Figs, Birds, and New Friends

This is the way my life works: I lose something important, I replace it, I find the original missing thing. The day after my new camera battery arrived in the mail, I was going through some things in the bedroom and found the extra battery charger and in it was the old battery. Ah! Under my nose all along. It's good to have two, though, just in case.

This morning Olive and I joined some of our new friends, Gabe and Ella and Courtney and Willa, at the National Aviary for a morning of bird watching (and feeding!). The three girls are all within six months of one another and are wonderful playmates. I also feel very fortunate to have formed a friendship with Gabe and Courtney, who I met at Music Together. We're now in the same class as Courtney and Willa and usually have a brief encounter with Gabe and Ella on their way in to the class after ours. During outings it's becoming increasingly challenging to keep a handle on Olive, ever adventurous, independent, and inquisitive. The aviary is a source of many wonders for an almost-two year-old, and at one point, while talking to Courtney, another mother brought over Olive and asked if she belonged to one of us. Sensing my preoccupation she seized the opportunity to make a beeline to the enclosure housing the green-winged trumpeters and toucans. She loved that exhibit most of all.

I'm going to start tracking the progress of my little fig tree. The thing has shot up with new buds and leaves appearing nearly every day. Just last month its first new leaf made its appearance and today I counted eleven. Truly miraculous. There's a chance of fruit this summer, I think, and I can hardly wait.

Buggy was smitten with the wattled currasows. I think she was inspired by their coifs.

Ella. Look at that face.

She will readily turn her face into a scowl upon request. It's one of the best tricks I've ever seen.

This rock wall provided just as much entertainment as the birds themselves. Put rock climbing gear on Olive's birthday list.

I really was impressed by this bird with its brilliantly hued metallic-looking feathers.

Ella and Buggy practicing good teamwork.

Just look at those lush leaves! And to think that it had sat dormant, just a few naked sticks, for four months!

Fig tree and Precious Junior, the rubber tree plant (it came with the name; we don't name our plants), enjoying the southward-facing window

Here's a sweet clip that Rob caught of Olive singing one of her favorite jams, accompanied by her ukulele. Not bad.

The Sleepover

Last night Rob, Olive, and I packed an overnight back and headed up the street to the Khorey's house for an all-nighter. The kids' mom is on her yearly business trip to Israel and their dad had band practice, so my guardian services were requested overnight. Olive was tickled to bits at the idea of getting ready for bed - brushing her teeth, putting on pamamas, and saying goodnight to everyone in the living room playing Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? (most of us were not, of course, which is the point of the game). I think the kids were, at first, a little sketched out at the idea of Rob staying over, too. They don't know him as well, but I thought it'd be a great opportunity for all of them to get to know one another a little better. After all, they're my other kids and he's my husband; they all hear plenty about the other. It went really well except for Buggy keeping me up until nearly 2:30. I made the mistake of setting up her Pack 'N Play in our room, not wanting to stow her all the way in the basement, where she usually sleeps when she's there. When she began crying in the midnight hour I wasn't so much afraid of her waking the others, who will undoubtedly sleep through the Apocalypse, but of not getting any sleep myself. Uncomfortably warm and thirsty in the liberally-heated house, I'd been tossing around since we went to bed at 10:30. By 1:50 I'd had enough of Olive's knocking her water bottle on the sides of her bed and handed her off to Rob, partially collapsed the PN'P, enough to drag it down two flights of stairs, ran back up for Olive and deposited her in her more familiar sleeping quarters. I grabbed a glass of water, turned the thermostat down ten degrees, and went back to bed, sleeping soundly until 6 when I needed to get up to wrangle the kids out of bed (Noah was particularly difficult to rouse because, he complained, "It was so cold"). Olive was gleeful when I greeted her and has been all day, showing no signs that she'd been burning the midnight oil. I was dubious about my ability to drag the two of us in to Music Together at 9:30 but I pulled it off. I'm sure I'll be feeling the effects tomorrow.

Also, still no sign of my camera battery. Olive will probably be nine by the time it arrives. Get your postal system in check, China!!!!

Goin' to California

A huge relief is having found and purchased cross-country airfare for a steal of a deal. Southwest has always been my favorite airline, especially now when it's one of the few that don't charge fees when you need to check a bag or two (I'm still grumbling over the $165 fee I had to pay two years ago when I first went to Alaska). This will come in handy when I'm wanting to bring back cases of olive oil from the country's leading producer. As I've been reading Tom Mueller's new book, Extra Virginity, a highly informative olive oil primer, it's becoming increasingly important that I get the firmest handle on my business as I can. This means taking a sensory evaluation course where I learn to accurately detect different oils' unique taste characteristics and can speak more knowledgeably about my own products. Customers like that. So I pinpointed a great course offered by UC Davis' Olive Center, housed in the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, the most advanced sensory laboratory in the world. I feel like I can learn a thing or two here. The great part is that Davis is only an hour's drive from Napa, home of dear friend Bruce, who will be hosting us for the week at his olive tree-surrounded ranch. Airfare was $159 each way from Dulles International Airport, a mite more expensive than fare from Pittsburgh, but since we're opting to leave Olive with my parents (a difficult choice), this made more sense. I wanted to bring her, but it was illogical: paying a couple hundred dollars for her plane tickets (she will be over two by March, the age at which most airlines began charging for non-infants), subjecting her to a 9+ hour flight and jet lag, and the having to work around her nap schedule while trying to make the most of our short time there all sound like bad ideas, aside from the joy of having her near. It's going to be pretty wild and weird to be away from her for so long. After all, this is less of a family vacation than it is an educational business excursion that will be written off of next year's taxes. I think she'll really enjoy the time she gets to spend with Mimi and Pop Pop, though; she adores them both and I think we'll all be thankful for all the time they'll get to spend together. And Rob and I will return (if we do decide to return from spring in the Bay Area) with a heightened awareness of the industry in which we've found ourselves and undoubtedly an even greater appreciation for our daughter, who I'm already missing terribly.

