Clara-palooza

Sunflowers

Pinecone Love

From our walk at Inspiration Point. Before I fell and busted my knee.

Parking Garage

Sisterly

Working Family

We're getting the hang of this. Not that we don't still have challenges getting us all to our day-places and back, but today went very smoothly and it's nice to celebrate small victories. Like walking in to work at 8:59am. Or both me & Zach being able to take a shower before work. Or Molly picking out all her clothes on her own when asked. Or having time to stop and breath and tell each other how much we all love each other before we go our separate ways.

hens

We have three lovely hens living in our backyard, Jane the Black Jersey Giant and Clucky and Henrietta the Americanas. Most of the time they are eggcellent egg providers and they're also fun occasional pets. The girls enjoy them.

we like pictures

What I did on my summer vacation

We Zanklins had a pretty fun and exciting summer. We had several camping trips (let's see if I can remember them all: Slide Ranch, Olema w/ the preschool, Echo Lake, Big Basin Redwoods, Glacier...), fun visitors (Nona, Stacy Jesse & Charlie, Nana & Pa, & Nona), and fun around town (beaches, zoos, animals, rides, oh my!). But, apparently, one of the most memorable things for Molly was just playing in the living room.

Here's the full story: While Nona was here (and I was sick, again) she took Molly over to Oscars to play with Nate & Oscar. Nate was excited to share stories about his pirate cruise in Cape Cod. Oscar was excited to share stories of his trip to Australia and Fiji. When asked what she did this summer, Molly replied: "I played in the living room!".

I take that as a reminder that usually the best things for kids are the simplest things. And there seems to be some research to back it up. My friends over at the Greater Good "Half Full" blog (http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/tools.html) have a few posts on this topic, including this one about Play and Academic Success (hint: more free play is good). While you're there, check out the posts about praise and gratitude. Oh, heck. All the information they dig up is good.

Glacier Nat'l Park

August was a busy month: Nona visited, Zach went to Montana (and brought back more huckleberries than you could shake a stick at!), and I enjoyed my last week at home with both girls all to myself (and even more to myself than I expected, after we flirted with the stomach flu).

I've been busy sorting through pictures from all these adventures, and I'll try to post them soon. Really.

And now, back to our regular programming...

Last Thursday our new "regular" life began: Zach, Molly, Clara, and I each went off to different places for the day. In a pattern that will probably continue for at least the next year we schlepped Molly to preschool, Clara to daycare, Zach to his downtown Oakland office, and me to my east Oakland office. We all survived, but it was no where close to pretty, elegant, or smooth. Cell phones were lost. Keys were forgotten. Babies were crying. But everyone made it to their school-day locations and with practice, I'm certain we'll figure out how to get everyone to their places and back with the minimum of fuss. On a good day.

I found it nice to be back at work. It's harder than I remember to stare at a computer screen all day. But it's nice to spend long periods of time with adults, and the District is really a positive place for a mom. When I went back to work after Molly was born I pumped behind a cubicle partition. With coworkers who were less than excited about knowing that I was making milk. In contrast, at the District there are two other pumping moms right now, we have a "real" room to pump in, and people have been super sweet about making sure I have everything I need to be comfortable.

Molly seems excited to be a Lion Cub at school. We think she immediately aged another year, though. There's something slightly older and more mature about her conversations now, even though they're still peppered with more than enough "why's" to keep Wikipedia working. As she says: the Lion Cubs don't drink from sippy cups. They have big cups and little cups to use.

The really exciting news is how well Clara seems to be doing in her day care. Kika actually called me in the middle of the first day to let me know how Clara was doing. She used the word "Terrific" several times. I nearly broke down in tears, I was so touched that Kika thought to call and give me an update on that first day. She did say that sometimes kids do well for a couple days and then break down when they figure out that this is an ongoing affair, but so far, so good! And my big fear about the sleep seems to be almost a non-issue: Kika reports that Clara goes to sleep after just 10 minutes of patting her back. Wait! What's this? We can't even get Clara to lay down in the crib, much less pat her back. The insecure part of me wonders if I'm doing something wrong. The secure part of me laughs and remembers how different Molly is also around other people. I guess they just save all their best for the ones they love the most. :)