One of life's great imponderables

Before starting this post, I have to note that I've been getting hassled to post some stuff. Not because people are really interested in my writing, "wit," or "insights," such as they may be. But rather because people want pictures. Alas, for those hoping for a kid pic fix, I can't sate you today. My muse was spurred by something unrelated to pictures, or any event related to pictures, as you'll see below, so you'll have to wait a bit longer for a backlog of pictures to be posted.

As a (almost) completely potty-trained little fellow, Teddy has quite an array of little boy underwear. He's got Thomas the Tank Engine underwear and dinosaur underwear from the Gap. His favorite underwear series are those that we picked up from Target with superheros. Wolverine, Thor, Spiderman - all of the classic superheros from the comic books of my youth. They don't really spur any particular nostalgia in me, although my comic book collecting experience was my first exposure to an asset bubble - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, issues 1-3, were appreciating at 200% per year according to the price guides and comic conventioneers when I picked up my first issue at age 10. (My comics are now sitting in my parents' basement where they will undoubtedly "pay" for my kids' college education when I finally decide to sell.) What I did notice, however, is that the picture of the superhero is on the back of the underwear. Teddy noticed as well. What's up with that? The whole point of wearing superhero underwear is so that you can see them when you head to the bathroom. But how can you see them if they're on the back? Early on, Teddy started insisting on wearing his underwear so that he could, in fact, see the superhero picture when the time was appropriate. "You want to wear your underwear backwards?", I asked. "No, frontwards," he replied. We've gotten to the point where, each morning, I ask him, "Backwards or frontwards?" And he says, "Frontwards." So the Hulk or the Thing or whoever ends up facing out in Teddy's drawers.

I mentioned this to the ladies at daycare, who thought it was a hoot, but didn't really think much of it until I saw the following today in Pickles in the Washington Post:



Apparently, we're dealing with a deep cultural question about the design of little boys' underwear. And, as I'm sure will be the case throughout his life (hah!), Teddy is a trendsetter of sorts.

First day of school

Margaret started pre-K at the local elementary school last week. Decked her out in all the usual start-of-school stuff like new tennis shoes, new backpack, new lunchbag and so on. She handled it all very well, although it took long enough for them to get the kids into the building, and enough other pre-K kids were distraught, that the fussing eventually spread to her, and she got a bit upset on the first day. But since then, she's been a complete champ. Seems to be doing very well with her new teacher and environs. Each day, she comes home with a new song or refers to a new friend or talks about something else new that we don't understand. Everyone at daycare misses her terribly, especially the caretakers, like Ms. Jakki, that started around the same time that she came into the infant room so that they've been with her from the beginning, but they have Teddy, who seems to be a pretty good, happy-go-lucky substitute. The transition to one kid in daycare, one kid in school is creating some logistical issues for our morning and afternoon commutes, but everything has gone reasonably smoothly so far. I plop the boy in the back of my bike and head into work in the morning and then do the same in the afternoon as we head back to pick up Margaret. It'll be interesting to see what arrangement we come up with when it rains or when it starts getting colder in the fall and winter.

Another vacation.... and the battles we fight

When one doesn't post anything for a while, one gets quite backed up in terms of things to write about. Even worse, one often runs out of inspiration, even though "inspiring" events occur every day. For example...

The boy is now almost potty trained. He fought it for a long time. Not really active resistance, rather he would grin and agree to use the potty while he did whatever he wanted to do in his diaper. But just in the last week, he has started to use the potty on a regular basis. It's really quite exciting.

As for Margaret, our battle with her often involves her clothes and accessories. "I want to wear a dress," she insists, almost every day. But we've bought all these darn shorts and jeans, I think, so they can't go to waste. Or "I want to wear something pink," she says. But that green shirt is so nice, in my opinion.

When we went to Target to buy school supplies, we ran into this issue head on. "That backpack with the princess picture really catches my eye," she said. Uggh. I do NOT like the backpacks, or lunchboxes, or notebooks, that have pictures of princesses or Tinkerbell or anything like that on them. I like a nice purple backpack, perhaps with an interesting geometric design on it. Luckily, I was able to distract her enough that we ended up with reasonably palatable school stuff. But it's a constant battle. Dresses, not shorts. Pink, not another color. Designs, not princess pictures. It just goes on and on.

Luckily, the boy seems to have grasped his new skill, so we don't have to battle over that anymore.

