====================================================================== ========================== ======================== ======================== PEBBLES PRESS ======================= ======================= and ====================== ======================== TWINKIE TRIBUNE ======================= ========================== ======================== ====================================================================== ``The Straight Poop on Heather and Twinkie'' 23 September 1998 Vol. 5, No. 1 Joint Editors-in-Chief: Heather & Caroline Contributing Editors: John & Marie Fashion Editor: Aunt Susan -- A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR I'm shocked to realize that it's been over a year since the last regular issue of the Pebbles Press & Twinkie Tribune. Since then, so much has happened, it's hard to know where to start with an "update." Heather is now almost 4 1/3, and Caroline is 21 months old. I'll just do the best I can to fill you in on the events of the last year, and let you know where the girls are now. Like other publications you may receive, we've decided to do a "spring cleaning" (well, technically, a "fall cleaning") on our mailing list. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles are exempt from the cleaning process (they will continue to receive the PP&TT whether they want to or not). For everyone else, if you want to continue receiving the newsletter, please let me know. (If you don't want to, that's fine -- that's why I'm doing this! You can send a note saying "no thanks" if you want or just quietly fail to respond and I'll quit filling your inbox with junk mail!) Incidentally, if you haven't seen our webpage lately, there are more pictures and some of Heather's recent artwork. You can get there from our homepage, http://www.desjardins.org, or go directly to the art gallery at http://www.desjardins.org/gallery.html. -- HEATHER UPDATE Heather's 4th birthday party (April 2) was lots of fun. We rented an AstroJump for our back yard, and when Heather saw it, she was just overjoyed, and immediately wanted to jump in it. Caroline had a great time too! John had finished building our new swingset/climbing structure in the front yard that morning, so the kids alternated between jumping in the jumper, playing in the front yard, and doing activities inside (mostly during the rainy spells!) (We had our front yard re-landscaped last spring, and it looks fabulous, if we do say so ourselves!) We made prince & princess crowns (star garlands for the crown with ribbons woven around the garlands and hanging down in the back for decoration), and had a bead kit for making necklaces and bracelets. We got an ice cream cake from Baskin-Robbins (Cinderella decorations, chocolate cake, mint chocolate chip ice cream), and that was a big hit. She's really creative, and draws great pictures -- recent ones include our whole family in bed, complete with pillows and drawers above our heads (to put our clothes while we sleep, of course); a mommy and baby bunny; and herself and Caroline, on Caroline's one-year birthday card. (Okay, that wasn't so recent.) She loves to do art projects -- cutting, taping, gluing. One day I gave her some construction paper and scissors, and went off to make dinner. She came in and asked me if it was OK to cut up the old TV Guide, and I said yes. When I came back, she'd made a collage of "fancy pictures" (women in dresses, of course), and a teeny crown for a doll from her dollhouse (serrated edges, carefully taped together to be just the right size). She has a play kitchen and spends a lot of time there, playing various fantasy games -- pretending to cook and make various meals. She likes to be a waiter and take our order, then go to her kitchen and bring back what we asked for. Her specialty is strawberry pie. She plays with her dolls a lot, mostly carrying them around and taking them places, and making up beds for them with towels and blankets all over the house. She loves to do jigsaw puzzles and play simple board games with us. She has a basket of musical instruments that she'll often take out and play with (she especially likes us to all march around and have a parade!) She's a wonderful singer, with a terrific sense of pitch, rhythm, and style. She's also very dramatic and expressive in her dancing and speech -- we like to call her the Drama Queen. She can skin the cat on our new trapeze bar (that's where you hang on with your hands, pull your legs up over your head and through your arms, and flip over so you're hanging down again, with your arms up above your back). She likes to go to plays (mostly children's plays, so far) and concerts (including her mom's choir!) She especially loves the ballet, and is *dying* to go to the opera, but so far I haven't taken her to one. (That's a *lot* of sitting still for a little girl! But she's amazingly good and well behaved at performances, so I think she could probably do it, and would probably *love* it.) She's starting to develop some pre-reading skills. She taught herself to write all of the capital letters last year, and loves to write her name and other words (she