Today was one of those lazy yet unexplicably satisfying days in which I got nothing done, but enjoyed myself nonetheless. After cooking breakfast, my friend R. came over with his newish motorcycle, which he let me ride. I’ve never ridden a motorcycle, but have always wanted to try. It was a lot of fun, if a little scary, but I totally want to do it again. There are motorcycle safety classes available which don’t require that you have your own motorcycle; I think I’ll try again to sign up for one.

Later, we made a family trip to the library. Both kids had a ball. Anna loves books and it took about three minutes for her to have an armload of books ready to check out. Tara just liked walking around and looking at all the people, but eventually discovered that she was surrounded by thousands of things which were on shelves instead of in her hands or in her mouth or on the floor. Of course, she endeavored to remedy the situation despite my best efforts.

Tara continues to amaze me with her comprehension of language and of the world around her. Her signing continues to improve, and she is also imitating more of our speech. On the way to the library, Anna asked me to hand her some books to read on the way. I did so, and after a pause, prompted, “What do you say?” “Thank you,” replied Anna, followed by Tara, “Hey too.” I’ve got to get some of her talking recorded… it’s so cute.

After dinner, Jennifer put the girls down while I cleaned the kitchen; after she came down, we sat on the living room floor and watched Dr. 90210 before heading up to bed. Net to-do items done for Saturday: zero.

Tara has recently been doing a lot of communicating, and it’s the coolest thing ever. Even the second time around, it’s really thrilling to see. She knows the ASL signs for “more”, “milk”, “finished”, and “water”, and can nod “yes” and shake her head “no.” It’s clear she also understands a lot of what we’re saying. She’s accustomed to handing us her sippy cup when she’s done drinking it, but today I asked her to go place it on her little table, and amazingly enough, she did. She is also becoming much more adept at walking, and she can cover a lot of ground fairly quickly. Tonight she was wanted to wear Anna’s old backpack, which she was stuffing with legos earlier.

Tonight was to be an extra-special date night in which Anna & Tara were going over to some friends’ house for a sleepover. However, one of the kids at Tara’s daycare came down with hand-foot-and-mouth disease, which is pretty ugly, so in the event that Tara was incubating these nasty germs, we canceled. That kind of misery definitely does NOT love company.

Anna was super-stoked to be going over to her friends house, and as I picked her up from preschool, she and her friend could talk about nothing but the impending sleepover. I realized that if I broke the news before getting her into the car, there would be a scene of epic proportions. I waited until we were packed into the car and buckled into our respective seats. Note to self: move Anna’s booster seat to the passenger side of the car.

As a means of softening the blow, we went out to dinner at a restaurant, which is one of Anna’s favorite things to do. As the chef in our home, I don’t take this personally, because Anna is just as finicky at a restaurant as she is at home. We decided on Outback Steakhouse, which is not at all crowded when you arrive at 4:35pm.

Anna and I sat and ordered and played Tic-Tac-Toe on the kids’ menu, while Jennifer picked up Anna and brought her some twenty minutes later. Tara could hardly decide whether to eat or flirt with passersby. Eventually she came down on the side of flirting, while I popped food into her mouth. She ate mostly macaroni; occasionally I would sneak in a vegetable or some other food that didn’t agree with her and most of the time she would make sour face and begin rolling her tongue around her open mouth until the offending food was rejected. Tara did enjoy the music, occasionally wiggling back and forth or drumming on the table. Eventually our food and Anna’s patience ran out, and Tara and I went home for bed while Anna and Jen went out for ice cream.

This has been yet another “too busy to blog” week… so much going on and yet no time to write about it. Last night I was finally so exhausted that I went to bed before the kids did; Jennifer put them both to bed and I was out by 7:30pm.

Tara is now officially a toddler. Walking is her preferred means of getting around, but she still has the uncertain, could-fall-over-at-any-time stagger that is at once cute and hilarious. I have some more video to post at a later time.

I forgot to mention that a couple weeks back Jennifer upgraded her awful Sony DSC-T1 camera–which is really cool up until you try to use it, or look at the pictures it took–to a Canon A610. The Canon is bigger but faster, more usable, and it takes vastly better pictures. Pay attention, folks; more megapixels doesn’t mean better picture quality; but bigger sensors and optics do. You just can’t fight physics. The new camera should help her bring home some good pictures from Singapore when she goes at the end of April.

Anna has been something of a challenge lately. Yesterday, she got up on the wrong side of the bed and things went downhill from there. I was at home in the morning, preparing for a teleconference I was hosting, and outside my office door I could hear all sorts of raging going on. When I picked her up from school, she was moping in the corner. Her teacher hurried right up to me to warn me what a foul mood she was in. Apparently there was some incident at snack time that got her all upset, and though I don’t remember the details, it was yet another instance of Anna getting all sideways when the unexpected happens. She has much difficulty coping with the unexpected.

I am back on the Atkins diet again, as my weight has gotten out of control. I had a lot of success, losing over 50 lbs in 2001-2 on Atkins, staying stable for a couple years, and lately gaining a bunch back. I decided to take control and get back on the wagon before I give it all back. Having done it before, I’m confident I’ll be back down to a reasonable weight by July. I’m glad that Tara is eating normal people food (albeit cut into small pieces), because cooking for three different diets is hard enough.

Now that I have the in-browser streaming video thing figured out, I’ll have to include some more movies on the web site. This video of Anna at 23 months shows just how well she could talk at that age. We started her doing sign language at around 8-9 months, and she started signing back to us at about 11 months. For a while it was a real novelty to our relatives. By around 18 months, she was speaking so well that she began to drop signing as a means of communicating, and has all but forgotten them. By two years, she was speaking in sentences of 7-8 words.

Tara has not been nearly the chatterbox that Anna was. This morning, as I got out the camera to get a picture of Jennifer nursing Tara–who is almost completely weaned–and Tara would occasionally pop off upon hearing the shutter click. As I set up for another shot, she looked over at me and said “Hi dada!” It was as clear as a bell; after we recovered a little bit and talked to her some more, Jennifer asked Tara to say hi again, and she said “Hi daddy.” How cool is that?

Tara has really started walking quite a bit this weekend. We had her tottering back and forth between Jennifer and I, and she could take 5-6 steps pretty reliably. Later, she was rising to her feet unassisted, and walking around on her own, sometimes taking 10-15 steps, and occasionally turning around. Crawling is still her preferred method of getting from point A to point B.

Last night she was so excited about walking that she cried when we picked her up to take her to bed, and tried to claw her way back to the ground again.

If you can’t see the movie, try the MPEG or WMV versions.

One of the great joys of being a father is making up ridiculous things and seeing if your four-year-old believes that they are in fact, true. Our conversation on the way to the park this morning:

Me: See where you threw that pinecone? By next week it will take root and grow and there will be a full-size pine tree.
Anna: Really? I’m going to plant some more pine trees.

later:

Anna, looking at a rattlesnake warning sign: Why is there a snake on that sign?
Me: There are snakes in this area and you should watch out for them. There won’t be any on the playground.
Anna: Why not?
Me: They don’t like wood chips. They tickle the snakes’ tummies.
Anna: What if they came on the playground anyways?
Me: Don’t worry, you’d be able to hear them giggling before they got close enough to bite.

on the way home:

Me: Look where you threw the pinecone! There’s a signpost there now. Are you sure it wasn’t a signpost seed?
Anna: It was a pinecone, I didn’t have any signpost seeds.
Me, ignoring Anna: Yup, this yield sign is almost ripe enough to pick.
Anna: I DON’T WANT TO EAT ANY SIGNS!