In any event, here are some pictures from our recent vacation to Mount Desert Island (i.e., Acadia National Park) in Maine.

Trip to Minnesota

We just got back from our annual trip to Green Lake in Minnesota. Interesting trip as mama unexpectedly had to leave early to get back for work while the kids and I stayed for a few more days. Before she left, Abby was able to run a 12 mile race around the lake, and we all got to watch the Fourth of July parade in the little town by the lake. Very small town America. Very different from the parades in D.C. where we see lots of bands and soldiers. This was more firetrucks and people in their cars driving through the town tossing out candy.

Luckily, mama's departure wasn't too traumatic as Green Lake is starting to grow on me - we had lots of fun swimming and canoeing around. Then, to make things even more interesting, the kids and I got stuck in the Minneapolis airport for five hours after our flight back was delayed. I was able to listen to the World Cup semifinal between Spain and Germany on the radio as we headed to the airport, and we we managed to get a haircut for Teddy during the delay. Still, the trip back wasn't much fun. Especially bad was when we got back to D.C. at 11:30 PM only to sit on the tarmac because they didn't have a gate for us. That was the only point where I threw my hands in the air and starting cursing.

In any event, here are some pictures. One thing to note is Teddy's "picture smile." Margaret has always had a charming picture smile. Point the camera at her, and she just lights up. Teddy, on the other hand, scrunches up his face and seems to grimace when a picture is being taken. It's cute, I suppose, in a certain way, but he definitely isn't as photogenic as his sister. Oh, and also note the last shot in which one can picture the future teenage Margaret in action. Terrifying.

Ghana 2 - U.S.A. 1

Ah well, it was fun while it lasted....

Go Go U.S.A.!!!

The U.S. is through to the knock-out round of the World Cup, and no one can accuse me of being a fair-weather fan. After all, a year ago, I posted about the great U.S. performance in the Confederations Cup. And to all those Brits who mockingly chant, "Can you name your 23?" to U.S. fans, I can actually say, "Yes. I can." Due to an inexplicable shortage (who is in charge of this at Nike?), I haven't been able to get a U.S. jersey, although for a few games, I did wear my South Africa jersey that the in-laws brought back from their trip to South Africa.

On Wednesday, the U.S. faced a do-or-die game against Algeria. Technically, we could have advanced to the next round as long as England tied Slovenia (and didn't score more than three goals doing so), but once England went up 1-0 in the first half of that game, we basically had to win to advance. A co-worker and I met up with some folks at a bar in downtown DC, probably the only time that the place was packed at 10:00 on a weekday morning. England game being shown on one side of the bar, the U.S. game on the other. And a very stressful game, it was. We didn't play terribly well, given the stakes involved, but by the second half, we started taking hold of the game. Numerous shots that we really should have finished, but we just couldn't put anything in the net. Around the 70th minute, I said, "You know, one of these just has to drop at some point," but we still couldn't get one in. By the 90th minute, after jumping up and then cursing and banging my seat so many times, I figured that we were just about done. Four minutes of injury time gave some hope, but did we really have a chance? But then... a quick outlet after an Algerian threat... a pass... a center from close range... a tap at the Algerian goalie that he blocked such that I thought we'd be denied once again... but then the ball scooted just far enough away that... pandemonium ensues. I honestly don't remember much of what happened. I remember the ball shooting into the back of the net, praying the goal wouldn't get called back (yet again), jumping up and down, and yelling myself hoarse along with everyone else in the place. Just amazing. One of the moments that only happens in futbol where you can go from the depths of despair to the pinnacle of victory in moments.

Next thing I knew, I was on the street in the bright sunlight trying to figure out how I could possibly go back to work for the rest of the day. Given that I can barely remember what happened when we won the game, I can't imagine what people on the street thought when the nearby bar erupted in deafening cheers.

To get a sense for what this was like, start with the play itself (can't promise this will work for long as FIFA keeps getting the feeds taken down)....



Then move to the scene in some bar in Nebraska...



And then the folks in Kansas City...



And the people in San Antonio...



And finish with the scene in Davis, California...



which is pretty much what I recall from the bar here in DC. Just brilliant. I can't get enough of this. Although I wouldn't sell Ghana or Uruguary or South Korea short, I just hope that we can continue on through our (relatively easy) bracket to get to the quarterfinals or semis. Wouldn't that be unbelievable?

