With the day off of school, Zoe asked if she could have a playdate at a park. When we couldn’t connect with any of her friends, we proposed that she hang out with some other playmates: us! So the four of us headed to West Portal Playground for an impromptu dinner picnic and some playing time – and I think it was a pretty perfect way to start the weekend.

-M

Rosh Hashanah started yesterday; in anticipation of the holiday the girls have been learning lots of new songs and eating a lot of honey (and, in Avery’s case, apples). And they were excited to go to a special kids service yesterday.

For those who celebrate: Have a sweet new year!

-M

I was playing with the girls tonight and at one point reminded Avery to thank Zoe for handing her a marker. After Avery thanked her, Zoe said to me, “Good job, Mommy! You’re really teaching her good manners.”

Hey – thanks, Zoe. Positive feedback is always appreciated.

-M

Avery has had four weeks of school and still seems well adjusted – and happy! She rarely says good-bye at drop-off these days, opting instead to go straight to one of the tables to sit next to her classmates and draw or play. Her teacher, who sent the (low-res but still cute) image to parents last week, says she’s still a little quiet – “but all the two-year-olds” are.

Along with learning her sister’s name at school, Avery has also learned to say her own – thanks in part to a song she and her classmates sing every morning. “Higgity, piggity, bumble bee, who can say their names for me?” goes the song, and each student takes turns standing up and saying their name. I just love watching her cry out “A-er-ee!” when we do it at home.

-M

I’ve talked before about the challenges of dinner – and, more specifically, making foods that both girls will like. I again thought I had a winner the other night, when Avery, who doesn’t often open up for meat, actually accepted a bite of a chicken dish I had prepared. She swallowed it and didn’t appear unhappy – giving me hope! – but then wagged her little index finger at me. “No more, okay?” she said.

Okay. (sigh)

-M

I was somewhat lukewarm about going to Great America yesterday: We’ve been to amusement parks a lot this summer, and I didn’t want our trips there to lose their special-ness. (Plus I myself was starting to get some amusement park fatigue.) But then, the sweetest thing happened: The girls won matching pink frogs at a carnival game and got so excited that they jumped up and down, ran around in circles, and had their “sister frogs” kiss one another. They most certainly did not need new stuffed animals (they have so many already!), but the look of sheer joy on their faces as they played with them was, in my mind, as good as it gets. And I’m so glad we went – if only to experience that moment.

-M

Since we didn’t get to go to Disneyland last weekend, we told Zoe we would make it up to her by visiting Great America (much closer to home). And so, we headed there today – and the girls hardly seemed to notice the absence of Mickey.

-M

Last night, I showed the post below to Avery and then clicked to the older picture of the two of us at the lake. “Baby A-er-ee!” she called out, impressing me by recognizing herself at 10 months old. Then she pointed to me and said, “Baby Mommy.”

-M

When Zoe was small (or, I guess, smaller), I would often take her and Avery to a particular park to snack and enjoy views of nearby Lake Merced. As we’ve gotten busier, our trips there have become less frequent – but we did visit there one recent (relatively warm) day. And Zoe was more than willing to take a few photos.

-M

She practically had no hair just a year ago, but Avery’s head is full of curls these days. And Zoe has taken note of her sister’s (relatively) new look, saying of Avery’s bed-head this morning, “Avery looks like an alien, because there are so many curls around her.”

-M

Between bouts of sickness, we managed to have a fun time in LA. As you’ll see below, the trip started with the girls hamming it up en route and then greeting Safta and PopPop the next day. And a definite highlight was the Zimmer Children’s Museum, where the girls got to (among other things) fly a plane, play doctor, run a diner and take a dip in the “ocean.” It’s a must-visit for our next trip to Southern California!

-M

Speaking of car trips, we just got back from a weekend trip to Los Angeles. The weekend contained a few downs (Avery got sick our first night there; Zoe wasn’t well on Saturday; and we had to skip our planned to Disneyland on Friday) but way more ups (we spent time with PopPop, Safta, Dan, Jenny and far-away relatives we rarely see; we discovered an incredible children’s museum; and we got to go to an amazing bat mitzvah party on the beach – see below). And another up: The girls did remarkably well during both car rides. (When I told Zoe tonight just how amazing I thought she and Avery had been, she responded with an, “Are we the most amazing kids you’ve ever had?” Uh, yes.)

-M

Like most kids, Zoe has always had been partial to certain songs. When she was small (even younger than Avery now) she always insisted that I sing 99 Bottles of Beer to her before bed, and her favorite song to listen to in the car was Ten Little Monkeys on our Baby Loves Jazz CD. (“Monkey!” she would call out every time I tried to change it.) And when she got a bit older, she went through a period where she only wanted to hear The Button Factory from her preschool musician Jonathan Bayer’s disc.

These days she’s got three favorites on the Imagination Movers CD that we listen to over and over and over again (in a very specific order). During our recent car trip to Santa Cruz, we must have listened to those songs fifty times, and I often catch myself humming one of the melodies – even when I’m not with the kids. And the songs have made an impression on Avery, too, who happily sings along to Nina’s Song (“N-I-N-A”) and Mother in You. I wonder which songs we’ll be listening to a year from now!
-M

A few recent comments/stories that made me laugh:

-One night last week Zoe, in a particular loving mood, told me, “I love you more than usual. I love you bigger than the city and bigger than outer space. I’ll never stop loving you.” But her tune slightly changed a few days later when she said, “I’m going to love you forever – or at least until I’m a teenager.”

-We’ve been trying to get Zoe to stop sucking her thumb for months – with fairly good results. (I haven’t seen her suck her thumb during the day in weeks.) One night, when I gently reminded her about her thumb, she told me she would stop when she was five. “You’re almost five,” I told her and, in the tone of an exasperated teenager, she said, “Well, I didn’t say almost five – I said five!”

-More recently, Zoe began telling us that she doesn’t suck her thumb at night anymore. Q and I were skeptical, especially when she would tell us at bedtime to not check on her or come in her room until morning. (We knew what she was doing in there!) And I had to fight back the laughter when she interrupted me during a song one night last week. “Just leave me alone, Mommy,” she said, not unkindly. “You can stop singing and go night-night.” Obviously the pull of her thumb was stronger than her desire for a song!

-Last week, while driving the girls to school, another car cut us off. I didn’t say anything (I swear!) but my body language must have tipped off Zoe, who piped up from the back seat, “Is that the worst-est driver you’ve ever seen?”

-The other morning, completely on her own, Zoe changed her sister’s diaper. When Avery approached me not long after to say she had gone “caca,” Zoe was less than pleased. “Are you kidding me?” she cried out, sounding like a frustrated mom (uh, like me). “I just changed your diaper five minutes ago!”

Zoe was sick for a few days last week, and Avery had a little bug on Monday – but sandwiched in between the bouts of illness we hit the California Academy of Sciences. And while Q and Zoe went to the planetarium, Avery and I kept busy in the academy’s play area.

-M