Status report: Chloë, 4 years 1 month, and Maia, 28 months

These girls. How they grow. How they amaze. How they annoy. In other words, all is on schedule and perfectly healthy.

Chloë is such a big girl these days. She acts old...I mean, when she's not crying for ten minutes because we refused to let her change her socks so that her clothes would match. Eric has taught her checkers and a number of card games, and she wants to play those all the time now. She's also learned how to think about hypotheticals. Some time ago I asked her about a hypothetical, and she couldn't get past "but that isn't true." The other day we read "Olivia Meets Olivia," in which Olivia is designated Olivia One and does various things to deal with a second Olivia in her class. Afterward I asked her what she would do if she had another Chloë in her class. She said, "Well, I would be Chloë One, because I'm the first one I know, and she would be Chloë Two."

She likes to get in people's faces a lot--not aggressively, just darting in for lots of kisses or to show me something an inch from my eye. She's still pretty clingy; we had trouble leaving a few times when we were in Daytona Beach, even though she had tons of family around her and our assurance that we wouldn't be gone long. But she's eagerly looking forward to preschool again (next week!).

She and Maia are still great pals. In the morning they'll often greet each other with a hug. They squabble about who gets to play what--Chloë definitely isn't old enough to understand the "other people have rights too" concept--but they love to play together, and make up games and stories, and Chloë will include Maia on things like decisions while she's playing a game on her LeapPad.

Maia, in the meantime, is our fiery little girl. We're definitely getting more of the Terrible Twos with her than we did with Chloë. (Does this mean the threes won't be as bad?) She very often refuses to clean, saying, "I don't want to," and we then have to yell at her and/or threaten room time before she complies. Chloë tattles on her all the time, and it's annoying, but it's also true that she's not nearly as obedient as we'd like. When we bake I still have to yell at her about not putting measuring spoons in her mouth and not sticking her fingers in the bowl. Or picking up the spilled baking soda off the counter and licking it, though really if that actually appeals to her I'm not going to oppose it. 

She's not progressing on potty training, but she's not backsliding either; she uses the potty sometimes, but mostly she just uses her diaper. She's much more likely to use the potty the later it gets past her bedtime, though.

She loves to sing. She's not very firm on the ABC song, but she can do Twinkle Star and Baa Baa Black Sheep and part of the Dora theme song with the best of them. When Chloë wants to dance (which she does, often), Maia will generally dance along and start singing whatever's in her mind.

She asked me to sing a song about "woman" last night. After I did ("big women, small women, short women, tall women"), she sang, "I love woman, lots of woman!" As Eric said, maybe there won't be any grandchildren out of that one. However, her bedtime song is usually the Soft Kitty song from "The Big Bang Theory," passed on from Uncle Bob, with a couple of added verses by me because it gets monotonous when she wants to hear it for the tenth time that night. Her latest potty-training prize is a tiny stuffed kitten, now named Banana (mostly by Chloë) because it's light yellow, and when I tuck her in she hands Banana to me and says, "Sing kitty song," expecting me to make Banana dance to its tune. She still hasn't given up playing kitty, being kitty, loving kitties. And mewing when she wakes up. I think we all know what she's going to be for Halloween.

In the meantime, Chloë and I ended up talking about Christmas at bedtime tonight (it followed naturally from her checkup tomorrow and cranberry juice...just trust me) and she said, "I love Christmas and Thanksgiving! They're my favorite days!"

"They're good days," I agreed, and prepared to say something about having to wait for them.

"Every day is a good day," she sang, her head nestled against me as we snuggled. "Every day is a good day!"

Status report: Chloë, 3 years 10 months

"Maia has the softest skin I've ever kissed," Chloë said yesterday, after "group hug" time with all four of us, which she mostly spent madly kissing her sister. "And you have the slipperiest," she added to me, running a finger down my face. I'm not quite sure how to take that.

Chloë doesn't do naked time anymore because she would rather play "dance class," which consists mostly of wearing a dress and occasionally scolding Maia or me because class is about to start. She loves her dresses and her dancing. She can now dress herself entirely, except for socks which she continues to have problems with. You'd think that, considering she hasn't taken them off except for baths and momentary changes since, like, 2011, she'd have figured them out by now.

We've decided to get rid of her size-four clothes, except for a few loose shirts and skirts. Have I mentioned yet that she's a big girl? We're planning on taking away her sippy-cup rights, but she's not interested in this at all; she's even regressed away from straw cups, preferring actual sippies when she can get them. She's also showing a more typical-than-I-hoped tendency to be a picky eater. She doesn't like cheesy pasta anymore. She doesn't like green beans anymore. She doesn't like fried rice or peppers or smoked sausage. She has discovered a love for sweet potatoes, and still professes to enjoy frozen peas, and of course is extremely keen on candy and popsicles and ice cream. We're anticipating more fights at the dinner table wherein she demands something else for dinner and we refuse. Fun times.

She's also regressing a little when it comes to leaving Eric and me. We sent the girls to Memaw's recently so we could go out for our anniversary (six years! And we haven't killed each other yet!) and have left them at Aunt Angie's a couple of times, and each time she's wept and screamed about it. "I want to stay with you," she wails. We expected that she'd have fun once we left. And, the report goes, she did stop crying not long after the door closed behind us, but she was pretty quiet and was very, very glad when we came back. She doesn't like going downstairs without us, either. I worry a bit about this lack of...what is it? Independence? Self-confidence? Secure attachment? (Only I just looked up this last and no, she shows signs of secure attachment; the "secure" describes the attachment, not the child.)

We've signed her up for swim lessons, and she's agreed that sounds fun, though I anticipate a fight getting her socks off, just like last year. We're planning on going to Daytona Beach for the Snyder family vacation again this year, and she told me that she would "try to go in the water."

She now owns a few learn-to-read books, and we've started sounding out words. Sometimes she's delighted by this--particularly the one session we had with the foam bath letters--and sometimes she squirms and doesn't want to participate. I'm hoping to get her to the point where she can recognize a couple of words on sight ("Hi" is good, since it's the first word of her Dora learn-to-read book) and give her some confidence that way.

She remains a loving sister, though she does try to order Maia around more than I'd like and at the same time tends to wail and scream, more than Maia ever does, when Maia doesn't do what she wants. "I love Maia best of our family," she told me recently. I'm good with that. When we snuggle at night (another thing I want to wean her off of--not that I don't like the snuggling, but she needs to sleep without it eventually) she whispers, "I love you," and I stroke her hair and whisper back, "I love you too."

Dear Maia, year two (and one month)

Dear Maia kitten,

Today you are two years and one month old. I was supposed to get this letter written a month ago. I started it; but life was too exhausting at the moment and I decided that this could wait, rather than, say, making your current two-year-old self wait for the diaper changes you now demand the instant you wet them. If it’s so bothersome, let’s work on the potty training some more, that’s what I say.

