Games, local wineries (one with an outdoor movie!), and lots of fun punctuated our week w/Uncle Paul. My favorite quote was something he said the day these pictures were taken. I was driving over to Jon and Courtney's, where we were all gathering. I was running late and decided not to stop for gas. Bad decision. (I was on the phone w/Aunt Betty when the car died.) Jon, Uncle Paul, Shelley, Sarah, Sean, and even Anna and Aidan all came to the rescue. I think Sarah watched the kids, Shelley stopped traffic, and the guys all pushed the car into the gas station. While it was filling, Uncle Paul looked at me and said w/his chuckle and a smile, "You know, it costs the same to fill your tank at 100 miles as it does at 200!"
And the pictures of me and Sarah? If we can get our act together, you just might be looking at my next attempt at auditioning for "The Amazing Race!"
Bruschetta on farmers' market artisan breads, zucchini chowder (so nice with this cool summer we're having), open-faced veggie sandwiches, sides of our own carrots and green beans, and salsa...just a taste of our from-the-garden diet this summer.
What is it about this that is sooooooooooooo satisfying? Perhaps part of it is answered in this quote from Thomas Jefferson, which I read in a wonderful, organic lifestyle magazine Aunt Betty sent me for my birthday: "Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth and happiness."
I definitely feel very happy--and rich!--when Evelyn and Amelia are enthusiastically plucking cherry tomatoes that are almost dripping off the plants, and laughing in wonder at the enormous zucchini that grew while we were at the beach. We had one of them in a casserole last night for dinner. Feelin' happy and rich over here!
Well, the BEACH! Last week we spent three blissful days in Ocean City, where we stayed at "The Little Cottage," (a trailer on the bay side)--one of our favorite getaways. The week prior Alan was doing a recording in NYC (I'll post pics of that, too), and while he was away, our house was robbed by some kids who saw me leaving the house w/the girls. LONG story short, everything was recovered, and it was our window screens that suffered the most. (Can you believe the robbery caused a BOMB scare?? Ha!)
I'll also post a few pics of Uncle Paul's visit, which coincided w/Alan's week away in NYC--he kindly played the role of fix-it man, bodyguard, and offered a welcome distraction from what was otherwise a rather stressful week.
In Ocean City, we had LEISURE time! We lounged on the beach in the late afternoons/evenings, when there were few people and the sun was not quite so bright. As you can see, the girls still LOVE the sea shore!
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I think, "Wow, that's so cute/funny/profound! I need to record that!" And then I don't, and I regret it. I regret it because I'm not going to remember it, and these days will be gone. Fortunately, I enjoy each phase as it comes, and that even ten years from now, cute/funny/profound things will still be happening that I may or may not record, and I will enjoy them just as much as I'm enjoying today. It will always be the NOW...so I will LIVE in it! (And record it as best I can.)
She's been 3 for almost 3 months now, and she has...(drumroll)... FINALLY... (brass fanfare) learned to use the potty!! We didn't push it early, since we'd tried that with Evelyn and she didn't get it until way after she was three. In our girls' defense, Alan and I aren't really what you'd call consistent.
That said, she was still tough. First, she didn't WANT to use the potty. "I want to wear a diaper." We tried the put-her-on-the-potty-every-20-minutes method, and she'd pee in between--on upholstered furniture or carpeting, of course. We tried leaving the diaper off completely, and I picked up piles of my own kid's poop (not to mention the smears of it on the back porch the day she decided to play in it. Sorry.) Or, how about the technique that, once a child has an accident, you take her to the spot of the accident, say, "Oh no! I've got to go potty! What do I do??" and then to the toilet, where she pulls her pants down, sits on the toilet, then repeats the whole thing TEN TIMES. It's supposed to teach a kid that she does NOT want to have an accident. Amelia just started having hers outside, (Evelyn, "The Informer," brought each to our attention) which made it annoying running back and forth to the toilet. Made me pine for an outhouse.
While Evelyn will do just about anything for a treat, Amelia eschews food rewards. Bribery was not going to work on this kid. I bought an Elmo book with a chart, and princess stickers for rewards. Nothing. She'd sit on the toilet while I read the book, and then promptly pee on the sofa. When my mom watched her on my birthday, Amelia held out for 8 hours before Mom worried she'd damage her bladder holding it and let her wear a diaper, into which she promptly peed.
