Skipping Town

Dear Littlest One, You’re four months old! And so ridiculously cute. You smile pretty much all the time, whole-face smiles that could make even Hello Kitty grin. (Because she doesn’t have a mouth, see.) You are screeching and cooing. You laughed on Saturday, though no one heard it but me so it has yet to be confirmed. You still do your cute little wiggle when you wake up in the morning and I lean over to greet you. You are still sleeping well, from 7pm to around 7am, with one night feeding around 4 or 5am. You take three naps, morning, afternoon, and late afternoon, with varying degrees of success for the first and third. You still eat like a champion. Nursing you has been so much fun, so easy (after the pain and the engorgement wore off, of course). You are rolling over from tummy to back, and starting to grasp toys. You are kicking things around on your play gym. You’ve begun sitting in the Bumbo chair. It’s extremely cute. There’s something about the Bumbo that just makes a baby see...

Lucia’s ghost followed us to Connellsville. “I see a ghost,” she’d say, just like she does here in Brooklyn. “I see a ghost coming through,” she said once, looking at the stairway. When she and my mom went down to the basement, Lucia asked often if there was a ghost. When I put her down for a nap one afternoon, she lay down then raised her head and said, “Ghost?” Ghosts may have been on her mind because one of her favorite books of last week, Patrick Goes to Bed, had Patrick worried that a ghost would come through his open window; but it was only the wind. Still, though. And today, I was washing Lucia’s hands in the bathroom, and when we came back to the hallway, she said, “I heard a ghost! I heard a ghost coming through!” She then stared down the hall to her nursery and began saying, “Bye bye, ghost!” Then she turned to me and said, “I saying goodbye to the ghost.” Again to the nursery doorway—“Bye bye, ghost!” When I asked her where the ghost was going, she said it was going to Gra’s...

Greta was baptized today. This is the first time I’ve mentioned Greta’s baptism, I think, which may surprise you regular readers, who were with me when Andrew and I embarked on the process of getting Lucia baptized in California—a process that involved having to first get married in the church. This time around, it was easy. I started going to a parish in Park Slope when I got pregnant so I could become an official parishioner, and because of my forethought (applause, please), it was easy to schedule the baptism. But then Dad was able to get the priest from Geibel to agree to do it at his parish here, which was fantastic. I just had to get a letter from my Brooklyn parish giving me permission to have Greta baptized elsewhere, and we were in. So this morning we all set out for the church, Lucia in a new pretty dress (“I look so pretty!” she kept saying into the mirror) and Greta looking angelic in her white dress, sweater, and tights. She wore the same white dress Lucia did for her bapt...

Dear Little One, You’ve been lucky enough to spend your twenty-eight-month birthday at Grandma and Pop-Pop’s house, where you are clearly the happiest baby on earth: unending attention, unending toys to play with, a houseful of wonders to amuse you. Whether Daddy and I are here is of little matter to you; you are fully occupied with your grandparents and all the new fun things to do. It’s been cold and rainy the past few days, but somehow, here, it makes no difference. Staying home all day just feels different when we’re not cooped up in a small apartment. (Of course, I’m taking liberties in saying this, since I’ve been at the library all day each day—perhaps Grandma would beg to differ about feeling stir-crazy.) You’re starting to enjoy the fun of hiding, though you haven’t quite gotten the idea of it down. “Mama, I’m hiding!” you say, running behind my chair. Then I go through a dramatic litany of where you might be—“Is Lucia at the grocery store? At the playground?”—before you lean ...

We’re in Connellsville this week, for many reasons, primarily because Molly’s shower is this weekend and we thought we’d make a longer trip out of it. We drove in late Friday night, and the car trip went smoothly—both girls slept almost the whole time and went right back to sleep once we arrived. It’s snowy and cold here, and Lucia couldn’t be happier. There are tons of toys to play with, unending attention from the grandparents, and, a few days ago, that snow—on Sunday she shoveled and rode on a sled down the alley. We made a Pittsburgh trip Sunday morning to visit the Clarks—and it was fun to see the five kids playing together (well, four were playing; Greta nursed and/or slept and/or sat on a lap). Lucia opened up quickly, and we had a great time all together for the first time on the East Coast. I’ve been at the library every day this week, working on another big round of revisions to my novel. It’s harder to get away this time than it was last summer since I have an infant who nee...