You are a delightful, delightful girl. Neither your dad nor I can get over your cuteness, your soft curls at the back of your head (your hair so long we can get it into pigtails now!), your sweet face, your high clear self-possessed little voice. You speak very well, even better than your sister did at this age. Certainly the sounds you have are different. She said “ove hoo,” you say, “wuv you.” You say “I” and “me “ already, and have been for months, and you can say pretty complicated things. “I think I do not,” you say when we ask if you need help. “Do not hug me and kiss me,” you said to me today, when I was trying to bring you up on the couch with me and apparently you feared I would be too smothering. You’re a very independent little girl. You love your snuggles, but on your own terms. And usually as a cat. We’ve been playing cat-and-kitten together for several weeks now, you and I. “Mama kitty,” you call me, and I say, “Hi kitten,” and we meow and nuzzle each other. Sometimes saying “Good night kitten,” is all that gets you to settle down in your crib at night. It’s the sweetest thing. Kind of confusing when you’re also demanding that I do my Cookie Monster imitation (“Me hungry for chicken, broccoli, and sweet potatoes!”), but I roll with  it.

Chloë steadfastly refuses to participate in the cat game, saying “I’m a human!” whenever we try to include her as a cat, so you and I meow by ourselves. It’s one of very few things that are just the two of us, which makes it especially dear to me. But I also love when the three of us (or four of us) play together. You love ring-around-the-rosy, Chloe trying to pull you down and me trying to hold her back; dancing in the living room; the two of you bringing your stuffed animals to me so I can give them  checkups. You play really well with your sister these days, too. The two of you will put on hats and shoes and be dancers, or deep-sea divers, or astronauts. You build towers and bridges and play with the Winnie-the-Pooh Duplos (even when it mostly consists of you playing with the Piglet and Pooh and  your sister howling “No, Maia!!” because you didn’t do exactly what she had envisioned, without telling you what she wanted). You’ll often hug each other, and it’s often with an eye to your dad or me to make sure we see you, but you genuinely love each other. It makes me so happy to see you together. I’m not so excited when you do whatever Chloë’s doing just because she’s doing it, including things like saying “I have a tummy ache” or “I’m tired” when you don’t want to help clean up toys, but I know that’s the price we pay.

You’re very definite about wanting to do what you can—climbing into and out of your car seat, zipping up your jacket when I start it, taking off your own diaper for potty attempts. You run for the stool from the bathroom to climb up on my bed or turn on the light. “Me!” you howl if I try to do something for you that you think you can do. If I catch myself in time we’re usually okay. Otherwise, you tend to throw a tantrum. You’re a sweet sunny girl, but you do get upset when you don’t get what you want. You’ve been doing a lot of defiance lately, too, and I swear it’s just to see what it takes to get in trouble. I’ll tell you to start picking up blocks, say, and  you’ll say “no.” I say “Do it now, or you’re getting a time out,” and you just sit, silently, watching me. I give you your time-out and you stand in the corner patiently and obediently. Then when I release you, you run to pick up the blocks. There have been a few times when you’ve been genuinely worried about my reaction to something—for example, when I found you with a big orange mustache from the markers I’d forgotten to put up out of reach—but for the most part, you’re really a very good girl. You remember about the no-no cabinet (the bathroom cleaning supplies) and you’ve been better about not pulling my bookmarks out of my books so much. You put garbage or plates away when we ask you. You stop running in the grocery store when we tell you. (Well, mostly. But it doesn’t help that your sister is always egging you on, and we understand that, though we pretend it doesn’t matter.) You understand so well, and you behave pretty well, too. I’m proud of you.

You’re starting to work on potty training; you have your own little frog potty, but you like using the big toilet with the potty seat you persist in referring to as Chloë’s, though she hasn’t used it in months. You’ve also tried perching there without the seat, presumably because Chloë does, but you don’t seem to feel very secure. (Which is okay; I don’t either. I want to hold you to make sure you don’t fall in, but you said “Do not hold me,”  so I don’t. I just hover anxiously.) You’ve peed in the potty a few times, most often during bathtime for some reason, but you don’t seem to have the concept really down. I don’t mind; you’re only just two. Recently you’ve been demanding instant diaper changes, and saying “I need to pee,” at various times. We’ll see how that goes this year. You’re pretty good at taking your clothes off, and your diaper (and I’m very grateful that except for a few instances, you only do it when you’re supposed to). Also at putting your clothes on. You’re not good at wiping yourself, or combing your hair or brushing your teeth; but you love to do it, so we let you do it.

We stopped nursing when you were nineteen or twenty months. I still vaguely miss it, and you still vaguely seem to remember some connection with my chest, but mostly you’re a big-girl eater and drinker, and we’re both happy this way. You’ve started drinking water out of big-girl cups, and are very proud of yourself when you don’t spill any down your front. (You also enjoy swishing it around in your mouth after toothbrushing. Eventually we’ll get you to spit it out instead of swallowing.) You do pretty well with your fork and spoon, and you enjoy a pretty good variety of foods. You’re pretty variable on how much you eat, but then, you’re a growing toddler, so that’s to be expected. You adore “snackies,” and will say things like, “No dinner for me. Can I have snack?” 

You also love Dora and Diego and Scout. I know we exposed you to TV more and sooner than we did your sister, because your sister was already watching, and I regret that; you’re self-sufficient enough that you can always find something to entertain yourself with, and you’ll often wander off in the middle of shows to color or play with Legos or come find me (since I usually use shows as my working-in-the-kitchen time).  I really love your independence. 

It also makes me feel a little nonplussed at times. I still call you my baby, and you’re still baby-soft and you toddle sometimes, especially when you run, and you like to be held in my arms; but you’re not really a baby, and you’re pushing yourself away from your dad and me, testing your wings already. I sometimes feel like you’re a stranger. Which I suppose you are in some ways; I’ve known you two years, but a lot of that first year was a nonstarter as far as getting to know you, since there wasn’t much you then—not nearly as much as there is now, and it’s still changing and developing. You’re so interesting now. You’re hot-tempered, quick to laugh, quick to try something you’ve seen someone do. When you don’t want to do something, you refuse and stand there, immovable. (Well, except that you’re small enough to be picked up, of course.) You’re not afraid to demand what you want or what you think should happen. You love to read and to pretend to be something else—a cat, a dog, a superhero. “Super Maia, to the rescue!” you say as I tie a scarf around you as a cape, and put your hands on your hips, and rocket away from me, and I watch you with a proud, amused, wistful smile.

I’ve been trying to remember baby you the past few days, and it’s hard to do. You have only ever been the way you are: darling Maia, my sweet big little girl, who can run and jump and draw circles, who brings squiggly drawings proudly to me and runs away when it’s time for diaper changes (you’re the one who asked for them!), who has giggly sessions of saying “poopy!” with your sister, who tells your dad and me spontaneously "I wuv you," and who sometimes pushes your daddy away at night, saying “No, Dad. Mama!” which always makes me feel sort of sorry for your dad, but secretly delighted that you want me. I love you, my kitten, my funny wiggly girl. Here’s to year two, and to even more Maia, which is all I could want.

Love,

Mama kitty

Status report: Chloë, 3 years 9 months

Chloë this month is...well, mostly, obsessed with her body videos. "I saw a cloud shaped like a stomach!" she told me coming home today. "And the intestines under it!" 