asks a grownup to spell them for her), she recognizes all of the upper- and lower-case letters and the numbers. She can read a few simple words, and clearly has the concept of phonics down, but doesn't seem really motivated to learn yet. I have a feeling that one day she'll decide she wants to read, and within a week she'll be reading real books. That's how her learning style works -- she waits until she's really ready, then puts it all together overnight. It also helps that she remembers absolutely everything we say, has a phenomenal vocabulary, and puts things together mentally that we never thought she'd be able to figure out. She's just a brilliant child; what can we say? She still loves to be read to, and will make you read to her for hours on end if you go along with it. Recent favorites are the American Girl series, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, any and all fairy tales (but especially "Sleeping Beauty"). She also "reads" to herself a lot, looking through familiar (or new) books and sometimes making up stories to go along with them. She loves to "read" to Caroline, showing her pictures and helping her practice words and colors. It's so adorable! We don't let her watch much TV, but every once in a while I bring home McDonald's and a video, and we have dinner in front of the TV. She LOVES this, mostly because it's such a special treat. (Breaking the TV rule AND the "no eating in the living room" rule; hooray!) When we're on vacation she watches more TV and videos than when we're at home, and babysitters can let her watch some TV if they want to. (She loves sleepovers at Aunt Barbara's and Aunt Susie's houses, because they let her watch Disney videos. :-) She loves anything girly: dresses, lace and ribbons, Little Mermaid, ballet, Anastasia, Cinderella, dolls and dress-ups. (She loves fantasy play and dress-ups. I'm getting very tired of pretending to be Dmitri (from Anastasia), the Beast, the Prince, or whatever male consort her oh-so-feminine self needs around!) We've been holding out on Barbie, but told her that she could buy one with her allowance when she saves enough (she gets $1 a week). Turns out she'll be getting one sooner than she (or we!) thought, because last night she made a *big* break-through -- she gave up her pacifier! We told her recently that when she's 4 1/2 (next Friday), it will be time to stop using a babboo. We also told her that when you leave a babboo under your pillow, the babboo fairy takes it and leaves a surprise. So she left her "holding babboo" under her pillow last Sunday night, and the babboo fairy left her $5 and a note that pointed out that $5 is half of how much she needs to buy a Barbie. (You all know how I feel about those creatures, but she'll end up with one sooner or later, since we told her she could buy one with her allowance, so we may as well get some mileage out of it!) Monday night she tried to not use it, but ended up falling asleep with it in her mouth, so the babboo fairy left a note saying she'd come back the next night to see if it was under her pillow. Tuesday morning she was *very* upset! So last night she did it -- she fell asleep with it under her pillow. It was really tough for her; she couldn't fall asleep for a long time, kept coming out saying she wanted me to check on her, and we had a couple of long "pillow talks" about doing hard things and growing up. It was a good experience in a lot of ways, actually. She was VERY proud of herself the next morning (and so were we!) and couldn't wait to go shopping that afternoon! (As it turns out, she ended up with *three* Barbies. She bought a ballerina Barbie that came with a "baby Barbie" (called "Kelly"). But she had a really tough time deciding, and that night she was so upset, wishing she'd bought the "twirling ballerina Barbie," that I relented and said I'd give her an advance on her allowance so she could buy another one. (Suggested half-birthday gift for close relatives: money to replenish her depleted bank account!) To give myself a little credit, part of the reason I gave in was that the "twirling ballerina" was her second choice, and the one I'd hoped she'd buy -- it's African-American, and I thought it was pretty cool that that wasn't a factor for her at all.) Last year, Heather was part of "the gang of four" -- four little girls in her day care class who played together all day (Zoe, Tati, Emily, and Heather). The other three are all gone now -- Tati moved to Chico (and would be in kindergarten this year anyway), Zoe went to Ecuador for a few months (!) and is living in Virginia, and Emily went to Germany and hasn't returned (yet?) Heather is now one of the "big kids" at day care, since the 5-year-olds have gone to kindergarten. The 3-year-olds really look up to her, asking her to help them with projects, and wanting to play with her. She still sometimes feels like she doesn't have anyone to play with, but she seems to spend a lot of time with Mackenzie, David, and Sean, just to name a few, so I think she's getting used to the new group. Hallowe'en is coming up soon, and Heather is still undecided about what she wants to