September Happenings

Most important: Adessa lost her top front tooth. This is her third tooth to fall out, but has the greatest visual impact so far, which she wasn't sure about. And... my children believe wholeheartedly in the Tooth Fairy. My parents didn't believe in lying to your kids, especially if you were going to try to teach them about God, an invisible guy with powers, and have to break it to them later that the invisible and powerful Tooth Fairy isn't real. This is a dilemma for me, as I don't know how it's going to play out. As of now, we believe in One Tooth Fairy, as well as One God. Could be trouble later.

Popsicles!! Jen, Dad's nanny, always has us over for dinner--so nice. Here's dessert! Annea's first popsicle. She knows when something is a big deal, and squeals, and chatters, and smiles so big. Her popsicle was a Big Deal! Though she's giving her camera smile, here.

Here's her normal, lovely smile:

Rainbow Day at Adessa's class. Fun for all the girls.

On my days off with Eliana and Annea, while Adessa's at school, we do fun outings (a little bit) and get errands run (a lot). We visited our neighbor and the girls babysitter, Alisa, while Adessa was at school the other day. Alisa gave Eliana a pretty seashell that she had been playing with. Eliana asked thoughtfully if Alisa had a shell for Adessa, too, which she did, and which I thought was very nice of her. She held the two shells in her hand and said that she would let Adessa choose which shell she wanted. We encouraged her to chose, told her it was okay for her to decide which one she wanted since Adessa wasn't there and Adessa gets to choose lots and lots of things (almost everything, really). Eliana pointed to the one she liked better, the pinker shell, and then sadly and seriously chose the other one, since she thought Adessa would like the pinker shell better, too. We tried to talk her out of it, and eventually did, but it was super enlightening about their relationship. Eliana went back and forth about how she was going to present the shell to Adessa, without giving up the pink one that she liked the best. I watched carefully when Adessa got home, and was presented with her new shell. Her first reaction was to ask Eliana if she had gotten one, too, and where was it. Adessa held the two up next to each other in evaluation and began a wailing and crying fit, asking why she didn't get to choose, why did Eliana get the better one, she's going to throw the shell away, etc. etc. Woah. I found it all very interesting, and am adding it to the conversation that Calvin and I have been having about how to raise happy, thankful kids who aren't entitled. It appears we have our work cut out for us.

Early morning wake-up sweetness.

Shopping! Annea insists, at tremendous volumes, that she do whatever the big girls are doing. We thought we had it covered by letting them each push their own mini-cart, but she kept crying her frustration until we figured out that if she wasn't in the front of the line of mini-carts, she thought the big girls had her cart and that was NOT okay.

Every few weeks I take whichever girls are around and we feed our bread crusts and heels to Uncle Ben's chickens. It makes me feel slightly better about the fact that nobody in our house eats bread crusts or heels (except me, but I don't the bread that the girls and Calvin eat). So the chickens feast and we throw bits of bread to them, and tromp around the farm, and everybody wins.

For Maryfaith

It's so nice to know I have readers that I will personally post for anyone who requests. Maryfaith gets all the credit for this post, and my appreciation for reading. :) In addition, I am going to try to post at least every other week (that sounds like more than twice a month, doesn't it?), and we will all see how my attempts at self-discipline are coming along.

Calvin and I got new phones, which is about to be a long explanation about why I have few pictures to post this time, what with figuring out how to get them on the computer, yada yada. The camera on the iPhone I got seems to have a malfunction, though, as neither the subject nor the photographer can move AT ALL to get a good, non-blurry shot. Apparently I'm a hummingbird, and the mother of hummingbirds. Long have I had issues with blurry pictures, anyway, and I'm not yet convinced that I don't need my old camera. Or better, a camera set at light-speed.

Sisters!!

Late summer visits and fun:
Amy and her kiddos, Alex (our godson) and Cassiel came for Labor Day weekend. Lots of fun.

Boating! The girls' first time, with Amy's parents. High adventure.

First, actually, was with me.

But Annea was very vocal in her displeasure, she does not like boating. We subsequently watched from shore and took blurry pictures.

Cool algae bloom, eh?


What else.
I made a visual checklist for the crazy mornings, trying to ease the transition back to school, which allowed me to take pictures like this:

The end result: (Yes, I'm proud).

Now instead of screaming "Get your shoes on!!" I scream: "Look at the chart!!" I'm sure that's better.

