Happy Birthday, Kiddo!

Four years ago, I really should have changed the name of this blog to "Life's Changed." After all that time's passed, I have a ton of memories, tons of sleepless nights, and a little sister for the girl who made me a daddy. Now, she's working on taking lots of pictures for us ...

Giddyup, Buckaroo

About four-and-a-half years ago, Evelin and I took a drive up to Gettysburg for no particular reason. Among the things we encountered on that trip was a sign for the Land of Little Horses. As I blogged back then: "I think I'd feel a little less silly asking for two adult admissions to a place like that if I could at least pretend that my 3-, 4-, or 5-year-old was the one who wanted to go...."

Quinn's two; Celeste is four in a few short days. This afternoon we went.



If pressed, I might say it was a little less than what I expected, but it still was fun.

In a lot of ways, it was a total tourist trap, complete with a gift shop you have to pass through on the way in and the way out. However, it was great with the girls.

Celeste never once did her "I only like dogs" routine; she was very excited and interested in getting up close, petting and feeding the animals. Quinn was a bit warier, especially as she grew more tired, but she loved the sheep and goats, as well as the horses. The only bad bit for her was when she was scratched by a cat — she was trying to feed it one of the alfalfa pellets all the other animals ate; apparently the cat didn't like it.

Neither girl wanted to take a pony ride, but they both loved the little playground and both were very interested in the arena show, especially since I'd tipped them off to the dog race portion of the show. Both girls were getting squirmy and tired, so we cut out before the show ended — during the ciphering horse routine — which lead to screams and tears from the girls. Both of them were asleep before we got out of Pennsylvania.

Beagles Are Short

Celeste has been told we can get her long desired dog once Quinn is potty trained. This afternoon while coloring and having a snack, Celeste tells me that Quinn had an accident at summer camp. She then turned to her sister and said with a firm voice, and a slightly sad tone, "You need to be potty trained, 'cause we really need a puppy."

She then revised and extended her statement, saying we should get a puppy for each member of the family. Then she suggested we get two beagles for each of us. I had her count up the total number of beagles — 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 8 — and, when reminded, she saw that that was one more puppy than in Too Many Puppies.

Not to be deterred, though, Celeste countered that "beagles get old and die soon," thinking of a neighborhood dog who passed earlier in the year. I pointed out that Berry had been 14 years old, ten years older than she is.

Celeste’s response: "Goodness gracious, but she was short!"

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Addendum

My 1,000th post, months after last posting and it's an accidental picture message to myself ... oy.

I really should try to get back to the blogging ... maybe make a fresh start at it ...

Thanksgiving 2007

Celeste wasn't too keen on the Thanksgiving festivities at my cousin's this afternoon. Soon after we arrived, she was sulking around my legs and saying she wanted to go home. Eventually she warmed up to some of her second cousins' toys and a big block of stilton.

A bit later, however, she ran over crying about a noise. It might have been a passing plane or something on the street or ... we're not sure what. No one else heard it, but it upset Celeste. After a little talking she calmed down and went back to playing. (Quinn throughout all of this was very busy with various toys and meeting people.)

We made it through dinner — Quinn had a good meal; Celeste mostly ate cranberry sauce, cornbread, and butter — and when ice cream popped up for dessert, Celeste said "Maybe that noise was my stomach. Maybe it was hungry for ice cream."

It Wasn't Me

When I saw "Overheard in D.C." today, I had to stop and wonder if I'd ever ridden on a Circulator Bus with Celeste:

Last friday on the DC Circulator Bus, around Washington Circle/Pennsylvania Avenue:
A 3 or 4 year old girl is sitting with her father, commenting on what she sees out of the window. All of a sudden, apropos of nothing, she suddenly announces in a loud voice: "I just want to go CRAZY today, and buy new puppy clothes!"

Science Without a Nap

This afternoon, Celeste and Quinn both took turns participating in an infant study at the University of Maryland, but it probably would have gone better had they had naps.

