TCB in a flash -- baby, that is

In Pacific Grove

2012-01-26T16:39:00.000-08:00

We accompanied Craig to a brief conference at Asilomar in Pacific Grove, 150 miles or so south of us along the coast. This morning the kids and I went to the beach and the lighthouse. It was briefly fun, and then Laurel (who has a cold) got tired and whiny and I had to carry her.

I had forgotten just how un-relaxing a vacation with an uncooperative toddler can be. This is the first time Laurel has come to this conference, although we brought Isaac along at 17 months (in 2007) and at two and a half (in 2008).

Kicking sand on the beach

First day of lessons

2012-01-24T22:21:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday was Laurel's first day of toddler ballet, and today was Isaac's first day of tennis. They both enjoyed their classes very much.

Shall I wear my ballet slippers or my Lightning McQueen slippers?

Lesson one: keep your eye on the ball

How is Laurel?

2012-01-17T21:29:00.000-08:00

Today was Laurel's second full day at home after her 72-hour hospital stay. And how is she?

She is hungry. About as soon as a meal ends, she begins asking about the next one. Right before lunch today she was musing on the delights of the grilled cheese sandwich I had promised to make her. "I like the crusty part," I heard her say from the back seat as we drove to get Isaac at school, "and I like the melted cheese. And I like ham." Well, she didn't eat normal food for over ten days, so no wonder she's a bit obsessed!

She is tired. In the hospital I slept in the bed with her, and she slept very well. (Unlike myself! Yes, there was a chair that turned into a cot of sorts, but an actual mattress seemed more comfortable, and plus I think we both found it reassuring to be close to each other.) Now that she's home, she's not eager to be left alone in her own bed. She woke up frightened the first night home, and came in to sleep with me around dawn. And last night she just couldn't fall asleep, so after two and a half hours in her own room she ended up in bed with me and Craig. Sleep was still difficult, however -- she kept climbing on top of me, like she was trying to occupy the same space as me.

She is emotional. Her feelings are strong and sudden, and she had a few big tantrums today, which really isn't typical. But she has also given me several wonderful hugs.

She is clumsy. Maybe this goes with the territory of being "hungry" and "tired," but she tripped many times today, not always catching herself before her poor head struck the ground. Her coordination and strength keep improving, and I don't think there is anything to worry about, but she isn't quite normal yet.

She is conscious of herself as a patient. Several times today Laurel told me that her stomach hurt. It was probably just from eating too-large portions, as her stomach did shrink from lack of use; after meals her tummy feels tight and distended. Tonight when I was telling her that she had been sick, but that her stay in the hospital had made her healthy, she wasn't quite convinced. She sounded a little confused when she said, "But my stomach hurts now." I told her that she wasn't sick any more, and that her tummy would be just fine. Then she said, "But my bucket is in the car."

That made me sad. Her "bucket" is a vomit receptacle. For ten whole days she always had a bucket close at hand. It will take a while for her to get over it.

Illness update 3

2012-01-15T14:01:00.000-08:00

Laurel is home from the hospital!

After she woke up this morning she ate a decent breakfast (half a yogurt, half a mini-box of Cheerios, half a piece of toast, six ounces of juice), walked around the hall no more unsteadily than yesterday, and had a normal poop.

After we got home Laurel ate half a peanut butter and jam sandwich, and right now she is playing with Duplo and talking merrily to herself in the living room. My ever-helpful mother is on her way home. Things can now begin to return to normal, although it seems like Laurel will need a nap today, and Isaac is sad to have his Oma gone. And we need to schedule a follow-up appointment with Laurel's regular pediatrician for either tomorrow or Tuesday, and I guess we might find out something interesting when the stool culture results come back in a few days...

But things have improved greatly, instead of continuing to deteriorate, which makes it seem like there isn't a continuing infection.

She is still clumsy, and in fact is crying right now because her legs just collapsed beneath her. This loss of coordination could be ataxia due to a "post-viral syndrome," another term I don't suggest you look up.

Illness update 2

2012-01-15T09:32:00.000-08:00

Here we are again, 8:00 a.m. Sunday morning, still at Children's Hospital in Oakland. Laurel is sleeping soundly. She fell asleep at 8:30 p.m. last night, and at home she sleeps at least 12 hours straight at night, so I've been fending off the nursing staff for the last half-hour, trying to make sure she gets about the same amount of sleep here. Surely we can wait another hour to get her vitals and weight?

The attending physician, a doctor from our pediatrics practice (although not our usual doctor), came by at 7:30 a.m. and I did let him examine Laurel -- as she slept. He also wanted to see her gait, which is one of the remaining concerns, but I declined, saying we wouldn't get an accurate result by pulling a three-year-old straight from a deep sleep and making her walk. I don't see how we can evaluate whether there has been any improvement to her gait or physical strength if she's too tired.

But even though he only saw her sleeping, the attending physician thought that we might be able to go home today. It has been a full 48 hours since Laurel last vomited, and even then it was just a tiny bit after she had that bite of pancake; she also hasn't had diarrhea for a while, maybe 36 hours. Yesterday she didn't get any of the anti-nausea drug Zofran, and she successfully ate yogurt, animal crackers, bread -- and a cheese quesadilla!

The attending physician kind of blanched this morning when I told him about the quesadilla, and he said he wanted to see her stick to a "clear" diet or at the most a "BRATY" diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast, yogurt) today. I said that for Laurel, the "clear" diet was the "zero" diet. But he's afraid that if the vomiting starts again, it might become uncontrollable again, and then we'd be back where we started.

She also spent all day yesterday without being administered IV fluids. We were curious to see if she would become thirsty enough to drink on her own, but she still didn't drink much. She had about nine ounces of juice over a period of 12 hours, while someone of her weight should be drinking about 30 ounces in a 24-hour period. But her urine output is still large, so I suspect she was still quite hydrated from the IV. They put it back on her overnight, at a low rate of flow, so that she wouldn't lose ground overnight, but they took it off again at 7:00 this morning.

So what is still wrong with Laurel? Besides her lack of interest in eating and drinking, she experiences some stomach pain when she eats. And then there is her walk.

She has been wobbly-legged since last weekend, when her gastroenteritis first intensified -- not that she has walked very much since then, as she has mostly been either sleeping or lying in bed. Over the last week several doctors have asked to see her walk, and although she swayed and stumbled slightly, they always thought it was within the normal range of being weak and ill. Even on Thursday afternoon when she was being assessed by the supervising physician at the Emergency Department, he thought her gait was fine.

They kept checking because there are several problems that can develop in the brain that cause both vomiting and loss of coordination.

But on Friday her walk became dramatically worse. In the morning I walked around the hall here at the hospital with her, and she frequently crossed one foot over the other, dragged her toes, and displayed such a lack of balance that I had to hold her hand tightly. It was a chilling sight. We walked past the group of residents doing rounds, and they all stopped talking and stared at Laurel as she staggered by. After that several of them came in to practice their neurological examination skills on her, and she did pretty well on the tests -- touch your nose, touch my fingertip, follow the light with your eyes, and so forth. But the doctors were still concerned enough about a brain problem that they ordered the MRI she had late on Friday afternoon, which happily was normal.

Her gait did improve yesterday, Saturday, to the extent that we felt comfortable allowing her to walk on her own (as long as someone was hovering close by, ready to reach out and steady her when she began to lean backwards). Craig stayed with Laurel yesterday from noon through 6:00 p.m. (I went home to take a shower, and to see Isaac for the first time since the hospitalization), and he made a point of getting her out of bed several times so she could gain strength and practice walking around. But even still, when we all took a walk at 7:30 p.m. with the resident physician, I said I thought that she was only walking at about half of her usual ability. I wasn't sure whether it was lack of muscle strength (although she does pretty well on the tests when the doctors hold her feet and ask her to push back on their hands) or lack of coordination.

I want to see her walk improve even further, so I'm going to try to keep her out of bed today. It's difficult, though, because she keeps complaining about being tired. Also the hospital room is small and there's not much else of a place for her to sit and play. She has been designated "infectious" so she isn't eligible to visit the hospital's playroom or garden. She has also been watching a lot of "Max and Ruby" on the laptop, which was good when she was so sick and needed to rest, but sure isn't helping her improve her physical strength now!

I'll admit my secret concern here.

When we were first admitted, one resident in particular kept asking us about environmental exposure. Had we done any foreign travel lately? Had we visited a petting zoo? Did we have any exotic pets? Had we been camping? Had we been near a body of water? No, no, no, we kept saying.

But then I realized: YES! Laurel fell in a pond on New Year's Eve.

My parents have a pond on their rural property in coastal central California, and Laurel was using a stick to poke at moss in a shallow basin at the top of a small waterfall when she leaned too far and toppled in. She adjusted her body as she fell, so her feet went into the basin instead of her head, but she was splashed in the face. Also her hands were soaked, and she was still sucking her thumb at that point (although she has since stopped), so one way or another she certainly got some amount of water in her mouth.

Water exposure could mean Giardiasis, of course, but this pond is also frequented by wild animals (turkeys, deer, ducks, raccoons, and so forth) so there could be infection with something like E. coli or salmonella. I told the doctors this, and they said that the next time we get a good stool sample (which hasn't happened yet!) they will run a parasite analysis. (Laurel has never run a fever with this illness, however, which seems to rule out a lot of the infections.)

Then I made the mistake of looking at the C.D.C.'s fact sheet on diseases humans can catch from wild animals. I won't tell you the name of the particular parasite, because I don't want anyone else to look it up and freak themselves out (I'm talking to you, Dad), but there's a worm found in the fecal matter of raccoons that when ingested by humans causes nausea, loss of coordination, loss of muscle control, lethargy -- and it gets worse from there.

Infection is rare (the parasitologist here at the hospital in Oakland reports only ever seeing one case), but has occurred in central coastal California; I haven't done extensive research because it makes me feel very anxious, but I read one abstract about an infection in a toddler in Pacific Grove, just 25 miles from my parents' home.

It is very difficult to diagnose, and the C.D.C. seems to think a stool analysis won't find it. And there is no treatment.

And folks, that is why they shouldn't offer free wireless Internet access in hospital rooms!

Illness update

2012-01-14T09:14:00.000-08:00

If you know us in "real" life, you may be aware that Laurel's gastroenteritis didn't improve, and that after yet more vomiting on Thursday morning, the eighth day of illness, her doctor told us to go to the Emergency Department so Laurel could be re-hydrated by IV. After a few hours at the E.D., she was admitted to the hospital, and we have been there ever since.

In addition to treating the dehydration, her doctor has been alert because Laurel's "stomach flu" has had unusual presentation. It certainly seemed unusual to me, which is why I was calling the doctor on just the second day of her illness. But I guess something in the way she has alternated vomiting and diarrhea seems atypical to them; she has also had long stretches without vomiting, but then it picks up again.

They have done blood chemistry tests (she has normal electrolytes, white blood count, hemoglobin, and so forth), urinalysis (normal), and a stool culture (still waiting on results for E. Coli and salmonella; they need a bigger sample to test for parasites and giardia). She has never had a fever, however, which seems to rule out most of the bacterial infections. And most frighteningly, yesterday Laurel had an MRI of her head to see whether there was a problem inside her skull. She had developed a stumbling, foot-dragging walk, and was slurring some of her speech. We are thankful that the "rapid MRI" (a lower-resolution scan that only took five minutes instead of the full 45-minute scan done under sedation) showed absolutely no abnormalities. Maybe she's just tired and weak from lack of food?

Nearly 48 hours of IV fluids have fixed the dehydration, although she still hasn't eaten much food or had anything to drink. She has had Zofran to prevent vomiting, although she still isn't interested in eating -- she will not eat the yucky hospital food and especially won't have anything to do with the "clear" diet she has been stuck with for so many days. They keep offering her popsicles, but I bet she never wants to see another popsicle as long as she lives! Yesterday she vomited as soon as she placed a single bite of pancake in her mouth (without Zofran), but she kept down a package of animal crackers and a few bites of yogurt (with Zofran). But then a raspberry seed from the yogurt got stuck in her teeth, and she refused to eat any more, saying, "It's too seedy for me."

We are going to try giving her familiar bland food we bring from home today, without the Zofran, to see what happens. We are also going to disconnect the fluids from her IV to see if that makes her thirsty enough to drink on her own.

Her mood and energy are pretty good, unlike her last few days at home, so the fluids have really helped. She behaved like a champ with the MRI, which was a scary experience (for me, anyway), and she really enjoyed being transferred in an ambulance between hospital sites.

I stayed with her on Thursday and Friday nights, and Craig joined us during the days. My mother came up to stay at our house with Isaac, for which we are very grateful. Even though Craig is spending the nights at home, he can't leave Isaac there alone, and I can't leave Laurel here alone. So to make things run as smoothly and stress-free as possible for the kids, we need another adult to watch Isaac at home. If the hospital stay continues past Sunday afternoon, my mom will have to go back home to her other responsibilities, and we will have to make arrangements for Isaac to stay at a friend's house during the day -- but hopefully Laurel will be able to go home by then.

She's sleeping right now, at 9:00 a.m., which means she had more than 12 hours of solid sleep last night. I asked the nurses not to check her vital signs or change her diaper overnight, so they just came in for a quick check of her IV site and didn't wake her up at all. I was awakened at 7:20 a.m., however, by a phone call from the "financial planning" department of the hospital.

Birth day

2012-01-08T22:32:00.000-08:00

We didn't take any photos during Laurel's birth three years ago in 2009, but here are a few from afterward; the first picture was taken when Isaac first came into the bedroom about 40 minutes after Laurel was born.

Isaac hopped right on the bed and sat down next to me and Laurel

Finally getting ready to weigh Laurel about an hour after her birth

Isaac went to Laurel's room to get her clothes so I could dress her after her examination

Happy birthday, Laurel...

2012-01-08T21:55:00.000-08:00

...except that it has been far from a "happy" birthday for her.

Laurel is three years old today. She's also on the fourth day of a stomach bug, and the worst day so far. She had minor bouts of vomiting and diarrhea on Thursday and Friday, but her mood remained cheerful and she just didn't seem that sick. I thought she was due to get better by her birthday, but this weekend her illness intensified and she began feeling very ill. It doesn't help that she hasn't had solid food (except applesauce and crackers) since Wednesday night, nor that she got dehydrated this afternoon and became so lethargic she could hardly stay awake. Even when she was awake, she just lay there limply, crying and moaning, "Juice. Juuuuuice."

Poor little girl. We let her drink a lot of Pedialyte this evening, which improved her alertness and mood, but in the course of 45 minutes made her vomit once and gave her diarrhea three times.

And how did we celebrate Laurel's birthday? We did not celebrate at all. First of all, she was asleep for most of the day, or moaning. She did watch a little bit of TV between naps, but with little enthusiasm. And when she finally showed some small signs of recovering around 6:00 this evening, she had no energy to spare. Isaac mentioned to her that today was her birthday, and she said, "That's right," but she wasn't that interested. She ate some applesauce, looked at a book with me, and fell asleep.

I spent much of the weekend holding her or lying next to her while she napped, so I feel like I've been lost in a black hole of illness. This feeling is intensified by the fact that I myself was sick for three days at the start of the week; I had the stomach bug Monday and felt weak Tuesday and Wednesday, and then Laurel has been sick from Thursday through Sunday. Hopefully she will be better tomorrow, and hopefully Craig and Isaac will stay healthy!!

Photos: May 2011

2011-12-30T23:52:00.001-08:00

Click here to view these pictures larger

Still catching up with photos, although May was a very slim month for taking pictures! Again, if you want to see the pictures larger (and with captions) you can go directly to our family's photo website at tcbphotos.shutterfly.com, where you can see this album under the link for May 2011.

Photos: April 2011

2011-12-30T23:18:00.001-08:00

Click here to view these pictures larger

Catching up with photos here ... as always, if you want to see the pictures larger (and with captions) you can go directly to our family's photo website at tcbphotos.shutterfly.com, where you can see this album under the link for April 2011.

Classes

2011-12-28T13:07:00.000-08:00

My kids are now officially enrolled in Classes.

