Anna has lately had a very high rate of stepford incidents. Several nights in a row, she has spontaneously decided to get herself all ready by herself. After dinner, she had been clearing her plates without being asked. This morning, she started putting laundry in the washer on her own. She is four. Of course, this has been balanced out by tantrums and general uncooperativeness, but still, we’re not used to this kind of good behavior. I wonder if she is beginning to pull out of the terrible twos¹. In any case, we’ll just have to take what we can get for the moment.

¹ We’ve heard the terrible twos are in fact followed by the thankless threes and the F-U fours.

After our San Diego Rennaissance on Monday, we decided the kids needed some exposure to the outdoors as well. Upon hearing the news that we were going out on a hike, Anna grabbed her Crayola suitcase and said, “I’m going to wear a dress.”

After a short explanation of why wearing a dress on a hike is generally a good idea, she suggested that she could bring her magic wand and turn all the scraggly bushes and dirt into soft and fluffy things. We compromised on turquoise corduroys.

Our expectations were low, and although we brought a picnic lunch, we fully expected to go about 100 feet before Anna ran out of energy and patience. I had Tara in the backpack, and Anna was on foot. Surprisingly, we made it about a half mile in, where Anna was very interested in the various leaves, and rocks found in the canyon preserve, and there was even a stream where Anna and I dropped leaves in the flowing water, watching them race away from us.

We sat down an ate our sandwiches and oranges and pureed sweet potatoes before returning the way we came. Anna petered out with about 1/4 mile left to go, but we were able to coerce her back to the car with out having to carry her. We found on the way that we could have driven more directly to the interesting place in the canyon, closer to the stream, and will probably give that a try next time, or even try out hiking near the coast.

I’ve been trying to think of something poignant to say about Thanksgiving, but am having writer’s block. Suffice it to say, that we’re tired, but we’ve got it pretty good. There’s a family, food, friends, a house, and at least a little time to enjoy it all. With all that, I really don’t have anything significant to complain about.

For Thanksgiving dinner, we had Jennifer’s cousin L. come over along with a student who is interning with her for the fall semester. Jennifer had decided that because she doesn’t like dry turkey breast, the whole family would have to eat ham for Thanksgiving; however since there are no small hams at the store, the whole family will be eating ham leftovers well into the new year. I did make Jen buy a three pound turkey breast which I grilled and served as well. After a full morning of cooking, we had:

• Glazed ham with bacon-maple gravy
• Turkey breast with turkey (ok, it was chicken) gravy
• Sausage and apple dressing
• Candied sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top
• Mashed potatoes, both with and without dairy
• Cornbread
• Salad from cousin L.
• Apple pie

The cornbread was from a mix and the apple pie we bought frozen, but I made everything else. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to prepare any meal other than the 15-minute variety, so despite the extra effort it was a very nice change of pace.

On Monday, Jennifer’s regular day off, I also took the day off. We sent the kids to their respective preschool and daycare, then spent the day off by ourselves.

We went for a hike at Torrey Pines State Reserve, which really is San Diego in microcosm; rugged cliffs, beautiful ocean vistas, and terrific weather. I took some pictures and we enjoyed the wonderful weather and scenery. In the ocean, we saw a whale migrating south, a seal, and pelicans dive-bombing fish.

After our hike, we drove south to La Jolla, where we had a nice lunch at Brockton Villa, a casual restaurant with an ocean view and a terrific menu. It wasn’t exactly the care-free getaway we were hoping for, but it was a really nice day to enjoy the fruits of our insanely high cost of living.

Anna and Tara spent the night at M. and K.’s house, so Jennifer and I had the first at-home date night in a very long time. By the time we were ready to go, I was really in no mood to go out for dinner; I had a very long and lousy day at work which left me without time to eat breakfast or lunch. After some deliberation, we stopped at the KFC drive-thru. We very rarely eat fast food, so this was something out of the ordinary for us. Sitting at our kitchen table, ignoring the toy-strewn disaster around us, it was wonderful to sit and talk not as parents, but as people. Without a menu to peruse or noisy patrons to ignore, we actually had the freedom to pay attention to each other for what seems like the first time in forever.