be. She was thinking about Glinda the Good at one point (her white fancy Cinderella nightgown, a magic wand, and a crown -- nice simple costume!), but that doesn't seem to be at the top of her list any more. Last year she was Cruella De Ville, the rest of the family were all Dalmations, and we won the costume contest at SRI. Somehow I don't think we can top that this year. Heather took ballet last spring. Over the summer she went to gymnastics and swimming classes, though we missed about half of the lessons. She didn't get much out of the swimming classes, so I've been trying to teach her a bit myself, but we don't make it to the pool very often. She loves the water, and will even dunk her head under the water, but is timid about really swimming or floating. This fall she's in a combination dance class (tap and ballet, with some acrobatics thrown in for good measure) that she really loves. She's very graceful and expressive, so dance is a terrific outlet for her. -- CAROLINE UPDATE Caroline turned one ages and ages ago (January 2). We had two birthday parties, one in New York and one in Maryland. Her birthday gift from her parents was 2 boxes of kleenex, her absolute favorite toy, and full permission to pull them all out, which she promptly proceeded to do. That and various boxes from Christmas presents were definitely her favorite gifts. We also had a 1-1/2-year-old birthday party for her, at Happy Hollow (a local kiddie amusement park) with her Grandpa Richard, who now lives just a few miles away in Mountain View. (Frequent babysitting; hooray!) Caroline is now in TKP (Teeny Kids Place), the toddler room at CCSC. She just loves it, and had no problems at all making the transition from the infant room. She loves taking baths (and spends most of the time pouring water on her own head, if you can believe that), toothbrushes, washing her hands, and wiping up spills with napkins. We have a hygiene freak on our hands! :-) She is also obsessed with shoes and socks. She loves stacking and nesting toys, putting small things into containers, and drawing ("Pitcher! Cah-nine pitcher!") She toddles around the house endlessly, always with a plan, always strewing chaos behind her. (Gotta get these tinkertoy pieces into this basket, bring the basket into the other room, then unload the tinkertoys and put the spoons in there. Excellent! Just the way I wanted it.) She loves to be held, cuddled, tickled, turned upside down, and read to (not necessarily all at the same time). She eats nearly everything, and has a particular fondness for cheese, grapes, peas, and milk. She's talking up a storm -- she has a vocabulary of several hundred words, and is saying 2- and 3-word sentences. It's just phenomenal how much she knows, and how quickly she's learned it. At the beginning of the summer, she probably knew 50 or 60 words; it seems as though she says many new words every day. She finally started walking when she was nearly 16 months (in late April). (That's by no means a family record, though, since I was closer to 18 months, and John allegedly didn't walk until he was nearly two.) Now she's toddling around quite well, but not running yet. She can climb *anything* though; she's incredibly agile. She weaned herself well before she started walking, though, right around 14 months, almost exactly the age that Heather weaned herself. It worked out well -- I was ready for it to happen, and it was a very smooth transition. Speaking of weaning, we decided that we don't want to be going through the babboo fairy ritual when Caroline turns 4 1/2, so we're gradually weaning her as well. We've stopped giving it to her in the car (she's not so happy about that, but seems to have gotten used to it). Last week, we started taking the babboo away after she fell asleep with it at bedtime. And over the weekend, when we were on vacation in Bodega Bay, we didn't give it to her at bedtime. The first night she only cried a bit (which is why we decided to stick with it -- if she'd howled, we'd probably have given it to her and waited a while, at least). The second night she cried more. The third night she was positively beside herself, and howled for a good ten or fifteen minutes before she finally gave up. Last night she fell asleep in the car on the way home, so we'll see how it goes tonight! She's very attached to a whole menagerie of friends and objects -- her baby doll, her soft bear, her little stuffed dog, her dinosaur blanket -- so she does have some comfort objects to help her through when the babboo isn't there. -- PERSONALITY PLUS Caroline has really good tantrums now, and is a champion whiner. She doesn't have the tenacity that Heather (the master of the 45-minute tantrum) had, but she holds her own. She's basically a mellow, easy-going kid, but when you get in the way of something she wants, you'd better *watch out*! The way she works up to a tantrum is positively adorable, though. When something doesn't go her way, she pouts a little, then slowly her face dissolves into the world's saddest possible expression, then she starts whimpering softly, then escalates into a full-out wail. If she's on