Laurel is signed up for a "Ballet / Magical Movement" class for kids aged 2-1/2 to 3-1/2. The class claims to teach "beginning dance skills through the use of creative movement, imagery, dance activities, improvisation, and story dances." What's more, "costumes, props, and music all add to the fun!" She should enjoy it.

Isaac had wanted to take gymnastics again, but when he learned he would have to take the class for kids aged 5-7, he faltered. The previous gymnastics class he took was for ages 3-5, and he liked being the oldest kid there, but now that he is six he has to move up a level. I didn't point out that if he waited until he was seven to take gymnastics again, he might be the oldest but he still wouldn't know any more gymnastics than he does right now! And it's not like the other kids have stopped learning in the meantime.

So Isaac is signed up for tennis for kids aged 4-6. I think much of what appealed to him about the class is the fact that he'll be at the top of the age range! Since he isn't naturally athletic, I think he wants to seize whatever advantage he can. Either way, I hope he likes tennis. Apparently they use specially-adapted equipment to make the game fun even for total beginners, but it could still be very frustrating. And I didn't point out that even some of the younger kids might already know how to play...

Laurel the lumberjack

2011-12-27T09:49:00.000-08:00

We got Laurel three ballet outfits for Christmas, although one of them rather resembles a princess dress. Once I got a good look at all the tulle and ruffles, I realized I wanted to offer her a greater range of dress-up options. And what could be further from "Swan Lake" than the wild woods?

Laurel examines her new chainsaw

Hard hat, ear protection, and goggles ... but she isn't wearing the gloves

Gingerbread houses

2011-12-26T16:00:00.000-08:00

This Christmas my mother brought a gingerbread house to decorate with Isaac, and it reminded me of trying to decorate one with him when he was two years old.

Isaac in 2011

Isaac in 2007

Unwrapping

2011-12-25T21:53:00.000-08:00

We hosted a small Christmas Eve dinner at our house this year.* We were joined by my parents as well as my sister and her husband, making a total of six adults and two children (and one 17-pound turkey).

As I sat at the dining table with my sister and mother, talking idly of this and that, I heard an alarming sound coming from the living room. Completely taking my family by surprise, I leaped from the table and ran from the room, shouting, "No! No! No!"

I had immediately identified the sound as that of wrapping paper being ripped. Sure enough, Laurel was all by herself in the living room and had taken it upon herself to begin unwrapping presents. By the time I got there, she had gotten one package partially open, but luckily she is still a slow unwrapper (or perhaps I am a fast runner) and she hadn't yet discovered its contents. (It was even her present!)

We had to watch her closely after that.

Note her little thumb pulling back the paper as she looks up at her grandfather...

Isaac, on the other hand, has never illicitly unwrapped a present; it's just not in his nature. As I mentioned previously, we gave him a camera for Christmas, and as we expected, he likes it a lot.

Say "cheese"!

The camera was the most expensive present we bought for either of the kids, so I ended up buying more presents for Laurel to keep things 'even.' But a few days ago when when we were reviewing the presents I had bought, Craig said he was worried that Isaac would mind that Laurel had a greater number of items to open. I totally dismissed this concern, saying I didn't think Isaac would even notice. But in the end I did set aside a few presents for her birthday (it's just two weeks after Christmas!), wrapping up four packages for Isaac and five packages for Laurel.

But Isaac did notice! He said, "I feel sort of sad that Laurel got more presents than I did."

I said, "I know how you feel. But your camera was really expensive, so that's why Laurel got one more present than you did."

He cheered up immediately.

- - - - -

* This is a change from our usual family tradition of going to a big Christmas Eve gathering with my mother's side of the family. But there are just too many relatives now, more than 60 of us, and we don't all fit in one house! It's the end of a decades-long era. (Although we did stay here for Christmas in 2008, two weeks before Laurel was born.)

Colds and sleep

2011-12-20T21:55:00.000-08:00

Well, just in time for Christmas both the kids have colds. Laurel seems to be bouncing back quickly, but Isaac seems more miserable. I hear coughing and sneezing coming from down the hall where the kids are sleeping.

Or supposed to be sleeping, anyway. Laurel has this thing where she gets insomnia, and it looks like tonight might be one of those nights.

I think I last mentioned it over the summer, how sometimes when she wakes up at night she simply cannot fall back asleep. Luckily it doesn't happen that often, maybe only every three or four months, but when it does happen it is traumatic for everyone.

It happened night before last. She fell asleep normally around 7:45 p.m. in her new big-girl bed, woke up at 11:30 p.m., cried, but didn't fall back asleep on her own. Craig tried to soothe her for a while, as he usually does when she awakens at night. But it didn't work, so after 30 or 45 minutes he brought her into bed with me. There she was awake for another 30 or 45 minutes, until I took her back into her room and sat in her chair while she lay in bed. But then she began playing a game where I was the baby and she was the dad, and first she sang to me for a while, but then she got up and left me alone in the room so I could fall asleep! So I gave up. Then Craig tried again in her bedroom, but it didn't work, and then he took her into the living room and let her watch "Max and Ruby" for a while. I don't know what time she finally fell asleep, but it was at least 3:00 a.m.

No surprise that last night she was exhausted, fell asleep early, and slept solidly through the night. I woke her up this morning at 9:00 a.m., an hour and a half later than she usually awakens.

Tonight? No such luck. I tried putting her down at 7:45 p.m., but she never seemed sleepy. Now it's 10:00 p.m. and Craig has been in her room with her for the last 30 minutes. I don't hear crying any more, though, so maybe it finally worked out.

This is only the fourth night without the crib, which makes things tricky. As I noted earlier in the year, sometimes the only way Laurel can settle herself back to sleep is by crying, but now that she can get out of bed herself, that option may not be as readily available.

And everything is harder when you're sick, poor kids.

Scary

2011-12-18T21:08:00.000-08:00

"I don't like that. It's too scary for me."

For nearly three years Laurel was fearless. She wasn't scared of anything she saw in a book, TV show, movie, music video, or most things in real life. Probably she was just too young to know she should be scared. But even as a toddler she never had a terror of things like vacuums or hand dryers, like Isaac did at a young age.

But now she's old enough to be scared. About two weeks ago I noticed that she was frightened by an intense scene in the Disney/Pixar animated movie "Cars," even though she had watched it many times before. And she seems nervous about some scary stories Isaac tells, and she became terrified when I stepped out of her line of vision at the store yesterday.

And now she's claiming to be scared of the dark. Tonight she even said, "I don't like my big-girl bed. It's too scary for me." Luckily that doesn't seem to be true! She slept through the night last night in the new bed, and she fell asleep in it without trouble tonight.

Isaac, on the other hand, is relishing scary stuff for the first time ever. He was a vampire for Halloween this year, you may recall, and six weeks later he is still making art featuring ghosts, fanged jack-o-lanterns, witches, and so forth. And he still wants to hear us tell the story of "The Headless Horseman."

Nutcracker

2011-12-17T21:32:00.000-08:00

Over the past few weeks Laurel has become interested in ballet. She knows about it from the only TV show she watches ("Max and Ruby," an animated cartoon about rabbit siblings, based on the books by Rosemary Wells) because the big sister character is interested in ballet. Despite her lack of exposure to these things, when I took Laurel shopping for bedding for her new "big girl" bed today, she was definitely drawn to all the princess and ballet stuff. How did this happen?!

Anyway, back to ballet: last weekend I showed Laurel and Isaac a few videos of "The Nutcracker" on the Internet, and they liked it so much that they watched for at least half a hour. Laurel decided that her old pink sundress was a ballerina dress, and now she likes to put it on and twirl around the living room.

In this video Laurel is dancing with a small plastic figurine of a dancing girl, much as Clara dances with her nutcracker doll. She is talking to herself about nutcrackers as she spins around, at one point saying, "It's just a person dressed like a nutcracker." She isn't dancing to "The Nutcracker Suite," however, because we don't have a recording of it; she had to settle for a symphonic "Joy to the World."

Second

2011-12-16T10:00:00.000-08:00

Wow, I just realized that this year will only be Laurel's second Christmas!

She was born two weeks after Christmas, so even though she will be three years old in less than a month, she hasn't been around for that many actual Christmases.

It's Isaac's seventh Christmas, even though he is six years old. He has plenty of experience.

Edited to add: Okay, my math expert says this is just not true. This is Laurel's third Christmas. She was born in January 2009, so she celebrated Christmas in 2009 and 2010, and 2011 will make number three. I guess I can't add.

Christmas (trees) past

2011-12-15T23:29:00.000-08:00

We got our Christmas tree last weekend. As we have since 2005, we got it at the totally unglamorous "Bob's Christmas Trees," an otherwise vacant lot next to the Safeway supermarket and the Wells Fargo bank. But despite the mundane location, we must like it, because we have been there seven years in a row!

(You may notice that Bob got a new sign this year. In three of the five photos in which I am pictured, however, I am wearing the same blue plaid coat which I bought (used!) in the early 1990s when I was still in college.)

Year #7: 2011 -- Isaac age 6; Laurel age 2 years 11 months

Year #6: 2010 -- Isaac age 5; Laurel age 23 months


Year #5: 2009 -- Isaac age 4; Laurel 11 months old (but not pictured!)

Year #4: 2008 -- Isaac age 3; Laurel one month away from being born

Year #3: 2007 -- Isaac age 2

Year #2: 2006 -- Isaac age 15 months

Year #1: 2005 -- Isaac age 3 months

Year #1: 2005 again

Christmas shopping

2011-12-13T21:56:00.000-08:00

I've been doing some Christmas shopping for the kids. Craig and I already decided what "big" presents we're giving each kid, and we were going to keep it simple this year, but I can't help but feel like there should be additional gifts for the kids to open. This is unnecessary on my part, of course, because the kids are lucky enough to receive many additional gifts from their relatives.

Anyway, in November Isaac told me he had too many toys, and he didn't need any more. He said this while he was overwhelmed by the prospect of putting away the huge mess of toys that covered the entire living room floor, so he didn't really mean it, but I took the comment to heart.

Isaac's big gift for Christmas will be his very own digital camera, since he loves to borrow ours. Laurel's will be an additional 100 Magna-Tiles, since she loves the set the kids got last Christmas. They will also get new furniture for their rooms: Isaac a workshop-style desk with plenty of storage, and Laurel a big-girl bed and dresser. I also plan to enroll them in after-school classes, since they haven't taken any lessons since this spring (or even earlier). Laurel has expressed interest in dance, and Isaac has agreed to take gymnastics again.

So I had an appropriate gift-giving plan in place, but I've been buying them more stuff anyway. Yesterday the kids and I went to Thrift Town and we loaded up the cart with a bunch of toys: about 20 "My Little Pony" horses, a train, a doll stroller, a car carrier, a cement mixer, a helicopter, a stuffed duck with a Santa hat... Yes, I was completely out of control, especially for someone who was not supposed to be buying any toys at all. And today Laurel and I went to the public library's book sale, and I bought eight or nine books for the kids.

Oh well, at least all these gifts were second-hand, so I didn't end up spending very much money. But we will still need to find a place to put all of them.

Lyrics

2011-12-12T20:54:00.000-08:00

Isaac's kindergarten class goes to a separate music class once a week, and their regular teacher sings with them in class every day. The kids learn the songs by ear, since they can't yet read a lyric sheet (let alone music!), and that leaves room for misinterpretation.

Recently they have been singing Christmas carols. Here are two phrases Isaac has been singing at home (and of course he is unwilling to accept that he's incorrect):

"walking around the Christmas tree"
"three falling birds"

They also sing "It's a Grand Old Flag" every morning as part of their flag salute, and for a while Isaac inserted some nonsense words in place of "boast or brag" (the full line is "where there's never a boast or brag,") but I think we finally convinced him of the correct lyrics.

Saturn

2011-12-11T23:33:00.001-08:00

Today at church the kids were given a magnetic nativity scene, with the typical angels, shepherds, wise men, and so forth. This afternoon Laurel was arranging the pieces on the side of the refrigerator.

I was in the kitchen making lunch, so I listened to her as she set it up. First, she said, she was going to put the sheep in the stable. Then she was going to put the star in the sky, and then Saturn.

"Saturn?" I asked curiously.

"Yes, the planet Saturn," she said.

I took a look. Floating over the manger was a gold oval that did look like a ring of Saturn.

I think it was supposed to be the angel's halo.

Baby gear transitions

2011-12-10T20:58:00.001-08:00

Do you remember my mentioning that my sister Erica is expecting her first child at the end of February? Hooray! Isaac and Laurel are very excited about the impending arrival of their first cousin. (Although as I have mentioned before, they already have lots of second cousins.)

We are preparing to unload all of our baby gear on Erica and her husband Gary, so there's a a pile of furniture accumulating in our hallway. So far we have a high chair, a co-sleeper bassinet, a bouncy seat, and a swing, and we plan to give away the crib and changing table too.

Although Laurel is still using the crib and changing table! She is ready to sleep in a real bed, so we plan to buy her one as a Christmas present. She is not ready to use the toilet, unfortunately, but I'm hoping she might get motivated if we give the changing table to an actual baby who actually needs diapers. (She's going to be three years old next month, after all!)

This entire fall Laurel has been falling asleep at night very nicely, after an adjustment period when we returned from our summer abroad. She has also stopped nursing to sleep. (Yes, she's still breast-feeding at bedtime.) At the start of October she would still drop off about half the time while nursing, but by the end of November she never did.

So she has five minutes or less of "moke from Mama," as she says, recently nursing only on one side, and then she wants to sit in my lap facing away from me. After five minutes of snuggling like this, I set her down in the crib, and she lies on her side facing away from me. I wait in the room while she sings to herself, tells stories, or sometimes just sucks her thumb quietly. And after a period of time that ranges from five to 30 minutes, she falls asleep.

I think she could also do this in a "big girl" bed. I hope!

Anyway, I'll be relieved to get her out of the crib. So far she hasn't tried to climb out, which is surprising for a girl who is so keen on climbing, but when we're slow to fetch her when she wakes up in the morning I'm always nervous that she's just going to hoist herself over the edge.

Boardwalk

2011-12-09T21:06:00.001-08:00

Laurel and Isaac at the Boardwalk in October 2011

Laurel and Isaac at the Boardwalk in July 2010

Isaac, at six years old in 2011 and almost five in 2010, doesn't seem that different in these two pictures taken at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk amusement park, but there's sure a big difference between Laurel at 32 months and 18 months, isn't there?

Another big difference: my attitude toward hats.

Themes

2011-12-09T20:47:00.001-08:00

Laurel will celebrate her third birthday in just one month, on January 8. We've been talking about having a birthday party, and both kids are getting excited.

Recently I overheard Isaac asking Laurel what theme she wanted for her birthday party. As he has gotten older, he has had birthday parties with themed activities: chemistry for his fourth birthday, paleontology for his fifth, and airplanes most recently for his sixth.

Laurel didn't quite understand the question, so Isaac gave her some options: "You can have dinosaurs, architecture, barns, or farm animals."

She chose farm animals.

Sick day realizations

2011-12-08T21:54:00.001-08:00

Isaac missed his first day of kindergarten due to illness today. He has a cold -- not a terrible one, but with enough sneezes and sniffles that everyone would be happier if he stayed at home. He was tired, too, and needed the rest.

Today was Thursday, however, one of Laurel's two days at preschool, so Isaac came along when I took her to school. He enjoyed meeting Laurel's classmates, and I think he enjoyed seeing his old classroom, although he was extremely uncomfortable talking with his old teachers. He couldn't look one of them in the eyes! He actually averted his face when she talked to him, and I almost scolded him. Luckily I figured out that he wasn't being rude, he was feeling emotionally overwhelmed. I think it was strange for him to see these teachers he had loved so much, who mattered so much to him, when now he loves a new teacher.

Isaac and I talked about it later, and I said it was understandable for him to feel awkward, and that teachers know their students have to move on, and it's okay. Then he perked up and spent his morning at home drawing pictures for his old teachers. He wrote their names on the envelopes and was very proud of his new ability to do so.

Isaac and I haven't had time alone together since -- well, probably since Laurel was born! Maybe we have had an hour here and there, but not an entire morning like we had today. We took it easy, since he was feeling ill. He drew pictures for a while, and then we worked together on making a photo album about our summer's trip to Europe. He enjoyed making suggestions about the album.