She's very keen on electronics in general; shows are still big, but the tablet with its Youtube and my phone with its Wonder Zoo app (she likes catching animals for the zoo) and her LeapPad with its math game are much more interesting.

Her drawings have become increasingly complex and original. We have a "gallery" in the hallway now of her pictures. One is a flower I drew that she merely colored in. But the others are flowers in dirt; a campfire with sky above; a slide on grass and flowers; and another campfire, but with a guy roasting marshmallows over it, all completely drawn by her. And then there's this gem that she came up with during Colorforms play:

I did the seesaw and helped make the swing set long enough to accommodate all three swings she wanted by putting multiple Colorforms end-to-end. She did the rest. And then there's Legos:

I helped with this too, especially when she started screaming about the Legos not staying up. Now she knows about supports. But it was her idea and she did most of the work. 

In a way it's been a tough month. I can't even indulge in the "I bet she'll be an X when she grows up" because, contrary to her plans, I know she can't possibly be a physician and an artist and an architect and a dentist and a teacher and an astronaut and a circus performer. ("Watch my trick," she says, and balances on her head. But that's not actually the trick; the trick is a somersault which she accomplishes about a third of the time. She used to be better at it.) Luckily, "evil overlord" is a catchall job description.

Helping with that last, she's becoming more and more bossy, both with us and with Maia. We're still learning when it's worth it to reason or argue with her and when we need to assert our essential parenthood. "You don't order me around!" Chloë told me at dinner tonight. My answer was, "I'm your mother. That's part of my job." I can still shut her down with a well-placed yell or ultimatum, but she usually collapses into loud tears when I do, so I'd rather not when I don't have to. 

As for Maia, Chloë's very fond of telling her "No! Don't color on my picture!" or "Don't eat your hands!" or "Come to my room for a sleepover!" She's actually drawn multiple pictures depicting things Maia shouldn't do (take her lip balm, mostly) with "MAiA" and "ON" (she still hasn't captured the concept of writing left-to-right) written on them. She's so funny. But they still get along great, especially now that Maia's able to play and understand better. With the weather improving we've been getting outside as we can, and they love playing in the sandbox or using sidewalk chalk or flying kites together. She's finally learned how to ride the tricycle, including turns, though she still fusses when she gets stuck. She likes to have her own way, but she's also very encouraging to Maia. She's excited about Maia's party and the present she picked out (and also the one that we picked out), and will happily wait for her or fetch things for her, and they do decently well on sharing, even the LeapPad.

And now that she's finally mastered riding her tricycle (she rode all the way around the block today! And kept going even after taking a tumble!), she's found a new way to have fun with her little sister:

She's a very sweet big sister. Funny and silly and creative and smart. Definitely a keeper. Besides, I'm going to reach the age of bodily ailments soon and she'll be able to tell me exactly where my duodenum is.

Status report: Chloë, 3 years 8 months, and Maia, 23 months

The girls are impossibly cute and impossibly annoying and impossibly smart and entertaining and impossible, in general. In fact, logically speaking I don't have children. Then why am I so tired?

Chloë and I have spent the last few nights' "I get to stay up late because I had a nap" times looking at Youtube videos of the digestive, skeletal, and circulatory systems. She's been especially interested in her My First Body Book lately and has been asking questions about it. A couple of days ago she asked Eric to draw her the outline of a body, and proceeded to color in the organs and veins just as they suggest in the book. (The heart was below the stomach. Otherwise, it was pretty accurate.) "The video on digestion is my favorite," she said this morning. "Can we watch them again?" I am the proudest parent of a three-year-old ever. Even if the next thing she wants to watch is the Hemaway ad so she can watch someone pooping.



We got Chloë a math-based game for her LeapPad for the trip. She's already played every level and won every badge, and still plays almost daily. I venture to say she likes it.

She made a snake out of clay at preschool, and shortly after she brought it home I opened up the modelling clay they got at Christmas. I ended up making most of the things that first session (including a puppy for Maia that she was enthusiastic about, even as she slowly squished it into nonexistence), but a few days ago Eric let them play again and she made her own nest and eggs:



She is the most talented girl ever.

Maia has decided that limit-testing is a great pastime. "Don't do X," I say sternly. She stops and says, "I not doing X any more." Then, as soon as I've stopped eyeing her, she does X again.

She's also very fond of ordering me around. When she greets me when I get home in the evening, she says, "Hug, Mom? Hug?" Then, as soon as I pick her up, "Take your jacket off!" She likes to take hold of my cheeks and move my face around, probably for the faces I make while she's doing it. "Open your knees," she says when she wants to stand between my legs when I'm sitting on the couch; and if she wants to be enclosed in them, "Close your toes."

She knows most of her letters and some of her numbers. She persistently forgets about the existence of the number five, but otherwise is doing pretty well on counting, too. She now calls Chloë "Chwoë" instead of "Toë." It's still very cute, but I kind of miss Toë. Her voice is so small and high and articulate. She's the funniest thing.

She enjoys playing the "I'm your blanket Mama" game, meaning that she stretches out on top of me and I pretend to sleep (complete with snoring noises), and then she gets up and walks away and, if I don't do anything, prompts, "Where your blanket Mama?" whereupon I say "Hey, where's my blanket? Come back, blanket!" And she does.

She's not in pain. She's just sleeping. Can't you tell?

The girls have been doing a lot of "sleepover" and "make a nest" playing in their rooms. After bathtime they get their hair combed--Maia, too, now, and I just adore the little curls at the ends of her hair--and Maia gets a diaper on, and they romp around and try to jump on the bed when we aren't looking. Then they fight over whose book is whose and whether the kitty belongs to Chloë or Maia (it's Chloë's), but on the whole we're still glad we have two instead of one.

They had a good time on Easter. I hadn't planned on doing an egg hunt for them, but Chloë remembered last year's and asked after it, persistently, so I hid eggs around. They picked them up. And, true to form, if they missed one we'd say "There!" pointing, and they'd say, "Where?" while looking right at it. When do young children learn to see?

Chloë keeps asking about going back to the skating ring (where her cousin's birthday party was more than a year ago) and they were both terribly excited about their return to the park when the weather turned (briefly) warm a few days ago. So am I, for that matter. We've got some seedlings started that they helped plant, and I hope to get the garden in shape to plant more things outdoors soon. They'll love it.

Status report: Chloë, 3 years 7 months, and Maia, 22 months

I have no coherent thoughts today, because coherent thoughts are for people who haven't been woken up multiple times for an hour or more by their children who ought to be sleeping peacefully through the night and not up screaming and bouncing in their cribs, dammit. But we're leaving soon for Seattle (vacation! Plane ride! Other people to watch the girls!) and the monthly report must go up. 

What's been accomplished this month? Well, we're all still alive. Also, Maia's working on counting and Chloë has asked "Can we continue cleaning up?" which will never happen again, but totally charmed me when it did. And nightly naked time has morphed into dress-up time:

This has been a big month for numbers, for both girls. Maia can now recognize most letters and some numbers, and is working on counting. It's still a tossup whether she'll remember five and count normally, or skip it and go to "six, eighteen, eleven," but at least she does it sometimes. Even if she slips "twelveteen" in there. 

