The good stuff

Some evidence of our children's growing up makes us sigh wistfully; other instances make us gasp with alarm.

But it was only pleasure yesterday to watch as Edith, demure and serious in a long white cotton sundress, approached the circulation desk at the public library, reached up to hand the librarian her selection, Henry and the Paper Route, then carefully took her little purse off her arm, unzipped it, pulled out her library card, handed it up to the librarian, rezipped her now-empty purse, waited for the transaction to be completed, then took her book and her card back, unzipped the purse again, and carefully put away her card. Then she thanked the librarian, the first words she'd spoken in the whole encounter, and was on her way.

Father's Day and Cousins' Day

Rain fouled our plans for a picnic and softball, but Tom enjoyed a brief walk with his girls during the break between showers, and we all had a happy Father's Day. For some reason Alice showed up more in pictures from the day--but Edith's shirt covered in footprints and her class's collective Dad's Guide to Fixing Anything (instructions contributed by preschoolers) were great hits.


The day before Father's Day we celebrated Great-Aunt Eleanor's birthday with all the cousins in Delaware.

The cousins, 2009

The cousins, 2008

The cousins, 2006

Belated update 2: Edith's outings

Among the family happenings in May and June were several fun occasions that we didn't want to let slip through the cyber-cracks.

In May Edith's class went on a field trip to a lovely nearby wildflower preserve that in 7 years in the area we'd never heard of, and I was able to chaperone.

As far as the kids were concerned, the bus trip was the best part. Edith, Kyra, and Torrey were very excited to be in a group together. Edith kept asking when we were going to be in Pennsylvania, and I kept telling her, when we crossed the river.

"The Nile River?"

"No, the Delaware River."

"Can we cross the Nile River?"

"No, it's in Africa--very far from here. We'd need to take a long plane flight to get there."

Kyra: "Yeah, my mom is expecting me today for dance class, so we probably shouldn't do that."

Following the guide on a nature walk (Edith at far right)

Frogs were the kids' second-favorite part

The last weekend in May, we enjoyed a day at Princeton reunions, replete with food; magician; P-rade, in which we marched under the graduate school banner; and fireworks, which Edith and I attended together as a mommy-daughter date. (For my money, our biggest coup was Edith's dictating a moment of departure that allowed us to enjoy almost the entire show yet still be the first ones out of the impromptu parking lot that promised to be a morass of crawling cars within minutes of the final explosion.)

Edith checks out...

...a member of the American intellectual elite

Edith got into the raucous spirit of reunions by the end, though Alice, a reunions novice, remained somewhat more cautious. Actually, both girls did wonderfully being outside in the sun amid the crowds for the whole day...including attendance at what was a four-hour parade of people celebrating themselves in all their orangeness. (The only reason we stay until the end each year is the chance to visit with an old family friend, who has a regular gig as the announcer at the reviewing stand and thus is free to say hello when the last senior has paraded by.)

Finally, guess who was back in town for his parents' graduation ceremonies? Reunited at last: Edie and Harry! Both a little taller, a little deeper voiced...but essentially the same friends who parted ways when the moving vans rolled out last summer. They enjoyed an all-too-brief rendezvous at the Whole Foods gelato counter, promising to get together again soon.

Belated update 1: Alice

In posting the sentimental letter last week, I skipped over the more prosaic update on half-year-old Alice.

The youngest family member now has two bottom teeth, and judging by her large swollen upper gum, is working on a pair upstairs as well. She is using those teeth to good effect, grabbing and gumming almost any food within reach--she got a square of spanikopita off my plate at a wedding celebration this weekend--and reminding us at least twice a day that she would like some of that stuff in the jars. I'm beginning to realize that the point of having two children (or more) is to show you that everything you thought you knew about parenting was, in fact, simply the hard-won wisdom you'd acquired about one human being--your first child. With Edith we never understood why some parents objected to storebought baby food in on the grounds that it was expensive. Who goes into parenting unwilling to spend an extra $1.50-$2 on their child's 2 or 3 jars of baby food per week? Now we see that not all children take three or four days to go through a jar of baby food but in fact, might go through a couple of jars in a single day!

