Life is Butter Dream

That's Dylan's version of Row Row Row Your Boat and she will defend it to the bitter end.

*****

It occurs to me...perhaps Young Oliver is prone to become motion sick in the car. For decorum's sake I won't mention why it occurs to me. You're not supposed to turn kids' car seats around until they're two now, but maybe that would...improve the situation.

*****

Speaking of Young Oliver, since attaining the age of Solid Food Consumption, he has been know to yell at me should I, perchance, be in possession of food that is not going into his fat face. Now he has taken his tactics up a notch in sophistication by yelling BABY! BABY! when I have food he wants (=any food). I assume he means, "Mother! Your darling young baby here is famished and would like to partake of some sustenance! Forthwith!"

*****

We are getting a mini version of a CSA this winter, with root vegetables and some frozen stuff. To make room I have embarked on Adventures Through The Freezer. I now have an Inventory and every meal this week featured something from the frozen depths. Aaron scurries away with his ice cream treats now so I don't make him tabulate them.

*****

I went on my first school tour last week. It's the newest expeditionary one here, and the chances of getting in are great because it's so new. I liked it a lot--it was small and felt very manageable, the kids were all well behaved, and the teachers seems great. They go on field trips every week related to whatever topic they're learning about. Dylan would be a distinct minority, but I think she would be okay. The only problem is we would have to give up trying for the Spanish one to do it, which I don't think I can do. And the other problem is we haven't decided what state to live in next year yet, so this may not be relevant.

*****

I call this series Pile of Bleisencreatures

probably shouldn't put this on the internet

Morning walk

My car enjoyed 15 feet of clear, shoveled driving before enjoying several blocks of fresh powder, as is the way with our street.

Snuffy and I slogged through even more blocks of untouched powder on our walk. It occurs to me that this may be our big chance if we want to cross country ski from the house and make better use of all this snow.

As long as I'm enthralling you with pictures from the neighborhood, here's one from the other day, depicting the end of our DRIVEWAY. Police were called.

And one more fun tidbit for the road. Dylan and Ollie were playing SO NICELY by themselves in the kitchen over the weekend. During that time, we later learned, Dylan thoughtfully took the initiative to feed Ollie his medicine. I think she may have bought into the hype surrounding the health benefits of garlic though, and he was sputtering garlic powder for hours. A little goes a long way, Dylan.

Exclamations!

Carefully maintaining the comb over!
Seen at the school choice expo: Impenetrable Gingerbread Fortress!
Speaking of schools, again, I found more recent information that said the lottery results for my favorite school last year were...17%!

Captured on film: Me! Technically not wearing pants, but whatever!

Do you want to know what my superpower is? If I am woken up any time between the hours of 11pm and 8am I can tell what time it is within an hour. I was not born this way, oh no. Practice, my friends. Practice!

What I'm reading, lately:
What the science of human nature can teach us: newyorker.com Sort of interesting, but so depressing! Why?!
Is Law School a Losing Game? I thought this was interesting, but that their lead guy did not really illustrate the point well since he seemed so clueless.
Haiti map, last year and this year

Things to raise your heartrate

Dylan was helping me sort through some of her old 2T clothes for Ollie "The Chunk" yesterday. I had already taken out the dresses, but we still had to make a "possibly too girly but let's check with Aaron" pile. Aaron is not always the most decisive person, but he did seem to know this one. This led to a discussion with Dylan about how boys can wear girls clothes if they want to, but Daddy, for example, usually chooses not to. As far as you know. And stop bothering Mommy about her new men's socks, as they are awesome, although a little big.

***

I went to a Rochester school fair today. Good lord. It is reminiscent of the med school match process, but in an even more byzantine lottery sort of way. There are 4-5 city schools that we are eligible for that are, like my new socks, awesome. There are three expeditionary learning schools, which, after talking to parents and teachers, are just as cool as I thought they would be. Aaaaaand the chances of getting into one are in the 35% or less range. There is a Spanish immersion one that is also great academically, but you have to pass some kind of language screening first and then I have no idea what percent of kids get in. There's a neighborhood-ish school that also seems really good, with a 58% acceptance rate. And then all the others seem like they're maybe fine but it's hard to tell and we wouldn't be that excited about any of them.

Attending this event has thus served only to make me more excited about schools with a not-great chance of Dylan getting to attend them. That was clear, flowing, English, if ever I've written it. But you get me. Other options are: a private school in the city that's at least cheaper than daycare with an educational approach I really like, moving to a neighboring suburb to guarantee excellent public education through high school, moving close enough to the one neighborhood school to guarantee acceptance, which is not an area with a lot of single family houses, or leave town. Figuring out how to rank everything seems very strategic, and I'm not entirely clear how it works.

I called the school district in one of the other cities we're looking at and they were like, well, move to a house, then register with the closest school once you get here. I was like, oh. Okay then.

I hate to be all competitive and invested in this, especially since none of the odds are that good and its KINDERGARTEN, but I have also had enough of years of Dylan being somewhere that's perfectly adequate but isn't anything special and not really our style, and I want her to have a good experience. I really like that a city school will have kids from all kinds of backgrounds, but some of them are pretty clearly focused on making productive members of society out of tough kids, which is not the main issue with this particular kid.