Graduation Day

I've recently been admonished to "put some stuff on the blog" because "some people count on it for updates." Not sure who those people are or what updates they require, but point taken. I've missed lots of stuff recently as my posts have dropped off. For example, while I noted that Margaret is starting to sprout up, losing all semblence of a little kid, in a recent post, Teddy has also grown a lot lately. He's now the biggest kid in the toddler room at daycare (by a mile!) and has almost caught up to Margaret. And he's losing all of his baby fat as he grows, although he can still flash a good belly or legs with some baby fat.

The biggest event in the last few weeks was Margaret's graduation from daycare. While we like the pre-school room at her daycare, she has already been there for two years, so we figure that another year is just too much. As a result, she'll be heading to the pre-school room at our local public school starting in August. Now, DC public schools have a pretty abysmal reputation so some of you may be aghast at this move. If so, you would fit in pretty well with our neighbors, almost all of whom send their kids to private schools. If you want a good school, the typical strategy involves sending the kid to a private school or moving to the 'burbs. But it turns out that the elementary school in our neighborhood is pretty good. Certain schools in DC, particularly those that draw from limited areas, are good and have huge demand from out-of-boundary families. Because we're in-boundary for the Hyde School, getting in wasn't an issue, rather we had to decide whether we wanted to send Margaret there, keep her in daycare, put her in private school, or move to the 'burbs. The second isn't too attractive for reasons noted earlier, the third is way too expensive, and the last would involve a big life change, so we've decided to send her to the Hyde School. And frankly, I think that she'll benefit from that decision. A private school would involve lots of people who are all the same whereas the local public school will have a more diverse, and interesting, group of students. And I think (hope) that, given some of the recent reforms in DC public schools, things will keep improving. We've started talking about it some, and Margaret seems excited in principle, although I suspect that in practice, she'll be much more hesitant when the time to transition actually arrives.

Because Margaret will be leaving her daycare at the end of the summer, she participated in their recent "graduation" ceremony. Now, I'm a bit skeptical about this type of event. After all, next year she'll be leaving pre-school for kindergarten. Then the following year, she'll be leaving kindergarten for grade school. This could continue forever with a new ceremony for each accomplishment. However, I suppose that some parents find this type of event to be a "big step" for their kid, and it is kind of cute, so I don't really object to it, as long as I don't have to do much. (Incidentally, the graduation started during half-time of the U.S.-Slovenia game in the World Cup. Because the U.S. was losing 0-2 at half-time after a horrific showing in the first half by the U.S. team, I was pretty perturbed at the beginning of the event. However, I followed the game on my Blackberry during the ceremony, and as the U.S. came back - first 1-2 early in the second half, then tying it 2-2 near the end - I was in a much better mood.) (Also, all of the daycare teachers teared up during the graduation ceremony. This was probably the most notable aspect of the event for me - while the teachers see lots of kids come through the center, it's good to know that they really feel some attachment to specific kids.)

So Margaret is now an "graduate" of daycare. In other notable news, Teddy pooped in the potty for the first time ever tonight. Because he befouls himself almost every day after getting home, I put him on the potty in front of a video and told him that he couldn't get up (but could keep watching videos) until he did something in the potty. I'm not terribly keen on the TV/video as a way to occupy the kids, but it appears to be about the only way to actually get the boy to sit on the potty, given that he generally shows little to no interest in it. In the end, he was successful which, quite frankly, I view as an accomplishment that (almost) rivals Margaret's "graduation" from daycare in the big scheme of things.

Margaret's birthday party

Birthday parties for the toddler set can be pretty extravagant affairs. Some people rent out a "special" venue where the kids can run wild. Others hire some sort of performer to keep the kids entertained. Regardless of what people do, the events are always seem to be a serious amount of work for an hour or so of entertaining a bunch of toddlers/pre-school kids.

With that background, we set about planning Margaret's fourth birthday party a month or so ago. For prior birthdays, we've had family affairs, but for some reasons, Abby decided that we'd have a full-blown birthday party for Margaret this year. Which requires a number of decisions. Who do you invite? One possibility would be the party with a small number of select friends. Once we decided not to do this, we basically had to invite everyone. After all, if you're not being very selective, how can you not invite some kids from the preschool room at daycare? And you have to invite the neighborhood kids too.

Next, where do you hold the party? Initially, we thought about renting a local playroom that specializes in this type of event. My personal view was that we should just hold it at the local park. The kids can run around and entertain themselves, and everyone will be happy. What's the point of renting out a place when the kids won't care anyway?