the floor, she collapses into a little pile and either rolls around howling, or kicks and screams, depending on whether she's miserable or truly furious. If she's strapped into a high chair or car seat, she arches her back, then flops over to the side and expresses her misery through body language ("I'm so truly devastated I can't even hold my body vertically any more"). It is truly pathetic and hysterical. Heather, meanwhile, going through the fours... such intensity of emotion is frightening. She can still be easy to get along with at times, but more and more often she'll deliberately and consciously defy a very clear rule, and when I follow through with the consequences, *look out*!! I worry that she's too intense, even for a 4-year-old. When she's in mid-tantrum, she often sobs out things like "I'm so sad, I feel like it's the end of me, and I'm going to die!" or "I feel like I'll be sad forever until I die," or "I'm going to cry all night until it's time to wake up." Here's a typical "bad evening." (This was back in January, but when she has her really bad days, they still can be like this.) She sometimes gets into a mood where she's just spoiling for a fight, I think -- on this particular occasion, it had been a rough day, we had visitors, and it was all just too much for her. She started losing it shortly after the visitors arrived -- first over wanting a snack before dinner, then over thinking I wasn't going to let her open the Christmas presents they brought right away, then over washing her hands after going to the bathroom, then over the fact that she chose a tootsie roll for dessert but then changed her mind and wanted ice cream with the rest of us (AFTER eating the tootsie roll, of course), then over my not sharing enough of my ice cream with her, then the tantrum just started to be over the tantrum itself. Let's face it, this evening was one big extended tantrum. We're talking hurling herself to the ground and howling at the top of her lungs, my carrying her to her room to work it out, pushing her back inside several times in order to close the door, her slamming the door behind me on a different occasion, some throwing of objects in her room after I left, just on and on and on. The aftermath, for those who are curious how a tantrum of El Ninan proportions plays itself out: I finally told my friends they should just head home. (John had gone to pick a friend up at the airport.) Luckily, Caroline didn't get too pulled into the vortex -- she cried a bit, but didn't really lose it. After they were gone, I matter-of- factly told Heather we were going to go get ready for bed and then read some books, and proceeded to take her through our usual bedtime routine. She howled at first, then diminished to wailing, then sobbing, then heavy breathing. By the time we discovered Caroline's new tooth, she was close enough to calming down that my excitement over the tooth actually caught on, and we exclaimed over it together. The rest was more like a normal evening -- somewhat on the stubborn/sullen side, but manageable and no real tears. Sometimes it's weird how quickly she can turn happy/normal after one of these blowout tantrums. (Three or four of them tend to wear her out, though. :-) One of the things I know I do is that I sometimes get very angry at her when she works herself up into a lather. And I think she feels really bad when she thinks I'm angry at her. (She told me as one tantrum was winding down that she thinks I don't love her when she's crabby, because I yell at her and get angry at her. I tried pointing out to her that she often yells at me and gets angry at me, but I'm not sure she really made the connection.) So I'm trying harder to at least use words that tell her I'm upset with her behavior but that I still love her. Not easy when I'm so mad I could throw her out a window!! -- SIBLING RIVALRY (MOSTLY--NOT!) Heather and Caroline get along WONDERFULLY. Bedtime is so easy now, because they both go to bed at the same time. Caroline lies on Heather's bed while we go through our bedtime routine, and just knowing that each other is there seems to comfort them when they're having a rough evening. Heather takes care of Caroline, does the best Caroline imitation you can imagine, likes to show her things and teach her things. Caroline just worships Heather, and always wants to wake her up in the morning. They love to play together, and rarely fight. Usually we can help them work it out when they do have a conflict with minimal intervention. I try to respond to their conflicts by telling them "*you* guys need to work this out," and not get involved beyond sometimes making suggestions ("why don't you share?" "can you trade for something else?" "can you play with that somewhere that she won't get into it?") What's really fun is that Heather picks up on all the things we do with Caroline and does them too. She's like a little teacher when we read books ("Caroline, where's the duck? YES! that's RIGHT! very GOOD!") I just love to watch them together. So far, there's very little friction between them (mostly this takes the form of Heather absolutely needing me