For those who wish to follow every moderately significant event in the kids' life, here is a video of Teddy's second haircut and Margaret's first. He was a stoic little champ, just as he was for his first haircut. Margaret was a bit nervous heading in, but ended up sitting slack-jawed through the whole process.
No one really wants to hear the random musings in my last few posts. Instead, they want kid pictures.
And here they are.
Daycare was closed today, so Margaret and Teddy spent the day with Rodah, our cleaning lady, babysitter extraordinaire, and family friend who moved to DC from Pittsburgh around the same time that we did. Although Margaret screamed when we left this morning, both of the kids ended up having a great time hanging out with Rodah.
Because she had to get home, I left work early and met Rodah and the kids at 4:00 at DuPont Circle. Rather than heading home, Margaret, Teddy, and I spent an hour or so lying in shady grass on the circle while enjoying the unbelievably lovely day. The kids kicked off their shoes and climbed all over me as I sat in the grass, with Teddy occasionally calling my attention to a passing garbage or fire truck (or sometimes a bus, which he would misidentify as a "gabage tuck"). We listened to some guy sing and play his guitar - he was pretty good, so Margaret tossed in a dollar - and watched all of the people walking through the circle.
In my pre-kid life, I certainly would have enjoyed hanging out in the shade, listening to a busker, and watching the world go by. But there was something truly sublime about sitting there, absorbing the music and the noise and activity of the city, looking at all of the people passing us, while Margaret and Teddy grinned, giggled, laughed, and poked me and each other as they climbed all over my back and lap.
We got Margaret and Teddy's class pictures back today. As one would expect, Margaret looks great in all of her pictures. She has that smile with fantastic eyes that she inherited from Grandma Mary and her great-grandmother through her Papa. Her eyes scrunch up and just twinkle when she smiles. In contrast, Teddy is cute in some of his pictures, but also often looks, well, a bit dull. His whole look isn't helped by the big welt on his head that he got from tumbling down the stairs just before picture day. All of the teachers at school laughed and laughed when they saw his solemn pictures with the big bump on his forehead.
Of course, I have to be careful here with my direct comparison of Margaret to Teddy. Don't want to give either kid a complex, much less initiate a competition between them. Regardless, the non-linear pricing of the class pics (each complete set that we buy yields a much lower per set price so that we always end up buying all of them) implies that we'll have tons of extra photos to send around. While I may not be able to scan and post them on the blog, certain dedicated readers can rest assured that they'll get copies of pictures of Margaret looking cute and Teddy looking like, as they call him at school, a little oompa loompa.
However, that's not the excellent event.
Today happens to be my birthday. I am now officially 37. As my 90-year-old grandmother said in her birthday card, "How does it feel to be 37? Not so bad, is it?"
Actually, that's not the excellent event either.
I also officially moved to a new position at work today. The move has been in the works for some time, but it officially took effect today, which is nice because I'll be doing stuff that's much more in line with the issues that really interest me.
That is also not the excellent event.
Instead, the excellent event involved an amalgamation of the previous two events. While being introduced to my new co-workers, one of them, an early 20's research assistant, said, "Oh, are you a new intern?" The person with me and I looked at each other and said, "Umm, no." "But you look so young," the RA sheepishly responded. "Actually," I said, "Today is my birthday, and I'm 37. But let me tell you, being mistaken for an intern is probably the best birthday present I could get at this point."
Not much to report on the kids, but Papa had a pretty eventful weekend.
We put together a dragon boat team at work to participate in the annual Washington DC Dragon Boat Festival. The best analogy to a dragon boat that I can come up with is a slave galley - two rows of ten paddlers, side by side, with a drummer in the front and a oarsman in the back. The paddling (not rowing!) motion is unlike anything else I've ever done in a boat. Certainly nothing like rowing crew, which I've done on an erg machine, but not in an actual boat. And not like a row boat or paddling a canoe, both of which I've done a fair amount. Instead, you bend at the hip, put your paddle in the water, and paddle by pulling while leaning back at the waist. Quickly. And, ideally, the whole boat is perfectly synchronized.
Our boat was full of novices so, needless to say, we weren't very good. In fact, we were pretty bad. In our first heat yesterday, we got creamed by some management consultants from Accenture and some government contractors from Northrup Grumman. In our second race, we completely collapsed and ended up losing to another team of management consultants from Accenture and some team called TECRO. We were all pretty frustrated, and some people were searching for the key strategic approach that would speed us up (if only we were management consultants, this would probably be easy). Those of us with some perspective recognized that our boat was going to suck no matter what, so the only way we could speed up would be to toss out the bad paddlers - very difficult to do given that it was all voluntary and, more importantly, was for fun - or to slow down and try to get synchronized. Today, we tried the second approach, and although we still got clobbered in our first heat (to a well trained team - as with any fringe sport, there are some hardcore afficiandos of dragon boat racing), we stayed together and managed to not embarass ourselves. (In contrast, Abby said, "You guys didn't look very good" after our second race on the first day.) Then in our second race today, we managed to pull out a third place finish in a race of four teams. A moral victory of sorts. Even if we did beat a bunch of kids.
I'm not quite sure why I signed up to participate. I think that I wanted a structured diversion, especially one that didn't involve the kids. But the whole process involved a bigger time committment than I anticipated - three practices (I missed one) during April and two days of races this weekend. Abby and the kids did come to the race both today and yesterday, and I think that the kids enjoyed the whole spectacle. But due to the unpredictable race schedule, they only saw me in the second race yesterday and the first race today. (Yesterday, they had to leave in the middle of the races to attend a birthday party, where both kids had a grand time playing in a moonbounce. Apparently, Teddy didn't really get the jumping part, but he could trundle around and fall over without hurting himself, which is all that he needs to have a good time.) Not sure if I'll do it next year, but it was fun, and I have that pleasant sore feeling that one gets after doing something strenuous. Albeit in very odd muscles, because dragon boat racing is one very odd sport. (We raced near Georgetown Harbor where people sat in the bars along the shore and sipped their drinks while gaping at the odd people in their odd boats on the water.)