Speaking of screaming, there's a subject that's pretty taboo for me to verbalize--don't want to sell my sisters out or anything--but that I've been thinking about a lot lately. One week out of the month I think about it, to be precise. The week before my period. PMS, people. Maryfaith? Weigh in. As a parent, I feel like maybe I spend a lot of the other three weeks of the month trying to undo the damage I wreak during my week of incredibly impatient, sarcastic, shame-mongering, and embarrassing behavior. It's serious.

When I taught at the comprehensive high school, I once looked back over the detentions I had written for the year. Curiously, every month I wrote three or four detentions that coincided with the week before my period started. Throughout the year I had explained this as something going on with my students: They're so out of control this week! There must be something in the air. The barometric pressure is affecting their brains. Or... something was happening with me. No coping mechanisms I could access in the fraction of a second between realizing something I didn't like was happening and accelerating to total freak-out reaction. No tolerance. Which is what I am now doing as a mom.

"Use your words." "Watch your tone--there are nice ways to let someone know what you would like." "Have patience." "Be positive." All the little phrases I'm using to try to teach my girls how to navigate without conflict are crushed under the heel of my big fat PMS. So. I'm now fully aware, acknowledging the problem, and will attempt to improve in this area. Sorry to the members of womenkind who are trying to be taken seriously as non-hormone-swinging professionals.

When I'm not berating my kids for the kid-ly things they do during my PMS times, I am enjoying them. These are great ages, despite all the difficulties, as they are learning so much.

Annea has a few words she bandies about: no, ow, mah(r) for more, ge-gu (thank you), uh-oh,toot, and a new one that makes her seem very fluent, indeed: Oh!
"Annea, see the birdie?"
"Oh!" (Fits perfectly, see?)

"Annea, here's your crayon."
"Oh!"

"Annea, go get your shoe."
"Oh!"

It's like she's so sweetly surprised by things, and completely part of the nearby conversations. And it's allowed for new word combos, as she likes to loudly yell: "Oh, no!" She uses "Oh, no!" as a filler, so it's rarely appropriate, but always funny.

Annea loves her sisters. She is freely giving hugs and kisses now, which Adessa and Eliana milk for lots of affection. She is pretty steady on her feet and quite a little dancer, favoring subtle moves like the shoulder shimmy and the hip swing. She is at the age where we are going to need to follow her around for about a year. We are safe in our house if the bathroom doors are closed, but everywhere else I have to keep reminding myself she is in imminent danger.

Eliana's got a mischievous sense of humor and sparkly eyes and a huge grin when she gives or gets the joke. She is ridiculously shy, to a fault I'm going to give it, both she and Adessa are super rude when people talk to them. To some extent I'm sure this is age appropriate, don't force them to talk to people, but it is embarrassing sometimes the pains that people will go to trying to engage them and the determination with which both girls will rebuff them. People that I care about, people who care about the girls. Hopefully it will pass.

Adessa started first grade, and... loves it. She got such a great and amazing, warm, wonderful teacher, Janet. I almost feel guilty telling people who her teacher is because the response is always a little bit envious. Adessa has already made new friends, one of whom is another girl who has a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle lunchbox. They bonded. Adessa gets home two hours later than last year and thereby no longer gets a nap, which she was skipping a lot lately, anyway. But first grade being exhausting and all, this girl needs a nap. Or a mom without PMS. Because she is soooooooo very sad and crabby all evening long. I'm sure this is part of the transition--we are not very good at transitions, admittedly--but it's painful.

In an interesting twist of chronically bad photography, I think this is my new favorite picture of the five of us. We are in dire need of a photo session.

I am consciously trying to touch the girls more, hold them and squeeze them and hug them as I craved that with my mom, and they love it. They let me attack them with kisses. They pretend to run away and then let themselves be caught and snuggled. When one starts getting kissed, the others line up, even Annea, and judiciously take turns being caught and tickled and snarfled under the chin. It's the best.

Summer Summer Summer

How I love summer! I should not have chosen a job that continues to give me such a complete and utter break that every summer I cannot imagine going back to school again. Every summer I internally wail and outwardly mourn going back to work, especially now with kids. Transitioning back to hyper-busy as opposed to just summer-time-busy is painful. Getting up early in the morning is painful. Leaving the girls with babysitters--no matter how wonderful--is painful. Getting paid is essential. So. Summer ends, and I go back to work. Yesterday. And today. And tomorrow. The beginning is always intense, teacher work days and inservices, which make the break from the girls (Baby Annea!) so much harder. Annea did fine with the babysitter, but did give me many many sweet kisses when I got back.

