Hallie and Travis

Some of the most fun times I have with Hallie are when I take her for a nonsensical ride and she catches wise to it. She’s certainly got a playful streak and when she’s in that mood everyone’s in for some fun.

I sometimes tease her by offering her “bug” juice, which in my Navy days was a just a fancy name for Kool Aid. She usually squeals at the thought, so I gave the bug juice idea a new twist.

One night a few weeks ago we were finishing up a fanily dinner when I noticed Hallie was slowing down with her eating. I decided to create a game about eating, knowing that a distraction like this would tickle Hallie’s funnybone and perhaps get her eating in spite of herself. Thus was born the “but I don’t eat bugs game.”

Here’s how it worked. If, say, Hallie still had broccoli on her plate, I announced “I eat broccoli, … but I don’t eat bugs.” Hallie would counter with a different food item, adding “but I don’t eat bugs.” Once we ran out of edible items we started in on the nonsensical ones.

“I eat the sun, … but I don’t eat bugs.”

“I eat elephants, … but I don’t eat bugs.”

“I eat lanwmowers, … but I don’t eat bugs.”

Then came the unquantifiable things.

“I eat shiftlessness, … but I don’t eat bugs.”

“I eat melancholy, … but I don’t eat bugs.”

As Hallie and I went farther off the deep end, Kelly and I were constantly amazed at how well Hallie kept up with the game. Whenever I would take the game in a new direction, Hallie would be right there, ready to up the ante. She has an incredibly quick-thinking mind!

Are you starting to see why we named our sailboat Whimsy?

For quite a while I felt like I was shortchanging Hallie by posting many more entries about Travis. Apparently the tables have turned. A new reader of the Hallie and Travis page commented that “Hallie sounds like she’s endlessly entertaining. Poor Travis.” It made me take a look and I found to my surprise that the recent postings are almost all about Hallie or about both of them. I guess their noteworthy comments or accomplisments come in waves. But it looks like I don’t need to worry about shortchanging Hallie anymore!

With Hallie in school, I’ve been trying to get Travis involved in more things. We’ve started having regular playdates with his friend Sarah, the little sister of Hallie’s friend Alex. Travis and Sarah don’t play together that much, but they are excited about being around each other. Sarah is three months older and quite a pistol. I’m glad he’s got at least one regular friend in his life! Anisa and I have been getting together for playdates since Hallie was 6 months old. It feels like a time warp for us to be together with just one kid a piece.

I always thought I’d wait until next fall to start Travis in preschool. But I think that was more for me than for him. As I watch him grow so fast and his language and interests explode, I think he’d probably be fine going right now. He sure was hard to drag out of Hallie’s classroom at camp this summer!

So, I started looking for programs for T this week, hoping to start him in January. Then I discovered a dilemma: Travis’s birthday is 9 days after the county cut-off for starting school each year. This will serve him well when he does start school, putting him on the older end. But most church and private preschools follow those guidelines, too. So, even if I started him in January, they’d put him in the “one-year-old” classroom.

At this age the developmental gap is so huge that that hardly seems worth it. I did, though, find a YMCA program that comes highly recommended that will take him in January in their twos classroom. They said he’ll have to repeat with the twos in the fall so he doesn’t miss that part of their curriculum. But I’m fine with that, and by then the gap won’t be quite so vast. I’m waiting for confirmation that they have a slot open and to set up a time to observe the classroom. I hope it measures up!

This is also part of my plan to pick up some more freelance work. I’ve already talked with the GFC folks and it sounds like they will have some more-regular things for me to do. I know I’m only buying myself 4-5 hours a week with Travis in school. But I’m hoping I can get in that much again during the afternoons/evenings without spreading myself too, too thin. It will be an experiment, and I will definitely need Mark’s promised support. I have a feeling it will be quite a juggling act but hopefully a worthwhile one both financially and intellectually/professionally. And it will be good for all of us to have more time with Mark really in charge of the kids.

Hallie’s developing quite the social life and it makes me very happy. The only real concern I had for her last year was that I didn’t see her making close friends at school or really seem engaged with the other kids. I’d seen her make friends very quickly in other settings. This year at school is much better, and so are things in the neighborhood.

Today Hallie took her friend Natalie from school to “bring a friend” week at The Little Gym. Natalie came to play first and stayed for lunch before the class. Natalie’s almost a year younger but they play really well together. Before we arranged this date, Hallie had already told Natalie that she wanted her to come over for “peanut butter and honey sandwiches cut with cookie cutters and chicken nuggets and lemonade.” Natalie had assured Hallie that the menu sounded perfect. It’s so fun to watch them develop their independence!

Hallie has also played every afternoon this week with her friend Lily who lives at the end of our street. Lily turned 4 in April, so they are really close in age. The time we had Lily over here a few months ago they had fun but didn’t interact much. I felt like I was working hard to come up with activities for them. That’s changed this week, though. They have spent most of their time at Lily’s house with one session in our backyard. They’ve been doing art projects and playing with dolls and toys and running around outside.

