What’s New: Still Two

When you have a child who is clever and savvy and verbal and forever three steps ahead of you, it’s easy to develop high expectations. It’s easy to get used to her resilience, to take it for granted and get used to how completely “fine” she always is. Then you have a week like this one, and remember that she is still two after all. She does still need to be held and snuggled sometimes – often – despite how little like a baby she now seems.

It has not been a bad week at all, just one that demanded a slow pace and a willingness to attend to many a mama hold you or mama rock you request. I get so used to going about my day checking things off the endless list. Requests like this seem inconvenient at first, and part of me wants to say (and sometimes does) things like, “You know how to walk. You don’t need to be held.” But then I remember that she’s two and a half and yes, she does, even if these days it’s more of an emotional than a physical need.

So this week we followed our basic skeleton of a rhythm and didn’t do much more at all. The girl seems to have acquired her two year old molars, which may have something to do with the above, and the boy an extra roll or two around his middle. This week marked the end of four months for us  here in this house, on this continent. I can hardly believe we’ve been mainlanders for a full third of a year now. The weeks sometimes feel slow, but somehow whole pages seem to be disappearing from the calendar.

There was one unusual event, in which we  decided to visit the Playhouse around the corner from us instead of the library for a theatrical retelling of a few books, including If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Annabelle had never seen a play before, and I was beyond thrilled to take her to one. When the show began, I was overwhelmed with nerdy excitement and kept scanning  Annabelle’s face for signs of the same, but she didn’t care at all. She asked for a snack minutes in, apparently out of boredom. I gave her one and that kept her happy until a few minutes before the end when she declared it too loud in there and she said she wanted to go home. And so we did, even though I was totally bummed.

On the weekend, we finally explored the DC metro system. I really dislike driving, and Elliot is not a fan of the car either, so I’ve thought how nice it would be if we could use the trains when our destination makes them logical, but after our mass transit experience in Italy, I didn’t want to try to figure out things like ticketing and the logistics of bringing a stroller along while also caring for both kids by myself. The husband agreed to come along on Sunday and we all had lunch in the city. I think my favorite part was the mile walk to the nearest metro station. This time of year makes me want to walk everywhere! In the end, I concluded that I could definitely take both kids on the trains by myself, but getting to and from the station requires a lot of extra time. When Elliot is a little older, we’ll have to invest in a bike trailer that both kids can ride in. For now, we don’t go into the city much anyway.

Other than that, we’ve mostly been hanging out in the kitchen, smearing paint on paper and enjoying some seasonal baking. Annabelle enjoyed hot chocolate for the first time and was not disappointed. Autumn looks good on us, I think.

What have YOU been up to? Link up below or just tell me in a comment, would you? 

The rest of this week’s mamatography….