Autumn On and On

Having had quite a bit of fun on our this autumn’s two previous farm outings (alpacas and pumpkins, you’ll recall), today we went to a lovely little farm on the western edge of town for more of the same. We were joined there by a family with girls the same age as ours, and proceeded to have a ridiculous amount of fun. A sandbox filled six inches deep with corn kernels! Gourd sculptures! A “hayride” that was actually a long wagon-borne tour of the farm! Cows! Gorgeous autumn colors everywhere! Suffusingly warm sunshine! A haybale maze that was also an excellent climbing/balancing thingy!

In short, it was a fantastic time.

Vivi on the Haybales

Julia on the Haybales

The Scene

Pre-K Civics

The four of us were in the kitchen this morning, attending to various needs (parents: coffee; children: coloring), while NPR ran a fair-and-balanced review of the presidential candidates’ weekend activites. Julia recognized Barack Obama’s voice, how he was one of the men who wanted to be president, and how Mama and Daddy wanted him to be president.

Then NPR ran a sound bite of a John McCain speech, leading Julia to ask about him. I told her his name and tried to explain that he also wanted to be president, that both of them really wanted to be the next president. She interrupted her coloring to look up at me and ask, “How are they going to work that out?”

Little Pumpkins

Just like we did last year around this time, today the Tassavas headed out to Thorn Crest Farm, a lovely little homestead southwest of town. Once the littlest member of the family emerged from her post-nap funk, we had a blast trooping around the piles of pumpkins and gourds, choosing a few apples for later, petting the cow and the horse, and generally soaking up the fall-on-a-farm ambiance.

Meeting Bessie
Meeting Bessie

I’ll leave to Shannon a more detailed account, but suffice it to say that the girls were happy to find some pumpkins for the house

Julia and Her Pumpkin
Julia and Her Pumpkin
Genevieve and Her Pumpkin
Genevieve and Her Pumpkin

while I had to make do with a couple of nuts.

Wheelbarrowed
Wheelbarrowed

Deciphered

One of Genevieve’s major sources of frustration with The World is that so few people in it can figure out what the hell she’s saying. Julia’s probably best at this arduous, high stakes task. Shannon is not far behind, but I lag well back. I counted it as a triumph a few weeks ago that I succeeded in getting Genevieve to repeat something more than twice before staging one of her freakouts.

Tonight came what I hope is another breakthrough. Vivi jogged up to me, jumped up and down excitedly and patted her stomach, then yelled, “Doo-doo nammy! Doo-doo nammy! Doo-doo nammy!” I had no idea what she was talking about. “Is it something you want to do?” “Nooooo.” “Is it something you want me to get?” “Nooooo!” “Is it playing?” “NOOO!” As I guessed, Shannon came upstairs, and after a few more wrong, wrong, wrong tries, she hit it: “Tickle your tummy! ‘Doo-doo nammy’ means ‘Tickle my tummy!'” Genevieve looked up at me with the same look you might give a dense dog that just figured out that you had not, in fact, thrown the ball, then threw herself down on the floor, shrieking “Yeaaaaaaaah! “Doo-doo nammy!”

She very much enjoyed the tickling.

[post edited to reflect how it all actually went down]

One More Post on the Governor of Alaska

Via an excellent piece by Rebecca Traister in Salon,

Shaking our heads and wringing our hands in sympathy with Sarah Palin is a disservice to every woman who has ever been unfairly dismissed based on her gender, because this is an utterly fair dismissal, based on an utter lack of ability and readiness.

I came across this even more excellent blog post by the journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, explaining how and why it could be that McCain’s decision to pick Palin was, in fact, cruel and sexist:

Which brings me to the sexism of John McCain. He knew full well what Sarah Palin was going to face if he nominated her. He knew that reporters would go through her past, that they’d quizz her on the present, that she would need to be ready, and he shunted concern aside, and tossed her to the wolves. Think on that for a mement. For one last run at the White House, he risked a future star of the party he claims to call home. How do you do that?

Process of Elimination

Shannon had a rather bad experience at the park today, one which involved the Elder being rather difficult and then having an accident right there on the play structure. Thank god for UV radiation and rain.

Not willing to leave me out of the fun, the girls convened the Committee on Elimination at bathtime. First, Genevieve peed in the tub. Par for the course around here, this resulted in nothing more than a hurried bath in the water at the clean end of the tub. Yeah, I said, “the clean end of the tub.” The fundamentals of the tub were sound.

As I wound up the scrubbing, Julia announced she had to go to the bathroom. Trying not to be amused (it’s still funny to hear her use that euphemism, plus we were in the bathroom), I hauled her out of the tub and plopped her down on the potty chair, then turned back to Vivi. I toweled her off and set her free for her usual naked runabout, at exactly which time Julia asked for parental help addressing the sanitary demands created by a #2. I did my duty and told her, to her usual disappointment, that no, I wouldn’t take care of the potty chair, that it was her responsibility. (She handles it without problems all the time.)

Just then, from the other room, I heard Vivi shout, “Oh no!” I jumped up and looked down the hall, to see her standing over a large turd of her own. I yelled, “Vivi! Run to the bathroom! Run down here right now!” and turned to grab the container of diaper wipes. She started to sprint to the bathroom, jettisoning two more turds on the way. Julia, doing her level best to clean out the potty-chair bowl, was now calling, “What’s going on, Daddy! Where are you running?” as I poop-scooped in the hallway.

