When not at SeaWorld during our trip, we were either driving, running around a beach or enjoying the views from one of our hotel rooms (see third and eights pics). The weather, as previously mentioned, was chilly and wet, but the girls didn’t let it stop their fun. At certain points, I would be all bundled up, clinging to my coffee and cursing the cold – while the girls would be running around, laughing and asking if they could take off their jackets because they were too warm. (They even went swimming, in a not-terribly-heated pool, in the drizzle one day.) If only, I thought numerous times, I could be as sunny and carefree – regardless of the circumstances – as they!

-M

There are quite a few rides at SeaWorld, and we made sure to go on all of the dry ones. (It was, sadly, just too chilly to go on any of the water ones.) Zoe’s favorite – and Q’s – was the Manta, an extremely fast “double-launch” coaster that they went on almost ten times, while Avery was partial to the much more tranquil SkyRide. And though not a ride, another highlight was the girls posing in a jumbo-sized snow globe – see sixth pic.

-M

With the girls off school and me not having to work for nearly two weeks, we decided to head to Southern California again this winter break. Our main reason for this year’s trip was to go to SeaWorld, a place I remember fondly from childhood, and we wound up making three separate visits there this week. We packed a lot into our first day: Shamu and dolphin shows, close encounters with two dolphins, a meet-and-greet with Elmo and Abby, and a visit to SnowWorld, where the girls did a lot of slipping and sliding. (I had to laugh: My California girls do not know how to walk in snow.) As you’ll see in the first photo, the girls carefully studied the map and plotted out our agenda to make sure we didn’t miss anything!

-M

One of Zoe’s front bottom teeth began wiggling more than two months ago, and it finally came out!

The details: On one of the first mornings of our roadtrip to San Diego, which we left for last Saturday, Zoe asked for a glass of water. As I handed it to her she pulled something from her mouth with a confused look on her face and, after looking at her hand, cried out, “It’s my tooth!” We took pictures to mark the occasion, and we wrote a letter to the Tooth Fairy to tell her we were going to wait to put the tooth under Zoe’s pillow until we got to San Francisco. Sadly, the tooth was accidentally thrown out somewhere between San Diego and home (sigh) – but after we wrote another note of explanation, the Tooth Fairy understood and left some money (and another note) for Zoe. As Zoe commented to us last night, “It’s like the Tooth Fairy is my penpal!”

-M

A few comments on what our “big girl,” who turned three-and-a-half a week ago, is like these days…

Interests: Like her sister, she’s very much into make-believe games – particularly restaurant (where she’ll take our order), school (including Mystery Reader, a carry-over from her first year of preschool) and hair salon. She likes finger-painting, being read to (If You Give a Moose a Muffin is currently her favorite book), playing her Angelina Ballerina memory game (she’s better than me at making matches!) and mimicking almost everything her sister does. Since our last update, her love (semi-obsession) with the movie Dolphin Tale has been replaced by her love for theTV show Caillou. She and Zoe usually watch it daily, and Avery will often tell us little stories about the main character and his sister, Rosie, making it sound like what happened to them happened to her!

Temperament: As I’ve written before, Avery has two distinct personalities: She’s bubbly, loud and even naughty at home but then quiet and even timid in some outside settings. She’s funny – often saying things are “silly” or calling me or Q “Silly Billy,” and doing things like kicking her friend Zachary out of her bed. She can be very tantrum-y and has been known to use a high-pitched scream when she’s really mad. (“DON’T DO THAT, ZOE,” she’ll yell, and then scream.) At the same time, she has a very sweet side:  Zoe was very sad/upset one day in Madison, for example, and Avery just went up to her and, without a word, gave her a big hug. Q and I were touched that she did so without even being asked (and we could tell Zoe liked it, too).

(Pre)school life: Though I don’t get tons of details of what she does on a daily basis, Avery seems super happy at school. She was clingy at drop-off for much of the fall, but these days she’s fine as long as she stands in the window of her classroom and waves to me as I leave the school. (It’s our new daily ritual.) Her recent parent-teacher conference went well, with her teachers telling us she is emotionally, socially and developmentally on target. She plays well with others and also knows how to play independently (something they said that not all three-year-olds master) and – most importantly – they said her speech is not unlike that of her peers. (The lead teacher told us that if she hadn’t known about Avery’s surgery and past hearing trouble, she never would have suspected there had been a speech issue.)

Other stuff: She considers herself a “big girl” now and likes to tell us about it. We recently stopped giving her a daily nap, though she still takes the occasional long one. (She’s actually sleeping as I type!)  She still wears pull-ups at night but, given that she’s had a few dry nights in a row, it feels like she’s ready to stop. Like her sister before her (and other kids of this age), she has some pretty cute ways of pronouncing words. “Crying” sounds like “frying,” “treat” comes out like “tweet,” and “birds” are “bewds.” “Potty” and “party” both come out the same, leading to some misunderstandings and amusing stories! She has learned the art of negotiation from her sister; the other day when Zoe wanted to borrow her lunchbox, Avery said, “I’ll make a deal. You can use it tomorrow and I’ll use it today.” She has been known to tease her sister (happily announcing when Zoe has lost a privilege while she still has one, for example) and the other day had a very creative excuse for copying everything Zoe said. After Zoe yelled at her to stop, Avery innocently said, “But I’m just trying to learn my words, Zoe.” (Well played, Ms. Browdy.)