I mean what I mean, dahling.

Chloë's very taken with addition, and is at least cognizant of subtraction. We're working on the plus and minus symbols. Tonight she asked me "How much is three plus three?" I told her, and then Eric asked her, "How much is three plus four?" She said brightly, "Let's count!" and held out her hands, three fingers on one, four on the other, and counted them up.

Chloë, talking about the prize she wants for learning to not only sit on the toilet without a potty seat, but wipe herself while sitting (hooray!): "It should be very sparkly with all my favorite colors. One, green. Two, turquoise. Three, purple. And four, pink," ticking them off on her fingers.

(We got it today. It was a purple headband with a big purple flower that had some rhinestones in the middle.)

Maia, methodically taking blocks out, then putting them back in the little wagon they belong in: "One in. Two in. Three in. Four in. Five in. Six in."

So: numbers and words, all of them, being sucked in by both girls. It's delightful to watch in both of them. Each day there's some little nuance that wasn't there before. Maia's grasped the "stop counting when you run out of things to count" concept; Chloë asked "Is there a barn in our world?" tonight because she knows that Dora and Diego and Huckle and Lowly aren't in our world.

They're playing with each other more and more, not just things like blocks and trains (though those are delightful; the other evening when I came home Chloë greeted me with "Come see our surprise that is ruined!" which turned out to be a perfectly wonderful configuration of train tracks with the hill a bit askew) but games of "This is the stage and let's be dancers," and "There's a monster ghost out there, let's hide in our tent." Here, for example, they are wearing their safety helmets to ride their motorcycle/truck/boat/spaceship:

Chloë continues to be whiny; Maia continues to be screamy and tantrumy when she doesn't get her way, and also increasingly at bedtime. And after bedtime. Did I mention the middle-of-the-night wakeups? But they're also lovely to each other and to us. Maia's "I wove you too Dad/Mom" is the sweetest thing.  Chloë is working on orienting her clothes herself (reluctantly), and was so proud of herself when she stopped using the potty seat. "I'm the best girl ever!" Maia has started getting Chloë's box of wipes for her when she's on the toilet (since Chloë hasn't advanced so far that she's not holding the toilet seat with a death grip while she's on it). Chloë is admittedly a bit of a tattletale whenever Maia steps out of line, but it's often because she's genuinely worried. "Maia is going toward the street!" she'll call if they're on the driveway and I'm around the corner momentarily. "Maia, don't go in the street! The cars will get you!" Maia continues to be more independent, but Chloë's also fond of taking the lead. They're both pretty intrepid explorers together. We like them that way.

Status report: Chloë, 3 years 6 months, and Maia, 21 months

Meet Toë McWhinerson, age three and a half.

These are Chloë's most prominent traits at the moment. She whines. All day. For no reason. (Well, sometimes for reason.) She whines for food. She whines to snuggle. She whines that she's tired, and then that she's not tired. She whines because she wants a shoooooooow, right noooooooow. She whines because I gave her a straw cup instead of a sippy. (And let me tell you, it annoys me when my clients get upset with me for not reading their minds. It annoys me no less when my daughter does it. Though she did learn--this morning she said very carefully, "Mama, will you give me my hot chocolate in a sippy? In a sippy.")

We've moved to a sort of hybrid temporary sleep schedule for her. She really still needs a nap after lunch, but she's very reluctant to get it, and if she does, she generally doesn't get to sleep very quickly. So she gets a mandatory fifteen minutes of quiet time during the day. If she sleeps (as will happen when Eric snuggles with her), she gets to stay up an extra hour at night. If she doesn't, she goes to bed when Maia does. I'm hoping this settles out one way or the other, because I don't like the variability, but it seems to be working so far. But the no-nap days she's particularly whiny, and snaps angrily whenever we suggest it's because she's tired.

And then there's the "Toë, Maia's Big Sister" aspect of her. Especially now that Maia can really communicate and understand and respond, she's very in tune with what Maia's saying and where she is and what she's doing (or not doing). There's plenty of bossiness there, but also plenty of concern and affection. She craves Maia's company. Several times a day she'll say "Maia, grab my hand!" or "Come with me!" or "Don't you want to play?" Maia would obviously be just as happy to be left alone, but she goes along with whatever Chloë wants, and they're both happy. The other day Chloë was upset about something--I forget what--and said plaintively, "Maia, do you want a hug?" Maia agreed, indifferently, and Chloë swiftly closed in because what she really wanted, of course, was to get a hug from her beloved little sister.

Maia is also devoted to her sister--her most frequent question when they're apart is "Where Toë?"--but is definitely working on her independent and defiant side. She continues to be happy to play by herself much more than Chloë ever has. And she's showing an inconvenient amount of rebellion, often running away in the store or in the street, refusing to do things I ask. Possibly her most annoying habit is, when Chloë gets told not to do something, to immediately do whatever Chloë was just forbidden. I assume she would have gotten to it sooner but didn't realize it fell into the "forbidden therefore desirable" category.

But she's also working on becoming her own little person. She's very sweet about saying "thank you" and "you're welcome" and "I love you too." And her sentences! Were there ever any girls so good at language so early! (Yes, I'm sure there were, but don't burst my bubble.) One of her favorite Christmas presents was Big Dog, Little Dog, and she often comes to me to say, "Read Big Dog Little Dog please Mama." Then she'll recite, "Big Dog Little Dog P. D. Eastman," because I have a habit of reading out the author's name when I read books to the girls. (I can tell you where this comes from, too. When I was little I had an audio book of Sleeping Beauty, by Freya Littledale. I remember it distinctly, after some twenty-five years, because the tape said so at the beginning and I played it so often.) She says "Help Maia Mama. Dolly falling down!" and "My banana. Daddy banana," pointing, and "Maia eat cookie too."

And then there's Chloë, talking about "the proper order" for her Memory cards (because Scout and friends talk about it on the "Numberland" LeapFrog show) and saying knowledgeably, when shown a picture of me at eight, "When you were little we looked similar." She often comes out with some tidbit she learned from Diego or preschool, or remembered from a book. 

Maia is progressing nicely, developmentally. She knows her colors and can sing most of the ABCs, and can recognize some of the letters. She can draw circles and lines, and sing along with songs, and tell me "Take pants off Mama please" when I'm in the middle of getting dressed and have neglected to remove my pajama pants quickly enough.

Her canines have finally started filling in, and she's started saying "poopy" to mean a diaper with anything in it. She's had a few successes with the potty, but I consider this "hey, I just went in my diaper" to be the best next step for her potty training. Though considering the trouble we went through with Chloë, I can hardly set myself up as knowledgeable about it.

Oh, and I forgot to say, but Maia was definitively weaned a little over a month ago. We'd been down to once a day in the morning anyway, and then I just quit. She didn't fuss too much. She still talks about "milk in there," pointing to the glider, but she doesn't argue when I then take us downstairs to get milk. She'll even sit in the glider, snuggled with her dolly or Beep, and wait for me to get it. It's nice. 

