flea

Casper goes to sleep with the curtains open, because she likes to look out the window and up into the big magnolia tree silhouetted against the dusky sky. She looks for shapes and faces in the voids between the leaves.

Casper's complaining she's got only two pairs of shoes that fit. Which is true. She has some Target sneakers with sparkles on the toes that were an Xmas gift and are size 2. She's got Lands' End mary jane trekkers from last summer that are a 1, I think. Maybe a 2.

How is this possible? A mere year ago she had no shoes and we bought her 2 pairs of sneakers right after Christmas. Both are now outgrown (one she barely wore, the other were worn out). We had shoe and fashion trauma like whoa over the summer.

She wants boots, I'm not sure what exactly, but I am pondering buying her some clearance boots in a 3 hoping they will still fit next year. Target still has some black fashion boots and Ugg knockoffs in the $20 range online. She could use another pair of sneakers - something in the punkier Keds, Converse, Vans universe. Unless I am lucky and catch a sale, these brands run $30-45 new!! And soon enough it will be summer. She needs and will get new flip-flops (thank you Old Navy for shoes I can afford). Will the Lands End still fit in 4 months? Doubtful. Should I spring for Keen sandals? Those at least have hand-me-down or resale value - assuming she doesn't wear them out AND outgrow them. She's hard on shoes.

In scouring ebay for boots in a size 3, I discovered that a girls' 3 is about the same as a women's 5. Yes, my 6 year old who stands 4'1" tall has feet nearly as big as some actual adult women. Heaven help her. I hope there are more styles available at sizes bigger than women's 10 than there used to be, because I am pretty sure that's where she's heading.

Conversation this morning:

Casper: How old do I have to be to get a Tendo DS?
me: Hmm, I don't know. What do you know about the Nintendo DS?
Casper: It has a little board that you hold and you can play video games and draw on it with a stick. If I was sick one day I could play with it and not be bored.
me: Does anyone you know have one?
Casper: No, none of my friends.
me: Maybe it's for kids who are a little bit older.
Casper: How old do I have to be in our house rules to get one?
me: Well, I don't know much about the Nintendo DS, so I'll need to get some more information about it to decide.

The house rules thing makes me laugh - we have one house rule about age, which is she can get her ears pierced at age 10 if she wants to.

I hate video games, though. I have childhood trauma around sexism, video games, and being ignored. So we'll have to see where we go with this.

We're back from Athens again. The inspection was good, no real surprises. The closest thing to a surprise was polybutylene pipe in the upstairs bathroom, but the connectors are copper which is good. Just something to keep an eye on. It will need a new roof in about 3 years, which was known, and the front porch needs some serious understructure work and new decking, which was obvious when one stepped on to it. Job interview went well. I'm not counting on getting the job, but I have good hopes.

I think the money is going to come together okay for us to actually put 20% down. Do people feel uncomfortable about me talking about the finances of this house? I know there's a taboo about talking about money, which I kind of like breaking, and I also think it's fascinating to look at the way three factors - family support, thrift, and luck - are letting us buy this nice a house. Kind of sociologically analyzing our own situation. I could write a long post, but I worry that people would take it as bragging. I feel that there's value in talking explicitly about this kind of thing, to de-mysterize it.

Anyway, the kids. Casper said in the car on the way to Athens Thursday night: "Mom, you are all ass." We think that came from the YMCA... also, I am so NOT all ass that it is doubly funny.

(Another funny, I tried on some J. Jill knit pants at the mall today, and I tried a size too small but even so I could tell they were going to be clingy as hell and revealing of every panty line and body bump, so I asked the saleswoman, "What do people wear under these?" and she said, "Um ... underwear?" I think even a thong would be problematic, so it's probably got to be spanx of something horrible like that. So, no.)