to hold her when Caroline's crying). Heather seems to be pretty patient when Caroline gets into her stuff or bugs her. She's so good about "using her words" -- Caroline will be crawling all over her and pulling her hair, and Heather will be scowling and saying "Stop it, Caroline! I DON'T LIKE IT!" but won't really push her or come yelling to me, just try to move her hands away, or get up and leave. (Well, sometimes she comes yelling to me. But at least she doesn't *always* come yelling to me. :-) As Caroline gets older, we are running into more conflicts, though. One day a while ago, we had an incident that made me so sad. I was getting them cereal one morning, and while I was in the kitchen, I heard Caroline whinge, then cry briefly. I came back out and saw Heather standing by Caroline's high chair with, obviously, the last Crispix in her mouth. I told her that it wasn't OK to take Caroline's cereal without asking, and that she really needed to apologize to Caroline. She didn't like *that*, and went flouncing off to sulk. Later when I went to talk to her, she said "well, I guess I'm ready to talk, but... well... I just don't have anything to say." So I asked, "Why are you upset?" She thought and then said "well, I DO have something to say, but I don't want to say it." "You can say it, honey, it's okay." "No, because it's mean words." I told her to come sit on my lap, held her, and said "Even if it's mean, it's OK to say it, because it helps to get those mean feelings out, and it's OK to feel that way, and I *promise* I won't be mad at you." "Are you sure?" "I'm sure." "Okay, well, I just feel like I wish we never had a baby, and she was never born." Luckily I was holding her facing out on my lap, because I immediately started crying. Oh, I *know* kids inevitably feel that way -- heck, I felt that way about my sister often enough. But they get along so well, and it's such a joy to see them together, that even thinking about her feeling that way makes me so sad. Within no time, they were getting along fine (as they nearly always do), and I'm sure it helped her to be able to say how she was feeling. I thought it was so mature of her, how she went off and thought about it by herself, and the way she said it. But I'm not sure I'm over it yet! Shortly after this incident, I noticed that Caroline was starting to get more "in Heather's face," always wanting to be with her, play with her, and take the stuff she's using. Heather is mostly very tolerant of this, but you could see that it's wearing on her, and she often needs extra one-on-one attention with us. I realized that she needed more private space, so I spent some time over the last week clearing off part of the window seat in our bedroom (previously piled up with junk) and setting up a reading corner for her. We got a new bookcase, a new pillow (a sort of big cuddly stuffed raccoon, but flat like a pillow), and put some blankets and dolls there so it has a cozy feeling to it. She loves having her "private spot" to go to, and tends to go off and sit there when she's sad and needs some time alone to work through her feelings. We were lucky in a lot of ways, because Heather is naturally nurturing, and Caroline is naturally loving (as well as being very bright and responsive to new ideas). But I think we did some things right to help them learn to get along too: * We told Heather pretty early on about the baby and started talking about it with her as soon as it was "public" knowledge (after the 1st trimester). * We tried to involve Heather in the whole process, talking about "your baby" (instead of "the baby") before she was born, letting her hold Caroline as much as she wanted (including in the hospital the day after she was born), asking her to help out when she seemed receptive, and trying to make room for her when we were taking care of Caroline. * We expected sharing and loving behavior from the beginning -- we never yelled at our punished Heather for *not* sharing, or for being too rough with Caroline, but we'd quietly tell her what we *did* want her to do, and show her with our actions. The number-one rule was and is: if you want something that Caroline has, you must trade with her, and it has to be OK with her. * Hitting and hurting are never OK, though again, we try not to yell or punish, and to give Heather the benefit of the doubt. Usually if she does hurt or bother Caroline, she didn't really *mean* to, so we try to show her what she could have done instead: "Touch her gently... don't help her down unless she wants you to... don't pull her so hard, you can hug her like this." * Taking time to be alone with each child is really important -- that way they both know they matter, and that the other one matters too. At the same time, we never hid our love for Caroline; we wanted Heather to *know* how much we loved Caroline, but that you don't love them any less. We'd say things like "isn't she adorable when she smiles?" and Heather would say in a cooing voice "Oh, yes, she's SO cute!" * We tried not to drop what we were doing with Heather to run and take care of Caroline at her first cry -- I would even call