***

Aaron and I went on the closest thing to a date we've been on since...oh yeah, hiking in September. I hate to count that since it made my toenails fall off AND Ollie was with us. Well, I hate to count this either, and you will see why. We went to the Y, dropped the kids off at the childcare there, sprinted away so we could pretend not to hear them crying, and went upstairs to the bikes with the virtual routes on them. You can see where the people on the bikes next to you are, virtually, if you do the same course, which means you can race them. If you're feeling competitive.

Aaron usually does these courses for part of his workout. I never do because I prefer my gym TV screen to have ma stories in lieu of digitized scenery. Arg. He is in GOOD SHAPE. I am spoiled from all those other years of our marriage where he was wedded to his chair and I could trounce him. I kept up for the first five miles. Even if I got a little behind I could catch up, although he did not like for me to be even a little bit ahead and would pass me immediately. The last mile he lost me, although I think I finished 5-10 seconds later. I don't usually...get my heart rate up that high, during your average workout.

Stardate: January

"What do you want for your birthday?"

"I don't know...I hadn't thought about it much...it's fine though, we have the next three months to celebrate."

***

Our nearly 4.5 years of child-having have been remarkably free of vomit. Ollie had a little something to say about that. Uh oh!

Actually he really did puke on himself in the car once, wept for a moment, then was all like, Uh oh! Really, it was uh oh. I had to disassemble the entire car seat to wash it, but not before driving two hours to get home. I agree, this is an appropriate use of "uh oh," Ollie.

[Please note that this illness was entirely independent of the prior illness that took 3/4 of our family out for like two weeks. This new one ventured further afield and took out several extended family members in addition to my ever-stoic (to outsiders) husband]

***

Words that Ollie says at 13.5 months that are not uh oh:
mama
dada
dylan (DILL!)
DOG
baby
more
milk
banana
HI!
some kind of noise that means give me that iphone now, man, and it better be the one with that egg cracking game on it. [ed note: the egg cracking game involves poking a (virtual, you understand) egg with one finger until it cracks open to reveal a cute prize. i was reading him a book the other day with a picture of an egg and he starting madly poking at it]

He now points to his nose correctly, but there was a week in there where his right eye was in danger from being identified as "nose" too enthusiastically.

He's starting to point and yell DAT at things. I think Dylan did that for about a year. He has figured out how to provoke Dylan with like a twitch of his eyebrows. Awesome. Dylan's really nice to him unless she is cranky and then she is nice to NO ONE.

***

Current household status is: grumpy due to: too many life decisions in the offing OR lingering recovery from a stomach bug OR requiring constant interaction but only receiving interaction for 59 minutes of every hour OR some combination of the above. [Exception: Snuffy, whose status is: pleasingly fatigued. or pouting. who's to say, really? I can report that he is delightfully fluffy, fur-wise, at the moment]

***

Dylan combined a couple toys to make this. I thought it was cute:

So I made my own. I know, cute, right?

blankies: snuggly of champions

happy 1/1/11

I will tell you what, this kid knows how to party.
May all your scratchies be big winners

oh boy oh boy oh boy

terra cotta army expands draft

Lifetime Originals: The Next Generation

After two years of solo projects and some additional spawning, THEY'RE BACK AND THEY'RE BAD.

THAT'S RIGHT.

THE LIFETIME ORIGINALS!

AS YOU REMEMBER THEM!!

Ollie first got involved after a stint as a guitar.
He tried to join up at nine months, but he just didn't have the maturity, or the pants, to handle life on the road.
Dylan was first offered a position as a toddler, but felt at that time that her energies were better spent on remaining awake during nap time.

Uncle Tom has always been the heart of the band. He patiently took the new recruits under his wing as they found their footing.

So to speak.





Finally it all came together for them.



Rock on, Originals, Rock on

christmas eve, christmas day, aftermath

cookie decorating

the traditional letting ollie out of his box


a bread pudding experiment that was highly successful if measured in deliciousness and highly unsuccessful in terms of shortening my family's life expectancy

note+food offering in exchange for loot






dylan got a glinda the good witch doll who now goes everywhere with her. i feel like this really works for us because i think glinda is a fine role model and dylan gets to idolize someone girly who is not part of the princess complex.

i don't have a picture, but it was agreed by all that the best-received present, in terms of most joy added to a life, was a second copy of ollie's beloved blankie. the joy! the snuggling! more joy! it was awesome. i ALSO don't have a picture of the fancy new jogging pants aaron got. somehow they must have gotten switched with pants from people of a different gender when i went to get him a different size in the fitting room. talbots here he comes! our friend asked if he got a matching sports bra, but he actually didn't.

i also have to give dylan a lot of credit for a lack of obnoxiousness about opening her presents. she was really patient and handed out presents to everyone else and didn't tear hers open all at once and enjoyed each one as she got it. she then resumed her constant lobbying for dessert, but if there's one thing she does well it's delayed gratification.