are things complicated yet?

I have a picky eater and I really don't care

I didn't realize Claire was a picky eater until my best friend pointed it out to me. She said something casual and I was kind of like, "What? She's not a picky eater. That's crazy!" Then I realized I could count almost every item she eats on my two hands and...yeaaaaah. Claire is a very picky eater. 

My best friend's daughter is the same age and she will try ANYTHING. Last summer she was eating mussels like they were popcorn. (I DON'T EVEN EAT MUSSELS.) 

Claire is so picky, I can list everything she will deign to eat without any risk at all of being tedious:

Tier One (70% of her diet)

Cheese (Cheddar and Colby Jack. NO OTHER CHEESES ALLOWED.)

Bread (includes tortillas, waffles, pancakes and actual sandwich bread)

Fruit (strawberries, bananas, grapes, apples, etc)

Tier Two (20% of her diet)

Cheerios

Cashews/Peanuts

Cereal Bars

Applesauce

Yogurt

Tier Three (10% of her diet)

Ravioli (Unreliably)

Cheese Pizza

French Fries

Chicken Nuggets (Unreliably)

Peanut Butter (A new addition to this list, as of two weeks ago)

(Of course, sugars of all kinds of welcome: cookies, cakes, brownies, ice cream, candy, etc.)

That's it. That is basically all she's eaten for the past three years. I have tried, OH HOW I HAVE TRIED, to get her to branch out and perhaps try a green bean or a leaf of lettuce or even an avocado (which she DID eat as a baby, which makes it all the more infuriating). She's also very particular about temperature and format: She will eat cold cheese in a tortilla, but if I heat it up and call it a quesadilla? HELLS NO. 

She won't touch lunch meat, hot dogs, ground meat, pasta (except ravioli and, as noted above, not very reliably) or basically anything else that a normal person might call a full and complete meal. Claire is very fond of finger foods she can eat straight from the fridge, I think because it translates into "what you see is what you get." She will eat an actual meal (that is, eating what's offered until she's full), but she often takes a long time to eat it and is easily distracted from the table. She's getting better at sitting at the table until she's finished, but she has never, ever displayed an "I am so hungry I could eat that entire cow!" kind of appetite.

And, as bothersome as this might be to some people, I don't really care. 

She's basically a self-selected vegetarian and she seems to prefer whole foods. (It's very Michael Pollen of her, don't you think?) I don't mean that in a hippie-uppity-snobby way, because she will happily eat the hell out of Oreos or any other processed sugary thing. She's just VERY SUSPICIOUS of foods she can't identify that have been blended into something else. For example, a taco is a no-go because she can't see all the parts of it laid out plainly, but she'll happily eat a tortilla and cheese on their own. (Lettuce and meat are already on her Hell No list, so those didn't have a chance.) If I pack a cheese sandwich in her lunch, she's very likely to take it apart and eat the bread and cheese separately, but she'll eat it. She certainly LIKES all of the ingredients in some meals I prepare, but she absolutely won't eat them cooked together and certainly not hot.

I hear about picky eaters and how their parents try to get them to eat other foods through tricky means and smoothie measures and...that is not a tactic for me. (Claire is not going to eat anything resembling a smoothie unless it comes from Sonic and is called a chocolate milkshake.) She is obviously thriving, so that makes it easy for me to say I don't give a crap if she chain eats grapes and toast all day. We try not to do that EVERY day, but I'm definitely not spending a lot of mental space thinking about how to get her to eat some carrots or some steak. I just don't have the energy or desire to fight with her about food if I don't have to, and I suspect that's probably the wrong tactic to take anyway. 

As fine as I am with her pickiness, I have always wondered in the back of my head if there was a misstep somewhere on my part, that led her to this very, very selective culinary path. Did I not introduce the right variety of foods, at the right times? Was I not consistent enough?

Then Charlotte came along and ate everything in sight. Everything! With no hesitation whatsoever, my second-born child will eat ANYTHING and if you don't offer your bites to her, she will demand them loudly. Charlotte will throw a fit over the enchilada (with jalapenos!) on your plate and when you give her a bite, she will ask for the entire thing and eat it merrily.  Claire never did that. She was extremely snooty about food, even as a baby.