aloud to Caroline, "I'll come get you in just a minute, I know you're waiting, but Heather and I have to finish this, and then I'll be right there!" That way it didn't seem so unfair to Heather when I told her that I was busy doing something with Caroline and I'd be with her in a minute. The first year with the two of them was incredibly difficult for us. There's never any downtime -- *somebody* always wants you, and usually when one of them wants you, the other one does too. Being pulled in so many different directions is just exhausting, and it's unbelievably hard (for me, at least) to maintain any semblance of patience and nurturing in the midst of sleep deprivation. (Caroline didn't sleep through the night until 7 months, and then *Heather* started having some periods of night waking. These days, thank the stars, they are both sleeping through the night almost always, from 9pm to around 8am.) For the first few (six? eight?) months, I absolutely dreaded being left alone with both kids. I felt like I was constantly on the verge of screaming at them or completely falling apart. I just had to keep reminding myself that it *would* get easier eventually. It's already much easier than it was, and watching the two of them together is an absolute joy. Knowing how hard that first year was, I wouldn't make the decision again lightly, but knowing what a special relationship they'll always have, I would definitely do it again. (Actually, *I* won't do it again -- the baby factory is closed!) -- BABY TALK There is no baby talk any more, only big-girl talk! I wish I had sent out some issues of the PP&TT last spring, when Caroline was just starting to talk. Now it seems like it would be silly to brag about how she said "baww" (ball) and "woa-wwww!" when she saw a lion. As of mid-March she was saying maybe 15 words. These days her vocabulary is well into the hundreds; there's no way to keep count. As we like to say to each other, "she knows EVERYTHING!" She really does seem to understand just about everything that we say, and if she doesn't know the exact word for what *she* wants to say, she's very creative in finding a way to get her meaning across. She says lots of 2 and 3-word sentences (especially "more X", "Caroline's X" (pronounced "keh-nine"), and my favorite, "a X," which means "another X" or "a different X." Usage, mostly at bedtime: "Baby?" "Here's your baby." "A baby!" "Here's your other baby." "A baby!" "Here's your *other* baby."). At bedtime, our routine is to get ready for bed, read books, then go into their room where both girls lie down on Heather's bed. (Caroline started that tradition.) I sing a song, then tell them about their day, give them water, tuck them in, put on a lullaby tape (one I recorded myself; they won't listen to anything else any more), and leave the room. Usually the "telling them about their day" is just for Heather's benefit, although Caroline listens. But lately, she's started to really pay attention, and she'll pop her head up and interject things I forgot. It blows me away, how much she remembers. For example, one day I said "and at lunchtime, I picked you up at day care, and you were swinging in the hammock" and Caroline popped up and says "Cah-nine! Turn!" I just stared at her, and then said, "That's right, Caroline had a turn on the hammock too." Another day when I got her up from her nap (a record-setting 3.5 hours!), I was wearing a lace-up toy on a string around my neck (a necklace that Heather told me to wear). Caroline pointed and said "Circle!" so I told her "I think Heather made you a necklace too; why don't you go ask her?" and put her down. She toddled off and collected her necklace, then came back and pointed to mine, saying "Circle" and then to hers (in the shape of a horse) and said with a grin "Cookie!" I said "Oh, is that a cookie?" She nods slyly. "Is mine a cookie too?" Another grin, and "No-ohh!" Guess only Caroline got a cookie necklace that day. After that, we went out to the grocery store. I sent them out to the back entryway to get their shoes. When I went out there, Caroline was sitting on the floor with one of her Pooh sneakers and one of Heather's. (They have matching sneakers -- purely coincidence, since different people gave them as gifts!) I said "Oh, Caroline, maybe instead of one of yours and one of Heather's, we should put both of YOUR shoes on. I think Heather's are too big!" She promptly said "O-kay," put Heather's back, and pointed to the basket where we keep the kids' shoes, saying "Get-it! Get-it!" I couldn't believe how quickly she understood what I was saying, and complied. I love this little girl. She's just the cutest. (Well, one of the two cutest. :-) -- BIG KID TALK This section is devoted to random Heather quotes and anecdotes. "It's one of my favorite things -- driving backwards down the driveway. I know it's silly -- but I like it anyway." She pretends to talk to John on the phone: H: "Hello? How are you? What do you want?... " J: "Can I talk to so and so?" H: "I'm not interested. Please take me off your list. Goodbye. "That's how phone conversations go. Mommy always says that." "Daddy, when