Annea is sweet. She has been sick which limits her sweetness to when she's in someone's arms, otherwise she is cranky and crying. But healthy (hooray!!), she is so funny and cute and all the things that 15 (almost 16!)month olds are. She toddles around, dropping things, falling, redistributing toys around the house, giving hugs to her sisters, trying to intervene when they argue (she yells gibberish at them when I yell at them to stop arguing), and trying to cheer them up when they are sad (she is most often successful, she'll get right in their face and smile, trying to make them feel better, so sweet!). So fun. And into everything, more than the other girls were at this age, we have to watch her. Did I write about her near-drownding experience? Yeah. She went into the water while I was talking to other moms and thought I was watching her, and was rescued quickly by a lifeguard teaching lessons who happened to turn around at the right time. Sobering experience.

Eliana is having lots of sadness lately, many things are very sad to her and invoke loud (fake-sounding) crying. She evidently wants to be sure that we see, hear, and understand that she is upset. Both girls, really, have gone straight to tears when things bother them (or they bother each other) and we are trying to encourage them to use their words.

Adessa is excited for school to start, and will only now be giving up her nap, since school goes until 2ish. She is ready to be a big kid, most days she just rattles around on her bunk bed until I say she can get up, but I am not ready to give up my afternoon quiet. Okay, now I'm ready.

Overall, all is well, just gearing up for another school year.
But first, some more of the summer: (Disclaimer- I tried to organize them and got confused with the large number and will never post them if I don't do it now. Maybe I'll fix it later. It's a great sampling of summer in no particular order, the pics or this list: wharf, berry picking, farmer's market, Annea's first Dum-Dum pop (lollipop for that matter!), running around at the field, Laurel's house!, a hike to Bear Mountain, and Annea's 15 month well-baby check up. )

Riverside Summer Fun

Our summer vacation to Riverside was... okay... it was great. Though it took us a while to get over the fact that traveling with kids is so very little like a vacation. Must remind myself: with small ones, it takes (ours, at least) two days to acclimate and have anyone sleep very well. Add in any sickness and it might be even longer (yes, hacking coughs again this time, we even delayed our departure to hope for better health.)

The car ride down was nice and uneventful:

Adessa did sleep, eventually.

Sunglasses!

Eight years! This was our eight year anniversary picture, after a day spent driving and not really celebrating very much at all. We got to go out for dinner later in the week when Auntie Evie watched our girls. We had a nice time, and I discovered the martini: yum!

The Mission Inn is beautiful, cool history and architecture. Calvin took the girls on exploring adventures while Annea took her morning nap. On our last morning, Annea and I joined them.

Did I mention that Annea is walking!?

We told the girls to sit at the little table and pretend they were drinking coffee. I see mime in their futures.

The best part of the Mission Inn, however, is the pool. It's shallow and huge and surrounded by beautiful foliage and flowers. We spent most of our awake time there.
Daddy sprang for a poolside beverage for the girls. After her first sip, lounging, Adessa looked at Calvin and said: "This is the life".

Annea has discovered sunglasses.

With Auntie Evie and Melissa in the pool.

What you can't tell from these pictures is that Adessa is a swimmer! Each day Adessa discovered a new thing or two that she could so in the water. She could jump off the edge (by herself! and recover), she could float on her back and kick and scull, she could almost do a one-armed hand stand. She swam (holding her nose with one arm, paddling with the other) for most of the week, and then, all on her own volition (NOT in response to my many attempts to teach her) she started blowing bubbles out of her nose and swimming with both arms. Now it's going to be me NOT teaching her how to take breaths. She will do it when she decides, but at least she's doing it! Eliana was pretty happy to hang out on the steps, and could have for hours.

Daddy and Annea in the pool. Annea loved her "floating cabana".

Reading with Melissa.

Family at Old Spaghetti factory.

Art.

Art. Calvin mused (much too late) that he should have stood at the beginning of "Art" with his hands out like an F. Hee hee.

Fourth of July (totally out of place, but I forgot it last monster-post).