In the end, we invited everyone from the preschool room, plus neighborhood kids and family friends, and held the party at a local park. We ended up with 25-30 kids, all of whom had a grand time running around, checking out bugs, and generally playing in the park. We got way too much food, but everyone seemed to enjoy the cake. And everyone seemed to have fun.

So I'd consider the party to be a success. We probably won't do this again in the future. Unless we do the small party with far fewer attendees. I know that Margaret had fun, but like anything with kids, it's not clear that she had more fun than she would have had with a party that required less work on our part. And that's what I'm looking for - something that makes the kids happy without much work. (I told a pregnant friend at work: "In all likelihood, anything that you think is cool, neat or useful about toys or other stuff for your kid, your kid won't care about." Words of wisdom, I think.)

The main purpose of this post is the pictures. Abby has been bugging me to post pictures from the birthday party, and when I said, "But they aren't any good," she said, "I don't care. I want those pictures." So here they are. All of them.

The Sports Guy

First, the source of the above pictures. This past weekend, we travelled to see the Philadelphia cousins where we went to a Japanese bbq place that we had previously visited for Cousin Andrew's birthday. The cousin's parents went to a baseball game, so it was five kids, Abby, me, and a friend who was in town. (She was in town for a race that she was running with Abby and Rachel on Sunday morning.) The kids didn't have us severely outnumbered, but dinner at the restaurant was still a chaotic event. Our chef put on a pretty good show including the standard trick of throwing shrimp for people to catch. That's what Teddy is doing, or trying to do, in these pictures.

Teddy likes to catch things. More generally, he's a big sports fan. He basically likes every sport out there. Hockey: has no idea what's going on, but is fine sitting there and watching a game. Same with American football. Basketball he loves, especially if it involves Georgetown. And he has a somewhat better idea what's actually happening in a basketball game. Same with soccer.

But I think that he really loves baseball. I'm not sure why. In fact, I'm not sure why he likes sports at all. But he can actually sit for an amazing amount of time to watch a baseball game. Neither his mama nor his papa are particularly good at sports. And at this point in my life, I have little patience as a spectator of the vast majority of sporting events, especially baseball (which takes a god-awful amount of time to play a game) or football (which involves too much silly stuff with big fat guys falling down). Nowadays, I tend to like futbol or, I suppose, hockey, both of which involve lots of continuous action in a relatively compressed time frame.

Teddy, in contrast, wants to play baseball. He wears his little Cubs hat, has his little mitt, and especially likes to swing his little bat at "pitches" thrown at him. When he then throws the ball, he has this little wind-up that he must have learned from watching games on TV. It would appear that he's a submariner because when he tosses the ball, he tends to do so in an side-arm fashion. And it's not clear that he knows on which hand his mitt belongs - when I say, "Wrong hand, Teddy," he'll immediately concur, "Yeah, wrong hand" and will switch his mitt to the correct hand. But he almost always starts with his mitt on the wrong hand.

Speaking of the "wrong hand" for his mitt, it could be that he's left-handed. Like his sister. She is so clearly left-handed that there's no point in even discussing it at this point. She's interested in sports as well, but not nearly with the same intensity. Instead, she seems to be more of a "casual" sports fan like her mama and papa. I'm not sure if Teddy's interest reflects a gender effect or something else. But I do hope that he's not disappointed with his future athletic career. Given the athletic skill that he has gotten from his genetic background - on both sides - I fear that he will be.

Changing the title

Ok, so now that Maddie is gone, I'll change the title of this blog to "The kids and us." The address will stay the same, but there's no point in keeping the title the same. Sort of like the fact that we got rid of many of Maddie's toys over the last few weeks - very sad, but what are you going to do?

I'll stop posting stuff about the dog, but before doing so, I'm going to write about how the kids are currently handling her absence (along with a few other thoughts and memories in one last post later - mainly for posterity rather than for the edification/entertainment of any readers out there).

Teddy has little sense that Maddie is gone. On occasion, he will mention her name, but he doesn't seem to dwell on her absence in any meaningful way. About the most that he's done is to raise his hand and complain about "Maddie hair" - something that he has always done after discovering some foreign hair object on his pacifier or food. Because we no longer have dog hair permeating the house, his complaints are less frequent, but they still pop up.

Margaret has a better sense that Maddie isn't here, but I don't think that she completely understands why or exactly what it means. Still, she seems to recognize that Maddie is gone and won't be coming back. For example...

