Skipping Town

Potty training has begun. I’ve been putting it off and putting it off and finally, on Saturday, I just didn’t put Lucia’s diaper on, explained she could have chocolate if she used the potty, and went with it. She went several times both Saturday and Sunday, with a few accidents. Monday she went just once, but our sitter was here in the morning, and then we went out to a playground in the afternoon, so it wasn’t prime conditions. In any case, we’re on the potty-training path. I cannot yet see the end of it. At least when it comes to #1, Lucia knows exactly what she’s doing and (when conditions are right) will say “Mama, I have to go to the potty” when she needs to go. Then she’ll sit down with a smile, and sit and sit, and occasionally she’ll say in a sing-songy voice, “I’m goooiiing…I’m goooiiing…” And then she goes, and she beams. She’s totally ready.   And while we’re sitting there, of course I have to bring Greta along, and while I sit in the bathroom doorway she procee...

Dear Littlest One, What a sweet little banana you are. With your whole-face smile, ear-shattering happy-shriek, and adorable crawl, you are just a jolt of snuggly joy. Of course, your sleeping is atrocious; you’ve been biting me while nursing; and you’ve begun a charming lip-buzzing that spews baby food all over me as I feed you. Still, to me you seem pretty perfect. You are crawling quickly and determinedly. You’re pulling up on every possible piece of furniture, and you seem to be trying to crawl on top of the low ottomans. You have just realized you can stand in your crib, so now when we hear you “calling” for us, we often find you standing there, watching the door. You now sleep with a small lamb stuffed animal. I put him in with you for the first time two nights ago—and your sleeping that night, and the subsequent nights, was much better. Coincidence? Or will you eventually have an animal-overflowing crib just like your big sister, comforted and happy with an entourage ...

Have you ever been around someone who only talks about one thing—something completely uninteresting to you, like the stats and performance of a sports team, or, even better, some kind of fantasy-league sports team. On and on and on. Talking and talking. You can’t even feign interest because you have no idea what the basic parts of the subject are. It just seems to involve a lot of time on the computer, looking at players’ faces and some numbers that have to do with them. Boring. Painfully boring. (Andrew likes sports and has done the fantasy-team thing, but fortunately conversation about them is minimal.) Alas, for the past few weeks it is I who have become the deadly bore. Of course, my topic of obsession has nothing to do with sports or fantasy sports. Instead, I have been talking much too much about a sale at the local Methodist church. They call it a “turnover sale,” and this is the seventy-eighth year the church has held it. Donations come from all over, and all the money rai...

Dear Little One, It’s been a big month for you. This month, we said goodbye to everything you knew: your home, your room, your playground, the familiar streets where we walked, the shop windows you knew by heart. Here, everything is different: you have different-colored walls in your room; you have a new carpet; you have new rooms in which to play. There’s a different playground—we haven’t quite found our ideal match yet—and different rhythms to our days. It’s a lot for me to handle—I can only imagine how confusing it is for you. You’re handling it very well overall. Some new things, you love: the duck pond, the pool we joined, painting rocks on the porch. Some new things, I thought you’d love, but you’re taking your time coming around to: the backyard, mainly. It’s currently shaded by a cloud of mosquitoes, so I don’t blame you for keeping your distance. I’ve bought a sprinkler and a sandbox—all yet to be set up—so I’m hoping we’ll venture there a little more often. ...

We had a lovely visit this morning from some friends from Brooklyn, two little boys each three weeks older than each of my girls. Lucia was thrilled to have someone to chase all around the house, and Greta enjoyed crawling around and chewing companionably with another little baby. Later in the day, inspired by this other baby’s ability to pull up to standing, Greta decided she, too, would stand. She pulled herself up on the flowered ottoman, arranging her tiny feet underneath her and then pushing right up. Sometimes she starts out in a very wide V and then scoots her feet together inch by inch. Standing! Able to reach newly out-of-reach surfaces! Nothing is safe! I can sense her preparing to practice this newfound skill all night, robbing me of yet another night of sleep. Note to Greta: Don’t make me do sleep-training, my sweet little baby. Please don’t let it come to that. But when you wake up every hour from 10:30pm on and I’m still nursing you three times a night and you’re eig...

Greta is full-on crawling now. It started off slowly, just a few tentative paces, but now she’s off. Yesterday, for the first time, she crawled from the living room into the kitchen to find me. I could hear her coming; she is so excited by crawling that she squeals the entire time she’s moving, and soon her tiny head peeked around the doorway. She was smiling hugely and could not have been more pleased with herself. Then, in the space of about ten seconds, she got into the bag of recycling; ate the bottom of an empty paper bag; put a magnet in her mouth; and pulled two potatoes from a bag on the floor. She is absolutely into everything, and all she wants in life is whatever Lucia has, the smaller and more poisonous or hazardous the better. I never had to worry too much about baby-proofing with Lucia, but I see that my efforts with Greta are going to have to be a little more intense. Starting with the basics: no bags of recycling—no bags of anything—on the floor. Greta’s number-one...

Things have been so busy around here that I haven’t had time to keep up with regular blog posts. Hence this little list of tidbits. The Pool We’ve joined the Maplewood pool, which, according to everyone I’ve talked to, is what everyone does during the summer. “Have you joined the pool?” “You have to join the pool.” “Everyone goes to the pool.” So we, too, joined the pool. (A little technology aside, for readers twenty years from now to chuckle over: The first day we went, intending to just check things out, we were surprised by the fact that no day passes were available; so I did the whole registration on my iPhone and showed them the email receipt to secure our entrance. That whole process would have been unthinkable even five years ago; it will seem archaic, what—next year?) Anyway. Lucia loves, loves, loves the pool. It’s actually a pool complex, all outdoors, consisting of four pools: a real diving pool with two platforms, an Olympic-sized lap pool, a kid pool going...