The kids and us

A bad idea

2011-01-23T21:44:00.005-05:00

There are lots of costs of having kids. Diapers, clothes, food, daycare, college funds - eventually it all adds up. But one cost that has always bugged me is associated with Teddy's haircuts. He hasn't had many, but to get him one, I tend to take him to the barber with me. When we're lucky, the barber charges him the half-price "kid rate". But most of the time, we end up paying the same amount for him as for me - around $25 with tip. (One could quibble that $25 is cheap for a men's haircut in DC, but that's not the point of this post.)

Part of me thinks that this is a good father-son bonding experience. While our barbershop isn't completely old-school, which would make it a real male bonding event, Teddy seems to enjoy it enough that I have figured that it's worth the cost. Still, I've always wondered whether we could figure out a better arrangement.

Back in December, Teddy and I spent some time wandering around the mall in Tyson's Corner while Mama and Margaret went to a performance of the Nutcracker. As we were walking through Macy's, I noticed a haircut set for around $30. (You can probably see where this will end up.) "Hmmm," I thought, "$30 for a razor.... that's almost as much as one haircut for the boy." I ended up buying it, in the process telling the checkout lady that it was for Teddy. "Does his mom know about this?," she asked. "Not really," I responded, "But maybe we'll make it a Christmas present."

Which we did. So, on Xmas day in Chicago, Mama and Teddy opened the haircut kit as a joint present. It has spent the last month sitting around our house as Teddy's hair has gotten longer and longer. We debated whether to take it back, but never got around to doing so. I read the guide included with the kit a few times and figured that it can't be that hard. After all, I've seen lots of barbers run their shears over my head without much subtlety. And my mom cut my hair until I was around 12, at which point my vanity necessitated heading to an actual salon.

To sum up: It's just absurdly expensive to get a 3-year-old's hair cut in DC, and it can't be that hard to cut his hair in any event. This past Saturday, Teddy was the guinea pig on which these various theories were tested. You can judge the results in the following pictures. Notably, his mom has been pretty tolerant about the whole situation, both the underlying theory and the actual implementation. I do, however, blame her for the ultimate length of his hair, as she kept saying, "It's too long in that spot" which led me to keep cutting more to even it out. And he was a squirmy little dude, making it even harder. Not sure if we'll give it another try, but I figure that every kid needs to have a crew-cut at some point.

WHAT?!?!?!

2011-01-13T21:03:00.002-05:00

Good grief, has it really been almost three months since I last posted something? Well, those of you who are looking for pictures will be disappointed as our picture-taking has been about as lax as my blog-posting over the last few months. And those of you who are here for other reasons, like the stellar writing and deep insights about parenthood, will undoubtedly be disappointed too.

Margaret has some hearing issues. We first noticed them around a year and a half ago. At that point, we took her into the pediatrician who checked her a bit by whispering behind her before declaring her sound. Ok, we thought - unless there was some clear evidence, which her daycare teachers at the time also didn't seem to notice, we were fine with the diagnosis. And the problem seemed to diminish for a while too.

But earlier this fall, we started to notice some symptoms of hearing issues again. "What!!!," Margaret would bellow in response to question from us. We started to get a bit concerned, which was reinforced when Ms. B, Margaret's teacher at school, asked us whether Margaret had hearing issues. She was then tested, along with another kid in her class, by the nurse at school, and failed both hearing tests. At which point, we decided that something must be done.

Now, it's a bit difficult to determine whether a four-year-old has hearing issues. On the one hand, there are hereditary issues at play. My grandfather and mom both have some hearing issues, as does my mother-in-law (sorry Grandma B., but it's true). With my mom, I typically won't interact with her in the morning before she's put in her hearing aids. Following the first sign that she's not hearing me, I'll ask "Mom, do you have your hearing aids in?" After the inevitable negative response, there's no point in continuing, at least in my view. Even Abby has started to exhibit some symptoms of hearing loss, so we figured that there's a possibility that Margaret had some hearing issues that were hereditary, albeit a bit unusual for a four-year-old.

But at the same time, she's four. So perhaps she's just suffering from the same hearing deficiency that I experience - she just doesn't listen when people talk to her. When I yell "What?" in response to a question, it's not that I don't hear, rather I'm just not listening. In Margaret's case, she's may be busy in her own little world, fiddling with her four-year-old stuff, which prevents her from hearing what's being said to her.

After our experience plus her teacher's comments plus the tests at school, however, we took her to a hearing specialist. Margaret was a little trooper - she and I went into a little room where Margaret sat with headphones while the technician checked her with various sounds, asking her to raise her hand when she heard them, which Margaret did wonderfully. After the tests, the doctor told us that there was bad news and good news. The bad news was that Margaret isn't hearing very well. The good news was that she could, in principle, hear fine, but that she had fluid built up in her middle ear. He showed us two lines, one which descibed Margaret's current hearing (through the headphones) and the other her potential hearing (when the middle ear is bypassed). "This line (the headphone one) isn't very good. She's basically hearing as if she has her fingers in her ears," he said. "But she could hear perfectly if she just got the junk out of her ears."

So next week, little Maggie will go in to get tubes put in her ears. Not a big deal, I don't think, except that they have to put her under to get her still enough to do it. I don't think that's a big deal either, and it will be nice for her to actually hear things, but it'll be an interesting experience. Not like the kids that I remember from childhood who had big tubes running out of their ears, and it's nice to know that she doesn't have some deeper problem, but it will still be "exciting" to have the doctors put her to sleep and stick some stuff in her ears.

I can't say that I'll miss the hearing issues. During the weeks around Christmas, we dosed her with antibiotics to see if that would help clear up any ear infection issues before going ahead with the procedure. But it didn't seem to work. Instead, we had almost more episodes of "Margaret, what did you do at school today?" "What?!?!" "WHAT DID YOU DO AT SCHOOL TODAY?" "WHAT?!?!?!" She really can bellow to emphasize that she doesn't hear what you say. (Whether the procedure will lower her overall volume control is another matter.) The doctor said that it can make an incredible difference, which will not only require me to cut back on my cursing, but will also allow us to have "peaceful" dinner discussions without having Margaret constantly yell "WHAT?!?!?" in response to everything said to her.

Buses

2010-11-20T00:06:00.001-05:00

Teddy likes trains. I suppose that's not a big surprise as anything that's big and noisy has to appeal to a little boy.

But what Teddy really likes are buses. Before getting into details about his fondness for buses, a slight detour...

For a while, we were biking into work. I would throw Teddy into his seat on the back and would bike for 15 minutes or so to get him to daycare before going to work. It was quite nice. It got us to daycare/work quickly and allowed us to quickly get back to pick up Margaret from her school in the evening. And it was a nice little workout for me that helped me wake up in the morning. (It's amazing how easy it is to ride a bike now that I don't have the extra weight pulling me around in the back. In fact, I sometimes feel a bit unstable without the extra ballast holding me down.) Teddy always had a fine time in the back, but he's been getting too big for the seat. So rather than biking in, we have lately been walking or getting a ride from Mama into daycare/work, after which we hurry home with the stroller to pick up Margaret.

Which is when Teddy is able to talk about buses. We see lots of buses on the way to get Margaret, and as each passes, Teddy asks, "What bus is that?" I reply with the bus number. "And where's it going?" I read the front of the bus and give the best reply that I can. "Oh," he says. Then we repeat the routine with the next bus.

"What bus is that?"

"The 38B."

"Where's it going?"

"That one goes to Virginia."

"Oh."

Then,

"What bus is that?"

"The D4."

"Where's it going?"

"Ummm, I'm not really sure."

Over and over again. I've started to get pretty good about identifying the various buses and where they go. Up Wisconsin Avenue to the Safeway, out by where Margaret has ballet lessons, over to Union Station (which always prompts the boy to chirp, "We've been there before with Joe and Lizzie!").

Sometimes, we even get to ride a bus home (if we're not in a rush because the bus tends to get stuck in traffic and move slower, or at least at a more variable speed, than us.) And Teddy has a ball sitting there poking at the emergency windows, asking if we're going to get off, and generally watching the world go by.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

So it's been some time since I've posted any pictures. Thus, a multimedia cornucopia.

Here are some from our annual Labor Day trip to Philly, where Joe, Andrew, Teddy and I went to a futbol game...

And here are some pictures from Teddy's recent birthday...

With a video...

And some Halloween pictures...

And some miscellaneous pictures...

One of life's great imponderables

2010-10-22T19:43:00.004-05:00

Before starting this post, I have to note that I've been getting hassled to post some stuff. Not because people are really interested in my writing, "wit," or "insights," such as they may be. But rather because people want pictures. Alas, for those hoping for a kid pic fix, I can't sate you today. My muse was spurred by something unrelated to pictures, or any event related to pictures, as you'll see below, so you'll have to wait a bit longer for a backlog of pictures to be posted.

As a (almost) completely potty-trained little fellow, Teddy has quite an array of little boy underwear. He's got Thomas the Tank Engine underwear and dinosaur underwear from the Gap. His favorite underwear series are those that we picked up from Target with superheros. Wolverine, Thor, Spiderman - all of the classic superheros from the comic books of my youth. They don't really spur any particular nostalgia in me, although my comic book collecting experience was my first exposure to an asset bubble - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, issues 1-3, were appreciating at 200% per year according to the price guides and comic conventioneers when I picked up my first issue at age 10. (My comics are now sitting in my parents' basement where they will undoubtedly "pay" for my kids' college education when I finally decide to sell.) What I did notice, however, is that the picture of the superhero is on the back of the underwear. Teddy noticed as well. What's up with that? The whole point of wearing superhero underwear is so that you can see them when you head to the bathroom. But how can you see them if they're on the back? Early on, Teddy started insisting on wearing his underwear so that he could, in fact, see the superhero picture when the time was appropriate. "You want to wear your underwear backwards?", I asked. "No, frontwards," he replied. We've gotten to the point where, each morning, I ask him, "Backwards or frontwards?" And he says, "Frontwards." So the Hulk or the Thing or whoever ends up facing out in Teddy's drawers.

I mentioned this to the ladies at daycare, who thought it was a hoot, but didn't really think much of it until I saw the following today in Pickles in the Washington Post:

Apparently, we're dealing with a deep cultural question about the design of little boys' underwear. And, as I'm sure will be the case throughout his life (hah!), Teddy is a trendsetter of sorts.

First day of school

2010-09-02T21:03:00.005-05:00

Margaret started pre-K at the local elementary school last week. Decked her out in all the usual start-of-school stuff like new tennis shoes, new backpack, new lunchbag and so on. She handled it all very well, although it took long enough for them to get the kids into the building, and enough other pre-K kids were distraught, that the fussing eventually spread to her, and she got a bit upset on the first day. But since then, she's been a complete champ. Seems to be doing very well with her new teacher and environs. Each day, she comes home with a new song or refers to a new friend or talks about something else new that we don't understand. Everyone at daycare misses her terribly, especially the caretakers, like Ms. Jakki, that started around the same time that she came into the infant room so that they've been with her from the beginning, but they have Teddy, who seems to be a pretty good, happy-go-lucky substitute. The transition to one kid in daycare, one kid in school is creating some logistical issues for our morning and afternoon commutes, but everything has gone reasonably smoothly so far. I plop the boy in the back of my bike and head into work in the morning and then do the same in the afternoon as we head back to pick up Margaret. It'll be interesting to see what arrangement we come up with when it rains or when it starts getting colder in the fall and winter.

Another vacation.... and the battles we fight

2010-08-12T22:18:00.005-05:00

When one doesn't post anything for a while, one gets quite backed up in terms of things to write about. Even worse, one often runs out of inspiration, even though "inspiring" events occur every day. For example...

The boy is now almost potty trained. He fought it for a long time. Not really active resistance, rather he would grin and agree to use the potty while he did whatever he wanted to do in his diaper. But just in the last week, he has started to use the potty on a regular basis. It's really quite exciting.

As for Margaret, our battle with her often involves her clothes and accessories. "I want to wear a dress," she insists, almost every day. But we've bought all these darn shorts and jeans, I think, so they can't go to waste. Or "I want to wear something pink," she says. But that green shirt is so nice, in my opinion.

When we went to Target to buy school supplies, we ran into this issue head on. "That backpack with the princess picture really catches my eye," she said. Uggh. I do NOT like the backpacks, or lunchboxes, or notebooks, that have pictures of princesses or Tinkerbell or anything like that on them. I like a nice purple backpack, perhaps with an interesting geometric design on it. Luckily, I was able to distract her enough that we ended up with reasonably palatable school stuff. But it's a constant battle. Dresses, not shorts. Pink, not another color. Designs, not princess pictures. It just goes on and on.

Luckily, the boy seems to have grasped his new skill, so we don't have to battle over that anymore.

In any event, here are some pictures from our recent vacation to Mount Desert Island (i.e., Acadia National Park) in Maine.

Trip to Minnesota

2010-07-10T21:20:00.007-05:00

We just got back from our annual trip to Green Lake in Minnesota. Interesting trip as mama unexpectedly had to leave early to get back for work while the kids and I stayed for a few more days. Before she left, Abby was able to run a 12 mile race around the lake, and we all got to watch the Fourth of July parade in the little town by the lake. Very small town America. Very different from the parades in D.C. where we see lots of bands and soldiers. This was more firetrucks and people in their cars driving through the town tossing out candy.

Luckily, mama's departure wasn't too traumatic as Green Lake is starting to grow on me - we had lots of fun swimming and canoeing around. Then, to make things even more interesting, the kids and I got stuck in the Minneapolis airport for five hours after our flight back was delayed. I was able to listen to the World Cup semifinal between Spain and Germany on the radio as we headed to the airport, and we we managed to get a haircut for Teddy during the delay. Still, the trip back wasn't much fun. Especially bad was when we got back to D.C. at 11:30 PM only to sit on the tarmac because they didn't have a gate for us. That was the only point where I threw my hands in the air and starting cursing.

In any event, here are some pictures. One thing to note is Teddy's "picture smile." Margaret has always had a charming picture smile. Point the camera at her, and she just lights up. Teddy, on the other hand, scrunches up his face and seems to grimace when a picture is being taken. It's cute, I suppose, in a certain way, but he definitely isn't as photogenic as his sister. Oh, and also note the last shot in which one can picture the future teenage Margaret in action. Terrifying.

Ghana 2 - U.S.A. 1

2010-06-26T21:25:00.001-05:00

Ah well, it was fun while it lasted....

Go Go U.S.A.!!!

2010-06-25T21:08:00.006-05:00

The U.S. is through to the knock-out round of the World Cup, and no one can accuse me of being a fair-weather fan. After all, a year ago, I posted about the great U.S. performance in the Confederations Cup. And to all those Brits who mockingly chant, "Can you name your 23?" to U.S. fans, I can actually say, "Yes. I can." Due to an inexplicable shortage (who is in charge of this at Nike?), I haven't been able to get a U.S. jersey, although for a few games, I did wear my South Africa jersey that the in-laws brought back from their trip to South Africa.

On Wednesday, the U.S. faced a do-or-die game against Algeria. Technically, we could have advanced to the next round as long as England tied Slovenia (and didn't score more than three goals doing so), but once England went up 1-0 in the first half of that game, we basically had to win to advance. A co-worker and I met up with some folks at a bar in downtown DC, probably the only time that the place was packed at 10:00 on a weekday morning. England game being shown on one side of the bar, the U.S. game on the other. And a very stressful game, it was. We didn't play terribly well, given the stakes involved, but by the second half, we started taking hold of the game. Numerous shots that we really should have finished, but we just couldn't put anything in the net. Around the 70th minute, I said, "You know, one of these just has to drop at some point," but we still couldn't get one in. By the 90th minute, after jumping up and then cursing and banging my seat so many times, I figured that we were just about done. Four minutes of injury time gave some hope, but did we really have a chance? But then... a quick outlet after an Algerian threat... a pass... a center from close range... a tap at the Algerian goalie that he blocked such that I thought we'd be denied once again... but then the ball scooted just far enough away that... pandemonium ensues. I honestly don't remember much of what happened. I remember the ball shooting into the back of the net, praying the goal wouldn't get called back (yet again), jumping up and down, and yelling myself hoarse along with everyone else in the place. Just amazing. One of the moments that only happens in futbol where you can go from the depths of despair to the pinnacle of victory in moments.

Next thing I knew, I was on the street in the bright sunlight trying to figure out how I could possibly go back to work for the rest of the day. Given that I can barely remember what happened when we won the game, I can't imagine what people on the street thought when the nearby bar erupted in deafening cheers.

To get a sense for what this was like, start with the play itself (can't promise this will work for long as FIFA keeps getting the feeds taken down)....

Then move to the scene in some bar in Nebraska...

And then the folks in Kansas City...

And the people in San Antonio...

And finish with the scene in Davis, California...

which is pretty much what I recall from the bar here in DC. Just brilliant. I can't get enough of this. Although I wouldn't sell Ghana or Uruguary or South Korea short, I just hope that we can continue on through our (relatively easy) bracket to get to the quarterfinals or semis. Wouldn't that be unbelievable?

Graduation Day

2010-06-22T20:45:00.009-05:00

I've recently been admonished to "put some stuff on the blog" because "some people count on it for updates." Not sure who those people are or what updates they require, but point taken. I've missed lots of stuff recently as my posts have dropped off. For example, while I noted that Margaret is starting to sprout up, losing all semblence of a little kid, in a recent post, Teddy has also grown a lot lately. He's now the biggest kid in the toddler room at daycare (by a mile!) and has almost caught up to Margaret. And he's losing all of his baby fat as he grows, although he can still flash a good belly or legs with some baby fat.

The biggest event in the last few weeks was Margaret's graduation from daycare. While we like the pre-school room at her daycare, she has already been there for two years, so we figure that another year is just too much. As a result, she'll be heading to the pre-school room at our local public school starting in August. Now, DC public schools have a pretty abysmal reputation so some of you may be aghast at this move. If so, you would fit in pretty well with our neighbors, almost all of whom send their kids to private schools. If you want a good school, the typical strategy involves sending the kid to a private school or moving to the 'burbs. But it turns out that the elementary school in our neighborhood is pretty good. Certain schools in DC, particularly those that draw from limited areas, are good and have huge demand from out-of-boundary families. Because we're in-boundary for the Hyde School, getting in wasn't an issue, rather we had to decide whether we wanted to send Margaret there, keep her in daycare, put her in private school, or move to the 'burbs. The second isn't too attractive for reasons noted earlier, the third is way too expensive, and the last would involve a big life change, so we've decided to send her to the Hyde School. And frankly, I think that she'll benefit from that decision. A private school would involve lots of people who are all the same whereas the local public school will have a more diverse, and interesting, group of students. And I think (hope) that, given some of the recent reforms in DC public schools, things will keep improving. We've started talking about it some, and Margaret seems excited in principle, although I suspect that in practice, she'll be much more hesitant when the time to transition actually arrives.

Because Margaret will be leaving her daycare at the end of the summer, she participated in their recent "graduation" ceremony. Now, I'm a bit skeptical about this type of event. After all, next year she'll be leaving pre-school for kindergarten. Then the following year, she'll be leaving kindergarten for grade school. This could continue forever with a new ceremony for each accomplishment. However, I suppose that some parents find this type of event to be a "big step" for their kid, and it is kind of cute, so I don't really object to it, as long as I don't have to do much. (Incidentally, the graduation started during half-time of the U.S.-Slovenia game in the World Cup. Because the U.S. was losing 0-2 at half-time after a horrific showing in the first half by the U.S. team, I was pretty perturbed at the beginning of the event. However, I followed the game on my Blackberry during the ceremony, and as the U.S. came back - first 1-2 early in the second half, then tying it 2-2 near the end - I was in a much better mood.) (Also, all of the daycare teachers teared up during the graduation ceremony. This was probably the most notable aspect of the event for me - while the teachers see lots of kids come through the center, it's good to know that they really feel some attachment to specific kids.)

So Margaret is now an "graduate" of daycare. In other notable news, Teddy pooped in the potty for the first time ever tonight. Because he befouls himself almost every day after getting home, I put him on the potty in front of a video and told him that he couldn't get up (but could keep watching videos) until he did something in the potty. I'm not terribly keen on the TV/video as a way to occupy the kids, but it appears to be about the only way to actually get the boy to sit on the potty, given that he generally shows little to no interest in it. In the end, he was successful which, quite frankly, I view as an accomplishment that (almost) rivals Margaret's "graduation" from daycare in the big scheme of things.

Margaret's birthday party

2010-05-09T20:51:00.003-05:00

Birthday parties for the toddler set can be pretty extravagant affairs. Some people rent out a "special" venue where the kids can run wild. Others hire some sort of performer to keep the kids entertained. Regardless of what people do, the events are always seem to be a serious amount of work for an hour or so of entertaining a bunch of toddlers/pre-school kids.

With that background, we set about planning Margaret's fourth birthday party a month or so ago. For prior birthdays, we've had family affairs, but for some reasons, Abby decided that we'd have a full-blown birthday party for Margaret this year. Which requires a number of decisions. Who do you invite? One possibility would be the party with a small number of select friends. Once we decided not to do this, we basically had to invite everyone. After all, if you're not being very selective, how can you not invite some kids from the preschool room at daycare? And you have to invite the neighborhood kids too.

Next, where do you hold the party? Initially, we thought about renting a local playroom that specializes in this type of event. My personal view was that we should just hold it at the local park. The kids can run around and entertain themselves, and everyone will be happy. What's the point of renting out a place when the kids won't care anyway?

In the end, we invited everyone from the preschool room, plus neighborhood kids and family friends, and held the party at a local park. We ended up with 25-30 kids, all of whom had a grand time running around, checking out bugs, and generally playing in the park. We got way too much food, but everyone seemed to enjoy the cake. And everyone seemed to have fun.

So I'd consider the party to be a success. We probably won't do this again in the future. Unless we do the small party with far fewer attendees. I know that Margaret had fun, but like anything with kids, it's not clear that she had more fun than she would have had with a party that required less work on our part. And that's what I'm looking for - something that makes the kids happy without much work. (I told a pregnant friend at work: "In all likelihood, anything that you think is cool, neat or useful about toys or other stuff for your kid, your kid won't care about." Words of wisdom, I think.)

The main purpose of this post is the pictures. Abby has been bugging me to post pictures from the birthday party, and when I said, "But they aren't any good," she said, "I don't care. I want those pictures." So here they are. All of them.

The Sports Guy

2010-05-03T20:21:00.009-05:00

First, the source of the above pictures. This past weekend, we travelled to see the Philadelphia cousins where we went to a Japanese bbq place that we had previously visited for Cousin Andrew's birthday. The cousin's parents went to a baseball game, so it was five kids, Abby, me, and a friend who was in town. (She was in town for a race that she was running with Abby and Rachel on Sunday morning.) The kids didn't have us severely outnumbered, but dinner at the restaurant was still a chaotic event. Our chef put on a pretty good show including the standard trick of throwing shrimp for people to catch. That's what Teddy is doing, or trying to do, in these pictures.

Teddy likes to catch things. More generally, he's a big sports fan. He basically likes every sport out there. Hockey: has no idea what's going on, but is fine sitting there and watching a game. Same with American football. Basketball he loves, especially if it involves Georgetown. And he has a somewhat better idea what's actually happening in a basketball game. Same with soccer.

But I think that he really loves baseball. I'm not sure why. In fact, I'm not sure why he likes sports at all. But he can actually sit for an amazing amount of time to watch a baseball game. Neither his mama nor his papa are particularly good at sports. And at this point in my life, I have little patience as a spectator of the vast majority of sporting events, especially baseball (which takes a god-awful amount of time to play a game) or football (which involves too much silly stuff with big fat guys falling down). Nowadays, I tend to like futbol or, I suppose, hockey, both of which involve lots of continuous action in a relatively compressed time frame.

Teddy, in contrast, wants to play baseball. He wears his little Cubs hat, has his little mitt, and especially likes to swing his little bat at "pitches" thrown at him. When he then throws the ball, he has this little wind-up that he must have learned from watching games on TV. It would appear that he's a submariner because when he tosses the ball, he tends to do so in an side-arm fashion. And it's not clear that he knows on which hand his mitt belongs - when I say, "Wrong hand, Teddy," he'll immediately concur, "Yeah, wrong hand" and will switch his mitt to the correct hand. But he almost always starts with his mitt on the wrong hand.

Speaking of the "wrong hand" for his mitt, it could be that he's left-handed. Like his sister. She is so clearly left-handed that there's no point in even discussing it at this point. She's interested in sports as well, but not nearly with the same intensity. Instead, she seems to be more of a "casual" sports fan like her mama and papa. I'm not sure if Teddy's interest reflects a gender effect or something else. But I do hope that he's not disappointed with his future athletic career. Given the athletic skill that he has gotten from his genetic background - on both sides - I fear that he will be.

Changing the title

2010-04-19T22:32:00.009-05:00

Ok, so now that Maddie is gone, I'll change the title of this blog to "The kids and us." The address will stay the same, but there's no point in keeping the title the same. Sort of like the fact that we got rid of many of Maddie's toys over the last few weeks - very sad, but what are you going to do?

I'll stop posting stuff about the dog, but before doing so, I'm going to write about how the kids are currently handling her absence (along with a few other thoughts and memories in one last post later - mainly for posterity rather than for the edification/entertainment of any readers out there).

Teddy has little sense that Maddie is gone. On occasion, he will mention her name, but he doesn't seem to dwell on her absence in any meaningful way. About the most that he's done is to raise his hand and complain about "Maddie hair" - something that he has always done after discovering some foreign hair object on his pacifier or food. Because we no longer have dog hair permeating the house, his complaints are less frequent, but they still pop up.

Margaret has a better sense that Maddie isn't here, but I don't think that she completely understands why or exactly what it means. Still, she seems to recognize that Maddie is gone and won't be coming back. For example...

When we walk home from work, we can walk through various parks. One is a nice playground just south of K St. that doesn't see many kids, but abuts a fenced-in dog park. The last two times that we have headed home in this direction, Margaret has asked about Maddie, probably because the dog park reminds her of Maddie. During the most recent trip along that route, Margaret, who was sitting (in a blatant safety violation) on top of the stroller in front of me said, "I miss Maddie." "Yeah, so do I," I said. "Why did Maddie have to leave?" "Well, she got sick and had to go to the doctor." "But she misses us." "Yeah, I'm sure that she does." "And we miss her." "Yes, we do." "But will she come back?" "No, I don't think so." "Why not?" "Well, she was pretty sick." (A pause.) "So she won't come back?" "No, she was pretty sick and I don't think that she'll be able to come back." (A pause.) "But she was a good dog." "Yes, she was." (A pause.) "I miss her a lot." "Yeah, I miss her a lot too."

Margaret was getting a little teary-eyed around this point, but I told her that we'd talk about it later and managed to get her distracted by something else. So while Margaret seems to have some understanding that Maddie isn't here, and seems pretty unhappy that she isn't, her understanding isn't terribly deep or persistent at this point.

Adjusting to Maddie's absence

2010-04-15T22:01:00.004-05:00

It's still difficult to come home from work and not see Maddie. Or to walk around the neighborhood without the dog. At this point in her life, Maddie wasn't doing the amazing things that she did in her prime, so it's more the overall routine that I miss. She was just there. Loitering around the kitchen. Helping with the yardwork. Jumping into the back of the car to accompany us to Target in the 'burbs or wherever we happened to be going. I'm so accustomed to thinking, "I'm going to 7-11 (or Oscar's store or Ricardo's store Griffin Market - two of the little bodegas in our neighborhood) and I'll take Maddie along and she'll wait outside for me" that it's really jarring, and not a little disorienting and depressing, to go by myself.

One thing that I really miss is her ability to "clean up" after the kids. Neither of the kids is a terribly neat eater at this point. Teddy, in particular, is quite a slob. So we end up with lots of rice or peas or whatever on the floor after dinner. And cereal all over the little breakfast table in the morning. In the past, I never gave much thought to these spills, as Maddie would invariably clean them up at some point. But now, they just sit there. So we have rice under the dinner table from a couple of days ago, waiting for Abby or me to vacuum it up. Even when I'm cooking dinner, I find that I'm amazingly careless about scattering little scraps on the floor during my food prep because, in the past, I could always count on her to take care of them.

