I finally retired our bathtbub duck – something I should have done several months (and five pounds) ago – the other night. Avery didn’t seem to miss it, and I just had to snap a pic of her first duck-less bath at home.

-M

As promised, here’s a picture from Zoe’s first day of school – as well as one from last year. Some things – like the curly hair and the panda lunchbox (which has held up remarkably well) are the same – but she’s definitely older! “Look how small she was then,” Q just said, looking over my shoulder. “And we thought she was so big.”

-M

After dropping off Zoe at school today (picture of her first day coming soon!), I walked past another mom who had just said good-bye to her child and was strolling out with her newborn. A lump formed in my throat, as I remembered Zoe’s first day last Aug. and thought, “That was me and Avery last year.” As sentimental as this time of year makes me about Zoe, Zoe’s school also makes me think about Avery, who was still very new (barely 10 weeks) when her big sister began. My routine – of getting Zoe to school while pushing Avery in her stroller, and then running errands or working out with Avery afterwards – was the same for many months – and it’s hard not to get emotional when thinking of how little Avery was back then.

Of course, though Avery is a lot bigger these days (she can actually walk inside with me when we drop off/pick up Zoe now), it’s all relative. And I know in a year or two – when Avery starts preschool – I’ll be sniffling over how little she was this year!

-M

At an event at Zoe’s school this spring, one of the moms commented that it felt like we handed the teachers our babies at the beginning of the school-year – and were presented with little boys and girls nine months later. I understood what she meant: The change in Zoe at 2 years, 9 months (the age in which she started her first year at the JCC) and 3 years, 6 months was incredible, and, like that other parent, I credit her teachers for helping her grow into the happy, fun, educated “big girl” that she is today. And speaking of big, when she started school in the Neta (or “little plant”) class, the 3- and 4-year-old kids in the Elan (or “tree”) class looked and acted so much bigger than she was. And now, just one year later, it’s Zoe who is one of those big Elan kids!

I’m excited for my little tree, who starts school tomorrow, and I can’t wait to see the changes that this next year brings.

My parents left this afternoon, but not before doing some last-minute stuff with the kids – like feeding Avery and taking her on a stroll, and getting Zoe ready for her nap. We miss them already!

-M

As mentioned below, Grandma and Grandpa kept Zoe entertained this week. The three of them took advantage of the incredibly (and unusually) hot weather by going on walks in the neighborhood and doing some gardening work; when it cooled off, they played games, shopped and read books together. Here are some pics.

-M

Do you ever have moments when you feel like you’re making a memory? One of those happened for me last weekend, when Q and I stumbled upon this (non-descript) little restaurant in Sausalito and wound up having an amazingly delicious – and really fun – impromptu brunch with the girls. (I don’t think I’ll ever forget the perfectly prepared banana pancakes I ate, or the look on Avery’s face as she devoured a huge bowl of fruit.) Then the other night, Zoe challenged me and my parents to a game of Alphabet Bingo (her new fave) – and I can’t remember ever having so much playing a kid’s game. It’s the little things in life, right??

-M

Zoe is on an end-of-summer break this week – she’s in between camp and school – and my parents flew out to be with her. (They arrived last night.) Zoe’s first order of business for their trip? Craft projects with Grandma!

-M

Almost four! These days, Zoe makes it fairly easy to *not* be nostalgic for the baby and toddler days of her past. Those were pretty amazing, of course, but the bouncy, chatty girl that has emerged is just so fun to be around.

Zoe is at a playful and imaginative age: She loves pretending and making up stories and songs. She’s still a fan of playing school (pretending she’s a teacher and reading to her students) and airplane or train; she also likes to pretend her family members are various animals (“Okay, Mommy, you’re the mommy tiger, and I’m the sister tiger”), make up silly names for herself (“My first name is Bar and my last name is Nose”) and play “baby.” (For the latter she asks me to chase her around the house, in an attempt to catch her and change her diaper, or bounce her like I do Avery.)

She still enjoys reading (and can now recite a few books from memory) and loves learning. She’s been interested in math for several months now and can do simple addition (4+3, etc.) and subtraction problems. (One night she made us laughing by calling Q into her room after bedtime. When he asked her what she needed, she responded, “Daddy, three and one make four.” It came out of nowhere, but she was obviously lying there thinking about numbers.) We started working on spelling this summer, and she can spell about 15 words. (Her first words were Zoe, Leo and Mom; new ones include bag, dog, cat and tree.) She surprised me – and made me proud – the other day when we were at the playground and a friend of mine asked, “Should we have the kids E-A-T now?” Zoe heard and cried out, “Yes! I want some food!” I didn’t even know she knew how to spell “eat!”

