Mid-Summer Update

It is the middle of the summer. (How is it possible that we are closer to 2011 than 2010?!?) We've had some good days at local swimming pools and beaches, the garden is ripening, the flowers are in bloom. And both kids are blooming too. Here are the highlights of the last month and a half, starting with some developmental advances.

Thora writes her name!

July 16, 2010; Thora at 3 years and 3 months

Here is her first successful attempt. Up until this point, she didn't have the desire or attention span to write more than the first two letters. It would bore (or possibly frustrate) her. But on this day, not coincidentally the day after her first parent-teacher student evaluation, while I was picking Thora up from school, she handed this to me and very proudly showed me her name. I was breathless for a second, and of course flooded with emotion. (It's amazing the complex tangle of emotions I feel upon witnessing my child grow up right before our eyes: pride, nostalgia, bliss, sadness.)

And I mention the evaluation at her school: this was a good experience for us. We heard from her "point" teacher, Stephanie, the one she had her first teacher-crush on, all about the Thora we already know. And lest you think that the meeting was redundant, it was actually a bit of a relief to hear that Thora is herself when she goes to school. She is such a social force to be reckoned with when she plays with her neighborhood friends, the boys and girls she has known since she was 3 months old. (And believe me, many of these sweet children have to reckon with her.) But we weren't sure that she was as confident and social at school. While she still takes time to feel out the various dynamics on a given day, the core of who she is shines through for her teachers to see as well. "Thora loves to tell stories," we were told. Hah! Ummm, yes, she does a bit of that at home. In case you've forgotten, here's a good example, and another, and one more.

Thora is growing up on several fronts at once. Her once-weekly swim lessons at her school have given her the confidence and skill to really improve. She started in February with four flotation aids strapped to her, kickboard-like rectangles, "bubbles" they call them, that are belted around the kids' waists. But when I went to observe the lesson last week, I was astonished at her improvement. Not only does she swim with only two bubbles now, she regularly swims with her face in water. And most amazing: for brief periods at the end of the lesson, she swam without any flotation aids. Here is a video of that lesson. I couldn't believe I was seeing this. I was proud to the point of tears. I wanted to squeeze her, eat her up, something! I wanted to stop people on the street and tell them. (I guess this is kind of what this blog post is doing.)

And before I finally move on to Auric's major developments, here's one last point to mention about Thora growing up before our eyes. Her quirky, adorable speech impediments are mostly gone. Over night she could say "skirt" and "school" (before she said "khirt" or "khool") and instead of "file" she says "smile." And the sad day came when she said "bottom" instead of "bommut." Watch this, here, for a glimpse of the old favorite words, "bommut" and "fezen." Sniff.

Now on to our boy, Auric. He's a crawler! And the learning curve was flat, flat, flat, and then BAM, he got it and within 24 hours was trying for the stairs! Here is one of his many attempts.


And here is a cute video of that same moment, in which he crawls with his upper body while his back half remains fixed to the carpet.

But then he got it. Watch it here. And this video was taken today; you can see he's making lots of progress. And more in Auric news: he claps his hands, and does some baby sign language. (Mostly he signs "eat" but has done "more" as well.) And he may have said his first words, although I'm quick to recognize that this could be blind maternal optimism. In the correct circumstances, he says "caa" for "clap" and "cuh" for "truck". And speaking of which, boy does he love his trucks. His face lights up when you wheel a toy truck in his direction. Thora was never into trucks, but thankfully we have a few random truck toys around the house. And there are always truck toys at the local playgrounds. Also, is top two teeth are coming in as I type this. That has made for a bit more fussiness than normal, but on the whole, he's handling it remarkably well. In an effort to get him to sleep in more in the mornings, (his favorite time to be up for the day is in the 5 o'clock hour and that doesn't go over well with his parents), we've been pushing his bedtime back a bit, to around 7. We've had a couple later mornings, but the jury is still out on whether we'll see any real, long-term progress. And it was in mid-June that we moved Auric into Thora's room. So far we've had a lot of success with this. They rarely wake each other up. And we've even seen a more controlled Thora right at bedtime, since she has to be quiet so as not to wake her brother.

Other highlights of our life this summer:

We just returned from a sunny and sandy couple days at the Cape. Sean knows a woman at work whose family owns a house in Falmouth, MA which we rented for two nights. We spent all of our time at either the beach or at Coonamessett Pond. The weather couldn't have been more perfect and we enjoyed many hours swimming with Thora, and spent a lot of time doing her most favorite beach activity: collecting rocks. At one beach, along with some of the older kids, we scooped up various sea creatures, snails, tiny crabs and shrimp, and made a miniature aquarium for them in our sand pail.

At a wonderful playground in downtown Falmouth, Thora did her impression of a Giant, something she's fascinated with lately. When she was younger, she was fascinated with owls. They could be wonderful, but they could also be the thing she imagined was in her room "to get" her, particularly when she wanted to play the sympathy card when she was sent to her room for a time out. Now that fascination has shifted to the duo of Giant and the Big Bad Wolf. They are always together in her mind, pairing up to do bad things to little girls and boys. So getting to see herself as a Giant was particularly interesting to her.

Another highlight was our trip down to CT for a Fourth of July party, an invitation from our good friends, and Thora's best friend, Zach. The whole family thoroughly enjoyed itself. Thora and Zach played over the 30 hours or so that we were there. We kayaked and swam in the adjacent river and Thora loved the tree swing that Zach's uncle installed, tied to a branch about twenty feet up. The long arc of the swing covered much of the lawn and out over the bushes that lined the river. (I wished that the swing was built for adults, but alas, it was only a kid's swing.) And it was at this party that Thora had two more firsts: fireflies and fireworks. The backyard was teeming with fireflies and since Thora was cleaerly too keyed up to go to bed in the same room as Zach and Auric and not keep them up, we got her up and let her stay up. It was pretty magical and fun to watch her experience fireflies for the first time. And then later, Zach's dad and uncle put on a pretty impressive backyard firework display. I think Thora was totally impressed with these two experiences. I know that I will not easily forget creeping around the back yard in the darkening evening, trying to make out the fireflies before they lit up so that I could catch one for her, or the weight of her little body in my lap and my hands over her ears as we looked up at the exploding fireworks in the dark night sky.

We had a short visit from Sean's dad, Brian. This was lots of fun. There were trips to the park and yummy dinners cooked at home. The kids loved the fun times with their granddad. Brian is always totally engaged and playful. Here he is in action.


Thora had a great time at Zach's 3rd birthday, a trike/bike themed event. Here she is with her two closest friends, Zach and Noah. They are the 3 Amigos. Sadly, Noah and his family are moving back to the UK at the end of September. They all will leave a big hole in our lives. Thora and Noah have been friends since they were newborns. Thora and Noah were in the daycare coop together. Noah's mom was the first woman that Thora adopted into our family, calling her "Mom" to my "Mama." They will all be sorely missed.