I suddenly realized, in what is surely going to be one of my top-ten no-shit statements of 2012,

"Oh! Some people are just picky!" 

I've come to see Claire's food preferences as more of a personality trait rather than a behavior I molded, formed, or influenced. We all know plenty of ADULTS that won't touch a tomato, won't eat green vegetables, and hell, I even have an uncle that doesn't like cheese (I KNOW). I won't eat eggplant or shellfish. We all like what we like and when I meet an adult picky eater? I never, ever, think, "Oh, that person's mother must have only fed her fruit growing up. That's why she won't eat broccoli. What a terrible mother she had."

No. Nobody thinks that.

Perhaps Claire will branch out into delicacies such as spaghetti, hamburgers, or macaroni and cheese over the next few years, but for now I'm happy to make her a cheese sandwich and sliced strawberries every day for lunch (and sometimes again for dinner). She's a picky eater. Whatever.

Why do the worst photo shoots always return the best pictures?

We took some pictures last week, with our very awesome and fantastic photographer Angela Majerus. She's shot both girls since they were babies and I was fortunate to find her through the obsessive googling that only a first-time pregnant woman does in the middle of the night. Her work basically decorates every wall in my home.

The children were...uncooperative. (To put it very nicely.) There was not a lot of smiling, a whole bunch of whining, a pair of lost shoes, crying, and scowly faces. I was sure the shoot was a disaster. We were already planning the re-shoot.

And then Angela sent me these photos and I died. 

Oh, these girls. My heart. 

All photos by Angela Majerus Photography.

The Many Faces Of Claire

What is it about the age of three that makes children such HAMS?

"Claire, smile!"

"No, SMILE. SMIIIIIILE!"

"Aghhhh. Claire. Claire. CLAIRE. Just smile, okay? A nice smile!"

"THANK. YOU."

Now and then

A year ago today, we got the water table out for the summer and, by coincidence and similar weather patterns, we got it out just last Sunday for this year. (The water table is probably the best thirty or forty bucks I've ever spent on a toy and everyone should get one. We love this sucker at our house.)

Last year, Claire looked like this:

(And, a year ago Kyle looked like this too.)

This year, she looks like this:

Taller, longer hair, less of that cheeky baby face. Three-and-a-half versus two-and-a-half. (That green dress hits her well above the knee now.) Charlotte continues to hit milestones almost every week it seems, but they've really tapered off for Claire. She walks, talks, feeds herself, and has been out of diapers for more than a year. She put on that bathing suit (the bottoms are inside-out, but whatever), she brushes her teeth, combs her hair (not very well), puts on her shoes and socks (but never on command). She's been in her big girl bed for more than a year.

Her language skills have ramped up considerably since last spring and her ability to critically examine, think about, and connect distant dots on various topics surprises me on a daily basis, but she's pretty much self-sufficient. She plays Fruit Ninja on the Kinect. She rides a bike (with training wheels). She can pump her legs on a swing.

She can buckle her car seat. She never rides in a stroller. 

She's such a big girl. I really have no idea what this next year will bring. I mean, she's pretty awesome just as she is right now. It'll be hard to top, but I'm sure she'll manage.

I think I can stop fretting about dressing Charlotte in Claire's old clothes and not being able to tell which child is which when I'm 70

I got Charlotte's 6-month photos in the mail the other day, from my AMAZING photographer Angela Majerus. Charlotte continues to look a little less like her sister each time we put her in front of good lighting and someone that doesn't shoot in Green Square Mode. I still see similarities, but they're not as strong as they used to be. 

Here they are at 6-months. Claire on the left, Charlotte on the right (in both).

Really, when we started with newborns that looked like identical twins, I think it's amazing how different they are turning out to be, which is probably the dumbest statement of the century. KIDS ARE DIFFERENT. HOW ABOUT THAT?  

(Charlotte on the left, Claire on the right.)

The other side of three

Claire got a bike for her birthday last month and she loves it. (As children tend to do.) We took her to a park this morning, where there is a big, wide loop around a bunch of soccer fields. We told her to ride as far and as fast as she wanted. She looked at us hesitantly and I could see the words in her mind start to form.

"For....real? As fast as I want? Are they serious??!"