Along the lines of learning, she is also, like most preschoolers, inquisitive and prone to asking a lot of questions. She’s never had a serious “why?” phase, but just the other night, she asked me and Q where certain things (trees, cars, houses, etc.) come from. (We were in the car for an hour, and she must have inquired about 20 different objects.) She also often asks about mixing colors: “Daddy, what do yellow and blue make?”

Speaking of colors, she loves to draw – and her artwork has gotten a lot more sophisticated lately. She’s gotten better at staying in (or at least close to) the lines in a coloring book, and she surprised me and Q by drawing people (that actually looked like people) the other day. I credit camp for her development in this area: she did some sort of craft or art project every day of the summer. (“Did you make this?” Q and I have asked her on more than one occasion.)

In terms of personality, she remains fairly independent and fun – and funny. She laughs and calls things “silly” a lot, and she likes to tell jokes and tease, just like her dad. She can be a bit bossy and demanding – and not just with us, but with her friends on the playground. I would still call her a “sweet” girl, but she also has a strong personality and doesn’t hesitate to show it.

She’s definitely still a good big sister. She recently started calling Avery “honey” (like I do), and she introduces Avery as “my baby,” indicating that she’s still proud of her. She often does sweet little things for her, like hand Avery things to play with in the car when she’s upset – without anyone asking her to do so – and just in the last week she started picking Avery up and carrying her through the house. (Avery loves it.) On the other hand, she’ll sometimes take toys from Avery or even push or shove her (“because it’s funny,” she said one day). She also exhibits a bit of jealousy on occasion – like when Avery was learning to walk. Zoe pretended she was a baby and just learning, too, and would walk to me and Q and say, “Look! I can walk too!”

She had a sudden grown spurt in late June. In just a few days’ time, Q and I both noticed that all of her pants (and some of her sweatshirts) had become too short. At her last (pre-school) physical, she weighed in at 46 pounds, and her doctor said she was the height of a 5-year-old.

A few random things: She has, as discussed here before, emerged into a really good traveler. In the last three months, she’s taken swim class and kung fu, and she says she wants to take soccer and ballet next. She has gotten better at going to bed and doesn’t tantrum as much as she used to, but she does still throwing the occasional fit. “You’re not my friend!” “It’s not fair,” or “You’re a bad boy/girl!” are common things we’ll hear when she’s particularly upset at night. She still lets me pick out her clothes, but for the last month or so she’s refused to let us help her get dressed. (She wants to do it all on her own.) She likes helping me pick out my shoes before I head to work, and her most recent thing is to choose my shirts also. She still mispronounces a few words (“tink” for think, “callepetter” for caterpillar, “hurted” for hurt, for example) but, since I find the mispronunciations so terribly cute, I can’t bring myself to correct her. She loves school and next Monday will be entering a class of mostly 4- and 4.5-year-olds; most of her closest friends there are still boys.

-M

Zoe was joking around earlier today when she used the term “a-hole.” When Q asked her where she heard that word, she said, “Mommy says it to people when they don’t go when the light turns green.”

Oops.

I know I’ve used the term before – but I was surprised that Zoe had picked up on it. “A-hole” isn’t technically a swear word (not without the two Ss anyway) and it did sound pretty funny coming out of her mouth (I had to stifle a laugh into my napkin when I heard it), but it’s obviously not something we want Zoe to be running around saying. I guess I have to be more careful – even if “people don’t go when the light is green!”

-M

I like to stay busy, especially on the weekends – when festivals, parties, playdates and/or shopping are usually on our itinerary. Sometimes it’s nice to just stay in, though, and the girls also seem to appreciate their sister-time at home. Here are some hanging-out pics from this weekend.

-M

We’ve got a walker! Less than two weeks after my last update, Avery decided to get up – and stay up – on two feet. (Interestingly, she started exclusively walking at the exact same age that Zoe did.) She still occasionaly crawls, but not very often – and gone is the knee-walking she once did. She seems to enjoy the freedom that comes from walking, but she hasn’t wandered far away from us (yet) – she likes to stay close, and she’s still known to cry or pout if she feels left behind.

