet as a boat. It's completely paneled with knotty pine inside, and has a big screened porch and an outside shower for washing off after swimming. It is old-timey-beach-fantastic. Henry and Agatha are sharing one tiny room (Henry turned the head of his bed to the foot so that his head would be right by Aggie's crib), and we are in the other. Perfect for us. Best of all, it is only a few steps from the beach-- we don't even need to put on shoes to go there from home. Already we have been back and forth to the shore (it is actually on the Delaware Bay) about 10 times since we arrived. Last night we took turns watching the fireworks on the beach (one person stayed at the house with the sleeping kids)-- you could see them all the way up and down, like tiny blossoms in the night sky. Today we went into the town of Lewes, just a few blocks away, and toured an old lightship-- a floating lighthouse-- moored in the canal there (that's where this picture was taken). Now Henry and Michael are at the beach while I'm home with napping Agatha. When she wakes, I'll walk down with her and join them.

Henry is on cloud nine. He could hardly wait to get here, and when we first ran down to the beach he couldn't stop pointing things out: "Look, Mom, a seagull! A pier! Look at that sailboat! Is that a rescue boat?" When I answered that it was a ferry boat, he asked, "Are there fairies on it?"

A two-museum day

While Agatha was battling her tummy flu yesterday, Henry had a two-museum day. My mom took Henry first to the local science museum and then, after a lunch break, to the small natural-history museum in our neighborhood, which Henry calls the Snake Museum (guess why?). They spent hours there, doing puzzles and looking at the animals and so on. A lucky boy!