And then there's this morning, when the four of us were all in our big bed. Maia leaned over and poked at the R.I.N.D.S., alternately, saying, "Pop pop pop."

They're silly girls, is what I'm saying. They're funny and happy together, and growing well and not driving us crazy...totally...all the time. Smart, sassy, strong girls, and I'm proud to be their mama.

Status report: Chloë, 3 years 5 months, and Maia, 20 months

And so on the last day of the year I bring you the last monthly update of the year. The girls know that we're having a party tonight, but not why; and though they're big, big girls, they're not big enough yet to stay up for midnight.

"Aw, Mom."

Chloë is going through a whiny, defiant stage. Have I mentioned this before? It's still true. "No fair!" she was yelling at intervals all morning. (Eric blames me. I'm afraid this time he's correct. It's from the "Bedtime for Frances" miniseries I found on Netflix.) "I didn't want you to zip it all the way," she complains when we help too much. "You don't both need to tell me," she says when Eric and both holler "Yes!" when she's called out "I can flush, right?"

Vis a vis the potty, she's almost entirely independent now. We've been checking her wiping (visually), but she's been doing well, so I told her last night that if she felt dry, she could just pull up her underwear and proceed to flushing and washing. I expected her to call me anyway, but she didn't. Next step is to get her off the potty seat. I keep mentioning it and forgetting to do it.

Maia's been doing some sitting on the potty, occasionally, but I think it's mainly so that she can read her potty books. She does enjoy the attention, though, and especially being on Chloë's seat. And Chloë's always very helpful in telling me "Maia wants to sit on my potty seat," and putting the seat on and moving the stool so I really have no choice.

Chloë showed the probably typical but unbecoming "Are there more presents for me?" attitude during Christmas, but other than that they were both delightful during the holidays. They enjoyed their toys, helped clean up without much grumbling, helped enthusiastically with baking. Chloë's fairly good at measuring out dry ingredients, and is eager to say "I can do that!" whenever I introduce a new step. She wants to learn about cracking eggs, but I'm not ready for that yet. Maia likes to stand on the chair with Chloë and dip her fingers into things. Chloë got an easel for Christmas, and when Eric started to put it together, she clamored to help. "I don't think there's much you can do," he told her, "but we'll see." But, in fact, she helped gather and hold things, keep track of the "L," hold pieces in place, and screw on the wing nuts. She also did her first screw-driving helping to change batteries in her moon and stars. We'll have her fixing the roof in no time.

She's still keenly interested in the alphabet and counting. She's getting better at the teens and can work her way up to one hundred if you prompt her a few times. She also knows two plus two is four, though I'm not sure she could do two plus three. 

Maia is talking, talking, always talking. A lot of it is mimicking, especially anything Chloë says; but she comes up with her own sentences too. Like "Mama eating pizza too" and "Mitten falling down!" and "Daddy sleeping, tiptoe, shhh," and, heart-meltingly, "Happy see you Mama." She's starting to take more interest in her wardrobe, and whenever I help her on with something she particularly likes, she wants to go show Daddy.

She's now our adventurous eater; Chloë doesn't like anything remotely "spicy" (occasionally including basil and oregano, though not cinnamon) and has recently declared she didn't like tomatoes, though she then ate about a third of a pound of them at Memaw's with her cousins, so she's clearly not being totally truthful there.  But Maia likes my spicy cheese (pepperjack) and the cheese-onion tart at Christmas and my potato omelets and, in general, anything her sister and father won't touch. She's not keen on bacon or sausage (though Chloë adores them both), but she liked the ham at Christmas and in general is eager to try anything on Eric's plate, or mine, that she doesn't have. Or that she does have. She also likes to eat with my fork.

However, Chloë still loves her mermaid food, seaweed and seaweed soup and rice. Maia too. Mom made them soup when they were here (she makes it better than I do) and they both literally slurped it up.

Maia is so funny these days. Dad invented a game wherein he's sitting on the couch, and she's trapped between his legs, and the only way to get out is to tickle his toes. She loved this game, and of course played it with me when he was gone. Then the other night she played the "Mama tunnel" game (crawling between my legs, particularly when I'm standing right against a counter). I trapped her and said "What do you do to get free?" and after a few seconds' thought she tickled my feet.

Also, she continues to like playing with her blankets:

The girls are really engaging with each other these days. They have actual conversations sometimes ("Maia, do you want to play sleepover?" "Yeah!" "Okay, let's go to my room." "Wait, Toë." "Oh, you need your babies? I'll help carry them." "Thank you Toë.") I came down the other day to find they'd dragged Maia's little couch to the entryway and were kneeling backward on it, talking animatedly about fish. Turned out they were on a boat. They're considerate of each other most of the time, responding to each other's wants and upsets. They're such sweet girls.

Status report: Chloë, 3 years 4 months, and Maia, 19 months

This will be a short, incomplete update. I'm sorry for the lack of posting and pictures this month. I've been focusing on (a) other writing and (b) Christmas crafting, and I'm at full capacity for my concentration, so with those shifting to the forefront other things are having to feel the neglect, and that includes the blog.

Also, Eric has the flu. He's been incarcerated in the bedroom (with bathroom privileges) because the girls got flu shots, uh, yesterday. Cross your fingers that I don't get it, because if I do, the girls are doomed.

Regarding Christmas crafting, I've completed a sweater for Maia (...by finishing the one I started last year for Chloe) and mittens for Chloë, and next up is dolls for each of them. Chloë asked me yesterday what my "best present" would be for Christmas. (I assume a preschool teacher asked her.) Hers was, "A dolly or a third piano. We already have two." She's correct on that last, so I'm glad I'm already working on the first.

She continues to love preschool and draw ever more complex pictures. Today she drew a bird. An oval for the body, with a smile and eyes for the face, and two ovals for the wings. She fretted that they weren't the same size, but she was proud of herself all the same, as was I. She builds up "walls" and "boats" and "twists" out of Duplos, screaming in frustration when things break. She keeps coming up with very adult-sounding conversational phrases. She's going through an "I told you" phase at the moment (usually when she hasn't, in fact, told us anything). We've pushed her to be more independent with  the bathroom, and she'll now wipe herself completely, but still wants us there to check--and since her attention to her bottom is sporadic, we still do. The next step is getting her off the potty seat.

Maia continues to be ridiculously verbal. She had her eighteen-month checkup yesterday (there was a scheduling mixup) and the doctor was astonished when she pointed to the pink fish on the wall and said clearly, "Pink."

"She knows colors?!" he said. Later, he said, per routine, "Do you have any concerns about her development?" and then paused and said, "I'm guessing not."

