DADDY

Mary is now making her third sign: DADDY!

I will have it known that Chris didn't really want me trying to teach her the sign for DADDY because it looks kind of silly (kind of like making the "3-D loser" sign on one's forehead, for those who know what I'm talking about). This morning at breakfast, Chris was trying to get Mary to say "da-da" and instead she slowly and deliberately signed DADDY. She used her fist instead of her five-hand, so I manipulated her hand to show her the right way. Then she slowly and deliberately signed it the correct way! She's done it several more times today.

I will also have it be known that Chris was overjoyed and I believe I saw a glisten of happy moistness in his eyes. But perhaps there was just an allergen in the air . . .

John is increasingly excited about sign language because he gets to be the big brother who teaches it to Mary. He has even at times asked me at random to look up a particular sign for him online! I can hardly believe I'm talking to a child two years nine months old at times.

And speaking of language, John loves the new alphabet mat. We spent some more time together in the school room today while Mary napped. We laid on the mat and John asked me what all the various letters were. We'd talk about each one. (Mama: "That is a Q. See, it looks like an O, but it has a little tail. That's how you know it is a Q.") Often he'd grab two letters (like P and R) and say somberly, "See, Mama, these two are similar." Each letter has a different rough texture, which he likes to run over with his fingertips (very Montessori of him!), and then he'd say, "Here, Mama, do you want to feel it?"

I'm eager to buy or make some Montessori sandpaper letters to introduce soon. I think John would really enjoy them.

Awesome

Tonight Chris was showing me a feature on my new iPhone and I said that it was awesome. John nearby asked seriously, "Mama, what is awesome?"

Great. I get to be the parent who taught our son his first banal bit of popular teenage-speak.

Isn't that awesome?

Mary Before Mass

Miss Mary dressed before Mass: right now she has one scratch and two bruises on her face! Learning to be mobile is tough work.

She is such a happy baby!

Consignment Sale

Today I attended one of those wonderful giant consignment sales, with thousands of sellers, held at a big exposition hall.

I scored this Little Tikes garden cart, which I hope John will use by filling up with heavy things and pushing around to work off energy.

Playing in the back yard, John quickly found out how fun it was to fill the cart with water.

I also got this foam alphabet mat for the school room, which got me thinking that I should post photos of what the room looks like these days.

In the corner are the carpet squares for circle time, as well as bean bags and the art easel.

In the other corner is the tent and tube, plus a book shelf with toys.

A blurry photo of the other bookshelf, also showing a stack of a dozen new, foam puzzles I got at the consignment sale.

The treadmill is conveniently situated facing the television, in case I were ever to use it.

A craft table, currently messy with a shredding project of mine (plus Mary dancing in the corner).

One of the items I got today was a Land's End Christmas holiday dress for Mary. For the price of that one dress new (which I found at the retailer's website), I got: the garden cart, a dozen new foam puzzles, two new wooden puzzles, a dress for Mary, a shirt for John, winter mittens for Mary, and new-in-the-package trainer underwear. I like a good sale!

New Chainsaw

New Chainsaw = big fun for Chris now, but big back pain for Chris later!

Potty Training . . .

. . . creates a tremendous amount of laundry. Let's hope we can get through it successfully this time.

Big Night Out

All dressed up for our date.

"Squares" that we are, our big days and nights out are for things like a home schooling conference, seeing a national speaker on child discipline, and going to a fundraising banquet for a crisis pregnancy center--the last of which we got to do on Thursday night. It's fun for us!

John stayed home with a babysitter and had tons of fun staying up till 10:00 p.m., while we (and Mary) went to the fundraiser for the Crisis Pregnancy Center of Cabarrus County. The headline speaker was Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, who now works for Priests for Life. She was a really enjoyable speaker! Her testimony was powerful.

I came away from the evening feeling so blessed, comfortable, and secure in my life. I am spared from so many crosses!

Not the First Time, Won't Be the Last

This is one of Mary's favorite adventures. I've caught her at it a half dozen times now.

Walking with Objects

I don't have any official pushing-walking toys (I don't know what to call them), so Mary is using anything she can get her hands on to walk around. She'll grab the tiny child's table or a child's chair and push one around the kitchen. This morning she pushed around the tricycle, having grand fun until the tricycle moved faster than her chubby legs, resulting in a fall and tears.

Water Play

John currently has an insatiable desire for water play. I try to give him many opportunities each day, but his requests never end! I have to chuckle because my friend Sarah was telling me this about her #4 child just a few weeks ago and that daughter is one week older than John, so maybe it's an age-thing. These days, John makes water play out of any cup of water he can get his hands on. I've been reverting from big boy cups (no lids) to straw cups. But then he pours water out of the straw, so I put him back on sippy cups, but then he'd shake water out of the spout. So I'd chose sippy cups from which one can barely shake water and he'd figure out how to take off the lid. When I gave John sippy cups with lids that are difficult to remove, he dicovered that he could take a big gulp, hold the water in his mouth, then spit it out onto a plate (or the counter) to splash in it and have water play! Unless I deny this kid all water to drink, I think he's going to find a way to have water play all the day long.

