prunes (yum yum)

Easter egg hunt at the Krapfs

The Easter bunny visited the home of our friends the Krapfs a little bit early, and so they hosted a big Easter egg hunt. It was great to see all of Sebastian's friends - Nathan and Alex, Liam and Zoe, Presley, Lydia and Sadie, Isaiah, Paul, Penelope, and Frank - and their parents. The weather cooperated and it was a grand party. More pictures from the morning here.

anecdotes and word games

On the car ride home today, from Sebastian: "Probably we'd die if we went in a space ship all the way to the stars." Me: "Why would we die?" Seb: "Cause it's too far."

I sneeze, covering my mouth with my hand. Sebastian: "Mommy, that's not right. You have to go like this (demonstrating), using your elbow." Me: "Oh, you're right. Sorry, Sebastian." Seb: "Do it right next time."

Sebastian in his play kitchen, preparing to feed Liesl a dinner: "You have to eat all your dinner, and all your vegetables, before you can have dessert. If you don't finish all your dinner, you get no treats."

At dinner last week. Sebastian: "Boys have penises and bums. Girls just have v'ginas." Me: "Girls have bums too."

Passing by the cluster of three churches on the corner. Sebastian: "What's a church?" Me: "A place where people who believe in the same things, like the same god, meet every week." Seb: "What do they do there?" Me: "They talk, they listen to a minister or priest, who is like a teacher, and they sing songs." Seb: "That doesn't sound very interesting."

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We've also been playing some new games. He's very much into spelling and letters at the moment, and will frequently ask us "What's the first letter or number in the word 'x'? What comes next?" (He always includes the category of numbers, and has seemingly never noticed that words don't contain numbers. We haven't corrected him.) With help, he can sound out some words, but the English language is tricksy. The fact that C makes different sounds, overlapping with other letters; the silent E's littering the ends of words; the challenges of CH, TH, SH... It's a minefield. But I love that he's interested in spelling and in reading, and that he's trying to figure it out.

Just yesterday he looked at the letters FROG, sounded out the letters, and correctly identified the word. We were very proud. He knows how to spell some words, like Stop, Bus, and Car, but that's through memorization and not reading.

We've also been playing a variant of Twenty Questions - one of us hides a card with a picture on it, and the others have to guess what the picture is. (The cards come from our Boggle Jr. game, so are of common objects and animals.) It lets us introduce the concept of categories, and how to narrow down a search - so we start with asking if the thing is an animal, or an object, or a person. Then we can ask if it's a vehicle, or a toy, if it's man-made or natural, etc. He's still struggling to grasp the idea, but he's definitely improving.

Lastly, and most sweetly, Steve and Sebastian play the "I love you" game. We have a book - Guess How Much I Love You - in which a bunny and his daddy take turns saying how far, how high, how big they love each other. My boys make it a game that they play - "I love you as high as our house." "I love you as high as the Empire State Building." "I love you as high as the moon." "I love you as high as the stars." "Wow. Hmm. I love you as far as the river." "I love you as far as New York City." "I love you as far as Vermont.". Etc etc. It's very sweet.

park play

Liesl's new sunbonnet.

the swings! such joy!

running up and down the hill, chasing balls

Pushing Liesl and our toys up the hill towards home.

PepsiCo sculpture garden

On Saturday we went to the sculpture gardens on the grounds of PepsiCo's headquarters, in Purchase. It's about 20 minutes from here. The gardens are open to the public and free, and have not only dozens of sculptures by famous artists (Giacometti, Calder, Oldenburg, Henry Moore, Rodin), but also beautiful trees and flowers from all around the world. We saw a pink tree - a Japanese maple - that was wonderful. It was a beautiful, warm day, and we had a great time running around and seeing all of the art. It's an amazing collection.

testing, testing

Sebastian has been really testing us lately - testing the boundaries of behavior, testing how far he can push us, testing to see if we mean what we say. It's been exhausting and frustrating. Nothing out of the ordinary, I'm sure, but hard to deal with, especially as it's such a contrast with his usual sweet, compliant self. There's been a lot of no. And running away from us and hiding. And refusing to sit at the dinner table. And doing things he knows he isn't allowed to do. His verbal way of expressing this recalcitrant self is to say "bang". It's like a preschooler version of damn, no, I hate you, and f*** you, all wrapped up in one neat little package. So we'll ask him to do something, and he'll say "bang". And then he'll keep repeating it as he realizes he's getting under our skin, at increasing volume, until we tell him to stop it. And then he says "bang you!" Awesome.