I'm bigger, can I listen to rock and roll?" And on another occasion: "Turn it off [rock music] -- it's too cool for me." The girls were sitting at the piano together, Heather on the high notes, Caroline on the low. Heather was playing tinkly little ripples, and she told me "Mommy, that's graceful beauty. It's the whole ballet, and some of them have bells, and some of them have sparkles." The Silly Words game she invented goes like this: Have you ever heard of a tree that smashed out of the ground and then somebody ate it? ...of a kid that was lying on the floor at school and somebody didn't see them and stepped on them? ...of a person on a bike with a sign on her back?" Well, *she* thinks it's funny. "Mommy, you know that animal matching game with the cards? Sometimes, when I'm playing that by myself, I trick the rules. (whispers:) I trick the rules really quiet so nobody will know! (giggle) Like, I put the lion with the horse, and the cat with the tiger (giggle). A while back, they put in a new loft at day care, and Heather was telling me about the different rules: "You have to climb with your body close to the ladder, and hold on tight, and go one foot at a time. If you try to go two feet at a time, you could fall and bonk your head! (giggles) I told (teacher) Chris there was another rule that should be on the list, and this is the rule I told her: you shouldn't take the rocking chair up to the loft, or throw the rocking chair, because it's very breakable and we paid a lot of money for it, so you don't want to break it." She picked up on a story I told her, about how when I was a little kid, my family stopped at McD's on a road trip, and a few miles down the road, I piped up from the back seat, "Mommy, where are David and Steven?" My parents had left my two brothers behind!! She asks me to tell this story all the time, and it seems to have made her think, because the other day, out of the blue, she asked "Mommy, would you ever drive somewhere without me?" I answered, "Well, I drive to work without you, and sometimes I go other places by myself, like the store." "No, I mean would you leave me somewhere and drive away alone?" "You mean like day care?" "No, I mean like at the library or at the grocery store." "Oh, I see! Of *course* I wouldn't!" Finally I put it together, that she was wondering if the McD's incident could happen to her! She wasn't worried, exactly, just checking to make sure. Now it's become a running joke -- "Mommy, would you ever leave me in the jungle alone? or in the woods alone? or at day care at night when there aren't any teachers there?" -- SLEEP SAGA Like her big sister, Caroline took a v-e-e-ry long time to sleep through the night. Those days are past us now, and she almost always goes right to sleep with no trouble around 9pm, and sleeps until 8 or so. But the days of sleep deprivation still loom large in our memory. Back in October, there was a period when she was up every hour or two. She would just cry and cry and even nursing her wouldn't settle her down. As soon as I'd put her back down she'd start howling again. Sometimes she'd sleep in our bed for a while; and some days after a night of that she'd be up for the day at 5 in the morning. We just couldn't deal. I was basically non-functional a significant amount of the time during the day, and had almost no coping skills. And in the middle of the night when she wakes up, it's even worse -- I'd wonder why I had kids at all, and just lie there nursing her and crying half the time. I felt like I would never, ever again NOT be tired. It's like being in labor, when you get past another contraction or another push, and you think (or at least I did) that you cannot possibly do it, you will die if you have to do one more. I stumble out of bed at night and think to myself "I think I will die from lack of sleep very soon." I hated it that it didn't resolve itself; I wanted to believe that if I just "gave her what she'd needed" she'd start to sleep on her own. I felt cheated, since it seemed like nearly everyone else I knew had babies who slept through the night. I was really worried about letting her "cry it out" with Heather in the room, not knowing whether they'd end up keeping each other awake. In the end, Caroline started sleeping somewhat better on her own; by mid-November she was sleeping through the night at least some of the time. But that didn't last; the Christmas holidays really disrupted her, and she was back to her on-again-off-again wakings. I don't think it ever got as bad as the every-other-hour wakings we were having, but I was still pretty exhausted most of the time. We did let her cry it out some (modified Ferber approach), and that was very successful. Heather didn't seem to notice at all -- sometimes she'd wake up and want to be tucked back in and get a kiss, but that was about it. (We did have problems with Heather waking up because of a nightmare or needing to go potty, and Caroline waking up and howling for a while as a result, but that resolved itself pretty quickly too.) I would say that she was really sleeping through the night all the time by sometime in