Not to steal the thunder from the CT grandparent's post, but I figure I'll write this post before its subject matter fades into oblivion.
At the wedding this past weekend, the bride's father gave a toast in which he drew some contrasts between his daughter and his two sons. This was done in a very lighthanded way with the basic point being that the bride was practically perfect, while the boys were, well, not. Regardless of whether this reflected wedding day bias, the basic theme of the toast got me thinking a bit and apparently did the same for Abby because we had an interesting conversation on the New Jersey Turnpike while driving home.
The topic of that conversation? Well, when you think about having two kids, everything involves a very binary comparison. Kid 1 vs. kid 2. Is Teddy as smart as Margaret? Are his verbal skills as good as hers at a similar age? Is Margaret a bigger pain than Teddy? And so on. Were I to give the same toast as the bride's father at this wedding, it would involve a direct comparison of Margaret (practically perfect?) and Teddy (not?).
A third kid, however, would break this quandary - you could always refer to kid A's achievements/intelligence/good looks/etc. without directly (and either explicitly or implicitly) besmirching kid B or kid C. But with only two kids, that's not possible.
So there we were, enjoying a gray day on the Jersey Turnpike and thinking about the potential advantages of having a third kid. It didn't last long, though, because I quickly thought about the logistics (our house is too small - we'd need to move - and a minivan is basically required for three kids - we'd need a new car) and cost (three college educations?). Still, it was a funny train of thought. And when I mentioned it to our neighbor, who has three young kids, one of whom has recently become Margaret's best bud as they've both become more social, she flashed me a big smile and said, "Go for it!"
Then again, after second thought, I don't think so.
As promised, here is the guest post by Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Peter. I haven't read it yet and certainly haven't edited it, so I cannot guarantee that the content or style are up to the extraordinarily high (sic) standards of this blog. However, I do like the "gang of 4" reference in the first line. Given the general political sympathies of the CT grandparents, I suspect that reference was intentional.
We met the DC gang of 4+dog on Friday, May 1st, at 2 PM at the Marriott Courtyard in Rye, NY, for the hand-off to the CT grandparents. We got our instructions on the care and feeding of our charges, switched cars, and headed back across the State line to CT. The 2 hour trip was uneventful as the kids slept most of the way.
The kids had a great time at our little pond and the waterfall and stream that flow into it. We searched and searched for the frogs that have been around for the the past several weeks, but they failed to appear. We had better luck finding the two koi, goldie and sparky, who live in the pond. They are a little hard to see right now because I had recently cleaned the pond and stirred up lots of tiny particles. I trust that the outrageously expensive filter that I installed late last year and recently re-installed will clear this up before too long. The best way to see the fish is to feed them and the kids had fun over-feeding them. Teddy was a real threat to tumble into the pond as he is not cautious and the rocks were wet and slippery due to the misty rainy conditions. Despite his best efforts to swim with the fish, we managed to keep him out of the murky pond water. He had a great time throwing all the rocks back into the pond that I had just recently cleaned out of the pond. He loved the plop and splash. He also enjoyed sticking the rake into the pond and scraping it back and forth, counteracting my best efforts improve the clarity of the water. Margaret had a little less impact on the pond although she was much more interested in the fish than her brother was. She spent considerable time trying to catch them in a fishnet, but without success despite going perilously near the water in her netting efforts. She succeeded in moving some of the little statuary (frogs, turtles, etc.) around, at risk to both herself and the statuary.
The highlight of Saturday was the appearance of Aunt Eleanor who arrived by train from her studies at Columbia U. where she will get her masters in Environmental Policy on May 18th. She contorted and squeezed herself into the back middle seat between M&T in the two bulky child seats (it pays to be slim and agile). Her pitiful complaints were ignored by those in the front seat.
Speaking of squeezes, we were joined at dinner by Eleanor's very close friend, Rafael, who brought a fine bottle of red wine to donate to the occasion. He was able to deal with the mass confusion in getting the food prepared and served. He is also quite a hit with the kids- Teddy even attempted to say both Eleanor and Rafael (we think). At this stage, his understanding seems far superior to his ability to express himself verbally. He is very good at pointing, at least I think that is what he is doing when he is waving the finger around. On the other hand, it could be a poorly done Italian salute aimed at interfering adults.
Margaret was very taken with a book about Stewie the Duck's swimming lesson. We read it many times, and Margaret talked quite a bit about her own swimming experiences. For one thing, she goes to swimming "lessons" (or is it "class"?) while Stewie goes to swimming "school." She also explained that, unlike Stewie, she goes down somestairs into the pool.
Well, all good things have to come to an end. On Sunday, we were pleased to be able to deliver two intact children and Maddie back to their anxious parents, no doubt exhausted after weekend duties as wedding guests. 
First, Abby wanted me to note that the pictures of Margaret at the end of the last post do not reflect a look that we chose, rather the bouffont hair was done by the teachers at daycare, while the outfit was chosen by Margaret herself. Whether it's better that she chose the outfit rather than us is an open question.
Second, for those who want a recap of the weekend, we all survived. Most importantly, Abby and I managed to sleep until around 10:00 AM on both Saturday and Sunday. I did wake up both days at 6:00 AM as I predicted that I would, but I rolled over and went back to sleep. No kids! Whoopee!!
Finally, we're going to get a guest post from the CT grandparents sometime soon, as promised in the last entry. Stay tuned.