Backing things up a little bit, around 2:45 a.m. this morning, I half-awoke to a crying Quinn. Next to me was an exhausted Evelin. I'd thought Evelin was just going to finish up some work and then come to bed, but it turns out she'd been up to about 2:00 a.m. with Quinn. (When I fell asleep, the Sox were still up 2–1, and I was enjoying my new little Sony Walkman SRF-M37V, which manages to pull in WTIC(AM) and thus the Sawx-side commentary for games ... why didn't I have this for the first part of the season?)

I got up and took Quinn downstairs, where she slept fitfully on me until around 4:30 a.m., at which point I transitioned her back into her bed, and decided that I'd try to work from home as much as possible today so that we could try to get her to the doctor.

She's had a little cough for two weeks or so now, and her nose has been really runny. When I checked on Tuesday, she wasn't running a fever, but it has made sleeping pretty uncomfortable for her. Before Maine, she spend a night or two sleeping in her carseat, to have in a more upright position, and she's napped in that most of today (as scattered and short as her naps have been). Evelin took her in to the doctor's and he said her ears and throat look clear and that it's probably teething; we can give her a little Benadryl to try and dry her out to help her sleep, and we'll probably try that tonight.

So, since I was taking the day off, I started in on my e-mail and other work after I came back downstairs. I had about an hour before Celeste woke up, and then Quinn was up not too later than that. I managed to get some breakfast and playtime in before Evelin woke up and came down.

Since Evelin was taking Quinn to the doctor, I took Celeste to playgroup around 9:30 a.m. It's a lot busier this session compared to back in April, which was the last time I'd gone. There must have been ten or more kids there, some that I knew, a few I'd seen around, and a couple who were strangers. Celeste did have fun, however, both in playgroup and then later on the playground.

Once we got home, it was lunchtime followed by an attempt at napping ... which went really poorly and ended up with both girls awake and downstairs by 2:00 p.m. At this point, Evelin was hiding in the bedroom trying to get some work done and I was trying to get things together for the 3:30 p.m. appointment at the Language Development Laboratory. With neither girl having napped, I guess it's no surprise that they both nodded off in the car on the way to College Park.

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Now She Is Three

Today is Celeste's third birthday, marking the beginning of some seriously undelayed lifechanges that continue to build day after day after day. It was a bit of a double-whammy for her today: She turned three and she had her first day of nursery school.

Both went pretty well. Evelin made her some cupcakes (the requested orange sponge cake recipe with royal icing) and this evening she received several dog-themed presents.

When Evelin dropped her off at school this morning, Celeste pretty much headed straight for the Play-Doh and never looked back. (That she arrived at the same time as T---, one of her friends, probably helped even if she didn't directly play with him.) When I picked her up in the afternoon, she was excited and talking a lot about what she'd done that day. The downside was that she had two accidents, so we have to bring more than the standard number of changes of clothes for her tomorrow.

[ASIDE: There's a ton of stuff I haven't blogged over the past year or so that makes writing this a bit disjointed, but in the interest of getting this tale on paper pixels here's one from a month or three ago: Celeste and I were talking about the upcoming school year, and Celeste said she was going to take two classes. I asked her what she was planning to study, and she said, "Maybe I'll draw a dog."]

On the way to pick her up, I asked Quinn if she'd missed not having Celeste around this morning. There was a HUGE grin and a fairly loud "No! No!"


(From a few days ago when Celeste was a flower girl (or as she insisted flower puppy) at the as-of-yet-unblogged (at least by me) wedding of my brother-in-law.)

Have You Seen This Mascot?

Louie greets some fans.
Originally uploaded by Throwingbull

If so, don't tell Celeste. This afternoon, we caught part of the second game in a double header between the Erie SeaWolves and the Bowie Baysox. It was Quinn's first ballgame, and Celeste's first since she was about 9 months old. Originally, the game was scheduled as a single game, but last night's game was suspended on account of rain in the third which meant the 2:00 p.m. start was shifted to 12:30 p.m. and, unfortunately, the "Bark in the Park" dog parade was a lot earlier than originally scheduled.

Still, there were many dogs for Celeste to pet and Quinn had fun. They both ate a lot of popcorn and the girls almost got to see a grand slam (we were petting some greyhounds at the time and missed it).