-M

Zoe is in the middle of a space unit at school, and the other day she commented that she wanted to go to space someday. I told her that she could – but she would first have to study for many years.

“But I’ve already gone to a lot of school!” she cried out. “I’ve been in school for four years!”

-M

We left Madison last Tuesday, and it turns out our timing was pretty perfect: A major snowstorm – one that would have made it very difficult to get home – went through less than 48 hours later. While I’m glad to have missed the potential travel headache, I am sorry that the girls – and Avery especially – didn’t get to make a snowman, throw a snowball or take a pretty walk in the white stuff. Instead, as pointed out by Avery below, all they got was a small patch of melting snow in Grandma and Grandpa’s front yard.

Next year!

-M

This picture of the girls at Kalahari last year may be familar to family members – it’s the Dec. picture on our calendar. We recreated the photo while we were visiting earlier this week (the girls are even wearing the same shirts!), and it’s fun to see how they’ve grown…

-M

A highlight of our recent trip was going overnight to Kalahari, the indoor-waterpark resort that we also visited last year. The girls again had a blast (like last year, Zoe doesn’t want to take off her park wristband), with both going on the Lazy River and plenty of slides with Grandma and Grandpa, and Zoe even trying some indoor surfing! (I missed seeing it, unfortunately, since I was in our hotel room with a napping Avery – but I was told she was pretty good!)

-M

The first batch of pics from our recent trip to Wisconsin – including our Friday-night visit with Cousins Tanner and Brock…

-M

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As mentioned below, my “baby” is officially three-and-a-half today! Or, as she put it this morning, “I’m a big girl. But I’m still small.”

Update coming soon – for now, here are two happy photos of our “big” small girl.

-M

I am a writer by profession, and I’ve blogged about children almost every day of the last six years. But I’m at an absolute loss for words when it comes to what happened in Connecticut on Friday – the details about which I finally read last night, after several days of traveling and being in somewhat of a (self-induced) bubble. I wasn’t going to blog about it at all, actually – I have lots of happy things to share here (Avery is three-and-half today, we just got back from Wisconsin and have tons of photos, etc.), and what can I possibly say that hasn’t already been said by others, anyway?? But it feels weird not to acknowledge it, it feels wrong and unfair to proceed as normal when there are other moms out there burying, not blogging about, their 6-year-olds today. 

Six. Zoe is six now – the same age as most of the victims. I would have, of course, been affected by the news even if I wasn’t a mom – but having a six-year-old of my own, plus another small one, takes the sorrow/rage to a completely different level. When reading about some of the children who died, they sounded so Zoe-like: One girl loved math and her stuffed lamb, another was referred to as the “little CEO of the family” because of how much she liked to plan things. (Boy, does that ever sound familiar.) All of the victims were, as my favorite mom-blogger put it, “little children leading little lives, precious as miniatures.” Just like my own little ones.

I said to Q at one point last night, after reading the increasingly depressing articles, “How did we let this happen?” and more than once I’ve asked myself, “What if this had been Zoe’s class?” And the sad truth is there are no comforting, easy answers to these questions. It was a horrible, random act – and it really could have happened to Zoe, or any other child out there. We can’t protect our kids from every evil and harm, as much as we may want to – and this mind-boggingly awful truth is just one of the many reasons I have no (more) words for what happened.

And so, the only thing I can really do here today is to remind readers, and to resolve to keep reminding myself, how precious life is. And I will continue to thank my lucky stars for the health and safety of my own precious miniatures.

-M

Zoe discovered her thumb when she was just a few months old, and the two of them have had a love-affair ever since. Not a night would go by that she didn’t use her thumb as she drifted to sleep, and as recently as last summer she would occasionally suck her thumb during the day (though, interestingly, never at school). We tried using big milestones (“You’re turning five!” and, later, “You’re in kindergarten now!”), incentives (“You can pick out ANY present once you stop”) and even scare tactics (“Your teeth are going to look like a bunny’s if you keep doing it”), but nothing worked. I actually thought it would take teasing by friends – perhaps at a sleepover when she was older – to get her to finally stop, but it wound up being something else altogether.

In October, one of Zoe’s teeth became loose – and she found it uncomfortable to suck her thumb while the tooth wiggled. She came to us one day and basically announced she was ready to stop sucking her thumb, and so each night we would carefully wrap up her thumb in adhesive tape (and later Band-Aids) to prevent slip-ups. It was very difficult at first: Though she was on board in theory, she very much wanted the familiar comfort when tired – and there were many nights of tears in the beginning. (“Please, Mommy, take off the Band-Aid – I need my thumb,” she would cry out, breaking my heart a little.)

It took awhile, but Zoe’s nights became easier – and a few weeks ago we stopped using Band-Aids altogether. She has had a few relapses (she woke up two or three nights with her thumb in her mouth and called us into her room, all upset), but the normal nighttime scene is her in bed clutching Hippo with her hands at her side.

I sometimes feel sad that she had to give up something that brought her so much comfort, but I know it was way overdue. And mostly I just feel free proud: It wasn’t easy, but she did it! (And yes, now she can get ANY present that she wants.)

-M

A few previously unpublished pictures to share…

-M

We drove past a Christmas tree lot on the way home from school the other day, and Avery noticed that some of the trees were covered in (fake) snow. “It never snows in San Franciscos,” she said. (And, yes, she tacked on an “s” at the end.) “How do you know that?” I asked, wondering if she really remembers not seeing snow here before. But, I guess not: “I know it from the trees,” she replied.

-M