To top it off, we each got at least eight hours of uninterrupted sleep; an event so rare and precious in our circles as to inspire awe and jealousy among our friends.

For the last couple years, since our child-free Western Carribean cruise, we have been seeking to reproduce “the cruise effect”–the liberated feeling that comes with putting our responsibilites aside for a time. We know it’s within our grasp for short periods of time, but it’s so hard to let go of all the unresolved issues and logistical juggling that make up the bulk of our daily interaction. Our $12 date surpassed any $150 meal I’ve ever had.

The challenge now is to do it again. and again…

Three days later, I’m pretty much recovered from the marathon photo weekend.

Tara’s crawling skills are improving greatly; if we put her down in an open location she will usually take right off, cackling with glee. I think she likes the feel of the open carpet beckoning. She is coming another ear infection and she’s back to her normal bubbly self for the most part. I’m working on teaching her to fetch; she has already learned to hand things to me, and now that she’s crawling I bet she will love chasing things and bringing them back. I remember now how cool an age the 9-24 months span was with Anna; there are so many new developments on a day-to-day basis.

The other night as Jennifer and I were cleaning up the house, we wondered how Anna manages to make such a mess, and decided that the answer is because we let her. Further, we decided that we let her because when she’s making a mess, she’s generally quiet and low-maintenance. Now I understand how my brothers and I managed to do so much damage when we were growing up.

Over the weekend, after Thursday night volleyball and Friday Dad’s night out, I shot family portraits for… everybody. The stats: Thirteen families, 572 clicks, 4.2 GB of images, and a lot of work. Everything turned out great, and I learned a lot. I’m going to bed.

Tara is now officially mobile. Today, after dinner, she started crawling forward. She would go forward a few inches, then lay down, and get up and do it again, until she had gone several feet. After 10-15 minutes of trying, she could go a couple feet at a time without stopping. Jennifer looked up in Anna’s baby book to find that Anna started just after eight months; Tara turned nine months earlier this week.

Tonight Anna asked me, out of the blue, “What comes after double time-out?”

“Triple time-out,” I replied without looking up from dinner.

“What comes after triple time-out?” she asked, predictably.

I put down my fork. “Big, big trouble.” I replied ominously.

Anna opened her eyes wide. “What is big big trouble?”

I looked around and leaned close to her, then said in a hushed tone, “it’s so bad I can’t even tell you.”

Anna shifted uneasily in her seat. “Can you just whisper it in my ear?” she asked hopefully.

I grimaced darkly. “No, it’s too bad even to say.”

“Please, please, will you tell me?” she pleaded.

I sighed. “Ok, after triple time-out, you have to go directly to bed without any dinner.”

Anna gasped. “Without brushing teeth?”

“Yes, without brushing teeth.”

She clasped her hands to her mouth in fear. “What if Mr. Sugar Bug gets my teeth and then they all fall out and I won’t be able to talk ever ever again?!”

“That’s right.”

Anna was frantic. “That can’t be it! It has to be something else!” Her eyes searched around wildly. “How about if I lose my Bear instead?”

I squinted suspiciously and thought for a moment. “Okay.”

Anna’s shoulders settled and a smile of satisfaction spread across her face for a moment. Then, she sat up and raised her eyebrows. “Dad?” she asked?

“What, Anna?” I sighed.

“What comes after that?”

Tara has become much more verbal in the last few weeks. Her normal “a bao bao bao” babbling has become “ma ma ma ma,” “da da da da,” and “annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnna.” It seems like Anna’s name is probably the one she is most likely associating with the person. She also says “dough dough dough.”

I discovered that she knows how to wave on command; as we were leaving daycare one day, I said goodbye to everyone and Tara started waving.

The last few days have been pretty rough; Tara had a fever from Friday to Sunday, and I have been waking up each of those morning feeling like I fell down the stairs. Today was the worst; I feel like I’m a hundred years old.

Tonight as I was trying to help getting Anna ready for bed, I could see that it was upsetting her to see me so feeble. After I gritted my teeth and started moving around a little more, she seemed to perk up.