In a related vein, top on my list of Things to Do Differently this time was my plan to start setting some limits on nursing after the twelve month mark, so "feeding on demand" wouldn't turn into clawing at mama's shirt every time the toddler feels tired, frustrated, shy, or bored. And here we are wondering whether Alice will sustain sufficient interest in breastfeeding to get the milk she needs until she's a year old.


Despite her interest in solid foods, Alice nevertheless continues to get longer and leaner. Six month measurements:

27 inches (90th percentile)
16 pounds (41st percentile)

(It was interesting that the same pediatrician who sounded a mild alarm about the 16 percentile points between Edith's height and weight was quick to assure us that the fifty-point gap in the other direction in Alice's case is "perfectly fine." And they wonder why young girls develop anxiety about being fat...)


A shaker, Alice isn't quite a mover yet. She can roll her way across the floor like a champ, but she hasn't yet figured out forward motion, to her distress. She gets her knees up under her, only to have her legs splay out as she goes splat onto her tummy again. Add Wiggle to her string of middle names these days. Squealer, too.


I think she was born with a sense of object permanence, despite what the experts say. When someone removes an object she's interested in, she'll continue to stare at the spot where it vanished for some time. Or if someone she's watching walks behind a wall, say. she'll turn anticipatorily to the place where they should reappear again. She's just starting to seem to favor mama slightly, objecting sometimes when I leave her with someone else. Thankfully, her daycare teachers are still on her list of preferred handlers: she is all eyes, hands, and eagerness when we put her into her seat in the infant class in the mornings, looking around at the older kids as if to say, "Okay, guys, what's on the agenda today?"

The small joys

...that mean so much. While some of our friends show what talented people really can do in the way of home renovations in a year, we are nevertheless tickled pink at our own recent home improvements. Or rather, the recent improvements to our home. After nearly a year in our rental property, we finally made enough noise to get the attention of the property managers to two minor but persistent irritations we've had with the house.

As of today, and through no skill of our own, we have a kitchen faucet that stays in the "on" position without being held. It is now possible to hold Alice on my hip and fill a pot with water at the same time.

Even more momentous, those of you who have visited us in the past year will be relieved to know that earplugs are no longer required when using the bathroom fan. In fact, the newly quiet fan and the light are now on separate switches, meaning you can actually brush your teeth or comb your hair in complete silence--and still see what you're doing. We can now use the bathroom after Edith is in bed without groping around in the dark for fear of waking her up with the fan noise. And we can bathe her and hold a normal conversation while she is in the tub, rather than shouting over the roar of the jet engine in the ceiling.

Edith declared it the happiest day of her life. I reminded her of her birthdays and Christmas and vacations, and she insisted that it was still among a handful of best days in her life. When Tom got home after dinner, she danced around the house showing him the improvements before flinging herself into his arms and declaring herself wildly happy.

***

Unrelated, but "wildly" reminds me of her recent experimentation with adverbs and adverbial phrases:

"Unfortunately I have more than one pair of shoes, so when one gets wet I can wear another pair." (The lament of a child who would rather be barefoot??)

It started to get chilly while we were on a walk. "Reluctantly I have pockets in my sweater, so I can keep my hands warm."

And out of the blue, "For example, when will Daddy get home tonight?"

A case of faulty linguistic logic:

E: What are you doing, Mama?
G: I'm going downstairs to clean the gunk out of the utility sink. It's disgusting!
E: Oooh, can I come see the disgust?

And pearls of wisdom, unsolicited and otherwise:

"Moms are the ones who boss the family and tell them what to do. Dads are the ones who say yes to things that the kids want that the moms sometimes say no to."

When asked where she figured this out, Edith said school, referring to an occasion this past winter when the women teachers wouldn't let the kids pretend to ice skate on the frozen puddles in the sandbox, while the male pre-K teacher told them yes, to go have a great time. She extrapolated from there.

