that tooth

We're heading up to the mountains Monday morning and we'll be without computer access for the week. But, Blogger recently introduced a fun new feature: scheduling. So, I've scheduled out some surprises for the week. The pictures are of varying vintages, mostly taken in the last two months. I'll try to put dates as I think of them.

These here were taken on May 30, just before Nona visited, and just as that first tooth was really becoming visible.

Clara-O

From May 9:

Nurturing

I've noticed Molly has been nurturing her toys and animals a lot recently. There was a big uptick in nurturing after Clara was born, and now another. Here she is putting Bear Bear down for a nap (wrapping her in Peetsie, her special blanket). And there she is nursing another stuffed animal (just before the picture she was very busy dealing with this stuffed animal's dirty diapers).

Olema

Last weekend we had a fantastic time camping with the Preschool. That's really the way to go - with tons of families full of kids Molly already knows. The setting was also perfect: all the families camping around an open grassy field for the kids to run around in. And cows to mooo (very loudly!) as the kids were going to bed and as they woke up in the morning.

Photos: Clara; Molly & Mama snuggle during the campfire singing; Molly & her fellow Beluga's off on some mission; Zach & Clara enjoying the early morning chill; Molly & her preschool buddy on another mission.

There are no trains

There are no trains at Home Depot. Just in case you were wondering. Molly was. She made this astute observation last time we went (when Dieter was visiting ... some months ago). I remembered this when she reluctantly agreed to go with me again this afternoon. There may be no trains, but there is a self-serve checkout lane that lets us make things go "boop".

Trains and "booping" aside, we've been quite busy. Busy being sick and busy learning new tricks. I've been meaning to write about Clara's tricks for some time, and now she has many! She claps and waves and now even is figuring out when to do these things (first she just imitated). She'll usually clap if she hears someone say "yay!". And today I noticed she tentatively tried waving when she heard people saying goodbye.

And, Clara crawls! She's been working on this for several weeks now - and I've been saying she's "on the verge" for several weeks. But I think I have to stop saying "on the verge" and just call it crawling. It's not that I put her down and she races away. It's a more studied move. She gets where she wants to go, particularly if it's about one or two body lengths away. It's just enough that I have to stay on my toes, but not so much that I have to worry that she'll race away from me.

Molly's also got lots of tricks up her sleeve. Most frustrating for us right now is the end of the afternoon nap. She hasn't napped at school for about three weeks (or more?) now. It started when we were sick and just never returned. I'd let it go, but it's clear she still needs it! Her teachers notice that she's "spacy" and "out of it" after missing a nap. I notice that she's beligerent and very difficult to be with after missing a nap. She will still nap on non-school days if the conditions are just right. Mostly, those conditions involve a very active morning and a late (2:30 or 3pm) start to the nap. These naps usually last until almost 6pm, and even then we still turn around and put her to bed between 8 and 9pm. On non-napping school days my latest thing to try is moving the bedtime earlier (starting the routine at 7pm and getting in bed by 7:30). So far, she's been game for that, falling asleep fairly easily. We'll see.

Another fun thing she's doing is lots of singing - she likes the classics (Baa baa Black Sheep, I've Been Working on the Railroad, and ABC) and she also likes making up her own songs. She's also building up a storm with the legos - every day there's a new spaceship, office building, or train/truck/ambulance. Which reminds me - she's also really getting into the storytelling playing - especially elaborate stories about ambulances coming to help hurt people and taking them to the hospital.

Happy Father's Day!

Zach & Molly are just finishing up (what I think was) a wonderful father's day. The Lakers won their game, and Molly is asking every question imaginable (and more): Why is he wiping his nose? Because it's sweaty! Why are they making noise? Why they clap their hands? I'm clapping for them. That guy got a white bandage. Why that guy got a bandage? Why one guy got a "bindage!"? Oh! He was swinging on a basket! He jumped! ... and so on...

And, just in time for father's day, the Half Full blog has dug up research on how important fathers are in our children's lives. The three point summary is this:

• Research shows that the love and care of fathers is equally important for the health and well-being of children as mother-love. Really.
• Children are WAY better off when their relationship with their father is sensitive, secure, and supportive as well as close, nurturing, and warm.
• One of the biggest problems with divorce is that when a father moves out, the father-child relationship frequently falters. If he stays in the game, his kids will cope far better with the divorce.

Yes, dads are great.

We had a fun packed day - all by request of Zach - including biking down to Golden Gate Fields to enjoy Family Day at the races (where Molly overcame her fear of the big blow-up slide) with two other families from our block; and a dinner at a pretty nice restaurant with a lovely stroll through the neighborhood after.

Happy Father's Day Zach! I'm so happy that my children have such a wonderful father, and I have such an amazing parenting partner.

Great Grate

I've been meaning to show off my father's handiwork for several months now, but have gotten sidetracked with, oh, everything. But what better day to show off his work than on Father's Day?

Many thanks to my father's creativity, skill, craftsmanship, and perseverance, we now have the most beautiful floor grate imaginable. This hole once housed the "central heating" for the entire house - one big, inefficient gas heater - until we discovered it leaked gas. Now it's the cold-air return for our "central heating system". Until April, though, it was covered by a metal floor grate that was not only really ugly and difficult to walk on, but also had terrifyingly sharp edges and corners.

The retrofit with the wood grate was not at all easy (is anything ever easy in a nearly 100-year old house?), but the end result is wonderful.

Happy Father's Day to my father, who has given me many things, including an appreciation for finely constructed details and clever solutions to construction conundrums .

(thanks also to Jen + Brandon for providing the metalwork)

Pictures: Molly & "Fella" racing to a fire (over the grate); Molly & "Fella" taking a break on the grate.