Margaret knows that Maddie isn't here. (Not surprisingly, Teddy is basically clueless, although he has called her name or mentioned her a few times. But there's no depth to his mentions of her.) Yesterday, when we came home, Margaret yelled "Maddie!!" as we always do, then casually asked "Where's Maddie?" when the dog didn't appear. But she headed right for the bathroom without waiting for a response and didn't belabor the point. Nor did I. (By the way, it's exactly this sort of casual event - calling "Maddie" when we open the door after getting home - that is so freakin' difficult for me.)

Today, she was a bit more persistent, although not at the obvious time when we got home. "Where's Maddie?" she asked as we walked home, partly because she was whining about things in general and decided that this was a reasonable thing to whine about. "Well, Maddie got sick and had to go to the doctor," I told her. "But she'll miss us," Margaret replied. I told her that we'd talk about it later. Then when she asked the same question as we drove to Target to get stuff for her birthday party - again the type of situation where I really miss the dog because she would always be there in my rear view mirror as we drove somewhere after jumping into the back with a casual "Maddie up!" - and got the same response, she said, "But she'll miss us. And we'll miss her."

I don't think that Margaret can possibly understand the situation, even if she notices Maddie's absence. I think that I'll probably deflect her questions forever. I won't really lie to her (which some friends in Chicago suggested - "Maddie's gone to a farm" or something like that), but I'm not sure that it's even possible to have a meaningful or informative discussion about death with a four-year old.

A final thought is that I've been amazed by how sympathetic people are when they hear that you've lost a pet. I may be a bit inexperienced with grief, having lost few important people in my life. After all, I still have two 90-year old grandparents around (both of whom are going strong) and, until last year, had three. When people have told me that they've lost a pet in the past, I think that I've had a somewhat subdued response, partly because I don't want to intrude on their personal grief and partly because I don't have much experience with it. But when I mention that Maddie died, both to friends in Chicago and to people at work, it's been amazing how sympathetic people have been. And, I have to say, it really helps.

Maddie, August 1998 - April 2010

2010-04-13T19:55:00.036-05:00

For the last couple of weeks, Maddie has been a bit "off." Really, she started to slow down noticeably around a year ago. We haven't played frisbee in almost a year and even our ball-playing fell off quite a bit in the last few months. To a large extent, we attributed this to old age and arthritis. At her last check-up a few months back, the vet seemed to agree - she's an older dog who's getting pretty stiff after years of "hard work." So he put her on some anti-inflammation meds to help with the arthritis which really seemed to help a lot. I think that the joint pain exacerbated her aversion towards the kids - we felt that she linked the psychic trauma associated with the kids to the physical trauma of her arthritis - so when that pain was gone, she was much more willing to hang out around them, even if she still didn't want to interact with them too much. Way too much drama for her.

But she slowed down even more in the last two weeks. Stopped eating her food with her normal vigor, lagged behind on walks, and showed little interest in ball or most of her other favorite pastimes. I could still get her to prance around with a stick or pull me into the local bodega for a dog treat, but in hindsight, she definitely wasn't her normal self. She also had a blood test that came back bad a few months ago. The vet never quite explained what the blood test results could mean as we decided to redo it and it came back fine, but he did mention ultrasounds and other potential tests to see if we could figure out what, if anything, was wrong with her. Even if we had done more tests, I'm not sure that we could have, or would have, done anything about Maddie's condition. She was an old dog and, it turns out, a sick dog, and at some point, one just has to come to grips with the fact that a dog's longevity is much shorter than ours.

This past weekend, Abby, the kids, and I flew to Chicago. The kids were going to visit the Chicago grandparents, Abby was going to see some of our friends, and I was going to the Cubs home opener at Wrigley with the guys that I had season tickets back in the late 90s. At the airport in DC before we left, we got a call from Rodah, our friend who was taking care of Maddie, who said that Maddie was having trouble walking. Ok, we said, let's see if she gets better over the course of the day, and we'll figure out what to do. But she didn't get better. Rodah said that she was alert, as always, but just didn't seem able to move about on her own. After a few calls with Rodah on Saturday afternoon, between which we tried to figure out what to do and how we could get Maddie to the vet, we finally decided to fly Abby back to DC on a Saturday evening flight from Midway to Dulles. Our thinking was that it wasn't fair to have Rodah, or anyone else, deal with trying to get Maddie to the vet on a Saturday night. And she wasn't improving in a way that made us think that she'd "get over it" by the time we got back on Tuesday. A diabetic episode? (Even if Maddie hadn't shown any evidence of being diabetic before.) Her arthritis getting worse? (Which wouldn't explain why she wasn't eating.) Or something else?

Abby got back around 10:00 PM on Saturday night only to find, adding insult to injury, a car partially blocking our garage. She managed to get out of the garage, picked up Maddie, and took her to a 24 hour vet hospital in Friendship Heights around midnight. I don't know exactly what happened, but my understanding is that the vet people carried her back (because Maddie couldn't walk) to do some tests. A distraught Abby then called me with the test results: they had done an ultrasound on Maddie's abdomen and found significant cancer-like tumors in her stomach, spleen, and other organs. The prognosis was so negative that we decided to have Maddie put to sleep late on Saturday night. Abby sat with her for a while before they finally put her down.

Not that it would have mattered to Maddie, who wouldn't have understood anyway, but I'm very sad that I didn't get to properly say goodbye to her. But at the same time, I probably wouldn't have handled it well at all, so it may be for the best that I wasn't there. And Maddie was getting old - she was arthritic, didn't like the kids very much, and was a shadow of her former self. Given that the next few years would have seen an inevitable decline, I think that we're ok - or at least I'm ok - with the outcome.

Still, I miss her terribly. I especially miss seeing her in the back of the car when we got picked up at the airport today - Maddie would always be in the back, with her head out the window, looking intently for some sign of me when I got picked up at the airport. Or taking her to the grocery store in the car with the kids. Or just going out for a walk with her and the kids to get a bottle of wine or a gallon of milk. Or seeing her in the morning next to the bed or outside the bathroom door when I took a shower. Or hearing the click-click-click of her toenails on the wood floors as she moved around. Or seeing her head poke around the corner of the stairs when we came home after work. Or having her loiter around while I cooked dinner, or the kids ate dinner, waiting for scraps to fall to the floor for her to hoover up. All of the things that she was just "there" for.

But she was old. And we couldn't have done much for her given how sick she was. It's sad, but she had a good run, a life that was really special, and so while we'll all miss her, I think that it was an ok time for her to go.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

We got Maddie at a farm outside of Chicago back in 1998. She was born in August which I know because Maddie was almost exactly the same age as my niece Alex, and they've always been linked together in my mind as 4, then 6, then 8, then 11 year olds. It was taking me longer than I expected to finish my thesis, so Abby and I decided to get a dog. I did some research on the rudimentary internet that existed back in 1998, and we decided to get a Border Collie, the smartest darn dog around. We found an ad for a litter in a newspaper and drove out to the cornfields by De Kalb. The breeder, who was so old that he's probably not around anymore either, had two pups left, one of which was really timid while the other wiggled and squirmed between our legs. Although I don't think that we were set on getting a dog when we headed out there, we fell in love with the second dog and ended up taking her home on Abby's lap, wrapped in a blanket.

Maddie and I spent the next few years as constant companions. I would work throughout the day, but would take breaks to hang out with Maddie. We would walk to Wiggly Field (a dog park in Lakeview in Chicago on Sheffield by the El tracks) or Lincoln Park to play with the other dogs or, even better, to play ball or frisbee in the middle of the morning. Rain or shine - I recall walking from Lincoln Park in full rain gear, covered with mud, with an ecstatic Maddie after playing ball for an hour or so. Then we would take a break in the afternoon to sit on our stoop outside our place on N. Clifton, where Maddie would stand on the ledge next to the stairs and stare, with a cocked head, at everyone who walked by.

When we moved to Pittsburgh, Maddie and I had a similar routine. I would take her into the office with me at CMU where she would lie under my desk while I had office hours or did work. Other days, we would head to the huge parks in Pittsburgh where we would play ball, frisbee, or just wander through the woods. (Maddie was an awesome hiking dog and got to see some great parts of the country in Wyoming, the mountains of Virginia, and other such places.) Or I would work on the swing on our front porch while Maddie stood on the wall around the porch, watching the world go by. The mailman would hand cookies up to her when he delivered the mail. (That's one thing about Maddie - delivery people were always fearful of her. Rightfully so, I suspect, given their typical experiences with other dogs. But they always immediately warmed up to Maddie once it became clear how good-natured she was.)

Once we moved to DC, things got more complicated for Maddie. I was less able to spend free time with her at the drop of a hat. And then the kids came along. Although Maddie handled Margaret's arrival ok, I don't think that she ever coped with the kids very well. Especially once Teddy arrived, and once they started causing all of the drama that surrounds toddlers. Lord knows, I had problems with them, but Maddie just seemed to want them to go away. Or to be able to go away herself. But when she and I went out for walks, sans kids, it was just like old times. Maddie would prance around, grabbing a stick, ball, or whatever else caught her fancy, while I would admonish her for sniffing at something too long or would try to grab the stick from her or would bop her on the head which would send her into a paroxysm of pleasure.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Maddie was an awesome dog. While I'm sure that everyone says that about their dog, Maddie really was an awesome dog. All of our friends and family seemed to feel that way. And random people in the park or on the street would often stop to comment on what a great dog she was.

She was an incredible frisbee dog. Border collies are renowned for their frisbee skills, so Maddie may not have been that exceptional in this regard, but it was literally breathtaking to watch her play frisbee in her prime. We would go to the big parks in Pittsburgh where I would rear back and fling a floppy frisbee down the field for a hundred yards. Maddie would track the thing, making an arc in her run as necessary, before leaping to catch it with her body fully extended in the air. It was amazing to see, and people on walks would stop to watch as she flew out to catch the frisbee before returning it to my feet. When we went to the big field in Frick Park on misty, foggy mornings, we would leave trails in the wet grass reflecting the routes that Maddie would take to catch the frisbee and return it to me.

She was an incredible "ball" dog. Although I loved playing frisbee with Maddie because it was so amazing to watch, I think that Maddie always was, at heart, a ball dog. And only tennis balls, nothing else. Something about the smell or texture of them, I suspect. She loved to chase and catch the ball. Not only did she do the Border Collie crouch in front of me when we played ball, but she was so intense about it that she ended up wearing a ball-shaped pattern into her teeth from where she carried and chomped on it. One of our better tricks was to scatter a few balls around. I would dance from one to the next, tossing each ball up in turn, and Maddie would shoot from ball to ball, catching and then immediately dropping each of them. Toss it through my legs, and she would catch it. Over her head, and she would jump up, flip sideways, and catch it. Toss it up right next to me, and she would shoot herself forward to catch it. I would bounce from one to the next, tossing them up, her catching and dropping them, then me jumping to the ones that she dropped to toss them up again. Toss up, catch, drop, toss up, catch, drop - exhausting for both of us, but exhilarating to do. She would get wiped out, especially in the summer heat, but I think that she loved it. I know that I did.

She was a beautiful dog. A color that was very unusual for a Border Collie - people often thought that she was a Brittany or a Springer Spaniel or an Australian Shepard. Not only the color threw people off, but also the curly hair. But watch her play ball and you knew - she was a Border Collie to the core. She had long legs and a big barrel chest and walked with a jaunt in her step that resembled the walk of a coyote or a wolf.

And as befits a Border Collie, she was astonishingly smart. When we lived in Pittsburgh, we would occasionally sit in bed running through all the words that she knew. She would sit there, listening and cocking her head, as we ran through word after word that she understood. I think that she probably understood almost 200 or more words and phrases at various points. She could find specific toys, identified by specific names, even if those toys were on a different floor of the house. "Go get your tug toy." "Go get your squeak toy." "Go get your monkey." Maddie would run from floor to floor until she found the exact toy that had been requested. I taught her all sorts of silly tricks. "Roll over," "sit," "shake," and "switch" were child's play for Maddie. Better tricks were those like "weave" - which involved her weaving in and out of my legs as I walked - or "eight" - which involved her doing a figure eight in my legs when we stopped doing "weave." We would play hide-and-go-seek, which we called "ok come find me." I would tell her to sit, would go off to hide in a closet somewhere, and would call "ok come find me." And she would - she was so proud and excited when she would finally find me. (The kids liked this one too, but we didn't play it nearly enough in the last few years because our current house just isn't set up for a good game of "ok come find me.") But it wasn't just the fact that she knew these words, it was the concentration that she put into them. She would sit there, staring at you, cocking her head as you talked, as if she knew, or was trying to understand, exactly what you were saying. My god, it was amazing.

Early on, I taught her to jump up - "Maddie up!" - on any wall that we were passing. So we would walk down Belmont Avenue in Chicago, with Maddie jumping up on various walls and ledges along the way. In DC, her best "up" trick involved walking on the barriers along the bridges in our neighborhood - she could literally stop traffic by trotting along the barrier of the bridges over Rock Creek. And down by the monuments on the Mall, she would jump from one jersey barrier to the next after the powers that be ostensibly put them up for security purposes (but really for entertainment of Border Collies and their owners).

She loved to "help" with yard work. Whether it involved sweeping leaves or shoveling snow, Maddie wanted to be right there in front of my rake or shovel, jumping up to catch whatever leaves or snow I tossed to the side. Before the kids came along, people passing by would inevitably say, "You've got a real helper there." To which I would reply, "She likes to think she's helping." After the kids joined in, with their own rakes or shovels, the comment would be "You've got a bunch of helpers there." "They like to think they're helping," I would reply. Honestly, I can't imagine sweeping our sidewalk without Maddie right in front of the broom as I do so.

And she was an incredibly good-humored dog. I don't think that I ever saw Maddie act aggressively towards another person or dog. With other people, she would vigorously wag her tail, trying to get as close to them as possible. She especially loved visits to the "vacation home," be it Connecticut, Philadelphia, or Chicago. Other dogs she largely ignored because she really just wanted to play ball. But on occasion, another particularly persistent dog could get her to bounce around, playing "tag" as the other dog tried to bowl her over.

We experienced such an encounter this past winter, when a year old lab tried to chase Maddie through the snow in Montrose Park. She bounded through the snow, getting completely exhausted, while the lab tried futilely to catch her. And I remember one such episode at Frick Park in Pittsburgh. We ran into a couple of Bernese Mountain dogs in a big field at the park. They tried to chase her by cutting her off as she looped around them in big circles. But every time they would get near, Maddie would put on a little burst of speed to get past them. It was amazing to watch - I don't think that I've ever seen her run so fast. She would run these big loops, the other dogs would lunge at her, and she would turn it on just enough, but at an astonishing and utterly glorious pace, to elude their paws. It seemed like she knew that, whatever the other dogs did, she could hit another gear that would get her just out of their reach. She was running so fast, with her legs flying, that it was beautiful to watch. Then, after getting past the other dogs one more time, she would slow down and stand there, with her tongue lolling out and a big "grin" on her face as if to say, "Alright, let's do that again. Or better yet, where's my ball?"

Fighting like cats and dogs

2010-03-29T21:38:00.007-05:00

First things first - I don't have any new pictures to post. Because both Mama and Papa have been really busy at work, my picture-taking has fallen off lately. As has my blogging, which is certainly obvious to my long-suffering, but incredibly dedicated fans.

The lack of pictures is a real failure on my part because the kids are getting bigger by the day. Margaret is starting to display that skinny, scrawny, long-limbed look that one sees in grade school kids. Every so often, I'll pick her up and will think, "My goodness, she's getting tall and thin." Even Teddy is starting to lose his baby fat. He still has impressive thighs and a good-sized belly, which he likes to display when prompted, but he's also starting to sprout up and, in the process, thin out a bit. (He isn't doing so well with the potty. No resistance, but no interest. At least not at home, although the daycare teachers tell us that he's perfectly happy to use the potty at school. Fits in well with the personality traits that I'm about to describe.)

Beyond these physical changes, there have been two notable developments. The first is an emerging independent streak in Teddy. Actually, it's not so much an independent streak as it is an obstinate streak. Teddy likes the word "No." But as he's gotten older, his language skills have developed such that his use of "no" is more sophisticated than a toddler who just declares "no" in response to everything. So we have: "Teddy, can you eat some of your dinner?" "No, I don't like it." "But Teddy, you liked this the last time we had it." "But I don't like it now!"

Fighting with Teddy about food has become a pretty standard routine. Margaret has never been very picky about her food, especially when a "special treat" looms as a reward at the end of dinner. But Teddy is increasingly reluctant to try things. This is a problem. Because Papa cooks some pretty good food - like mushroom risotto tonight - and knows the boy will like it if he just will try it, but just can't get it into his mouth. He's not picky in the sense that he doesn't actually like most of the food that we eat (and I'm right: when he actually eats most things, he likes them), but he's picky in a strategic way. He knows that its drives Papa crazy and so, quite naturally, he won't eat.

And this obstinance extends to basically everything that Teddy does. "What do you want to do today?" "I want to play tennis." "How about soccer? We can go to the park and kick the ball." "No, I want to play tennis." And then, two hours later, "When are we going to play tennis?" Or "Do you want to go to the grocery store with Papa?" "No." "Not even if you get a croissant?" "No, I don't want a croissant." "But you like croissants." "No, I don't."

So Teddy is a bit difficult at this point. Recently, I have asked Abby whether Margaret was similarly difficult at the same age. She hems and haws which I take to mean that "Yes, all two-year-olds are difficult." But I honestly can't remember getting as frustrated with Margaret as I do with Teddy. Perhaps I should scan through the archives of this blog to see whether I can find a similar post about the girl.

The second development, which is more problematic in the big scheme of things because it may last much, much longer, is the sibling warfare that we have started to experience. Margaret and Teddy bicker and fight. A lot. Over really silly things. Like who has the "blue cup." Or, if they both have blue cups, who has the "light blue cup." It's really amazing what they'll fight over: the table at which the eat breakfast has two identical chairs, but one of them will decide that a certain chair is the preferred chair and must be used. At which point the other decides that he or she cannot do without that specific chair. Despite the fact that it's exactly the same as the other freakin' chair!!!

Now, logic is completely useless in this type of situation. The best that one can do is to either distract them ("Hey, do you see a garbage truck out there?"), fool them ("Here's your plate, Margaret. No wait, that's Teddy's plate. No wait, it's your plate."), or make everything equivalent whenever possible ("You both have light blue cups.") And even if one can get past these little spats about who has what, the kids are constantly banging into each other in ways that lead to conflict. So Teddy will bodyslam Margaret who will begin to howl. Or Margaret will grab Teddy's hat and will dance off with it in a way that causes Teddy to howl. Neither the bodyslam nor the hat are important in the big scheme of things, but both of them know that what they're doing will get a rise from the other. And, more importantly, will get a rise out of Papa.

Here's a microcosm of our current life: on Saturday morning, we woke up with both of the kids in bed with us. (They're doing better about sleeping in their own beds through the night, partly because we bribe them with stickers, but by the dawn, both kids usually end up in our bed at some point.) After an initial negative exchange with Teddy about the grocery store and croissants (as described above), Teddy started prodding his sibling. Margaret: "Stop it Teddy." Me: "Teddy, quit it." A pause. Then more squirming and poking. Margaret: "Stop it Teddy!" Me: "Teddy, I'm serious, knock it off!" A brief lull. Then more squirming, poking, and kicking followed, in a very pained, whiny voice, by "STOP IT TEDDY!!!!!" At which point Mama, always the reasonable party in these disputes, swung Margaret over to her other side away from the boy.

But remember, it's 6:30 in the morning. All of this is going on during the first 10 minutes of our time together. It just foreshadows a long day of sibling disputes, Papa explosions, and Mama interventions.

Oh, the shame!

2010-02-26T22:27:00.010-05:00

So we survived the snow. Barely. In the end, DC got hit by a serious amount of snow. Enough to make even a real snow city blink. And it happened twice. The first day of snow was fun, although the kids didn't enjoy sledding very much. Lots more violent bouncing and snow in the face than I remember when I was a kid. Apparently, things like snow in the face, or cold more generally, are kind of overlooked, and subsequently forgotten, when one is 10 years old. By the second snowfall on Wednesday, we were all sick of the snow - we sat there watching, with bemusement, as another vicious storm swept through the area. Trying to figure out what the heck we were going to do for the next few days.

DC never handles snow well, but this was a pretty serious double whammy. The snow basically shut the city down for an entire week. My work was closed, and Abby's work was completely inaccessible. And, most importantly, the daycare was closed. So we spent the entire week together, with Abby and me trying to get work done remotely. Despite the difficulties getting in touch with co-workers. And despite the kids.

I have to say, I have much more respect for stay-at-home moms after the last few weeks. Being at home with kids is a serious chore. They are very demanding little suckers. After a few days, we tried a sort of divide-and-conquer strategy. I would take the kids to Barnes and Noble for a few hours, pulling them down the street in the sled to get there, while Abby did some work. Then they'd either nap or Abby would entertain them while I did some work. Or we'd put them in front of that great, hypnotic technological innovation - the TV - more than we did in the past. (We did manage a great trip to Philly after the snow, which is the source of some of the pics below.)

We've basically gotten back in the swing of things over the last week. Until yesterday. Yesterday morning, the daycare sent out a message that a case of head lice had been reported in the preschool room. And they subsequently told us that both Teddy and Margaret showed some evidence of infestation. Now, the kids are obviously quite blonde, so it's very easy to spot dark stuff in their hair, whether or not it's a nit. And lice are sort of like bedbugs, at least in spirit - you feel so icky that you overreact and throw absolutely everything into the washer at high heat. But, having checked Margaret's head a few times, it would appear that she does have some evidence of lice nits. Which really sucks. You have to wash their hair with this nasty medicine stuff. And you have to work through their hair with a fine-tooth comb. Which is difficult enough with Teddy's short hair - he screamed the whole time - but is really difficult with Margaret's long hair. We'll probably take her to the barber tomorrow to get a few inches taken off, just to make things easier. That will be her second haircut ever.

Hopefully, we'll be able to take care of it. The kids' resistance to the whole process is bad enough, but the paranoia is worse. Frankly, I'm feeling a little itchy myself. It's probably all in my mind, but...

Snow!

2010-02-05T21:39:00.007-05:00

It's snowing again. And it's snowing hard.

This is the third real snowfall that we've had this winter in DC. The first happened right before Xmas, as I documented in my last post. Just before the first snowfall, I checked around to see if any of the local hardware stores had sleds. No luck. So I later bought a sled at a random store during a trip to NoVa, just in case it snowed again. Luckily, we were able to use the sled when it snowed last weekend, as you can see in the pictures below. It turns out that sledding is a bit more turbulent than I recall from my youth, so the kids didn't like the "big" hills very much. Too much bouncing and snow flying in the face. Instead, they mainly had fun on a little hill. Or they just liked getting pulled around in the sled.

And it's snowing again tonight, so we'll probably be able to use the sled again tomorrow. And, like I said, it's snowing hard. I think that we're supposed to get around 16 inches, which is a pretty respectable snowfall anywhere, but is especially traumatizing for a place like DC which doesn't handle snow very well. We always manage to survive, despite the empty shelves of milk and vegetables at the grocery store this morning - plenty of bok choy, but not much else - but the city basically shuts down when we get a couple of inches, much less 16.

In preparation for the snowfall, we read a bunch of snow-related books before bed last night. We read A Snowy Day - an absolute classic, especially the part when Peter, the little boy in the story, takes a stick, which Margaret always calls a "Maddie stick," drags it along the ground and then smacks a "snow-covered tree." "Down fell the snow - plop - on top of Peter's head." At which point Margaret, and now Teddy, as the consummate mimic, always bangs me on the head. I especially like the conclusion when Peter calls to his friend from across the hall, and they go out together into the deep, deep snow. That line just gets me with a sense of utter tranquility and simplicity.

We also read White Snow, Bright Snow, another classic snow tale. That one also has a great ending as the kids watch for the first robin to the let them know that spring has finally arrived.

We finished with my favorite snow book of all, Snow by Uri Shulevitz. I just love this book. My sister, Rachel, was reading it to Margaret at one point and stopped in the middle to say, "This is a really good book." Indeed.

The skies are gray. The rooftops are gray. The whole city is gray.

Then...

...one snowflake.

"It's snowing," said boy with dog.

"It's only a snowflake," said grandfather with beard.

Then two snowflakes. "It's snowing," said boy with dog.

"It's nothing," said man with hat.

Then three snowflakes. "It's snowing," said boy with dog.

"It'll melt," said woman with umbrella.

A few snowflakes float down and melt.

But as soon as one snowflake melts another takes its place.

"No snow," said radio.

"No snow," said television.

But snowflakes don't listen to radio.

Snowflakes don't watch television.

All snowflakes know is snow, snow, and snow.

Snowflakes keep coming and coming and coming.

circling and swirling, spinning and twirling,

dancing, playing, there, and there,

floating, floating through the air,

falling, falling everywhere.

And rooftops grow lighter, and lighter.

"It's snowing," said boy with dog.

The rooftops are white.

The whole city is white.

"Snow," said the boy.

There are these kids books that get you as an adult. They aren't necessarily the ones that appeal to the kids, nor are they ones that the kids don't like. A Snowy Day is one. Snow is another. I also like Make Way For Ducklings or other books by Robert McCloskey (especially Lentil with its robber baron, the great Colonel Carter). Basically, anything that hits you with its rhythm, flow and good narrative is a book that's fun to read. Dr. Seuss has the rhythm and flow, but I often find his narrative to be lacking. But give me a good Madeline book, and I'm happy.

More Xmas 2009 Pictures

2009-12-30T23:11:00.005-05:00

A hectic few weeks. Started with a monstrous snowstorm in DC before we left. We then drove up to the CT grandparents, dumped the kids with them, and spent a few days in NYC. Sublime. Returned for Christmas Eve and had a crazy time on Christmas morning. Both of the kids were understandably overwhelmed by the event. They either opened random presents, regardless of the intended recipient, or got sidetracked by something that they had just unwrapped. Teddy, for example, alternatively walked around with his guitar, his Wiggles DVD, or his drum. Margaret got lots of girly presents, including two purses and two princess dresses. She was in heaven. Not much else to say, but a bunch of pictures:

Xmas Photos 2009

2009-12-16T21:48:00.012-05:00

We're trying to work out the photo to include with our annual Xmas card. This involves two issues. First, actually getting a picture taken. This is harder than one might think. At least one, if not both, of the kids invariably objects to having a picture taken. Then, when we get them both in place, it's almost impossible to get both of them to sit still, much less to look at the camera. And a smile - impossible! The result is that we all - kids and parents - get very frustrated. I ended up snapping about 50 pictures during our recent session, and the best - in fact, the only remotely acceptable ones - are reproduced below:

I think that I'm leaning towards the first (or maybe the third), but any specific votes would be appreciated. In any event, most of the dedicated (sic) readers of this blog will get the ultimate selection anyway, so you at least get to see some of the others.

You know what? My Grandmother is probably right.

2009-12-14T20:21:00.008-05:00

Tonight, Teddy ate four pierogies during dinner. I'll explain the relevance of that fact later. But first, a lengthy digression.

We spent the recent Thanksgiving holiday with my Dad's family in Ohio. It's always a big event that draws our increasingly dispersed clan to the same place every year. One of the people that we all come to see is my paternal Grandmother. Grandma M is a bit north of 90 years old and has lived in northern Ohio for her entire life. Despite some recent medical hiccups, she's doing really well. She finishes the crossword in the time that it takes me to puzzle through the first few clues. And last year, she subtly berated me for the shotgun marriage that my employer brokered between a prominent Cleveland bank and its acquirer from Cleveland's arch rival city, Pittsburgh. While one could quibble about the details surrounding that complaint, my colleagues all nodded ruefully when I told them about my Grandma's admonishments. In short, she's one of the most remarkable people I've ever known.