It may be that she has some sense of a related gender difference at home, though, judging by her response when I asked her what she thought Tom and I did with our time. Another blogging friend recently asked her four year old what he thought his parents' jobs were. Edith knew the basic answer to that question--Daddy's job is "to preach" and Mommy's job is "to be a teacher"--but when I asked what else she thought we did when not preaching or teaching, her answers were:

Daddy--work in his office, be at home, play with his kids

Mommy--clean the house, work in her office, give things to other people who need them

I was flattered to have an undeserved reputation for philanthropy but a bit deflated that I don't register with my daughter as spending a good deal of my time with her!

Half a year

Dear Alice,

You are half a year old today. I've been unaccountably wistful as this milestone approached, treasuring the time when we were still closer to the day of your birth than to your first birthday. Now we've tipped across that fulcrum, and you are hurtling toward 1, ever further from the moment of your arrival in this world.

I look back at the earliest pictures, and in some ways you seem still very much the baby we met back in December. You are still our keen observer, often grave, always intent on the object of interest. That object is often your older sister, who usually can make you smile. It is a joy to see the two of you interact ever more, starting to develop little sisterly grins and joking postures with each other, even now before you can let us know for certain what you are thinking.

But even when Edith isn't in the room, you focus on the action, studying all that occurs, looking as if you are taking notes for an anthropological treatise or field ecology notebook. You increasingly let us know that you want to be where the action is, even if you yourself don't need to be at the heart of it. Nor does the action itself need to be dramatic to garner your attention: the breeze through the trees playing with the dappled light, or your own long, slender fingers as you turn your hands back and forth, studying the movements they make through the air, are sufficient to merit your interest. Your inclination to listen, to study, to understand are invaluable in a loud, demanding, needy world. Will it lead you to be a writer? a naturalist? a counselor? an artist?

Lest you reread this note at fifteen, pained by the face in the mirror that you judge so harshly, you should know that people find you beautiful. Strikingly, unusually beautiful. I concur. But I am your mother and my opinion is suspect (with the world and, no doubt, with adolescent you). So know that everywhere we go, people gasp at your eyes, whisper to each other about your face, ask us if we know how beautiful you are. A mother and her toddler who came into the Labyrinth Books children's section to read the other day were sidetracked by you in your stroller. At first I stood next to you, trying to make friendly small-talk while the little boy checked out the "meena" (his word for baby), much as I try to chat when small children are fascinated by Bismarck. But after awhile it became clear that they didn't care about me, or about the books anymore--they were in their own world in which they only wanted to commune with you. They spent twenty minutes staring at you, whispering about you, gently stroking your hands and feet. They said goodbye to you regretfully ("goodbye, little meena") without ever turning to nod goodbye to me or to Edith. Even less generally observant types seem struck by you: Last week in the Princeton P-rade, in which we marched under the graduate school banner, I heard drunk raucous seniors exclaiming to each other along the final stretch of the parade route, "Look at that baby's eyes!" and "Oh my God, that BABY!"

That's what we say every day, too: Oh, God, what a beautiful, grave, loving, delicious baby you've given us. Thank you for such a gift!

Happy half!

Love,
Mama

(Note: I tried to include a brief video of Edith feeding Alice, but Blogger is not happy about the video. I'll add it if I can get it to upload properly at some point.)

Commissioning, confirmation, commencement, ... continuation, confusion

It has been a week full of milestone markers for us and people we know--all of them significant and yet not so, as Edith's attempts to understand them underscored.

I. Last Friday Tom was officially commissioned as a deacon in the United Methodist Church. What does that mean? A good question. Just hope there's no exam on the nitty-gritty of Methodist polity on the judgment day, as probably not even John Wesley would get the details right. In essence, Tom is now a probationary minister, practicing but still officially under supervision for several more years. Somewhat like a medical resident. You can call him Pastor but not Reverend. He can wear a robe but not a stole. He can serve communion but can't bless the elements. Actually, as a deacon he'll never be able to bless the elements. Unless he has special dispensation as a local pastor. Er, it's complicated.