The strangest part about the whole morning was right after we dropped Laurel at school. It was one of those mundane moments that symbolizes a much deeper experience. Isaac and I walked back to the car together, and as I took his hand to cross the parking lot I had a sudden flashback to the many times over the years we had done the exact same thing.

I asked Isaac if he remembered those times: "We held hands just like this to cross this street when you first started preschool when you were three, and then when you were four, and then when you were five ..."

He continued, "... and now when I'm six!"

It was a strangely intense moment for me, fraught with memory, and I am sure part of the trigger was the absence of Laurel. Walking alone with Isaac made me remember the days when he was so young, when he was my only child, when he and I were a tightly bonded team. This was the very first time I have felt this nostalgia, and although I absolutely do not regret having another child, it did make me realize that with the addition of Laurel I have lost something special with Isaac. We have gained immeasurably more as a family, but it was a reminder that perhaps I need to pay more attention to what he calls "Isaac-Mama time." (And, of course, "Laurel-Mama time.")

New pictures: March 2011

2011-11-25T23:35:00.001-08:00

Click here to view these pictures larger

Well, this is embarrassing. It turns out I hadn't added an album of photos to our family photo site since, well, February. So here, somewhat belatedly, are photos from the month of March.

Yeah, I did post several albums this summer while we were living abroad, so I haven't been completely negligent. But that's not saying much.

- - - - -

If you don't like the little slideshow widget posted above (quite frankly, it doesn't play as a slideshow for me), you can always visit our photo site directly at:

http://tcbphotos.shutterfly.com/

A few photos before fall is over ...

2011-11-23T22:24:00.001-08:00

Playing with the scarecrow at Great-Grandma Lee's house

Posing at the pumpkin patch

Making jack-o-lantern faces on our front porch

School

2011-11-12T21:44:00.001-08:00

My daughter, the firefighter

Laurel is enjoying school much more now. She always cries when I leave her, but she settles down right away, and then when I come back she is so busy having fun that she can scarcely bring herself to leave her play to give me a quick hug.

She is very sociable and enjoys playing with the other kids; here she is carrying around an extra pair of boots to try to give to someone else.

Tooth

2011-11-12T21:04:00.001-08:00

Smile!

Guess who lost his first tooth!

Well, I guess that's not a difficult thing to guess. It had been growing increasingly loose all week, and by Thursday it was barely hanging on. During lunch that day he remarked that there was some blood on the crust of his grilled cheese sandwich; when I peered across the table, I noticed the gap in his mouth.

I asked, "Isaac, where's your tooth?"

We never did find it. I figure he swallowed it, but he thinks it fell into his bowl of vegetable barley soup and got lost. Barley and teeth do resemble one another, I suppose.

- - - - -

The tooth he lost was the bottom left center, the very first tooth he got. And I remember when that tooth first grew in...

Eight months old and showing off his first teeth

The season

2011-11-05T21:17:00.000-07:00

Laurel talks about the season:

[noticing the yellow leaves on the trees] It must be fall again!

[on being told there will be candy at the Halloween party] I like candy so much!

[on being told there will also be pizza at the party] I like pizza!

[on being asked if she liked the party] Yes, they had good toys there!

[on being told she has a skeleton inside her] Noooooooooo.

Halloween tidbits

2011-11-02T15:57:00.000-07:00

Halloween was a great success around here. The kids and I got dressed up, and at 5:30 p.m. our whole family went to a party at our neighbors' house, where we consumed pizza and margaritas. Around 6:15 we hit the streets to go trick-or-treating with a large group of people from the party. After five or six houses we diverged from the group and headed back home, but we still stopped at a lot of houses on our way back up the hill. Isaac and I didn't get back home until 8:00.

How many houses? I'm not sure, but Isaac had a homework assignment which required him to categorize and graph his trick-or-treat candy, so I know he ended up with just over 100 pieces. He only got two or three pieces of candy at each house, so there's a math problem for you right there!

No wonder Laurel, as we drove home through the neighborhood today, remarked, "They had a big spider outside that house when we went on our candy walk."

Candy walk. That's an accurate description of trick-or-treating.

This was the first year that Isaac was thrilled by Halloween's ghoulish element. I've been telling him stories every night as he lies in bed, and a few nights ago I decided to tell him the story of "The Headless Horseman." It turned out I couldn't remember how it ended, so I had to concoct my own version (sorry, Washington Irving), but Isaac loved it anyway.

He wanted to hear it the next night too, and after listening again he remarked, "This story would be even scarier if instead of having no head on top of his shoulders, he had a cut-up bloody head."

Personally I thought the story would lose its eerie mystery this way, but then Isaac told me that in his version of the story, the Horseman wore a lit jack-o-lantern right on top of his gory head, and "the blood sizzled when it dripped down on the candle flame."

Yikes!

- - - - -

How about a glimpse of some Halloweens of the past?

Halloween

2011-10-29T22:53:00.000-07:00

My mother just asked what we were doing for Halloween this year, and as we went to a costumed birthday party this afternoon, we happen to have pictures handy! We took these photos in our back yard today right before we left for the party, while Isaac's hair was still slicked back (but unfortunately before I added the blood to the corner of his mouth).

The vampire is looking hungrily at the chicken...

These were fun costumes to assemble, full of homemade elements, creative makeup, and serendipitous shopping. I think Laurel makes a very cute plump chicken with bony yellow legs, while Isaac is creepy as a pale vampire (I didn't even need to put white makeup on his skin!) with purple-shadowed eyes.

And I hadn't meant to dress up for Halloween at all this year, but I changed my mind once I spotted this vintage dress at Thrift Town. Can you see that it reads "Cleopatra" right across the neckline? No doubt about my identity! Then within just ten minutes more of shopping I found a matching purple scarf and gold belt to sew into a headdress, and a dangling chain belt for my waist.

Cleopatra and Dracula out for a wild afternoon on the town

Dentist

2011-10-29T22:08:00.000-07:00

Isaac and Laurel went to the dentist on Tuesday the 11th.

It was Laurel's first dental examination! She was a little uneasy about it, so I held her in my lap, and she obediently opened her mouth wide when the dentist asked. She was a very good girl. Everything looked fine with her teeth, and her thumb-sucking doesn't seem to be causing any problems, but the dentist was concerned about a wound to her gums from where she had fallen and hit the edge of a bookcase 10 or 11 days earlier. He wanted to see her again in six weeks to see if the injury was healing properly. I felt a little ashamed, as I hadn't even known she still had an injury.

Isaac's examination revealed that he is getting one of his six-year molars, and he has his first loose tooth! His left lower front tooth is a tiny bit loose; the adult tooth is clearly growing in behind it, in a bizarre shark-mouth style, and again I felt a bit ashamed that I hadn't even known about it. (But then neither had Isaac!) His teeth were also fine, except for a touch of gingivitis on his back molars, and the dentist told him he needed to brush more thoroughly back there, and to not neglect the floss.

Then Laurel went back to the dentist on Wednesday the 19th. No, not as a check-up for her gum injury; that appointment wasn't until December. She went back to the dentist because she had a new injury!

On Tuesday the 18th Laurel fell and cut her lip rather deeply not one time, but two times. In the morning she hit her face on a windowsill and drove her top teeth into her lower lip in two places. Then in the evening she fell off a tricycle and bit her lower lip in yet a third place. She looked like she had been in a fight.

If it had been just one fall, I wouldn't have worried. But two hard blows to the teeth in one day seemed excessive, and indeed when I examined her two top teeth I noticed that one of them wiggled a bit. So back to the dentist we went.

He verified that the tooth was loose, but thought there hadn't been any damage to the root; it would probably tighten up on its own. Then after saying it was probably a minor accident, he suggested an X-ray to get a "baseline" of the injury in case it worsened in the future. This seemed excessive to me. I asked if the results of the X-ray would change the course of treatment, and he said no. Then I asked if there would be other ways I could tell the injury was worsening, and he said yes. So then I declined the X-ray, and he sheepishly agreed that it wasn't necessary.

On the plus side, Laurel's old gum injury was healing so nicely that I was able to cancel the December appointment.

- - - - -

Do you remember that Laurel celebrated her second birthday in January with a trip to the pediatric urgent care facility after she fell off a dining chair and bit her lip? And there must have been at least 25 smaller lip-biting incidents in the intervening months. There's just something about the anatomy of her mouth that makes her upper teeth likely to penetrate her lower lip.

Conversations with Isaac's teacher

2011-10-29T21:31:00.000-07:00

There are 20 kids in Isaac's kindergarten class. At 12:15 when class is dismissed, half of the kids go to the after-school program. About seven or eight kids follow the teacher to the front of the school, where their parents are parked in a line of 25 cars waiting for them. Only two or three kids are met at the classroom door. I always meet Isaac at the door, and because of this I have the opportunity to see his teacher on a daily basis. Often she has a word or two for me, and here are some of the conversations we have had recently.

- - - - -

Two months ago, right after school had started, Isaac's kindergarten teacher told me he was "a good kid," and she thought we had done the right thing by delaying his entry into kindergarten.

This week she told me he was "a pleasure," and she reiterated the comment about delayed entry.

Then she added, "Maybe we were wrong last year when we assessed his academic ability, and he would have done fine then, but I still think he will benefit from having had another year to develop his confidence and his social skills."

Yeah, he probably would have done fine if he had started kindergarten last year, academically speaking. Twice so far I've helped in his classroom with "Academic Centers," which means I run one of five stations devoted to math or language arts lessons, so I have seen the wide range of abilities the kids possess, and there is no question that Isaac is doing very well.* To a certain extent the ability to sit still and answer the questions is age-based (one boy who has a very hard time just turned five, which makes him 13 months younger than Isaac), but some younger children are thriving. On the flip side, being a year older than some of the kids has not made Isaac the shining academic star of the class, I'm glad to report. (Being the genius of kindergarten can be an uncomfortable role.) He is not having any trouble, but he's not in the highest reading group, he still writes several of his letters backward, and he makes the occasional error on his worksheets.

Speaking of worksheets, Isaac's teacher had a comment on Friday afternoon. She said that she wasn't worried, and she didn't want me to worry, but she thought it was strange that such a careful and conscientious child would sometimes miss things. We didn't talk long, but I think she meant that Isaac sometimes skips over sections of a worksheet, leaving the questions unanswered. The teacher was puzzled by this temperamental mismatch: in fact, she said it was like she had two pieces to the puzzle, and she couldn't make them fit together, and she wondered if I had any pieces to add.

I wonder if it's related to Isaac's reluctance to look closely at printed words, as I noted in my post about his reading assessment; although he is improving, he continues to be a much better "reader" when he hears words spelled aloud.

Or it could just be normal six-year-old flakiness. When I was in elementary school I used to regularly space out and perform the wrong mathematical function on an entire math worksheet -- I would add all 25 subtraction questions, for instance.

- - - - -

*Isaac does sometimes complain that they are learning things that "even a baby knows," especially when it comes to scientific or technical concepts. But it is only this past week that he began running around with the other boys on the playground during recess, so there are lots of other things to be learned in kindergarten.

- - - - -

His teacher also told me this week that she thought we had a future scientist on our hands. She said that every time she offers the class additional information on a scientific topic they are studying in general (why the days are growing shorter, for instance), Isaac pricks up his ears. I said that he has always had an analytical mind, but that his most recent career goal is two-fold: to be an architect and a sculptor.

Tired

2011-10-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

Around 9:15 this morning Laurel let out a big yawn.

"Are you tired?" I asked.

"Yes, I not have a good sleep," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I had a bad night last night," she said.

She actually slept fairly well last night, by recent standards, only waking up once and then getting back to sleep easily. But she has had some "bad nights" over the last two weeks, and I suppose she has heard us talk about them.

Dress

2011-10-21T21:09:00.000-07:00

It was this time last year that Isaac first developed an interest in wearing a dress. He asked about it for a week or two, and finally in mid-October I bought him a pink flowered corduroy dress at Old Navy. A few days before Halloween he wore it to school for the first time. He had asked me to tell his teachers about the dress the day before he wore it, so they knew it was important to him when he arrived at school that morning, and they made sure to tell him "My, what a nice dress."

He continued to wear dresses to school on a regular basis. The other kids made comments, of course, but mostly out of confusion; I never overheard any teasing or hostility, nor did Isaac report any. I had told Isaac to expect stares and questions, although the kids mostly asked the questions of me when they saw me at school! But I always handed the questions over to Isaac, because I thought it was his responsibility. When the kids asked, "Why is Isaac wearing a dress?" he would reply, "Because pink is my favorite color" or "Because boys' clothes aren't that fancy."

I always thought his answers were somewhat evasive. I don't think they expressed the whole truth, but maybe he didn't know the whole truth himself.

He soon decided that the corduroy dress wasn't fancy enough, and several trips to the thrift store got him an assortment of holiday outfits and flower girl dresses with enough velvet, lace, and tulle underskirts to satisfy anyone's dream of being a princess. To his great disappointment we informed him that these "costume" dresses were not appropriate for school or church -- just like he couldn't wear a full-body chicken costume. So he had to wear less-elaborate "everyday" dresses to places requiring respect and concentration, although he always changed into a ruffled outfit the moment he returned home. It was much more important than a game to him, much more than just dressing up for playtime.

Twice during this time period we had dinners with gay acquaintances (two separate dinners, each with a different gay guy), and both times Isaac wore a fancy dress. On both occasions the acquaintances wondered idly if the dress was a "signifier" of Isaac being gay, although each pointed out he himself had never cross-dressed. And both gay guys were absolutely certain that a boy wearing a dress was not a sign of homosexuality. (This was very funny because most of the straight community believes the opposite! I mean, really, shouldn't you ask the man who knows?)

I always said either orientation was fine with me, and time would tell, although I was pretty sure Isaac was straight.

And then Isaac stopped wearing dresses, so gradually I didn't even notice. When did it end? All our photos from Christmas Day show Isaac wearing a dress, but by the time school ended in May and I packed our things to take to Germany for the summer, I never even considered packing his dresses. I guess I will have to go back through our photographs from the spring to see when the change happened.

- - - - -

A few days ago I was reading a picture book to Laurel and Isaac, and I referred to an unnamed character wearing a skirt as "she." When Isaac asked me why I had made that assumption, I said, "In our culture, in most cases someone wearing a dress is female, although it's not always true." Then Isaac said, "I used to want to -- but now I am completely positive I'm never going to wear a dress again." He sounded a little angry, so I asked him why.

"It's stupid," he said. Again I asked him why. "It's stupid for a boy to wear a dress," he clarified.

Did he not learn anything from his experience? Or did he learn too much?

- - - - -

I have my own theory about the dresses. For part of last year Isaac had a great interest in a girl in his pre-kindergarten class. Leyna was a girly-girl with impeccable style, and she always wore hair ornaments, patent leather ballet flats, and dresses -- even when the teachers begged the kids to wear clothes they could play in, she came dressed for a party. I think her looks made a big impression on Isaac, and since he didn't know what else to do with his feelings for her, he tried to emulate her. Much as a child who worships fire fighters might wear a toy fire helmet or rain boots decorated like a fire fighter's, Isaac tried to dress like Leyna.

Sometimes he asked if I would arrange a playdate with her, and I said I would -- if he played at school with her at least once. He never even talked to her, though.

And as spring came, I think his enthusiasm for Leyna and wearing dresses was replaced by a passion for Star Wars Lego.

Storytelling

2011-10-13T23:15:00.000-07:00

Tonight I had one of those magical parenthood moments. When we put Isaac to bed and turn out the lights, we usually spend 15 or 20 minutes lying next to him, talking about things and telling stories. Tonight I told him a story I called "The Prince and the Pea." (Yes, it's a role-reversal version of "The Princess and the Pea.")

Isaac listened intently to the story, asking me to elaborate on a few points he especially enjoyed. When I finished, he wanted to know about the difference between folktales, meaning stories that come from an oral storytelling tradition, and stories written in books.

Then he said, "When you tell me a story I can see it happening in my mind." He went on to explain that he has a harder time visualizing the action when he hears a chapter book read aloud, even if it has illustrations to help clarify the plot. He was very interested in this phenomenon, and spent some time trying to differentiate between the two listening experiences.

