For those interested in Dylan's learnin' (I believe this club consists of: me; sometimes Aaron. this qualifies it to go on the internet, I guess), here are the four school options for her for next year:

-the public spanish immersion school
-one of the neighborhood public schools
-the charter school in the science museum
-a small private school in the city

I don't think we'll know which one until April or May. We're applying to the private school now as a backup plan if she doesn't get into any of the others (although I like it so much it's sort of tempting in any case. we're so used to handing over half our money to daycare anyway, maybe it's just a habit). Anyway, as part of the admissions process she has to spend a half day there this week without me. Aaron has helpfully been encouraging her:

"I spend half days without Mommy all the time! It's great! I really like it!"

We've continued to play The Game of Life with her on the ipad, thus creating a ruthless, moneygrubbing, babymongering monster. She plays us off one another and trash talks the entire game. I suppose I'll have to start picking on her, too.

Ollie's latest effort was to switch the radio from npr to a very conservative talk radio show.

My latest effort was to finishing painting a new room for Dylan. I discovered Aaron has a light fixture-changing function, so that's been fun. In this case we went for "boring" which is a vast improvement over "vintage barely functional."Dylan picked the color, so she's thrilled, but I think she's even more excited about the laundry chute.
There is now an ever-growing pile of dirty laundry/books/shoes on the stuff I have stored under the laundry chute in the basement.

Speaking of piling up, you know? Sometimes when we all go to the grocery store Dylan gets buried in food.

As I said to the girl in Ollie's glass who was not wearing pants this morning, happens to the best of us.

the latest

I can't seem to get it together to post or respond to e-mail lately. Or bathe, but I suppose that's a separate issue.

***

Ollie's teachers told me they almost called me a couple days ago because he kept getting into so much trouble. They said at least he makes a characteristic hissing noise before he clobbers the other babies. It was noted that a call home for misbehavior is not usually warranted for one-year-olds. They were mostly laughing, I think. Today he hurled big wooden hunks of fake food at his baby cousin for playing with his toys. I think I'm going to start picking on him, or something. Oh, wait ("a doll, a doll...")

***

We're almost done with Dylan's room, which is going to be most excellent. Since it's looking like we're going to stick around this house for a few more years we're looking at it in a whole new light. We're starting with sprucing up both kids' rooms and getting a whole bunch of boring medium-big things like mattresses (most opaque consumer purchase ever, per consumer reports) and light fixtures and a new toilet. We're toying with finishing the basement, but may not have the collective stomach for it. I want to paint a bunch more rooms but Aaron has suggested that further painting projects be put on hold pending appropriate ventilation opportunities (= warmer than 19 degrees out).

There's a house down the road that seems PERFECT for us and continues to taunt us, but we keep going over things and it does seem like staying put for now is the right decision.

***

I've started working through the first set of Bob books with Dylan. She just seemed all of a sudden like she was really ready to pick up reading. It has been so cool. We've been doing one every couple days for the past few weeks and it's helped her put everything together. By everything I mean: three letter words with short vowel sounds, except "e" because I guess that comes later.

***

Snuffy and I ventured out into the snowstorm yesterday and covered 3.5 miles on cross country skis (me) or paws (Snuff. obviously) in like an hour and a half. Perhaps the DRIVING WINDS and RAGING SNOWSTORM could have been incorporated more thoroughly into the day's agenda? Maybe next time? Self?

***

Mat sat on the fat cat and the big pig but not the sad rat.

***

Rank lists were due this week. That is all.

a day in the life

Just thought I would give you more of a taste of Ollie at 15 months. He is a dastardly combination of really smart, oddly strong, and relentless. I am not kidding about the maniacal laugh. Today he:

-learned how to turn on speakerphone on the phone base, so he can make calls even when I confiscate the handset
-pushed the ENORMOUS cart halfway down the aisle at Lowe's while I was dealing with Dylan
-OPENED THE OVEN while I was cooking pizza at 475 degrees
-figured out how to not only mess with the volume on the stereo, which has long been a favorite way to get some instant attention, but also to turn ON the stereo, so turning it off in desperation will get you nowhere, MOTHER
-moved the kitchen stool over to the corner, climbed up on it, and used the vitamin containers now within reach as maracas
-used his puzzle rack as a stool to get to the Wii, which he dragged across the room
-rearranged the furniture more to his liking, which involved relocating the full sized chair so he could have access to Dylan's lair

I guess it's nice he's so...independent.