Dillo is getting to be such a big boy. At the mall he ran straight in to the play area and even was able to climb on things by himself. he last time we were there, only a couple of months ago, he was too shy and clung to a leg. And this morning we were out to brunch and he sat at the kids' table like a grown-up boy. He talks and talks, not always very intelligibly still. At this age, Casper had full grammatical sentences, pronouns, verbs, and was clear as a bell, so I need to keep reminding myself that Dillo's mumbley two and three word phrases are actually average to above average. Another way he and Casper are different is in their play - she has always been into ordering things and creating scenes with little dolls and bears and eventually making them talk to each other and do things. Lots of lining up toys, arranging them just so when she was almost two. Dillo likes to disassemble and reassemble things, most notably the two Lego Duplo Thomas trains we have. He throws things a lot - balls and silverware - and drives cars and planes and any vehicle. He loves to play outside and begs for playground in this was he and Casper at this age are alike). He "draws" on paper - does seem to know a few colors - and asks me to draw cats all the time. Eating out he loves french fries, won't eat much else at fast food (with all this driving there has been a sad amount of fast food lately). Up and down steps, with a hand if they are steep. A bit cautious physically, but once secure in his ability he is all out. Loves to run, sometimes saying, "Running! Running!"

I really feel as he is approaching two that his babyhood is going. I feel lke our family is changing into a family with two kids, not a family with a kid and a baby. Dillo and Casper deal well together, normal squabbling over sharing stuff, but they also have fun together increasingly.

She likes "scary" stuff. She seems to really like movies that scare her a little bit - M.r flea rented Happy Feet on Monday night (against our no movies during the week rule) and when the penguin is being chased by the toothful leopard seal, she clung to my knee but at the same time seemed to enjoy herself. She also loved the Spiderwick Chronicles book that came in the Cheerios box (it was apparently at least a little scary - sounds like a rip-off of A Series of Unfortunate Events to me, though I haven't read it yet). And she likes to read the Lego catalogs and skips over the Town stuff - she wants to hear about the skeleton-fighting knights and the skeleton pirates and the Star Wars stuff and the undersea robots stuff. (She does like the one page of pink Legos for girls, too - little sets of horses and dogs.)

Last night she sat down with mr. flea while he was working on dissertation stuff and he showed her his code and explained that he was a kind of Code Monkey (TM Jonathan Coulton - she likes to watch the Youtube videos, especially one that's made from an anime movie). She gave him a big hug and said he was her furry little Code Monkey. Hee!

Dillo is still in GO GO GO mode. He gets excited and bounces up and down while sitting - he was very wound up on Sunday night (past his bedtime) and was practically levitating, and also crawling over to Sumi (his birthday twin) and pressing his face into her, which is how he shows love.

He can clap, and also likes to take a toy in each hand and clap them together.

He is increasingly interested in pulling up on things and standing. Not really cruising yet, but I think he will walk sooner than Casper did (13 months).

At day care he steals pacifiers and toys, tries to take finger food from the bigger babies (we've given them the okay to give him finger foods).

At home we hear the smack smack of his hands on the bare floor as he crawls - usually heading for the bathroom, where he likes to play with the bath toys and is fascinated by the metal strip with brads that separates the linoleum from the wood floor.

He'll eat almost anything, though he does not like yogurt and hasn't really gotten into single beans or chick peas. He's rather messy and indiscriminate - he grabs a fistful of cheerios and half of them end in his lap. In contrast I remember Casper as much more focused on individual food items (and by this age, wanting to feed herself and clamming up.) His willingness to eat had made the course of amoxicillin he's on pretty easy to administer.

He's sleeping like the very devil right now. I think the GO GO GO bleeds over into the sleep. He's worse than he's ever been, and that includes newborn. And hungry to a degree he hadn't been in the night - he'll nurse both sides every 3 hours, and sometimes wakes wanting to nurse an hour after I nursed him (and then yells like crazy when I won't nurse him, but I really try not to). We are all tired - Dillo is up by 5:30 most days and mr. flea and I are getting up with him, and Casper is spontaneously getting herself up by 6 often enough (and then still not going to sleep any earlier).