More Signing!

Pardon the pun, but Mary is now signing MORE, which makes two signs for her. She remains inconsistent in how she signs MORE: sometimes by clapping, sometimes two fists together, and sometimes one fist on an open palm. But Chris is my witness and we concur that her intent is consistent, she's just working on the fine motor skills. I love this stage when the two-way communication starts to flow. I've been repeating the same three signs for months, and now that she is showing comprehension, I'm going to start flooding her with signs. The next ones I'm thinking of adding to the mix are ALL DONE and DIAPER. I might try DADDY also because she isn't saying that word yet and maybe she'd pick up the sign. Fun for me!

Blueberry Muffins

If you're not watching your weight and you want a special treat, this recipe for blueberry muffins was a real hit this morning. Note that this recipe doesn't call for much liquid so the batter is markedly thicker than is typical for muffins. Also, frozen blueberries work fine: The week that local blueberries were plentiful and cheap, I bought several pints and froze them.

Monday in New York City

I posted on the blog a few weeks ago that Mary might be making her first sign (EAT) and I'm now confirming that she is. She makes it consistently. Each morning when I put her in a high chair at the restaurant, she'd start signing EAT (in her own fashion, as above). She loves interesting flavors!

This morning John felt privileged to be allowed to use a grown-up coffee cup to drink his water.

The flight home was blessedly uneventful. John and Mary fell asleep for a nap as we sat on the tarmac, waiting to take off, then they woke up right before our descent. How's that for fortunate?

As interesting as it was to visit New York City, I am very glad to be home in peace and quiet, looking forward to getting back into our boring routine!

Sunday in New York City

On Sunday morning we went to Mass at St. Peter's Church, which happened to be two doors down from our hotel and is also the oldest Catholic parish in New York state. Also, my Catholic friends will be interested to know that St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, North America's first saint, converted into Catholicism as an adult at this parish.

Outside St. Peter's is the Cross at Ground Zero.

We stayed at The Millenium Hilton. My bibliophilic friends will be annoyed and interested to learn that the name was purposefully misspelled to appear "more balanced." Yes, I'm serious.

Mary charmed the waiters at the hotel restaurant every morning.

After breakfast and taking a break in our hotel room, we met Linda and Ethan for lunch at a nearby restaurant.

The poor kids were already due for naps, so Mary easily fell asleep in my sling, but John was having a lot of trouble behaving during the meal. Afterward we walked along Battery Park and John fell asleep in his stroller. Then for novelty's sake we stopped by Century 21, which is a discount resaler, like Ross, but which sells very high end brand names. This place was like Filene's Basement on steroids! It was like the Third World in its chaos! Sweet John woke up from his nap in the middle of that store and was quite alarmed at the madness of it all. Plus he was hungry and thirsty, but Ethan was carrying my backpack with my supplies and we had become separated in the store and could not find each other, so John just cried and waited.

Finally we made it out of that store (you don't know how hard it was even to maneuver!) and back to the hotel room. Mary found John's straw cup and very easily drank out of it. I'm not a big fan of the idea of kids sharing cups, but this was very cute, so I let her keep drinking while I took photos.

She was thrilled with her success. Apparently later when I wasn't looking, she reached up onto a table, grabbed an adult-sized glass of water, pulled it down, and drank out of it successfully!

The day ended with difficulty. Chris was in meetings from 2:00 to 6:30 and I couldn't keep the children cooped up in the hotel room that long. I ended up taking them out for another one of our lengthy walks of about two hours. By the time Chris got out and we met him at his office, the restaurant where we planned to eat had closed. We hopped in a cab, but it was so far past John's normal dinner time, he was so exhausted and overstimulated, he wept uncontrollably and we actually decided to ask the taxi driver to turn around and take us back to the hotel. (Boy, was he confused by that request. I think he was afraid we wouldn't pay him.) We ended up getting room service to let the poor boy calm down.

Saturday in New York City

On Saturday Chris was available to spend time with us in the morning before his business meetings began, so we took a subway for the novelty of it.

John loves trains, but the "underground train" was a bit too loud for him.

As usual, John was somber in the midst of the new experience, but enjoyed it in retrospect.

We got off at the Penn Station stop and walked to St. John Baptist's parish to see the Shrine of St. Padre Pio, which contains three relics: his sock, his glove, and some of his blood on fabric.

Then we took a cab the rest of the way to the Central Park zoo. (This is where Curious George lived before he went to live with the man with the yellow hat, as we all know.) The zoo was darling in its petite size.

Afterward we walked to St. Vincent Ferrer's parish. What a lovely Marian garden on the outside of the church!

This was the wonderful baptismal font, positioned at the outside/entrance of the church as is traditional.

