Like mother, like daughter

At long last.... video! (We hope- thanks Christine for giving us the scoop on embedding youtube videos.) Check out Clio at dinner yesterday. She had a bunch of berries (hence the purple halo all over her face), and got maybe a little crazy on the sugar. Also, she's recently gotten way into her tongue. Here goes:



Now, here's me, the day after our wedding, at Marshall Field's waiting to close out our registry. Note the similarities:



I swore that video would never be viewed by anyone. You see what kids can make us do?

The Wild Bunch

When I picked Clio up from day care today, she cried.
She used to literally jump up and down when she saw me at the end of her day; now, she doesn't want to come home. As I got her into her carrier, she reached for Miriam (who surely loved this), and wailed.

When Dave came home, he insisted that I plant the window boxes. We picked up plants at the Botanical Garden with my parents this weekend, and he wanted to get them into the earth; he also wanted me to get my hands a little dirty. Go on, he said, you'll like it.

While planning out the arrangement, I presented a couple of ideas to Dave- each one based on a rigid symmetry with the two boxes mirroring each other. Maybe you could do something different in each box, Dave said.

Now, I don't want to get into any metaphors about tending gardens and raising children, but planting those plants in tight little rows got me thinking about wildness, and how, as a culture, this is something that we alternately revere and despise. The Wild West, the Wild Bunch, running wild, all full of connotations of freedom hinged on the out-of-control. We fear conformity and the independent spirit in equal measure. How can we possibly be expected to walk that line- perfectly?

This weekend, my mom said she felt she was an anxious mom with us (which I never, ever felt, but which makes sense to me now- she had three kids by the time she was 28, 4 years earlier than I had my first, and like me, she was away from family for our very early years). I love these pictures of her with Clio, the way she's encouraging a certain wildness- because, let's face it, Clio's been an independent spirit since she was in the womb. I love that she is teaching Clio what some might consider "bad habits" but really are just new skills.


With Clio's obvious desire to stay at day care, a place with friends and plenty of love and activity, and, honestly, a little bit of wildness, I'm reminded of the story my mom tells of me as a 2 year old, starting Montessori. She brought me for my first day, set me down in the classroom, and off I ran. don't I get a hug? she said, bu I was already off and running. I turned and said bye-bye, and she let me go. When I watch Clio, I hope that I'll remember to give up my own selfishness, and have the courage to let her be a little wild.

Hugs

This is one of those moments where the photographic evidence sort of speaks for itself...

Clio is really into hugs lately. I've been the main target, but this weekend she found some new - um, recipients? - some more willing than others.

The Nonny is a big fan:

Sylvie? Not so much. Check out the progression:
It all starts with a sidelong glance...


And an innocent arm around the shoulder...


But things progress, from Headlock:


To Chokehold:


To full-blown take down (look at Luka protecting himself in the background!)

Clio's having fun anyway. It did end in tears for Sylive (we missed that one on film as we were running intervention), but her Mom April didn't seem too upset about it.

Friends?

The Wedding

Clio was a big hit at her first wedding ex-utero (we went to Rory's wedding 8 months pregnant). She was charming in a green seersucker halter dress and bloomers, and very content to arrive on the arm (quite literally) of a dashing escort, aka The Daddy.


She was shy with some of her suitors, (that's the shy look, arm behind her back, chin down into her shoulder),


But once the ceremony began and the crowd settled down, Clio lost all pretense of shyness and spoke right up, issuing a lot of "da da das" into the quiet. She also trotted out her latest trick to practice- this mostly includes hitting my face.


Clearly, Clio liked having her hands held almost as much as I like having my face hit.


Once the bride arrived (and what a gorgeous bride!), The Daddy took Clio to a less disruptive spot, way back in the grass.

All in all, I'd say she did okay.
Mazel tov, Sara and Roy!

Sleeping in the wet spot

One thing that was great about our trip was that everything was new to Clio, and being an avid explorer, there seems to be nothing better than, well, a whole new world. Troutbeck had much to recommend it- an old stone manor house, a babbling brook, a wide variety of beautiful plantings- but our room, and particularly the headboard of the four poster bed, was especially fascinating.

I should maybe mention here, by way of explanation of the half-naked exploring, that Clio has become even more impossible to change. She freaks out when you get her on her back- and more and more often, she manages to get away from me. This time, I didn't have the heart to interrupt her climbing expidition. Look how pleased she is to have made it to "the top":

Later that afternoon, when we pulled back the covers to take an afternoon nap, we discovered that someone had made a big wet spot in the sheets, right between our pillows. Turns out that bare-butt time is dangerous, especially when combined with exciting new activities.

Dave slept in the wet spot. But only because it was more on his side, and I think we were both too tired to argue.

Driving to Amenia (or, "The Six-Hour Tour")

Memorial Day weekend. Fenske-Bahat nuptials in Amenia, New York, a picturesque town in the Catskills. According to Google maps, a 2 hour and 10 minute drive from Manhattan. About an hour in to our trip, we were still on the Brooklyn-Queens expressway, and I had the good sense to remark, "the longest it's ever taken me to get out of the city is about 2 hours." Jinx. At the 2 hour and 10 minute mark, we were crossing the Triboro bridge into the Bronx (yes, that's still a part of New York City, the very same City we started from). At 3 hours we passed Yankee stadium and started singing the Gilligan's Island theme song. At 4 hours, Clio threw up her lunch. (Perhaps we should have stopped the car to feed her her lunch in the first place.)


It was a complete mess, but she didn't seem to mind. In fact, she thought the peas and carrots on her shirt looked just fine for a second go-round (I'm pretty sure she's got one in her fist, here):


Hours 4 through 6 are a bit hazy, but they include: a second bout of car sickness for Clio, a stop at a roadside BBQ joint with an outdoor smoker, eating pulled pork in the car, getting hopelessly lost and apparently going in circles within, according to our directions, .2 miles of our destination, pouring rain just as we entered Amenia (the first time, before tumbling out on the other side of Amenia without finding our turnoff), and dubbing our car the Divorce Car.

My friend (and boss) Anne has a boat which Dave remembered is known as the Divorce Boat. I think these names are self explanatory. It should be said that we actually had a perfectly fine time on this adventure and found ourselves laughing by the time we reached Troutbeck; however, we've had similar luck with traffic and poor directions in the year that we've had this Taurus, and they mostly haven't ended with laughter.

At any rate, we did in fact make it- not in time for the cookout, but in time for an outdoor screening of Goonies with Sara, Roy, and many of their friends.

We'll take the rest of the weekend in installments, although I'll say right now that I did not capture many of the best moments- like the tandem bike + baby trailer- on camera. One day I'll learn.

Clio the terror

My uncle Jim and aunt Missy sometimes talk about their daughter Katie's baby pictures, and how, looking back, they could pinpoint the face that would spell trouble her entire life. The last time I heard him say this, I felt a little doom, because I already knew Clio's expression. It looks something like this, and it makes me fear for the toddler and teen years:


















See what I mean?
What's that saying? You get the child you deserve? You don't get a child you can't handle (are those like the glass half empty/ full versions of the same thing?)
Ask me if I believe it in a couple of years!