As we were leaving (in the bottom of the sixth inning), we paused to visit with some other dogs and Celeste caught sight of Louie, the Baysox's mascot. At first I thought she was excited (not that she has any idea of who Louie is or anything) because she was making a little "Oh!" noise. But then she put her hand up in front of the mouth and I realized she was shaking. Louie was waving to kids as he walked past and into a backstage area, and as soon as the door shut, Celeste grabbed me around the neck and burst into tears. She didn't look up until we were out in the parking lot.

We talked to her a little about mascots and Louie, but Celeste wanted nothing to do with it. After dinner we took a walk around the block and ran into some of Celeste's favorite neighborhood dogs. While talking with their owner, I mentioned the ballpark and Celeste said she didn't have fun and when she was asked why, she started crying again. Later, during her bath, Evelin mentioned going to a game next summer and Celeste was quick to nix the idea.

Quinn, I think, was more disturbed by the greyhound wearing a Baysox hat than by Louie, but I don't think she got a good view of the green guy.

Natural Born Journalist

Celeste has a bit of the journalist in her: She is really good at recounting things that have gone on during the day (albeit sometimes confusing something that happened one afternoon vs. another or maybe confusing reality with something from a story she's read) and she loves finding out who people are and what they're doing. She often will point at someone — across the park, in line behind us at the grocery store, passing on the street — and ask "What his/her name?"

Often, we don't know the person she's referring to, so we've been encouraging Celeste to introduce herself and to ask the person she's interested in's name. Celeste has been very in to this game, although she often poises the question from 20 feet away and/or in some other manner that is sure to not get her an answer.

The thing is, however, lately she's not been running up to people and saying "Hi. My name is Celeste. What's your name?" ... no, instead she's been saying "Hi. My name is Zippity. What's your name?" (Except when we met Alejandro while on an "expotition" around the block last week, when, with a bit of prompting, I got her to say "Me llamo Celeste. ¿Como se llama?")

Dogs for the Arts

A few weeks ago, the local park had it's annual "Dogs for the Arts" day. They had a dog-and-owner look-alike contest, paw painting, and a few other events ... and a lot of dogs. Given that Celeste has decided a while ago that we are all dogs — if you refer to her as a little girl, she corrects you, "little puppy!"; or if you ask her to wash her hands, she responds, "no, paws!"; and everyone has or puppy appended to their name, for instance I am now "Daddy Dog" — there was no way we were missing this event.

Celeste did not disappoint, running around gleefully asking if she could pet all the dogs and often ending up giving them hugs. Last week, the local monthly city newspaper arrived and there was Celeste in an uncaptioned picture poised to strike [PDF of the full article].

The other thing about Celeste being a dog is that her name is now Zippity. A little while back, Evelin checked out Some Dog from the library. Pretty soon thereafter, Celeste identified herself with the little dog Zippity. She also started insisting that Quinn be called George, after the big dog in the story. Worryingly, as one friend noted, "George" is a nickname that could stick.

This matches up with Celeste insisting that she's a little sister, and generally resisting being identified as being "big." For a while, she would insist she couldn't be big because she couldn't touch the ceiling. Also, in her mind, big/little seemed to be a sex-linked trait: Pretty much all males were "big" and all females were "little." That's changed somewhat, and now Evelin is considered "mid-sized" by Celeste. I have no idea what any of this means, but it's pretty funny to be in one room talking to Quinn and telling her what a big girl she is, and then starting to correct myself to say "little girl" but before I can do so Celeste calls out from the other room "No! George is a little puppy."

What Book Is This?

Tonight, after the girls were in bed, Evelin had a mission for me: Retrieve a bookcase from a porch two towns over. Apparently, it was something off Freecycle that hadn't been claimed and Evelin thought it would help our book "problem." (I use scare quotes on the word because I don't think it qualifies as a problem, it's just a lot of books, falling off shelves and forming piles around the house — kind of like a library ... without the shhhh'ing, stacks, card catalogue, or defensible acquisition policy.)

After it was in place, Evelin started moving around other bits of furniture and rearranging the placement of books throughout the house. This is where the tale gets odd.