I love how curious he is, and how thoughtful, and how eager he is to articulate his thoughts. And I love how he could clearly visualize the story I was telling him, so that even as we lay side-by-side in his cozy darkened room, he could "see" the bedraggled prince riding through the thunderstorm, and the cavernous bedroom with its towering pile of mattresses.

Backpack

2011-10-12T14:58:00.000-07:00

All the other kids in Isaac's kindergarten class carry backpacks, most so huge that the kids look like tiny turtles dwarfed by their giant shells. Isaac, however, carries a lunchbox. (Kindergarteners don't eat lunch at school, but they pack a snack every day.)

The weekly homework folder slips into the side pocket of his lunchbox, but this morning as he was struggling to fit it in, I asked if he would like to get a backpack.

He replied, "No, I don't want to be like the other kids. I like being different."

I swear he wasn't coached to say that; as far as I know he has never heard me make a similar remark. And even if he had picked it up from me, I don't think I wanted to be different from the other kids until I was much older!

Underpants

2011-10-11T20:46:00.000-07:00

We finally bought Laurel some underpants! I won't post pictures of her modeling them, unlike I did with Isaac, partly because they are way too big for her. Even the XXS size (for kids aged two to three year) is too large. They seriously fall right off her.

Also she doesn't really care about the underpants, and it's not like she is ready to wear them out of the house yet, even though she is two years and nine months old. This is in contrast to her brother, who hit his potty-training milestones fairly early and was done with daytime diapers by the time he was two years and seven months old. Ah, well, every child is different, right?

Or maybe it's just that I'm a lazier parent now? It's much easier to keep changing diapers than it is to closely follow a non-potty-trained child around the house, anxiously anticipating action.

"Future reference"

2011-10-07T20:33:00.000-07:00

Isaac says he hasn't made a close friend in kindergarten yet, so to help him along I've been trying to get him to pay attention to the friendly advances made by the other kids. From what I've observed, the other kids like him and frequently reach out to him, but so far he has chosen to remain somewhat aloof.

Two weeks ago I met him after school at the classroom door, as I always do, and he received a chorus of goodbyes from the kids lined up to walk to meet their parents at curbside pickup. One girl even reached out and ruffled his hair as he passed her.

Then as we made our way across the parking lot, another girl from his class leaned out of the window of a parked SUV and waved vigorously to him as she called "Goodbye Isaac! Goodbye!"

I asked Isaac who the two girls were, and he told me their names. Then I said that usually when people make an effort to be friendly, it means they like you.

"So I think those girls like you," I concluded.

"I'll file that away for future reference," he said.

Away

2011-10-04T12:44:00.000-07:00

I hadn't mentioned it until now, but I'm away from home.

Last Wednesday I flew across the country, from San Francisco to Boston, to spend a week with my brother and his wife. I left the kids behind.

Prior to this trip I had only been away from the kids on a few occasions, and our separations only lasted short periods of time.

I had been away from Laurel three times, and we were apart for:

22 hours when I had my appendix removed in October 2009 (she was nine months old!)
24 hours when I traveled to Belgium for a big rock festival this summer
28 hours when Isaac and I went to the county fair with my parents last month (Laurel had a cold so she stayed home with Craig)

I had been away from Isaac three times as well, and we were apart for:

15 hours when I had my appendix removed (he visited me in the hospital, unlike Laurel)
24 hours when I traveled to Belgium for the rock festival
32 hours when Isaac and Craig went camping in Yosemite in May 2009 (I stayed home with Laurel, who was only four months old)

This time I will be away for 168 hours; eight days; seven bedtimes. Or, in other words, a long time. (I fly home tomorrow.)

I would never have made such a lengthy trip without the kids unless I had an impelling reason; I certainly wouldn't take a vacation without them. I came to Boston to support my brother and his wife during her third chemotherapy session and its aftermath. I guess I mostly provided emotional support, but I did prepare some meals, tidy the kitchen, and shop for groceries. Oh, and I sat on the couch watching "What Not to Wear" with Ashley when Joel had to go to work or play with his band.

I was glad I could be with them. It was actually a fun visit!

Reading assessment

2011-10-01T16:00:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago Isaac had a private reading assessment with his teacher. They didn't single him out; the reading ability of every kindergartener was individually assessed at an after-school appointment. After the results were gathered, the kids were assigned by ability to one of five reading groups, each of which will meet once a week for 35 minutes before school starts.

Isaac's reading group will meet at 8:00 a.m. (!) every Wednesday starting on October 5. And what skill level is his group? I have no idea! And, to be honest, I kind of like it that way. I don't want him to compare himself to his classmates right now, although I know it is unavoidable in the future.

The reading assessment took about 25 minutes. Naturally I had brought Laurel along, and I had figured the two of us would go outside to the playground while the teacher conducted Isaac's assessment in the classroom. But the teacher invited us to stay in the room and play with toys, which I was happy to do. As you might imagine, I was eager to listen!

The assessment measured a wide range of skills, ranging from fundamental pre-reading procedures (for example, does the child know that you start reading at the upper left and move to the right?) to actual reading.

As I listened in, I could hear that Isaac had all his pre-reading fundamentals in place, which wasn't surprising (he knew a period meant the end of a sentence, for instance). And he had no trouble with the bulk of the assessment, which seemed to involve a lot of the rhyming and letter sound games we play at home for fun! At its most simple, he used a set of picture flashcards to group rhyming words together (king with swing, for instance). Then there were other sets of flashcards to measure more complex concepts, like I think he had to group words that began with similar sounds (truck with train, for instance). They also did something where the teacher asked him to orally substitute one letter sound for another, creating a new word (turning rat into cat, for instance). He flew through all of these easily and even seemed to be having fun!

Then his teacher broke words into syllables of sound and asked if he could identify the word, so she would say something like "hh - aah - tt" and he would say "hot." This is an important skill when you start sounding out words on the page, because if you can't mentally combine the letter sounds then you can't read the words! At any rate, Isaac had no trouble with this, either.

Then she asked him if he could break words into their component sounds, so she would say something like "stop" and he would say "ss - tt - ah - pp." They did ten words this way, and although Isaac had to think about it, he did pretty well. They were four-letter words, and although once or twice he blended two of the letter sounds together, he always got the other sounds correct.

At this point it seemed like the teacher switched gears, and she asked him if he could do an additional ten words. These words were harder, and my suspicion is that he had already done the "kindergarten" level words and she was asking him the "first grade" words.

Then they got to the actual reading. The kindergarten curriculum has 25 words that each student is expected to be able to read by the end of the year (if not sooner), and the teacher showed Isaac a sheet of paper listing these words. She asked him to look at each word in turn, and either read it or say "I don't know." He barely gave the paper a glance before he turned away, saying "I don't know." He did the same thing with a second sheet of paper listing the first-grade words.

Then the teacher handed him the kindergarten list again, and said something like, "I see two words here that are made out of just one letter! Isn't that funny? They are the only two words we use that are so short." This encouraged him to take a closer look at the list, and of course once he actually looked at it he could find the words "I" and "a."

After the assessment was over, Isaac joined Laurel to play with the toys while the teacher and I talked. The teacher told me that Isaac had excellent "phonemic awareness," and that in particular he had an outstanding ability to listen to a word and break it apart into letter sounds. She said that sometimes a kindergartener could get one word, infrequently two words, but for the most part they could do none -- while Isaac had done almost 20!

On the other hand, he hadn't been able to read any words off the printed page. I explained to the teacher that it had always been this way: if I spell a word aloud, Isaac can listen and "read" it, but he can't read the same word if it is written down.

As my readers know, Isaac and Laurel love rhyming, both of them starting to play with it at about age two and a half. I had thought this was an indication that Isaac was going to be an early reader, since he had such a strong understanding of letter sounds and how to break a word apart, but so far he has only done it with the spoken word. He has always been reluctant to actually look at a printed word on a page, as the assessment demonstrated.

I told the teacher that we had taken Isaac for an eye examination at the end of the last school year and his vision was perfectly fine, so I didn't know what the problem could be. She said she thought that there were two possible reasons Isaac refused to try to read: (1) he doesn't want to be caught making a mistake, and (2) he doesn't want to be pressured into anything.

I thought these were astute observations, and I think she can help him with both issues. He is already working harder with her than he ever did at home or in preschool, so obviously they have good rapport. He is enjoying kindergarten, and he is genuinely excited about learning to read.

And his reading group starts this Wednesday!

Dream

2011-09-30T16:44:00.000-07:00

A month ago I overheard Laurel describing a dream she had. I was asleep in bed when I was awoken by the sound of her laughing in her crib. I crept down the hall and listened outside her door, and this is what I heard her say between peals of laughter:

"An elephant was there and a ghost smiled and then a monster came in and he hung from the ceiling and then Sally, Sally was happy, all right?"

Then I tiptoed away and returned to bed, although her continuing laughter kept us both awake for five or ten minutes longer.

She remembered the dream the next day, because when I asked her about the monster hanging from the ceiling, she began laughing again.

Lake Tahoe

2011-09-27T22:45:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we went to Lake Tahoe. We had adventures big and small, including ...

... skipping stones in the Truckee River ...

... wading fully-clothed into Lake Tahoe ...

... and bungee jumping on a trampoline!

- - - - -

I highly recommend that you click on the picture of Laurel on the trampoline, which will enlarge it so you can see the big grin on her face.

Growing girl (more or less)

2011-09-22T20:52:00.000-07:00

Laurel is two years and eight months old, and on Tuesday she had her two-and-a-half-year well-child check-up, slightly behind schedule.

She gained two pounds and ten ounces since her last check-up, which was eight months ago when she was just two years old. The doctor was very pleased with the sheer amount of weight gain, although I don't know why, because it keeps her in the same percentile as before -- the fifth. Yes, she weighs less than 95% of other girls her age.

Do you recall the drama of her losing weight between her 15- and 18-month appointments, or do you perhaps remember that over the span of a year her weight percentiles "fell off the curve," dropping from the 60th percentile down to the fifth percentile, where they have steadfastly remained for the past 14 months?

So anyway, Laurel's measurements are now:
* weight: 24 pounds, eight ounces (5th percentile)
* height: 36 1/2 inches (50th percentile)

The pediatrician did ask me about her appetite (answer: variable), but he didn't seem concerned about her weight. Perhaps because Laurel has been holding steady at the fifth percentile for over a year, her weight is no longer considered to be falling off the curve? Is the fifth percentile her new normal? I guess I should get used to it, instead of thinking of it as a temporary concern. It does seem problematic to me that her height percentile dropped by 25% since the last appointment, decreasing to 50% from her normal 75%, but as the nurses still measure her lying down on the exam table I imagine it's hard to get an accurate result.

When Laurel's weight issue first developed, her doctor did take the time to carefully consider that there might be an underlying problem. He doesn't seem to be as careful about it now, although my instinct agrees with his -- Laurel appears to be perfectly fine. Sometimes, however, I feel a little bit like the doctor glances at me (thin) and Isaac (thin) and immediately assumes that Laurel is the same way (thin). But as a toddler Isaac's weight was always in the 35th to 45th percentile range, not nearly as low as Laurel's, so that's a false comparison.

But the real indication of a problem would be developmental delays, and Laurel has absolutely none. I told the doctor that I thought Laurel was unusually clumsy for her age, and perhaps a bit weak in the muscles around her midsection, but he didn't agree after he watched her climb all over the furniture in the exam room. Plus she can count, she understands multi-part directions, she knows all her body parts, she has grown her two-year-old molars, and a bunch of other stuff on his little developmental checklist.

Speaking of the developmental checklist, the doctor asked me if Laurel was enrolled in any classes, and I said that yes, she had just started a preschool program for two-year-olds. He asked me how she liked it, and I repeated the question to Laurel.

"Not very much," she replied.

"So she is speaking in sentences," the doctor said, marking off a box on his list.

- - - - -

When Isaac was two and a half, he had a well-child check-up too. He weighed 27 pounds, 11 ounces (30th percentile) and was 37 and 3/4 inches tall (80th percentile).

Here is the kids' measurements page on Trixie Tracker, of historical interest although it is no longer being updated.

Growing up

2011-09-15T21:42:00.000-07:00

Isaac:

* learned to whistle today

* told me this morning that he had noticed he was wearing his last clean pair of underwear, and suggested I wash his laundry while he was at school

Laurel:

* claimed she was five years old

- - - - -

Laurel and I were at a park and she was attempting to climb a play structure that was well beyond her abilities. I plucked her down from a great height and told her, "Look, this sign says clearly that it's for ages five to 12. How old are you?"

She smirked as she replied, "I'm five."

Teacher Doreen

2011-09-13T22:30:00.000-07:00

To show Laurel in a happier mood at school, here is a picture of her with her teacher Doreen.

I took this on the very first day of school, which was a partial day. Laurel voluntarily sat down in Doreen's lap to look at photos on her camera.

School update: Laurel

2011-09-13T21:07:00.000-07:00

So the kids have been in school for a short while now. Isaac had his first full day on August 25, which means he has been attending kindergarten for two and a half weeks. Laurel had her first full day on September 8, which means she has been attending preschool for two days.

Today was the second day. I stayed with her the whole time.

The first two times she went to preschool were easy: it was just one hour at a time, I stayed with her, and most of the other students also had a parent stay with them. Laurel had a lot of fun and even sat in her teacher's lap for a while. But the first full day didn't go very well.

Last Thursday, the first full day of school, I walked Laurel into the classroom promptly at 9:10 a.m., helped her wash her hands, read her a book, and showed her some of the activities her teacher Doreen had planned for the day. Then at 9:30 I walked out the door. Laurel just stood there watching me go, but she wasn't crying, and I really thought it was going to be okay. Recently Laurel has been perfectly happy being left with a baby-sitter (we did it twice in one week because of two back-to-school nights!), and Craig reported she was happy when he left her at the church nursery. And she has been familiar with the preschool her entire life, since Isaac went there too.

But she did start crying after I was gone. She didn't cry steadily enough for me to be called to pick her up early, which only happens when students are "inconsolable," but the teacher said later that Laurel "had her ups and downs" all day long. The teacher added that of all the children who were upset, Laurel was the most easily comforted, which I guess means she was easy to distract with a book or a cuddle.

But the teacher did say that she thought Laurel needed a shorter school day at first, and she suggested that for a while I should plan to stay for at least the first 45 minutes. So that's what I planned for today -- I would stay from 9:10 until 10:00, when the students go out onto the playground, and then return at 11:30.

But it didn't work out that way. The preschool is for children from age two through five, but each classroom is segregated by age. Laurel's class is comprised of 12 two-year-olds, and by 9:30 this morning at least six of the children were sobbing. Not just crying a little bit, but weeping as though their hearts were breaking.

The level of misery in the room was emotionally staggering. There were eight women* in the room trying unsuccessfully to comfort the six weeping children, but they just weren't the right women. The children's desperate cries of "Mommy!" rang throughout the classroom. It was like a scene from a science fiction movie about a dystopian world where children are cruelly removed from their parents and raised by substitute caregivers for the betterment of society.

Laurel started to look around nervously, and I could tell the crying was upsetting her. She was probably remembering that on the previous Thursday she had been one of the sobbing children! She sat at the little table to eat her snack of blueberries and yogurt, and I sat on the floor behind her, but after every bite she got up to sit in my lap. Before she went back to the table she would wrap her arms tightly around my neck and look me right in the face. After ten minutes of this I decided I wasn't going to leave. When I announced this decision to the teacher's assistant who was overseeing the snack table, she said, "I think that is very compassionate of you."

Wow. That statement made me once again ask myself, "Since I have chosen to be a stay-at-home mom, why am I am not staying home with my child?"

Well, Isaac started the three's program at preschool at exactly age three, and Laurel is starting the two's program just four months shy of age three, so she is on the older end. But regardless of age, I enrolled Laurel in preschool only because I thought it would be fun for her: I don't need child care, she doesn't need socialization, she doesn't need academic enrichment. If she doesn't absolutely love it, then there is no point in her being there.

