Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

Just because that is how things go with kids, precisely one hour before her grandparents were due to arrive Katherine pulled a small empty bookcase over onto herself.  It took all of two seconds, and I couldn’t get around the furniture in time to keep it from following her down.  Much crying ensues.  After I determined that she was alright, I thought 1) this isn’t going to look good when Sydney and his parents walk in the door 2) we need to travel with her soon, which isn’t going to be easy if it looks like we beat her up 3) is she going to get a black eye for all of her “grandparents visiting” photos???

So far it’s just a couple of pink spots on her brow and cheek, but we’ll see what she looks like after her nap.

Sigh.

Erin

P.S. One hour after her grandparents arrived, Katherine had racked up another few bumps and bruises, and Nathaniel had joined in the fun by bashing himself in the head with a toy that he was swinging.  These kids!

This afternoon I visited the house of some other expats (from Nashville) to buy some children’s books.  The family is moving back home and were selling the books for 30 pence apiece–not bad!  I picked up 15 books (with all the money I had) and am now all set for “new” books to keep Katherine occupied on the upcoming rounds of planes, trains, and buses.  If I dole them out very slowly this may actually work; she’s become quite keen on naming things in books, and even occasionally requests that I read to her (rather than just tell me what the books are about, which is the norm).

Sydney’s parents will be staying in the other half of our house, which we’ve rented from Sydney’s college.  Today Sydney picked up the keys and we took a peek.  Very cute!  The house is quirky, like ours, and a bit smaller, but very nicely prepared for company.  If I added a few throw pillows and whipped up a killer breakfast it might even pass for a B&B!

I realized that this is the second house we’ve lived in that has a “secret” half; in Ithaca Christi’s house (as in, the main house) was right on the other side of the living room door.  Here the two halves of the house are fraternal twins, with enough similarity for me to feel at home, but enough differences to make me wish I could pop over to enjoy being “away” every now and then.  It’s like living in a Nabokov house (he always has secret doors, mirrors, and other tricks of the eye in his novels).  If we ever move into a house of our own I may find myself hunting for a door to the “other half.”  Maybe Sydney will have to build me a secret study . . .

Erin

We just got Nathaniel’s passport in the mail today.  Just in time!  Sydney’s parents arrive for a ten-day visit on Monday, and we’re planning a three-day holiday to Switzerland so we can all get a small dose of the Alps.  (Lisa E., this is just to whet my appetite so that I’m keen to return once you settle in there!)  Sydney’s parents are going to stay in the other half of our house, which the college has kindly let us rent for the week, and we’re all hoping for both relaxation and some fun sightseeing.  The weather is great: seventies and lots of sun.  More importantly, the markets are filled with good fruit, and Sydney’s been coming home with paper bags filled with peaches, plums, strawberries, and apricots.

Things on our street are rather busy at the moment.  If you’re at all familiar with the Inspector Morse or Inspector Lewis television series, some of it is set in Oxford, and they’re filming scenes on our street and in a house a few doors down.  Katherine’s loving the excitement.  She has been entertaining some of the bored crew while she stands at the window with rapt attention.  Sydney and I are, admittedly, less keen on the noise and bother, but then I realized that the film crews were keeping motorcycles from zipping through our area at high speeds, so now I’m somewhat mollified.  From what we’ve seen, I’m very glad not to be in the movie business.  There’s a lot of standing around while passersby gawk.  I think Faulkner, who worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood for several years, was right in dismissing movies as “the new art” on grounds that they required too much collaboration–and therefore too much compromise.

Erin

Since I’m going to be traveling alone with the kids, I decided that, not only will Katherine be traveling on her own two feet (her brother takes her place in the backpack), but I’m going to be making her into a packhorse.

She loves her backpack.

And so do all of the people we meet on the street, particularly when they get a look at her from the back.

Erin

Here’s an interesting chart compiled by a professor at Cornell:

This goes a fair ways in explaining the odd political behaviour of a good many Americans.

Source: ‘Reconstituting the Submerged State: The Challenges of Social Policy Reform in the Obama Era’ by Suzanne Mettler.

The kids have been testing boundaries recently and, while some of it is as unpleasant as it sounds, some of it is also wonderful.  Nathaniel’s become much more of a little wiggle worm, propping himself up to look around at the world.

Yes, he really is as round and cute as he looks in that picture (20 pounds of roundness and cuteness, to be exact).  He has started trying to sit up by himself and roll over and, though he’s currently quite frustrated, with the help of a pillow he does pretty well.  Here I’d lain him on his back on the right-hand pillow, and, in the course of about a minute, he’d dragged himself up, smiled, and made a graceful nosedive into the couch.