Among the things that have gone unblogged over the past few months is Celeste's reading. She loves books, all sorts of books: board books, books, "page books" (the term she came up with for paperbacks and hardbacks without pictures), etc. Those page books have very few clues as to the contents when you can't really read, but Celeste doesn't let that stop her ... especially when it come to mass-market size paperbacks. She's appropriated several of them, given them new titles, and she's totally consistent about it.

When Evelin was rearranging the books, she paused for a moment when shelving a copy of Wide Sargasso Sea (this edition), which Celeste has dubbed "Ripley^* Howls at the Moon."

Next, Evelin paused over a copy of Animal Farm. I asked, "Hey, what's Animal Farm?" and Evelin looked at me with a look of surprise, initially thinking I'd never heard of George Orwell or something. Not five minutes later, when she asked, "Hey, what's Field Guide to the Slug?" ... and I responded with a short discourse about gastropod mollusks ...

^*Ripley is Celeste's Flapjacks Dog, which Evelin's mother bought for Quinn, but Celeste appropriated as soon as it entered the house ... and thus began the end of her friendship with Dee Dee Bear.

Is This Thing On?

Hey, long time no blog. I'm still alive. The girls are all well. I've just between work and family gotten out of the habit of blogging, which is a shame because Quinn is growing rapidly and learning so many things and Celeste is coming up with a million cute, quotable lines every day.

Two examples:

1. Quinn: Last weekend, she signed BIRD pointed at a tree, said "bird" clearly, pointed again, and then Evelin had to duck a robin that flew out at them.
2. Celeste: On 3 July, I was tucking her in to bed and told her that the next day was a holiday and asked if she knew what that meant; she said, with much emotion and glee, "I think I get cake!"

This afternoon, I managed to get something on film (okay, a solid-state memory card, but that isn't very imagetic) that was too cute.

Last week, I dropped the very full dehumidifier bucket in the basement, spilling a lot of water and cracking the plastic. This afternoon, the new bucket I ordered on Friday arrived wrapped in about 5-feet of bubble wrap. When I spread it out on the floor and jumped on it, Celeste and Quinn were startled, but they quickly figured out what they were supposed to do.


Yes, sadly, that is "Who Let the Dogs Out" (Kidz Party Songs version) in the background. Celeste got stung by a bee and it took a fudgesicle and her favorite song — set on repeat for nigh an hour — to cheer her up.

Conversations With Celeste

There's a ton I need to blog — Vegas, New England, first child vs. second child, usw. — but I've been too swamped to blog it all. Still, there are a few things Celeste has been saying that I don't want to lose:

First, a few weeks ago she had a little cut on her hand, so I put some hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) on it. She fairly quickly recoiled and started crying, "It stings like mad!"

Second, a fairly common statement from Celeste these days: "I'm looking all over Maryland." This is usually said when she can't find Ripley or a book or something else ... and usually when she's just staring at one corner of the room.

Third, this afternoon on the way back to the car from the library, Celeste parked herself behind one of the columns that supports the canopy over the sidewalk to the parking lot and refused to move. I tried encouraging her to keep walking with me and Quinn and she said, "Uhm, no. I'm just standing here for no good reason."

A non-Celeste comment from the library. Quinn was stalking one of the librarians, walking over to her, pointing to her, asking her to pick her up, etc. D---, the librarian, has always liked Quinn and every time we see her there, she looks for a smile from Quinn. D--- made a comment to be about how friendly Quinn is, and I agreed saying she's quite the social butterfly ... which is quite different from her sister. D--- agreed, saying that she's tried to talk to Celeste a few times, but it's like talking to a wall.

1:30 a.m. PDT (Las Vegas)

I'm finishing up another convention newspaper project here in Las Vegas and had an odd incident very early this morning. Things are going better this year than the last time I worked this show two years ago, and we're getting back from the printer at much "better" times, which is good because I've been running a fever and generally ill since getting to Nevada.

After L--- dropped me off at The Aladdin^*, I stopped at the gift shop for a bottle of water and then headed to the elevators. Along the way, I passed a woman who suddenly stopped in front of me and said: "Wow."

I have a moment of panic: Is this someone I should know from the show, or someone I went to college or high school with?

"It's Abraham Lincoln," she said.^† Pointing to my beard. "Yes. Yes, it is," I said. As I continued on to the elevators, she said, "You have to excuse me, I'm really drunk."