But I do think my initial instincts were right, and I do think she will come to love it. If I have to stay with her every day for a while, then I will. Maybe I'll stay for a few weeks until the other kids get used to it and stop wailing, and then the atmosphere won't be so distressing.

- - - - -

Speaking of wailing, whatever happened to the six kids who were sobbing at 9:30? Two of the kids cheered up after a while, two had their "ups and downs" for the rest of the day, and two sobbed continuously until their mothers arrived. And what about the remaining six, those who weren't crying? Four of them had their mothers stay, and the other two managed just fine. You can imagine that those two didn't get much attention paid to them!

- - - - -

* The eight adults in the classroom: on official duty were the head teacher, her usual assistant, an extra assistant, the office manager, and two parents working their assigned shifts (it's a co-op preschool); unofficial were myself and another mother who saw how overwhelmed the staff was and opted to stick around.

"Actually"

2011-09-12T08:31:00.001-07:00

Over the last four or five days Laurel has begun to use the word "actually." She uses it a lot, even more than she asks "why?"

The word seems familiar, as you can read in this post written when Isaac was two years and eight months old -- exactly the same age as Laurel right now! Actually, I'm sure they picked it up from my own pedantic over-use of the word, rather than it being some universal developmental milestone for that particular age.

Speaking of development, here's a little conversation I had with Laurel this morning. I was changing her diaper as she examined the picture on the back of another diaper:

Laurel: What's on the back?

Mama: I can't see it. Are there bees?

Laurel: One bee. And birds.

Mama: Oh, is there a bird too?

Laurel: Two birds, actually.

And she was right. She has been able to count two objects since she was just two years old herself, so that's nothing new, but I liked her use of "actually" in this sentence.

More birthdays

2011-09-11T21:42:00.001-07:00

I was just speaking of Isaac's fondness for his Auntie Ashley (my sister-in-law), and now here's a kind of crazy picture of him with his other aunt, Erica (my sister), of whom he is also fond.

Do you think Isaac is happy about the Lego bucket truck she just gave him for his birthday?

And speaking of aunts and birthdays, let's give a hearty "congratulations" to Aunt Erica and Uncle Gary! My children have a huge number of second cousins (children of their parents' cousins), but we are looking forward to welcoming their very first first cousin sometime in late February.

Airplane

2011-09-06T21:43:00.000-07:00

Happy sixth birthday, Isaac!

Here he is in our yard this afternoon looking serious with his just-assembled Lego airplane.

He had a pretty good birthday, I think. He took brownies to school to share with his class, and his teacher gave him a few token gifts. His paternal grandparents have been visiting this week, and we had a little family celebration after lunch today. We ate cupcakes, and he opened his presents, including the Lego airport set he had been wanting.

But when my brother Joel and sister-in-law Ashley called to wish him happy birthday this evening, and she asked what his favorite part of the day had been, he said, in a sincere tone, "Right now, I think."

What a flirt! He has always had a soft spot for his Auntie Ashley.

Labor Day

2011-09-05T22:08:00.000-07:00

In 2005, Labor Day fell on the day before Isaac was born. I'm sure I have previously remarked how I spent all of that Labor Day literally in labor. He was born the next day just 45 minutes after midnight.

And now, in 2011, Labor Day has once again fallen on the day before Isaac's birthday! Happily I am not in the process of giving birth to anyone at the moment.

To celebrate, shall we recap Isaac's birth story? Here is part one and part two, and a photo as well.

The almost-birthday boy

2011-09-05T21:31:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Isaac's sixth birthday!

To celebrate, here is a painting of him. I thought I might have finished it today, but now that I see it photographed, I'm not so sure. I can see at least one small change I'd like to make, although perhaps I just need to take a break and get some perspective on it. (This is also a terrible photo.)

And this is the third part of a planned series of small portraits of my family; now only Craig remains! (Here is Laurel's portrait.)

First day(s) of school(s)

2011-09-01T21:13:00.000-07:00

Last week I posted some pictures of Isaac about to start his first full day of kindergarten, which was Thursday the 25th. But here are two pictures taken outside our house on Wednesday the 24th, on his actual first day, when he went for just one hour and Craig accompanied him. Isaac looks solemn, doesn't he? But rather than a dread of school, I think it was just his usual dislike of having his picture taken.

To make it a matched set, here are two pictures taken outside our house today, on Laurel's first day of school, which was similarly just one hour accompanied by a parent.

It was Laurel's very first day of school ever. She looks cheerful, doesn't she? And she was happy at school, too. I am sure there will be a bit of fuss next Thursday the 8th, the first day I will actually leave her there, but after the inevitable adjustment period I expect she will enjoy school.

Shirt

2011-08-29T11:54:00.000-07:00

Mama: Why are you taking your shirt off?

Laurel: Because I'm fun.

Letter B

2011-08-28T22:39:00.000-07:00

Last week in kindergarten they studied the "B" sound, and the children were told to draw something that began with the letter B.

When Isaac told me this, I was dubious. He has never been one for representational art, and even at age six his drawings are perfunctory swift scribbles that are usually only symbolic of their purported subject; it's concept art. (His three-dimensional and installation art, however, is amazing.)

"What did you draw?" I asked cautiously.

He got a crafty look on his face. "I drew with the colors blue, brown, and black," he said.

A moment later he added, "But it was only zigzags; it wasn't a picture of anything."

I wondered to myself if his teacher had gotten the concept, but I didn't say anything. Instead I pointed out that I had spent the summer working on a painting of red squares, and it wasn't a picture of anything either.

Isaac immediately understood what I meant, and he clarified his statement about his drawing, saying, "It was abstract."

Oh, I sure hope he didn't get an "F" for the day.

Advice from Isaac

2011-08-28T22:32:00.000-07:00

"Don't let your fears be larger than your desires."

Good kid

2011-08-26T13:23:00.001-07:00

Today as I picked up Isaac from school, his teacher called out to me: "He's a good kid."

I said, "Thank you."

Then she said, "You did the right thing, waiting a year for kindergarten."

Then she led a line of kindergarteners off to the parking lot for drive-through pick-up, and I turned to my friend and said, "What did that mean?"

My friend said, "Maybe he's rarin' to go?"

I looked down at Isaac, standing glumly by my side, and said, "Or he's so not rarin' to go that she shudders to think of how he would have been last year?"

First day

2011-08-26T09:56:00.000-07:00

Lining up at kindergarten yesterday.

Rome

2011-08-26T09:38:00.001-07:00

Laurel is in the living room by herself, looking through a guidebook to the monuments of ancient Rome, and she keeps saying, "They're all broken down."

Kindergarten tidbits

2011-08-25T22:11:00.000-07:00

1) Today I planned that Laurel and I would make blackberry cobbler while Isaac was at his first full day of kindergarten. I envisioned it as special time alone together, a good distraction for both of us, but it turned out she was completely disinterested. She dragged a chair over to the kitchen counter and stood there long enough to eat about a teaspoonful of sugar, but then she moved on to her own agenda -- which was to play by herself in Isaac's room! I guess she doesn't get many chances to play with his toys. She also spent some time sitting in his bed and pretending to be a tow truck. After about an hour she asked me where he was.

I feel like Isaac enjoyed cooking with me when he was two and a half, but that doesn't matter. Everyone is different. She has become amazingly independent.

2) We have walked to the two days of school so far. Craig timed it at 11 minutes going to school, which is the downhill direction. Coming back home is a bit slower, as there is quite a steep hill, and despite my summer of walking (around Aachen and up five flights of stairs!) I have sore shins now. It doesn't help that I'm pushing 25-pound Laurel in a 25-pound stroller.

As my shins and I headed out the door for pick-up this afternoon, I reviewed the two other options for getting to school: (1) strap Laurel into the car, drive for two minutes, find a parking place, walk onto school grounds to pick up Isaac, walk back to the car, strap both kids in, and drive for two minutes back home; or (2) strap Laurel into the car, drive for two minutes, wait for 15 minutes (!) in a very long line of cars, pick up Isaac, strap him into the car, and drive for two minutes back home.

But pretty soon Laurel will start her preschool program on the other side of town, and since her school starts at 9:00 and ends at noon, and since kindergarten starts at 8:45 and ends at 12:15, twice a week Isaac will just have to go to school by car. And other days I will have errands to run during kindergarten, so it will make sense to take the car. But I hope we can walk the rest of the time. Until the rain starts, that is!

3) I was unimpressed by the tone set at the start of school today. All three kindergarten classes gathered on the kindergarten playground today right before school started, and one of the teachers began to make a speech. But instead of being welcoming and enthusiastic, she told them all about the playground rules! Do you think these nervous, excited, overwhelmed kids are going to absorb her telling them from which side of the monkey bars they are supposed to start swinging? Maybe. One of the rules was to empty the sand out of your shoes prior to coming back into the classroom, and Isaac did return home with his shoes unusually devoid of sand.

Is kindergarten really about rules? Yes, perhaps. But I liked how at Isaac's preschool, the teachers waited for an infraction to occur (or almost occur) before they mentioned the rules.

4) After the speech reviewing the playground rules, all the kindergarteners lined up outside their classrooms, and Isaac went obediently with the other children. He didn't look happy about it, and he wiped a tear or two from his eye, but he stood there stoically. He tried not to look at me, however. And were there tears in my eyes? No, although my heart was full of sympathy.

5) Yesterday we noticed Isaac's teacher had misspelled his name throughout the classroom, on his nametag as well as the labels on his cubby and desk. But she corrected it today.

6) Isaac said he made three friends today. One of them is his assigned fifth-grade "buddy," but the other two were boys he played with on the kindergarten playground. (All three kindergarten classes have recess at the same time.) Isaac didn't know their names, but he thought one of them was in his classroom. I do hope he finds a friend in his class; that is perhaps my biggest concern about kindergarten right now.

He had such a close buddy in preschool that he basically refused to play with anyone else, which isn't ideal either.

7) This afternoon Isaac and Laurel were playing together in the other room, and I overheard him say somewhat gleefully, "Everyone take your assigned seat."

What was I saying about kindergarten and rules?

Kindergarten

2011-08-23T21:10:00.004-07:00

When I check the calendar on my phone, yesterday was the last weekday that reads "No events." School is about to start, and the calendar is filling up. It feels bizarre to be moving back to structure and routine after having had such an aimless summer. It makes me wish I had been able to appreciate it more.

In fact, tomorrow is Isaac's first day of kindergarten. Considering that this is supposed to be such a momentous event, it's strange that I haven't mentioned it before now. Right now I just don't feel like it's a big deal. Perhaps I am in denial? Or perhaps I already came to terms with it last year, during the endless debate over whether he should go to kindergarten or wait another year?

Or perhaps I'm erroneously assuming that kindergarten will be similar to the "developmental kindergarten" Isaac attended last year. The numbers are similar, anyway. "Real" kindergarten is five days a week, like DK was. Kindergarten lasts from 8:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., half an hour longer than DK was*. Kindergarten class size is 20 students**, taught by a teacher and an aide, like DK was.

Wait, I am in denial. Those numbers are probably the sole similarities between kindergarten and DK.

Did I mention that tomorrow is a gentle introduction to kindergarten? Isaac only goes for one hour, and a parent gets to go with him, so no wonder I'm not worried thinking about it! Thursday is the real first day of school. Check back with me then, and I'm sure I'll be freaking out just like a new kindergarten parent should be.

Or check back with me next Friday, when the first homework packet is due. That will bring the real awakening that kindergarten is not like developmental kindergarten.

- - - - -

While I'm looking at my calendar, it's time to reconfigure bedtimes again, too.

- - - - -

*Speaking of schedules, a few weeks from now, after the teacher has placed the children into reading groups, each group will receive 45 minutes per week of private reading instruction -- before school starts! At 8:00 a.m.! Once a week! That's nice and everything, but eight o'clock in the morning once a week? I don't think I can do it.

The school also offers childcare from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. It costs $5 per hour, but you can supplement it with paid classes in a wide variety of subjects (Mandarin, violin, lacrosse, Lego engineering, and so forth). Interesting, but I don't think we'll be doing it this semester.

- - - - -

**We know we are very fortunate that Isaac's school has just 20 children per class in kindergarten through second grades. We attended a parent orientation today, and the fundraising chairman pointed out that in this time of budget cuts, most kindergartens have 30 students -- then he requested an annual donation of $1,800 donation per child.

A story

2011-08-23T21:06:00.002-07:00

Tonight Isaac asked me to tell him a story about an airplane.

Mama: Once there was an airplane that flew across the ocean...

Isaac: Of course it flew. Why wouldn't an airplane fly?

Mama: The end.

A song

2011-08-22T15:35:00.002-07:00

An abbreviated version of "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" as sung by Laurel in its entirety:

She ate a horse
And then she died
And that's the way it goes

Home again

2011-08-19T06:53:00.006-07:00

We're back in California!

We flew at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, August 16, and arrived home at 6:00 p.m. on the same day. Funny how in writing it sounds like a fairly quick flight, but since we crossed multiple time zones it was actually a grueling affair. We spent about 15 hours in the air, not to mention the six or seven hours devoted to ground transportation and waiting around in the airport (and on the plane).

At any rate, the kids were superstar fliers, and travel was smooth and relatively easy.

Here is Laurel posing with our summer's worth of luggage! The five items in the back row were checked bags: giant red and navy suitcases, large grey suitcase, small teal suitcase, and a travel crib in a yellow bag (which we bought in Germany). The four items in the front row were carry-on bags: tiny teal suitcase, canvas tote bag, blue soft-sided cooler, and Isaac's navy backpack.

Not shown in this photo are the stroller and the two big carseat carriers; we took the kids' enormous Britax carseats with us because we rented a car five times during our journey, including our trips to and from airports, and renting carseats would have become expensive. When it came to the flight, we also checked the carseat bags, making a total of seven checked bags, 12 items overall.

The carseat carriers saved us, in fact, when it came to packing to come home. On the way to Europe we had only put the carseats in them, leaving a good amount of empty space in the seats themselves. On the way home, however, we crammed both seats with tote bags holding coats and toys, which gave us additional space in our suitcases (which we used for the 1,500 euros worth of stuff we bought in Europe!). Another saving point: on the way there, I had packed both of the small suitcases fairly lightly as carry-ons (one with electronics and one with clothes in case our luggage got lost), but on the way home we checked the larger of the small suitcases which meant I could pack it much more heavily. And pack heavily I did: I used our rental apartment's bathroom scale to make sure I packed the suitcases right up to the 23 kilo (50 pound) limit.

I'm ready to take a break from packing for a while. Unfortunately now there's unpacking to think about...

Playground safety

2011-08-13T10:51:00.004-07:00

After we had been in Germany for a month, the New York Times published an article on the developmental losses children suffer when their playgrounds are too safe. Not physical losses, such as to the development of their strength, speed, or balance, but losses to their emotional development. Here is a quote about modern playground equipment taken from the article: "Even if children do suffer fewer physical injuries -- and the evidence for that is debatable -- the critics say that these playgrounds may stunt emotional development, leaving children with anxieties and fears that are ultimately worse than a broken bone." Climb a high ladder, feel scared, face your fears, come away a more confident person.

The article is a bit too libertarian for my tastes, I think, but leaving journalistic rhetoric behind, this summer I had some valuable experiences watching my children play on the dangerous playgrounds here in Europe. Perhaps it was good for my emotional development.

"Dangerous playgrounds?" you ask. Well, that was what I thought when we arrived here: yikes, these playgrounds are deadly!

My jaw dropped when I got my first glimpse of the giant slide I mentioned in my last post, the one careening down the hill from the castle; I almost couldn't believe it was designed for children. And another playground has a zip line, a three-story slide, a teeter-totter, and a metal merry-go-round! I hadn't seen a merry-go-round since I was a kid in Illinois, and I remembered my peers falling and hurting themselves as they tried to leap on and off while it spun around. But my children had a good time on it; Laurel especially enjoyed trotting around the outside to set it spinning, then climbing on and off as it (gently) rotated. They fell sometimes, but the ground is covered with rubber matting, and luckily neither of them hit their head on the metal merry-go-round itself.