However, it's taken me years to realize that fact. Most prominently, it's taken me years to realize that my Grandmother tends to be right about many things that I pooh-pooh'ed in my early years. Some examples.

Football is a stupid sport. I can remember watching college football games at my Grandmother's house during past Thanksgiving visits. As the broadcast showed pictures of the offensive linemen, my Grandmother would always say, often with a dismissive glance at the TV, "No neck, no neck, no neck" for each picture. At the time, I basically ignored these seemingly irrelevant comments, but now I realize that my Grandmother was taking a subtle, and quite justified, dig at football. Basically, football - specifically, the American version - involves a bunch of really fat guys who crouch down for a few seconds before they all suddenly run into each other and fall down. Then, they all get up and, after a minute or so, do it again. The clearest evidence that football is a stupid sport is that no one else in the world plays football. Unlike baseball, basketball or other American exports, no one (except for Canada which doesn't really count) has latched onto football, regardless of their level of development or links to us. Think about it a bit and find me another major sport that is so unique to a single major country (and I'm not talking about hurling or other minor sports that are practiced in only one country).

To be honest, I do still watch football games. And my Grandmother probably didn't intend to besmirch football to the same extent that I just did. Nevertheless, I've realized that her overall skepticism of the sport is certainly warranted.

Second, interstate highways. When driving around northern Ohio, my Grandma would often take secondary roads rather than highways. I recall being irked by this behavior. Why take the secondary highway when the interstate would get you there much faster? Now, however, I hate driving on the interstate. Even if I'm driving fast, there are too many other people driving fast or not paying attention to what they're doing. As a result, when we head up to Philly, we take an awesome back route up the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. Sure, it takes a bit longer, but it's an immensely more pleasant trip than the hectic drive up I-95 through Baltimore. On a recent trip, the traffic on Hwy 301 was so light that we were able to slow down to watch a bald eagle that was circling just above us. Do that on I-95, and you'll get rear-ended by a big truck.

Next, the length of the Christmas season. I can recall my Grandmother commenting on how the Christmas season starts too soon. At the time, this involved Christmas ads starting just before Thanksgiving. Way too early, my Grandmother would suggest. Now, I see Christmas ads shortly after Halloween. And I hear Christmas music in stores in early November. Completely nuts, especially for the poor folks working in the stores who now have to listen to these hokey songs for an additional full month.

(A separate digression reflecting some words of wisdom from Mark. I often tell my research assistants that every young person should work three jobs. First, fast food. After you see how fast food is produced, you'll never want to eat it again. Which is probably for the best. Second, a warehouse job or other job involving manual labor. After a few weeks of complete tedium, you'll realize that you're going to school so that you don't end up doing such stuff for the rest of you're life. Finally, retail. So that you can see how badly others treat people working in retail, and you'll treat those people with a bit more decency.)

And, at last, pierogies. My Grandmother used to get pierogies from a nearby church where they were made in the basement by immigrant ladies from Eastern Europe. I recall being very suspicious of the whole deal. Potato pierogies? Sauerkraut pierogies?? And, god forbid, prune pierogies???? It wasn't clear that such exotic items were actually edible.

Of course, I now love 'em. Bought six boxes of frozen pierogies from the grocery store when they were on sale this week. The frozen ones are a poor substitute, I'm sure, for those made by the immigrant ladies in the church basement, but Teddy definitely loves them too. He started out with two on his plate, but ended up plowing through four by the end of dinner.

In the end, the lesson is twofold. First, Teddy is a trooper when it comes to food. Not only is he pretty adventurous - in addition to pierogies, he'll eat Indian food or pretty much anything else we put in front of him - but he's got a good appetite. When he puts his mind to it. As in everything, he can be stubborn, but that doesn't usually reflect an objection to a particular dish. Instead, it's just Teddy being his stubborn little self. Once we get something in his mouth, he'll typically eat it and will ask for more.

Second, as I get older, I recognize the wisdom possessed by people older than me. Certainly, I recognize the wisdom of my Grandmother. (Also, my maternal Grandfather who was right when I argued with him about the merits of Broadway musicals vs. Bob Dylan. Dylan certainly is ok, but he's not really that much better than South Pacific or other Rodgers and Hammerstein-type musicals, despite my stubborn insistence to the contrary when I was convinced of Dylan's genius in high school.)

And, I suppose, this second lesson also applies to the wisdom possessed by my parents. Of course, I had far more battles with them when I was young, so it may take a bit more time to acknowledge that they might have, just might have, on occasion, been right about something. (We won't even touch the potential wisdom of the in-laws.)

After all of that blather, some pictures of the last month and a half:

Exciting few days

2009-11-07T21:20:00.009-05:00

The last few days have been pretty darn exciting. (I'm not even going to describe our trip on Tuesday to get an H1N1 flu vaccine that involved the kids and me waiting two and a half hours at a local middle school. All I'll say is that we were lucky that we were able to wait by a little grassy area where Teddy could run around with his soccer ball.)

To begin with, we saw the Wiggles live at the Verizon Center on Thursday night with some friends. If you're familiar with the Wiggles, you don't need any more information. If you aren't familiar with them, the Wiggles are four guys from Australia who sing catchy songs that really appeal to the toddler set. My introduction to the Wiggles came from the cousins in Philly who were big fans in their younger days, so much so that I actually recognize some of the songs when they pop up on our stereo. In the past year or so, we've acquired some Wiggles DVDs and CDs, so Margaret and Teddy have become fans as well. And the recent concert took it up a notch. At this point, whenever I put a CD in the stereo, Teddy requests that it be a Wiggles CD. And Margaret keeps asking to watch their "Top of the Tots" video. So we may be stuck with them for a while, at least until the kids outgrow them when they are around, ummmm, five years old?

(An extended aside: I have a number of questions about the Wiggles and their show. For example, given that they were big when the Philly cousins were young, how much longer can they keep this up? They must be in their mid-forties. Will they be able to do this, and will the kids notice and still love them, when they're in their fifties? And as for their act, how much of it is an act? That is, do they switch off immediately after walking off stage? What happens when they run into some little kid and his parents in the loo? Do they immediately have to go into Wiggles mode, regardless of the situation? Do they have bad shows and what does that look like? Would anyone in their audience know that a show was "bad"? Given that our show went on for over an hour, at which point most of their audience seemed to be losing attention, do they ever "lose" an audience? What does that entail? Despite the pre-show admonishments to avoid having the kids rush the stage, do the kids ever get out of control? And do they have groupies? Not the among the toddler set, of course, but the tots' moms, perhaps? Such are the thoughts that one has when watching a bunch of silly guys dancing around in front of a bunch of adoring kids and their parents.)

In any case, here's a video from the show. Don't worry if you can't understand much of the vocals - because of their accents and a tendency to mumble, I couldn't understand much of what they said. While Margaret danced around a bit, Teddy mainly sat there with a stunned expression on his face. Afterward, he was so overstimulated that he kept saying "I like the Wiggles. I like the dog. I like the dinosaur. I like the Wiggles" until we got him home and put him in bed.

Then yesterday, I took the day off from work and spent the day wandering the Mall with the kids. We thought about going to the zoo but, because it was a bit chilly, decided to go to the Museum of Natural History instead. Teddy fell asleep shortly after we got off the Metro, so Margaret and I decided to go to the National Gallery of Art. We wandered around the museum, talking about various paintings. In each room, Margaret would pick one painting, and we would stop to contemplate it. Even though she usually liked paintings that involved "girls in dresses," one of our favorite paintings was a George Bellows painting entitled "New York", a fitting choice given that Aunt Eleanor and Uncle Steve both live in New York City and that I'm a big Bellows fan (see this or this or this). I would ask her various questions: What does she see in the painting? What does she think the people in the painting are doing? What does she think the girl's name is? What does she like best in the painting?

Sometimes, she would beg off answering my questions, but she was generally pretty good at coming up with answers. I suspect that she's at an age where she has started to recognize that there are "right" answers to certain questions - such as how many (whatever) do you see - but she isn't completely convinced that she has to give that answer. I tried to encourage her to say whatever popped into her head, and it was fun to see what she would come up with.

We stopped to have a gelato in the museum cafe - which we managed to finish just as Teddy woke up - before heading out to ride on the carousel in front of the old Smithsonian building. Then we went to fly a kite by the Washington Monument. Ironically, the wind, which had been gusting all day, died just as we started to fly our kite. I managed to get it up a few times, with Teddy and Margaret chasing each other around beneath it. But as soon as I'd pass it to Margaret, the wind would die and the kite would plummet to the ground.

Finally, an episode of strong winds allowed us to get the kite up for both of the kids to fly. Naturally, at just that moment, a bicycle cop came by and asked us to take it down for thirty minutes or so. He didn't say why, but it probably had something to do with the helicopters that often swoop across the Mall. Rather than waiting, we packed up our kite and headed home.

Today, we had to pick up a FedEx package in Maryland (a long story that I won't go into), so we decided to make a day of it by going to the kids museum in Baltimore. Margaret and Teddy had a blast. On the way home, we stopped by Ikea, figuring that we might as well if we were in the 'burbs. Our main purchase was a little lamp that we can attach to Margaret's bed. Lately, she either wants us to sit with her or wants to "read books" while going to bed. Since we don't want to sit with her for hours on end, we've let her read books, but the light situation hasn't been ideal. Now, she has a little light that clamps on to her bed that allows us to turn off the other lights so that she can "read" her books, which mainly involves her talking to herself, while Teddy doesn't get disturbed.

The reason the light in notable is because it follows a general pattern in both of our families. My sister was notorious for reading books by flashlight when she was younger. And her daughter, Margaret's cousin, has frequently done the same. I'm not sure if Abby snuck books into bed at a young age, but I suspect that she did. Hence, we're maintaining a longstanding family tradition by allowing our daughter to ruin her eyes in order to read books in bed. Perhaps, however, her little Ikea light will help avoid the "ruin eyes" part. Still, it may create tension when Margaret actually starts to "read" and we need her to go to sleep. Stay tuned.

Halloween 2009

2009-11-01T20:17:00.010-05:00

Well, another Halloween has come and gone. And Margaret is definitely starting to grasp the gestalt of the event. First, she's becoming a real afficianado of the costume shtick. This year, she was a cowgirl, something that she quickly latched onto after I suggested it as an alternative to "princess" which was her initial preference. (My other suggestion - "astronaut" - was quickly shot down.) The cowgirl outfit, and Margaret's determined insistence on it, was almost a disaster when we had problems finding the necessary gear, but I think that everything worked out fine in the end.

Second, she definitely understands the candy aspect of the event. In earlier years, she understood that she was getting "stuff," but didn't really understand exactly what she was getting. But now she knows - candy. And she asks for it a lot. We severely ration her intake, but also managed to recycle a lot of the candy that she received by giving it out to our own visitors. Still, between trick-or-treating at both school and home, she got quite a haul. (By the way, if it sounds "cheap" or "shady" to give out Margaret's candy to kids who come to our house, you have to understand the volume of trick-or-treaters that we get. Even if it was raining and our street was pretty lame this year, both of which kept the crowds down a bit, we still went through five big bags of candy.)

Teddy, on the other hand, was his usual grumpy self. He's definitely in the "no, I don't like that" stage. Given that he complains about just about everything, it's not surprising that he wasn't too keen on his costume. "I don't like it," he would whine. "I want to take it off, Papa." We managed to keep his costume on for a while at school and also got him to wear it while he headed around the neighborhood. He spent some time on the front stoop with me and Maddie where he was quite happy to wear his costume and hand out candy. Of course, he sucked on a couple of lollipops while we sat there, so it's not surprising that he was a happy little camper.

Oh yeah, Teddy was the same dinosaur/dragon thing that Margaret was last year. So my "hand me down" strategy has worked for at least one more year. And although an astronaut would have been ideal for the boy next year, some of the cowgirl stuff should be easily translated into a cowboy outfit. So look forward to "Cowboy Teddy" pictures next year. Unless, of course, Teddy decides that he wants to be something else. And is really as stubborn as he appears to be.

Of course, the high point of the weekend was the visit of Grandma Mary and Grandpa Dave from Illinois. Halloween is always lots of fun, but both of the kids were so happy to have their grandparents around. As were their parents - the kids are amazingly easy to deal with when there's someone else around to watch them.

Busy weekends

2009-10-25T20:00:00.008-05:00

One of the reasons I haven't been posting much lately is because we've recently become a very active family on the weekends. I'm not quite sure why, but we seem to have hit a period in which we're busy busy busy, so that I don't really have time to think any deep thoughts about the kids, much less to write about them.

Today, for example, started with a trip to the main drag through Georgetown to watch the Marine Corps Marathon. We've recently become fans of marathons after Mama ran the first leg of a relay at the Baltimore Marathon a couple of weeks ago. At the marathons we've seen, the kids gape at the crowds, both those running and those lining the route, and occasionally yell "Go, go, go." Their yelps were much much more effective at Baltimore where the crowds on the route were more sparse yielding a bigger response from the runners. (I tend to yell at people wearing interesting gear, such as the guy with the "I love beer" shirt - which warranted a bellow of "BEER" - or folks wearing Cubs gear - who get a rousing "GO CUBBIES!!!") But the Marine Corps Marathon is a bigger event, and we got to watch a band that was set up at the corner of M St and Wisconsin Ave.

After an hour or so watching the band and the runners, we ate lunch and headed up for a swim at the city's new Wilson Aquatic Center. The Wilson Center is a real jewel - the type of place typically found in the 'burbs rather than the city. We've been going there almost every weekend since it opened. One of us takes the kids to the kiddie pool, where Margaret and Teddie cavort, splash, and generally work on their water skills, while the other swims (exhausting - for me, at least) laps in the 100M lap pool. It's a great activity as both we and the kids get completely worn out. (By the way, we suspect that Teddy may start actually swimming before Margaret. As in many situations, he tends to be more daring in the pool and seems to have a better grasp of kicking and paddling. Even if he still thrashes around and sinks like a rock when he gets disoriented.)

Then, once we got home, we loaded the kids in the stroller and trekked around the city. It was a beautiful fall day in DC, and we wandered around, hitting all sorts of interesting stores, while the kids snoozed.

After the kids woke up and we got home, I put Margaret in the back of the bike and went for a ride. We bought a kid bike seat some time ago, but I found that we didn't use it unless I really made an effort. As a result, just as we've gone for a swim almost every weekend, Margaret and I try to take a bike ride each weekend. We often bike down to the Jefferson Memorial, where, when the weather was warm, we would grab a rocket pop from our favorite vendor and would eat it while sitting on the side of the tidal basin, watching the paddle boats and tourists. Then we head around Hains Point before circling the Lincoln Memorial on the way home. Other times, we've biked down the Potomac River to Old Town Alexandria to meet Mama. Today, we headed up the Capital Crescent Trail which follows the Potomac before cutting up into Maryland. In general, our bike trips are a great time as I get a workout while Margaret gets to see interesting things. She often sits in the back talking or singing to herself.

So we all end up pretty exhausted by the end of a weekend day. The account of today's activities doesn't even cover the plays that we've seen (Go Dog Go!), the tennis and soccer episodes (we often play tennis early in the morning because it allows us to do something while the kids are confined in the court with their rackets and soccer balls), trips to local farmers' and flea markets, and our other events with friends. Still, it should provide some (weak) justification for why I haven't written much lately. Here, though, are some pictures for those who have missed them. Including some pictures from Teddy's second birthday. Good grief, did I miss writing a post about that?

I love the kids, but c'mon

2009-10-07T21:36:00.011-05:00

So we had a bad day today. It was bad in so many dimensions that it's difficult to know where to start. Let's see...

First, Teddy was up a lot last night and ended up spending most of the night in our bed. This reflects a more general problem - the kids, especially Margaret who is now about to get out of her bed and can stagger into our room in the middle of the night, often get up during the night. Rather than trying to get them back to sleep in their own beds, we often let them sleep with us. This arrangement works ok in some instances, but in others, it disrupts our sleep too much, especially when we're all crammed in the bed together. Nevertheless, rather than fighting the kid-in-our-bed syndrome and spending hours trying to get them back to sleep in their own beds, we've generally allowed them to crash in our bed once they wake up. Maybe (probably?) a mistake, and something that we've been trying to figure out how to fix, but that's the current status quo.

Still, last night was a particularly bad night with the boy. When I came up to bed, Teddy was already in our bed. I tried to move him back to his bed, but at some point, shortly after I fell asleep, he woke up and started howling. I tried to lay on the floor next to his bed - a really lovely situation - but eventually decided to bring him back to our bed rather than risking him waking Margaret. He spent the next few hours tossing and turning, constantly hitting me in the back. Teddy tends to grope around in our bed, grabbing us in various ways that prevent us from falling asleep, even when he's asleep. So I didn't get much rest. Thanks, Teddy.

Then, sometime during the night, he managed to overwhelm his diaper and left a wet spot on our bed. Lovely.

Margaret and he then had their usual battles in the morning over books and such. And Teddy howled, as he invariably does, about his sweater when I put it on him. Great.

After I picked them up from school, Teddy again howled about his sweater. Margaret then howled about her inability to use a particular "balance beam" (i.e., a wall near a sidewalk that she likes to walk on) because some other random toddler was using it. On average, I think, our life is pretty pleasant. The problem is that the average masks the wild variation that arises from one kid screaming while the other is beaming followed by the reverse of that situation. In this case, Teddy was a cheerful fellow in the front of the stroller as he informed me of the distress experienced by his sister in the back.

Then we went to the grocery store where Margaret had a major meltdown because I wouldn't buy her some cheese. This lasted for about 30 minutes during the entire visit to the grocery store and a good chunk of time afterwards. It got to the point where she was basically hyperventilating, and despite my irritation with her, I had to spend some time calming her down.

We then got home where Teddy and Margaret proceeded to pummel each other for a while. Margaret tends to use more sophisticated "psychological" warfare - such as teasing Teddy by holding a book out of his reach - while Teddy tends to use more physical methods - such as climbing all over his sister while she tries to read a book. I try to separate them, but they seem to be inevitably attracted to one another, such that they invariably end up in a conflict that makes one or both scream. Of course, during all of this, I'm trying to make dinner. Which wasn't helped tonight when Margaret managed to send water from the sink all over the kitchen. And both of the kids were badgering me, as they always do, for some sort of "special treat" to eat before dinner. The path of least resistance is to give them something, but then they don't eat any dinner. Such are the dilemmas that I face.

Eventually, Mom came home and we managed to eat dinner. A lovely dinner, I might add, of pork vindaloo. After which I was done - I handed the kids off for their baths and headed down to send some emails and watch TV. Just as well, I think, as Teddy managed, for the first time, to poop in the bathtub. Just perfect.

Belated post

2009-09-30T20:44:00.010-05:00

So I haven't posted anything in quite a while. The lack of posts is partly due to other demands on my time, but it also reflects that blog posts involve a certain momentum that dissipates without activity. That is, I can't remember exactly what I was writing about or what was going on in my last posts. As a result, the whole process loses a sense of momentum and continuity.

The result is that I have some stuff - pictures and movies - to post. But I have no idea what to write about. Let's see.....

Well, Margaret is interesting, as always. But Teddy is the one who is really interesting at this point. His verbals skills have progressed to the point that he's actually a functioning member of the family. At this point, he rarely babbles. Instead, almost everything that he says - and he has a lot to say - actually means something. We may be the only people who can interpret his gibberish, but it's rarely complete nonsense. While Margaret tends to say more interesting things (such as, "We don't like taxi drivers because they don't know our city!" during our taxi ride home from the airport), Teddy occasionally tosses in interesting thoughts and opinions of his own. Although such opinions are noted but rarely honored, it's still fun to see what he'll say.

Physically, Teddy is also making progress. He rarely makes clearly clumsy moves at this point. For example, he is much better on the stairs, so much so that we have considered taking down the many gates. And he loves to run. He pumps his little arms and churns his body, as if such actions will make him go faster. In the end, he may fall, but such events are less systematic than they once were. An associated development is his interest in sports - he loves soccer/futbol, basketball, baseball, and tennis. He doesn't always correctly identify the sport on TV, with confusion often arising for basketball, baseball, and football, but he's drawn to and loves to play them all. Of course, Margaret likes sports and sporting events as well, especially soccer and events associated with our hometown team, DC United, but Teddy takes his interest to another level. As with many other differences between the kids, we're not sure if this reflects a gender difference or something else.

Hmmm, what else? Can't think of much, but perhaps the following pictures and video will suffice.

Pink princess slippers

2009-09-03T20:28:00.008-05:00

(For folks looking for pictures, we're heading up to Philly for Labor Day weekend, so we should have plenty of pictures when we return.)

After a nasty, putrid August, the weather in DC has become much cooler and less humid in the last week. In fact, it got so cool that Margaret asked for a sweater after breakfast on Tuesday. I ran upstairs and grabbed the gray fleece sweater that I'd bought for her in a sale at some point over the summer. "I don't like that sweater. I want my pink sweater," she said, after I brought it downstairs. "But your pink sweater doesn't fit you anymore," I said, "Just wear this one." "No, I want a pink sweater." We went back and forth for a while until I finally convinced Margaret to wear the gray sweater "just this once." After we pointed out, in the car on our way to school, that both Mama and Grandma Nancy have gray fleece sweaters, she seemed to tentatively accept that the gray sweater was actually acceptable. But she didn't seem terribly happy about it.

This exchange reflects a battle that I've been expecting for some time. Apparently, kids can become very obstinate about their clothes. This behavior has been evident in our family for some time - Margaret often puts up a fight over her clothes, for no apparent reason except to reject the proposed outfit. I've also heard many stories about girls who want to wear "pink princess" outfits. (Abby tells a story about how she wore a particular cowgirl outfit for an extended period when she was a kid.) To the extent that this behavior reflects random attempts to exert control, I have little sympathy for it. After all, Teddy will say "not that one" we pull out a shirt, even if he has no real rationale for refusing the shirt, other than the fact that we proposed it. (He has no clue, but likes to use the phrases that he knows in an appropriate context. Bravo, I say, but that still doesn't make me want to honor his "requests.") But if Margaret's behavior reflects an actual shift in her clothing preferences, it's more problematic as it runs counter to a strategy that I've been using for some time. Let me explain.

Most people that I know find out the gender of their children before they are born. We didn't. Certain friends of mine found this baffling. "Why would you refuse free information?," one friend asked me (as gender determination is trivial given all of the prenatal ultrasounds). In the case of Margaret, my rationale for not learning her gender was quite simple. If we don't know the gender of the kid, then we'll receive lots of "gender neutral" stuff, including apparel and other baby items. Not pink or blue, but green, yellow or some other gender neutral color. If we were then to have a second kid, which we planned to do so on some level, then all of that stuff for the first kid would be usable for the second, regardless of the second's gender. In contrast, if we had known that Margaret was a girl, all of her pink clothes would have been useless for Teddy. As it turned out, baby Teddy ended up wearing a lot of the stuff that we received prior to Margaret's birth.

This only works for infant clothes, as once Margaret was born, the girl clothes flooded in. (It also doesn't explain why we didn't learn Teddy's gender. I actually can't explain that one.) But I've tried to keep up the basic "gender neutral" theme. Get a green shirt or plain tan shorts or simple blue jeans - Margaret can wear it now, and Teddy can wear it later. This hasn't worked perfectly as many kids clothes are too geared towards one gender or the other, but for certain items, say a red winter coat or maybe a gray fleece sweater, it has worked pretty well.

Until now, it would appear. Margaret has apparently reached the "pink princess" phase where she can recognize the difference between styles of clothes and, moveover, has clear opinions about the clothes that she actually likes. Hence, in addition to the protests over the gray sweater, we had the following exchange earlier tonight.

"Where are my slippers?," she asked.

"Your dragon slippers?," I replied.

"Yes, where are they?"

"Well, I think that they're in your shoe bin."

After digging around for them, Margaret pulled them out, compared them to her Converse hi-tops, and asked, "Are they size 7? Will they still fit me?"

"I don't know. They may be too small for you, in which case Teddy can have them. We may have to get you some new slippers."

"Can we get pink princess slippers?"

"No, I think that we'll look for more dragon slippers."

"But I want pink princess slippers!"

"But dragon slippers are really cool! Don't you want more dragon slippers?"

"No, I want pink princess slippers!"

As Abby noted regarding the gray sweater, I'm probably fighting a losing battle.

My goodness

2009-08-25T22:18:00.003-05:00

Has it really been almost a month since I last posted on this blog? If so, where are the cries of outrage from my many fans? Even if you don't appreciate my always insightful commentary, you must want pics of the kids. Right?

I don't currently have much to report on the kids. Teddy is becoming a "big boy" in many ways. He's not only physically big, but he's starting to "talk" in the broadest sense of the word. He says lots of stuff, often involving actual words which occasionally reflect complex sentences with nouns, pronouns and verbs. Still, only the teachers at daycare, Abby and I can generally decipher what he's saying.

As for Margaret, she continues to become more and more interesting. Lots of interesting thoughts and opinions. She's become a serious fan of books without pictures, especially those written by Beverly Cleary. She spied a shelf of Ramona books in Barnes and Noble the other day which led us to buy a book from the Henry Huggins series. When we read them at night, she sits there on the edge of her bed, while Teddy drifts off to sleep, waiting for the next exciting episode. And for a three year old, she has an amazing ability to not only absorb the stories but also to recall them. It's a lot of fun, especially when I'm recounting stories about Henry and Ribsy that make me chuckle.

Here's a mish-mash of pics from the last month:

Why?

2009-08-01T20:53:00.005-05:00

Everyone out there with (older) kids will smile and sagely nod his or her head in response to this post. Because Margaret has reached the point where one of her favorite words is. . . Why?

Margaret is a pretty vocal little kid. (By the way, although this post isn't about him, so is Teddy. He just isn't terribly articulate or comprehensible at this point.) She loves to talk and talk about all sorts of things in a very piercing voice that cuts through everything else. That voice is very effective at waking you up in the middle of the night. Or, as the case may be, in the morning. As I think I wrote about before, Margaret talked the entire time during a flight from Chicago to DC. On the one hand, I was happy that she wasn't fussing, given that it was a late flight. But I also felt bad for everyone near us who had to listen to the incessant chirpy voice from a nearby seat. The upshot is that Margaret is very difficult to ignore.

Margaret also has interesting things to say. On our recent drive to Connecticut, we started trying to distract her with "stories" about her and Teddy. These stories, told by Abby, chronicle the first few days of one kid or the other. Margaret has found these stories to be fascinating and keeps requesting them. To the point that I'm pretty fed up with the whole "birth story" genre. After it became apparent that her requests for "my story" or "Teddy's story" wouldn't be met, she has started telling those stories on her own. It's fascinating to hear her take on our pre-kid life and the subsequent disruption caused by the arrival of the kids.

On our walk home, we have always had interesting conversations. But lately, she has started asking "why." It really doesn't matter what we're talking about - she just asks "why." "Why is the fire truck not in the fire station?" "Why did that person ask you for directions?" "Why do we have to cross the street?" "Why are you yelling at that taxi cab?" And so on.

The "why" sequences fall in two general classes. In the first, variations of the same question are repeated over and over.

For example, Gypsy, the cat belonging to a former neighbor, went AWOL a few months ago (and has not returned).

"Why did Gypsy leave?," Margaret will ask, during our walk home.

"I'm not sure. Gypsy didn't tell us," I'll reply.

"Why did Gypsy go away?"

"We should ask Marissa." (Gypsy's owner.)

A pause. "Why doesn't Marissa have Gypsy anymore?"

"I don't know."

"Why didn't Gypsy tell us when she left?"

"I don't know. We really don't know where she went."

"Why didn't Gypsy tell us where she went?"

"I don't know."

And so on, and so on. The general theme is that I don't know the answer and give a vague response, but Margaret won't let the issue go.

