He's Happy and He Knows It

Sometimes a good giggle happens when you're dressed in your sister's shirt. Them are the breaks. Also, love his face at the end.

Improvising

I'm wearing a girl's shirt that is much too big. And no pants. And I'm ticked. Read on.

We joined a gym with child care. Just saying that makes me feel like a NJ housewife. Which I'm not! Because in addition to websites that I feel like I can barely manage to contribute to these days, hello, book! This book. Pre-order yours today! For real. I'm not even kidding if you read this blog you better buy a copy thank you.

Aside from the outdoor pool, the selling point to the gym was the whole child care thing. Someone to keep the kids out of trouble for an hour or so while I work out, the only possible way I have time to work out? But strangers (gasp!) and other children (gasp gasp!)? And more importantly, NO MOMMY!? This is a recipe for tears (Avery's) and much anxiety (mine). We've been going regularly for at least two months now and the only times I haven't been called back to the daycare were once when I didn't hear the intercom, which doesn't count as success, obviously, and another time just last week when she finally made it longer than 20 minutes without being hysterical.

Hysterical isn't the word I use. It's the word the pros use. A good report? "She wasn't hysterical the whole time." That's a good day.

It really is getting better, although she's a demanding customer. Mornings are pretty chaotic at the gym because of all of the workout classes that we Jersey housewives (try to (yes, they will walk into a packed cardio class with a sign with your name on it if your child is inconsolable for more than 10 minutes)) attend, but afternoons are quieter. So I've been going in the afternoons so she can get a little extra staff attention. She demands staff attention. Whenever I return, she's being carried by the staff. If they make a move to put her down, they hear about it. It was the day when there was enough staff to watch the other children and an extra one to carry Avery that I didn't get called back to the child care center.

The pure relief on her face when I return is heartbreaking, but she really is getting better. We usually go swimming after her 10 or 20 minutes of hysteria is up, and she's no longer freaking out as much when we go back to pick up Owen, who is usually happily swinging in a swing. She's not requesting that I carry her all the time when we set foot in the room. Most of the time, but not all. These are baby steps that give me hope.

The funny thing is that she's super friendly and the biggest ham once she's comfortable somewhere. A party next door? She was a riot and made friends with everyone by the end of the day. But upon our arrival? Wouldn't budge from our laps and would close her eyes, which is her coping mechanism for avoiding someone or a situation that makes her nervous. (Also, hilarious. We can still see you, Avery!)

But the one day that I got back to the daycare after 30 minutes with no call, I had to check to make sure I hadn't inadvertently missed the intercom announcement. So Avery and I headed to the pool. After playing and splashing and hollering "Excuse me, kids" to kids across the pool who were playing in HER fountain, we were about to get out. And I saw a daycare staff member heading my direction.

And I just knew that the day Owen needed my attention had come. In all this time, he'd never been hungry. Or fussy. Or in need of a diaper change. This was it.

"Sorry to bother you...but Owen pooped...it's all up his back."

Of course. As Avery and I scrambled to get dried and dressed, I did a mental inventory of my gym bag. The diaper bag was all the way out in the car. And it had a 3-month size onesie that I knew he wouldn't be able to squeeze into on even his thinnest day. And of course I didn't have anything for him in my gym bag. But Avery does have a stockpile of like five swimsuits that I carry, one of which is a swim shirt. After considering putting him in the flower swim shirt, I remembered that Avery's shirt was blue. It had flowers, but at least it was turquoise, not pink. (Not that it freaking matters but still.) So we got back to the nursery and got Owen all changed and into Avery's pretty shirt.

I forgive you Mommy!

I'm not the most prepared mom on the block. And yes, he is still wearing Avery's shirt in these photos even though we were home for hours when they were taken. But I was still wearing my swimsuit, so at least you're dry, Owen.

Avery is 2!

Happy Birthday to my dear sweet little Avery! Our tiny baby is now such a big girl.