"But Daddy is already a minister," notes the confused Edith. Yes, that's true. But now it's for real...almost.

Tom with the other 2009 candidates for commissioning in the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference, far left

Tom's with Alice and his grandfather, Albert. Tom's robe was a gift from our congregation in honor of his commissioning.

II. Friday Edith also was in attendance at the pre-K graduation for the class above hers at preschool. All the graduates were dressed up and excited when I dropped the girls at school. The graduates' headshots, in mortarboard and gown, were posted around the room; the podium was decorated and had "2009" plastered down its length. The official program featured more headshots and a mini-bio of each kid, including what they want to be when they grow up, what they said they'd learned in pre-K, and what they hoped to learn in kindergarten. (A fair number noted they had learned about birds in pre-K; several now wanted to learn about bees in kindergarten. No dummies, they.)

"This is the pre-K kids' last day at this school! They're going on to kindergarten," we explained to Edith. "Well, except that most of them will be back for summer session. It's confusing."

Afterwards Edith told us about it enthusiastically. "Each graduate got a present! And something else that interested me: a rolled-up piece of paper with a ribbon around it. My class is going to do that next week."

Next week, next year...it's a bit fuzzy in the four-year-old mind.


III. Sunday we celebrated the confirmation of the eighth graders at church, including Edith's babysitter.

"We're celebrating that these big kids are becoming full members of the church congregation."

"But I thought everyone was a member of the church congregation...?"

Yeah. Sort of.

I was surprised to find myself getting choked up as different families came forward to lay hands on their children as they were confirmed: the three immigrant families who were among the first alphabetically, the family of the boy with serious developmental disabilities, the family who gave each other a big group hug afterwards, the family going through a divorce. The family in which the oldest of four girls was being confirmed drew my attention. As I followed the stair-step of blond heads down the line, I looked at the youngest and suddenly realized that I had crossed a divide, such that I could now think forward to the day when Edith would be going through rites of passage such as confirmation. For awhile we were still young marrieds doing a novel thing--having a baby--which involved playing with this exciting, intense, new little person but which did not fundamentally change us into parents. The world of minivans, soccer practice, and homework had nothing to do with us. Concerns about teachers and class assignments were a foreign conversation. For the most part all of that still does remain in the future, but on Sunday I realized I could now imagine us into that future...out of babyhood and into the years marked off distinctly by grades in school, rushing toward high school and then college. Somewhere along the line we've become a family with kids, not a couple with a baby/babies.


IV. My own commencement mitigated against that feeling a bit--still young enough to be graduating from something. Sunday afternoon we listened to General Petraeus at baccalaureate; Monday we listened to the litany of names at the doctoral hooding ceremony; and Tuesday we enjoyed a sunny morning on the lawn in front of Nassau Hall at the official graduation. Edith marched with me and was good as gold--especially noteworthy considering that our second-row seats facing Meryl Streep, Ruby Dee Davis, and Alice Waters on the platform failed to impress her as they did the rest of us.

And what was Edith's reaction? Happiness at our happiness, but also a question: "But, Mommy, you're already a teacher...?" Well yes, and we celebrated all this last September. It's a bit confusing, really.

(Note: There were many other pictures taken, on various cameras and Blackberries, largely thanks to my dad. I may add to this section as we sort them out. 6/5: Edited to add more shots found on the Princeton website. The trick to getting noticed by the photographers clearly is to bring a child along.)

Being hooded

After the hooding ceremony

With Harrison's father, Conrad, on commencement day

Don't know who that guy in the middle was

Next post: Some of the other fun occasions Edith has enjoyed recently, including a class field trip, Princeton reunions, and her own brief reunion with Harrison. Also, just how striking are Alice's eyes? Stay tuned.