In his favor, he sings while getting his teeth brushed. This amuses me.

and onward

I will now tell you where I have been: hanging out with Aaron. More specifically, playing games on the ipad. More specifically, playing: Life, Monopoly, Scrabble, and Trivial Pursuit. To answer the obvious question, we learned long ago that Risk is not good for our marriage. We also learned long ago that playing most of these games with two people is lame. It does not bother us anymore!

We did let Dylan play Life with us today. Tut, tut. Children having children. That kid is ruthless, I'll tell you what.

Other activities have included:
-(unsuccessfully) reining in Ollie (now with bonus climbing action and maniacal laugh)
-watching Ollie's desperate need for a nap fight it out with his desperate need to stuff his face as he nodded off during lunch today
-sanding and priming one of the bedrooms (now with less peeling paint action)
-and! making headway on our Life Decision Fest Extravaganza 2011.

To recap, here are the decisions up for review:
-City of Residence
-House of Residence
-Kate's Workplace
-Aaron's Workplace
-Ollie's Daycare
-Dylan's School

We are, it seems, leaning towards Boring and Practical. This means not really messing with 4-5 of those items. Awesome. We are, at least, changing Dylan's school. We totally don't have to! She could do Kindergarten there, thus not changing one single thing from our existence now except for making my schedule many many times worse.

This is...not what we thought we would be doing. I flew all over the country looking at programs and we've looked all over the area at houses and we thought about all sorts of other stuff. We have good reasons for doing what we're doing. All the options were good options. But we're feeling grown up and responsible and sort of lame (board games aside).

February ramblings

Let's see...where we were?

Right, right. Interminable winter. I LOVE winter. I've been out skiing, of the flat and sloped varieties, way more this year than any since we moved here. But honestly, Enough.

This month in medical school we are doing a fake research project in a group of seven. Unrelatedly: I am grumpy.

Our input as to where to go next year is due the 23rd of this month. The results, I believe, are announced St Patrick's Day. If we stick around we've got it down to four schools for Dylan, but we won't know which one until April or May. We may switch Ollie's daycare, or not, depending on where Dylan ends up. We're also looking at houses, in several cities. There's one here we like a lot, but we think it's overpriced by tens of thousands of dollars, so we're not sure what to do. Their realtor told us they were "talking price reduction." To summarize: indecision all around.

Ollie. So cheerful. So snuggly. He's always plonking his round little self on my lap with a book. He also licks my face, which I think means kiss, or maybe salt deprivation. Yet he's SO BAD. He is ceaselessly destructive. We are having to babyproof all this stuff Dylan never thought to get into. And he is SO DRAMATIC about everything. I always suspected Dylan was an oddly reasonable toddler, and I was totally right. Ollie, like Snuffy, has a total pouty breakdown when even one family member leaves the house. He points and demands things all the time and starts crying immediately if he doesn't get it. On the other hand, he stops pretty easily if you distract him. Dylan hasn't ever been able to calm herself down once she gets going. Like right now, for example! And now! And now.

Dylan, and I have to express my sincere appreciation for daycare at this point, successfully had her first actual ski lesson last weekend. She was shorter than any other kid in the class by a full head and didn't have enough mass to keep up without lengthy boosts from the instructors on the flat parts (which I know, obviously, via my perch in the trees) and cried at least a couple times (I witnessed a rescue by a couple kind strangers at one point, BUT DIDN'T SWOOP IN) and I still got her back begging for just three more runs. Being a child of mine and Aaron's she certainly has the instinct to be really shy, but I think the constant socialization has really done a lot for her.

And now...here's a little photo segment I like to call, Who can use what to blackmail who?

We've moved beyond "Ollie wants a doll"

Starved for attention, the children transferred their affections to Vinny, the Vat of Vinegar

The mouth of a muppet. Try not to look at the camera-wielding maniac in the background

In the News/"News"

Heh. I find it's nice, on occasion, to outsource making fun of one's husband.

And your children's potential future educators. Go team!

I thought this review was pretty entertaining.