We celebrated over the weekend, and you would have thought she had turned 21 instead of 2 because of how tired we were by Sunday night. We stayed up pretty late on Saturday night because our neighbors had a barbecue, and even though we got home fairly early, we had a lot of celebratory preparations to do. We were up until well past midnight, assembling a play kitchen and decorating a cake.

What's cuter than a daddy decorating a butterfly cake for his daughter? Only the daughter, I say.

The cake turned out adorably. I was the idea guy and Alan took over in decoration execution, thankfully. There is a reason I'm a writer, not an artist, after all.


Avery came downstairs on Sunday morning to her kitchen set assembled in the living room. She was so excited she got a little shy about the whole thing. After getting picked up by Alan and then hopping onto the couch, she ventured over to the kitchen...and didn't leave it for 30 minutes.

Hey Marti, make yourself comfortable in an otherwise adorable photo op.

She loved all of her presents. She got lots of goodies beyond her kitchen.

This picture makes my heart hurt.

A new friend to love. (Thanks Cindy and Ronnie!)

We had to enjoy the fruits of our labor, so there was cake to be eaten!


Owen, of course, had to party it up too.


At 2 years old, Avery is becoming her own little person. She's becoming quite the chatterbox, and she repeats everything. And you never known when she'll pull something out of her brain. At the barbecue, she randomly told someone "Puppy puked" because Marti had been sick the other day. She got too close to the street recently, which she knows is "very dangerous" and preempted my safety talk by saying "Avery Anne" like I do when she's in trouble.

She loves reporting on Owen's activities. Owen awake, Owen laughing, Owen kicking. When she wants him in the bouncer or jumper or off my lap it's "Owen-uh Owen-uh bouncer bouncer/jumper jumper" or "Owen down." One time Owen was crying and she revisited the pipes she's scared of: "Owen crying pipes." She's adding "very" to things, which is funny. She'll point to the street and say "very hurt" or "very ouchy."

We're painting our kitchen cabinets, a months-long process, and she knows that Alan is sometimes downstairs working on them. The other day: "Daddy painting cabinets...puppy painting cabinets...no, that's silly."

Counting is hilarious. She'll now consistently count to 10, but after that it gets interesting. "Eleven, uh-twelve, uh-poorteen, uh-sickeen." A recent hilarious run through the alphabet: ABCDEFGHIJK apple bike, QRSTUVW bike Y and Z, now I AB EFGHIJK apple bike, Yay!"

Some of the cutest words? "Mazagine," pronounced with the z and g swapped. Muskic. Hungry is still "hoo-awwn-gry" and she's always hooawngry. Most people list the few foods their kids will eat; I can list the few she won't eat: tomato, olives, cucumbers, unseasoned chicken, potato salad. Miss Opinionated now wants me to "move mommy move" if I'm at all in her way...or she wants to climb on me and not let me leave her sight. It's anybody's guess at any given moment.

She loves swimming and when someone splashes her at the pool? "Bad kids." When a kid is in her way? "Move kid." (And we're now teaching "excuse me.") She's also very particular about her bedtime routine. She must have her blankie and her "second blankie." She requests that the air conditioning be actively blowing ("A/C on, nice and cool"), so I don't know how she'll take it when we turn it off when it cools down. Her dolly, Golly, must be tucked in, as well as her hands and feet. It's like we add something new every night.

Some more recent faves of our funny girl.




Instead of parroting back everything we say, she's now starting to respond properly and has just now started saying "no" to things as you'll see in the video below. When she really doesn't want to do something? "No please."

Hooping it up.

It's been a wonderful ride over these two years. Avery is really becoming her own funny little person complete with her own opinions and quite the personality. Stay awesome, little Aves.

Sound Effects

Owen: Fingers yummy, nom nom.

Avery: What a pen sounds like drawing on shelves.

Me: What a mom sounds like discovering a pen drawing on shelves.

Kicking Ass and Taking Names

Owen is almost four months old now. It's gone by in the blink of an eye, truly. He's quite the easy baby now that I can put him down throughout the day without him doing the crying version of calling the cops on me. He's much more visually stimulated than Avery ever was (typical male). He notices his mobile and the frog in his bouncer like Avery never did. And he flirts with them, giggling, grinning and cooing like crazy.