^*Officially, it becomes Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino the morning after I check out, but there's so much PHRC branding that I was worried the cabby had dropped me off at the wrong place when I went to check in.

^†Funnily enough, my youngest cousin labeled me "Abraham Lincoln with a ponytail and earring" during one of my trips home from college.

Celebrating A Year of Quinn

Actually, it's 14 pics for 12 months, but some of them were just too cute to not use ...

Reading Things

For a while now, Celeste has been good at recognizing letters. She's perfect with uppercase letters and decent, but not perfect, with lowercase; she also seems to get the concept of letters representing words which represent ideas and things.

When asked, she can spell dog and bus and a few other words — both vocally and using her blocks or foam letters. (For some reason, the almost always spells train T-R-N-A-I. This is interesting to me and makes me wonder about language acquisition and languages that don't write out vowels. I also wonder if the /eɪ/ diphthong is the issue. Or if it's just that Celeste is a two-year-old.) She can also read off letters from book covers, food labels, etc.

Yesterday, I took Celeste and Quinn to the thrift store to pick up some books; 40¢ for paperbacks that are likely to be chewed is a very good thing. Among the titles I grabbed was Dan Yaccarino's So Big!. I didn't say anything about the book to either of the girls; it just caught my eye and I added it to the pile. I did notice Celeste flipping through it in the cart however.

Later that afternoon, Celeste was having me read some of the books when she pointed at So Big! and said, "Daddy, read So Big!" Again, I had never told her the title of the book. I asked her if she knew the title because of the words on the book and she nodded and asked me to read it. I asked her to read me the letters on the cover and she did so perfectly, only stumbling over the exclamation point. "S-O-B-I-G ... I don't remember."

Totally Unrelated

During a final proof for one of our magazines today, there was a two-deck headline on a column that read: "Where's the Fugawi / We're Here Now". Everyone was a little flummoxed by "fugawi," although there were the requisite namechecks of Fugazi. The term didn't appear in the column, and none of us at the table recognized. I asked the features editor if she'd googled it, and she said she hadn't. As I walked back to my desk to see if anything popped up, I thought of fugedaboudit and started playing with that /fʌːg/ sound in my mind and realized that fugawi corresponded all to well to "fuck are we."

It turns out, it's also the name of a brand of GPS software, which worked well with the headline, explaining the presence of the verb 's. At the same time, the Urban Dictionary's definition for the word matches up with the other meaning pretty well. The headline ended up being rewritten.

Go Red Sox!

This afternoon, Celeste, Quinn and I listened to the Sawx's home opener. Considering how Beckett was pitching and how most everyone who was not a Mariner was hitting, there was a lot of clapping and cheering and happy dancing ... and quizzical looks from Celeste and Quinn.

Celeste, however, is starting to get it. She joined in the "Go Red Sox!" cheers several times and didn't argue when I insisted we replace "home team" with "Red Sox" while singing "Take Me out to the Ball Game"^*.

When Evelin got home, I asked Celeste: "What did we say a lot this afternoon?" She looked at me confused, so I prompted her: "What did we say this afternoon when Beckett was striking out イチロー and 'Tek doubled?"

Celeste said "Go Red Sox!" [MP3]

She then turned and asked Evelin: "Mumma, do you know those words?"

^*The Hold Steady's version of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" (free MP3 download via Spinner) is quite nice ... if only they weren't Twins fans ...

The Newest Member of Our Family ...

I don't think it will help Celeste get over her fear of vacuum cleaners, but our new Roomba Scheduler arrived yesterday and got its first test spin this morning. The battery wasn't fully seated in the unit, and it didn't get the full 16-hour refresh charge it needed, so it only ran for about a half-hour, but it was pretty cool. (And we've been telling Celeste it's a dog cleaning robot — if we give her a dog-related frame of reference for things, she's less likely to object to them, ergo, when Evelin added green beans to Celeste's soup last night initially she didn't want them, but when she was told they were poodle tails, she ate them all up.)

Celeste was okay with Roomba so long as she was watching it from the couch. Quinn kept a very close eye on it, doing a little shadowing and pointing, but she didn't want to get too close.