Now, the teeter-totter is a real one, not a modern one with springs, and it is made out of a simple unpadded wooden beam. Children are free to step off it at the bottom, leaving their friends to plummet to the ground with a hard thump, or to leap onto it suddenly at the top, cracking their friends beneath the chin. Well, now that I think of it, I never really got used to the teeter-totter! But except for that, I gradually discovered that the alarming-looking playground equipment is perfectly safe -- for the right people. Some of the equipment is even challenging and exciting enough for 11- or 12-year-old boys (I've seen them use it!), and I think it's a very good thing to provide them with developmentally-appropriate places to play. That means it isn't appropriate for young children, however, and Laurel was often disappointed when I prevented her from climbing up too high. As a two-year-old she doesn't yet have the ability to judge her limits; on the other hand I feel perfectly comfortable allowing Isaac to use any play equipment he chooses, as he is very unlikely to overstep his abilities.

My judgment of what was "perfectly safe" for Laurel evolved over the summer, as she got older and got more practice. When we came here, she couldn't handle stairs or ladders. Now she can climb a ladder with ease, although she still stumbles a bit on the stairs.

And as far as her climbing on play structures? I've only personally experienced one playground injury: last year a friend's two-year-old fell off the top platform of a play structure, six feet off the ground, and lost consciousness for about 45 seconds. He turned out to be fine, although it was an enormous fright for his mother. The play structure was the "enclosed" type, with a wall all around the platform except for openings for stairs, a slide, and access to a rope ladder. He fell from the rope ladder opening. Perhaps he was attempting to get onto the rope ladder, or perhaps he accidentally stepped off the platform.

Even before I witnessed this fall, I always made a point of following my children when they went on play structures. Yes, I actually went up with them -- when they were toddlers, anyway. For instance, Laurel has never gone alone to the top of the structure from which her playmate fell. She was bad with stairs, she couldn't navigate a ladder, and I just never trusted her to not step out into empty space. But now? We've both developed. I keep my hands at the ready when she climbs a ladder, and I hover beneath her when she's on a play structure, watching the openings closely, but I don't actually follow her up.

As far as her emotional development goes, I look forward to the day when she becomes more cautious. She can't face her fears on playground equipment until she actually develops fears!

Slow travel

2011-08-12T10:54:00.004-07:00

What did we do with our summer in Germany?

For the kids, the summer saw me taking my "slow parenting" philosophy to the extreme -- no classes, no activities, no workbooks, no formal attempts to teach them language or culture. For 80% of the summer all the kids and I did was go to the park and walk around Aachen. Mostly we had no set plans; we just hung out in the neighborhood and played. And even when we did head out to see the sights, we never tried to do very much in one day. (There are also "slow tourism" and "slow travel" movements, apparently opposed to the commonly-held notion that one should try to see three sights each day while traveling.)

Does the summer sound fun? It actually got kind of depressing. Or, more precisely, I got kind of depressed. I don't know whether to blame it on the aimlessness of our summer, the social disconnect of living in another country, or a midlife crisis. All I know is that back in California I am seldom bored or lonely, and I usually enjoy the company of my children. This summer I felt isolated, everything was dull and empty, and my kids were often annoying. I only started feeling better over the last week. Now that I have gained some perspective on my mood, it makes me realize I missed much of the summer, emotionally speaking.

Well, at least intellectually I can describe some of the things we enjoyed in Aachen*. We walked downtown to the cathedral seven or eight times, usually just to view it from the outside and get some food, but one time we actually took a guided tour of the cathedral itself to see Charlemagne's throne and reliquary. While we were downtown we walked by the 14th century town hall two or three times, and last week the kids and I paid five euros to go inside to see a statue of Charlemagne. We also shopped downtown, especially when I was looking for shoes and a raincoat for myself. We walked to the Aachen zoo about three times; while there are no spectacular exhibits, it is full of farm animals and playgrounds, both popular with my kids. And as far as food goes, we enjoyed our local ice cream shop, Craig went to the Kickartz bakery every morning, and we ate many meals at Memo's Imbiss, a German/Turkish grill just two doors down from our apartment.

But as I said, we mostly went to the park. We spent a lot of time at the schloss-park, which is what we call the park and playgrounds surrounding "our" castle, Burg Frankenberg, immediately across the street from our apartment. It is mostly lawn crisscrossed with paths, with beautiful old shade trees and benches populated by a dedicated batch of drunks, but there is a small playground as well as a truly spectacular slide plummeting down the hill from the most ancient part of the castle, landing in what must have been the moat. Laurel especially loves the slide, as well as the climb up to it. We also went to three other nearby playgrounds (one with a big sandbox and climbing structure; one with a zipline and carousel; and one with a good view of the train tracks), but the schloss-park was the kids' favorite spot. Too bad I spent so much time there feeling bored out of my mind.

- - - - -

* I'll have to write a little later about things we enjoyed during our travels outside of Aachen.

Aachen highlights

2011-08-11T12:10:00.006-07:00

I mentioned previously that Aachen has been known for its mineral hot springs since the time of the Romans, and the emphasis on water means it now has 50 or so public fountains. Then in 794 Charlemagne made the city the capital of his empire; soon after he started building the Dom, and now his bones rest in a reliquary in that cathedral. After that, everyone admired Charlemagne so much that he started a trend of 30 German kings being crowned in Aachen's town hall. He is still ubiquitous; last week even two-year-old Laurel recognized a statue of him and said "Charlemagne!"

There is also a well-known Christmas market here which serves Öcher glühwein, or Aachen mulled wine. It's not Christmastime, so how can you get your local mulled wine? Served cold, with a scoop of organic strawberry sorbet floating on top. I had some today, and it was good.

Packing up

2011-08-11T11:01:00.007-07:00

We are nearing the end of our summer here in Aachen, Germany, and my eyes are turning toward home: Craig is done working at the lab here; I've made a haircut appointment for myself back home; the kids have well-child appointments at their pediatricians; Isaac has gotten his teacher assignment for kindergarten, which starts in two weeks; I'm buying clothes for the kids with autumn in mind.

I'm writing this on Thursday evening, and we will leave our apartment early on Tuesday morning. That means we still have four whole days here, which is all that many American travelers ever get to spend in a single European country! So we will try to relax a bit and enjoy ourselves -- but our primary focus will be packing and preparing for the flight. We are going to ship some of our stuff home (like Isaac's scooter) and we are feeling a little intimidated at the prospect of tackling this chore in a foreign language.

I never described our process for getting our stuff here in the first place. We decided at the last minute not to ship anything here, and instead we took it all with us on the plane in suitcases! We already had one really big suitcase, and I bought two more for about $90 each. The challenge with these suitcases turned out to be their enormous size: they are so big that it was a struggle to pack them lightly enough that the weight stayed under the allotted 50 pounds. It was frustrating, because as a good packer I could have put a hundred pounds in each one!

We checked the three big suitcases as well as the kids' car seats (they didn't count toward the luggage allowance). Then we carried on two smaller suitcases (one with extra clothes, toiletries, and diapers; one with electronics and chargers), a tote bag (my purse and stuff to entertain the kids on the plane), a backpack (Isaac's stuff), and a soft-side cooler (snacks for the flight). Oh, and we gate-checked the folding stroller.

Bulky luggage requires spacious transport: on one end we took an SUV taxi to the San Francisco airport, and at the other end we rented a full-size station wagon at the Brussels airport, and we still could barely fit everything into the trunks.

Couldn't we just repeat the process to get home? For the most part, yeah, although we have acquired some new stuff over the summer: one scooter, two scarves, two sweaters, two bike helmets, two purses, two pairs of shoes, two pairs of pants, two smartphones, three toy cars, five coats, seven books, eight shirts, and one huge Duplo farm with animals. (The scooter and the Duplo are the biggest problems; it won't be hard to find room in the suitcase for an extra scarf or two*!)

The nice English-speaking guy (in fact, he's from Scotland, or so he says) at Mike's Bikes has offered to help us pack up the scooter for shipping, by which I think he means he'll take the handlebars off and give us a big cardboard bike box.

- - - - -

* I have gone native when it comes to wearing scarves. It is supposedly summer, but it has often been cold and rainy, and regardless of the weather young women here always have scarves artfully wound around their necks. So I have two new light-weight cotton scarves, each of which cost me three euros. I'm a big spender.

More "I'm just"

2011-08-07T02:31:00.002-07:00

Craig: Laurel, you need to sit down.

Laurel: I'm just standing.

- - - - -

She was standing on the seat of a rather tippy chair in a restaurant.

Milestones

2011-08-07T01:56:00.004-07:00

Two days ago, Isaac reached two major milestones of physical development: he can swing and he can skip. Both accomplishments happened on Friday, and they happened suddenly.

Just a few days ago he didn't know how to skip. On Tuesday we were hanging out at the castle park and I asked Isaac if he could do it, and he tried but couldn't. He nearly did, but it looked a lot more like hopping. On Friday afternoon, however, we were walking to the grocery store and he spontaneously began skipping. He was very excited, especially because his triumph on the swings had happened earlier that day.

As far as swinging, all summer long Craig and I had been trying to teach Isaac how to pump his legs, but he just couldn't grasp the movement. He would listen to us describe it, would watch us demonstrate it, and would even sit on our laps as we swung so he could feel it. But when he tried it himself, he would end up doing the exact opposite: he straightened his legs as he swung backwards and curled them under as he swung forwards, and his arm motions were similarly uncoordinated. His body simply didn't understand how to move to make the swing work, and no amount of explaining could help.

We went to the castle park on Friday before lunch, and I gave Laurel a ride on the swing while she sat on my lap. Then Isaac wanted a turn, so I obliged, describing my movements as usual. After we were done swinging, Laurel ran off to play on some other equipment, and I followed her. A few minutes later when I turned back to see how Isaac was doing, he was swinging on his own.

He started out cautiously that first time, of course, keeping his swinging gentle and low, but when we returned to the swings later in the day (yes, we spend a lot of time at the park) he grew more confident and began swinging pretty high. I am not exaggerating when I say he spent at least a full hour swinging that day.

- - - - -

And I guess he reached a third physical milestone this week: his first major crash on his scooter. It happened one evening when he was out for an after-dinner ride with Craig; they were coasting down a fairly steep hill in the castle park when Isaac hit a rock, the scooter tipped over, and he was dragged along the asphalt. He was wearing shorts and his knees were skinned up pretty well.

But he hasn't hesitated to keep riding, although he has reduced his coasting speed, and he doesn't want to go down that particular hill again any time soon.

He has had the scooter for about five weeks now, and his balance is much improved. I think he's going to be ready to take the training wheels off his bicycle when we get back home, which will be another big milestone.

Brennessel

2011-08-06T02:47:00.002-07:00

Craig doesn't have his own blog, but he knows he is always welcome to contribute a guest post to my blog. I guess he doesn't share my compulsion to share his thoughts with the Internet at large, however, because while I've written 975 posts in my five and a half years of blogging, he has only written three! (Here are his first and second posts.)

And so, here is Craig:

The very first afternoon we were in Germany, Isaac sat on the curb across the street from our house and brushed his hand against some stinging nettles. It was an unpleasant discovery for him. He had never touched (or seen) stinging nettles before and he was surprised at how much it hurt. He began to worry about encountering more, so I mentioned to him that when I was in Amsterdam I enjoyed eating brandnetelkaas -- "burning nettle cheese." (Once the nettles are cooked in the cheese they don't sting, but are just a flavorful herb.) I thought that when the family went to Amsterdam we could get some brandnetelkaas and Isaac could get a little payback on the nettles.

Well, we didn't have to wait that long; the Germans eat the nettles too, and at our local Kaiser's there it was, Brennesselerkäse! I thought that maybe Isaac would resist trying it but he ate it eagerly and loves the stuff. I don't know if he is savoring the triumph over the weed that injured him, but I suspect there is some primitive satisfaction in eating what you once feared.

We both wondered who was crazy enough to pick nettles and put them into cheese in the first place, however.

"I'm just"

2011-08-05T00:12:00.002-07:00

"I'm not throwing, I'm just dropping."

Over the last few weeks, Laurel has decided to try arguing her way out of tricky situations. I am sure she is learning how to debate from observing her brother. She made the remark about throwing versus dropping to Isaac, in fact, after he told her to stop throwing toys at him.

Yes, it is better than a tantrum; in our family, measured debate beats tears (or shrieking or hitting) any day. That doesn't mean it isn't annoying, however.

Upon being told not to play with the computer: "I'm just typing."

Upon being told to leave the playground: "I'm just sliding."

Upon being told not to throw bark chips: "I'm just throwing bark chips."

Well, she is still learning.

Last names

2011-08-04T11:30:00.004-07:00

Tonight Laurel and I were once again discussing names. We talked about first names and middle names. We reviewed my last name, Craig's last name, and Laurel and Isaac's last name, which is a hyphenated combination of the two.

I was certain Laurel understood that we had different names even though we were part of the same family, but then she made a comment that confused me for a second or two.

She said, "The last name of everyone in my family is people."

Bedtime

2011-08-02T13:58:00.007-07:00

We solved the problem of Isaac taking hours to fall asleep every night -- we put him to bed later. Much, much later. Instead of expecting him to lie quietly in bed starting at 8:30 p.m., for the last four days I have tried 10:00 p.m. instead, or even slightly later.

He still falls asleep at 10:30 p.m., but instead of lying awake in the dark for two hours first, he only lies awake for 15 minutes. The new system has eliminated hours of misery, terror, boredom, and irritation.

Four or five days ago it occurred to me that Isaac was wasting a good portion of his day just waiting to fall asleep. So instead of both kids going to bed after dinner as usual, Isaac gets to do something fun: he works in his study*, listens to an audiobook, or even watches TV. And for the last two days (we finally have summer weather), Isaac has played outside after dinner! Tonight Craig rode his bike and Isaac rode his scooter, and they had quite an adventure together.

This works fine as long as Isaac sleeps late the next morning, because he needs about ten and a half hours of sleep each night. So if he gets up at 9:00 a.m., he's okay. Unfortunately Laurel almost always wakes up at 8:00 a.m. no matter what, so we need to be sure she doesn't wake him up.

Obviously this plan will have to be retooled once we return to the United States on August 16. Isaac will start kindergarten (!!!) on August 24, and although I am foggy on the details, I suspect school starts a little earlier in the morning than we would like.

- - - - -

* Yes, Isaac has a study, although he likes to call it a workshop. It actually is a study, or at least it has a desk in it; for our first month in Germany we used it as Laurel's bedroom. But about three weeks ago I moved her crib upstairs into Isaac's room, which doesn't connect to any neighbors, so she could cry herself back to sleep when needed without disturbing anyone. So this leaves the study vacant, except as a workshop for Isaac's various projects. I suppose I could have moved my own art area into the study, as I have been painting in a corner of my bedroom, but I was hoping to contain the mess Isaac creates with scraps of cardboard, tape, stickers, Lego, and various found objects.

Pictures: Europe 2011

2011-08-01T09:02:00.002-07:00

Click here to view these pictures larger

Here are 30 new pictures, starting at photo #36. As always, you can check out this album directly at our family photo site, TCB Photos.

Traveling

2011-07-30T06:07:00.004-07:00

We've been traveling for the past week, but we're back in Aachen now; we will stay here for the rest of the summer. There are only 18 days left before we return to the U.S.! Not that I'm counting. Okay, maybe I am, just a little bit.

We spent four nights in Heidelberg (where our Internet connection was terrible, so pardon my lack of blogging), one night back in Aachen, one night in Duisburg, and then we returned to Aachen yesterday at dinnertime.

We rented a car for our traveling (a very nice Audi), and here is a remark from the back seat: "I'm chewing on my hair. It tastes good!"

Guess who's going to get her hair trimmed as soon as we get back home? Her jaw-length bob has apparently grown to mouth-length.

- - - - -

Another remark, in response to my asking what she had in her mouth: "Sand. Because I was playing with the playground."

Language again

2011-07-22T12:05:00.004-07:00

I just wrote about learning (or not learning!) German, but at least one member of my family is working hard every day to learn a language: Laurel is learning English.