I’d just been saying a couple of weeks ago that we really need to start having more afternoon playdates for Hallie since she’s napping so little but we can’t go anywhere while T’s napping. This looks like our answer. I don’t know if Hallie and Lily will keep up this level of engagement, but it’s great right now. And it fits well with trying to revise Hallie’s schedule. This week she napped two days and then was up until 10 both nights. Until now, the long naps hadn’t messed up her bedtime. So now I’m thinking I DON’T want her to fall asleep in the afternoons. Maybe I’ll start having her do quiet time in the playroom?? I’m sure I’ll just keep experimenting until we get something figured out.

In the meantime, it’s handy for me to have Hallie up the street while Travis naps. I might actually be able to get on top of a few things. And even when they play here, they’ll entertain each other which lets me get a few things done. Mostly I’m just glad to have Hallie find a neighborhood friend she really clicks with. I can already tell it’s going to be hard for me to watch some of these social ups and downs from the sidelines as she gets older.

Apparently Travis wasn’t going to let Hallie stand as the only quoted Turner today. As he sat on my lap at bedtime tonight he noticed something amiss with the drawer under his crib. Up went his eyebrows as he declared, “I see another blanket sticking out!”

Of course we had to get down and fix that blanket. In the process he pulled out another one, a crocheted baby gift. For the rest of our stories he played with it and “made himself cozy.” At one point he pulled it over his head while I kept reading and holding the book in front of him. He’s used to playing under solid blankets, but this one was full of holes. I could literally feel his excitement as he declared, “I can see the book under here!” Were we really ever worried about his language development??

Hallie’s flinging the quotable comments right and left this afternoon!

Travis joined her at the table to draw and keeps announcing that he’s drawing butterflies. “That’s a lot of butterflies, Travis.” Hallie commented. “It sounds to me like you might be a lepidopterist when you grow up!”

Wow. That’s just about all that I can say. Wow!

I had to jot these down before I forgot them.

While working on a sign for the picnic she set up for several stuffed animals: “It’s hard drawing a sign but I think I could do anything if I just tried.”

While working on the same sign (really a picture) and trying to make it look more like our back yard: “I’m going to draw a little bit of brown on the hill to make it look like some of the grass is dying.” She’s got the details right! Now she just needs to add the knee-high weeds. I’m sure that’s coming next. . .

I know all kids will say embarrassing things and probably about or in front of the least appropriate person. And I know I’m in for some, probably from out of left field. For months I’ve been censoring things I say around Hallie. I’m convinced she’ll innocently share with friends or neighbors our thoughts on their parenting style, purchases, etc.

So, in the whole scheme of things, what Hallie said last week wasn’t so bad. While riding with our neighbor to school one morning, Hallie piped up, “Miss Sue, your car is dirtier than ours is.” Apparently she looked around to consider the accuracy of her statement before affirming, “Yep. It’s definitely a LOT dirtier than ours.”

Fortunately Sue thought this was pretty funny and shared it in that spirit. The really funny thing is that I don’t know how anyone’s car could be dirtier than mine. I guess Hallie’s just used to that mess but someone else’s is noteworthy.

We had a good laugh with Hallie over this but we reminded her gently that it’s generally not polite to point out other people’s messes. I haven’t yet explained the aphorism “the pot calling the kettle black,” but I think it might be about time!

Hallie continues to monitor our sailing lingo, or lack thereof. Today I made some reference to the “front” of the boat. Immediately Hallie piped up, “It’s the BOW!” Later on we set her up to say that again while Mark had the video camera going. I’m glad we captured our young sailing instructor. That may come back to haunt her when she’s off winning the America’s Cup!

We got out both Saturday and Sunday this weekend and had two of our best days yet. When we told Hallie we were going today, she cheered and said “I hope we go really, really, really fast!” And we did! There was a LOT of wind this weekend–more than I thought I could handle alone. So yesterday I spent the whole time with the kids, mostly below decks.

Today was much better (for me, at least). There was still plenty of wind, but Ralph went out with us. So most of the day I was up with him and Mark was with the kids. Ralph handed the sails while I took the tiller. He’s a good teacher, and I was definitely getting a better feel for the boat by the end of the day. I also love how stable Whimsy is. Despite some big gusts and assorted mistakes, she handled beautifully and showed no signs at all of going over.

The kids are comfortable as can be, even with some of my crazy manuevering. They spent a good part of today in the front, excuse me, the bow, tickling each other and generally cracking each other up. Still no on-board napping going on, but we can always hope! We’ll be out of town next weekend but perhaps we’ve still got a few more trips left before the weather gets cold. The production of getting into (and out of) the water is exhausting, but the time out there sure is splendid!

We were out enjoying our family sail when I had to make a decision about how to return. I mulled choices over with Kelly.

“We could go to the left of the island,” I told her. “Or maybe the right side would be better.”

I decided the wind favored the right side. “Okay, let’s go to the right side.”

The next thing I know, Hallie says something and Kelly bursts out laughing. “What? What is it?” I ask.

“Hallie just yelled ‘it’s starboard!’”

Our girl is only four years old and already she’s got this sailing thing down.