She whooped and hollered the whole way, making noise at the top of her lungs to see how loud she could go, how far her voice would carry and the different octaves she could hit. 

Claire at age three/almost-three was so hard for me to manage this summer, but the past few weeks have been a welcome respite. She's more understanding and empathetic. She has developed a delicately wry sense of humor. She's still resistant to the idea of naps, bedtime and the word "no" but her other sweet moments and days like today really make up for the ones that make me want to pull my hair out.

As Charlotte turns the corner to six months, when things start to get reallllllly fun with babies, Claire seems to turned her own as well. We've got 11 more months of three, but things are good now. Really good.

Age Three, revisited. (With a book!)

This is going to sound really dumb, but a few years ago I decided I don't really like books any more.

I like to read them, but I do not like to own them. I really don't like to buy them. I have a hard time finding places to store books and while I do read some books over and over again there are just too many mediocre books out there that I WON'T read multiple times to justify a continued habit of purchase. The rate of repeat readings is rather low. I have feeeeeeelings about e-books and the pricing structure (too much!) so I don't do that either. And, yes, I know about the library and when we moved to this lovely town with higher taxes I was very excited about the library but then Claire ripped up a lot of books and now I'm embarrassed to go there so...no library for a while for us. Perhaps by Christmas I'll be over that.

This is a really long way of saying that I bought a book and it's kind of a huge flipping deal for me. I realllllly wanted this book.

The Two Year Old book was immensely helpful about this time last year and I had kind of forgotten about it until a bunch of you re-recommended the series to me again. So, I went over to Amazon and ponied up the $12 to have it delivered to the house. I even paid $3.99 to get it the next day.

You guys, I really wanted that book. Things were getting ugly.

This book was like holding up a mirror to Claire. Moxie recommends the entire series and I'm probably going back for the four-year-old version in six or eight months. It is amazing how kids seem so unique and so marvelous and so individual and then you read something that basically tells you that all children are the same and you don't want to believe it but here are some words written in the seventies that are still true today so...damn. Children really are pod people/zombies/clones!

It is somehow easier for me to deal with crappy kid behavior when I know that it's not something I'm doing wrong as a parent and it's something screwy in their brains about how growing up is tough and they're figuring things out and even if I did do everything perfectly or not at all, the kid would still throw a fit at Target about where to sit in the grocery cart and then change her mind, loudly, every four minutes until I finally said, "Where you sit is where you sit I am not moving you again." Because you know what? That is annoying as all hell but there is a lot of peace that comes with knowing it is (mostly) NOT MY FAULT. (I wish I could wear a t shirt that says so. I can tell there are some people at Target who watched that scene and thought, "Whoa, it is all that mom's fault." But, it's not! NOT MY FAULT! THE KID IS THREE!)

Anyway, I found the book very helpful, just as I did the one for two-year-olds and I am not a Parenting Book Person, AT ALL. (See above re: hesitance to buy any books, at all.) You are all correct that the basic strategy here is to simply disengage with the Three-Year-Old and not argue or fight in the first place because I will never win because she will never walk away from it. The fight is, to her, the entire attraction. And ohhhhhhhhhh, that is a hard thing as a parent, right? When you have to do or say things that make you EYE ROLL EYE ROLL EYE ROLL but you know it's the best path? I hate that crap. 

My favorite part of the book is where it says that the best option for this age is to hire a baby sitter and walk away.

"This advice may seem like the all time cop-out. It remains our best advice."

HAAAAAA. The parenting book's best advice is to...not parent and just GIVE UP and let someone else handle it? OH, THIS IS GOING TO BE A TOUGH AGE.

About the time I broke up with my imaginary friend

When I was a preschooler, I had an imaginary friend. Her name was Dina (Deena? I don't know. I am sure I never wrote it out.) My mother will tell you, without hesitation, that having an imaginary friend is a sign of great intelligence. 

Anyway. Dina was around for a while, several months I think. This was when we lived in New Orleans and one day as my mother came up to Canal while we were in the car I said something to her about how Dina needed to get out and this was not an altogether unusual request. I often told her about things Dina needed or wanted to do and because she is a good mother she played along.