Casper was sent home from school yesterday for throwing up all over the place (I got there and she looked at me and said, "I barfed!") but I think it was probably coughing up yucky phlegm that did it and not a stomach thing, as she was fine the rest of the day. She's had goopy eyes the last two mornings, which I *think* are more congestion and not pinkeye. (Well, they aren't pink.) We've sort of had another phase of teenage melodrama from her lately - some testing deliberate rudeness, some total breakdowns when any little thing doesn't go her way, some jealousy of the Dillo (trying to push him out of my lap, etc.) I think more sleep would solve some of it, but she's a toughie. Last night I was lying with her dozing, and she was still wide awake when Dillo cried to nurse at 10pm.

American Girl sent us a catalog yesterday - our first - and Casper was fairly captivated. She thinks the colonial dolls are princesses.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/casperflea/475865940/

Running down the hall pulling the hospital-issue sitz bath (as yet unused) by the tubing, with toy animals riding in it like a sled.

In her bed in the dark; she is banging her foot against the wall.
Casper: Can I hit the Dillo?
me: No. I would hurt him.
Casper: He would cry.
me; That's right. We don't hit anybody, but especially not babies because they are so little.
Casper: Can I hit the wall?
me: Well, it wouldn't hurt the wall, but it might hurt you. Walls are hard.

Yesterday morning, I am nursing Dillo in the big pink chair and Casper climbs up so she is lying parallel to him and behind him, with her head on the arm. It's nice to hold both my babies - the tiny one and the HUGE one.

She's wanted a lot of attention from me that I don't always have to give. It's good to have Grandma Debbie here - this morning they polished the silver and went off the the Gardens ("before it got hot" which was 10:30, and already beastly in my view...)

I should go nap, but Dillo is awake and making faces and people keep calling on the phone.

Born to coworker Seth, a son, Jackson. Big brother is Max.
Born to Russell Crowe, a son, Tennyson. Big Brother is Charles.

Casper plays two official games now: one is "tag" which is actually junior hide and seek. It workes best if the parent is the one who hides, and the hiding should be pretty damned obvious, and occasionally the seeker gets bored and wanders off before finding the hider. The second game is "little lamp" and derives from ther Pixar short Luxo Jr (in which a small goose-neck lamp plays with a ball). It involves rolling a ball back and forth across the floor and much giggling when it goes astray.

Casper turns our big pink living room chair into a boat in the evenings, by dint of moving the back pillow to the front of the seat cushion. Different animals join her in the boat. She could also spend hours in the bath, with her ducks, cups, and various small plastic animals. She often does spend a whole hour.

Two Casper-coined words:
bibble. Generally used in the phrase "you little bibble!" Endearment.
snarnob. Generally used in the phrase "you snarnob!" Spoekn with wrinkled nose. A criticism.

We have a motley assortment of stainless flatware; half from my grandmother, and half from mr. flea's grandmother. I like the ones from mine a great deal, but there are only 6 place settings so we use a mix. But today I applied some effort and found the pattern name! It is Oneida Community stainless, in a pattern named Frostfire which was only discontinued last year (1981-2005). Probably my grandmother got it from Betty Crocker. Replacements Ltd. has it (http://www.replacements.com/webquote/OHSFRO.htm?s1=KX&11154&, fairly pricey at $10 a piece) and I can get my mother to haunt Ebay.

Some day we'll have everyday dishes that I like; right now we have two sets, from mr. flea's two sets of grandparents, neither of which I am crazy about.

(In contrast, see my silver, inherited from my great-great grandmother, and bearing her monogram: Old Newbury, by Towle. http://www.replacements.com/webquote/TWSOLNN1.htm)

We are in the car.

me: When we get home, I want to lie down right away in Casper's bed. I am so tired.
Casper: No, you should lie down in your own bed.
me: Do you want to go to sleep with Daddy tonight?
Casper: Yes.
mr. flea: You know, did you ever think about going to sleep by yourself?
Casper: Huh?

We laughed and laughed and laughed.