Zoe made me laugh the other day when I was reminiscing – and playfully testing her – about what we had done the night before. “Who went: you, me and Avery?” I asked about our dinner out. “No, you’re missing someone,” she replied. “A boy named Q. And that’s my daddy.”
(I love that she calls him “a boy” – and that she isn’t at all fazed that we call her dad “Q!”)
-M
Avery made her way to our car’s steering wheel the other day, and she seemed pretty happy to be there. Someone better tell her that she’s got quite a wait (15 years and two months, to be exact) until she can drive!
-M
Despite my love of shopping, I try not to go overboard on clothes for the girls. (Their dressers are already over-stuffed, and I don’t want to be wasteful.) Sometimes, though, I spot things that I just can’t resist – and that was the certainly the case with a shirt I found at Nordstrom recently. Given Zoe’s love for playing doctor, I considered this a must-have!
-M
I like to think Zoe is a fairly well-mannered girl; she needs occasional reminders, but she’s pretty good at saying “thank you.” What I love the most, though, is when her expressions of gratitude come out of nowhere. She’ll often thank me for taking her somewhere earlier that day (“Thank you for taking me to the zoo,” I heard recently), and she has started to thank me for making certain foods at dinner (when, of course, she likes them). And the other afternoon, I walked in the door and was greeted with a “Thank you for coming home, Mommy!” Believe me – with a “hello” like that, there’s no place I would rather be!
-M
Avery rarely wears shoes (since she doesn’t walk yet, there isn’t much point), but I decided to test out one of her pairs today. She gave me a curious look as I slipped them on and plunked her on the floor – and her little hands immediately flew to her feet. As long as doesn’t try to eat them, I think we’ll be fine!
-M
It’s back to reality (i.e. our regular schedule), and I felt a bit lonely as I worked from home today. I’ve spent the last 10 days with the girls, and with Zoe back at school and Avery at Elena’s, the house just felt very quiet. I found myself missing the sounds of Zoe running up and down the hallway and Avery squealing as she scattered her toys about – and I kept looking at the clock, in anticipation of pick-up time. I really like our everyday routine (school, work, Fridays off, etc.), but there’s something really nice about an uninterrupted week of family time. And luckily, it won’t be too long until another one comes around!
-M
Zoe didn’t have school last week, but she still stayed busy after we got home from our trip. She took two swim classes, visited the library and went shoe-shopping with me; she also kept entertained by playing with her being-a-good-girl-on-the-airplane present (i.e. a crib/changing table/baby carrier set for her dolls) and hanging around (i.e. squeezing) her sister. On Fri. she hosted a playdate with her friends Zander and Miles, and today she joined me, Q and Avery at a “spring celebration” fair on Union Street. It was wet and rainy there, but Zoe still had fun jumping around – and it was the perfect cap to her spring break.
-M
The evidence of how fast Avery is growing is overwhelming. At her (slightly belated) nine-month check-up today, we learned she’s up to 21 pounds, 11 ounces and 30 inches long; she’s in the 90 percentile for weight and literally off the charts for height. And speaking of height, she started standing up on her own about a week ago; the picture below is a very familiar sight these days.
-M
The other night, as I was getting off the plane with the girls, a ragged-looking woman walked past me with her small child and said, “How do you manage it?” She was referring to the fact that we were traveling with two kids, and I just gave her a sympathetic smile and shrug. While air-travel is a pretty big pain these days, the truth is that this trip was our smoothest yet – and it (somewhat) lessened my stress over traveling with two.
Both girls gave me something to cheer about during this trip. Avery has always been good on planes, but she has had problems adjusting to new environments in the past – during previous trips, she didn’t adapt well to the new time zone, and she didn’t sleep well away from her crib. She was like a different girl last week, though. She had no problems sleeping in a new bed and had good, long stretches of sleep (which means we had good nights’ sleep, too) at her grandparents’ house. And she had no problem getting back to our time zone when we got home. (Considering that I don’t do well with being sleep deprived and getting off schedule, this was a huge plus.)
As for Zoe, she’s a relatively good traveler but has still had a few meltdowns/tantrums on flights in the past. (What 3-year-old likes to be confined for six hours?) I decided to try something new for this trip, so a few days prior to our departure I started talking about our flight and the fact that “there’s no crying on airplanes.” I also told her that if she listened well and didn’t cry during our flights, she would get a present. I’m not sure if it was the combination of those two things, or just a coincidence, but Zoe was amazingly good on each flight (and when she started to get sad a few times, I reminded her about our no-crying rule). I’m not usually into bribing, but when it comes to travel, I say anything goes!
Everything wasn’t all sunshine and roses, of course. As was written all over that woman’s face, traveling with kids – even well-behaved ones – is an exhausting endeavor, and it doesn’t help when the kids barely sleep (which was the case on our long flight home). Still, I’m heartened that things were better than I thought they would be, and I can envision the day when I can fly without once thinking, “I’m never traveling again!”
-M
In case more evidence of the fun Zoe and Avery had on our trip is needed, check out these pictures. The girls (who, as I’ll elaborate on later, actually slept and adjusted to the time zone much better than I thought they would) were almost constantly smiling!
-M