The second, and more sophisticated, form of "why" questioning involves questions that are distinct, but logically follow one another. For example, after running into Marissa while walking home:

"Where is Marissa going?"

"She's probably going home to walk Boone." (Her dog.)

"Why is she going to walk Boone?"

"Because he has been inside all day."

"Why has he been inside all day?"

"Because Marissa has been at work."

"Why has Marissa been at work?"

"Because that's what adults do, they go to work."

"Why do adults go to work?"

"Because that's what adults do."

"Why do adults do that?"

"Because they need to buy groceries and stuff."

"Why do they need to buy groceries?"

"Because people need to eat food."

And so on. Occasionally, Margaret will catch me in a tautology, because I rarely pay much attention to my responses. Such logical problems rarely seem to bother her. Instead, she's focused on getting answers to the series of questions that pop into her head.

Why, why, why?

Eventually, I get tired of the whole routine and try to distract her with another line of conversation. Currently, I often succeed. However, I suspect that she will eventually figure out when I'm stonewalling her or, alternatively, just bullshitting. That's when the "why" will really have bite.

Embarassing the brother

2009-07-23T23:16:00.013-05:00

While I posted a version of this some time ago on YouTube, I recently learned (while posting the video of Teddy in the fountain) that I could upload better quality videos directly from my camera. Hence, I shall embarass my brother by posting this (higher quality) video from his wedding reception.

I can only say three things.

First, I think that he's playing my dad's old guitar which, if I recall correctly, became my guitar at some point. Not sure when ownership was transferred, but I've been looking for a guitar to entertain the kids. I've been thinking about getting a Martin, but an old, beat up Gibson that tears up your fingers would probably work just as well (and after using this one, you'll surely agree Steve, you can play any guitar).

Second, the song is actually pretty catchy.

Third, I have three regrets from my own wedding. First, and perhaps superficially, my tux didn't fit well which made me unhappy during the reception. Second, Abby was unable to follow my lead during our dance. Hell, it wasn't a very complicated song. As one of my friend said at the time, "Mark's trying to fox trot, but Abby won't let him lead." Finally, and relevant for this post, I didn't "toast" Abby. I know exactly what I would've said. When we met, what I thought about her, when I knew that she was "the one," where we'd been, what we'd done together, and so on - no need to rehash it here. Still, I didn't get off my ass to do it.

In contrast, Steve pulled this off like a champ. And I hope that this video serves as a memorial of sorts to his wedding.

As a complete aside, for those who are interested, here's a version of our song from my wedding. Who couldn't fox trot to this? (And, for the sake of completeness, here's a poem that Joe read during our ceremony. I just like it, that's why I'm linking to it.)

A fine weekend

2009-07-19T19:39:00.019-05:00

We had a pretty good weekend. (After taking the above photo, I said, "Teddy, this is Teddy. High five?" And our little Teddy gave big Teddy a big high five. Margaret kept saying, "Who is Teddy Roosevelt?")

Again, we had a pretty good weekend. But it didn't start that way, as little Teddy was a real crank yesterday morning. He just fussed and fussed and fussed, especially whenever his mama put him down. When we went shopping at Target, Teddy would give a heart wrenching rendition of what is currently his most complex sentence - "Don't leave me!!" - every time Abby walked away, despite the fact that I was right there pushing him in the shopping cart, smiling and nodding at all of the people who scowled at me for my obvious negligence. It got to the point that we thought he might be sick, with an ear infection or something like that. By noon yesterday, I was thinking about what a bad weekend it could be and how nice it would be to send the boy back to daycare on Monday. He was just being almost indescribably petulant.

However, his fussiness quickly dissipated once we got to a birthday party at a public water park in northern Virginia. Where he had a great time and where we also were able to observe some notable differences between Margaret and the boy. (BTW, the next few paragraphs are all of the profound parenting ruminations that I'll be writing today.)

As I said, the birthday party was at a nearby public water park. These parks are scattered throughout Arlington and involve a small area with jets of water that periodically shoot up in the air. They aren't terribly fancy, although DC would never be able to put together something like them. We've visited this type of park in the past with Margaret, and although she likes them, she has never been very active in them. Instead, she sort of loiters around the edges, giggling and jumping when she gets sprayed with water, but never really exposing herself to the jets.

In contrast, after an initial period of hesitation, Teddy dove right in. As you can see in the pics below, he would put his hands, feet and even his face in the stream. He ran all over the place and, for better or worse, learned various tricks, like drinking the water, from the "big boys." At some point, he figured out that he could stand over a jet so that it would shoot up into his pants. He seemed to enjoy this sensation.

The behavioral difference between Margaret and Teddy at the water park illustrates a more fundamental difference between the two: the boy tends to be much less cautious than Margaret. He'll throw himself around in ways that Margaret would have avoided at the same age. For example, to the extent that he can, given his still limited mobility, he'll launch himself down slides. Such as the circular slides found at many parks and a big, old-school slide (roughly 20 feet high) that he insisted on using (with me close behind) at a park last weekend.

As another (non-physical) example, Margaret tends to be pretty reserved around people in costumes like the big Teddy Roosevelt in the photo at the top of this post. Frankly, I can understand her concern - a clown or big guy like Teddy R. can be a bit frightening, especially if you're a little person. In situations like those with big sports mascots, Teddy doesn't necessarily throw himself at the guy in the costume, but he certainly doesn't show the same apprehension that Margaret does.

Is this a gender thing? I don't know, although I have heard many stories from other parents about how their sons are much more reckless than their daughters. And I think that I've read somewhere about how male traders tend to take bigger risks, and are correspondingly more likely to blow up, in financial markets. Do I have any deep insights or thoughts about this? No. All I know is that Teddy is much more active at places like the water park than Margaret. He gets the high of feeling water shoot up his shorts, but he's also more likely to slip and bonk his head. On some level, that's just, I suppose, the risk-return trade off that also drives those male traders.

The other reason that we had a good weekend was that the Cubs were in town for a four game series against the Nationals. I managed to attend games on Friday night (with a friend from Chicago), Saturday night (with Abby), and today (with the entire family) - all without paying for a single ticket (whoo-hoo!!) due to various connections (I'm very proud of that accomplishment, especially as our tickets for every game were primo - on Friday, we actually had waitresses serving our section). Despite the fact that it was really, really sunny and warm in our seats today, and despite some difficulties with the Metro - a stroller on a train full of baseball fans isn't very easy to maneuver, even without the delays due to the recent Metro accident - we ended up having a fun time. The kids ate pop corn and Cracker Jacks, in addition to a couple of cups of ice that a nice vendor gave us. I kept putting chunks of ice under Teddy's hat to cool him down, but that didn't seem to staunch his enthusiasm. Instead, he had fun watching "baseball" or "tennis" or "basketball" or whatever he felt like calling it. And he really enjoyed grooving to the music.

Best of all, the Cubs ended up sweeping the Nats. Nothing like a trip to DC to make a team look like a real winner.

I'm sure that neither of the kids comprehend the game at all. And they don't really seem to have a clear sense of a "rooting interest," as both kids would clap, for either team, whenever other people clapped. Still, they both seem to enjoy the crowd and the whole spectacle. And Teddy would point at people in Cubs gear that we passed - and we saw lots and lots of people in Cubs regalia - and would say "Go Cubs!"

Faces of the kids

2009-07-10T22:30:00.009-05:00

Bedtime battles

2009-07-08T21:17:00.009-05:00

Life with a three year old involves many battles. Getting dressed, using the potty, eating dinner - each may or may not involve its own little power struggle between us and our little sweetheart. (As an aside, I think that Margaret randomizes, perhaps strategically, over whether she'll put up a battle for a given task. Will she get dressed tomorrow without yelling about it? Who knows.)

Lately, the most prominent battles have occurred at bedtime. For the past month or so, as soon as the light has been turned out, Margaret has declared, "I can't sleep." There's no lag at all, just an immediate declaration: "I can't sleep." We've tried all sorts of tricks to encourage her to sleep. I've made the "Grandma Mary" argument - your body is tired, so just close your eyes and try to rest your body - that was used on me as a child (and, hell, I still use that approach as an adult). For a while that worked as Margaret would rest and eventually fall asleep. We've tried bribery: If you sleep tonight, you can go for a walk with Mama and Maddie tomorrow. And we've tried moral suasion: The teachers at daycare (and the Berenstain Bears) say that you should avoid bedtime battles and should instead listen to your parents.

Lately, however, none of that has worked, and she's been much more difficult at bedtime. If we leave, she gets more and more agitated to the point that she ends up yelling for us (really Mama) at the top of her lungs. In the worst case scenario, such behavior ends up waking the boy, so we end up with not one, but two kids who are awake at 10:00.

In the past week or so, disruptions to Margaret's sleep schedule have exacerbated the problem. She stayed up until 11:00 after the fireworks on July 4th. Then after we had people over the next night, she was too wound up to fall asleep again until around the same time.

In the past, she would settle down after a few books. Even though we've started reading her "big girl" books without pictures (e.g., Beezus and Ramona), she doesn't calm down in the same way. (As another aside, it's very exciting that Margaret shows such enthusiasm for big girl books. But that's a subject for another, more positive post.) And none of our previous tricks, such as the "Grandma Mary" argument, are working either. Even if, in desperation, we give her a nuk, defying every parenting bone in my body, she still won't go to sleep. Instead, Abby or I (more commonly, Abby) end up sitting with her until she finally nods off, which takes way longer than we would like.

Good grief, what a lame post. I'm complaining about a normal toddler "phase." At least I hope that it's just a phase. But even if it is, we're reaching the end of our rope with her. (Any advice from current or former parents would be greatly appreciated.)

4th of July

2009-07-04T22:04:00.011-05:00

One perk of living in DC is the great parades. While I remember going to parades at various points in my childhood, living a 20 minute walk from the usual parade route down Constitution Avenue in the nation's capital, a place which ends up having lots of parades as a matter of course, means that we end up seeing lots of parades. And again because we live in the capital, the parades tend to be top notch.

The standard parade in DC involves a combination of floats and big balloon characters, celebrities (Hey, isn't that Alex Trebek? Or, hey, that's apparently a guy from American Idol!), high school marching bands, people on miscellaneous modes of transportation such as motorcycles, old cars, unicycles, or old fashioned bikes with big front wheels, community groups such as clowns, boy scout troops, or veterans, and representatives of various ethnic groups doing whatever dances and music are typical for them.

Now, I recall high school marching bands in the parades that I attended as a child, but the number and quality of bands in DC parades beat anything from my childhood. After a few parades in DC, one becomes quite the connoisseur of high school bands. The best are those that toss some fancy footwork into their marching when the drums are playing their boom-boom boom-chicka-boom bits. Although I remember not liking when the drums and not the horns were playing when I was a child, Teddy and I like to groove along to the beat when only the drummers are playing. There's nothing more fun in a parade, I've concluded, than a good high school band. Although the music isn't always that good. And their outfits are invariably terrible. And they always look so damn hot in those terrible outfits, especially because our standard vantage point is at the end of the route when they're almost falling over. Still, you have to give them credit for the effort, and the whole event of a passing marching band makes us (especially Teddy) perk up and pay attention.

I suppose that the old cars and such were present in the parades of my youth along with the community groups, but what really distinguishes a parade in DC are the contingents from various ethnic groups. Today, we saw marchers from Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Vietnam, and China. On one level, I suppose that's not different from the Irish or Polish groups who march in the parades in Chicago, but the groups in DC really put on a show. Not to get too philosophical, but at the end of the day, these groups really makes me think about how heterogeneous the U.S. really is and how we're fundamentally a nation comprised of immigrants from all over the place. For all of the tension that immigration creates, we ultimately end up assimilating immigrant groups while also, to varying degrees, keeping their idiosyncratic traditions (for example, think Italian food, St. Patrick's Day, Cinco de Mayo).

In any case, below are some pictures and a video of our trip to this year's 4th of July parade. One observation: As readers might notice, this set of pictures involves more pictures of Teddy than pictures of Margaret. To some extent, that reflects the fact that Margaret was being a bit petulant during the parade while Teddy was being a jovial little guy. But on a broader level, the focus on Teddy is indicative of the fact that he's becoming a much more interesting little person. Not only is he talking more, but he has interesting things to say and interesting ways of saying those things. Of course, much of what he says is garbled nonsense, but part of the fun is trying to decipher what he's trying to communicate. And he can be very charming as he tries to communicate with us. Or infuriating depending on the situation. Which makes it even more fun.

Pics and more pics

2009-07-02T22:27:00.004-05:00

I don't have any deep thoughts about kids at this point. Frankly, I suspect that no one wants to hear my deep thoughts anyway, rather they want to see pics of the kids. Thus, here are a bunch of pics, most from our recent trip to the Great White North:

A funny thing happened while we were sitting in the Minneapolis airport...

2009-06-27T18:21:00.019-05:00

At the outset of this post, I have to apologize to two sets of (potential) readers of this blog. The first are those who we saw during our recent travels around the country. Those readers likely expect a post in which they play a more central role and may be disappointed that such a post isn't currently forthcoming. The second set of readers to whom an apology is due are those with rooting interests that diverge from those of yours truly (you know who you are). Not much that I can really say to those readers except to note that they have to grant us poor U.S. futbol fans some leniency to celebrate. And perhaps even to gloat a little bit.

On Wednesday during our trip back from Minneapolis, Teddy and I shared another one of those sublime father-child moments, like the one that I wrote about a month or so ago. A long background:

We were heading from Minneapolis back to D.C. on a flight that left at 5:00 PM with a 36 minute layover in Chicago. Based on our experience during the trip to Minneapolis, the short layover in O'Hare seemed problematic, to say the least. On the trip out, our early morning flight had a layover closer to one hour, but a delayed departure from National left us with only 30 minutes to make our connecting flight, so Abby took the kids to the next gate, while I waited (and waited, along with other frustrated people trying to make connecting flights in Chicago) for the stroller that we had gate checked. I ended up running through the American terminal with a car seat, stroller, and a couple of carry-on bags and just made the connecting flight to Minneapolis. Good thing too, because otherwise we may have missed a very important event in Minneapolis. But that's not the subject of this post.

To avoid an unpleasant experience on the way back to D.C., we called on Tuesday and were able to rebook our outgoing flight from Minneapolis for 3:50 PM. Beyond averting the stress of a short layover in Chicago (we kept the Chicago-D.C. leg the same), that rescheduling had two effects. First, it compelled us to return our rental car at the appropriate time, thereby avoiding late fees (geez, I'm so cheap). Second, it introduced the possibility that we'd be able find someplace in the airport to watch the U.S. play Spain in the Confederations Cup.

For those of you who aren't big futbol fans or haven't been following recent events, the Confederations Cup is a tournament that serves as an operational dress rehearsal for the next host of the World Cup, in this case South Africa. It pits the winners of a series of regional tournaments against one another in a competition that is a bit more prestigious and intense than a "friendly," but doesn't approach big tournaments like the World Cup or Euro Cup. The U.S. qualified based on its victory in the CONCACAF Gold Cup tournament, due to a great win over Mexico in Soldier Field two summers ago.

Unfortunately, the U.S. wasn't making a good showing in the group stage of the tournament. A 3-1 loss to Italy followed by a pathetic 3-0 loss to Brazil made it look like the U.S. would head home embarrassed, just as in the last World Cup where, I believe, we scored the fewest goals of any team. By the last game of the group stage, the U.S was technically still alive, but would have to beat Egypt by 3 goals while having Brazil beat Italy by 3. Unlikely.

I had pretty much written off the U.S., but while Abby and I were walking around the Gaslamp District in San Diego, where we had attended our second wedding in less than a week, I started to see clips on TVs in bars that we were passing that indicated that the U.S. may have pulled off an impressive victory over Egypt. As we weren't barhopping, despite being sans kids, we had to stop a few times to peer at the TVs, but I still couldn't make out the results. When we got back to our hotel, ESPN verified (after interminable baseball highlights - who cares about baseball anyway?!?!) that the U.S. had indeed beaten Egypt 3-0. And, even more amazing, Italy had lost 3-0 to Brazil! So, astonishingly, the U.S. had moved on to the semifinals.

Now, these things don't happen in American futbol. Other than the freak episode in which the U.S. advanced to the quarterfinals of the 2002 World Cup (and almost beat Germany to go to the semis), U.S. fans are accustomed to beating up weak CONCACAF teams like Trinidad & Tobago, but losing, often in pathetic fashion, anytime the U.S. plays a decent team. So this was a remarkable development. However, by advancing out of the group stage, the U.S. had the misfortune of facing Spain, the number one team in the world which had won Euro 2008, hadn't lost in 35 matches, and had won 15 straight. As I told Abby on Tuesday night, "It's great that they got there, but there's no way the U.S. beats Spain. No way. Absolutely no way."

Thus, the stage was set. The U.S. had beaten the odds to get a match-up with the best team in the world, while Abby, the kids, and I were arriving at the Minneapolis airport to return our car just as the game started. Of course, we still had to check in for our flight. After we checked our baggage, there were two security lines. As I eyed the more daunting of the two, I noticed that the Applebees near that security checkpoint was showing the game. Perhaps I'd be able to watch some of the game as we waited. After checking our bags, I pointed Abby and Teddy towards that line while I took Margaret to check on the score. Miraculously, the U.S. was up 1-0 with the first half winding down. I traipsed back to Abby with a big grin on my face and said, "The U.S. is up!" A guy behind us said, "Who's playing?" When I told him that the U.S. was beating Spain, he said, "Wow, that would be a pretty big upset, wouldn't it?" I just bobbed up and down.

As we wound our way through the line (completely missing the "family" line with no one in it that we could've used), the first half ended, and I figured that I'd be able to watch the second half somewhere near our gate. Once we got through security, I immediately took off towards our gate with Teddy in the stroller. The first place with TVs was a silly French-themed restaurant showing Wimbledon (not silly for being French-themed, but silly in its attempt to be French). Moving on, I found a "sports bar" right near our gate. Unfortunately, when I asked someone at the bar what they were showing, he said "CNN." "Are you looking for the game?," he asked, "Because I've asked them to change it, and they won't. I'm following the score on my cellphone." That wasn't quite what I was looking for, so Teddy and I ran back towards the security checkpoint where I'd noticed a Rock Bottom Brewery. We shot past Abby and Margaret, who were making their way towards the gate. As we passed them, I said, "We're going to find someplace to watch the game." It wasn't until we got to the bar that I noticed that I'd left my cellphone with Abby and that it might be a bit close to our departure time when the game ended.

But at least the bar had a few TVs tuned to the game. I grabbed a stool at the bar with a TV right in front of us, plopped Teddy on my lap, and ordered french fries for the boy and a Diet Coke for me (I figured that I had to order something, but couldn't order a beer without receiving even more glares for bringing my toddler into a bar.)

So there we were, in a Minneapolis airport bar, Teddy on my lap eating french fries and watching the U.S. defend a 1-0 lead against the best team in the world. A few other people in the bar were watching the game, but most were pretty clueless. Recognizing that I was a fan of sorts, they asked me silly questions like, "What is this, the World Cup?" Teddy just sat there eating his french fries while I bounced him around on my lap, full of nervous energy given the precarious lead. "Go go go," I'd yell as the U.S. moved the ball around. "Go go go," Teddy would parrot, leading people in the bar to grin at him. "Get it! Stop him!," I'd say. "Dop him!," Teddy would cry. Every once in a while, he would point at the TV and yell, "Baseball!" (baseball and basketball being his two favorite sports).

"No way they can keep this lead," I thought, especially as Spain started pressing. But then, BAM, Clint Dempsey scored a garbage goal to put the U.S. up 2-0. I yelled, started clapping, banged on the bar a few times, startling the bartender and the barflys around me, and started tossing Teddy up in the air. "Your dad is pretty excited," the fellow next to us said to Teddy. "That goal was huge! Huge!," I said to him. "Is it a big deal if the U.S. beats Spain?" he asked. I just jumped around while Teddy tried to grab his french fries.

Teddy and I spent the next 20 minutes at the bar bouncing around, hoping that the U.S. could hold its lead (especially after going a man down), and keeping an eye on the clock to ensure that we made our flight. When the game finally ended, we jumped up and down some more and hooted a bit (or at least I did) before running down the terminal to board our flight at which point we informed a disgruntled Abby about the outcome of the game.

Overdue post

2009-06-14T21:35:00.008-05:00

So after a spurt of blog posts, I haven't written much lately. I'm sure that my dedicated readers want an update. Or at least some kid pictures.

Below are pics that reflect the following events:

We have turned Margaret's bed into a "big girl" bed by removing the side of her crib (it's designed to work this way). Although she occasionally gets out of bed in the morning, she doesn't do so at night. Despite a newly developed pattern of sleep problems. Immediately after being put in bed, she complains, "I can't sleep." We reason with her, cajole her, and try tricks. The only trick that consistently works is one that we've stolen from Grandma Mary - "Even if you're tired, just close your eyes and rest your body, because your body is tired." But usually I have to lie to her ("I'll be back to check on you soon") and she finally falls asleep
We went to the Memorial Day parade here in DC and had fun waving flags. Teddy especially likes the drum sections in the marching bands.
We took a trip to Philly where we had fun with the cousins while their parents took off to NYC for the weekend. Among the highlights of the trip was the opportunity to watch Andrew play baseball. Teddy likes baseball. And basketball and tennis.
Teddy has started working on stairs and is becoming quite vocal. As various people have noted, he doesn't engage in conversation, unlike his sister, but he is quite opinionated.
We went to a Nationals baseball game for the first time this season with Katie, one of Margaret's friends from school. No one paid much attention to the game, but everyone enjoyed the spectacle.
Margaret took part in a "Power Tots" performance at school.
We went to a futbol/soccer game for the first time this year. Again, Teddy really liked the drums that they beat. Boom - boom - boom boom boom - DC United. Margaret started to chant along at times, when she wasn't busy stuffing her face with popcorn. Again, no one paid much attention to the game, but we all had a reasonably good time (qualified because the kids got pretty tired by the end).
We went to the zoo today and flew a flag out in front of our house for Flag Day.

Such excitement. It's hard to convey how exciting each of the above events really were. Perhaps the pictures will help:

Haircut

2009-05-23T19:53:00.005-05:00

For those who wish to follow every moderately significant event in the kids' life, here is a video of Teddy's second haircut and Margaret's first. He was a stoic little champ, just as he was for his first haircut. Margaret was a bit nervous heading in, but ended up sitting slack-jawed through the whole process.

Pictures

2009-05-22T22:51:00.004-05:00

No one really wants to hear the random musings in my last few posts. Instead, they want kid pictures.

And here they are.

DuPont Circle, 4:00 PM

2009-05-22T20:06:00.006-05:00

Daycare was closed today, so Margaret and Teddy spent the day with Rodah, our cleaning lady, babysitter extraordinaire, and family friend who moved to DC from Pittsburgh around the same time that we did. Although Margaret screamed when we left this morning, both of the kids ended up having a great time hanging out with Rodah.

Because she had to get home, I left work early and met Rodah and the kids at 4:00 at DuPont Circle. Rather than heading home, Margaret, Teddy, and I spent an hour or so lying in shady grass on the circle while enjoying the unbelievably lovely day. The kids kicked off their shoes and climbed all over me as I sat in the grass, with Teddy occasionally calling my attention to a passing garbage or fire truck (or sometimes a bus, which he would misidentify as a "gabage tuck"). We listened to some guy sing and play his guitar - he was pretty good, so Margaret tossed in a dollar - and watched all of the people walking through the circle.

In my pre-kid life, I certainly would have enjoyed hanging out in the shade, listening to a busker, and watching the world go by. But there was something truly sublime about sitting there, absorbing the music and the noise and activity of the city, looking at all of the people passing us, while Margaret and Teddy grinned, giggled, laughed, and poked me and each other as they climbed all over my back and lap.

An excellent event

2009-05-20T20:05:00.012-05:00

We got Margaret and Teddy's class pictures back today. As one would expect, Margaret looks great in all of her pictures. She has that smile with fantastic eyes that she inherited from Grandma Mary and her great-grandmother through her Papa. Her eyes scrunch up and just twinkle when she smiles. In contrast, Teddy is cute in some of his pictures, but also often looks, well, a bit dull. His whole look isn't helped by the big welt on his head that he got from tumbling down the stairs just before picture day. All of the teachers at school laughed and laughed when they saw his solemn pictures with the big bump on his forehead.

Of course, I have to be careful here with my direct comparison of Margaret to Teddy. Don't want to give either kid a complex, much less initiate a competition between them. Regardless, the non-linear pricing of the class pics (each complete set that we buy yields a much lower per set price so that we always end up buying all of them) implies that we'll have tons of extra photos to send around. While I may not be able to scan and post them on the blog, certain dedicated readers can rest assured that they'll get copies of pictures of Margaret looking cute and Teddy looking like, as they call him at school, a little oompa loompa.

However, that's not the excellent event.

Today happens to be my birthday. I am now officially 37. As my 90-year-old grandmother said in her birthday card, "How does it feel to be 37? Not so bad, is it?"

Actually, that's not the excellent event either.

I also officially moved to a new position at work today. The move has been in the works for some time, but it officially took effect today, which is nice because I'll be doing stuff that's much more in line with the issues that really interest me.

That is also not the excellent event.

Instead, the excellent event involved an amalgamation of the previous two events. While being introduced to my new co-workers, one of them, an early 20's research assistant, said, "Oh, are you a new intern?" The person with me and I looked at each other and said, "Umm, no." "But you look so young," the RA sheepishly responded. "Actually," I said, "Today is my birthday, and I'm 37. But let me tell you, being mistaken for an intern is probably the best birthday present I could get at this point."

Dragon Boat Racing

2009-05-17T20:35:00.005-05:00

Not much to report on the kids, but Papa had a pretty eventful weekend.

We put together a dragon boat team at work to participate in the annual Washington DC Dragon Boat Festival. The best analogy to a dragon boat that I can come up with is a slave galley - two rows of ten paddlers, side by side, with a drummer in the front and a oarsman in the back. The paddling (not rowing!) motion is unlike anything else I've ever done in a boat. Certainly nothing like rowing crew, which I've done on an erg machine, but not in an actual boat. And not like a row boat or paddling a canoe, both of which I've done a fair amount. Instead, you bend at the hip, put your paddle in the water, and paddle by pulling while leaning back at the waist. Quickly. And, ideally, the whole boat is perfectly synchronized.

Our boat was full of novices so, needless to say, we weren't very good. In fact, we were pretty bad. In our first heat yesterday, we got creamed by some management consultants from Accenture and some government contractors from Northrup Grumman. In our second race, we completely collapsed and ended up losing to another team of management consultants from Accenture and some team called TECRO. We were all pretty frustrated, and some people were searching for the key strategic approach that would speed us up (if only we were management consultants, this would probably be easy). Those of us with some perspective recognized that our boat was going to suck no matter what, so the only way we could speed up would be to toss out the bad paddlers - very difficult to do given that it was all voluntary and, more importantly, was for fun - or to slow down and try to get synchronized. Today, we tried the second approach, and although we still got clobbered in our first heat (to a well trained team - as with any fringe sport, there are some hardcore afficiandos of dragon boat racing), we stayed together and managed to not embarass ourselves. (In contrast, Abby said, "You guys didn't look very good" after our second race on the first day.) Then in our second race today, we managed to pull out a third place finish in a race of four teams. A moral victory of sorts. Even if we did beat a bunch of kids.

I'm not quite sure why I signed up to participate. I think that I wanted a structured diversion, especially one that didn't involve the kids. But the whole process involved a bigger time committment than I anticipated - three practices (I missed one) during April and two days of races this weekend. Abby and the kids did come to the race both today and yesterday, and I think that the kids enjoyed the whole spectacle. But due to the unpredictable race schedule, they only saw me in the second race yesterday and the first race today. (Yesterday, they had to leave in the middle of the races to attend a birthday party, where both kids had a grand time playing in a moonbounce. Apparently, Teddy didn't really get the jumping part, but he could trundle around and fall over without hurting himself, which is all that he needs to have a good time.) Not sure if I'll do it next year, but it was fun, and I have that pleasant sore feeling that one gets after doing something strenuous. Albeit in very odd muscles, because dragon boat racing is one very odd sport. (We raced near Georgetown Harbor where people sat in the bars along the shore and sipped their drinks while gaping at the odd people in their odd boats on the water.)

