I realized that I left many words off of Lulu's word list. She is especially good at "thank you" which sounds more like "dih-doo", and reminds me that I failed to clarify that many of these words can only be understood by those of us who spend lots of time with her. She has a new favorite book, about a little boy named Albie, and on one of the pages, Albie's mom shouts his name. So when we turn to that page, Lizzie immediately starts calling, "AAAALLLL-BIEEEEE" and continues until the page is turned.
As my mom noticed when we were in Seattle, Lizzie intently studies Tommy and makes it her business to imitate whatever he is doing. This results in some incredibly cute moments, and some very frustrating ones for Tommy (he is especially tired of her drawing on his drawings). Lizzie also loves my handbags and since they are kept in Tommy's room, she often opens the cupboard and pulls out as many as she can and unzips and unsnaps them and carries them around. She is getting very good with a spoon and prefers to eat from a utensil rather than with her hands (though she is not averse to loading up her spoon with her hand if the food is tricky to get onto the spoon). She says "uh-oh" whenever food gets on her tray or on her clothes or on the floor, but still occasionally flings it to the ground when she's in the mood. One of the cutest moments last weekend occurred when we gave Tommy some ice cream before we gave Lizzie some -- she was in her seat and started screaming and shouting and trying to get out of the seat to see what Tommy had until we gave her some about 30 seconds after Tommy received his. I don't remember Tommy having such a sense of entitlement, but maybe he did and I've just forgotten? At any rate, in our family, not-yet-two-year-olds demand equal status and the strategy seems to work fairly well as she mostly does get everything that we get (but not wine, beer or soda all of which she requests whenever she sees them).
She still wakes up and calls "Mommy? Mommy! Moo-mmyyyyy!!" until one of us gets her. It's cute and only once have we left her for so long that she decided to try for Daddy, even though he is the one who usually gets her (remember, I didn't sleep through the night for more than a year, so it's fair).
The big news in Tommy-land is that he started the reading curriculum last week. It begins with books without words (so that the child tells the story from the pictures) and he apparently told his teacher that these books are boring because they don't have words. The books are boring, but the problems are larger than no words. But whatever, it's what they do. Sometimes I take pleasure in knowing that I am memorializing Tommy's fits on the blog so that one day, he can feel silly about them, and that's what I intend to do here. Yesterday morning, we wanted to take a photo of Tommy with his first book, and so repugnant was that idea to him that he threw a big fit. So here are the pictures:
(Does it seem like he's having a lot of fits lately to you, too? I am attributing it to the adjustment of school, and the exhaustion that comes with it, and trying to be loving and understanding. But honestly, I'm over the fits and hope that he soon will be, too.)
Now that we've covered the kids (as if! I could tell a million more stories about them because they are so funny and crazy!), I'll tell you all that I had a better week at work because I had more work to do. Lovely. I also ran a couple of the days -- once to the east and once to the west, and then back along the other side of the river. I find dodging the tourists sort of tricky and worry that I might end up with a sprained ankle, but it's worth it of course. I'm so lucky to work here. And I decided that I'm going to learn the city (that's this middle part that I work in, not the whole thing which feels to me about as big as Washington state) better than Eli so that when he wants to come down here, I can say things like, "oh, I really like the sandwiches at this place, let's have lunch here!" or "if we just go down this impossibly narrow street that doesn't even look like a street, we'll end up exactly where we want to be!" and "oh, I forgot my phone [which is also our map] at home but that's okay, we totally don't need it!"
Here's one embarrassing thing: Thursday morning I wore my running shoes with a dress because it's been GORGEOUS here so I wanted to wear a dress, and I also wanted to run later in the day (and I keep four pairs of shoes at the office because they're too high to do my walk to the tube in).
This, wearing running shoes with a dress on my commute, is something I thought I'd never do.
So at drop-off, a mom (who is my friend) said to me, "are you running in, Laura?" and laughed. Which was perfectly appropriate because I did look like a huge freaking dork. Sigh. I need a stylist. I'm sure Mandy is tired of walking in the door and answering questions about my outfit and whether the belt is too wild?
So Eli's been giving the old New Yorkers to a guy at his work who suddenly has started acting like a little b*tch (sorry, but there's no other way to describe him) so I told Eli that as soon as those people at the New Yorker resume my subscription (please pray for me, I am feeling desperate and cannot email them too many more times and do not have an iPad on which to download and read them on the Tube), the guy is CUT OFF. Seriously, this guy is doing crazy stuff like storming out of meetings (!) and it is stressing my poor husband out and for that I say, NO NEW YORKERS.
This post is not even interesting. I'll sign off and you can go on to something interesting (may I suggest this article http://www.spokesman.com/
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