In the sleep department, he's kicking all sorts of ass and taking so many names. He started going down close to Avery's bedtime and will sleep until 2 a.m. most nights. And has hit 4 a.m. several times. Unreal. As you know, Avery didn't achieve this type of sleep until, well, she sleeps through most nights, but I'll just say that even now we've had nights when Owen came out the sleep victor. He's super duper adorable, and if we're not careful he's going to have us convinced a third would be no problem. He reminds me a little of Gene Hackman. Is plumping up just like Avery did, so he's got adorable little cheeks and rolls to squeeze.


We made it into the city, so he's already learning how to navigate subways and curse out the homeless Elmos. Even in his limited Sesame Street experience he knows the difference between the real thing and the imposters.


He also had a notable diaper blowout on the Brooklyn Bridge, whole outfit change and all. He's really noticing all of us and follows us around the room. He seems especially interested in Avery's shenanigans, as he should be because they are the more interesting shenanigans.



That girl. Her vocabulary astounds me. Move ottoman. Daddy home. I carry you. (Translation: carry me.) Book uh heavy (when she's trying to drag a stack of books around the house). Front door. Crazy puppy. Doorbell. Jump in pool. I kiss it. Be careful. Be right back.


She's fascinated with and terrified of overhead pipes downstairs. Like a moron, instead of ignoring it, I pointed out additional pipes for her to fear. Good job. Now "pipes" are regularly mentioned. Around this time she also developed a fear of her baby monitor camera, so much so that we had to hide it so we can at least get the sound. She also started pointing out the smoke alarm, and we told her they keep us safe. So now she goes around, pointing them out with concern, saying "safe, safe."


She's also memorizing books now, and it's insane how quickly she can start putting phrases with the correct pages. However, I am not saying she's a genius or anything because she's still unable to swallow her saliva and just today she went around licking the couch and ottoman, getting loads of dog hair in her incessantly drooly chin. So, you know, she's a genius in certain areas.

22 Months

Our dear little Avery is now 22 months old. She is sweet, smart and ever more opinionated as the days tick by. She's asserting her independence right on schedule. This means changing her mind immediately after making her mind up, taking off clothing and diapers from waist down every morning and throwing them out of her crib, and blatantly disobeying kind requests from Mommy. It also means not sitting still for photo shoots, making Mommy work really hard for decent photos, and destroying cute pigtail 'dos.

I know I say she's smart, but when you see where your kids start from, it's amazing to see how quickly they learn. She's got at least a million words in her vocabulary. Is that an exaggeration? Peacock. Piece of pizza. Hummus. Trash. Cockadoodledoo. I want cheese. I'm coming. Carry. Help. iPad. Sheep-eep. (Her sleep sheep; cutest thing she says.) We were at the zoo and she called the sea lions "seals"...which is pretty impressive considering that...what is the difference?

She thanks the babysitter without being prompted. When prompted to smile, however, she won't. Doesn't want to sit still. So I started asking her to show her teeth, and it kind of works.

We had our first curse word repeated back to us. She will repeat anything and everything we say, so we have to watch it. She also mimics everything I do, so she'll wipe and diaper her dollies and Elmo. Brush her teeth how I do. Put on my shoes and walk around in them. 

She counted to 10 like a month ago, but now refuses to go past two, although she recognizes most numbers. And then out of nowhere she'll say thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. She recognizes tons of letters and can sing most of the alphabet. When she gets lost and doesn't know what's next, she'll just say "bike" and start over or carry on as if "bike" is a widely known and respected letter. For awhile it was "L-M-N-O-Bike."

She's also either color blind, really stubborn or just doesn't get colors yet. Everything is still "ye-beh-bow." It's impressive when you're asking about the color of a banana; not so when you're asking about anything else. In true Avery style, she'll likely wait until she knows colors like chartreuse and apricot before she starts whipping them out.

 I'll say my colors when I say my colors, MOM. (Does everyone else see attitude in these eyes? It's not my imagination, right?)