A funny thought

2009-05-08T19:58:00.012-05:00

Not to steal the thunder from the CT grandparent's post, but I figure I'll write this post before its subject matter fades into oblivion.

At the wedding this past weekend, the bride's father gave a toast in which he drew some contrasts between his daughter and his two sons. This was done in a very lighthanded way with the basic point being that the bride was practically perfect, while the boys were, well, not. Regardless of whether this reflected wedding day bias, the basic theme of the toast got me thinking a bit and apparently did the same for Abby because we had an interesting conversation on the New Jersey Turnpike while driving home.

The topic of that conversation? Well, when you think about having two kids, everything involves a very binary comparison. Kid 1 vs. kid 2. Is Teddy as smart as Margaret? Are his verbal skills as good as hers at a similar age? Is Margaret a bigger pain than Teddy? And so on. Were I to give the same toast as the bride's father at this wedding, it would involve a direct comparison of Margaret (practically perfect?) and Teddy (not?).

A third kid, however, would break this quandary - you could always refer to kid A's achievements/intelligence/good looks/etc. without directly (and either explicitly or implicitly) besmirching kid B or kid C. But with only two kids, that's not possible.

So there we were, enjoying a gray day on the Jersey Turnpike and thinking about the potential advantages of having a third kid. It didn't last long, though, because I quickly thought about the logistics (our house is too small - we'd need to move - and a minivan is basically required for three kids - we'd need a new car) and cost (three college educations?). Still, it was a funny train of thought. And when I mentioned it to our neighbor, who has three young kids, one of whom has recently become Margaret's best bud as they've both become more social, she flashed me a big smile and said, "Go for it!"

Then again, after second thought, I don't think so.

Teddy and Margaret Came to Dinner

2009-05-08T18:44:00.006-05:00

As promised, here is the guest post by Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Peter. I haven't read it yet and certainly haven't edited it, so I cannot guarantee that the content or style are up to the extraordinarily high (sic) standards of this blog. However, I do like the "gang of 4" reference in the first line. Given the general political sympathies of the CT grandparents, I suspect that reference was intentional.

We met the DC gang of 4+dog on Friday, May 1st, at 2 PM at the Marriott Courtyard in Rye, NY, for the hand-off to the CT grandparents. We got our instructions on the care and feeding of our charges, switched cars, and headed back across the State line to CT. The 2 hour trip was uneventful as the kids slept most of the way.

The kids had a great time at our little pond and the waterfall and stream that flow into it. We searched and searched for the frogs that have been around for the the past several weeks, but they failed to appear. We had better luck finding the two koi, goldie and sparky, who live in the pond. They are a little hard to see right now because I had recently cleaned the pond and stirred up lots of tiny particles. I trust that the outrageously expensive filter that I installed late last year and recently re-installed will clear this up before too long. The best way to see the fish is to feed them and the kids had fun over-feeding them. Teddy was a real threat to tumble into the pond as he is not cautious and the rocks were wet and slippery due to the misty rainy conditions. Despite his best efforts to swim with the fish, we managed to keep him out of the murky pond water. He had a great time throwing all the rocks back into the pond that I had just recently cleaned out of the pond. He loved the plop and splash. He also enjoyed sticking the rake into the pond and scraping it back and forth, counteracting my best efforts improve the clarity of the water. Margaret had a little less impact on the pond although she was much more interested in the fish than her brother was. She spent considerable time trying to catch them in a fishnet, but without success despite going perilously near the water in her netting efforts. She succeeded in moving some of the little statuary (frogs, turtles, etc.) around, at risk to both herself and the statuary.

The highlight of Saturday was the appearance of Aunt Eleanor who arrived by train from her studies at Columbia U. where she will get her masters in Environmental Policy on May 18th. She contorted and squeezed herself into the back middle seat between M&T in the two bulky child seats (it pays to be slim and agile). Her pitiful complaints were ignored by those in the front seat.

Speaking of squeezes, we were joined at dinner by Eleanor's very close friend, Rafael, who brought a fine bottle of red wine to donate to the occasion. He was able to deal with the mass confusion in getting the food prepared and served. He is also quite a hit with the kids- Teddy even attempted to say both Eleanor and Rafael (we think). At this stage, his understanding seems far superior to his ability to express himself verbally. He is very good at pointing, at least I think that is what he is doing when he is waving the finger around. On the other hand, it could be a poorly done Italian salute aimed at interfering adults.

Margaret was very taken with a book about Stewie the Duck's swimming lesson. We read it many times, and Margaret talked quite a bit about her own swimming experiences. For one thing, she goes to swimming "lessons" (or is it "class"?) while Stewie goes to swimming "school." She also explained that, unlike Stewie, she goes down somestairs into the pool.

Well, all good things have to come to an end. On Sunday, we were pleased to be able to deliver two intact children and Maddie back to their anxious parents, no doubt exhausted after weekend duties as wedding guests.

A quick update

2009-05-06T21:40:00.004-05:00

First, Abby wanted me to note that the pictures of Margaret at the end of the last post do not reflect a look that we chose, rather the bouffont hair was done by the teachers at daycare, while the outfit was chosen by Margaret herself. Whether it's better that she chose the outfit rather than us is an open question.

Second, for those who want a recap of the weekend, we all survived. Most importantly, Abby and I managed to sleep until around 10:00 AM on both Saturday and Sunday. I did wake up both days at 6:00 AM as I predicted that I would, but I rolled over and went back to sleep. No kids! Whoopee!!

Finally, we're going to get a guest post from the CT grandparents sometime soon, as promised in the last entry. Stay tuned.

At least we'll have fun...

2009-04-30T20:48:00.011-05:00

We have an exciting weekend coming up. A housemate of mine from college is finally getting married outside of NYC to his longtime girlfriend. (An irrelevant sidebar, but we're reaching the point where all of our friends are either married or have no prospects. So after a spurt of weddings, they are becoming very rare for us. The next round will arise when we're much older, as our kids and their peers get married. Sigh. More evidence of how I'm getting old.) I suppose that we could take the kids, but the wedding invitation didn't offer that option, and we didn't ask. Instead, we're going to dump the kids (and the dog) with the CT grandparents for the weekend. While we'll probably have a grand time at the wedding, it should be an interesting weekend for everyone else.

I've been thinking that it might be fun to solicit a "guest post" from one (or both) of the grandparents documenting the weekend with the kids. Not that I really need the info for my own benefit, but it could liven up what has lately been an otherwise uninspired blog. And I would be a bit curious to hear about how the kids behave with other people. Even if those other people happen to hold the esteemed position of "grandparent," so that the kids' behavior with them is nowhere near representative. If nothing else, this could be a trial run to see how the kids and grandparents hold up to extended time with each other, in preparation for a potential trip by us to Europe (or some other interesting place) sans kids. (I usually envision ditching the kids during a layover in Chicago en route to somewhere more interesting. So don't worry Grandpa P and Grandma N, a longer trip sans kids wouldn't necessarily involve the CT grandparents.)

Now, it could be that the CT grandparents would feel daunted by the prospect of pinch hitting for your faithful blogger. If so, I'll end up writing my thoughts about the weekend, which will probably involve something along the lines of "Wow, it was great to be without the kids for a couple days, but dammit, I still couldn't sleep past 6:00 AM." Alternatively, we may actually get a guest post. Which could, at one extreme, provide a touching insight into the relationship between a grandparent and grandchild. Or, at the other extreme, could involve bitching about the kids as is typical on this blog.

For those of you who are just here for the kid pics, not for the inane blather (which may or may not also apply to a "guest post" by the CT grandparents), here are some recent ones. Including some from our trip to the Udvar-Hazy Annex of the Air and Space Museum (a space shuttle, a Concorde, the Enola Gay - very cool! - it was especially cool because Teddy could run amok without causing any actual damage) out by Dulles Airport. And some of Margaret looking like quite the tart. The latter make me a bit queasy when I think about the inevitable teenage years.

Updated stats

2009-04-22T19:13:00.003-05:00

Not only did Teddy get his bump immortalized in his class picture today, but we also went for a check-up where both the doctor and the nurse quizzed us about it a bit, as I suspected they would. I suppose that it's their duty to do so, and they weren't pushy about it, but one still wonders whether they've scribbled a note in our file: "Keep an eye on these people." (A friend in Chicago once told me about how an intern called in DFS after seeing all the bruises on his shins during a check-up when he was a toddler. The source of those bruises? Apparently, he wasn't very good at using the pedals on his tricycle, so they constantly banged him in the shins as he scooted around on it.)

For those hardcore afficianados keeping score at home, Margaret's three year stats are:

Height: 38.5" (75th-90th percentile)
Weight: 34 pounds (75th-90th)

As for Teddy's 18 month stats:

Height: 34.25" (90th-95th)
Weight: 28 pds 3 oz (75th-90th)
Head size: 51 cm (>97th)

Oh, by the way...

2009-04-21T07:07:00.002-05:00

. . . Teddy and Margaret are having their class pictures taken on Wednesday (see previous post).

The Ice Pack and Teddy's Head

2009-04-19T20:58:00.013-05:00

Once the kids are able to pick up habits at daycare (and are able to communicate those things to us), they bring home all sorts of interesting ideas. For example, I was quite surprised the first time that Margaret voiced her opposition to some perceived affront by saying, "Walk away, Papa! Walk away! Make another choice!"

For a while, one item from daycare that was central to Margaret's life was the Ice Pack. While the teachers at daycare use it to deal with the little bumps and bruises that inevitably occur in a toddler's life, the Ice Pack became the cure-all for every injury, no matter how minor, in Margaret's life. Take a little tumble to the floor - run to the freezer to grab an Ice Pack. Bump into the table - ditto.

Now that Margaret is coordinated enough to avoid these types of minor injuries, the Ice Pack has receded from its prominent place in her world. But although he doesn't recognize it yet, the Ice Pack will (and apparently should) play an important role in the boy's world. Because he's very prone to getting bumps and bruises. Not only is he still a bit clumsy, but he also appears to lack a sense of self-preservation that leads most reasonable people to avoid dangerous situations. Not that he has the opportunity (or skill) to hurt himself in any serious way, but he is willing to take risks that his sister seemed to avoid at the same age. A slide at the park? He'll toss himself down it, no problem. Stairs? An inconvenient obstacle to be surmounted as quickly as possible. Some people blame this on a gender effect, arguing that boys tend to be more "adventurous" than girls. Personally, I think that Teddy is just a little foolish. A prime example is his chipped tooth, but I'll provide a few more:

Example 1: When I picked Teddy up from school last week, Ms. Mary asked, "Did Teddy have a bump on his head when you dropped him off this morning?" Looking at the purple spot on the right side of his forehead, I said, "No, I don't think so." It turns out that this is a fairly common occurrence for Teddy at school. There was a time where I'd get an "occurrence report" every few days associated with some bump that Teddy had experienced (usually on his noggin). Now, the teachers at day care aren't lax in their attention. Instead, Teddy just exhibits a tendency to run into things (like the wall) or to fall down.

Example 2: Today, we were at a playground, and Margaret was climbing all over the place (not risky behavior, I think, because she can now handle it). Teddy decided to climb some offset stairs and, once he got almost to the top, tumbled off and fell to the ground below. In the process, he managed to give himself a nice bump on his right forehead on top of the bump that he got at daycare.

Example 3: While I was making dinner, Margaret and Abby had to run upstairs for a bathroom emergency. Teddy, who had been left behind (unbeknownst to me), decided that he wanted to climb the stairs. He probably didn't get very far before I heard: thump-thump, yahhhhhh! I ran out of the kitchen to find him sprawled at the bottom of the stairs with a big purple lump on the left side of his forehead. So now he has a nice symmetry between the bumps on his head (you won't actually notice the right side bump in the pics below, but that's because the left side one is so pronounced). We got an Ice Pack to keep down the swelling, but Teddy wasn't keen on it. Given his track record, however, he probably should get used to it.

How to deal with a pesky brother

2009-04-09T19:46:00.005-05:00

Today, we had our usual drama during our trip home and while making dinner. Margaret demanded things - "I want to walk" and "I want a pretzel" (despite the lack of any evidence that pretzels were available) and so on - in her usual pleasant way. Then, when we got home, the kids took turns melting down as I made dinner. The cacophony finally reached a crescendo when Teddy tried to take Margaret's paper shopping bag as Margaret tried to put her backpack in it while simultaneously pushing the stroller for her doll. The pushing and shoving escalated, the bag eventually ripped, and both kids started screaming. Since we had already called Mama's cell phone for a sanity break, we figured that we'd call the Philly relatives on speakerphone, hoping for a distraction at the least and perhaps some words of wisdom. A rough transcript of our call is as follows:

"Hello."

"Hi Joe. It's Mark." (kids bellowing in unison in the background)

"Hi Mark! What can I do for you?" (very enthusiastic response from Joe)

"Can I talk to Andrew or Alex?"

"Sure!"

(A pause as Joe tracks down one of his kids.)

"Hi."

"Hi! Who's this?"

"Alex."

"Hi Alex. Listen we've got a bit of an issue here. Margaret and Teddy are fighting because Teddy keeps trying to take Margaret's toys. We're hoping to get some advice about how Margaret should deal with a difficult younger brother."

(Another pause while Alex thinks about the request. Both of the kids have stopped screaming and are listening to the phone call. First goal of this phone call accomplished.)

"Umm, put him in a closet."

"Well, Alex, that's pretty good advice. It certainly would solve the problem on one end. But I'm not sure that Teddy would like it very much. Do you have any other suggestions?"

(Another pause.)

"Let me get Lizzie. Ask her."

"Naw, Alex, you're much more articulate than Lizzie. Given your vast experience with the subject matter, can't you give us some advice on how to deal with a difficult younger brother?"

(Another pause.)

"Well, let him have it because he'll probably get bored with it pretty fast. Then you can get it back."

"Did you hear that Margaret, let Teddy have it! Once he loses interest and doesn't want it anymore, you can have it back!"

(Margaret appears to be contemplating the suggestion.)

"Great advice, Alex. Thanks!"

"No problem."

(Mission accomplished. We sign off on the phone call.)

"Wow, Margaret, did you hear Alex's great advice? What did she say you should do when Teddy tries to take one of your toys?"

(A long pause as Margaret considers the question.)

"Put him in a closet."

Teddy is the Village Green Preservation Society

2009-04-03T20:37:00.021-05:00

It's officially Margaret's third birthday. The weekend is full of events celebrating the occasion. It started today with a party at school in her honor. Then she had her celebratory cupcake after dinner. And tomorrow, there's a parade celebrating her birthday. (Actually, it's the annual Cherry Blossom Parade, but we've been talking about how it's for her. Not sure how hard we'll push the parade because she shouldn't get too carried away.) Lastly, her CT grandparents are coming into town tomorrow, so we'll have a full weekend honoring Margaret.

Given all of the attention that will be bestowed on Margaret this weekend, I figure that it's appropriate to write something about the boy (and the dog), although some pics of Margaret-related events are included at the end of this post.

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Teddy likes yard work. Of course, every kid likes busy work of some sort. For example, Margaret likes "washing the dishes," and both of the kids like to play around with Tupperware (which involves scattering it all over the place) as I cook dinner. Teddy seems to be particularly fond of sweeping and raking stuff in our yard. Now, we're somewhat challenged in this task, as our "yard" is so small that it's basically our front sidewalk and a small patio in the back. But Teddy doesn't mind. Almost every weekend, we have a routine that involves sweeping up our small part of the sidewalk. Teddy is so enthusiastic that he often insists on dominating the brooms. We have three brooms - two big, one small - that we use for outside stuff, and Teddy often demands two of them for his work. If someone, say Margaret, tries to take one of them from him, he howls. The result is that we often let him fiddle around with two of the brooms while I do the real work with the remaining one. Not that there's much real work as our part of the sidewalk is so small, but it occupies him, so we're willing to spend time puttering around in front of the house while he stumbles around with his brooms.

It turns out that the only one who takes this job seriously is Maddie. She has always liked yard work. When we lived in Pittsburgh, she always liked to "help" shovel the snow. Which involved her pouncing on the snow shovel or jumping in the air to grab the snow when I tossed it out of the way. She does the same for leaves. Although she still shows the same dedication to the job these days, the boy is a bit confusing for her as he doesn't do much with his tools. Instead, I sweep a few things out of the way while Teddy ambles around with his brooms. Maddie is invariably attentive, dropping into her Border Collie crouch in front of my broom, but the whole scene involves a lot of commotion without much actual action.

People who pass us on the street tend to be quite amused. They'll say things like "You've got some good little helpers there," referring to both Teddy, with his brooms, and Maddie as she stares at my broom. I respond with something like, "They like to think they're helping."

As other evidence of our "philanthropy" in the neighborhood, Margaret and Teddy have a brick dedicated to them in our local park. During an early morning walk with Maddie, I noticed a brick near the Rose Park flagpole dedicated to two of the neighborhood kids. After checking with their parents, I found out that it wasn't too expensive to buy a brick to commemorate our own kids. So Margaret and Teddy are now immortalized near the flagpole at 26th and O.

View Larger Map

Given that it's so difficult to find personalized items with our kids' names, no one should get confused about the provenance of that brick. (As I'm sure I've said before, "Margaret" and "Teddy" are apparently quite out of style - too old fashioned, as evidenced by the elderly candy stripers at the hospital who often said things like "Such a lovely name. Don't hear that one very much these days." or "I had an aunt named Margaret!" I keep thinking that the revival of schoolmarm names like "Abigail" and "Eleanor" portends a return to popularity for "Margaret" and "Teddy," but they don't seem to have caught on yet.)

Birthday trauma

2009-03-29T21:25:00.011-05:00

Margaret's third birthday is approaching. Quite a milestone, I think. We've set a number of goals for her third birthday, and we talk about them a lot. They include

No more nuk nuks. Margaret is still using her pacifier at night and at other times when she needs a calming influence (such as road trips to Philly)
Going potty in the big potty (rather than using diapers, which are basically gone anyway at this point, or the little kid potty)
Working on her reading skills (because Margaret is such a big fan of books that she's just a small mental connection away from starting to read)

Now, some of these goals are clearly more important than others. The continued reliance on the nuk nuk is an obvious embarrassment. On the one hand, I'm pleased that she isn't a thumb sucker. After all, some kids walk around permanently connected to their comfort device. I always figured that it would be easier to take away her nuk nuk than it would be to take away her thumb. We'll soon test that theory. Having the nuk nuk available has also been useful, if not a life saver, during a long flight or car ride. On the other hand, she won't be able to use it forever, and we have to break her attachment at some point. I'm not sure if she's rational enough to understand giving up her nuk nuk at this point (and she certainly uses it exactly at times when she's least rational), but we figure that we'll try. She seems amenable to giving it up, but that could just be a theoretical ratification that is abandoned at bedtime. The potty will probably involve less resistance as she's not as attached to her kiddie potty. Still, Abby and I are both looking forward to getting rid of the little potty as, for some inexplicable reason, emptying a poopy little potty is much more disgusting than changing a poopy diaper. And the reading goal is really just tossed in to match the number of goals to her age, although she seems smart and attentive enough that it could happen. And given her genes (embodied in her mom, her cousin Alex, her aunt Rachel, and, I suppose, her papa), there's some precedent for early reading.

One issue that Margaret appears unable to overcome is her aversion to birthday parties. Actually, she loves birthday parties for other kids. And she loves her own birthday parties once they get started. But for each of the last three birthdays - incidentally, the only ones she has experienced - Margaret has melted down when her party starts. For the last three years, we've had a party with the Philly cousins and a random smattering of grandparents. As soon as the cake is brought out and the singing begins, Margaret has started to howl. In the most recent case, she recovered quickly, especially once she tasted the icing (and certainly once presents appeared), but she really wailed at first. I suppose her response reflects overstimulation and the attention being paid to her, but it's certainly an odd thing to do at one's birthday party.

Here is a retrospective of pics from birthday parties for years 1 through 3.

Of course, she eventually gets over it...

Teddy is growing up

2009-03-21T20:56:00.007-05:00

As the pictures below indicate, Teddy has been getting pretty shaggy lately. In contrast to some other toddler boys that we've known, it's unlikely that anyone would ever confuse him for a girl, but he has definitely developed a sloppy, long-haired, Beatlesque look. As a result, despite having a nasty cold and fussy temperament, he headed out today for his first haircut. Now, we don't have any pics of the actual event, nor do we have any post haircut pics for purposes of comparison, but it apparently was a great success. While Margaret and I went to the hardware store, Abby took Teddy to a barbershop in the neighborhood where Teddy sat happily while getting sheared. So, after $10 and 10 minutes in the barber chair, Teddy looks much more presentable. (Margaret, in contrast, did not want to get her hair cut today. It's unclear whether her aversion to a haircut was genuine or whether it reflected her current tendency to randomly resist certain activities proposed by her parents. Regardless, the result is that Margaret still has not had a haircut despite being almost three years old.)

The haircut reflects other developments that suggest that Teddy is starting to move out of the baby realm into the big kid category (such categories being very important to Margaret so that she can classify the kids that she knows and sees.) Although his verbal skills aren't too impressive despite significant effort on his part, he does exhibit clear interest in books. He likes to gather board books, stating (or sometimes yelling) "bu, bu", until someone reads one to him. When we do read one, he settles down and pays close attention. His favorite book at this point is "Hand, Hand, Finger, Thumb" - he starts bobbing and grooving along with the text and has certain canned responses, such as "Hand picks an"... "Apple", that he contributes.

When I think about Margaret's mileposts, a clear one involved her attentiveness to books. At some point, books became an important part of Margaret's bedtime routine - we now must read multiple books before bed each night. And we have shelves and boxes of books to provide some variety to both her and us. Teddy clearly isn't as sophisticated as Margaret in his taste for books, although Margaret will loiter around to hear books read to him. But his increased interest is a clear achievement.

In addition, he has, for better or worse, begun to voice his opinion about things. Specifically, he howls whenever he's put down, or picked up, or moved, in a way that he doesn't like. In addition, he's extremely possessive. When he gets something, like our box of sidewalk chalk, he bellows if someone tries to take it away. To some extent, this is understandable as his sister often appropriates things that he has (and a cynical observer might think that she does so to get a reaction from him.) Trying to protect his territory is a natural reaction, and I'm sure that this reflects sibling rivalry that we'll be dealing with for years. Still, he often takes it too far. He yells "Noooo, noooo" and thrashes his arms when I try to take him out of the truck at a local playground. More problematic is his tendency to do the same thing when a random kid intrudes on his territory. Although I'll mumble apologies about how he's really responding to his sister, I don't want to have one of "those kids" who cause problems at the playground, especially when his sister is the person who eggs him on.

Teddy is a royal pain in the arse

2009-03-08T19:58:00.009-05:00

Just to get everyone up to date, in the last week, we took a trip to see the cousins in Philly, drove back in the snow, had fun in the snow the next day, saw Uncle Steve and went to concert of Mongolian music with him, and then enjoyed almost balmy weather this weekend. Margaret is almost potty trained. Whoo hoo!! She no longer appears to object to the potty as a matter of principle, rather her objections arise when a potty break is inconvenient. She rarely wears diapers during the day anymore, she hasn't had many accidents, and she performs like a champ once we get her on the potty. I took the kids to the Air and Space Museum yesterday during Abby's book club, and she made it for four hours out of the house with no diaper and only one trip to the restroom at the museum. Although I was pretty apprehensive the whole time, she turned in a stellar job. There may be some hiccups in the future, but we're pretty pleased with her. And she seems pretty pleased as well, so it's nice to get this issue out of the way.

Especially because the boy has started to develop issues of his own. He has become very stubborn. Extremely stubborn. He decides that he wants to do something, and he starts to scream as soon as it's clear that we're trying to stop him. Such as banging on the computer. Messing with electrical outlets. Sitting in a chair, and NOT his highchair, to eat. It's really quite frustrating especially when he's trying to do something that is completely inappropriate (such as messing with electrical outlets) or unsustainable (such as trying to monopolize all of the brooms when we're cleaning up outside.) The most "fun" situations arise when Teddy is thwarted by Margaret. Such as when he's trying to take the broom that she has and won't accept any other broom. Or when he wants to get in the back of our newest stroller, which is Margaret's official perch. (As an aside, it's actually pretty funny to watch him when we take out new stroller to school. When I pick them up, he immediately makes a beeline for the back of the stroller and tries to establish his position. Unfortunately for him, Margaret can't sit in the front, so I inevitably scoop him up and plop him in the front. And unfortunately for the rest of us, he inevitably howls about this mistreatment.)

There's not much that we can do in these situations, as he's pretty inconsolable when he doesn't get his way. He really bellows, turns bright red, and gets this nice vibrato in his wail that really makes it seem as if he's suffering. Sometimes he'll toss in a quivering cry of "Mama!!!" to really emphasize that Papa is the source of his misery. Given that Margaret's potty problems have faded, I'm pretty philosophical about the temporary nature of such phases. But that doesn't mean that it's fun.

Margaret's new song

2009-02-25T21:59:00.007-05:00

And Teddy dancing.

Ok, here you go.....

2009-02-24T21:47:00.007-05:00

So the blogger occasionally has to receive some external validation. While I might not have the worldwide readership that I would like, I fortunately appear to have a strong readership in my family. And some readers on the other side as well.

Here, then, are some pics. This include pictures from the G'town-UConn women's game with the Philly relatives, a recent visit of Grandma Mary and Grandpa Dave, and a trip to the G'town-Marquette men's game (where we were fortunate enough to sit in front of the Marquette visiting student section while G'town blew the game). Please pay particular attention to the third photo that displays Teddy's chipped left tooth (along with the remnants of the blue crayon that he had just been gnawing.)

Throwing down the gauntlet

2009-02-22T23:19:00.004-05:00

My goodness, folks, I know that someone reads this blog. After all, when I see various friends or family members, they comment on stuff that I write. And yet, when I threaten to withhold pictures, I get no response. So, like George Bush I, I'm now drawing a line in the sand - if I can't get at least three people (c'mon mom, for pete's sake) to request more pictures, all you'll get is my insightful ruminations from now on. But no kid pics. So there.

Potty problems

2009-02-20T21:09:00.009-05:00

To begin with, still no pics. Sorry for those of you looking for a "pic fix," but I don't have the energy to download, edit, and upload pictures. Perhaps this reflects a broader trend towards this blog becoming more like the Philly relatives blog - they've never been into the multimedia extravaganza that sometimes occurs here. If so, this may be an opportunity to solicit feedback from my silent, but presumably large, reader base. If you want frequent pictures of the kids, speak now, or forever hold your peace.

The main topic of this post is potty training. As I've noted before (here and here), both of the kids have displayed the ability to use the potty. At this point, we don't expect much of the boy, so it's all gravy if he's willing and able to do anything on the potty. But Margaret's reaching the age where she should be moving out of diapers. In fact, she doesn't wear diapers or pull-ups at all at school. She generally makes it through the day without an incident with any problems occurring when she's waking up from her nap. When I pick her up, she typically sits on the potty before we leave, and she emphatically insists to Ms. Jakki that she won't use diapers when she gets home.

Once we get home, however, it's a completely different story. Margaret does not want to use the potty at home. She cries and complains, saying, in an incredibly petulant voice, "I don't want to sit on the potty. I'm a baby girl." Lovely. She behaves similarly when she gets up in the morning before heading to school. Of course, once she's at school, her diaper comes off and she heads straight to the potty. If we push the subject at home, it leads to a complete meltdown by her, and a near meltdown for us. Especially for me. Hell, she knows what to do. We know that she does. So, as with many other 2 year old demands (like "Papa drives" in the morning or "Mama dresses me" or "I want five crackers") her refusal to use the potty makes absolutely no sense. All it does is lead to really grouchy parents.