She does, indeed, know colors. She mixes up blue and purple a bit, and will occasionally switch red and green, but mostly she's gotten really good at them. She also knows number names, and may understand what "one" actually means, and can help fill in the alphabet song when Chloë sings it. And she's just started on two-word sentences...as in, if I'd posted this on time I couldn't have said that. Yesterday Chloë was helping me wind a ball of yarn and Maia said, to my surprise, "Maia turn." Of course she got her turn. She's excellent with her "please" and "thank you," and knows her body parts, numerous people, numerous characters, animals and their noises, colors of course, and an assortment of other things. She's finally started consenting to give Chloë a good-night hug and kiss and "Night" instead of running off, giggling, or pushing her away.

Tonight I sent Chloë to get her room ready for bed (it requires turning on the moon and the stars) while I changed a late poopy diaper on Maia. Afterward I told Maia to go tell  Chloë good-night while I washed my hands. I arrived in Chloë's doorway in time to hear Chloë say "Do you want a hug, Maia?" and Maia say yes and toddle toward the bed, and Chloë stretch down to embrace her.

Maia's favorite toys at the moment are the Duplo Pooh and Piglet, and she's formed a big attachment to her Winnie-the-Pooh mobile (and can name all four characters dangling from it). Unfortunately it's a manual wind-up and doesn't go for very long, so we've been having a lot of bedtimes involving two minutes of quiet followed by screaming and "That! That!" since that's how she indicates she wants the mobile on, "mobile" apparently not one of her hundred-plus vocabulary words. (Eric read somewhere that her age  group should know eighteen to twenty words by now. We are very prideful.)

The girls continue to do well together, thought Chloë can be territorial. They play pretend games together, including Tea Party and Rocketship and Naptime ("Nap" is another of Maia's words) and, the other day, Santa. ("Who is the pretend Santa in our village?" Chloë asked. "Tom," I said. "No, here," she said. "I don't know," I said. "Then you are, Mama! I'm going to be Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.") They had a great time when I raked the leaves the other day (for real, though possibly too late; the leaf pile has been in the street for over a week), Chloë alternately ordering or beseeching Maia to do this or the other, and Maia generally happy to accede.

Status report: Chloë, 3 years 3 months, and Maia, 18 months

Our dear 3.25-year-old Chloë is currently fast asleep, despite being stuffed full of candy and Halloween excitement (I'll try to make that another post) and Busytown episodes. Netflix is great, but it's created certain unintended consequences. One of these is Chloë asking constantly for shows, particularly "Busytown Mysteries" (based on the Richard Scarry books; organized or whatever by his son, Huckle is rather predictably the hero). "Can we have just one show before we wake up Daddy?" she asks hopefully in the mornings, though she knows my answer is always "No, Daddy controls shows on the days I go to work."

She's definitely starting to wade into the waters of literacy. She can spell her name, and write all the letters, though she hasn't yet gotten a firm grip on the concept of left-to-right. She's getting better at lower-case letters, and delights in pointing out letters she sees on signs when we go out, especially if they're letters that "are in my name!" She knows how to spell "on" because I always ask her to push that button on the scale when she's helping me bake, and that "zero" starts with a Z for the same reason. She sounds out the beginnings of words quite often, and sometimes I'll prompt her to sound out the rest.

She says, "I know," often, as in "I know, I know," when we tell her to do something, or "I know that," when we correct her. Interesting how early that starts. She puts on all her own clothes now, except for her socks and the occasional difficult dress. She still hates having her hair brushed. She loves the temporary tattoos that she's been getting with her three or four or five (!) Halloween events. She likes playing dress-up (except that she doesn't have a lot to dress-up in) and with her jewelry...also with her piggybank money. She used to love playing with my buttons. Why do we buy kids toys again?

I don't know where she learned to do thumbs-up, but she did. She knows "arrive" and "liquid" and other words you wouldn't think a three-year-old would know. She loves to jump. She's anxiously protective of her shoes, because they're her school shoes and she needs them for preschool because she's a big girl. She's very quick to look out for the concerns of big girls. There's a rhyme in one of the books that goes: The man in the moon looked out of the moon/and this is what he said:/"'Tis time that, now I'm getting up/All babies went to bed." Chloë's response was, "What about big girls?" I told her that big girls could stay up a little later than babies and she seemed satisfied.

I took the girls to Imagination Station, the local science place, on Saturday while Eric was away and the girls had a good time there. Most of the exhibits went over their heads, of course, but they had fun climbing on bridges and going into the wind tunnel, and there was a kids' area that they both had a great time in. I love when they get caught up in play together.

Maia is an adorable sweet eighteen-month-old who will not lie still for diaper changes oh my GOD. Usually I end up tackling her and tickling her, then wiping her quickly. Then she wiggles and escapes, and I fold up the dirty diaper and put it away. Then I tackle her again to try to get her down to put the new one on. She does love to be on her own...though she also loves to be held, especially when she's tired. And she never wearies of being thrown around, dropped, rolled upside down...and now she's learned how to do it herself. She can somersault, sort of; she calls it "tumble" in the cutest little baby voice as she puts down her head and launches herself, sometimes forward, sometimes to the side, at least once straight off the couch and into a laundry basket, and once off the side of the bed and luckily into my waiting arms.

She usually wakes up early in the mornings for our nursing session (I have GOT to get up the gumption to endure her screaming and give her a milk sippy in the mornings; I'm sure that after a few days to get used to it, she'd give up the R.I.N.D.S. without fuss and she might even sleep later--but it's just so easy when I stumble half-awake into her room at six A.M. to pick her up and sink into the glider and pull up my pajama shirt and doze) and when we're done, if it's not so early that I put her back to bed, I'll often lie down on the floor, my head on the Boppy, while she wanders around and refuses offers of diapers changes. When she spies me, she says, "banky! banky!" and toddles off to get me a blanket from her stack. She attempts to spread it on me, and then more often than not joins me under it. It's the sweetest thing.

Then there's the converse, when I'm sitting on the floor and she pushes me. I fall over, yelping, usually taking her with me. She snuggles and laughs, and then scrambles up and says stridently, "Pull! Pull!" I put my hands out. She grasps my thumbs and pulls at me until I sit up. Then she knocks me down again. Oh, the cruelty of children.

She's so curious and independent and self-motivated. We went to Michael's the other day to entertain ourselves, which was a mistake since there were so many movable, interesting things to look at and take off the shelves and manipulate:

But we had fun. And she was good about helping put things back. She's very good about any request or command that doesn't involve diaper changes or "come here": picking up blocks or Legos or books, bringing me a particular toy, attempting to take off her clothes for bath (of course she'd do anything for "bubbuhs!"--she routinely brings me the bottle of bubble bath when I start the water).

She's in the middle of a linguistic explosion. Her only sentence is "Read Dora please," but she can point out hearts and stars and moons and circles. She knows "sleeper" and "Grandpa" and "candy" and "Halmoni" and "drawing board" and "nap." She can draw a circle, which she calls "moon," and what she calls a line (well, I suppose technically they are; they're just not straight lines like Eric keeps demonstrating). I went to the Ann Arbor Fiber Expo with the girls to meet Carol ("you are a dedicated fiber person," a vendor said fervently to me as we passed) and had to buy a finger puppet when she spied it and exclaimed "Puppy!" so clearly the vendor came over and started showing her the different dogs she had. (Actually we ended up buying four, since they were $2 each or four for $5. Then we got a fifth one when someone called out, "Would she like this?" as we passed. Chloë got a free button and beads to string into a necklace. It's good to be an adorable little girl.) Someone else commented on how much she could say, and, when he asked her age and I answered, said, "Someone is linguistically talented, isn't she?"