January. Not too impressive, since she was a YEAR OLD then, but you get what you get. And we certainly can't complain about our bedtimes or nighttimes now, and they even usually sleep until a reasonable hour in the morning. So I guess we'll keep them. -- HEALTH NEWS Caroline and Heather are tiny, minuscule, petite people. Have I mentioned that they're smaller than average? At her four-year checkup, Heather was 38" (maybe 25th %ile) and 28 lbs (10th %ile). She's now all of 39.5" and 29 pounds. At Caroline's 18-month checkup, she was 32" (50th %ile) and 19 lbs. 15 oz. (off the bottom of the charts for weight (i.e., less than 5th %ile)). They've generally been healthy, but Caroline did have a nasty case of conjunctivitis along with a bad flu last winter. That started a series of illnesses that seemed to go on forever. Mostly she would just have a low-level cold with congestion and usually a cough, but also had a double ear infection and roseola. Caroline was a very late teether, but she now has nearly a full set of teeth. Her fourth molar is STILL working its way through the gum (I think she's been working on that one for three or four weeks now), and she doesn't have the canines, or whatever you call those teeth on the middle of the sides that come in last. We're a bit worried that Heather may need orthodontia at some point -- her front 4 teeth are shorter than the others, so they don't meet in the front. Gives her a bit of a Dracula look. Other than that, she's positively gorgeous. :-) The dental situation is part of the reason that we encouraged the babboo fairy to come. We have an appointment for her next Friday (her second; last year they just looked in her mouth but didn't do a full exam), and we'll see what they say. -- ALL THE POOP THAT'S S*IT TO PRINT [Warning: not for the squeamish] Caroline loved to sit on the potty for a while, pooped in it once, and now has no interest in it. "Poop! Poop!" "Caroline, do you have to poop?" "Yeah!" "Do you want to poop in the potty or in a diaper?" "Cah-nine poop *diaper*!" [That was hardly yucky at all, now was it?] -- TRIPS 'N' VISITS I had a series of unbelievably horrendous traveling experiences, mostly alone with two small children! Don't ask me why I kept signing up for more; I'm just insane. I flew alone with them across the country numerous times. We've been to Mississippi, Maryland, New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, Madison, and Lake Tahoe, sometimes with John but mostly on her own. My trip to Mississippi should have won me a Purple Heart, but it turns out they don't give those for parenting. Can you *believe* it? I won't give the blow-blow version; I'll just mention that I had *three* flights cancelled on me, spent the night in a crummy hotel in St. Louis (yes, alone with the girls), and arrived in Memphis 18 hours after I left SF, only to turn around less than 48 hours later and fly home again. (But it was worth it to see Penny! :-) Best of all, she now lives in Columbia, Maryland, about 3 miles from my mom, so I am a happy camper!!) John and I spent a weekend down in Santa Cruz in April, and had a wonderful time, hiking, going on roller coasters, and eating good food without any crayons in sight! Grandma came out to stay with the girls. I was a bit worried about how the kids would handle it, especially Caroline, who'd been pretty clingy lately. She was really unhappy when we left (she didn't see me at all -- I just drove by and picked up John -- but was very upset about John leaving). She also cried a lot Saturday morning when she couldn't find us. But other than that, she was fine -- and she learned to walk while we were gone! -- OTHER STUFF The sad news is that my grandfather died in January. He was 90, so it wasn't a big surprise, and we weren't particularly close. Still, I'm sorry that he never did see his great-granddaughters. John's graduate school career is moving right along. He has several published papers, including a student paper award, and is planning to take his "topic defense" (oral exam) this fall. We're hoping that he'll finish this June. After that, most likely we'll stay in the Bay Area for another year while we evaluate our options. I'd like to try applying for academic jobs, but that's a tough market, and we'll have to see. We'd love to move to the east coast to be closer to our families (and save a gazillion dollars in housing costs!) Our house is in a constant state of chaos, but we did manage to put a new roof on (just before El Nino, hooray!), re-landscape the front yard, get rid of the possum living under the house, clear away the ivy on the side of the house, and this week we're having the carpets cleaned. We take what pride we can in our accomplishments and try to ignore the fact that our bathroom ceiling is peeling off, we still haven't painted the windows that were put in when we bought the house six years ago, and we have boxes piled everywhere because we haven't vacuumed the detritus from the new roof out of the attic, so we can't put any stuff up there. -- STAY TUNED ...for the further adventures of Heather, Caroline, and their oh-so-frazzled parents!