Of course, that is probably her intention. I suppose that she's working some sort of power play with us. But it's just not clear what she wants to accomplish or why this is the battle that she's chosen to fight.

Since I have to cook dinner, I usually cave shortly, if not immediately, after we get home, and she ends up wearing a diaper. Ms. Jakki says that we can't make it optional - we shouldn't ask her if she wants to use the potty, rather Margaret must sit on the potty, and there's no alternative, no matter how much she howls. Our next door neighbors say that they used a similar tactic with their second child as the diapers "disappeared," and they spent two weeks dealing with accidents until it got sorted out. That sort of "tough love" approach may be necessary, especially when, for example, Abby asks Margaret if she wants to sit on the potty, and Margaret responds as she did tonight: "That's not in my plans."

I do suspect, though, that the boy will be much faster with this issue. At the same age, he tends to be easier in most respects, such as fingernail trimming and water on the head during a bath (although not sleeping.) Perhaps we're better at childraising the second time around, but I doubt it. I think that he's just a less high-strung kid. And I hope that the potty doesn't become a central point of conflict with him.

Our moment of fame redux

2009-02-13T21:35:00.013-05:00

Now, I know that I haven't been posting many photos of the kids lately. Which undoubtedly has my dedicated (but curiously silent) followers up in arms.

Luckily, when you have kids who are as photogenic as ours, you don't need to post public photos - the media takes care of that for you. As my dedicated readers must certainly recall, a photo of Margaret and me (along with a lot of other unimportant people) was featured in a Washington Post article about dog parks. More recently, we went to a benefit concert, featuring Mr. Don (of First Night Alexandria fame), for the G'town Public Library which burned in a massive conflagration back in 2007. A photographer from the Georgetown Current, our local free newspaper, was snapping shots of the kids as they danced to the songs. We noticed that he appeared to be taking an inordinate number of shots of Margaret and Reid, our next door neighbor, so we figured that there was a non-trivial chance that they would appear in the next issue.

Sure enough, here it is (be patient as it's a big file), although we mysteriously didn't get our weekly issue (I suspect foul play involving some jealous G'town mom whose kid wasn't quite up to snuff for the front page of the Current.) I discovered Margaret's presence on the front page while pilfering a copy of the Current from a nearby porch (btw, it's a free paper, so I wasn't really stealing anything) to get the rain bag to use for cleaning up after Maddie. After having been alerted to the existence of "the pic," I went into our favorite neighborhood bodega, the Griffin Market (whose owners endeared themselves to the Philly relatives by giving Alex a free containter of squid, octopus and other nasty fishy stuff), and told them about how I was wandering the neighborhood looking to steal copies of the Current (btw, the Current comes out on Wednesday, and I was doing this on Friday, so anyone with the paper still sitting on their porch wasn't planning to read it anyway.) While I had grabbed a few copies from nearby porches, Riccardo, the shopkeeper at the Griffin Market, pointed me to a big stack in their store. Consequently, I ended up lugging a completely ridiculous number of copies - about 30 - home, so if anyone wants a physical print of the famous pic, let me know.

Again, the link to the relevant issue of the Current is here. As Abby pointed out, Margaret has now been pictured in two newspapers in two years. A tough track record to maintain. And the girl is throwing down a tough gauntlet for the boy to compete with.

The bruiser

2009-02-11T22:11:00.002-05:00

The boy is, officially, a bruiser. Each toddler cohort at daycare has kids who fit various profiles. Margaret, for example, was a sweetheart. Other kids are troublemakers, either for personality reasons or because they're prone to accidents. Teddy falls in the latter category. In addition to his recent chipped tooth, he has banged his head into a table at daycare, leading to an impressive welt on his forehead. And, earlier today, he ran into something that gave him a big shiner. In both cases, I got calls from the daycare folks altering me to the fact that there would be an incident report waiting for me later in the day. It's gotten to the point where I see an external (202) area code call, and I immediately wonder what the boy has managed to do to himself.

No pictures of the boy's wounds which, I know, must perturb fans of the kids. We'll work on getting some up.

Damaged goods

2009-02-01T23:10:00.008-05:00

Earlier today, Teddy and I went for a walk with Maddie. We were heading out to see Oscar, who works weekends at a bodega near us, in order to talk football. Oscar is from Mongolia, but likes to talk sports, especially tennis, football and hockey. So we had to visit Oscar to talk about the upcoming Steelers game.

On the way, Teddy was walking next to me, but decided that he wanted to hold the dog's leash. Until we got to Scheele's Market, where Oscar works, Teddy was happy to hold my hand with one hand while clinging onto the leash with the other. Holding onto my hand is important because Maddie varies her speed in a way that can be difficult for the boy. She'll lurch ahead, yanking him forward and threatening to pull him over. But as long as I hold his hand, we're ok.

After stopping to see Oscar, Teddy decided that he no longer wanted to hold my hand. In fact, he objected to any contact with me, including the hand that I was placing on his head while we were walking. When we started to cross 28th Street, a number of things happened at once. First, we were getting closer to the park so Maddie, knowing we were close to the park, made an abrupt move in that direction. Second, someone drove past with Steelers flags on his car. A bit distracted, I yelled "Go Steelers!" and motioned at my t-shirt that commemorates the previous Super Bowl victory. I got an enthusiastic response from the passing motorist, but in the meantime, Maddie's yank sent Teddy sprawling in the middle of Dumbarton Street. He started howling. I scooped him up and we recovered our composure on the way to the park where Maddie chased the ball, despite a nasty hangnail of her own, while Teddy squished around in the mud.

On the way home, I noticed that Teddy had bloodied his knuckles "Hmmm," I thought "Perhaps his spill was worse than it seemed. Poor little guy." Later, when we were watching the game with our neighbors and their three kids, Abby said "Does Teddy have a chipped tooth?"

Oops. I suppose that the boy could have chipped his tooth during any number of recent falls. And I suppose that the doctor could have missed it during his recent check-up. But I suspect that his fall during our walk caused it.

Tommy, one of Margaret's buddies at school, recently took a spill and knocked out a tooth. His mom told us that the dentist said that it wasn't worth doing much given that it wasn't a permanent tooth. I suspect that the same policy applies to the boy.

It's not as if Teddy looks like a hockey player, but he definitely has a chipped upper left front tooth. I'll see if I can get a picture sometime soon. Even if it's not very noticeable, as I told our neighbor, it's like a scratch on your new car - once you know that it's there, you just can't stop looking at it. Our previous "perfect" little kid is now damaged goods.

Update on the boy

2009-01-29T21:41:00.002-05:00

Teddy and I went to the doctor today for his 15/16 month check-up. For those of you keeping score at home, here are his specs:

Height: 33" putting him in the 90th - 95th percentile
Weight: 27 pounds 10 ounces putting him in the 75th - 90th percentile
Head size: 50 cm putting him above the 97th percentile

So we have official medical confirmation that he's a real bruiser (although I'm surprised, given the size of his belly and thighs, that he doesn't fall higher on the weight distribution.)

A fun (sic) weekend

2009-01-25T20:59:00.006-05:00

As the severity of the economic downturn facing our new president becomes more and more apparent (6% annualized declines in GDP for the U.K. and Germany announced for the 4th quarter of '08 - that's unbelievable), a weekend at home has made me really appreciate the fact that Abby and I both have jobs (knock on wood.) As I think that I've noted before, if I couldn't get away from the kids by going to work on Monday, I think I'd go crazy (as would Abby, I suspect.)

Now, I love my kids, let's get that straight. Margaret is becoming a really interesting little person, with all sorts of fascinating opinions and thoughts that she wants to share. Teddy has been working on his communication skills as well. He babbles in a very earnest and demonstrative way, using apparently complex sentence structures with sounds that don't mean anything. But he's also starting to toss out more actual words. For example, "nose" is a new word (with him grabbing his ears followed by pointing to his nose). Most exciting, he's started to work on his sister's name: "Mah-get." While his sister's name pops up in a variety of setting, he tends to scream after most interactions with her.

Margaret and Teddy have a very contentious relationship. He wants what she has, and he'll chase her around because she's so interesting. For her part, she either doesn't want to share or she wants what he has, and she usually gets her way (often by pushing him) leading him to howl. In the end, it's a roller coaster ride as brief quiet spells are broken by Teddy screaming at Margaret, Margaret howling at Teddy, or one (or both) of them bellowing about some affront attributable to us. In the latter case, Margaret's complaints tend to be more sophisticated ("I want a sippy cup, not a big girl cup!"), but are no less pointless. After a weekend of the kids' drama, I can understand why Maddie gets so stressed out around them.

To the boy's credit, he managed to do his business (both kinds!!) on the potty multiple times this weekend. I'm pretty sure that he doesn't really understand why he's doing what he's doing on the potty, but he seems to have the drill down. In contrast, his sister refuses to use the potty at home, although she doesn't wear a diaper at school anymore. If only we could combine the "reasoning" skills of Margaret with the mindless skills of the boy, we'd have the perfect toddler.

Pics from the Inauguration

2009-01-20T22:46:00.013-05:00

We went to the Inauguration today. Headed out at about 8:30 and stood around until 1:00 when Obama finished his speech. We ended up watching the event on a jumbotron while standing just north of the Washington Monument in the midst of a big crowd whose extent I couldn't even fathom.

I don't have any deep thoughts at this point (as if any of my thoughts are that deep), but I will say that it was cold. And crowded. The kids didn't like the crowd too much as it prevented them from wandering around, and they were even less enamored with the cold. The boy kept fussing for most of the time we were there. Although I was getting ready to "send him back," a general phrase of discontent that we're using often for the boy at this point, it turns out that he was probably just chilly - his poor little hands and feet were really cold when we got home. But once we got home, he cheered up enough to enjoy the champagne toast that took place at the end of the day following Bush's final speech in Midland, Texas. Although I'm less of a partisan than most of the people who participated in that toast (much less those on the mall - geez, I'm such a killjoy as someone on Facebook noted about me), I not only raised my glass to send Bush on his way, I even suggested doing so with the bottle of Dom Perignon that we've had sitting around for years, just waiting for the appropriate time to break it open.

Highlights from the inaugural concert

2009-01-18T23:38:00.008-05:00

We all headed down to the mall today for the concert in honor of Obama's inauguration. Overall, we've been a bit torn about how much we want to participate in the inaugural festivities. There are certain factions of our family that are quite pleased with the electoral outcome and want to celebrate. Others are more concerned about the possible crowds and inconvenience, such as people from random places parking in our driveway. But we haven't had any driveway problems (no thanks to the DC government despite the impressive armada of tow trucks that they deployed to remove cars from M Street), we haven't noticed any other inconveniences due to the inauguration despite warnings to the contrary, and we only live a 20 minute walk away from the mall, so we figured that we'd head down to the concert. We bundled up the kids, walked down to the mall, dropped the stroller at work on Constitution Ave. (because strollers were reportedly verboten), and carried the kids to see what we could see.

Which, at the end of the day, wasn't much. We ended up in the "overflow" area near the Washington Monument, where strollers would've been allowed. There were a few jumbotrons, but we couldn't make out many of the people on the screens. And we couldn't hear much at all. I found the lack of effective audio to be particularly annoying. After all, there are outdoor concerts every day - why can't I hear the deep thoughts expressed by Denzel Washington? Or Jamie Foxx? Or any of the other similarly august speakers at the event? When you combined the lack of a stroller, which necessitated chasing the boy all over the place, with the lack of effective audio and video, I eventually decided that it was best to concentrate on the crowd rather than any of the deep statements being expressed by speakers at the Lincoln Memorial.

And, I have to say, the crowd was pretty cool. An extraordinarily diverse crowd - black and white, young and old, all of whom seemed to be in a good mood. Teddy would trundle into someone leading that person to apologize profusely for getting in his way. "Not your fault," I would say, and we would get a grin or a nod of the head in response. Just a cool vibe with everyone enjoying the scene in their own way.

In the end, as I told Abby, the concert epitomized the Democratic party (and, more broadly, the left wing in the United States). An amazingly diverse group with (more or less) good intentions if you can get past the lack of organization (i.e. the poor crowd control and the bad audio and video) and the insufferable self-righteousness (i.e. the people waving political placards about torture, capitalism, poverty, etc.). As the crowd control and technological snafus suggested, it's never clear who's really in charge in the Democratic party. In the end, the diverse groups usually lead to an ideological implosion. But not this time, it would appear, as they managed to elect Obama.

And perhaps Obama will solve all of these problems in the Democratic party. Perhaps he'll managed to capitalize on the strengths of the left (e.g. diversity, tolerance, careful thought) without succumbing to its weaknesses (e.g. excessive thought and overemphasis on unrealistic or even counterproductive goals, all in the name of self-righteous "good intentions"). Currently, I'm not too optimistic. After all, he's inheriting a major pile of sh*t which, for better or worse, will likely overwhelm any other deep thoughts and good intentions that he might have. And he's got a Congress that epitomizes the worst of the Democratic party.

But I'm willing to cut the guy some slack - perhaps he can capitalize on the cool vibe that we experienced at the concert to actually accomplish something. Like I said, I'm not optimistic. But I guess that I am hopeful, which was, I suppose, the core of Obama's entire campaign.

The blowout boy

2009-01-13T20:34:00.015-05:00

Every day, the folks at daycare send home a report with the kids. The first part of this report is a broad discussion of what the kids in a particular classroom have done up until around naptime, at which point the teachers have time to sit down at the computer to write up the report. The second part involves the minutiae of, for example, Teddy's day noting how long he napped, how much he ate, and how many and what kind of diapers he had. Most of the time, neither report is terribly interesting, although we occasionally get notices about the first time one of our kids sat up in the infant room, said a certain word, or got bloodied by a classmate. (Incidentally, I can't actually remember the dates of many of these milestones, but rest assured, we've saved the report sheets.)

Yesterday, when reading through Teddy's personal report, we noted the following details: Snack - 2 servings! Lunch - 2 servings! We've noticed that he also likes to eat at home, although he often complains at first, putting up symbolic resistance when he's given his dinner. The boy's stellar appetite has a couple of implications.

First, he's becoming a serious bruiser. While he's nowhere near as big as his cousin for a kid his age (15 months), he's clearly out of 12 month clothes and is solidly in the 18 month, and often the 2 year, clothes size (the sizing of clothes being a real random card in the infant clothing industry.) Given his Buddha belly, which is a really amusing sight when he gets ready for a bath, he'll probably pass Margaret soon in girth and possibly in weight, despite the fact that she currently towers over him.

Second, Teddy is prone to blowouts at school. Each kid has a bin in his or her cubby that holds spare clothes for use in the event of an accident. In Margaret's case, these accidents typically involve potty-training snafus, potty-training being something that we're working on, but she doesn't have quite down (particularly at home where she objects to the potty by plaintively saying, "I'm a baby girl".) Occasionally, she also has episodes of over-energetic art that necessitate a wardrobe change.

Teddy, on the other hand, is a blowout boy. We have to keep his back-up cubby well-stocked given his propensity for working through his clothes inventory. Whenever I show up after work and he trundles towards me in a one-piece bodysuit, something that we rarely use when dressing him in the morning, I always know that he's had a diaper event, and I mumble apologies to the teachers. (To be fair, he sometimes has a food event that requires a change of clothes. Such as when he dumped his tomato soup on his head a few weeks back and Ms. Dana actually had to give him a bath, which is a rare event in the Toddler I room. I was so proud.)

The teachers typically smile and brush off any concerns. Except for yesterday. In light of his yeoman's work at snack and lunch, Teddy apparently had the blowout to end all blowouts. Both of his teachers, Ms. Mary and Mr. Ty, marveled at the diaper that caused the problem. And, as noted above, they clearly recorded how much food he'd eaten beforehand. Ms. Mary was quite philosophical about the cause-and-effect associated with eating so much food. And as I told her today after school, what can I say except for "That's my boy!"

In other developments, Teddy is starting to develop his verbal skills. Which is a good thing, because he's also becoming pretty vocal in his various objections about his life. Doesn't like his food (at least initially)? Wail. Doesn't like when his sister takes his toy (and often pushes him in the process of taking it)? Wail. Doesn't like his hat or coat? Wail. Doesn't like ______ (fill in the blank)? Wail. Abby thinks that he's frustrated that he isn't effectively able to communicate what he wants. I suspect that he's just being difficult, but there's probably something to Abby's theory given that, unlike a newborn who wails at just about anything, Teddy's complaints are becoming quite focused.

So it's a good thing that he's starting to "talk." He can say "Mama" in a clearly correct context. Such as when I'm rocking him before bed and Abby walks by the bedroom door, leading him to pull out his nuk-nuk to declare "Mama." (His ability to say "Papa" or "Dada" is much less developed, although I do have to say that he fancies me at this point given how he wails when I desert him by leaving the room.) He can also mumble "nuk," something that he's becoming as attached to as his sister (although pretty soon, we'll have a cold-turkey day regarding those little devices, notwithstanding the blessed succor that they provide on car trips.) One of his first words was "spider" in the context of his favorite song "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." A couple weeks ago, we went to Safeway early on Saturday morning, and Teddy kept shouting "spider!" as we walked through the aisles. I thought it was pretty funny, but no one else could understand him. He also says "Thank you," although it sounds more like "Da doo." But he does appropriately use that phrase, such as when he's given more food, which is nice if he's to grow up to be something other than a bruiser hooligan. Another phrase in Teddy's vocabulary is "Uh oh," which is particularly important given how often he gets in trouble. Finally, he's working on "No," which is important for reasons analogous to those for "Uh oh." The nice thing about a simple word like "No" is that he can really work on the subtleties. He can sharply say "NO!" or he can drag it out: "Noooooo." At this point, one of the real joys in my life is listening to him work on verbal nuances related to the word "No" when he's been brought into bed with us at 5:00 in the morning (after having been up at 11:30, 2:00 and 4:00 as he was last night.) Yep, a pleasant, smart little guy.

Under the Table and Dreaming (or navel-gazing on New Year's Eve 2008)

2008-12-31T23:36:00.035-05:00

Should I or shouldn't I publish this post? That's something that I've been struggling with since I wrote it back on New Year's Eve. On the one hand, no one could possibly be interested in this type of navel-gazing (to cite the title of this post). On the other hand, my dedicated readers like full access to all of my ruminations. Nay, they demand access to those ruminations. And someday I'll look back on this post and think about how young I was at 36.

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I started feeling old around 1:00 yesterday afternoon. The Philly relatives are planning to come down to D.C. for the Georgetown-UConn basketball game, but because they want to attend the womens game, which led to some initial confusion on our end, we need to pick up the tickets at the box office on campus. While the Hoya men play at the Verizon Center with tickets sold online, the women continue to play at McDonough Arena on the campus with tickets only sold on site. Incidentally, it's going to be a slaughter - UConn playing G'town in womens basketball is like the best team in the country playing a high school team. Oh well, at least we spanked them this past week in mens b-ball.

In any case, Maddie and I headed over to buy tickets yesterday after lunch. It was a stunningly sunny day as we trudged down O Street towards campus. In general, we don't spend much time west of Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown. For one thing, it's dirtier, more crowded, and louder over there than on our side of the neighborhood with lots of students and their messy trash cans crowding the sidewalks. More importantly, I tend to get a little weirded out when walking through my old college haunts, constantly seeing carbon copies of my twenty-year-old self. Luckily, the school is on break, so Maddie and I had a peaceful, student-free walk through the campus to the box office. On that walk, we passed through the main quad, by the library, and down the road past my old dorm where I looked up and unsuccessfully tried to figure out which window was my freshman room. After finding the box office closed, we wandered back through old paths that I took numerous times during my college years, marveling at the new construction. It was simultaneously striking how much things had changed, but how much was just as I remembered it from back in the day. Maddie and I walked back home, sans tickets, with thoughts of how, at the end of college, the world is spread out before you like a blank slate just waiting for you to make your mark. Not that one has regrets, but one naturally wonders what could have happened differently with different decisions. Hell, rather than working for the Board, I could've made a mint at Lehmans and helped bring down the world. That's probably not better, but it would've been different.

Last night, a colleague of mine from work posted a playlist on his Facebook page comprised of songs that his research assistants suggested. The list included a bunch of old bands, like the Clash, but what really caught my eye was the inclusion of Joy Division. They were a late '70s punk/new wave band whose career was cut short by the suicide of their lead singer back in 1980. "Geez," I posted on John's page, "Were any of your RA's even alive when Joy Division was?" "Nope," he replied, "But you have to admire their knowledge of and enthusiasm for that era." A historical study for them, but I remember listening to Joy Division and the Clash in middle school. And listening to the old, but cool, bands like the Doors. R.E.M. was an underground, college band, while U2 had just started to break through.

Today, Abby and I took the kids to daycare where we offered Margaret the opportunity to stay home with Papa, which she declined in favor of Power Tots (her toddler gymnastics class) and Show-and-Share (her show-and-tell event at school.) I dropped Abby at work and headed out shopping to see if the stories of outrageous sales in our recession-bound economy were true. While waiting to pick Abby up afterwards, I flipped between radio stations. Q101, the "alternative rock" station from my earlier years in D.C., and 107.3, a "mix" station that plays "hits from today and yesterday." In both cases, I was struck by how many songs they played from the early '90s. Q101, which ostensibly is still a "hip" radio station, was particularly dominated by grunge and descendants of grunge. I sat there and listened to Pearl Jam ("Betterman") and Blind Melon ("No Rain"). About halfway through the latter song, I started thinking about how old the songs really are. At least 15, and perhaps almost 20, years each. In some part of my mind, I still think of these as "new" songs, but they're really no newer than the Monkees song ("Pleasant Valley Sunday") that I heard on the official "classic rock" station.

Music is an interesting thing. In some ways, it can take you back to the time when you heard the songs. Makes you feel young again, as if things haven't really changed all that much. At the same time, however, it can make you realize how far back that time actually was. So, I sat there in the car, thinking about how the "Big Chill" and "thirtysomething" were attempts to tie the Baby Boomers back to their past through music, although the Boomers are now collecting social security, and wondering about what would be the equivalent retrospective for Generation X. Perhaps it's Q101.

To celebrate New Year's Eve, we headed to First Night in Alexandria with some friends and their daughter. Although there were tons of venues with all sorts of interesting acts, we were confined to the kid-friendly shows at the Jefferson-Houston School for Arts and Academics on Cameron Street. There, Margaret got an excellent balloon ladybug from a clown and danced to Mister Don, while Teddy lumbered all over the place. The kids had a great time while we had fun hanging out with our friends and marveling at the chaos associated with kids.

During an intermission in Mister Don's kids act, we headed next door to watch a young band in the school auditorium. They had a saxophone and a violin in addition to the standard bass, guitar and drums. My initial thought was, "These guys have some sort of Dave Matthews thing going on." In fact, the second song they played was "Dancing Nancies" from the Dave Matthews cd "Under the Table and Dreaming" (hence, the title of this post.) I sang along to show Abby that it was actually a song. Looking around, I saw a middle aged woman also singing while all the teenage kids stood with blank expressions. Later, they played "Runaround" by Blues Traveler, which Margaret and I again danced around to, along with the other older folks in the room.

Upon getting home, I busted out my old Dave Matthews cd's, having been put in the mood to listen to them by the band. I was struck by two things. First, in the cd cover, the Dave Matthews Band listed a P.O. Box to join their fan club. Think about that. Although the cd was put out in 1994, that was so long ago that the internet didn't exist enough for a band to have a website. They were still using P.O. Boxes. Second, as I told Abby, I was once able to play a bitchin' version of "Satellite" on the guitar. No more, however, as my guitar skills, bitchin' or otherwise, have long since departed.

As befits an exciting New Year's Eve with kids, the night culminated with me putting in a set of early '90s cds - Live, Toad the Wet Sprocket, and the Spin Doctors in addition to Blues Traveler and the Dave Matthews Band - to revel in that music while writing this post.

On the one hand, all of this makes me feel old. I'm convinced, based on listening to Q101, that music hasn't really progressed since the mid-90s, but I suspect that's because I'm just fundamentally out of touch. And a New Year's Eve at home eating a frozen pizza, as we ended up doing, just doesn't seem that fun. While at CVS, I spotted some couples dressed to the nines, obviously heading out for exciting times. In contrast, I was paying for our frozen pizza and trying to keep Margaret from disassembling the candy rack.

At the same time, Margaret had this enormous grin on her face while prancing around to Mister Don. Unlike the other kids who tend to walk around with blank expressions, Margaret has this big grin that she puts on during such events, like she did at her Xmas pageant at school. We see it and, despite our natural parental bias, I'm sure that everyone else picks up on it as well. She just looks like she's having a blast. And everyone smiled at Teddy as he cavorted around, shaking the various musical instruments that he managed to pick up or trying to grab (and likely pop) other kids' balloons. So what if we were listening to Mister Don sing a bad version of She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain? I sang a better version on the way home in the car, and I think that Margaret appreciates my singing much more than she does that of Mister Don or anyone like him. And Margaret loved the frozen pizza. Which really is all that's important.

Another Christmas in Connecticut

2008-12-28T01:29:00.004-05:00

We just returned from our trip to Connecticut for Christmas. The important stuff (i.e., the pictures) are included below. But the brief summary is as follows.

It snowed a lot the days before and after our arrival. Margaret and Teddy had fun in the snow, although we spent almost as much time getting them prepped and out the door as we did actually playing in the snow. Which is pretty consistent with my recollection of snow days as a kid.

Abby and I then deserted the kids for few days to head into New York City where we hung out with Eleanor. A lot of fun (esp. being sans kids), but I don't think that I could live in NYC at this point in my life. Too dirty, too crowded and too expensive. But it's a nice place to visit. Although it was cold. Damn cold.

Margaret enjoyed all of the hoopla associated with Christmas including making cookies and opening presents. In fact, she really seemed to grasp the gestalt of the whole event as it's defined on her mother's side of the family. She did get worn out by the excitement of opening presents on Christmas day with the initial excitement about opening each present eventually replaced by a desire to immediately play with each one.

Compared to last year when he was just a blob, Teddy was naturally more involved in the whole scene, but he was primarily interested in playing with the wrapping paper and, more generally, creating havoc. He's a walking disaster at this point, and I would just complement him with a "Good job, boy!" as he found something new to pound on.

Our drive back was fraught with delays as we ran into bad traffic throughout New Jersey and Maryland. But we sang Beatles songs and showtunes for the kids which kept them happy, for the most part, until they eventually fell asleep.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-19T21:51:00.013-05:00

Margaret took part in her first Christmas pageant today at daycare. For the past few weeks, she's blasted out tortured versions of "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." Often, she has sung them while we're walking home. She has especially liked to yell "Hah, hah, hah" after the line "Used to laugh and call him names" in the Rudolph song. And she has enthusiastically yelped "Hey!" at the end of the line "One horse open sleigh" in "Jingle Bells."

People that we've passed on the street have seemed to think it's funny, especially since Margaret has been sitting in the bottom seat of the stroller lately so they haven't been able to see the source of the little voice spouting these songs until they've passed us. But it's been like a broken record for me, although it does keep her from moaning, another favorite pastime during the walk home.

In any case, Margaret was very excited about the show. Once they came out to perform and she spotted us, however, she collapsed into tears. One of those "I'm a baby girl" episodes that she's exhibited lately. It took a while to get her back with the group, but we eventually managed to do so, and she was happy enough once we did. Funny thing but, after all of the practice in the stroller and at home, Margaret appeared to forget the words when the time came to perform. She couldn't even really manage a "Hah, hah, hah" or a "Hey!" at the appropriate points. But we couldn't really fault her as all of the other kids seemed to suffer from similar stage fright.

Early Xmas photos

2008-12-11T00:05:00.004-05:00

We got our Christmas tree over the weekend. Margaret and I decorated it while Teddy tried to pull down the ornaments until he was banished to his bed. We also tried to take some photos for our Christmas cards, but we weren't very successful, as you'll see in the photos below.