Okay, she's two and a half, so she already knows a lot of English. I don't think her language development is substantially different from that of other kids her age, although she hasn't had any playdates recently so I haven't been able to make unhealthy comparisons. (Ha, ha, ha.) But I do know that she learns more every day, and I take it for granted. Poor second child. So to celebrate her accomplishments, here are some tidbits about language:

* Recently Isaac was making an annoying sound with his tongue, hoping, of course, to annoy us. It worked, because across the room Laurel covered her ears with her hands and said, "Don't put that noise in my ears!"

* Observing Isaac with four toy Matchbox cars, Laurel said, "I want to play with cars too! And three. And four."

* Crawling into bed with me one morning this week, Laurel looked at the pushed-back covers and said, "Let's go into the cave." When I asked her who lived in the cave, she said, "Bears."

* When she plays by herself, her toys and imaginary friends have conversations, and all the characters speak in different voices! This started two or three months ago, and I'm sorry I haven't documented it better, because it really impresses me. I don't remember Isaac doing this, perhaps because his conversational games were always with us.

* She loves to make rhymes, something she's been doing for three or four weeks now. (Isaac was a bit older than two and a half when I first noted his ability to rhyme.) She does this spontaneously, but you can also provide a starting word and ask her to make a rhyme; Isaac takes great pleasure in setting her up by suggesting words that will rhyme with "poop" or other potty-talk favorites. But I took the kids to the zoo again this week, and we fed the goats some oats and they chewed on our coats; you can imagine her glee.

* Over the last six weeks her pronouns have gotten a bit mixed up, but I think it's all in the course of improvement. Craig was the one who noted that she used to be more correct, but now that she is gaining awareness of the rules of grammar, she is trying to make the rules fit every situation. So while she used to say "Laurel wears her jacket," now she might say "Laurel wears she's jacket" or "Me wears me's jacket." She does use I, especially when saying things like "I do it myself!"

Language

2011-07-20T13:24:00.006-07:00

I've been asked how my family is coping with the language barrier here in Germany, considering that we don't speak any German.

Craig is doing the best of all us, having learned to speak and read Dutch during the three years he worked in Amsterdam. Dutch is not the same as German, but given enough time he can figure out written things, and he can even understand a few things in conversation. He also has the benefit of having done this before -- he didn't know any Dutch when he first moved to the Netherlands, so he has experience working with the words he does understand rather than freezing up.

On the flip side of this, Isaac mutters "Ich spreche kein Deutsche" with visible embarrassment the moment anyone speaks any German to him. He is uncomfortable when kids try to talk to him at the park, even when the games they are suggesting don't require language. When he is feeling relaxed, however, he actually can say a few things in German, almost all food-related. And he loves to say farewell by calling out "tschüss" whenever we leave a shop (it is easier to say than to spell, kind of like "shoes" starting with a ch sound; he learned it back home from his best friend's Croatian-German au pair).

Laurel will sometimes spontaneously say "thank you" in German instead of English, proving the point that a very young child has a great linguistic advantage. She has also learned a few German words for foods.

But the kids aren't learning much German because no one speaks to them in German, and that's because I'm not learning much German. I am embarrassed to admit that I haven't been trying very hard. Yes, I know much more than I did before we came here, but I am certainly not developing any conversational skills. I have learned words mostly from written sources -- like labels, menus, and signs -- and from a few transactions in shops and restaurants. I don't think I know any verbs. And when we returned to Germany after our week in Amsterdam, where not only does everyone speak English but most of the signs are in English, I suffered a setback in attitude.

When we first got here, I did what Isaac does -- when someone spoke to me, or if I had to initiate a conversation, I always said in German that I didn't speak any German. But I found it confused people, and that they didn't believe me! (One shopkeeper even teased me by pointing out that in fact I was speaking German.) I still say it sometimes in formal situations, as it seems polite to at least attempt the local language, but I also give a regretful smile and say, "Sorry, I only speak English!"

But with very simple transactions in shops, I try not to confess to the clerks that I don't understand what they're saying to me. I look at the cash register to see how much to pay, and in the absence of a register I hand over an amount of money I'm pretty sure will exceed the bill. (Or I use my debit card.) If the transaction is relatively simple, like ordering ice cream, I can say "Eine Erdbeere und eine Zitrone, bitte" and then hope they don't ask me anything else. (I don't know the words for "cup" or "cone" or "spoon," for instance.)

But mostly I have to betray my utter ignorance, especially when I'm ordering food from an actual restaurant. Luckily most people who work in stores here speak at least rudimentary English, especially when augmented with gestures, and some speak it surprisingly well. This does not seem to be true of restaurant waiters, however; I would never ask for a translation of something on a menu. Nor is it true of older people; I tried to buy stamps at the post office a few days ago, and the clerk, a man over 60, actually had to get another employee from the back room. But who is to blame here? The postal employee who doesn't understand the English word "stamp," or the tourist who hasn't bothered to learn the local word for it?

But I can muddle my way through a menu (once you know the word for "cheese," everything is okay), I can locate the correct bathroom, I can operate an elevator, and I can count to three.

Why only three? Because I am used to ordering three of everything: one for me, one for Isaac, and one for Laurel.

New pictures

2011-07-18T14:44:00.003-07:00

I added eight pictures to the existing album of our trip. Craig took them with his phone, so I didn't have them on hand when I uploaded the photos from the camera. I went ahead and arranged the album by date, which means the new pictures are interspersed with the pictures you may (or may not) have already seen. But if you're interested enough to look at my family snapshots once, surely you can suffer through them again!

Anyway, this shot of Isaac and Laurel looking at farms through a train window is one of the new pictures. You can see the "Europe 2011" album at our family photo site at TCB Photos.

Candles

2011-07-18T13:11:00.004-07:00

As I have mentioned before, the Dom is one of the main tourist attractions in Aachen. We ended up downtown this weekend (shopping for a new smartphone for Craig), so we stopped off at the Dom again.

The great Octagon of the cathedral (the part now topped with the dome) was consecrated by some pope or other in the year 805; hanging in its center is a circular gold candelabrum which was given to the church in the year 1165. The big candelabrum is one of my favorite aspects of the cathedral. Below it and off to one side, next to a statue of the Virgin Mary holding the Baby Jesus, is a circular rack of votive candles.

I myself am not religious (to put it mildly), and while Craig and our kids do go to church, they are not Catholic. As I passed beneath the candelabrum, however, I felt a pull. Two of our very dear family members have just had cancers removed, and I suggested we light a candle for each of them -- something to focus our thoughts in their directions as we sent them our fervent wishes for health.

Craig held Laurel, I held Isaac, and together we lit two candles and placed them in the metal rack. Then we paused to think healing thoughts, and to pray.

- - - - -

Shortly after this point, Isaac wanted to know if angels were real. I said, "Some people think so, and some people think they are more of a metaphor, kind of a figure of speech." He informed me that he thought they were real, and I said that was fine.

When we got back to our apartment, Isaac said, "Let's play angels! Some of us can be angels, and ... " He paused to consider his options before continuing, "... and someone can be God!"

"I'm God," Laurel said.

Laurel at age 2 1/2

2011-07-15T12:55:00.006-07:00

I haven't documented the minutia of Laurel's development in the same way I did Isaac's. Partly this is because with two children I have less time, but also I don't feel like I have a handle on the situation -- I don't understand Laurel quite as readily as I understood Isaac. Maybe I would understand her better if I wrote about her more?

Right now it's hard to discern her character, however, from beneath the patina of being two and a half years old. It is a frustrating age for everyone. Earlier this week we were playing at the park, and I could tell that both Isaac and Laurel were reaching their limit: it was cold and rainy, they were tired, and they were getting hungry. When Laurel began crying half-heartedly and grabbing my leg, I knew it was time to head back to the apartment to make dinner.

But when I announced our departure, Laurel ran off, still crying. In the darkening late afternoon Isaac and I stood and watched her trot away from us, heading deeper into the park and away from our apartment. I called after her, "Laurel, did you want to play some more?"

She stopped and tearfully answered me: "No! Go back to apartment!" Then she turned and ran away again. Isaac and I jogged after her, observing her inner conflict: she really wanted to go home, but she just couldn't bring herself to do what I said.

Isaac decided he would try reverse psychology, so he asked her if she wanted to go down the slide with him. That just made her cry harder, but at least it confused her enough that she stopped running. I had to pick her up and carry her home, not something I often had to do with Isaac.

Here are a few other tidbits about Laurel:

* Tonight we went out to dinner, and she ate the lemon slice that came with Craig's wiener schnitzel. She said, "Mmm, this lemon is so good!" She is not, generally speaking, a good dining companion; she is typical for her age. She doesn't mind trying new foods, but she stuffs way too much into her mouth, spits things out, tosses things onto the floor, and likes to get down and run around. She also loves to make Isaac laugh, which is accomplished by all of those things.

* She has just recently learned the rest of her colors. For a while she has been able to count real-life objects to at least seven and recite numbers to at least 12. She sings and can carry a tune, and can recite nursery rhymes, but she doesn't do it on a daily basis. Although the other day she woke me up by singing a made-up song about breakfast!

* She knows a few letters: she points out L whenever she sees it (and says proudly "Ehwl is for Low-wo," since she can't quite pronounce her own name!). She also knows I, S, O, and M, which she knows is "for Mama." She loves to be read to, although she also likes to sit on her own and turn pages in a book she has chosen herself -- unfortunately we don't have very many books with us here in Germany, which really disappoints her.

* The mother-baby relationship is very important to her. If she sees a big and a small version of the same object (dog, cow, car, flower, rock, whatever) then she says "Mama [object] and baby [object]." She loves to find examples of this relationship; we saw two dogs playing together at the park a few weeks ago, two entirely different breeds, one large and one small, and Laurel concluded they were mother and baby; when the dogs headed home in opposite directions with their respective owners, she was really upset. Her games often include her informing me that I am the mama [whatever] while she is the baby [whatever]. She doesn't like to reverse the roles, however.

* She is fairly sporty (for our family, anyway!), and was throwing a stick with an impressive arm recently; she still loves to climb. If you scroll down a few posts, you should see the cover image of the album of photos I posted, the one with the very tall slide? She likes the climb up to that slide even better than the slide itself -- first a ladder, then a rope bridge, then a ramp -- and she can do it all by herself; yesterday I also let her go down the slide by herself for the first time, even though it's a fast one with a tricky landing.

* She is very funny -- sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident. For some reason Craig told her recently that she was "a good egg," and she became indignant. "I am not an egg!" she told him firmly. "I am a little girl!" But she understands enough about humor to be able to tease Isaac, which she does with aplomb; she can really make him upset! And, as I mentioned, she can also make him laugh uncontrollably, as she does at the dinner table.

Sensitivity

2011-07-15T12:25:00.003-07:00

Isaac is a sensitive child, and not just because of his tendency to worry. Not only does he feel things deeply, he also notices what the people around him are feeling. This is especially true for me, and for his father to a slightly lesser degree.

If Craig and I have a disagreement, Isaac picks up on the tension even though we try to keep it understated. When we were on the train to Amsterdam, I became irked that Craig hadn't successfully saved seats for our group of four, and Isaac became very cheerful and talkative, almost manic, in an attempt to make everything all right again.

I was feeling a bit depressed this past week while Craig was gone, and Isaac noticed it. During the first few days he would say things like, "Why did you just give that big sigh, Mama?" Then a few days later, he would closely examine my expression and say, "What's that look for? You don't look happy."

But he is a small child, after all, and his sensitivity only goes so far. Even if he feels momentarily sorry for me, he can't stop being a kid, with normal kid behavior and kid needs, and that's the way it should be. Also, his understanding of what issues require sensitivity is somewhat lacking. Last night as we snuggled at bedtime, he reached up to touch my face.

"How come the skin underneath your chin is so floppy," he asked, "when mine is so firm?"

After a question like that, he might well ask me why I just gave a big sigh.

- - - - -

Actually, I said to him, "And look at the skin under my arms! What about that?"

Groceries

2011-07-14T13:28:00.005-07:00

Living in Germany is great if you really like going to the grocery store, which I don't. I know I previously wrote about how much I appreciated the Kaiser's market down the street from our apartment, but I have changed my mind.

For one thing, everything comes in a small package: the milk comes in one-liter cartons, the bread comes in six-slice loaves, paper napkins come in packages of 30, and even the peanut butter jars are tiny. Back in California my family doesn't shop at a big-box discounter like Costco, so I'm not accustomed to truly giant-sized packages, but even Safeway or Whole Foods sells milk in gallon jugs.

The packages are small, so even our family of two adults and two preschoolers run through it quickly, and we don't have big appetites. I bought a "loaf" of raisin bread yesterday, and then I had to buy another one today. Same problem with milk: we bought one liter yesterday, and I had to buy another two today. And I don't believe the argument that frequent shopping means the food in my kitchen is fresher; I am sure yesterday's milk and today's milk were from the same batch delivered to the grocery store earlier in the week.

Why are the packages so small? Because you have to carry them home. And after you've carried your groceries for a block and a half, then you have to carry them up five flights of stairs. It really makes you think twice about buying beer -- especially because once you've drunk your beer you then have to carry the bottles back down five flights of stairs and a block and half to the glass recycling receptacles.

So we have to buy our groceries in stages as carefully calibrated as a rocket launch; we make our purchases in phases. If we buy milk today, then we can't buy juice, because I can't carry them both. Or if we buy strawberries, then we can't buy potatoes, because the berries will get crushed. Or if Laurel is in a contrary mood, then we can only buy five heavy items, because if I have to carry her up the stairs I can only carry one heavy bag of groceries and Isaac can only carry one light bag of groceries (and even then he complains).

Today I told Isaac that we weren't going to buy the little mesh bag of cute Babybel cheeses because it was too heavy!

Un-sleep

2011-07-13T07:11:00.003-07:00

Last night Isaac fell asleep sometime after Laurel woke up, which was 11:15 p.m.

Then Laurel finally fell back asleep at 4:00 a.m. last night ... or should I say "this morning"?

I managed to fall asleep at 4:30, and then everyone was awake by 8:30 a.m.

Sleep in Germany

2011-07-12T13:21:00.006-07:00

Laurel is two and a half. At bedtime these days she nurses to sleep in mere minutes, dropping off usually between 7:15 and 7:45 p.m., but by then she is so tired that I suspect even earlier would work for her. Then she sleeps until about 8:00 a.m. (She hasn't napped since she was 22 months old, about eight months ago.) She has adjusted completely to being in Germany, as this schedule is nearly identical to the hours she slept back home in California.

Usually she sleeps straight through the night, but often when she does wake up, she's up for hours, which happened on Sunday night. At 3:00 a.m. I finally brought her into my bed and gave her my iPhone to watch while I dozed next to her; she watched four episodes of "Bob the Builder" and two episodes of "Super Why!" before I realized it wasn't helping her fall asleep. So I took the phone away and she cried for a while until she finally fell asleep around 5:00 a.m.

Isaac is almost six. As far as his bedtime goes, we continue to follow the schedule that worked back in California, but it is failing to work here. Back at home he was left alone in his room around 8:30 p.m. and was asleep by 9:00 p.m.; he woke up around 7:30 or 8:00 a.m.

What happens here? We leave him alone around 8:30 p.m. but he doesn't fall asleep, and he doesn't fall asleep, and he begins freaking out as he lies there awake, and then he's scared to be alone, and then it's even harder to fall asleep. After several weeks of this he has developed a complex about falling asleep, which is unfortunate because he had become a very good sleeper in recent years.

Tonight I planned a peaceful evening for him. While I was putting Laurel down, he watched part of a movie featuring the Wiggles, a completely innocuous children's musical group; then he and I worked on a Transformer toy, I read to him from "Winnie-the-Pooh," I told him a made-up story about the characters from the movie "Cars," we snuggled, and then I left the room.

That was at 9:00 p.m. It is now 11:00 p.m. and he is still awake.

Generally speaking, he has become terrified of "monsters," and even during daylight hours he tries to avoid going upstairs by himself. So at night these monsters continue to be a problem, although tonight whenever I checked on him, he had additional concerns: he was worried because the corner of a book on his nightstand looked like a scary beak; he was worried because the Wiggles had sailed into a "fierce storm" in the movie; he was worried because Pooh and Piglet had gone looking for a Heffalump.

