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

One of my favorite things to do is put something on my head and watch Avery’s reaction: Without fail, she’ll come over, reach up for the object and say, “hat, hat, hat” (even if it’s not an actual hat). Though she loves saying hat, she’s not as crazy about wearing one – as these series of photos (taken last weekend) make clear.

-M

We were driving to camp the other morning when Zoe, wearing purple bottoms and a multi-colored striped hoodie, said (out of the blue), “My pants totally match my shirt!” I suppose some moms would be horrified by their preschooler’s use of the word “totally,” but I had to laugh. (Valley-girl talk from a 3.5-year-old is pretty cute.) And I was impressed, yet again, by her interest in fashion.

-M

Avery is very much my girl: She loves to eat! She’s way less picky than I am, though, and will eat almost anything you put in front of her. Two new foods – corn, right off the cob, and peaches – emerged as favorites over the weekend, and PopPop and I were happy to get a video of her enjoying the latter.

-M

We were in Washington for a somber reason (mourning), but we still had some light, fun moments with family. Here are a few pics of the girls doing what they do best: playing and dancing with PopPop (Zoe) and snacking (Avery).

-M

Another day, another plane ride… We headed home today, and I’m happy to report that we made it back in one piece. The girls are a bit jet-lagged, and Zoe did have a few grumpy moments on our flight this morning – but things went really well, over all. We’ll post pics of our time with Safta and PopPop soon; for now, here are some fun plane pics from Friday and today.

-M

We wound up coming to Maryland on Friday to be with family. It’s going to be a quick trip – we’re leaving on Monday – and I was a bit nervous about taking the kids (especially Avery) so far for such a short amount of time. But once again the girls showed me I shouldn’t worry so much: They were both fabulous on the flight (no tears, no incidents), and they’re both a-okay today. I can’t help but feel a bit proud of our little travel partners!

-M

Over the past few days, there’s been a real shift in Avery’s movement. As discussed here before, her preferred mode of transportation for some time now has been crawling, with some knee walking and real walking thrown in for good measure. Since the weekend, though, she’s been on her feet way more often than the floor, and I suspect she may soon abandon crawling altogether. Here was the scene at our place last night.

-M

Summer is quickly flying by: Zoe has less than two weeks of camp left, and school starts in less than four weeks! We’ve been trying to take advantage of the city’s summer activities (ignoring the cool fog when we have to) and spending lots of time with friends – including Zoe’s buddy Leo, who is (sniff, sniff) moving in a few weeks. Here are some recent pics of our time at a Ghirardelli Square fair.

-M

Before too much more time passes, I wanted to share a video of Zoe dancing with her cousin Allon in Florida. (Pretty good moves, huh?) She’s still talking about the trip!

-M

How do you explain the concept of existance to a pre-schooler? That’s the question we’ve been grappling with recently. A few days ago, Zoe asked where she was when Q and I got married. “You weren’t born yet,” I told her, to which she replied, “But where was I?” “You weren’t in my tummy yet,” I answered, only to have her ask again, “So where was I?” I got out of that one – by repeating the tummy line and avoiding saying that she didn’t exist, which I’m sure would have been met with a blank stare – but then the other evening we had to have an even more difficult conversation – this one about after life, not before – with her.

When Q’s grandma died on Friday, Q and I decided it was only right to tell Zoe what happened (she had just gotten back from visiting her, after all) – but we would have to do so in very simple language. Q started by asking Zoe if she remembered how sleepy GGma had been when she saw her (Zoe did) and went on to say that GGma became so tired that her body wound up going to sleep for good. This happens with older people who have lived long, full lives, we explained to her, and we said that GGma’s spirit was out there, somewhere, watching over her. Zoe’s questions were mostly what you’d expect (“Does this mean I won’t be able to see her anymore?” being one of them), and she also said something I found quite insightful: After we explained how GGma went away, she asked, “Like magic?”

Given how people come into and leave the world in an instant – and how nearly impossible it is to understand, let alone explain, it all – comparing life and death to magic somehow feels right. Perhaps little kids are smarter than we give them credit for.

-M

Avery hadn’t seen her friend Natalia in awhile, so she and Greta (and their moms) headed to her house yesterday. The sun was out, and so was Natalia’s little water table; needless to say, the girls had a lot of fun splashing around!

-M

GGma is on our minds and in our hearts today. We’re so lucky that our girls had the chance to meet her…

-M