The girls continue to be good friends and playmates, though Chloë's doing more "Maia's in my waaaaay!" and "Give me that Maia!" Maia is usually very responsive to things Chloë says she wants, even if she doesn't say it nicely or not to her. Chloë will say to me, "Maia's not letting me have the Legos because she's in my way," and Maia will turn and pick up a Lego and hand it to her. Maia's keen to do most things Chloë does...such as get up on chairs to "wash her hands" (read: splash in dirty water) in the kitchen, get on my left knee if Chloë is on my right, and wear her blue-striped sleeper because Chloë is wearing her pink-striped one. Or get tattoos.

I'm keeping this picture to compare to another picture of them coming home from the tattoo parlor together in seventeen years or so. I hope it won't be spiders that time, though.

Status report: Chloë, 3 years 2 months, and Maia, 17 months

Eric said tonight, "It's October? How did it become October?" I've been saying, "Where did these brilliant big girls come from?"

Maia's getting to be so much her own person, talking and reacting (good lord, the reacting, mostly with belly laughs or high-pitched shrieks, sometimes in close succession) and having opinions and preferences. I think Chloë's a little frustrated that she's not quite as biddable as she used to be, but she's also much more interactive, more a real sister. "Move Maia!" she tells Maia when she's where Chloë wants to be putting the stool to wash her hands, but that's because Maia's standing close to watch her, or trying to reach the sink herself. They have a lot of fun together.

Chloë is so smart. I'm so proud and pleased when she comes up with this stuff. There was the "only books about big girls tonight" thing. Then there's her shoes. She's been so proud of being able to put her shoes on by herself, but she needs help sorting out which one goes on which foot. Recently, she told me, "I'm putting my shoes back the right way so they're on the right sides next time." How awesome is that?! I told Eric about it and he said, "I should have thought of that."

She's settled into preschool and adores it. Her first day there was some hesitation and a tear or two, but that was the only time. Every day it's "Is this a preschool day?" and the 28.6% of the time we get to say yes she then cheers and says, "I LOOOOOOVE preschool!" She's the youngest person in her class, but it's not slowing her down any. She knows the names of some of her classmates, and refers to them as her friends--though she calls everyone she knows her friend, so that may not mean anything. She loves to show off the little art projects they've done, and will tell me about the books they've read and sing the songs she's learned--though never when I ask, always at some later random time.

She can also sing "Rockabye Baby" and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" all by herself. When did she learn to do that? And check this out: she can draw stick figures! She asked me one day "How do I draw you?" So I told her: "Draw a circle near the top for the head. Then a line or a long circle for the body. Then some lines there for the arms, and around there for the legs. And now maybe some eyes and a smile." She asked me to draw the smile, but she drew everything else.

That's totally me. Can't you tell by the nose?

She spontaneously sounds out the beginnings of words. She doesn't always get it right--"K-K-Grown-up," she'll say, or in one case, "M is for Halmoni." But she often does, and I love that she's trying, and all on her own initiative. We're working on getting her versed in her lower-case letters so she can get started more on phonics and reading. The other day she and Eric were reading the Little People book, and she pointed to a line and said, "That's my name." In fact it was "Cheep," the sound a chick was making, but she recognized the "ch" beginning. The fact that she has a book titled with her name probably helps her recognition, but I was still pretty impressed.

The other day Chloë wore some pants from last winter. I remarked, "I was thinking those fit better than they did last year...but then, she was wearing a diaper last year." Eric said to Chloë, "Do you remember wearing diapers?"  and Chloë shook her head. We're still a little hung up on wiping, and she insists on company, and takes a long time after announcing she's done to do anything about wiping, but mostly she's doing well on the potty--especially since we switched to the bigger seat we purchased while out at Mom and Dad's.

She was pleased to see it's the same kind as Llama Llama's in Maia's book. "It matches," she told me, though hers is white and green and Llama Llama's is red and blue. She's pretty keen on "matching" lately. "We match!" she tells me. "We both have a blue shirt on!" Or, "Put my earrings on. Then we will all match. Except Maia and you." (Eric was not in the room at the time.) She's similarly hung up on wearing "pretty" clothes. I haven't figured out what her criteria are for this, but she complains at least once a week that "none of my clothes are pretty!" I know time flies when you have children but hadn't realized we had reached the teenage years so soon.

We got a Roku box, to keep Eric from going completely insane by watching the same eight Dora the Explorer episodes over and over. The girls adore the new variety, and are enjoying some new shows, too--though Dora is still by far their favorite. Maia is even more obsessed than Chloë. She wants to page through Chloë's Dora omnibus every day; she exclaims whenever she sees Chloë wearing Dora underwear; she complains when she sees the Dora toothpaste or shampoo and isn't allowed to have it.  She's also basically claimed Chloë's Dora T-shirt, which admittedly is a little tight in the stomach for Chloë anyway.

She's talking up a storm. She asks us to "open" the toothpaste, and asks for her toothbrush by saying "Deet!" for teeth. She can say "read" very clearly, which I get a kick out of. She's also saying "Datey" (Stacey), her Cabbage Patch doll, and will rock it on the glider's ottoman. It's so cute. She can say "doll," too, and switches between that and "baby." The lamb Aunt Karolyn got her is her new lovey, and while I think she's probably saying "sheep" I always hear it as "feet." Eric scolds me for saying things like, "You can hold Feet while I change your diaper."

In the meantime, Maia has received her own potty, a Fisher Price frog one. (We decided to get rid of Chloë's because it's gross. Pro tip: don't buy the kind with a squishy seat, especially if it's got access points where liquid could conceivably get in and, at a later date, get out again.) She delights in sitting on it whenever someone else is on the toilet. She mainly loves reading the bathroom books and playing with her bits, but I'm pleased she's interested anyway. Not so pleased she's learned to take her own pants off to do it, but them's the breaks.

The girls are taking baths together consistently now that I've allowed bubble bath in their joint baths. Maia asks, "Bubbuhs?" every day. Chloë can climb in herself now; Maia squeals with impatience until I lift her in. They play in the bubbles, Chloë using the watering can to "make the fog go away," Maia often ending up with a bubble beard. Then I scrub Maia. Then I scrub Chloë. Then I let the water drain while the water reheats and we rinse and put away their toys. Then I turn on the shower and rinse them both clean, and then they get to play under the spray until the water is all gone. It works out better than our older routine and the girls love it. 

The girls enjoy their Legos and their beads a lot, as well as the tutus I made them...well, they did a couple of weeks ago, anyway. Now they've fallen out of favor. That's okay. They both like drawing, which is why there are more scribbles in the books and on tables than there used to be. Maia's been slower to learn the "paper only" rule than Chloë was. Chloë's very passionate about birthday parties and about the serial bedtime story I've started telling her. I realized a couple of nights in that this was a big mistake, since it means I have to make up something new every night instead of merely retelling stories and doing a new one once a week or so when I get tired of the current favorite. Ah well.