I had just used a healthy stack of wipes to deposit all three items in a snatched-up garbage bag when Vivi yelped delightedly from the bathroom, “Daddy! Potty!” Reversing course, I ran to the bathroom, where Vivi was sitting on the potty chair, grinning the grin of the successful potty-chair user.

Only Julia was still rinsing the bowl, which meant Vivi had gone all over the inside of the potty chair. Luckily, everything had landed in the basin that usually holds the bowl itself. This would have made for relatively easy clean-up (= a couple big wads of a toilet paper and many, many Clorox wipes), except that I had to use one hand to hold on to Vivi so she didn’t wander off to wreak more havoc.

Anyhow, I got that done, then cleaned up and diapered Vivi (for those keeping track, this is two #2s cleaned up in about two minutes); checked in on Julia, who was nearly done with her chore but still bewildered by the commotion; and went off to use most of a can of carpet cleaner on three surprisingly small spots o’ floor.

I think that post-bath naked-time is on hiatus for a while.

Alpaca!

On the spur of the moment, I took Julia and Genevieve to a nearby farm for “National Alpaca Farm Day” this afternoon.

I’m not kidding.

The girls had a blast, and as it happened, two of the other three playdate families were there, too, so the farm was swarming with squealing kids who loved the alpacas (so soft!)

Alpaca Brothers
Alpaca Brothers
Admiring the Alpacas
Admiring the Alpacas

the pygmy goats (they ate dry leaves!)

Julia Feeding the Goat
Julia Feeding the Goat

and even the cows.

Cows
Cows

The fauna was interesting, but the flora was nice, too.

Farm Fields
Farm Fields

Noah, or, Another Monotheist in My House

Julia, in true big-sister form, has infected her sister with that world-historical virus, Christian myth. The two little believers will sit for extended periods of time, their Nonna-donated children’s bible on their laps, and tell each other Bible stories – or at least the thoroughly bowdlerized versions in this version of the Good Book. (David offs Goliath, but Noah’s daughters don’t fornicate with him, and the Revelation is free of holy bloodshed.)

Vivi, as you might expect, doesn’t “get” the New Testament parables and miracle stories, even though Julia likes them a lot. God help (so to speak) the next person who reads Julia the parable of the seeds from Matthew 13:3-13 – she can go on and on and on about those $@#(&% seeds. Both girls like the nativity story, of course, with Vivi – the baby – perhaps enjoying it even a little more than Julia does. This is saying something, since Julia would, like, totally friend Jesus on Facebook.

But the story that Vivi likes the very most is the story of the Deluge. Any why not! Who doesn’t like divine planetary genocide? God hitting the old cosmic reset? Noah, that old goat, on a round-the-world cruise with some goats? Actually, what Vivi likes is the animals, and the fact that she knows all the main parts of the story. This (translated from toddler-speak to something like English) is how she told the story the other night, carefully turning the pages of the children’s bible and describing the pictures and the action:

“Once upon a time, Noah! [Onnnnna dime, Noah!] Boat. Noah, boat. Animals. Rain! Rain! God [Doog], rain. RAIN! RAIN! RAIN! No more rain. Stop rain! Tweet-tweet [bird]! Animals! Rainbow.”

I can’t wait to hear how she retells the crucifixion.

Slice of Life

This video has been floating around my computer’s desktop for a couple months, but it still accurately shows the hijinks that typically ensue as dinner winds down. Among other things, the video (in about three minutes) captures the dynamics between Vivi and Julia and it shows Vivi trying out some (then-) new words, like “Excuse me” – “Naa ma.” Plus it’s kinda funny to see her waking Julia up.


Slice of Life from Christopher Tassava on Vimeo.

Fall Fun

The new playground in our neighborhood is worth its weight in gold – or in the sweat of the volunteers who assembled it. I think we’ve visited it every day since it opened last week, and never been disappointed. While, amazingly, pretty much every part of the play structure is suitable for both girls, they are currently enamored of the double slide:

Top of the Slide
Top of the Slide
Bottom of the Slide
Bottom of the Slide

On the way home from the park, the girls are now asking to call Mama to tell her about what they did there. Julia actually holds a conversation, while Vivi pretty much just says, adorably, “Iiiii, Mama!” and then “uh-huh” or “no” until I hear Shannon ask her to give the phone back to me. It’s still cute.

Julia Talking
Julia Talking
Vivi Talking
Vivi Talking

Jiza

Inspired by the nativity video, the girls spend an awful lot of time playing “Nativity,” which entails Julia serving as Mary, me acting either as Joseph or as the angel Gabriel, Shannon stepping in and out of a role as innkeeper, and Genevieve, of course, being Jesus. This set of roles reads to at least two kinds of hilarity.

First, we have Julia continuing to say unintentionally crazed stuff like, “Jesus, you have to put your pajamas on!” or “Jesus, you have to lay down on the blanket” or “Jesus, I can’t nurse you right now; the angel is here!” 

Second, we have the sight and sound of Vivi, walking and running throughout the house, pointing at her round toddler tummy and shouting, “Jiza! Jiza!” – as close as she can get right now to “Jesus.” Ask for her name, and she yells, “Jiza!” I haven’t seen her perform any miracles – turning her surliness into cheer? – and she happily violates the Golden Rule,  but on the other hand, you’re probably only allowed to consider yourself Jesus when you’re two or a CEO.