"It's just very frustrating..."

2008-12-04T21:42:00.004-05:00

During our recent trip to Cleveland for Thanksgiving, a number of my dedicated readers admonished me for playing favorites. "He's a good boy," they said about Teddy. "Just look at him go! Even if he's getting in trouble, it's nothing personal."

Before getting into the important substance of this post, a few of notes about our trip to Cleveland. First, Abby, Teddy and I visited the "Christmas Story House" where we were photographed in front of "a major award." Frankly, the visit wasn't worth the $7.50 we each paid for admission, but I suppose that, as Abby said, we can at least say we've done it. Second, I got a number of comments, and read numerous angry columns in the Cleveland newspaper, about how the Feds refused to bail out some Cleveland bank and instead gave money to some Pittsburgh bank that was used to buy that Cleveland bank. What's funny (sic) is that a colleague of mine who spent the holiday near Youngstown got reprimanded in a similar way by his relatives. Upon returning to DC, his impression was that Ohio is a really depressed (and depressing) place. I'm not sure if I'd go that far, but some people there certainly are bitter.

In any case, back to the subject of this post. Despite the fact that I praised Margaret and slandered the boy in my last post, since our return, Margaret has repeatedly done her best to tick us off. She has become, almost overnight, incredibly petulant, often about completely trivial issues.

An example. One of her recurrent complaints involves getting an insufficient number of some food item. Margaret wants a certain number of fig newtons or olives or croutons, and so on. Specifically, she wants FIVE of whatever she's been given, and she holds up her hand, with fingers spread, to indicate how many she wants. (What's really ironic is that she often doesn't bother to check whether or not she actually has five of the relevant item.) These foods tend to appear either before dinner or as a post-dinner treat. In the former case, we'd like her to hold out for more stuff until dinner. In the latter case, how can she complain about how much dessert she's getting? But she's very adamant about needing five! So she starts to wail at which point we try to explain, in vain, how she can't have more. Perhaps we're being too stubborn, but it inevitably deteriorates to the point where we're threatening either to take away the food that she has (which elicits more howls) or to give her a time out in a chair or her bed (which gets a similar response.)

This type of stubbornness, often accompanied by wailing, has occurred in lots of situations since we've gotten back from Cleveland (e.g. her clothes, who dresses her, what shoes she wears and so on.) I start by trying to reason with her, often by pointing out the unimportance of the relevant issue. No luck. Then I try to ignore her or move on to something else. This occasionally works, but often doesn't (and it can be hard to ignore her as she dials up her crying.) Next, I move on to arguments about how things could be worse, noting how unpleasant she's being. Again, no luck. We eventually escalate to the point where I start making threats (e.g. time out in bed, food taken away.) At that point, we're done. She's howling, I'm completely pissed off, and no one is being very rational anymore.

A few months ago, a neighbor across the street dropped off a few books about toddler behavior problems. In the past, I haven't been too keen on consulting those types of books. They tend to involve impractical advice that, frankly, doesn't apply to my perfect little daughter. And, in any case, my parenting skills are such that I can deal with any problems that arise. Tonight, however, after Margaret basically missed dinner due to a completely pointless meltdown about how many croutons she had, I told Abby, "You know, we may want to take a look at those books that Donna gave us." It would appear that the terrible twos have made a belated appearance at our house. To illustrate that it's not just me, Abby later commented, after recovering Margaret from a time out in her bed, "It's just very frustrating..."

As for the boy, he's been getting up at 4:30 in the morning lately which isn't ideal, but at least he goes back to sleep once we bring him into bed with us. And he's displaying a good sense of humor and good belly laughs that are much better than the petulant wails of his sister.

Daddy's favorite

2008-11-24T22:40:00.006-05:00

Some of my "Facebook friends" have accused me of playing favorites.

Regarding this accusation, a first point is that, yes, I have joined Facebook. Because I bitch and moan about how out of touch I am, I decided to join the preeminent social networking site and, sure enough, I am now in touch with people from high school that I haven't heard from in years. Now, I lived for almost two decades without being in touch with these people, so I'm not sure what I've gained by being a Facebook member. Perhaps I'm still just too old to appreciate the scope of Facebook.

A second point is that the Facebook commentators are probably correct, I do play favorites with Margaret receiving more attention and affection than Teddy. Margaret is simply more interesting than the boy. She can talk. She can (almost) read books. She's just very interesting to be around.

In contrast, as my last post suggests, the boy is a world of trouble. He requires constant attention to keep him from hurting himself. And he gets fussy for inexplicable reasons. Which, I think, sums up Teddy's drawbacks at this point - he simply isn't able to provide rational reasons for his various actions. He does have a charming chuckle - heh, heh, heh. And he has a funny walk, sort of like Redd Foxx from Sanford and Son. But, boy oh boy, is he a lot of work. When we visited Philly this past weekend, someone (usually Abby) had to chase Teddy around to keep him from plunging off the stairs.

In the meantime, Margaret, Andrew and I took the train into the city to see a kids' performance by the Philadelphia symphony. While she was a bit young for the show, Margaret was enthralled by the music. And she loved the train and the pizza that we had for lunch.

So I may be biased at this point, but the girl is just much more fun than the boy. I'm sure he'll come into his own, but it just gets tiresome to follow him around trying to keep him in check.

The Destructo Kid

2008-11-16T20:42:00.006-05:00

At the end of every weekend, after spending two full days with the kids, Abby and I both think the same thing: it's good that the kids are heading to daycare tomorrow. I love the kids and all, and they're a lot of fun to have around, but good grief, they're a lot of work. I think that we both end the weekend with a renewed appreciation for the dedication of stay-at-home parents.

Lately, this sentiment has become even more pronouced due to the behavior of the boy. As I've noted before, Teddy has always been a troublemaker (or as Margaret calls him a "troublemarker.") But lately, it's gotten even more extreme. He is constantly, and I mean constantly, getting into trouble.

Heading up the stairs. Repeatedly. He'll get about three stairs up and will sit down, grinning at us, but apparently oblivious to the predicament into which he's gotten himself.

Getting into the dog's food container. Repeatedly. If we're not quick, he'll sample some of the dog's food. Even if we get him away from the container, he'll head right back there.

Standing on the chairs for the kids' table. Repeatedly. He pulls himself up, stands up on the chair, and grins, again oblivous to his precarious position and the fact that it's unclear how he'll get down.

Basically, we spend all of our time chasing him around trying to keep him out of trouble. One the one hand, he does have a charming grin that he flashes at us when he's getting into trouble. But on the other hand, it's a royal pain in the arse. In contrast, when Margaret was the same age, I don't recall needing to secure the stairs by closing the child gates. With the boy, it's absolutely necessary. It's just a matter of time before he takes a header down the stairs when one of us forgets to close a gate. Even then, I'm not sure that he'll learn. Because what's really amazing is his determination. Pull him away from something or get him out of a dangerous position, and he'll head right back to the same thing.

Abby thinks that he knows when he's doing something wrong. Such as getting into the dog's food, because we always yelp at him. I'm not so sure. I think that he's either not too bright or he's a real risk-taker. People that I've discussed this with have either appealed to sexism ("he's just being a boy!") or ageism ("he's only one!"). Both are true and may have some relevance for this behavior, but when I sit there on the couch trying to read the paper, I just have to shake my head as I watch him pull a basket of books down on his head. Once upon a time, not that long ago in fact, I was able to read the Sunday paper in peace...

A belated post

2008-11-11T20:45:00.010-05:00

I suppose that I have to start this post by explaining the lack of recent activity on the blog. Not that this post is that late, but given the political theme of my earlier posts, I suppose that my dedicated (sic) readers have been waiting for my insightful (sic) comments about the election.

Alas, illness prevented me from being more active in my recent blogging. It started with Margaret on the weekend before Halloween, then moved to Abby, and then passed to me. Margaret was knocked out for a couple of days, while Abby seemed to be ok as it wasn't clear that she was really sick until she noted that her sore throat was accompanied by a 102 degree fever. Once it hit Papa, however, around Wednesday before Halloween or so, he was in bed for 3 days straight with a sore throat, body aches, head ache, and high fever. So I suppose that we know who the tough people are in this family.

As for Halloween, Margaret was a dinosaur, while Teddy wore Margaret's pumpkin costume from the year before. We had some conflict as Margaret initially wanted to be a pumpkin again, but she ended up being happy with her dinosaur costume. I was pleased with that outcome as I'm shooting for gender neutral costumes for as long as I can so that Teddy can wear them in the future (next year: Teddy the dinosaur). Some people noted that Margaret looked more like a dragon than a dinosaur, but that didn't seem to throw her off. Instead, she collected lots of candy as part of the mayhem that occurs in our neighborhood during Halloween. Notably, she didn't appear to understand what she got from her trick-or-treating. When she got home, she spent most of her time sorting her treats by size, shape and color without actually eating any of it. By the next day, her treats were hidden away and, beyond an occasional request for her "trick or treat pumpkin," she didn't seem to miss anything. And I'm fine with that.

Here are some pics from the time around Halloween.

As for the election, we spent the evening watching the news with a bottle of wine. Early on, I texted some friends in Chicago to see if they were heading to Grant Park for the celebration. None of them were devoted enough to brave the crowd, although it turns out that my brother from Minneapolis was in Chicago and was young, idealistic and energetic enough to head down to Grant Park.

Around the time that they called Pennsylvania for Obama, I started sending texts saying "I think it's over." "Not so fast," my cautious friends replied. Then they called Ohio for Obama. "IT'S OVAH," I sent. Some agreed with me. Other's, perhaps remembering 2000, were more hesitant. Then 11:00 PM rolled around, at which point California and Washington closed, and BOOM, there it was. Done. Over. Nothing left to discuss. President Barack Obama.

And my initial reaction was subdued. Apparently, people were dancing around all over DC at that point. As a colleague who lives in DC Chinatown said, "I can't recall people being this excited about the outcome of an election." To which I responded, "Yeah, but what recent outcome would've excited people in DC? Or any other city? But think about those people in Alabama or Oklahoma. For better or worse, they're probably not dancing on cars." I thought about taking Maddie out to find some of those people dancing on cars, but decided that it was too late to do so.

My second reaction was one of panic. "Oh my god," I thought, "What have we done? We've put an incredibly inexperienced person in the most important position in the world at the worst possible time. Based on what? Hope? Change? What the hell?" My attempts to communicate this sentiment to Abby received little sympathy. After taking a few deep breaths, I realized that the next president was facing a world of sh*t no matter who he or she was, and Obama was preferable, from my point of view, to anyone else who could face that world of sh*t.

So, at the end of the day, where does that leave us? I dunno, but we did wander down to the "Obama Wall" at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial. A pretty cool scene, although I was still disturbed by the somewhat naive idealism reflected in many of the posts. At the end of the day, I signed the wall, as you can see in the following pics.

As for the big picture, Margaret sums it up better than I ever could in the following video:

Almost done

2008-11-02T23:22:00.006-05:00

I have a colleague who lives in NoVa, part of the battleground state Virginia, whose two-year-old walks around saying "I Barack Obama and I approve this message." My colleague is a McCain supporter, but regardless, what are we doing to our kids? I suppose, when I vote with Maggie and get the "I voted" sticker that I put on her (hopefully, we'll get a few because those stickers are the key from her point of view), we're introducing them to their "civic duty."

Margaret had earlier looked through the rouges gallery of commentators in the Washington Post that gave predictions on the election. Her prescient observation: Lots of guys! Sure enough, out of 14 commentators, there were two women. Those women? Adrianna Huffington and Eleanor Clift. Double groan.

"I want my Mom"

2008-10-27T20:38:00.011-05:00

Discover Pink Floyd!

The life of a two-year-old involves lots of drama. Sometimes, Margaret deals with that drama by moaning loudly and repeatedly on our way home after work. After a few blocks, I'll stop and try to console her. If that doesn't work, I'll try to reason with her about how we're almost home and she doesn't want to make Maddie sad. If she still insists on groaning, I threaten that she's making Papa angry, something that she probably should avoid. Usually, one of those three approaches works, but we occasionally have a very unpleasant walk home, with Margaret moaning, to the amusement of passersby, while Papa steams.

Lately, she's started using a new phrase to express her displeasure. "I want my Mom," she'll whine. Not Mama, which is her usual phrase for referring to Abby, nor Abby, which is the other common reference to her Mom. Instead, she plaintively intones, "I want my Mom."

This phrase has been popping up more and more frequently. On one extreme, it pops up when she's feeling a little bit cranky and wants some consolation. Now, Papa can provide that consolation as well as Mama, but she still insists, "I want my Mom." On the other extreme, when Papa is irritated or is trying to correct some misbehavior, she'll start to bawl. In between heaving sobs, she'll blubber, "I want my Mom."

We're not sure where she picked up this phrase, but she probably learned it from someone in the preschool at daycare. After all, she never uses "Mom" in everyday speech, it's just when she's feeling needy, for one reason or another. But we've been trying to quash it, because it either arises in stupid settings (e.g. when Abby's in the shower in the morning) or when Abby isn't available and there's nothing to be done.

The biggest problem arises when Teddy elicits howls from Margaret when we're at home before Abby gets home. As I discussed in an earlier post, Margaret has become quite busy which often involves putting things in bags and containers that she then carries around. Teddy, being a curious little bugger, wants to get in on the action. But when he tries to grab something, Margaret resists and often starts to scream at him. "Teddddddyyyyy," she'll howl, tugging on her bag and occasionally pushing him in the process. Until recently, Teddy has responded with a quizzical expression, but lately he has also started to howl when Margaret thwarts him. Because Margaret is the more "rational" of the two, I often try to reason with her that she needs to move her toys away from the boy in order to avoid these confrontations. Often, this doesn't work as Margaret will start to sob. The frequent end to these episodes? "I want my Mom."

(BTW, the song at the beginning of this post isn't really "pro-Mom." But I like it because I've always liked Pink Floyd, and less motivated readers won't realize why it's not pro-Mom.)

Additional random thoughts

2008-10-22T22:40:00.006-05:00

John McCain was on Imus In the Morning today for the first time in a while. We tend to flip between Imus and NPR (how's that for a juxtaposition) on our shower radio, and I happened to catch part of his interview with McCain. Needless to say, McCain bashed Georgetown cocktail parties again during his interview. Darnit, where are these cocktail parties in my neighborhood? And why are we not invited?

At Teddy's one year checkup, we found out that he is in the 95th percentile for height and head size, and the 75th percentile for weight. All of which is expected except for, I suppose, the weight given that they marvel at how he eats at school. Mr. Ty told me, with some wonder, that he ate six muffins in one sitting today.

Speaking of Mr. Ty, Teddy has officially moved up to the toddler room, specifically to Toddler I. For a variety of reasons, including pressure in the infant room and an outflow of kids from this Pre-K room, they appear to be shifting kids up a bit sooner than they did in the past. Initially, Abby and I were a bit concerned that Teddy wasn't ready for the toddler room, unlike some other parents who seem very concerned that their kids aren't moving up soon enough (doggonit, gotta keep my kid ahead of the curve, they seem to think.) After all, he couldn't really walk until recently. But he seems to be doing well. And his walking has gotten much better over the last few weeks.

At the same time that Teddy is moving to the toddler room, Margaret is moving to the pre-K room. Given that she's not even three yet, I'm not sure if that's a good move, but I'm not sure that there's a big difference between Toddler II and the pre-K room. And the latter is a helluva lot cheaper, so I suppose I'm all for it. And, at the end of the day, Margaret seems happy.

Last thing. As you might notice in the pictures in the previous post, Teddy is a spotty little dude. He hasn't exhibited any allergic tendencies, but he's always been pretty spotty. During his last checkup, the doctor noted that some kids are sensitive to their own saliva. Given that Teddy's a drooly kid, and likes his nuk-nuk (although not as much as his sister), this seemed to be a pretty reasonable diagnosis. We've tried to cut back on his contact with his drool, and he seems to be more presentable.

Dancing princess

2008-10-22T20:22:00.009-05:00

We went to my cousin's wedding in eastern Ohio this past weekend, and I have a few observations.

Because we were in a "battleground" state (unlike DC where the only battle is whether the Democrat breaks 90%), we paid special attention to the distribution of political signs and stickers. Interestingly, we saw about a 50-50 split of McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden signs. And while looking for a bow tie for the boy at the Eastwood Mall in Warren OH, Teddy and I saw Obama stickers on people who sure looked the McCain-Palin part. That's certainly not scientific evidence, and I'm not sure if it means anything at all, but we were in the heartland of America that is eastern Ohio. I'll just leave it at that.

When dressing for the wedding, I pulled out my tie carrier, opened it up and found. . . a yellow rubber glove. At which point, I recalled Margaret fiddling with my tie carrier while helping Rodah clean the week before. Come to think of it, I still haven't tried to locate where she put my ties. . .

At the wedding, we spent a lot of time chasing Teddy. In fact, the boy was the big problem as he didn't want to sit still. Instead, he kept walking around wearing his little bow tie with his belly sticking out from under his little oxford shirt. Luckily, a number of other toddlers, including his second (?) cousin Brady, were trundling around the reception, so he wasn't a big problem. In fact, I noted to another toddler-chaser that we should've set up, and taken bets on, a toddler race. Notably, however, the best part was when someone else, like my Mom or Lizzie or Anna, watched Teddy.

But even still, the existence of the kids has definitely changed our "status" at weddings. As Abby noted, we now have a very different role at weddings. In the past, I would note the presence of kids, register how cute they were, and perhaps note their parents, at which point I would immediately go back to my conversation or whatever else I happened to be doing. "Gosh, aren't those cute kids on the dancefloor?," I'd think, before putting them out of my mind. Now, I am the source of those cute kids. And I'm the one being ignored by the younger set at weddings.

On the one hand, I'm sure that Abby and I could still be "fun" at weddings, even with the kids, although I'm not sure that I have the enthusiasm or stamina for such a feat. On the other hand, dancing with Margaret or watching her dance with her cousins was a lot of fun. In fact, I'm not sure whether anything that I've done at previous weddings beats dancing to some silly disco song with Margaret, Alex, Lizzie and Cousin Sarah (as Margaret refers to her).

Discover ABBA!

In the end, Teddy was completely wired. At some point, he was calmly sitting on my Mom's lap, and I asked my uncle, who could see the boy's face, whether he was asleep. Nope, he indicated, making a boooiiiingggg!!!! signal with his eyes.

And Margaret had so much fun dancing. Just before we go to bed each night, we have a routine that involves a discussion based on the question: "What do you want to talk about?" In the past, her preferred topics have been "fireworks" or various kids at her daycare. Since this past weekend, she's started to request a discussion about "dancing."

Another celebrity sighting

2008-10-15T22:10:00.007-05:00

Washington can be a very exciting city due to the political celebrities that we pass on the street. For example, George Stephanopoulos (sic?) has lived in our neighborhood for a while. We see him on the street occasionally and say hi when see him. We used to pass his house where his little dogs would bark at Maddie while he peered out of his second floor when we walked by. (BTW, he's really pretty short, and his dogs are reportedly responsible for the death of a DC cop. But that last point should be the subject of another Georgetown gossip-inspired post.)

Earlier, I posted about passing another political celeb, Ralph Nader, on the street.

The other day, we passed another one. Abby and I were walking the kids to daycare together, an unusual arrangement that reflected the fact that she was taking a "continuing legal education" class in a building by their daycare. As we crossed Rock Creek Park on Pennsylvania Avenue, I spotted someone who appeared to be asking for directions from repairman.

"Did you see who we just walked past?," I asked.

"What? Who?," said Abby.

"That guy, over there."

"The one who passed us on the street?"

"No, that guy over there, asking for directions."

"Who are you talking about?"

"That guy over there!"

"Is that Karl Rove?"

A few blocks later, I asked my previously inobservant wife whether she thought that Rove gets heckled in the same way that I was inclined to heckle Nader during our earlier encounter.

To conclude this silly post, McCain apparently bashed those of us who live in Georgetown for a variety of reasons. I feel so abused.

Margaret's make believe world

2008-10-13T20:50:00.008-05:00

Margaret has recently started incorporating a lot of "make believe" into her play. I don't exactly remember what her play was like before. In fact, I don't really recall how she played at all. Basically, she would pull down a container full of kiddie cups and bowls that she then scattered aimlessly around the kitchen while I cooked dinner. But in the last few weeks, she has started to exhibit substantially more focus with her playthings. She now carries the Tupperware and other food containers around the living room, putting them in bags and putting things in them with some clear objective. She pulls the little chairs from her table around, puts things on her table, on the windowsills, and in bags, and moves around her various dolls. It not clear, to me, what she's doing. And she rarely articulates her objectives, although she'll occasionally make statements like "I'm a mama!" Most of the time, she fiddles around with various stuff while I watch with bemusement trying to figure out what she's doing. As the haphazard nature of this post suggests, it's a bit difficult to explain. But basically, she's started to show a lot more concentration and focus in her manipulation of various toys. I guess that I need to ask her what she's doing while she plays.

She has also started to become much more annoyed with Teddy when he interferes with her play. Teddy isn't nearly as focused as Margaret, but he is interested in whatever his sister is doing. So, reflecting his increased mobility, he heads in her direction and grabs her bowls, shopping bag, Legos, or doll. And she hollers at him. And sometimes pushes him, yelling "No Teddy!" With the end result occasionally being a Margaret meltdown while Teddy stares at me with an innocent expression. It can be very difficult to quell the confrontations when I'm trying to cook dinner while they mill around my legs.

As for the boy, he's starting to vocalize more and more. Tonight, he tried to "sing" the Itsy Bitsy Spider, one of Margaret's favorites. He wasn't able to do much more than wave his hands in the air, sing in a off-tune kind of way, and clap at the end of the song, but he clearly had the right idea. We tried to get a video of his performance, but he mocked me by just grinning at the camera. Still, I think that he's showing an inclination for music before his sister did. Hooray, Teddy!

Teddy's big day

2008-10-08T21:27:00.013-05:00

The boy is one year old today. And he's managed to hit a few milestones of note over the last week on his way to his first birthday. Most of these milestones were reached over our long weekend in Chicago...

Where the Cubs, once again, let us down in dramatic - or, should I say, pathetic - fashion. While I wouldn't have said it at the start of the playoffs, this Cubs team was honestly the best Cubs team I've ever seen. They had the complete combination of good starting pitching, relief pitching and hitting that it takes to win a World Series. Again, I never voiced this opinion before the start of the playoffs for fear of inducing negative karma, but goddamit, this was a good team! How could they just roll over against the Dodgers? Watching them boot the ball all over the infield in the third inning of game two, which I was so fortunate to attend, was indescribably painful. And the atmosphere at the ballpark as the events of that inning unfolded was unbelievably depressing.

Now that I've gotten that out of my system, what did Teddy manage to accomplish over the weekend? First, he's started to "talk." Not in any meaningful way, although he does appear to be able to say "Mama" - he can repeat it along with Margaret and me (we had a group chant going on as we waited for her to get home tonight) and he seems able to actually identify who his Mama is. But he's also started to vocalize in interesting ways with modulations of tone associated with questions and emphatic statements. All nonsensical, but he's getting the idea. And he really started doing this vocalizing over the weekend with the grandparents.

He's also walking. Over the last few weeks, he's gotten better at taking a few steps, but he managed to put it all together this past weekend. When I last saw him on Thursday, he was walking a few steps before taking a seat. By the time I saw him on Sunday, he was stringing together dozens of steps before eventually losing his balance. When I first saw him again at our friends' house on Sunday, I watched with bemused amazement as he went step -- step, step -- step -- step, step, step -- step and so on, before he finally collapsed. I don't think that I had ever seen him take more than two steps in succession, and all of a sudden, he's trundling around the room.

I'm not sure what magic occurred at the grandparents' house, but I do know that both of the kids slept in until around 8:00 on Saturday and Sunday morning. That's 8:00 CST!!!! What the hell! We can't get the boy to sleep past 5:00 EST. And then today when Abby was admonishing Margaret for some sort of misbehavior, she whined, "I wish I was at Grandma Mary's house."

Hmmpphhh.

We have other news associated with Teddy's (possibly premature) graduation to the toddler room at daycare. But I'll save that for another time. Instead, I'll close this post with a variety of pictures, including some from his birthday party at school and at home.

And some videos of the boy (with the girl always in the background - something that is likely to become a common theme in Teddy's life.)

Ombama, part II

2008-10-01T20:01:00.006-05:00

Margaret and I were lying in bed yesterday night. I was reading the paper as Margaret got comfortable for her evening books. I turned the page, reading something about the failed bailout package in the House, when Margaret reached up, pointed at a picture on the other page of the paper, and said, "Ombama." I glanced at the picture and said, "Yep, you're right."

"But who's that?," I asked, pointing at a picture of McCain that was immediately next to Obama's picture.

For full disclosure, despite the impression that dedicated readers may have gotten from my last post, I don't consider myself to be a real partisan, unlike Abby, as I liked McCain ok pre-2006, pre-McCain-Feingold, pre-pandering to his base, and, most of all, pre-his VP selection. While I'm inclined to favor Obama at this point, I've really just pointed him out to Maggie because his image is everywhere, especially online. Her ability to identify him is cute, in the same way that her ability identify Dora is cute. But if it happens to make Abby happy, then I'm fine with it.

Returning to my question for Margaret, she responded in the way that she often does when she doesn't know the answer, by repeating the question. "Who's that?," she asked. "McCain," I said. Got no reaction.

Then tonight, we were watching the Cubs and surfing the web while waiting for Mama to get home from work. Margaret was very excited about watching the game. She always refers to the Cubs as "Go Cubs!", and she was very adamant: "I want to watch Go Cubs!" At some point, Margaret spotted a picture on the computer that she correctly identified as Ombama. "But who's that?," I asked, again pointing to McCain. And again, no response. But she doesn't really have it down as she saw another picture of someone with his back partially turned to the camera and proudly said, "Ombama." "Nope," I said, "That's Bush."

Speaking of the Cubs, they're currently down 5-2 to the Dodgers. I haven't posted any pics of the kids in their Cubs regalia because I didn't want to jinx anything. Hopefully, the Cubs will be able to pull this one out. Regardless, we're heading to Chicago this weekend for Abby's 10th year law school reunion. We're kicking the kids to the grandparents' house for Friday and Saturday nights while we'll stay with friends in the city. Needless to say, we're pretty excited. Even better, I got a call yesterday from some friends who told me that one of them had a ticket for tomorrow night's game that he can't use. Could I take it? If I do, Abby and the kids will head to the 'burbs while I go to the game and stay in the city. I said that I had to check with Abby first. Her response: "Of course, you should go. If you don't take the ticket, I will!" So tomorrow night at 8:30 PM CST, Abby and the kids will be in the 'burbs watching the VP debate with my parents while I'm at Wrigley. Go Cubs!

"Where's my Ombama (sic) sticker?"

2008-09-28T20:12:00.007-05:00

Abby and I tend to be fairly reserved when it comes to politics. More specifically, we're not inclined to engage in public displays of our political leanings. This doesn't mean that we're not willing to argue about politics with various people (e.g., my in-laws, my co-workers, etc.) in private settings, but we don't tend to post signs or engage in politics in overt ways. Among other factors, the politically reserved nature of our families (at least mine) have contributed to that behavior.

In the current election, this has changed somewhat. Unlike the Philly relatives (Rachel appears to have been able to overcome our family's ingrained aversion to public politicking), we're not to the point where we've posted an Obama sign in our front yard. (Actually, as urban elites, we don't have a front yard, but that's immaterial. Still, as evidence of how out of touch we are, Margaret stood slack-jawed while gaping at Uncle Joe as he maneuvered some odd device around their yard during our last visit. Turns out it was a lawnmower, something she'd never seen before.) But Abby donated money to Obama in the primary. And so did I, although I was really motivated by a desire to avoid another Clinton White House following the debacle that was the Ohio/Texas Democratic primaries.