Maia's passionate about reading in general. Some of the books we read come with hand gestures (when I read them, anyway), and I love that both girls have picked up on them. For example, the My Toys book includes a saw, and on that page we all move our arms back and forth as if holding a saw. The next one pictures a drum, and I always have to grip the book extra tight because the girls bang on the drum. When we see a picture of an elephant, more often than not Maia will put her arm out in front of her face because I do that to imitate an elephant's trunk when I make the trumpeting noise.

These girls are growing so fast and so strong and so impossibly cute. Here's a pose Chloë orchestrated for me:

"Chloë, what's going on?"
"Just look at the camera and smile, and I'll stop with the Vulcan neck pinch."

Status report: Chloë, 3 years 1 month, and Maia, 16 months

These girls. How I love them, and how they drive me crazy. I don't have a coherent story here; all you get are snippets of our day-to-day life as these girls grow and learn and get cuter and funnier and are amazing and infuriating by turns, or sometimes all at once.

We went to Swan Creek Metropark, which is new to us, today on the way home from the dentist (I went, then Eric came with the girls, and I took them while he went in for his appointment--but the girls were disappointed I'd gotten done quickly and they hadn't had a chance to play in the waiting room, so I looked for a substitute). It's a very nice little place. There's a big playset with tall slides and some things to climb and a nice swingset--and a small playset with short slides and steps and baby swings. We started out in the small one, and Maia climbed up the steps and then went down the slide herself, pausing only to make sure I was standing at the bottom of the slide. Chloë struggled to climb the bendy bars and cried out for me to be close, to help her. She climbed them, no real problem, a couple of times. Then we went to the big one, and Maia climbed up and went down slides with me, and Chloë hung from a bar (so did Maia, and loved it) and climbed the helix ladder with, again, difficulty.

That's the way they are, mostly. Maia is adventurous and up for fun, once she gets over a natural initial shyness. I was swinging her by her arms the other day, up and down and all around, and she loved it--so much she cried and flung her arms about when I had to stop. Her temper is so fierce when it gets stirred up. Chloë is more phlegmatic, but she's so reticent about trying things, insists that she can't do it, won't do it. She's doing so well on using the potty, but she refuses to do without the pee guard or to try to wipe herself better. The way she says "I can't" all the time makes me crazy. I'm not sure if it's worse or better that she often says it as she's doing the thing she says she can't do.

The "Sarah" thing seems to have faded, at least the last week or two. At family camp some great-great-aunts and -uncles asked her what her name was and she said, "Sarah." But a little girl asked her name on the playground today and she said, "Chloë." So there's hope there. And I love how happy and bouncy and interesting and interested she is. She talks about the airplane trips--"Next time, I want to go on three airplanes!" and wonders where the people in the cars are going. ("Maybe they are going shopping like us.") She tells me, "I will hug you veeeeeeery tight," and I hope she's not saying it to try to intimidate me, because her veeeeeeery tight hugs are the best hugs anywhere.

Maia is picking up words like a vacuum cleaner. She pointed to her arm and said "elbow" the other day. Today it was "cracker." She names and can point to Grandpa and Halmoni (okay, "Aba" and "Ahee." We know what she's saying).  She's been using "bah" as her multipurpose word (bath, drink, dog, etc.). She also says "boom" and "ding" when she hears them. She's big on onomatopoeia. She's also done "more blueberries" and "cracker please" spontaneously.

She adores Dora the Explorer, even more than Chloë (who got excited at the determination that her Elmo backpack was too small for preschool and she'd need another: "I can get a Dora one!"). Whenever she's in Chloë's room, she's constantly fetching the big Dora omnibus, saying, "Dowah. Dowah? Dowah." She pages through it, tearing it more often than not. She can name Backpack and Map. Boots, Dora's best friend, is also Dowah. Swiper, the bad guy, is "mimi," which Eric told me today is "mean."

They both love the new shoes we bought recently. Chloë can now put on and take off her shoes entirely unaided. (As Brenda said, isn't Velcro great?) Chloë's been very big into being a dancer/ballerina/princess lately. She insists she needs special clothes for this (usually just a skirt or a dress, or a particular shirt) and likes to dash around, contorting herself oddly, to dance. "Am I pretty?" she says often. "Do I look pretty?" Of course we always tell her she does, with or without her dancer/ballerina/princess outfit.

(This was not that outfit.)

They both had fun with their cousins and other family during our time in Seattle. We visited Mom's work and when her coworkers gathered around, exclaiming and praising and begging for hugs, I expected Chloë to be shy; but she jumped around and danced and offered hugs, which was totally uncharacteristic but great to see. She liked seeing Aubrey walk past our campsite, and having Abby in the house (incidentally: my poor kids, with cousins Aubrey, Abby, and Addie). She talks about the neighbor kids often. I think she'll do okay in preschool once she gets over the parental separation. Maia's still too young to play with kids really, but she does enjoy playing by Chloë's side in the backyard, splashing in the water table or digging in the sandbox or dunking her fist into the bubble solution. She covets Chloë's tricycle; she's too short for it, but she loves being pushed on it when we can get Chloë to give her a turn. (Chloë's very very good about sharing with her. But she is very proud of being able to ride her tricycle now.)

Chloë hit me the other day. We were arguing about something or other and she said "Bad Mommy!" and I said "Bad Chloë!" (which was not the most mature response) and she wanted to say something else, and couldn't come up with anything, and slapped me on the arm. It was very light and was pretty clearly testing the water to see if it was an acceptable act--after she did it she stepped back and watched me to see what I would do. What I did was say emphatically, "Chloë Leeja Snyder! You do not hit! Time out!" She went to the designated corner silently. Then she started to cry, and then to wail "Mama," until I told her she was done. She came right to me and listened while I told her that it was okay to be angry, but not okay to hit. I don't know how much of that sank in, but I'm sure we'll go over it again. She said "Bad Mommy" again tonight, and I told her that the next time she says it will be another time out. I don't mind her being angry, but namecalling is one of the things we think we should nip in the bud.

But mostly I think she's doing fine. Where I'm a little worried about discipline is with Maia. She gets so mad so quickly, and is so much more adventurous than Chloë, that I'm thinking the ways we're already set in with Chloë aren't going to be sufficient for her--but she's still young to figure out what exactly we should be doing differently. If we should. There are no big problems yet; but I definitely see her as more of the rebellious type, and we haven't dealt with that yet, really. 

Maia's doing really well on her food; I give her small fruit strips and whole huge blueberries now. She still tends to chipmunk, but we'll work on that. Chloë's getting better and better at eating neatly and drinking "like a big girl" from a real cup (also, at remembering whether she had hot chocolate the day before, as she gets it every other day). They're both loving the late-summer raspberry harvest, and the Yellow Pear and Brown Berry tomatoes in the garden. Also, the "smoothie store."