Mom mumbled something like, "Hrmm, okay then". (As you do.) I was more insistent and told her that Dina needed to get out of the car and HOW was she going to do that if you don't open the door, MOM?

At a stoplight, she opened her door briefly and then shut it.

I never brought up Dina again. It appears I kicked my imaginary friend out of our car somewhere on Canal Street in 1982. (I have always wondered what Dina said or did to prompt such a harsh break-up. Canal is not the plushest of streets to be abandoned on.)

***

Claire doesn't have an imaginary friend (yet?) but I wonder if this sort of thing doesn't happen all that much these days? Is there something about the new millennium that prohibits imaginary friends? I don't know anyone in real life or on the internet that has a child with an imaginary friend. Or, are imaginary friends now frowned upon? I have no idea.

Anyway, Claire is showing signs of a very active imagination. It's fascinating to see what she comes up with and how elaborate she can make it. Perhaps most startling is how ACCURATE she can be sometimes, about things that she's only seen or heard mentioned once.

It started a few months ago with small things ("My baby's name is Addison." At the time, it was the name of the only other baby she'd ever known.) It has now developed into full afternoons imagining a play tent as a carousel with stuffed animals inside (all with names) and then leading a parade through the house with her baby buggies.

There's an episode of Sesame Street that involves someone having a Muppet chicken in his shirt and Claire has taken to making a very sad face and telling me that something is wrong and when I say, "Oh, no! What is wrong!?" with mock terror she responds with a sly grin and tells me, "THARS A CHICKEN IN MA SHIRT! GET IT OUT!" Then we play a game of where is that pesky chicken in your shirt and now that I have him where should I put him and so on and so forth.

Chicken-in-my-shirt is good for at least a half hour of entertainment. Living with tiny humans is so much fun.

Just the two of them

They play together, not in a real sense of course, but Claire is ever-eager to help her little sister do or get anything. She wants to show her everything about her world and how it works and Charlotte just soaks it all up wide-eyed and open-mouthed, as babies do.

In these moments, I sometimes feel like the aperture of my future opens itself just a tiny, tiny bit, and I get a half-second look at the lovely things ahead of us.

 

This and that

The Magnolia Tree

A long time ago, some moron planted a magnolia tree a mere four feet from the edge of the patio in my back yard.  The tree isn't too much of a nuisance at this point, but the roots are spindly and at the surface and it's only a matter of time before they start messing up the concrete. Right now, because it is a stupid magnolia tree that has its seasons backwards, there are tons of brown leaves in the yard the size of my face. SO attractive.

What is it about some people that makes them unable to understand how trees work? You know, that the wee sapling you plant today will be a HUGE GINORMOUS TREE in two decades? So you'd better plant it somewhere that it has room to grow? Use your imagination, picture the tree bigger and make sure it's still a good spot? Did these people skip the part of second grade where everyone else learned about photosynthesis and how, through a long series of events, it ultimately results in a tree getting taller and wider? Exponentially so? I think they did.

My parents have a dude next door to them that is Habitual Tree Planter. He picks crappy trees that are not native and he plants them all over the damn yard. His yard is big enough for maybe two trees. I think there are four plus a handful of odd ones in the back. There's even one on the property line. As a wee sapling it was kind of an adorable example of topiary but now it's a legit-for-real TREE and its all over their yard and...annoying. These Habitual Tree Planters need to be rounded up and sent to Arborist School.

Long way to say that I am not a fan of our magnolia tree and every time I look at it I wonder what on earth someone was thinking when they planted this sucker. Then I think about how much it will cost me one day to have it removed and I start to haaaaate that moron who planted it in the first place. I should invoice him.

Dear Former Owner Of My House,

Here's a bill for $1,000, mostly because you are an idiot and can't select or plant a tree for toots.

Kindly,

The New Owner, who is ripping out the tree to may way for a swimming pool, just as soon as an enormous sum of cash lands in her lap.

The Curtain Mistake

In a fit of "curtains! I will make some!" I cut the fabric hanging in the breakfast room (on the left) from the bolt, thereby creating two 6' lengths. I have 9' leftover, still on the bolt. I was thinking I would use the extra fabric (left over from the living room curtains on the right) rather than buy new fabric. I was being thrifty! How wise of me!