And yes, I know it’s dark, but if you can’t tell, he’s really quite pleased with himself.

I hate taking pictures of his silly pacifier, but right now he’s drooling, munching, and obsessing all over it.

Katherine, meanwhile, is really into being helpful.  She is finally learning to play well with Nathaniel.  As you can see, she also has the backpack figured out.  She was so shyly proud of herself as she walked around with her doll in it that I didn’t know whether to laugh or get all sentimental.

Today I’ve had to work really hard to say something other than, “Not yet, Katherine!  Wait for Mama!  Oh, honey, not quite!” as she drags out my shoes or follows me outside as I set the recycling out (slamming the door shut behind us, nearly locking me out of the house).  But sometimes it works.  This evening I picked up a muffin pan from some friends leaving town, and we made carrot muffins before Katherine went to bed.  Katherine decided she really needed to get in on the action, dragging over a stool, handing me carrots, arranging the utensils on the counter.  She did a great job.  Here she is enjoying the fruits of our labor.

She loves carrots, raisins, and all things made with flour, so these were an overdetermined success.  All jubilant from this first mother-daughter cooking experience (I’m not counting the time I made banana bread with her in the backpack at one month old, a success of a different kind), I showed her this picture on the camera and asked who that was.

“Kah-thrin”

“Who???” [She’s never used a name for herself before, so I’m a bit floored.]

[Looking shy, but also like, “What, you didn’t hear me?”] “You.  Kah-thrin.”

Okay, so we’ll work on pronouns, but I’m pretty pleased that she’s finally given herself a name.  Well done, kiddo!

Erin

Celebrating Independence Day has gotten quite a bit more complicated as I got older.  First I married a Canadian, and thus have to keep both July 1st and July 4th in mind, and now I’m living in the country from which we Americans celebrate our independence.

Erin

Katherine counting her toes.

Erin

The kids seem to have picked up some germs with their embassy visit earlier this week (germs?  in a place crawling with little kids needing passports and visas?  no way), so we’ve been dealing with whiny, stuffy kids the last couple of days.  Ahh, international germs.  Why do we take the kids out of the house again?

Because we want them to see their grandparents.  Which they will!  Sydney’s parents will be coming for a visit in just over two weeks, and we’re excited to see them.  We’re planning on making a Penner family trip to the Continent during their stay, so it’s going to be a bit of a whirlwind visit, but we hope that we’ll also be able to have lots of down time in which to watch the grandparent/grandchild dynamic.  Currently Nathaniel is as flirty as can be, so we are cautiously hopeful that he will improve on his sister’s first introduction to Grandma Penner, in which Katherine clung to her mother and cried every time her grandmother held her.  Nathaniel, this is your place to shine.

I also just bought tickets for a visit to Iowa at the end of August.  The Birdsong grandparents have offered babysitting time in exchange for a visit, so with their help I’m hoping to prepare for my dissertation defense at the end of September, attend the defense, and also introduce my son to his mother’s home territory.  Sydney will, with any luck, enjoy some real work time on his own in Oxford, though I warned him not to get too used to life without kids, since that will make for a rude awakening upon our return!  He, in return, is hoping that I’ll be too busy with kids, work, and the Birdsong clan to notice his absence.  We’ll see.

Erin

An added note: Now that I have locked myself into a transatlantic flight with two small children I see that Malaysia Airlines has banned children under the age of two in first-class section.  This news item has brought another wave of complaints about kids on planes to the fore.  As Sydney can attest, such things put me in a foul frame of mind.  My favorite comment: “Why don’t the kids just stay with their grandparents if their parents have to travel?”  As anyone who has ever chatted up a child-bearing flyer can attest, the majority of the time the kids travel they’re on the way to see the grandparents.  Come on, people!

On Tuesday we caught an early bus to London so that we could appear at the embassy and get Nathaniel’s citizenship and passport papers started.  The bus was nearly an hour late, and we almost gave up and turned back home, assuming we wouldn’t make the appointment, but we did.  When I saw that the waiting room in the embassy had a kids’ play area I realized we were in for a bit of a wait 🙂  But things went smoothly and we were out of there before the kids got too fussy.  I’d put off the visit for four months, not wanting to drag brand-new Nathaniel on such a trip, but I saw that several families had brought in their tiny newborns for the process.  We’d planned a nice walk through Hyde Park afterwards, with a picnic, and I brought the camera along in the hopes that we’d get to take cute pictures of our kids.  We ended up getting doused by a thunderstorm, however, and we finally made a run for it, catching a bus in our rather damp clothes.  I have a feeling we’ll need to return to the city pretty soon to get Nathaniel a UK visa (oh joy!), so maybe we can give that another shot.

Erin