(By the way, it's a bit creepy how you can track down donors on the web. When I was in Chicago a few weeks ago, I was sitting at a friend's house and stunned him by punching his donations up online. Actually, I intended to stay under the FEC's limits that would require such disclosure, and I berated Abby when she didn't do so with her donation. But the Obama website gave an error message on my first donation, so I hit the back button and resubmitted my donation. I ended up giving twice. Which ironically also put me over the FEC's limit and, as a result, made my donation records publicly available online. Abby was much more equanimous about my donation error than I was about hers.)

In any event, today we went into McCain territory. Specifically, we drove "outside the Beltway" to attend the Occaquan arts and crafts show. As I anticipated, the show involved more kitchy arts and crafts than actual art. But that's just me being an elitist. Even more elitist was my impression of many of the people wandering the streets of Occaquan. As I told Abby afterwards, the mean waist size of the men was somewhere over 40 inches, and the women tended to give the men a run for their money. Reminded me of Pittsburgh. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but waist size was also highly correlated with the political stickers that people wore. Those chunky guys and their portly wives tended to wear "Nobama" t-shirts and McCain stickers. I saw a number of beefy guys wearing t-shirts that said "Damn right I'm clinging to my guns and religion because I'm bitter (and I'll keep the rest of the constitution too)." I'm not sure what that last point meant (except perhaps the 2nd Amendment part, although the statement on the t-shirts seemed, to me, much broader), but I wasn't about to argue with them over it. And after spending way too much time north of the Potomac where almost ever sign and sticker is Obama, it was refreshing to see women wearing pink t-shirts saying "Sarah's Team."

When we first reached the outskirts of the festival, there was a booth handing out blue balloons for some Democratic Congressional candidate. As someone not represented in Congress (a Constitutionally correct position, I believe, although I do like to give the rest of the country the finger with our "Taxation Without Representation" license plate), I didn't really care about the balloon, although Margaret was pretty happy to get one. But getting a balloon for a kid isn't really a meaningful political statement, as she would've taken a ballon from Idi Amin. So Abby went to the booth and grabbed a couple of Obama stickers, putting one on Margaret and the other on her own shirt. Feeling a bit uncomfortable about such an overt political statement in Nobama territory, I pulled the sticker off Abby's shirt and put it on the stroller (and got admonished by Abby for doing so.) Margaret, on the other hand, was very pleased with her sticker. Although she complained about many, many things during our visit to Occaquan, one recurrent theme of discussion was the location of her "Ombama" sticker. (Maggie also got a free little basket from a black woman selling African crafts who, when Abby protested and tried to pay for the basket, quietly said, "I like your sticker." Actually, my suspicion is that her gift says more about the mark-ups on her wares than it does about her politics.)

Naturally, Margaret doesn't really know who Obama is. However, since his ads are so omnipresent on the web, I have pointed him out to her a few times when we're surfing the web together, so she can now spot him and say "Ombama." Unfortunately, she doesn't appear to be very discriminating as she has yelled Ombama at various other people (with specific racial characteristics) that we pass on the street. Of course, this happens much more often in DC than it did in Occaquan, so we didn't risk any embarrassment there.

In the end, Margaret's Obama sticker ended up making it's way to the back of her shirt. Since she spent most of her time in Occaquan in her stroller, we didn't get many comments. (Although I heard a group of older women wearing McCain-Palin stickers muttering about Obama. Almost certainly not directed at us, but I was feeling paranoid.) We then went to the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, VA which is an old prison that has recently been converted to an arts center like the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria. Very cool, especially for NoVa (damn, I'm being an elitist again!). I suspect that Margaret's Ombama sticker would have been better received there, but she spent most of the visit snoozing the stroller. We then went to the multicultural melting pot extraordinaire where Margaret enthusiastically ran around with her Ombama sticker on her back, and I'm sure that most of the patrons were at least moderately inclined to favor her candidate. That multicultural melting pot extraordinaire? IKEA.

Walk tall

2008-09-24T22:20:00.011-05:00

Discover Cannonball Adderley!

Dear god, the boy can walk. At least, he's starting to walk. This will not end well....

Note also how Margaret refers to Mama as "Abby." Margaret has been referring to her Mama in this way for some time. Abby doesn't like it, but we haven't been able to stop it.

Also, as the video suggests, Margaret loves her books. Especially her Skippyjon Jones books, which are really strange books that involve a Siamese cat who encounters all sorts of odd adventures when he morphs into a Chihuahua. As the reader of many kids books, I've started to learn what works and what doesn't. For example, Margaret and I love the Madeline books, and I can recite the text to my coworkers on demand.

"In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines. In two straight lines they broke their bread. Brushed their teeth and went to bed..."

But it's almost impossible to describe the Skippyjon Jones books. You just have to read them to see how bizarre they really are. By the way, Maggie's cousin Andrew introduced us to Skippyjon Jones, which is very fitting.

This past weekend, we met some of my college friends at a park in suburban Maryland. There we found a carousel and a train. Margaret wasn't too sure about the carousel as she kept grabbing onto me. But both of the kids loved the train. As for our friends, they both work for Bank of America, so we spent some time discussing the turmoil in financial markets. "What the hell is going on?," they asked. "I dunno," I shrugged as we watched our kids running around the playground. (That's not really true, but what could I tell them?)

The boy's comparative advantage

2008-09-19T22:19:00.005-05:00

Teddy is disadvantaged for a number of reasons. First, he's the second kid. As my last post suggests, this implies that he doesn't get the same credit for his tricks that his sister did. Second, his sister is, and I have to be humble here, exceptional. She's speaking in complete sentences, using pronouns in the appropriate way, almost reading books - she's just a really, really smart little girl. (To be honest, she's probably not that exceptional, but I have only one data point and she's my kid, so I'll conclude that she is.)

But one area in which Teddy beats out his sister, even now despite their age difference, is his coordination with balls. In particular, when you toss a ball to Teddy, he can actually grab it. And can then toss it back to you. In contrast, Margaret consistently gets bonked on the head during such an exercise despite her participation in Power Tots at school - she'll come home and wave her legs around to display the tricks that she's learned in class, but she still can't catch a ball. Teddy, however, can. In fact, it was a bit amazing when we first started rolling balls in his direction. We expected him to flail futilely, trying to grab the ball, but he'd end up missing. Yet, he was able to corral the ball, gather it, and then send it back in the direction that it came. This leads me to think that we may have a future sports star on our hands.

While this isn't the best video, it at least indicates his skill with the ball.

Changes in childraising strategies and philosophy

2008-09-13T20:41:00.007-05:00

As a comment on my last post suggested, your view of children, and your approach to raising them, changes drastically with the arrival of the second child. The first child experiences doting parents who jump at every cry and monitor and chronicle every development. The second child doesn't get the same level of attention. Instead, you know that they aren't really suffering when they cry (at least, they're not suffering that much.) And that they won't kill themselves if you aren't constantly monitoring them, given that you've taken certain base precautions - like blocking the stairs - to keep them out of trouble. (When talking to a soon-to-be dad at the dog park, I searched my mind for any piece of wisdom that I could give, and I came up with: "They're pretty resilient little things. They seem so fragile, but they're really pretty tough. So you're unlikely to hurt them when you change their diapers, even if they cry a lot.")

Every achievement of the second kid also isn't documented as assiduously. The boy can pull himself up on stuff? Well, he'll fall back down to the ground pretty soon, so at long as nothing sharp is around, that's ok. The boy can walk a few steps? Same attitude that accompanied pulling up. The boy is babbling? Is he interacting when doing so? If so, that's pretty fun (Teddy likes to go "Uhh" to which I respond "Uhh." We'll then go back and forth grunting at one another, which is a blast. I don't recall Margaret doing this, but maybe grunting is a boy thing.) If not, let me get back to cooking dinner.

A friend of mine with four (yikes!) boys (double yikes!) noted how few photos were focused on his fourth kid, especially compared to the first. Instead, the fourth kid mainly shows up by chance in various pictures.

Now, this isn't a very insightful post because a decrease in attentiveness has to arise with later kids as does a decline in the novelty of the tricks that they display. But I got a chuckle out of the difference when archiving photos and videos tonight. For example, observe the care with which Margaret is fed in the first part of the following video. And the clear wonder that accompanies her ability to put food in her mouth. Contrast that to the clutter on the boy's tray and the absence of any concern about whether he's actually eating much of his food or is just making a mess. (Turns out that until very recently, he has generally missed his mouth with a good portion of the food that he has tried to eat manually. Maddie loves that.)

Margaret isn't so difficult after all

2008-09-08T20:26:00.001-05:00

Read this

More dead fish

2008-09-07T20:45:00.004-05:00

Well, our fish managed to hang on for a couple of days before succumbing to some unknown malady. Which, I suppose, is better than two hours for the last batch. Margaret and I checked them out on Tuesday morning, and we saw one of them scooting around, but the other was AWOL. Given that they were pretty good at hiding, we peered around for a while until I spotted one motionless at the back of the fishtank. The next day, we initially couldn't spot the remaining one, but we eventually found it hiding in a plant. I was optimistic that that one might hang on, but the next day it was "sleeping," to quote Margaret. Luckily, her sense of mortality is very limited so she hasn't been troubled by the repeated deaths in our tank. As for the boy, he just wants to eat (and is getting better with "finger foods") and get in trouble, so the fish don't even register with him.

At this point, I'm thinking about buying a test kit to see what, if anything, is wrong with our water. But when I note that we only spent $1.98 on the last pair of fish, we may just try again.

An update

2008-09-01T20:22:00.013-05:00

Because I've been slack about posting lately, we have lots to report. Let's start with the most interesting news about the kids: They're starting to fight. Or, to be more accurate, Margaret is starting to fight with Teddy while he happily and cluelessly goes about his business. Unfortunately, his happy-go-lucky attitude sometimes brings him into conflict with his sister. For example, watch what happens when Margaret repeatedly decides to put a Lego box on her head...

Papa could just sit and laugh while snapping photos. At other times, however, it's not all fun and games. Today, for instance, Margaret decided to push Teddy a few times. While Teddy suffered a bit by hitting the ground, he didn't seem too fazed by it. On the other hand, the rest of us suffered greatly when Margaret screamed, lay on the floor and kicked her feet during the "time out" that her mother made her take.

In other news, I went to Chicago to watch a Cubs series the weekend before Labor Day. Going back to Chicago and sitting the section 514 with my friends always makes me feel like I'm 28 again because I had season tickets in that section when I lived there. At the same time, however, staying up until 3:00 AM CST to watch the men's Olympic basketball final with my friends without kids makes me feel old when I want to go to bed.

While I was gone, Abby's entire family came to her assistance. I pointed out to Abby that no one comes to relieve me when she's out of town. "Do you want my family to come into town when I leave?," she responded. Touche. While I was gone, they had all sorts of fun, including a trip to a farm owned by one of Abby's relatives in Maryland. I don't think, however, that they had as much fun as I had at Wrigley Field. (Especially because the Cubs won all the games I saw. "Boy, the Cubs look great this year," I thought. Until I realized that they were playing my hometown team, the Nationals, so it wasn't like the Cubs were playing a major league team. More like a AAA or AA minor league team, I think.)

Over Labor Day weekend, we took our annual trip to Philadelphia to visit the cousins. As usual given the dedication that my sister's family has to kid friendly events, we had a great time doing all sorts of kid oriented activities. On Saturday, we went to a concert by the Jimmies, a kids band who plays music that also appeals to parents. This is a huge (and probably fairly lucrative) genre as bands like the Jimmies play music that gets the kids up and dancing while the parents drink beer (not us, although we noted it) and tap their feet at 11:30 AM on a Saturday morning.

Then on Sunday, we went to a farm where we rode a tractor into the fields (such fun!), picked fantastic peaches (our kids now love peaches) and other produce, and ran around a big playground. My reaction was: "I'm glad I'm not a migrant worker" as I got all scratchy while picking eggplant. Followed by "the owners of this farm are geniuses to get us to pay to pick their produce for them."

We came back early today and went to the zoo. We seem to have found a key spot to view the pandas from a lunch spot that is above, and technically behind, the main panda venue. It's generally nice because it isn't too crowded, but we've also had good luck spotting pandas from that spot. The last time the Philly cousins were in town, we watched the pandas jump around in the trees about 15 feet away from us. Which was amazing because, in most of our visits, the pandas have typically been either hidden or sitting still. During that visit, I kept saying, about the cousins, "They have no idea how lucky they are to see this" as the pandas bounded through the trees. The pandas didn't do much this time, but at least we got to look down on one as it did the standard, neurotic pacing that zoo animals tend to do.

But most exciting: We bought two new fish at the PetCo near the zoo. And even more exciting: They've survived the evening. We've let our fish tank sit since the death of the previous batch, so most of the nasty chemicals should have dissipated and some good bacteria should have developed. The guy at the PetCo was astonishingly talkative, but also pretty helpful. "Don't put too many fish in at once. Buy a few and wait a couple weeks to see if they survive." And "You don't want to put tetras in a new tank" but "cherry barbs (the two that we got) are really great for establishing a new tank because they handle the ammonia spikes better." Now, I have no idea if this guy is telling me the truth, but at least I only spent two bucks for the two fish that we got, rather than five for the fish that I thought about buying. As I said, those two fish were alive as of 8:30 PM when Margaret went to bed, so it's better than last time. And, when I turn on the light, they appear to rush to the red plastic plant in the corner. At first, I was worried that they were stuck, but I've decided that they're just smart to hide in a plant that's similar in color to them. Of course, tomorrow I may post that they're dead as well, but I'm holding out hope.

The many faces of Teddy

2008-08-16T20:40:00.009-05:00

For a variety of reasons, the blogging muse has deserted me lately. While I may or may not write about those reasons at some point in the future, I'll still be sure to post some pics for fans of this blog.

And here are some of the Tedster showing his increasing ability to "voice" his opinion.

Here are some additional photos, including some from a trip to Great Falls. A while back, when Teddy was just a little bugger, we went to the Maryland side of Great Falls. Today, we went to the Virginia side. In light of our experience today, including a Park Service Police helicopter that hovered to "yell" at some kayackers who were misbehaving, I think that the Virginia side is better than the Maryland side. Here are the photos.

Another saying

2008-08-02T22:39:00.003-05:00

Another saying:

"Living the life of Riley."

The Great Fish Massacre of 2008

2008-08-02T19:45:00.007-05:00

A few weeks ago when Abby and the kids were in Minnesota, I ordered a fish tank online. I'd been thinking about getting Maggie a goldfish in a bowl for a while. My thinking was that we'd get a cheap bowl and cheap fish so that if it died, we'd flush it and buy a new one. But I went a little overboard and bought a bookshelf fish tank complete with a filter, overhead light, and thermostat. I also got a bunch of "ruins" decorations, so that we'd have a cool little fish tank with an ancient Greek theme.

We didn't get any fish, however, because we knew that we'd be heading out of town shortly thereafter. Finally, we took a trip today out to NoVa where we dropped off a bunch of baby stuff at Goodwill, bought a bike seat for Teddy, and stopped at PetCo to buy some fish. Consistent with our goal to avoid dumping too much money into the fish tank (especially given my childhood experience with fish - more on that below), we bought five fish for about ten bucks. We came home, filled the tank, placed the rocks and decorations, and let it sit for a while with the fish in their transport bag.

We had fish at various points during my childhood. However, it never worked out well. My recollection is that we either went on vacation and the fish died, or the tank grew algae and the fish died, or the fish just died. Our newly purchased fish were no different. In fact, if anything, they were worse than I remembered. After a couple of hours, Margaret and I went up to look at the fish. "Hmmmm," I thought, "That guy floating near the top doesn't look good. Where are the rest of the fish?" I then spotted three of the others lying on the bottom. The only current survivor is a bigger fish who doesn't look like he's in good shape. "Did you give them food?", Abby asked, as if that would've warded off whatever poison killed them. Which, it turns out, probably resides in DC water. The chlorine and other chemicals in DC water appear to be pretty bad for fish. We didn't spend too much money on them, so I'm not too disappointed, although I do wonder whether PetCo's 15 day fish guarantee will apply when you've clearly slaughtered your fish. But even more important, I wonder whether the toxins in DC water that are bad for fish might also be problematic for the kids. That's why we mainly give them bottled water.

By the way, if any of our dedicated readers have any info about how to care for fish (such as introducing them to a new tank, etc.), please let me know what we should do. Because as pathetic as this experience has been, we'll probably try again. With distilled water, or something like that.

Some unrelated photos (except for the bottled water in the background):

Pics from the Southwest

2008-07-31T23:19:00.001-05:00

I don't have time to post any "deep thoughts" on our recent trip to New Mexico and Texas, but here are some photos for you junkies out there.

"Carry!!!"

2008-07-30T22:16:00.007-05:00

We're back from a trip to New Mexico and Texas. While I'll write more about the trip soon, I wanted to post a photo of Margaret at White Sands, NM that, I think, captures her mindset at this point.

"Make another choice"

2008-07-20T19:40:00.010-05:00

As Margaret's vocabulary has expanded, she's also become more opinionated. "No!" is, of course, a key word, used in an infinite variety of settings. "I want more" is another key phrase (note the appropriate use of the first person pronoun, something that's become more common.) And "Give it back!" is common. More advanced statements involve requests for a particular route on the way home ("I want to see a firetruck" involves walking by a fire station, while "I want fountains" takes us to the fountains outside the World Bank.) Or "I want a special treat" when she finishes her dinner and wants ice cream.

Yesterday morning, Abby and the kids were lying in bed. I came to join them, but had to scoot over Margaret to make room. "Make another choice, Papa, make another choice," she said. Then "Walk away, Papa, walk away. Go to another room, Papa." Having never heard (or said) these phrases before, Abby and I quizzically looked at one another (before laughing.) As Margaret later "told" us, it turns out that Ms. Mary at daycare uses these phrases when trying to defuse the various conflicts that arise among the kids under her care ("Ms. Mary says make another choice!".) While we may be diluting the meaning of the phrases because the need to use them arises so often, "make another choice" and "walk away" have become favorites in our household over the last two days. Given Margaret's recent attempts to exert her independence, it's fitting that her aunt was in town for the annual NOW convention, where she picked up the t-shirts pictured in the photos below.

As for Teddy, the boy is increasingly mobile and continues to display a real death wish. Why do you insist on sticking your fingers in the fan? Why are you climbing the stairs and sticking your head through the railing? Do you really need to chew on that power cord? Alas, these type of questions go unanswered. I suppose we simply have to wait until Teddy can voice independent opinions of his own.

Soooooo big!!!

2008-07-09T22:17:00.006-05:00

Teddy has crushed another developmental milestone for infants: For the first time, he responded to "How big is Teddy?" with the appropriate "Soooo big!!" arms in the air. When you combine that with his uncanny ability to clap his hands, it's obvious that we have another exceptional child on our hands. Now, if only he could figure out how to sleep through the night. (Note that the Tedster also has two new top teeth to accompany the two bottom teeth.)

As for Margaret, she's working on her numbers and her ABCs. She can count to ten and can almost tie the act of counting to actual things. However, when we stop on the way home to count "tractors" in a big construction site and I ask Margaret how many she sees, she'll correctly count out and point to six of them, but will then proceed to find four imaginary ones. As for the ABCs, her standard rendition goes "A, B, C, D, H, I, K..." So we're lacking a bit there as well, although she always gives a rousing close with "Now I know my ABCs, next time won't you sing with me." She's also working on her "reading" as can be seen in the following video:

Bears, bugs and heat

2008-06-27T15:18:00.007-05:00

Maddie and I are back home after two days hiking in the mountains. A pretty wimpy trip, I think, but we had our reasons for coming back.

This isn't one of them, but the most exciting feature of our trip was the bears that we saw. I've never seen many bears in past trips. In some places I've hiked out west, they still get shot so they're pretty skittish. Which is just as well since grizzlies still roam parts of the Rockies that we've hiked, and I don't want anything to do with a grizzly. Abby and I did see bears in an almost empty campground in Shenandoah N.P. during a trip just after 9/11. But those bears were so tame, they almost didn't count - they cavorted and wrestled in the campsites around us, and the ranger told us to bang pots together if they got too close.

Yesterday, Maddie and I were hiking up a steep hillside to a knob where we planned to camp. I was zoning out, as I often do when going uphill, when Maddie crested a little rise, turned the corner, and stiffened as she does when she's about to chase a rabbit or a squirrel. I told her to wait and, as I caught up to her, I saw a brown thing about 20 feet away, just below the trail. "That's too big to be a squirrel," I thought, immediately followed by "Oh crap, that's a bear cub." I then spotted another cub about 5 feet further on, just above the trail. We never saw the mama bear because the cubs took off away from us, while Maddie and I immediately skedaddled back down the trail. After about 100 yards, we stopped and started singing, yodelling and generally making a lot of noise. Now, I don't mind bears, but I don't want to run into a mother bear who's protecting her cubs. We eventually headed on, still singing, and the bears were gone.

Then today, we reached a four-way trail intersection. As I peered down the other trails, not the ones we were going to take, I spotted a big brown thing in the trail about 50 feet away. Another bear. And this one was pretty big. As we started up our route, the bear looked up at us and bolted, amazingly quickly, into the woods away from us. And then, when we were almost back to the trailhead, I saw another medium sized bear down the slope about 100 feet from us. He seemed aware of our presence - after all, I whistled to see if I could scare him off - but wasn't too concerned and went on tearing at his tree.

So after years of no bears, we see four in a two day span. Like I said, I don't mind bears - except for a mother bear with cubs - but I don't need to be reminded that they're wandering the woods while I'm sleeping.

But that's not the reason we came back early. Instead, it was the heat (90 degrees or so) and the bugs. And not the gnats and mosquitoes which were really annoying as they formed little clouds around our heads, but were more or less tolerable. The main problem was the ticks. I hate ticks. Even if they didn't carry Lyme disease, they're nasty little critters. And we saw more ticks in the last two days than I've seen in my entire life. It started when I picked one off Maddie after we set up our tent. Then, when we got in the tent, they were everywhere. Not swarms of them, but every 15 minutes or so, I'd spot one on the outside of the tent. I don't know if we were under a "tick nest", if those even exist, in a tree, but it was amazing how they'd drop down on us. It got even worse when I started having to pick one off me every 30 minutes or so inside the tent and toss it out the door. Apparently, Maddie must have become a magnet for them (as evidenced by the fact that I picked about 30 of them off her when we got back to the car - astonishingly disgusting which warranted a bath when we got home and may necessitate a trip to the vet before Abby and the kids return), and she brought them into the tent where they meandered around looking for a better meal before settling on me. I had visions of waking up with a dozen ticks attached to me. While that didn't happen because none of them actually latched on (as far as I know), I still had a restless night, periodically feeling a tickle on my arm or leg at which point I'd turn on my headlamp, grab one of the suckers, and unzip the door to toss it out. It was almost indescribably unpleasant. I suspect that I'll wake up tonight reaching to pick some imagined tick off my leg. Given that I probably didn't get all of the ticks off Maddie when we got back to the car and the bath might not have gotten the rest, it might not be imagined, but don't tell Abby that.

Peace, quiet and sleep

2008-06-25T19:51:00.014-05:00

Discover Uncle Tupelo!

Abby and the kids are gone. At 7:00 AM this morning, I dropped them off at the airport, along with Grandma Nancy, to catch a plane to Minnesota. For the next 5 days, they'll be hanging out at Green Lake, MN while Maddie and I will be kid free (here and here are some old posts related to previous trips to Green Lake). They're gone. It's a bit hard to believe. As the barber at work put it, "How did you manage that?" Then the guy at Trader Joes asked, "What are you going to do?" What are we going to do? Indeed.

Before getting into our plans, I should note that it's not as if Abby is involuntarily taking the kids with her. Trips to Green Lake are a longstanding tradition in her family. But for various reasons (specifically, it's a bit boring), trips to Green Lake don't appeal to me very much. Given the outrageous price of a plane ticket to Minnesota and the fact that Margaret needs a ticket, I decided to bail on the trip this year (after all, Green Lake is a bit boring.) But the kids had to go. So I grudgingly allowed Abby to take them with her.

As for those of us left behind, we're heading to the mountains of northwestern Virginia tomorrow morning. In the past, I've taken multiple hiking trips with my brothers into mountains all across the western U.S. Recently, for obvious reasons, those trips have become less practical. So I suffer in two ways. First, I can't take trips with my brothers. Second, on the rare occasion that I'm able to go backpacking, I have to take more modest trips somewhere in the Virginia, West Virginia, etc. area. And, frankly, that area isn't nearly as exciting as mountains in the west. (Here's an earlier post with pics from an excellent trip to Wyoming.) Nevertheless, Maddie and I are heading to the George Washington National Forest where we plan to hit a number of trails. It might not be relaxing in one sense because I'll be walking with a big pack, but in another sense, with no kids, it's inherently relaxing.

Why the song at the beginning of this post? Well, when I took backpacking trips with my brothers in the past, we would always throw in Alt-Country music to get us in the mood. And Uncle Tupelo, the source of the above song, is perhaps the greatest Alt-Country group ever. Listening to this type of music with its high, lonesome sound, especially when driving through the backwoods of Virginia, is a great experience. And makes me feel as if Dan and Steve are with me and Maddie, even if they're miles away.

Screaming Eagles

2008-06-22T20:45:00.011-05:00

Today, we went to a DC United (aka Screaming Eagles) soccer game. For no particular reason, I'm something of a fan of DC United and have been thinking about trying to take Margaret to a game for a while. Next weekend when David Beckham comes to town could be fun, but Abby and the kids will be in Minnesota (Maddie and I will either head to the mountains or will enjoy some blessed sleep at home.) I looked through the schedule for the rest of the season and decided that there aren't many other games that would work given our tight bedtime schedule. Although the weather report predicted thunderstorms, we decided we'd chance it. So we took the Metro to the game, lots of fun in itself, and scalped some tickets in the shade. (Also, it didn't rain at all.)

We had a pretty good time. DC United is still playing in RFK Stadium, the old Redskins' stadium, which is a pretty cavernous venue to watch soccer, especially when the crowd is the typical, smaller U.S. soccer crowd. The lower sections directly across the field from us were pretty raucous with lots of chants and songs which was fun to watch. But overall the crowd was pretty sedate. Margaret wore her Azurri (Del Piero) jersey that an Italian friend brought back for us after the last World Cup. Alas, it didn't do much good for Italy who lost to Spain in Euro 2008 today (we did get some good comments from people.) We sat in a section full of young girls in soccer uniforms and at some point, I turned to Abby and said, "This may be a preview of our future life." Margaret just gaped at the girls around us and mimicked them by waving the free towel that we got at the gate. For some reason, Margaret was more fidgety at this game than she was at the baseball game. About the only thing that really settled her down was her first bucket of popcorn. After an initial hesitant taste, she sat and wolfed it down. DC United won 3-1, but the game was uninspiring with the Screaming Eagles giving up one of the worst goals that I've ever seen. Perhaps it's better to watch on TV and be able to do laundry during the game than to actually go to one.

Some other tidbits:

For some inexplicable reason, Margaret has been calling her mama "Abby." E.g. "Abby, Margaret needs more milk!" It sort of reminds me of the Simpsons where Bart always calls Homer by his first name. We're not quite sure how to break her of this habit, but even Mr. Ty at daycare commented on it.
We started a new game today called "Tell me something silly." This involves Papa saying something such as "Teddy is a...big girl." Or "Maddie is a...kitty cat." It's a bit tricky since I have to mention two things, both of which Margaret not only knows, but also knows don't go together. If I do a good job, Margaret will giggle uncontrollably at the absurdity of the statement. It turns out that this works pretty well (at least it did today) to settle Margaret down when she's fussing. And it gets her to grin for the camera - in a few of the later pictures in the sequence posted above, I'm telling Margaret silly things to make her laugh.

More sayings

2008-06-22T20:43:00.002-05:00

Since my last post, a few more sayings have popped up:

"Secret love for Nasser"
"Another country heard from"