From the New Yorker, we thought this might be a reasonable job description for me.

more weighty, weighty topics

Here's an article about Disney getting their stuff to parents in the hospital when their babies are born. When Ollie was born the hospital photographer took his pictures, which we didn't even buy, but ever since then the marketing company mentioned in this article has been emailing me and sending me stuff specific to how old Ollie is. I don't think companies should be able to mine the information of new parents and babies like that. When Ollie was born I was often alone with him, with no one who wasn't delirious to figure out for me whether I was signing a birth certificate or a promise to buy a lifetime supply of tiaras. I go through them so fast, you know. I don't even think I gave that photographer any of my information myself, since I didn't want to buy the pictures.

sunrise, sunset

I finished reading Mary Poppins to Dylan a while back, and since then she has been pressuring me to Find More Chapter Books! to read at bedtime. I think most actual chapter books are still too dense for her, but there is a whole line of "chapter books," apparently designed for her demographic, where the chapters are like three pages long. And so it was that I found myself reading The Adventures of Captain Underpants this evening. I have never seen that child laugh so much in my life (Pair with: Tigger jammies). Anyone else need "wedgie" defined for them?

.

what's up, here, to a man

I have been remiss. I have failed to acknowledge the starting of the Birthday Era, lo this February the 1st.

I decadently gave Aaron a real etch-a-sketch as a picture frame.
He was pandered to, never fear. Let the six months of festivities begin!

***

Ollie.

First of all, he looks FANTASTIC in a snowsuit.

He also loves playing in the snow more than I would have imagined for a person of his stature.
He has outgrown all the hats Dylan was wearing when she was like a year older.

He is SO ATTACHED to Aaron. Not in a clingy way, more in a HI DADDY way. He will shuffle his puffball self halfway down the block for a hug if he sees him coming.

He will also reliably eject whatever food is in his mouth if you offer him something better, just for your information. Dylan is still pleased to have him as a plaything. Just this morning they made me cupcake soup for breakfast, so I view their collaboration as highly fruitful.

***

We took Dylan skiing again last weekend.

It's so awesome. We took her on the chair lift for the first time and she made it down from the top of Bristol. She now has stopping action.

I think of her as someone who is not into...discomfort. Or adversity. But she's actually sort of a trooper.

And sassy, you know.


***

Here's Snuffy, also looking fabulous. Work it, Snuffy.






***

Let's see, what am I up to? Putting my outerwear on the dog. Planting the baby in a snowbank. Crafting gifts for my husband. Dragging Dylan out in the snow. Attending lecture. Trying to make decisions about: city of residence, program of training, school for Dylan, daycare for Ollie, and what house to buy, if any. So, to summarize: I am often grumpy. Some of this is fun, but it will be really nice to stop reshuffling every aspect of our lives.

whistle while you work!

Seven hours of lecture today. And tomorrow. Coping only way I know how...child labor.



Ulterior motive:

Happy Weekend

Princesses revisited, again, and yet again

Obviously visiting the heart of princessdom (All employees! call all the little girls Princess) presented an interesting issue for me. I am feeling ever more strongly that this is just a pipeline for all the things I've always had a hard time with about how our culture deals with girls. I heard the author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter on the radio this morning and I could have written that book.

My approach with Dylan is a mishmash of casual indifference, letting her have small victories (if she sensed how much I cared about this she would hone in like some kind of...honing thing), substituting better things to think about, and refusing on bigger stuff (many of the girls at Disney World wander around in princess dresses and it was not happening).

This is so difficult to address because any given piece of it seems (and IS) relatively innocuous and there is SO MUCH PRESSURE from peers, from teachers, from tv, movies, and family to participate. In fact I think she ONLY cares about some of this stuff to impress her friends and otherwise is sort of indifferent. But in total it is completely unacceptable. Someone brought up how sometimes the movie characters are okay role models (especially with American Girl dolls also), but they both make shopping and consumption inseparable from being a girl and having interesting experiences (and PINK! but I'm considering that more of a symptom than anything else. I've had a hard time figuring out how to reasonably say she can't pick things in the color she wants). Those princesses are skinny and gorgeous and often not wearing a lot of clothing. It pushes girls to daydream about their weddings and their boyfriends and there may not be anything so terrible about that per se, but little boys sure aren't encouraged to daydream about those things--they're supposed to be off having adventures (full disclosure: we sing "A doll, a doll, Ollie wants a doll" with some frequency since he's rather attached to Dylan's baby dolls).