The sanctuary was gorgeous! We have way too many photos of it to post.

We stopped for some New York pizza before taking a taxi back to the hotel.

I told John that we'd be laying down for naps when we got back to the hotel, to which he shrieked that he was not tired, the sun was up, and he would not be taking a nap. This photo of him fast asleep was taken about two minutes later.

After naps and while Chris was in meetings, I took the children on a walk. St. John's (Episcopalian) chapel is right next door to our hotel. It has a sweet graveyard with all the words worn off the headstones.

George Washington prayed at this church after he was inaugurated president and there are two famous people (an actor and a French general) buried here. After 9-11, it was the wrought iron fence of this church that people turned into a spontaneous memorial. (This is the only image of it that I can find.)

Then we meandered to the playground at Battery Park. Boy, was that a hit!

This water wall is how we ended up spending an hour and a half at the park! Water shot out of holes in the wall at random. John filled up his bucket countless times, then pouring the water into the sand. I had dressed him totally inappropriately in pants and a long-sleeve shirt because it had rained all morning, but by afternoon it was brilliantly sunny. All the other kids were in swimsuits. Part of being two years old is not differentiating between pants and a swimsuit, so by the end, John was soaking, covered in sand, and pantless, which is how he walked back through Manhattan to our hotel!

Friday in New York City

We are staying at a hotel immediately adjacent to Ground Zero, so we walk out the front door and across two lanes of traffic is the fencing around the construction site where the Twin Towers once stood. (We're not staying here for novelty; this is actually right next to the buildings where Chris is working.) We're in a corner room, so one window looks down on Ground Zero and the other window looks over the water with the Statue of Liberty visible.

John is overjoyed to stand on the windowsill and watch the construction site. And Mary loves to tag after him in anything he does. (In the above photo, on the close building to the left, you can see the window washers' platform at the top of the building. Watching it move into position, then descend throughout the day provided much entertainment--for John and for the adults!)

Chris had meetings all day, so after we ate breakfast together in the hotel, I took the kids walking for two hours, during which time I made a circle around Ground Zero and walked along Battery Park. Above is one of the many cranes with an American flag hanging from it.

This is the firehouse just one lane of traffic across from Ground Zero.

This is a small memorial to the firemen lost on 9/11. I was surprised how moved and tearful I was walking around the site. I felt so upset, so angry at the attackers, so patriotic, so moved by the innumerable acts of heroism at that time. I have a sense of uneasiness now being here (right here) on this hallowed ground that is, essentially, a battlefield or a graveyard.

After walking around half of Ground Zero, I saw some water in the distance so walked over there to check it out, discovering that it was Battery Park. John enjoyed watching the boats zooming across the water and the many helicopters flying by. The above boat (yacht?) was his dream come true: a boat with a helicopter parked on it (also parked on the boat were two jet skis and two scooters!).

Then we walked around the other half of Ground Zero, had lunch in the room, and I got the kids down for a nap. (My first nap attempt failed, as John was too wound up. He got out of bed, turned on the radio, and said, "I just have to dance!" And away he went.)

After a long, much-needed nap, I took the children to the temporary museum at Ground Zero, which was very touching. Many tears were shed.

Then a rain storm hit, so I had to take the kids back to the hotel instead of taking a walk I had planned. At that time of day there were no cartoons on the television, I had very spotty Internet and very spotty cell coverage, so all three of us were bottled up in a hotel room for a few hours, trying just to get along. Thankfully, John and Mary are now starting to play together. Mary eschews baby toys to tag after her brother in whatever he is doing. Today I witnessed two firsts in their playing. At one point, John wanted to keep a half pint bottle of water to himself, but Mary desperately wanted it. John kept moving it away from her, so she'd cruise along furniture after him and the bottle. Then John set it down and forgot about it momentarily while he looked at something else. But Mary had not forgotten about it, so she cruised over there, grabbed it, and I heard her let out a wild squeal of triumph. Then John saw her and protested, but did so while laughing because he saw her laughing. Then she actually laughed in his face, revealing total glee that she had captured his water bottle. It was cute instead of irritating because both kids were having fun and no sibling fight broke out.

Later I witnessed their first real game of chase. John chased Mary all over the room, each laughing in delight. They must have passed 20 minutes at that game: twenty minutes of my not having to deal with them. There are benefits to having more than one child!

In the evening, the kids and I joined Chris and two of his coworkers for dinner--at a much more appropriate restaurant that was loud, fun, and had great food. It was packed to the gills and there were even other children there.

The restaurant was right off of Times Square, so we briefly visited it. Another rain storm broke out, so we stayed only a few minutes.

Chris was trying to be artful with this angle and poor John was miserable about the wetness of the rain, even though it was quite warm. Sweet boy was probably also extremely overstimulated from a day of nearly incessant noise, lights, movement, and visual stimulus. I know I had a headache from it all!