dual personalities

Happy Friday, dear readers. As usual, I don’t have much to talk about it. My first Halloween with trick or treaters was a bit of a letdown. There were lots of kids on my street but not all of them came to my house! I can only assume the old lady who lived in my house before me was cranky. Next year, I will have to make it obvious that I bought a lot of candy. Speaking of, I find it alarming the way kids these days just take handfuls of candy unless you specify. “Kids these days.” Maybe I am the cranky old lady.

Anyway, in cuter news, my sister sent this anecdote about Katie yesterday when they went to the library. Katie was playing with the large puppy toys in the children’s area and she brought one over to the back of the couch near the window so he could watch the street like Mr. Smith. She is the sweetest.

And I’ve been reading some old Calvin & Hobbes cartoons. He amuses me.

Enjoy the weekend!!

Well, the actual Halloween, after a full month of build up, was pretty lame and anticlimactic at least from my perspective. Halloween is hardly on my radar anymore and wouldn’t be at all if I didn’t have to drive by the neighbors’ yards full of fake cemeteries, witch covens, giant skeletons, and inflatable dragons. Call me a killjoy, but good grief, Charlie Brown.

I did get cute pictures of all my grandkids, who appeared to enjoy the day as well they should.

As you can see, Lottie (“Mal”) and the bud (fireman) bowed to peer pressure and are wearing store-bought costumes. I hope they didn’t break their mother’s heart too much.

Meanwhile Miss Katie went trick-or-treating with her Daddy for the first time and was nearly beside herself with excitement.

I gather it was a long, semi-frustrating day of waiting. Taking cute photos proved to be almost impossible…

C’est la vie! At least Mr. Smith rose to the occasion and guarded the house from neighborhood hooligans.

Good boy!

Well, now it is November and we are ready to move into a month of Thankfulness! I refuse to put up Christmas decorations until after November 23! It’s pilgrims all the way for me.

Oh blessedness, all bliss above,
When thy pure fires prevail!
Love only teaches what is love:
All other lessons fail:
We learn its name, but not its powers,
Experience only makes it ours.

–William Cowper (read the whole poem here)

Happy Friday from daughter #2, with a little life check-in following our update a few months ago. I am happy to report that we are all still so thrilled to be at home together. Today’s happy routine was hard won — Ida did, indeed, have to relearn how to nap, and Katie had to accept that weekdays are still not weekends. For a while there, the girls only slept simultaneously for 10-20 minutes each day. Before long, though, we got into our groove: Ida takes 2 long naps a day, and Katie has an overlapping “quiet time” in the afternoon. (If she doesn’t fall asleep, she happily performs a one-woman-show of musical tunes for her stuffed animals in bed.) While I had imagined that I would need to plan capital-A Activities to keep us all occupied, that is far from true. We do chores together, we go to the park, we eat meals. We cuddle.

Like a lot.

Months 6-9 have been wild for Ida. She has learned how to sit, crawl, stand up while supported, eat solids, and more. She has also learned how to assert herself. While she once sat contentedly passive while her sister ran the show, she will now shriek her demands. Hold me! Feed me! Let me put your shoes in my mouth! I think it’s a good thing. (The assertive nature, not putting shoes in one’s mouth.)

What is family for if not to teach you that the world doesn’t revolve around you alone? Katie has, for the most part, taken this lesson in stride.

Because really, I can’t help but think being home with Ida and me has only amplified Katie’s own motherly, caretaking impulse. Babydoll and Katie’s animals receive around-the-clock attention, carried to and fro, put to bed in their bassinets, diapered and re-diapered, fed nutritious meals etc. While sometimes this can make life a little harder — well no, sweetie, babydoll does not need the highchair that Ida will sit in momentarily; we do not need to give “real food” to Clown Bear, and actually I do need this $0.36 diaper for the actual baby in the room — I also find it very sweet!

And of course, Ida receives ample care from Katie as well. She has an uncanny ability to guess which toy or teether Ida might like in a given moment (I’m serious! There are preferences at play!). She loves to hold Ida and has even, on occasion, been allowed to hold Ida while standing up — it is a sight to behold, as both sisters are grinning and also look like they must be deeply uncomfortable. And Katie loves stroking Ida’s cheeks just as much as I do, which is to say, a lot.

Well I’m not so much providing an update here as veering into weepy mode…

So I’ll try to wrap it up.

Sometimes I imagine what someone might think if they dropped into our house right in the middle of things — me, a grown woman, singing “Hands are for clapping” in complete and utter earnest; a three year old asking for a “way high boost” and executing a cheerleader’s split jump at no apparent prompting when her father lifts her in the air; two adults discussing a clock as if it is a roommate of the toddler’s with functioning eyes and a genuine sleep routine; a baby army crawling through a room and leaving a Godzilla-style wake of destruction through toys, books, and folded laundry (there’s always folded laundry out). It can be quite a scene. But it’s the best.