But, now I think it's too much green and I am so pissed that I cut that stupid fabric before I realllllly thought about it some more. Now I have two 6' lengths and I'm not sure what to do with them. I should not have cut it, much less cut TWO. In my defense, I have owned this bolt of fabric since last summer so I truly did think that I was finished dithering over it.

(BTW, that fabric is thumbtacked up so I can decide. Should I decide to make them into curtains, I will line them with blackout liner and hang them on a rod like a proper adult.)

These are the swatches of fabric under consideration. I like the way the aqua looks on the wall in the kitchen and breakfast room, and I think the color is complimentary to the green since they will be in the same visual space. It also matches my KitchenAid, which is stupid to match curtains to an appliance, I know, but I really like the color of that sucker.

I am strongly leaning towards the bottom one, but I don't know if it's even in stock any more since it's a Summer 2010 pattern. I am not exactly asking for advice or opinions since I'm pretty well sold on the aqua, at least as a general direction, but I do want you to learn from me: those measure twice, cut once people are NOT kidding. (A step should be added at the front, "Decide what you want to do. No, really, make sure you've actually decided before you cut anything.")

Jake

Jake seems to have good days and bad days. The good days are normal and the bad days are where he has trouble sitting down. The steroids and painkillers seem to have made him nearly good as new. Honestly, I did not think he would be here this week. Not for a second. I thought he was going to go downhill again, fast, and it would be over imminently.

But then he rallied. (And honestly he might have just been enjoying the attention of the entire internet.) (Well, the attention of MY entire internet, which is a rather small slice, I know.) And his leg wasn't as swollen and he was walking and running and we were thinking, "Um, okay? We have our dog back?"

So, I don't know. For now he's fine. I keep thinking about what every one of you said about how we'd know, deep down in our guts when it was time to let him go, and I just look at him and I know that it's not the time. I know.

Natalie sent me the most lovely book, "Dog Heaven," by Cynthia Rylant. I swear to you I cried like a child when I read it the first time. (I actually haven't made it through the whole book even now without crying.) The book talks about what happens in Dog Heaven:

God knows that dogs love children more than anything else in the world, so He fills Dog Heaven with plenty of them. There are children on bikes and children on sleds. There are children throwing red rubber balls and children pulling kites through the clouds. The dogs are there, and the children love them dearly.

I mean, just YES, right? Lovely, lovely book. I am not sure that I'll be able to read it to Claire without upsetting her (the tears flow with this one for me), but it was just so thoughtful of Natalie to send it. (Internet friends! They are amazing!)

 Snickerdoodles

I think I have eaten, oh, about 15 of these today? Maybe?

Look, all I'm saying is if you would like to not eat a lot of cookies today, then definitely navigate away from the link to some other non-cookie recipe site because if you make these cookies they will end up all in your belly. Your pants might not fit afterward, but I can't be sure because my pants haven't fit in a long time anyway so, um, I'll have another cookie now please.

Library Books

Is there anything more annoying than the child who deliberately rips up library books? Claire loves the library, takes so much joy out of the whole thing, reads her books and loves them dearly, but then when she gets mad about having to go to bed? She rips them! Rips entire pages out and rips them in half and then when I discover said vandalism of city-owned property and tell her that it's not good she says,

"It's okay, it's just a little tear. We fix it."

I'm having enormous difficulty getting across the idea of PERMANENT DAMAGE to her. And really, anything permanent is a tough sell. Sharpies, toys irreparably breaking, killing bugs, etc. She has no concept of the idea of forever, which I am sure is normal but it would be very helpful if she understood it even on a simple level.

But, back to the stupid books. She's done this before and I...returned the books quietly in the book drop and didn't mention the missing pages. (Yes! There was more than one! I'm a terrible person! In my defense, those books were due about seven days after Charlotte was born and simply returning them seemed like the easiest thing to do.) Now I feel like I should mention it. Partly because we did damage the book and this is the proper thing to do and partly because I think if the librarian makes a face and says something stern and she sees me paying for the book it might have more impact. I have used phrases like "If you do X that lady over there will make us leave because it's HER library" and that seemed to work and give me the behavior I wanted right that instant.

In the meantime, we are on a strict diet of only board books from the library.