I heard the author of a new book about The Feminine Mystique on Fresh Air last night, and she summed up how these issues look for young women today: 1) teenagers and college girls are encouraged to achieve as much as they can in sports and academics, but they are expected to be hot while they do it, and 2) mothers of young children are being fed these expectations that that are able to and responsible for making every moment of their children's lives a teachable, meaningful experience, while also having interesting successful careers. It reminds me so much of all those really smart girls at Princeton who dressed up and drank heavily 2-3 nights a week and spent tons of time and money trying to be really hot all the time and then called it a choice.

Dylan asked me yesterday if we could toilet train Ollie soon so he could get Iron Man and Spiderman underwear. I said NO and later, but that I could look for some for her (she's in a class with a herd of five-year-old boys at the moment) and she was sort of shyly excited. You know I don't love VIOLENT SWAGGERING role models or wanting to be like all the other kids all the time either but I guess anything that's not pink feels like a victory. I just want her to be able to do her own thing, you know?

I never thought I'd be a Won't somebody think of the children? kind of parent, but there you have it.

we're back!...and we were gone...and i'll let you guess where

Actually, I'll let Ollie tell you. Here he is in a rare moment of freedom.
This is a more typical scenario, with the crib jammed into the bathroom. He earned his confinement, I will tell you what.

And, how big a pain is Ollie on a plane? THIS BIG.
Speaking of confinement, here is Aaron regarding the scenery on our bus from the airport. There will be NO VIEWING OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD during the promotional video, please.
And there's this one. She was...pleased.

She spent today rapidly alternating between excitement about bragging to her friends and wishing she was still on the trip. By the end of the day she was firmly in the "Are you sure we had to come home?" camp.

She is also, at this point, justifiably confused about what is and is not real.
She has not only seen Mary Poppins the movie, but also gone to the Broadway show and let me read her the 200-page book over the past couple weeks. A lengthy conversation with the woman herself is not helping matters, you know?
Aaron's mom kindly let us go out. Every single night. We should probably try to get out more, is one thing. I'm sure you all were thinking the same.
The arcade had a Deal or No Deal game where you could actually win tickets. So we did.
We got to know the hotel bartender. He made fun of us a lot, for some reason. I asked if I could have a Bailey's and he blinked at me for a solid three minutes and then said, "I can try."Aaron was involved in an unfortunate incident during a laser fight to save...some good thing from some bad thing? Seems to be how most of the story lines go? And this one was Toy Story?I assure you that we were not posing for this. I won, for the record. Aaron is also a winner, of course. Just for playing! And losing! To me!

We figured Ollie was going to be mostly a liability for all this, which of course he was, but I was surprised at how much he enjoyed some stuff. Hippos. He likes hippos. He also thought meeting the characters was great. Here he is plunging his fingers into Donald's luscious underbelly.

Minnie took a shine to the boy, and he kept trying to get back to her, long after we had been shuttled along to the next magical moment.


I think this picture should be called "Day 4."
Aaron, pale and glassy eyed, Dylan feral, me taking pictures, and Ollie crying accusingly in my direction.

Dylan liked the rides way more than I expected. The last day she and I sprinted around the Magic Kingdom and got in four last ones in about an hour. I didn't notice a lot of other mothers sprinting around with their young children in strollers, but maybe because I was going too fast?

And, as in any Disney adventure, there were some lessons learned.

1) Tigger jammies: may seem cute. That is incorrect because however cute they are to the naked eye, "MOMMY LOOK AT ME JUMP I AM TIGGER BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE" negates any cuteness in the 30 seconds before bedtime.

2) Hair trigger motion sickness and an enduring love of roller coasters is a TERRIBLE COMBINATION.

3) You may think you can get away with a flight without someone mentioning the baby's ears, but that is also incorrect. They will shout it at you, as you are walking off the plane. Try a bottle during takeoff and landing!!!

4) Watching fireworks from your hotel room is awesome.

5) Having the fireworks be an hour after the kid's bedtime is less awesome because she's knows they're coming. Oh yes she does.

6) I am estimating a minimum of two years before I can handle this again. Besides the constant corralling of the children, it is tiring to be me in such situations because whatever reservations I might have about Disney I MUST DO ALL THE THINGS.

Have a magical evening, one and all!