She adorably sings Wheels on the Bus and If You're Happy and You Know It. She's been in a Mommy phase recently, which makes Alan's time with her at bath and bedtime a total screamy blast. It always makes me laugh when she wants me so bad at bedtime. I'm like, so stop being a little jerk between 4 and 6 p.m.

I know! I look totally innocent! I don't know what my mom is talking about with this "jerk" stuff!

She's getting much better about Owen. She almost never gets impatient when my attention is diverted. And almost never takes her frustrations out on him anymore. I can just taste how fun it's going to be when he's a little bigger.

This sweet girl. She sometimes makes my head explode and always makes my heart hurt. Which means she's doing her job as a toddler just perfectly.

The Lost Art

So I've been a little blog negligent, not because of a lack of blog fodder. Trust, there is plenty of that around here. But I wrote a blog post in a draft email to myself on my BlackBerry and then, in clearing out over 100 emails en masse, deleted the draft.

To say I was deflated is an understatement. I cried. I lit-ruhlly cried. I'm sure the crying has nothing to do with a lack of sleep or my being crazy. But you guys, it was super funny (of course) and had all kinds of metaphors comparing Avery to weather. The violent, crazy kind of weather. Plus, it took me days to have the time to slowly cobble the post together during times I was feeding Owen and Avery was napping. (And it's taken me just as many days to put this one together the same way.) Because as you'll see in the first video, getting anything accomplished when both are awake is unlikely.

 My lap. And yes, Marti is burrowing.

We're adjusting to being a house of four and a Marti. Things can get crazy, like when Owen is crying, Avery decides to test out her scream while intermittently crying, Marti is barking, my shirt is half off, my nose is running and the toilet starts making an obnoxious high-pitched whining noise. Here's an 8-second sample of my days:



Looks fun, right? It actually is fun, and surprisingly, there are moments of calm between bouts of chaos. Avery is adjusting to big sisterhood. It's interesting that she got the big sister title right as she was hitting the Show My Independence Stage. The "I'm having trouble controlling MY EMOTIONS" phase. She will have moments when she's a holy terror and I think I'd be less afraid of staring down the barrel of a gun. Like when I was at the library and I started seeing little flashes of the fits she's thrown at home. Luckily this time, she only laid on the ground, refusing to walk, listen or cooperate. At home sometimes she'll just sca-ream for fun, so I was glad she didn't break out her vocals at the library. She's thrown herself violently to the ground several times, but after hitting her head twice she learned that the point is to get to the ground to actively tantrum, so she now charts a much safer and slower journey to get there. It's not the drama she hopes for, but it's the comedy her parents enjoy.

Luckily for us, these bouts of The Crazy are mixed with The Sweet and The Adorable and The Smart and The Funny.

The sweet? She'll come up and say "hug" to get hugs. She'll say please, thank you and "Bless you, Owen." She'll shove a pacifier in Owen's face. (Or rip it out, but whatever.) And give him extra jammies. And bounce him. Hard. Sometimes it works.



The adorable? She'll feed her dolly and take great pains to wrap her in a blanket.



The smart? Out of almost nowhere, she counted Alan's fingers to five and shortly after went to 10. And she started singing the ABCs and a song I made up for her. She's also reading which is a mix of The Adorable and The Smart. Smorable? She gestures, which is a total mommy move; I gesture a lot and am quite expressive if you've never noticed.



As for Owen, he's good. Really freaking adorable, actually. He's stopped screaming bloody murder for every diaper change; now it's just screaming bloody murder when I put him down. And boy, does he like to be held nonstop, which is great for the heart but not for the to-do list. I stopped even trying to get anything done during the day, as I even struggle to keep up the house with the two needy humans. I swear, I'm often better off if I accept the state of the house, as Avery destroys and unloads anything and everything if my attention is diverted even for a second. I've enlisted help, a sitter to come in twice a week to allow me to get a few work things done. Unlike some of the help we've gotten through Alan's work program, she showed up almost on time and is a normal human. I hope she keeps coming back.

But how could these two scare you away? (Just don't show her that first video...)

More to come soon, I swear. I will have two hands again some day.