When we walk home from work, we can walk through various parks. One is a nice playground just south of K St. that doesn't see many kids, but abuts a fenced-in dog park. The last two times that we have headed home in this direction, Margaret has asked about Maddie, probably because the dog park reminds her of Maddie. During the most recent trip along that route, Margaret, who was sitting (in a blatant safety violation) on top of the stroller in front of me said, "I miss Maddie." "Yeah, so do I," I said. "Why did Maddie have to leave?" "Well, she got sick and had to go to the doctor." "But she misses us." "Yeah, I'm sure that she does." "And we miss her." "Yes, we do." "But will she come back?" "No, I don't think so." "Why not?" "Well, she was pretty sick." (A pause.) "So she won't come back?" "No, she was pretty sick and I don't think that she'll be able to come back." (A pause.) "But she was a good dog." "Yes, she was." (A pause.) "I miss her a lot." "Yeah, I miss her a lot too."

Margaret was getting a little teary-eyed around this point, but I told her that we'd talk about it later and managed to get her distracted by something else. So while Margaret seems to have some understanding that Maddie isn't here, and seems pretty unhappy that she isn't, her understanding isn't terribly deep or persistent at this point.

Adjusting to Maddie's absence

It's still difficult to come home from work and not see Maddie. Or to walk around the neighborhood without the dog. At this point in her life, Maddie wasn't doing the amazing things that she did in her prime, so it's more the overall routine that I miss. She was just there. Loitering around the kitchen. Helping with the yardwork. Jumping into the back of the car to accompany us to Target in the 'burbs or wherever we happened to be going. I'm so accustomed to thinking, "I'm going to 7-11 (or Oscar's store or Ricardo's store Griffin Market - two of the little bodegas in our neighborhood) and I'll take Maddie along and she'll wait outside for me" that it's really jarring, and not a little disorienting and depressing, to go by myself.

One thing that I really miss is her ability to "clean up" after the kids. Neither of the kids is a terribly neat eater at this point. Teddy, in particular, is quite a slob. So we end up with lots of rice or peas or whatever on the floor after dinner. And cereal all over the little breakfast table in the morning. In the past, I never gave much thought to these spills, as Maddie would invariably clean them up at some point. But now, they just sit there. So we have rice under the dinner table from a couple of days ago, waiting for Abby or me to vacuum it up. Even when I'm cooking dinner, I find that I'm amazingly careless about scattering little scraps on the floor during my food prep because, in the past, I could always count on her to take care of them.

Margaret knows that Maddie isn't here. (Not surprisingly, Teddy is basically clueless, although he has called her name or mentioned her a few times. But there's no depth to his mentions of her.) Yesterday, when we came home, Margaret yelled "Maddie!!" as we always do, then casually asked "Where's Maddie?" when the dog didn't appear. But she headed right for the bathroom without waiting for a response and didn't belabor the point. Nor did I. (By the way, it's exactly this sort of casual event - calling "Maddie" when we open the door after getting home - that is so freakin' difficult for me.)

Today, she was a bit more persistent, although not at the obvious time when we got home. "Where's Maddie?" she asked as we walked home, partly because she was whining about things in general and decided that this was a reasonable thing to whine about. "Well, Maddie got sick and had to go to the doctor," I told her. "But she'll miss us," Margaret replied. I told her that we'd talk about it later. Then when she asked the same question as we drove to Target to get stuff for her birthday party - again the type of situation where I really miss the dog because she would always be there in my rear view mirror as we drove somewhere after jumping into the back with a casual "Maddie up!" - and got the same response, she said, "But she'll miss us. And we'll miss her."

I don't think that Margaret can possibly understand the situation, even if she notices Maddie's absence. I think that I'll probably deflect her questions forever. I won't really lie to her (which some friends in Chicago suggested - "Maddie's gone to a farm" or something like that), but I'm not sure that it's even possible to have a meaningful or informative discussion about death with a four-year old.

A final thought is that I've been amazed by how sympathetic people are when they hear that you've lost a pet. I may be a bit inexperienced with grief, having lost few important people in my life. After all, I still have two 90-year old grandparents around (both of whom are going strong) and, until last year, had three. When people have told me that they've lost a pet in the past, I think that I've had a somewhat subdued response, partly because I don't want to intrude on their personal grief and partly because I don't have much experience with it. But when I mention that Maddie died, both to friends in Chicago and to people at work, it's been amazing how sympathetic people have been. And, I have to say, it really helps.