Last week in music class, when it was time to “blow out the lights” for the quiet song, Lucia ran across the circle right up to the teacher, wanting to be the child chosen to be lifted up and allowed to turn off the light switch. The teacher lifted her up, she flipped the switch, and she then ran back to me with the happiest grin on her face. She was so, so thrilled. In the same class, Greta chose not to nap in the Bjorn as she usually does, so I took her out and she sat with us for the duration. During the dance song, a dad I’m friendly with danced with Greta, so I got to dance with Lucia, doing the spins and dips she loves (and which I can’t do when Greta’s on my chest). A fun class all around. We had an arduous experience on Thursday. I’d misjudged the weather, thinking it was warmer than it was, and I loaded us all up for a playground trip in the morning, only to find the playground snow-covered and freezing. Lucia ran after some pigeons for a while and Greta snoozed in the strolle...

Difficult things are looming on the horizon with Lucia. There are four major changes we need to make, and I’m dreading them. Well, that’s not accurate. I’m dreading two of them, the two that have the potential to disrupt our fragile nighttime peace and upend our luxurious ability to both put Lucia to bed with little hassle and bid her goodnight until the morning with nary a peep heard in between. The biggest thing we have to do is get rid of the pacifier. She is more attached to the paw-paw than ever, having quickly wised up to my attempts to distance her from it a few weeks ago. For a day or two she went along with my requests that paw-paw “take a rest” while we played, and she’d forget about it while she sat at the table to eat. Now paw-paw can’t be out of her sight. She carefully places it alongside her plate, or arranges it on top of Bibi, while she’s eating; and she’ll only rarely put it aside while we’re playing. I’ve never even attempted getting her to sleep without it. Paw-paw ...

We set off this morning for the last of our exploratory day trips. Our destination: more of Connecticut, and two of the River Towns. First up was Stamford, which we did not like. It’s a city, and had that stressful city feeling of too much traffic, too few sidewalks, no place to park at a storefront McDonald’s. And we really, really needed that storefront McDonald’s. After a run of several successful (i.e., no-motion-sickness) car trips, Lucia threw up pretty much as soon as we hit the Stamford city limits. And this was epic vomiting. It was everywhere. All over the carseat, all over her clothes, all over Cat and Elmo, some on her boots. It gushed down the neck of her sweater and around the back of her neck. It was horrific. And it was so cold outside, so the poor sweetie was shivering, her teeth chattering, as I changed her clothes in the trunk while Andrew cleaned up the carseat. I’d gotten lazy this trip. I’d still brought a change of clothes and a big box of wipes (we keep paper to...

Greta is at that roly-poly stage that makes me want to just gobble her up. And Lucia's pretty cute, too.

Today, a cranky Lucia began pushing Greta’s bassinet around our bedroom while I changed Greta’s diaper. When the pushing began getting out of hand, I told her to stop, and then I carried Greta out to the living room. From there I heard her yelling at me: “I moving the crib! I moving the criiiiiiiib!” When that didn’t get any response from me, she ran out to the living room and stood there screaming: “I moving the criiiiiiiiiib! Mama! I moving the criiiiiiiiiib!” It is so hard sometimes not to laugh at these ridiculous episodes. And it is also so incredible that such nonsense can be so infuriating. Lucia is still very much into collecting things. This summer it was stones; now it’s seeds from trees around the neighborhood. The seeds are small, smooth, and brown—quite pretty—and gathering them is the focus of our walks and, sometimes, of our time at the playground. Today we walked to music class, and by the time she got there she had about twenty of them in her bucket, which she proudly ...