Terrible Tom and Marvellous Martha

The big news around our place is that Tommy is a regular pain in the neck! He charges about, climbing and/or banging on EVERYTHING, and if you try to dissuade him he hurls himself on the floor (but usually craftily avoids hitting his head in the process) and sets up the most awful racket. Adrian used to comment that if we'd had Thomas first we'd have wondered what was wrong with the far-more-sedentary Martha, but now he believes that if we'd had Tom first we'd have stopped having kids. Seriously.

Thomas has a growing vocabulary of 'words.' He says "down" when he wants to leave the high chair; "grai" for crayon; "mol" for milk; "moo" for various animals, including cows; "gra'gra" for cracker and "cheese" (for cheese)...he has lots of other food words, including "spoo." From "Marmar" he has now begun to say "Martha" quite clearly. He also says "Dada" but as yet has not said "Mama," "mummy," "Mom," "mother," or even "Carrie." He must not yet have realized that I'm a separate person. Either that or he is extremely ungrateful! Tom is a great climber and has a good sense of where to put his hands and feet, as well as an intuitive sense of the space around him. This, combined with a recklessness which Martha has never demonstrated, leads him into all sorts of scrapes. But he's super affectionate and cuddly (when he's not writhing fiercely out of one's grasp) and most of the time (when he gets his way, which means most of the time) he's quite a happy, pleasant person.

Martha has been very pleasant the last few months as well. Occasional outbursts of petulance have thus far failed to manifest at the levels we'd been led to fear. Although she hates to get up in the morning, she is nowhere near so grumpy about it as some people I could mention, and usually pops up after one or two or three injunctions by us, finds herself some clothes, and dresses, only getting the tops or bottoms backwards around half the time. She is delightfully expressive when recounting incidents during her time at day care, and she and Tom make each other laugh almost as much as they make each other yell.

Both kids were sick for a while this fall, Tommy at great but mild length with a runny, scabby nose which gave him the look of an urchin, Martha with a severe cold/flu of over a week's duration which caused her to cease eating and pretty much any other activity save for sleeping. Now they're both well.

After the visit from Grandma and Grandad, we enjoyed a stay by Uncle Tim and Angela. For Thanksgiving, we went to the beach and spent time with Grammy, Walter, and Pearl. Our next trip will be the winter visit to Kent and surroundings.

Transitions

It's been a busy few months and is becoming increasingly apparent that we won't be able to keep up with this blog so much as we'd like, what with work and having kids and all...In addition to this, I am feeling a bit uncertain about who the audience for this blog is. I'm not sure who needs to catch up with us this way and I'm quite sure no one beyond our friends and family is tuning in!

The photos above demonstrate the increasing amounts of time Tom and Martha are spending with each other. I love to see this budding relationship even though most of the time these happy moments end in a squabble, with Martha shouting "No" at Tom and Adrian or me having to intervene. I know this will get worse before it gets better, but meanwhile I enjoy the way they make each other laugh and/or shriek.

Thomas is practically running now--he charges about exclaiming at things and then trying to climb up them. He's much more trouble than Martha was, and he is already quite willful--when thwarted in his attempts to topple the speaker or smash his wooden tool through the glass door, he lies on the floor and yells. He has a real command of the 'b' sound and says 'bye-bye' 'ball' and 'bubble.' He also has a word for pretzel/cracker and knows our neighbor, Rowan, as "Ro." In short, his vocabulary is still pretty limited.

Martha has started to play a lot more imaginative games, talking to herself and her dolls, arranging her toys in different ways, and explaining what she's doing. She is quite social and loves to have company whenever she's playing, and traipses around happily after the other girls at her day care. She continues to love stories, most recently enjoying a series of fables I checked out from the library. Speaking of books, we've realized that Tom's literary education is lagging behind his sister's at this age; this came home to us when he began to plop books in our lap, uttering "bo" and pointing at them. We're trying to make up for our negligence now!
The poor second child...







We had a really nice summer, including swimming lessons for Martha and time in the backyard paddling pool with cousin Noah and neighbor Rowan (who had been great admirers of Martha's but are now becoming better friends with Tom as well).

We also took some trips, notably to Seattle to see my friend Jane and her kids, my godson Eli and his sister Yumi, who became Martha's favorite person and bequeathed to her many pink items of clothing.







In addition to the trip to Seattle, we went camping again at Mt Diablo, and Martha saw her first rattlesnake (the photo doesn't do it justice--you'll have to take our word for it).





We try to get out to local parks for slow and/or short hikes/explorations a few times a month, and enjoyed blackberries in Tilden and a good walk in Briones recently.







At the end of August, Martha and Thomas started to attend a family day care (here they are eating lunch--one of the big advantages of the place is the healthy, plentiful homemade food provided there) and I went back to work. We had been quite anxious about this transition but have been very pleased by how smoothly it has gone so far. The kids really enjoy their time with other children, and my students are great!



We are lucky in continuing to see family, including my parents, quite regularly, and this September we've had the first visit of Grandma and Grandad Martin to our new home. We've kept them busy with cooking exercises, visits to the Little Farm, trips to the steam trains, outings to local parks, and projects in the garden (note lovely fence behind the family portrait).