Fortunately, the best solution seems to be outdoor exercise and play. He's nearly always happy and cheery when we're outside, and so we've been dragging him out at every opportunity and inventing new ways to encourage him to run. And his crankiness isn't nonstop, every day, which is nice - we still hang out with our sweet boy some of the time.

some updates, and random cute pics of our girl

Liesl appears to have cut her first tooth! There's a sharp little thing coming out of her top gum, and she has been a bit fussy, especially at night. (Oh, joy.) After our first success with rice cereal, she has steadfastly rejected all of my attempts at feeding her more food. She won't eat the rice cereal, and she refused to eat pears as well. This is new territory for us: Sebastian ate absolutely everything, in huge quantities, from the very beginning. We went back to the spring 2008 videos and watched in amazement as Seb devoured a huge bowl of pureed carrots. I don't know if she's just not ready, if she's cranky because of the tooth, or if she is just going to be a troublesome eater. At any rate, I'm going to back off for a week, and then try again.

spring! (thank goodness)

The warm weather has finally arrived, and we have been glorying in it. We've been outside as much as possible, going for walks along the trail and around Halsey Pond, going to the fields and playgrounds, and trailing Sebastian on his bike. Liesl has tickled her toes in the grass and started to investigate trees and flowers. It's so great to be out.

rice cereal!

We gave Liesl her first taste of solid food today - rice cereal with mama's milk. She was at first confused by the necessary mouth action and seemingly disgusted by the taste, and I couldn't figure out whether or not she was actually swallowing any of the cereal. But then she got the hang of it and became extremely enthusiastic, grabbing at our hands and the spoon to encourage more food, more quickly. She ate the whole bowl. We took turns feeding her, even Sebastian getting in on the action.

She's been gazing longingly at our food and drink for a few weeks now, so we suspected she was ready to try solids. I wasn't ready, though. Steve laughs at me, but I wasn't ready to give up the knowledge that all of that baby cuteness was directly through me - in utero, and through breastfeeding. But since she won't take a bottle, it seems like a good idea to introduce some other form of non-me nourishment. And so, off we go. She's growing so fast.

rice cereal! from B. Avery on Vimeo.

35!

Today was my 35th birthday. 35 is so solidly... 30-something. I don't feel old, but I certainly don't feel young either - although that may be a product of the consistent sleep deprivation associated with children, and not at all related to age!

It was a lovely birthday, against all odds. Steve, Liesl, and I all have nasty colds, probably brought home from daycare by our resident Typhoid Sebastian. But Steve let me go back to sleep after I woke up to feed Liesl at 5, made french toast for breakfast, and collaborated with Sebastian on a terrific art piece (see below). Liesl contributed to the drawing by scrunching and crumpling a corner, and drooling on it. :) I got a sweet silver bracelet, with Sebastian and Liesl's names engraved on it, two bouquets of flowers, and some delicious chocolate cupcakes. Steve worked from home so that we could go out to lunch together - we tried a Japanese place called Fujinoya in Hartsdale, which was very good. My brother called and sang to me, my parents skype-called and sang to me in unison, if not harmony, and my boys sang to me after dinner. All in all, a terrific day.

Of course, the biggest difference between being a child and having a birthday, and being an adult and having a birthday, is that all of your usual responsibilities still have to be done. Meals need to be cooked, dishes still need to be washed, laundry still has to be done and put away, babies still need to be fed and get diaper changes, baths have to be given, etc. But everyone was cheery today, and I feel so very blessed. To be 35, happy and healthy, with a lovely, sweet husband, two wonderful children, a good job with great colleagues, and a loving, supportive extended family - life doesn't get any better.

The left flower bouquet is yellow irises and narcissus; the right is purple sweetpeas, white freesia, and two other purple flowers whose names I've forgotten. They're perfect - they smell deliciously like springtime.

(Sebastian took this picture of the two of us - we had to prop the camera on a chair so that it would stay steady enough - he was very proud to be entrusted with the real camera.)