Sipping like her sister

Lillian's new favourite thing on the first day of their relationship.

After months of looking sneaky, making a fast grab and tearing down the hall with Morgen's water bottle in her hands, Lillian has finally received one of her very own.

It was love at first sight in the store - no second guesses, she knew exactly which one she wanted, and she cuddled it the way some kids cuddle teddy bears. She screamed when it had to be scanned so I could buy it. And then she laughed when I gave it back to her.

And then she screamed when I took it away so I could wash it. And laughed when I gave it back to her.

It has mostly survived her love. Within one week, the bottle was dented, scratched, and the orange cap was broken off, leaving only the twisty-sippy spout for her to play with.

Morgen's bottle says "Hydration is fun" and features elephants and bluebirds. She doesn't love it, but she knows it is hers. It still looks new, except around the spout where she has chewed on it ever so slightly. Lillian's bottle is covered in large-eyed, innocent-looking woodland creatures, and it has more war wounds than can be found on vessels five times its age.

I think I'll wait a year or so before buying a replacement top.

What seems like a good idea at the time...

...predictably turns out to be just another excuse for a bath.

(Please forgive the fuzzy pictures. I was too busy trying to avoid becoming the next canvas...and trying to keep Lilli from eating the paint...)

Start spreading the news

Gavin is making me a Manhattan - we've been home for three days now. The four of you who read this blog are probably wondering when you can tune in to Jeopardy! to see him in action.

The truth is, they won't tell us if he's been shortlisted. After being put through a kind of short version of everything that goes on during the television show (the public 'get to know you' segment, a simulated game play in groups of three with buzzers while the competition waited and watched) and then being tested again with another 50-question quiz, Gavin's audition group was told "don't wait by the phone." At some point over the next eighteen months we may get a call and an invitation to travel to Los Angeles on our own dime...or we may not. Don't worry, we'll keep you posted. Or I will, at least. Gavin is still very secretive about the whole thing.

But wasn't that a great excuse to travel to New York?

It was a surprisingly familiar place - around every corner there was another building or skyscape that I had seen in a movie, or heard referenced in a song, or had sung about myself when I was much younger. And while we did manage to spend a lot of money in the city, I'm happy to say we also found a lot of things that were "real good, for free." We also caught up with some old friends from my musicology days, who happened to have connections at a truly lovely restaurant. The company and food were some of the best I've enjoyed in a long time.

And yes, everytime I saw a mom with her kids doing any number of the fabulous things for families that can be done in that city, I either teared up, or just went ahead and cried.

Most of the time though, New York confronted us with marvel after marvel. I know real life is never that simple - I won't try to tackle the darker side of Gotham in this post. For a tourist, it is a great city.

Here are just a few of my favourite New York things.

Indulging my geeky side at the Museum of Natural History.

What is "Gavin's favourite dinosaur, Alex?"

I love this kind of art. Bas-relief? Walls that aren't just walls.

I also love seeing this side of Gavin. Without the kids, he gets even sillier.

Random words of wisdom from the decor of a seventeenth-century virginal in the instrument collection of the Met.

Jeopardy!

Gavin is going to audition for Jeopardy in New York on Monday. And I'm going with him. The children are going to Camp Lovett, and Grendel is getting some quality time with a cat-deprived friend of the family...it's looking like it will be an entertaining long weekend for all of us.

Please help us decide

1) The things Gavin should share on his "bits about you" form?

2) What should he wear to his audition? Let's face it, neither one of us has much fashion sense.

Three

My little baby is not so little anymore.

She is big enough to say "I will ignore you" and "I won't sit on the potty, Mommy". She's old enough to ask us questions about who made the world and who will play with her toys when she is gone "to dead." She has started to care about what happens to Grendel when we aren't at home, and to feel homesickness, and talk about it. On day three of a recent trip to Ottawa, she said, as if continuing a conversation we had begun moments before "...and I may never see my cat Grendel again." She worries that he is alone while the rest of us go off to school or work.

She likes her sister, but has taken to saying that "Lillian is not my best friend anymore." I'm fairly certain that is something she picked up in her Big Kids room at daycare. She listens closely there, and doesn't always know how to make sense of or use what she hears and learns - she just commits all the details to memory and when she can fly the words or phrases by us, she does...and watches, and listens closely...and evaluates...tests...tests again...

I'm not sure when all of this happened, but I know it is still happening.

I took a day off work last week to spend time with Morgen and see what it is like to be a Big Kid at her daycare. She was in disbelief for much of the day, clingy, thrilled to have me with her to play the whole time. Some of her friends were happy to play with a Mommy too - one said "Are you going to stay?" and when I said "Yes" he asked "Why?" So I told him: "To see what you guys do over the day, and what it is like to be a big kid." He then rattled off the entire day's schedule, and then looked at me, probably to see if I would walk out the way I came. When I didn't, he asked if I would read him a book...and of course I did, gathering three or four more little people around or on me in the course of the story. (on a side note: What exactly is the deal with the Backyardigans? I really don't see the appeal.)

At the end of the day, when I asked Morgen what she liked about being in school, she said "Nothing." There is a character in one of her story books that says that to his family even when there is something serious to report. She gets a kick out of that, and whenever she says the word I always look twice. Is this one of her many story book allusions? Is it a serious answer? This time, I switched tactics.

"Morgen, is there a teacher at school that you really like? What do you like about your teachers?"

I waited for that simple word, the nothing, the negative, her favourite recourse when I start pestering her with questions. And then: "I like that you were my teacher, Mommy."