Her communication skills continue to improve: She can follow simple, and even a few not-so-simple, commands. Q recently asked her to give him a bite of something she was eating, for example, and she understood and offered him a taste. She’s also learning ways to express what she wants: She routinely hands me books that she wants read to her, or snacks that she wants fed to her.

In terms of words, she started saying hi, yeah and uh-oh, and she can also make a “thank you” sound. She hasn’t come up with a name (or, at least, one that we can detect) for Zoe yet – but I can’t wait to hear what she winds up calling her.

Avery enjoys many of the same things we discussed last time: her sister’s kitchen, her tea-set, our phones and remote controls. She also likes to explore various drawers in the house: her favorites are her dad’s bathroom drawer, a computer desk drawer (from which she pulls tape, old cameras and batteries, etc.) and a corner drawer (where we keep some of her snacks – go figure) in the kitchen. She’s also shown a recent fondness for shutting the door in whichever room she’s in – so we’ve had to watch carefully to avoid pinched fingers.

She smiles and laughs a lot – but she also has the propensity to whine, fuss or frown when she doesn’t get her way (and often, even when she does). She’s the queen of dirty looks, and Q and I have taken to calling her “Our Little Complainer.” I don’t remember Zoe being quite so whiney at this age, but I’m hoping it’s just a phase for Avery. And the good thing about her: She can be fussing and scrunching up her face in disgust one minute, but then laughing and clapping during the next.

As mentioned before, she’s a big eater (she’s one of those kids who tries to eat the other kids’ snacks at the playground), and she loves almost everything, especially fruit. The only thing that she’s rejected so far: cherry tomatoes. (And frankly, I don’t blame her!)

-M

Avery and Zoe are big fan of books and spend many evenings flipping through them in Avery’s room. While Zoe used to have to make up words, she now knows a few books by heart – and is happy to read them to her sister. Here’s one of them.

-M

After our recent (fairly pleasant) flying experience, I couldn’t help but take notice of an entry on a parenting blog entitled “When did traveling with kids get fun?” The blogger wrote:

If you had told me four years ago, when our daughter was born, that I would have ever enjoyed family airplane rides again, I would have thought you were crazy. In those first, early years, airplanes and traveling with a child frightened me to no end. I didn’t want to be one of those parents, the ones who let their kids cry and scream and kick seats in front and back of them. I worried about ear pain and hunger, boredom and antsiness. If there was a thing to worry about, I took the time to find it and mull it over. I was a bundle of nerves and raw energy, often needing a vacation from just the thought of vacation.

And oh the things we packed: new toys, old toys, bottles, candy, books, bumper pillows, favorite loveys, castoff stuffed animals, video players and DVDs. I felt like a Sherpa.

But something happened recently, some invisible switch was thrown. A kid who cried and screamed at takeoff and landing suddenly became an excellent traveler, in need of the occasional video and an eye mask for napping. On a trip to Mexico earlier this year, Emmeline curled up on the seat and watched an entire movie, gobbling up the TV time we largely deny her at home. After that, she settled into a ball somehow and took a nap. I didn’t even notice the sustained, blissful silence until I’d gotten 200 pages into a thriller and looked at my wife with eyes that said, “This is awesome!”

I feel as if I could have written this: Though my girls, especially Zoe, have always traveled relatively well, I still constantly fretted about flying with them. And the whole needing-a-vacation-from-my-vacation thing? Yup, I felt that way too. But, like this blogger, I felt like some sort of switch was turned on during our last trip. Zoe, despite a few fatigue-induced rough moments on our flight home, was a total traveling pro – and so, really, was Avery. We saw no tears from either girl on our outbound flight, and I even managed to read half of a magazine – a real feat!

It would be delusional to think that we won’t have some rough flights in our future – and I’m too much of a stress-case to completely stop fretting about traveling with the girls – but I do feel quite hopeful (even more so than the last time I wrote about this) for the future. Perhaps someday soon, like this blogging dad, I’ll even come to think of flying as “fun” again!

-M

Q is away for the weekend, and the girls and I have kept busy by meeting up with friends. Yesterday the Zoe-Miles-Zander gang (including the younger sibs) got together at the playground; today Zoe and her best buddy Leo met up. It’s the last time we’ll see Leo before he moves, so there were a lot of hugs and dramatic good-byes – though thankfully no tears – when we parted. Luckily he isn’t moving too far away – so we still hope/expect to see a lot of him!

-M