Getting into Things

Now that she's crawling, Abby is happy discovering all sorts of new
things. Here, she made it to Mommy's cereal bowl, left on the floor.

Metal spoons do NOT taste good!

Markets and Mayhem

For some reason, the last two days have seemed much more chaotic than normal. It might be watching Congress flub the bailout (I say flub not because the plan was worth passing - what do I know?, but because by not passing it they seemed to have made things worse by lowering investor confidence.) and taking extra time yesterday to review all of our investments and make some carefully thought out changes. It might be that I have a tough class ahead to teach this week and I am as of 1:30 on Tues still not prepared. It might be that we're trying out a new schedule with Jake at school and while he seemed to love it, now he's protesting. It might be some emergency phone calls I've needed to have this week for one of the nonprofit boards I'm on. And it might be that watching Abby now requires gymnastics to keep up with her as she tries to pick up everything she sees and stand up against every vertical surface!

In any case, I'm tired already and it's only Tuesday. Wish me luck getting through this week!

Abby is Crawling!

I don't have good pix yet, but yesterday morning I put her on one side of the den and walked out of the room for 20 seconds. When I came back, she was on the other side, sitting up, happily cooing to Didi, Jake's favorite teddy bear, who is normally off limits to her. Boy did she look happy!

She repeated her trick throughout the day with huge smiles and has been clearly enjoying the mobility and access to so many things. Yesterday she even starting pulling herself up to a near standing position on the furniture. We've scrambled, putting up gates and getting the pack and play set up so we can put her in it when we leave the room.

She's also signing like a madwoman. She does "more" and "milk" whenever she's hungry!

For Some Election Fun...

click here to try the Match - O- Matic!

A Must-Read for West Wing Fans

This is priceless!
Aaron Sorkin Conjures a Meeting of Obama and Bartlet

"And... I'm gonna be forty."

Harry: When?
Sally: Someday.
Harry: In eight years.
Sally: But it's there. It's just sitting there, like some big dead end. And it's not the same for men. Charlie Chaplin had kids when he was 73.
Harry: Yeah, but he was too old to pick them up.

Well, it's here. In 2 days, I will be officially middle-aged. If I live to be 80, given my family's history, I will feel very lucky. So this is at best a half way mark. Kind of serious stuff!

My main concern of the last decade was having kids before it was too late. I wanted two, and now I have a matched set and they are absolutely beautiful, inside and out. My family is my center and my joy. That is a triumph, given where I was at age 33, an overworked, single New Yorker, cleaning death dust from my apartment. Finding Mike when I did was the key to all if it. He and I had the same vision, from the very beginning.

The first few years were a whirlwind. Buying a house, getting married, having Jake. And then upending our life to create a strong base for the kind of family life we wanted. We planned it all out. My Manhattan achievement-oriented friends were kind of shocked at our exodus, and admitted they wished they had the chutspah to do it too (money was not the barrier, believe me, for any of them).

And as for our grand Virginia experiment, well, it's been three years and it doesn't feel all that experimental anymore. In fact, you know it's not when you kind of wish it were time to move again because the closets would all get cleaned out. But we're not going anywhere. And honestly, I've never before felt as part of a community as I do here (thanks mostly to our amazing moms' club. You wonderful women know who you are!!!).

I have a little box full of index cards I made when I lived in Brooklyn. At around age 30, following instructions from a little book with a blue cover, I sat in a cute French cafe around the corner from my apartment, sipped cafe au lait and brainstormed all the things I wanted to do in life. Then I drew a crayon picture of a sun rising over mountains and a little wandering river/lake and pasted it on the box. Prophetic, huh?

Last year I looked through the cards and realized I had had very short-term thinking. I have accomplished nearly every one of my goals from age 30.

So, I guess that's what being 40 really means to me - it's about time to fill up that box with some new cards!

Apple Picking

I've been trying to do special Sunday morning things with the kids. Last week, Jake and I went to the lake beach alone and had a blast in the 85 degree weather. It was absolutely perfect - warm, breezy, the water cool at first but quite comfy after a few minutes, and he and I spent a fantastic morning playing with his floatie fish, tossing around a very wet nerf football, and digging a vast and complex network of irrigation tunnels.

Just one week later and I'm so glad we did the beach when we did. It was 55 degrees this morning and sunny but very crisp. Jake, Abby and I went to Carter's Mountain Orchard to do some apple picking. Jake had been wanting to go for some time so he was ecstatic. Add a few apple cider donuts, some kids to talk to, and some new technology to explore (we used a very long and heavy apple picker to get our Galas from the tops of the trees) and it turned into a great outing for him. Abby wasn't so happy to be in her stroller most of the time, but perked up when we shared tiny pieces of the donuts with her.

Here's Jake, among the Galas.

Jake and Abby, sharing the fruits of our labor:

We took turns playing worm:

The Red Delicious were closer to the ground and much easier to pick:

This is my Montessori child finding himself a "work" at the orchard. He figured out how to get the wagon sides all down and then worked to get them to all stay up again. Very patiently.

And this is my not-yet Montessori child wondering how in the world you eat a gourd!

At home, we had homemade apple juice, bread with apple butter, and made our special baked apple pancake recipe, one of Jake's favorites. I got this from a bed and breakfast cookbook and highly recommend it!

Baked Apple Pancake

2 Tbs butter

2 apples, peeled, cored and sliced ( we used 4 small ones)

1/2 c. brown sugar (we use a brown sugar and splenda blend)

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 c. flour (we used whole wheat pastry flour)

1/2 c milk ( we used soy milk)

2 eggs

a pinch salt

Melt the 2 TBS butter in a 9" pie plate. Mix apple slices, sugar, cinnamon and butter in a bowl. In another bowl, combine the flour, milk, eggs and salt. Pour into prepared pie plate. Place apple slices flat on top of the batter. Bake for 15 minutes at 425 degrees. Serve immediately.

I told Jake we ate so many apples for lunch that he might turn into an apple during his nap. He said, no that would never happen, but after a moment told me that after he dies, an apple tree might grow out of him!

Abby's First Doll

Abby got her first dolly from Grandma Fran last week. She took one look at it and didn't let it go the rest of the day. She kept smiling at it, laughing to it, and swinging it around. She didn't even want to let go of Dolly to eat dinner!

The next day was not as intense, but she still played with it a great deal. In the last few pix below, she's also wearing one of her cute new outfits from Grandma too. Thanks, Grandma Fran!