"It's okay to feel worried," I said. "Being worried can't hurt you."

"I know that," he said. "But it can hurt my feelings. It hurts my feelings a lot."

- - - - -

And just as I was wrapping up this post, Laurel woke up in a fright. I'm sitting in her darkened bedroom right now, and she's lying in bed listening to me type.

Eating

2011-07-11T15:32:00.004-07:00

We were strolling in the Beatrixpark in Amsterdam a few days ago when I noticed Laurel had something in her mouth. I stopped and tried to force her jaw open.

"What is that, Laurel?" I asked her. Then I saw she had some twigs in her fist. "Are you eating sticks?"

"No," she said. "Leaves."

Unfortunately Isaac laughed at this.

Pictures: Europe 2011

2011-07-09T12:56:00.002-07:00

Click here to view these pictures larger

We have been in Europe for a month now -- we flew on June 10, arrived on June 11, and now today is July 9. And finally I've uploaded some photos! I'm surprised by how few photos were worth sharing; there are only 26 in this album. But we mostly haven't been "doing" anything, just going to the park and shopping, so perhaps the photos are simply too boring.

As always, if you prefer larger-format pictures, or if you want to read my captions, you can visit this album at our family's photo site, TCB Photos.

Germany again, for now

2011-07-08T13:32:00.006-07:00

We're back in Aachen again, having returned on the train earlier this evening. We spent five nights at our friend Maurice's apartment in Amsterdam. We were having fun there, but we had to come back because Craig has to go to the U.S. on Sunday! Yes, he has to go to a five-day conference in Boston -- but the kids and I are staying behind in Germany.

I'm certainly used to temporary solo-parenting due to conferences, but I've never done it all alone in a foreign country, where I don't speak the language, with no family or friends or baby-sitters. I'm a little worried about how I would deal with an emergency situation -- what if we all get food poisoning, for instance, or I lock us out of the apartment, or I lose my wallet? What if Isaac falls off his scooter (or Laurel falls down the stairs, which actually happened tonight) and breaks an arm?

I'm sure you're thinking dismissively that I'm worrying too much, that nothing will go wrong. But what if I develop appendicitis? Oh, wait, that actually happened to me two years ago when I was out-of-state for my brother's wedding. Luckily Craig was there, not to mention my brother and his new wife, but what if I had been all alone with two kids?

Okay, enough catastrophizing. I'll be sure that Craig leaves me a list of phone numbers for the people he's been working with at the university, so at least I can call someone in case of dire emergency.

Ages

2011-07-06T14:23:00.002-07:00

Which age of child is easier to take to the Rijksmuseum: age two and a half, or age nearly six?

Surprisingly, age two. Unlike her brother, who leaned limply against me trying his best not to whine, Laurel enjoyed looking at the paintings. She has the advantage, however, of being small enough that I could hold her up at eye level to the paintings, most of which were hung two feet over Isaac's head.

On the other hand, which age of child is easier to get home on the tram?

In this case, age six. Unlike his sister, Isaac didn't stand precariously on his seat, try to climb on the handrails, and gleefully shout "underwear!" to the befuddlement of our fellow passengers.

Travel

2011-07-05T13:29:00.017-07:00

Name that country!

Yes, we're in Amsterdam now, having (temporarily) crossed the border. On Saturday we took a five-hour train ride from our summer home in Aachen, Germany, to Enschede, the Netherlands, where Craig's old friend Maurice lives with his family. Maurice and his wife Jennifer (she's American!) have two boys aged four and seven, and I think the kids enjoyed each others' company. We stayed one night with them (thank you very much; we had a lovely time!), visiting a kiddie amusement park together the next day, and then took a two-hour train ride to Amsterdam, where we are staying at their apartment (thank you for that, also!).

Isaac liberates the kiddie amusement park

So in the last few days the kids have ridden in trains, cars, trams, taxis, and metros. It has been a busy assortment of travel!

And on Thursday, few days before our trip to Holland, I traveled to Belgium, as you may recall, heading off entirely on my own to the first night of the Rock Werchter festival. I was gone for exactly 24 hours, departing on the 12:3o p.m. train and returning at the same time the following day. It was the longest I have ever been away from ~~either of my children~~ Laurel. Even when I spent the night in the hospital when I had my appendix removed, I saw Isaac after 15 hours had passed, and Laurel after 22 hours. (Edited: I forgot that in 2009 Isaac and Craig went camping one weekend without me.)

Isaac cried when they saw me off on the train, and both kids had some trouble falling asleep that night, but there was no lasting psychological trauma on their part. And on my part, while at first I felt strange venturing out into the world with no diapers or sippy cup stashed in my purse, I got over it quickly. The festival was attended by 80,000 people a day, easily four times the size of the largest shows I had previously seen, and it was an interesting cultural experience even when I didn't like the bands that were playing. I ate very good french fries (one the Belgian national foods, I think), drank lots of beer, and dealt with disgusting toilets.

And using a combination of relentlessness and wile I got an excellent spot in front when Beady Eye (the band I was there to see) played. I was so close to the stage that Liam Gallagher, the singer, spotted me, pointed right at me, and blew me a kiss, and that's worth the price of admission right there.

An uncropped and unzoomed shot showing how close I was -- nothing in my way but the hat of the very short girl in front of me and the heads of the security guys standing in the barricaded area in front of the stage

New scooter

2011-06-29T15:58:00.001-07:00

Complaints

2011-06-28T13:29:00.006-07:00

Ready for some superficial complaints? So, Nicole, tell us what's wrong with Germany.

(1) Windows

The windows don't open in a useful fashion. It seems that most windows have three positions: completely closed; closed at the bottom but leaning into the room at a small angle so they are about a foot open at the very top; or swinging completely open into the room like a door.

It's that last position that bugs me. It was hot today, as I mentioned previously, so we wanted to throw the windows wide open to let in the cooling evening air. First of all, a completely open window takes up a lot of space in the room, and you can't walk past it or put any furniture in front of it. Worse, there is no mechanism to hold the window open, so it swings back and forth with the wind. Even worse, there is no way to have the window stay only part-way open so your children don't throw things out of it (or fall out of it).

(2) Waiters

European waiters don't bring the check until you ask them. Okay, so I understand that many people find the relaxed Old World style of service charming, and that Europeans think American waiters are rude because they try to hustle you out of the restaurant by bringing the check right along with the meal. But you know, just because American waiters bring the check doesn't mean you have to pay it immediately!

I dislike having to contact a waiter in order to request the bill; I may or may not feel like lingering at the table, but I like to have the option to get out of the restaurant promptly. At the very least I want the waiter to come by my table once they have noticed that we have finished our food and are growing restless. Eating out with small children has a time limit.

And twice lately I have suffered from relaxed service before I even saw a waiter! In both cases we sat down at an outdoor cafe and the waiter failed to materialize as quickly as I would have liked. In once case the waiter never even came, so the kids and I got up and left. I can't afford to squander ten minutes of the the kids' attention spans just waiting to place the order.

(3) Refrigeration

Today was, as I mentioned, a very hot day. Around 2:00 p.m. the kids and I started looking for a place to eat a quick late lunch, so we stopped in at a bakery that offered a selection of pre-made sandwiches. But as I took a closer look in the glass case, I noticed that the cheese on the sandwiches looked wilted, all greasy and limp with the heat. The sandwiches had probably been made in the morning and had been sitting in 95-degree heat for hours. I hated to think what the meat would be like!

So we went across the street to a different bakery, but their sandwiches looked exactly the same. No ice, no refrigerated case, just sitting behind a glass partition in the heat all covered with flies.

I must admit, my nerve quailed and I was filled with doubts about my ability to cope with the situation. What was I going to feed these children? They were hot, they were hungry, and I still hadn't finished my shopping. In the end I bought a cheese bun (safely baked with cheese on top) and cold drinks, and that revitalized us for a while.

And later we had our real lunch at the cafe in a department store! We had a pre-made ham and cheese sandwich, but it had been on ice, baby!

(I suppose my refrigeration fears are kind of silly. If we were in Morocco or something then we would have to eat all kinds of dubious street food.)

- - - - -

In unrelated news, this is blog post number 955!

Weather Report

2011-06-28T11:11:00.003-07:00

This morning Laurel gave me her prediction for the day's weather: "Sunny today, tomorrow clouds."

She was right. Today, like yesterday, was blazingly sunny with temperatures above 90 degrees, really miserably hot and muggy. The heat radiates up off the sidewalks, our top-floor apartment sucks up the whole building's heat, we have no air conditioning, and we all hated it. But tonight a thunderstorm is moving in. It's just after 8:00 p.m. now and the sky has clouded over.

In fact, I bought a raincoat for myself today. You may recall that on Thursday I'll be going to Leuven, Belgium, to see the first night of Rock Werchter. This is one of those huge European festivals where 80,000 people gather in a field to see dozens of bands play. I've been keeping an eye on the weather forecast (the real one, not Laurel's version) and hoping for clear weather. Even heat would be okay, as it would be cooling off by the time I arrive after 5:30 p.m. or so, and the band I want to see doesn't even play until 11:15 p.m.

But no. The forecast says there's going to be light rain starting around noon, and although it is supposed to clear by 11:00 p.m., it will still be wet enough to make the ground a sea of mud. And the temperature will be chilly by 11:00 p.m. too, 51 degrees F; it will be down to 47 degrees by 2:00 a.m., although I may be snug in my hotel by then.

It was strange to prepare for wet weather in the high 40s on a sunny day in the low 90s.

- - - - -

And here is a link to Isaac's weather report at age 21 months. The phrase "sunny day, flowers bloom" has entered our family lexicon.

Signage

2011-06-27T13:03:00.004-07:00

This picture struck me as funny. Here I am with Laurel (age two and a half) inside some kind of bird exhibit at the zoo in Aachen, Germany. What kind of bird? I have no idea; throughout the zoo every informational sign was in German. It was strange to not know the (English) names of the animals we were seeing.

Anyway, you can see a few of the mystery birds (parakeets, perhaps?) perched here and there, and lots of birdhouses, but front and center is a sign in eight different languages requesting that you not feed the animals.

I probably shouldn't be the one to criticize the Germans for their signage. When I was working as a librarian, I was a big fan of putting up signs -- helpful signs, I hope, but perhaps a bit bossy and authoritative as well.

Smiling

2011-06-27T12:22:00.006-07:00

I think I read that there are something like 50 fountains in Aachen, and here are the kids in front of two more of them:

St. Christopher and a sun with a face on a Gothic spire in a courtyard at the side of the Aachener Dom, visible in the background

A fat naked baby with two fishes, also in the vicinity of the Dom; Laurel is looking at a postcard of the very same fountain, which seems very postmodern to me

But anyone who has tried to take a photograph of my children will realize the truly significant aspect of these pictures: Isaac is smiling! For years now Isaac's standard response to photography has been to avert his face or close his eyes. Sometimes when faced with bribes or threats he would actually look at the camera, but then he would give such a baleful stare that the photograph would be ruined anyway. He never, ever looked happy. Sometimes I managed to get a good candid shot, or someone would make him laugh so we could capture a fleeting smile, but there was no such thing as a good posed picture of Isaac.

I don't know what brought about the cooperative behavior you see in these two pictures, compete with artificial smile, in itself quite a developmental milestone.

Light

2011-06-26T13:59:00.004-07:00

For whatever reason, the sun sets a lot later here in Germany than it does at home in California.* Also, it stays light very late and the twilight seems to last for hours. It is 11:00 p.m. here and there is still a peachy glow on the western horizon, and on our rooftop deck one story below my west-facing bedroom window I can clearly see the plants we potted today. I find the late light rather wonderful.

The children are challenged by the lateness of the light. Nearly every night when I put her to bed, Laurel matter-of-factly says, "But it's not night-time." I know children always say things like this during the summer (I remember making the same argument myself when I was around eight years old), but in this case Laurel really has a point! At 7:30 p.m. when I begin to put her to bed, it in absolutely no way resembles night. However, her bedroom faces east, so everything is fine once I pull the blinds, close the drapes, and nurse her to sleep.

Isaac's bedroom also faces east, but it is much brighter because it is on the top floor of our apartment and it has a skylight. Over the last four or five nights he has had trouble falling asleep, perhaps because of the light. Tonight he went to bed at 8:30 p.m. but didn't drop off until 10:30, which was about when it got dark in his room. That's a lot of tossing and turning, poor child.

If the kids were older, we could simply stay outside and play until dark.

- - - - -

* This probably has something to do with latitude or longitude, but for once I'm not going to look it up and provide a nice neat Wikipedia link.

Molars

2011-06-26T04:57:00.004-07:00

Laurel did not sleep well last night, perhaps because as I noted we did not give her ibuprofen for her emerging molars. She woke up in a fright at 1:30 a.m. and didn't get back to sleep until 5:00 a.m.

Back at home we had discovered that with Laurel (although not with Isaac!) the best way to get her back to sleep is to let her cry for five minutes, during which time period she slowly settles down and falls sleep. But in an apartment this strategy seems unfair to our neighbors. It also seems unfair to leave a child to cry in pain, in a strange room, in a strange time zone.

So we've been going to Laurel when she cries, but it takes her hours and hours to fall back asleep.

More shopping

2011-06-25T13:13:00.005-07:00

Can you stand hearing more about shopping in Germany? Besides going to playgrounds and looking at architecture, there isn't a whole lot more to do here in Aachen.*

My limited experience in Germany has left me with the impression that food is cheap and stuff is expensive. (Except at the second-hand shop!) So on Monday when the kids and I set off for the big toy store we had noticed downtown by the Dom, I expected to have to limit their selections. The main reason was that I didn't have much money to spend at that point -- many shops don't take American credit cards, we hadn't yet opened our bank account, I was too lazy to find a compatible ATM, and I only had 35 euros on me. And what could be more expensive than high-quality European-made toys?

Why were we going to the toy store? We did bring a few of the kids' favorite toys with us (among other items, we brought about three pounds of Lego, 10 plastic farm animals with fencing, two baby dolls, and seven Matchbox cars) but after a week, their interest was flagging and they were getting restless. So we set out to choose something really engaging that both kids could play with (maybe a wooden train set or Duplo), although we wouldn't be able to buy it right away as I didn't have enough cash to buy anything that expensive.

On our way downtown, however, we passed by a store window with a backpack or something with a picture of the characters from the movie "Cars." This movie is Isaac's recent obsession, completely replacing "Star Wars"; until our plane trip to Europe, Isaac had never seen "Cars," but I had downloaded it to my iPhone figuring it would entertain him during the flight. Man, I was right! So when Isaac saw the backpack, he begged to go into the shop, and I agreed. It turned out to be a Zeeman, which I think must be the European equivalent of a dollar store!

They had a small selection of toys, most completely junky and covered in licensed characters, all made in China and (for Germany anyway) inexpensive. It was a nice surprise to be able to fill our cart, considering I had feared I wouldn't be able to afford much. The kids became positively giddy when they realized I was willing to buy them practically anything they suggested. Laurel got a wooden puzzle of farm animals for two euros. Isaac got 500 "Cars" stickers for four euros. Laurel got a plastic trolley with various cooking utensils for seven euros. We got sand toys for a few euros. And on and on. (I picked up a few things for our apartment, like trash bags and dishrags, but I also got sunglasses for two euros!)

I ended up spending 30 euros, which bought us so much stuff that we could barely push the stroller home with the huge bag hanging off its handle. (Not to mention the difficulty of lugging the stuff up five flights of stairs!)

Yesterday we went to the "real" toy store and carefully selected 100 euros worth of toys (it turns out they take my credit card after all). It is a gigantic store with a truly amazing selection of exquisite toys; they had everything we wanted and more. (We got our Duplo.) But the kids didn't have quite as much fun shopping there -- maybe they missed the wild abandon of the dollar store!

- - - - -

* I'm kidding; we have done more than shop. We have gone to the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst where we viewed a really great exhibit devoted to American art in the year 1970 (it was more than a bit strange to see these works completely out of context), and the charming local zoo, or Aachener Tierpark. Aachen also has a museum of medieval European art, which we'll check out eventually. I'm in no rush, as we'll be spending one week in Amsterdam soon, and we'll see plenty of world-class art there!