The Triumphant Fig

Over the summer I was given a potted fig tree from Mary of the Italian Garden Project. This was a very exciting acquisition for me, given my longterm hopes of having a plentiful homegrown fig supply. The little cutting was from Mary's grandfather's tree in the old country, so it's pretty special even though I don't know her grandfather and have only met Mary on a few occasions at the market when she hosts workshops. The tree sat on our front steps until the cold weather required me to transport it indoors for the winter. Within a few weeks the leaves began to drop, much to my dismay and concern, but the three branches remained green. After over three months of this, though, with no visible change whatsoever, I decided to relocate the pot to our bedroom where the light is best. I don't know if it's the improved light source or its close proximity to the humidifier, but a new leaf has unfurled itself - with another just behind it - in only a couple of days. Amazing. I'm thrilled about the potential of this little plant!

Observations on a Goon

I can't tell you how much I'm loving the fact that I can now carry out a dialogue with Olive.  This evening, for instance, after she'd gobbled up two clementimes (yes, she says it with an 'm' at the end), I asked her what else she'd like to eat.  "Yogurt," she replied, and when I opened the refrigerator to get her some she spied the tempeh.  "I want tempeh."  So I put on some rice to boil, which she later mistook for quinoa.  If I have to tell my child that her rice is another, superior grain in order for her to eat it, so be it.  When she sees a necklace I'm wearing she'll ask me to "take it off" and I'll ask if she'd like to wear it. "YESS."  She's really gotten a handle on the affirmative response; just a few short weeks ago "no" was her standard reply to anything, and now her no has diminished to a distressed and very understandable hand gesture that elicits too many laughs from Rob and me, which is probably incredibly frustrating to her.  Or maybe not.  "Pwease", "tenku", and "yuwecome" are often thrown into her exchanges with us, which makes me very proud.  She's mimicking our behavior more and more.  When I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth she follows me in, pulling out her step stool and requesting her brush.  I was getting ready for bed early tonight so she witnessed me flossing my teeth, which she found pretty funny, so I let her have a go at it.  It made me question the age at which I should start implementing this very important habit in her routine and I figured now is as good a time as any.  Her teeth are still pretty spaced out, but I'd like for her to at least become familiar with it as something that accompanies brushing.  This evening she picked up a telephone and held it to her ear.  "Hewo?  Yeah...yeah...yeah...yeah...yeah...yeah...YESS...yeah...{chuckles and gibberish}..."  Sweet stuff.  In the last week reading to Baby has become something she enjoys after I've put her to bed.  She doesn't sleep with a light on in her room so I leave her door open so just a little light will shine in on her - just enough so she can see the pages.  I love to hear her repeating some of the lines she's memorized.  And tonight she was working on singing the alphabet song and doing a pretty decent job.  The ABCD part she had down pat, and the more she sang it the more other letters began to show up, particularly in the QRS bit.  She's going to be delighted to return to Music Together on Tuesday.  

What a blessing it is to be the mother of this amazing child!

A Doll for Olive

I'd had an inkling that Olive would be the recipient of a baby doll this Christmas. I know no one thought I'd ever throw in the towel and get her one, so my darling Nina, who saw how her little friend's eyes lit up when she saw a doll at their house, made it a point to get her a baby of her very own. Nina often speaks fondly of her Bitty Baby, American Girl's baby doll, so I had a feeling that this would be the gift. Since I was sick during the holiday when I would've seen the Khoreys, the gift had to wait until Tuesday when I first saw them again after their break. Nina excitedly corralled us into the living room, sat Olive on her lap and allowed her to tear through the wrapping paper. When she realized what was in the box she sweetly cooed, "Bae-by", in what Noah called a Tennessee accent. At the time she was just as pleased with the bear that accompanied it, but she's quickly become very attached to her little baby. Tonight when I put her to bed she requested that she have a book to read to Baby. I found a little board book about shapes. She struggled for a moment to get Baby into a sitting position so that her eyes would remain open (the opening and closing eyes are fascinating to her), and she giggled in satisfaction when I propped her up in an ideal spot. I hovered over them while my girl commenced reading, stunning me with the information and vocabulary I didn't know she had: "Circle, orange, heart, drum." Rob is the parent who does the bulk of the reading to her, and I love that this is something they can share. His time with her is clearly paying off. During a brief visit today to an out-of-town library while waiting to pick up olive oil for this weekend, she captured the attention of the librarian. The kindly woman offered her stickers and a Sesame Street booklet, and sensibly refrained from giving any lollipops. I almost felt guilty when I explained that she wasn't really familiar with Elmo and Big Bird, that she'd never seen the show, but Buggy quickly proved to her that she was, in fact, being educated at home when she began naming parts of a flower arrangement and some letters she recognized on a sign. How on earth did this baby of mine suddenly begin to know such things, displaying decidedly un-infantile behavior? It makes me thankful for the vestiges of her babyhood, the nursing and the diapering, which I'm all too happy to hang onto for as long as I can.

Pictures will be available sometime next week, hopefully. A new camera battery was ordered so I'll be back in the game (and my mother can enjoy my blog once again!).