Then, the day after she left wet spots on Andy and Jess's carpet & Christine's tricycle during a Hamiltopia gathering, Alan and I came down hard. The next morning we set her on the toilet and weren't going to let her get up until she went. She cried. She wailed. She kicked her feet and screamed. Then Alan did that college trick--got a bowl of warm water, and between the two of us we forced her hands into the water while she continued kicking and screaming on the toilet. And then she peed. Into the toilet. And I think I heard angels singing.
A few hours later, while eating lunch, she suddenly said her tummy was full, and then that it hurt, and I had one of those mommy-intuition moments and scooped her up, took her to the toilet where she did #2...and felt a whole lot better. (Although I'm SURE I felt even better than she did!) Whew!
It's been a week since that incident, and she's not had one accident. She even gets up in the morning and uses the toilet! (Next week I will wean both of them off pull-ups at night. Evelyn's going to have a rough go, and I'm prepared to do many wash loads of sheets & mattress covers.)
So that's Amelia's latest adventure. In the midst of it she continues to be our sensitive child with a wide stubborn streak (she, unfortunately, has a double dose.) When she is reprimanded, she either sobs pitifully with gut-wrenching gasps, or sets her jaw and stares at you with pursed lips. She is the snuggler and the singer--she sings ALL the time, making up her own words. Current lyrics often include the phrases, "enemy soldiers" (from the story of Gideon) and "dimensions of Christ's love" (from our bedtime Bible verse), all set to her original melodies or tunes from "Annie."
Wherever we go she is the shy one, clinging to my leg and seeming to weigh twice her normal weight as I urge her forward over a threshold or into a room. She needs time to warm up to situations and people, even if they are ones with which she is very familiar. She wakes up SLOWLY, and if she must be awakened, there is a LONG period of any combination of clinging, whining, crying, or grumpiness.
She's just about out of a phase of wanting us to call her different names. She did this a LOT on our vacation. I'd call out, "Amelia!" and she'd answer, "No. I'm Baby." So we'd have to call her "Baby." Or "Sister." Or "Sweetie." Or "Meemsie." We never quite knew what to expect.
Amelia is sweet, quiet, and rather undemanding (this may come from being a second child!) She'll also quietly & sweetly rip the flaps out of lift-a-flap books and shred paper napkins into a million tufts. (If Evelyn is "The Informer," Amelia is "The Destroyer.") For a while she was lightening quick at buckling all the straps on her car seat--BEFORE she got into it. Now she has discovered the independent joy of buckling HERSELF into the seat, which is quite helpful. :) She is cute as a button and when she runs, her eternally-tousled hair bobs up & down adorably.
Amelia is thoughtful, especially towards Evelyn. She'll give things to Evelyn to "make her feel better," and encourage her with phrases such as, "Oh, it's okay, sweetie!" She loves animals and babies and plays contentedly by herself. Amelia has little interest in TV or videos. She makes up LOTS stories, and will often prefer to read a book by herself--making up the story--over having it read TO her. She'll go on long, made-up rants (such as the one in the video, preached to an invisible audience on an island in the Puget Sound the day we rode the ferry with Jen Martin & her son, Conner.) Her voice--oh, her voice! Her loud volume is like a bell, ringing out over all other sounds. Hopefully I'll manage to capture a video of her singing in her hilarious "pop star" voice. But since she usually stops singing when she realizes someone's noticing, it won't be easy.
She is an amazing compliment to her older sister, and loves her dearly. I remind them frequently that they'll have lots of friends (who may come and go), but they have only ONE sister. And it is a delicious adventure watching them grow up together. Here's to the "threes," Amelia Margaret!
Three moms, thirteen kids between the ages of 3 and 15, and a hot July day--a recipe for fun! Diana, Jessica, and I took our kids (and a few extras--Diana's neighbor's 3 kids, Alex's girlfriend Rachel and Liv's friend Haleigh) for the day to Ocean City, where we tried fruitlessly to keep the sand off the blankets, counted the kids on the beach & in the surf a zillion times, and basically had a great time.
Below you'll see Alex & Rachel doing unison back flips (they're on gymnastics teams), the Smith kids digging, and some goofing for the camera. But how nice for us moms to have moments where we could sit three in a row on the beach and talk as the surf continued its eternal ebb and flow. The Hamiltopia hostesses enjoyed one another's company--and the fact that our swimsuits happened to coordinate so beautifully.
