First dance class

You can't hear the music or the instructor over Calvin's howling, but you can see that Audrey took to the dance class. This was the first five minutes of the class, and if there is any hesitation in her exuberant scarf-waving dance, I don't see it... It certainly helped that Bethiah was there, and another friend from preschool.

Jazzing the rose.

Love that first day of the year when it's time to pull out the fleece for a morning walk. And with the change of season, let's have an edition of our very popular (to all three of our readers!) Overheard column:

Tappy is a new word Audrey made up, shortly after she started her Saturday morning dance class. If you are feeling happy about having tap shoes, that's tappy. She told me this while she and Calvin engaged in their weekend morning ritual of climbing into our bed at dawn and sitting on our chests-- she on mine, he on his-- until we arise. It's a great way to wake up-- having a toddler use your rib cage like a fireplace billows and forceably pressing the air out. Do try it!

Audrey is very interested in "'spressions" and using "words of speech" to get her meaning across. The other day I asked her why she was placing some elaborate scribbles across a piece of paper and she said, "Well, sometimes I just like to jazz the rose."

If I understand her-- and I'm not at all sure I do, but I'm trying-- to jazz the rose is like gilding the lily, but with more fizz and pop.

Calvin's commentary remains largely inexplicable except to himself a lot of the time. For instance, he told his preschool teachers over and over again today that he likes to hold hands at the park. OK, you like to hold hands. At the park. And this is relevant to...? Then again, who cares? It's adorable. I'll hold hands with Calvin at the park anytime.

He's got a hold of the word "actually" now. Which you use in conversation to change course, or just mix things up a little, as in, I've been screaming for 15 minutes that Audrey took my train but actually-- hiccup, sniff-- I want a bottle. So forget that other stuff. What train?

And he's not about to take any crap from us, either. I tried to wrench a sharp utensil out of his grasp and was told fiercely, "Ab-so-wooty NOT!" (Have I used these words a few times in the past year? It would seem so.) But if you make him mad, it's easily fixed: just give him a "bomb-cracker." You know, the ones that you use to make a nice bomb-cracker crust?

The Statue of Levity...

...is where Audrey told me she was headed today. Could that have anything to do with Bethiah's recent trip to NYC? Dunno. Calvin's game: he wants to go anywhere she goes, have anything she has, say anything she says. To just about any suggestion he will roar, "Yes! Dats my FAY-bit!" Excluding naps, diaper changes and being strapped into a carseat, of course. But he is not to blame for his exuberance; as Audrey helpfully explained, "It's not Calvin's fault if he acts like a crazy man. That's just how his body is."

Indeed.

Audrey and Mom at a concert, and a glimpse ahead.

Suburban bliss: an outdoor concert on the grounds of the public library, on a summer evening, a picnic, just me and Audrey and some good friends, and friendly, gum-snapping teenagers doing face-painting. I had such a good, good time just being with Audrey who is, all by herself, a total delight 99% of the time. It's not simple to figure out, but it's worth the extra schedule juggling to do it. I still remember when my mom set aside afternoon to just hang out with me, and sent Janna off to the sitter for a few hours. What a luxury to give all my attention to one kid and let her lolligag as much as she wants, occupy me completely with charming, chattery nonesense, and dance with her in our upper-middle-class Eden with the rest of the 401(k)'d and batik-skirted volk. (That sounds snappish but I had a really, really lovely time.)

And here's a little news about Audrey's future plans that I found mildly upsetting at first. One of her preschool teachers is expecting a baby and so a lot of "imaginative play" in the classroom has included being pregnant. (You know, stuffing a pillow under your shirt and all that.) Audrey, I was informed one recent day at pick-up time, had announced her pregnancy that day. For a moment I felt a strange choking sensation and then I remembered: she's 3. This sweet, quiet little boy in her class said it was also his baby, and that he was going to marry Audrey. He kept his arm protectively around her for much of the afternoon, the teachers reported. A few days later his mother said she'd overheard her son saying he had to earn lots of money to take care of the baby. Later he asked her if she would mind taking care of the baby while he takes Audrey on a 100 day honeymoon.

Scott and I are still adjusting to it all, but we are pleased she has chosen such a thoughtful and pragmatic young man for a partner.

Animalia

Calvin marches to the beat of his own drummer. And the drum beat sounds like this:

This morning, at the New England Aquarium, we went to their fantastic exhibit in which tiny, beautiful manta rays and sand sharks swim in a shallow pool and you can reach in to touch these -- completely safe, small and harmless!-- animals as they sail by. You do need to be gentle though, and that’s why I held Calvin back carefully so that his hands couldn’t get anywhere near the rays or the (again, for the grandmothers, totally harmless!) sharks. For their safety as much as his.

Finding his arms impeded, he simply did a legger over the side of the tank and started climbing in. We left the exhibit before any of us had to be escorted -- or fished --out.

I can already hear the lectures of his classmates’ parents’:

“And if Calvin decided to climb into a tank full of sharks, would you try it too?!”

“Yes, totally! He made it look like the most funnest thing ever!”

In addition to a college fund we are also setting aside money for legal fees. Feel free to kick in around the holidays, or his birthday.

There's no picture with this post and you will shortly be glad of it.

As with my last post on this subject, I've decided to spare you the visuals. You are welcome.

You would think that in four years of parenting, I would learn to recognize patterns. That I would be quicker on the uptake. But there is a part of me so impervious to the effects of experience and time that it never adapts. It dwells in a timeless place where lessons are never learned, just endlessly repeated like episodes of Caillou. And that part of me asked this morning, “Say... am I crazy or does it smell awful in here?”

One of us-- I won’t say who but it wasn’t me, Scott or Audrey-- had just delivered a payload of doo-doo into a diaper that reeeeeeeeked something awful, but instead of diagnosing the problem like someone who has dealt with exactly the same thing every day for approximately... let’s see...1,460 days, I decided that a sewer main on our street must have broken.

With Calvin standing right there at my feet, a busted pipe was honestly the most likely scenario I could think of.

And I went about my business, assuming that the City of Arlington would be by shortly to deal with it, until the smell became dangerously foul and it finally dawned on me: poop. Of course. Poop! It’s always poop. And so much closer than I imagined. Next time I'll probably think it's some kind of stink-bomb weaponry system being tested on our neighborhood by a covert-ops team, or maybe an invasion of skunks.

DUH.

After the rain

Joy! Mud! Joy! Mud! Joy! Break for traffic. Joy! Mud! Joy!