It's been less than a week since I opened Penelope's new potty, and she is totally owning the training process herself. We have plenty of wet pants, but if we are home, she will just go to her potty by herself, dump it in the toilet, rinse it out, put it back together, and then run around pants-less for the next hour until she feels like going and getting some underwear. I would rather she not dump her poopy potty herself, but I need to just deal with that. I feel like even asking her if she needs to go is stepping into her territory, so I'm planning on just shutting up and letting her own it. With my second child I vow to not call them on doing the potty dance, since it obviously doesn't help. Stubborn genes.

Last Wednesday for the first time Penelope actually participated in the 'walk around to the music' part of music/circle time. Usually she is okay sitting in my lap not participating (although I am sometimes allowed to participate, sometimes not), but once everyone stands up there is no way she is having anything to do with the crazy mass psychosis hive mind marching and singing, and she is OUT of there. Rebecca never liked it either, still doesn't, today at Lauren's (Princess) birthday party she took a good while of watching Princess Aurora lead the girls through some dances before she was willing to get out onto the floor and participate. She wasn't willing to have her picture taken with the hired princess at all, although Penelope finally did with me. With the princesses help they put together a little skit for all the parents, and much like the festival of lights, or any other group performance, Rebecca was securely in the back.

Yesterday Penelope and I talked about how we were going to be not having any diapers in the daytime anymore, that I was going to get her some cotton training pants and a doll that went potty, sort of in trade for her diapers. We didn't actually make it that far though, I had already gotten her a new potty that was hiding in a box, since she complains that the old minimal one we had for Rebecca hurts her bottom and she won't sit on it, and we broke that out later Friday afternoon at an opportune seeming moment, without waiting for the training pants or accompanying doll. She's been doing great too, it's ridiculous, but the potty has two little electrical contacts in the bottom, and it sings when she goes pee pee, and she is SO EXCITED. So she's been running around the house bare or in underwear and mostly making it to the toilet on her own. When we have been going out (a lot today) we practiced sitting on other potties, but pretty much she only goes when she is ready, and there better be a toilet 3 seconds away. She's been struggling to find more autonomy recently, so I think working on this is just what she needed. She actually told me I could put her in her carseat twice today, which has been unheard of recently.

For Rebecca (who's school obviously I need to write about) her big news is that she is having her first sleepover tonight. She has been lobbying for it for a while, but as it was actually finally scheduled, and coming closer became less and less certain that she would actually spend the night. I told her not to worry about it, and that I would come and get her if she decided she needed to come home, but she and Anya W. seem to have fallen asleep at Cherie's house, so baring midnight trauma hopefully things will work out. Exciting first for her either way.

Rebecca is also thrilled that she can skip bars on the monkey bars now, which she has been all over since the beginning of school, in addition to climbing any pole in sight. She has made it up into our tree by pushing over a slide, and also sometimes tying ropes around it to climb up. And she goes very high up. I'm trying to do as good a job as my mom did letting her pick her own risks. She isn't reckless about it. She has also tied a chair on a jumprope and some random rope she found, so that she can swing on it, about 3 feet off the ground. I've been warning all parents who come that they are on their own judging and allowing or not their children to mount her contraptions, that there has been no adult participation! Some other of her friends have been climbing the tree with her when she has shown them how to get up, but not all of them can do it, and our rule has always been that you can climb anything you can get onto *without* adult help, if you can't you aren't ready.

She is also finally reading willingly. She has been 'able' to read for a very long time, in that she started being able to decode words when she was two and we would play lots of literacy games and play school, but she has never wanted to and always met any encouragement with negativity, so I haven't pushed her, other than playing literacy games when she wants to. Since she started school when she was three we basically stopped doing anything at home. But they've been working up a lot of excitement about reading at school, and I think she's finally warmed up to the idea that she *can* do it. Friday she was willing to read a simple board book to Penelope while P was sitting on the toilet, and last night we told her she could sit with Penelope and read her books instead of doing her normal sweeping chores, which was fabulously successful, as neither Jesse nor I had to sit in with P, who wanted to sit on the toilet but only if someone was with her, and Rebecca got a thrilled audience to practice her emerging skills with, and as our teacher says, nothing improves your reading like more reading.

Penelope is starting to get that I am reading the words on the page when we read books, and sometimes she will say, 'No, read the WORDS', when I start changing things around. And she will point over to the words, and say, "Are you reading these words here?"

Also she has upgraded her name from Pelelope to Penelope. We'll see if she wants to change it to Pelly when she figures out how long it takes to write. :-)

Today Penelope managed to do the picture-under 5 animal puzzle all by herself, several times. Previously she has only gotten one in, or more with coaching and suggestions. Also she finally figured out pedaling the tricyle on Friday. Our lumpy driveway isn't as nice as what Rebecca had to work with, and I probably don't take her out there as often as I did, I think Rebecca was pedaling her tricycle much earlier. Still not a good idea to let her ride it the block and a half to the playground, very frustrating for me!

For the first night ever, after dark story time Rebecca has a book light to read (loudly) a book to herself. Starting kindergarden has suddenly switched her from being completely uninterested in reading for herself to actually wanting to. She could read phonetic words before, and sometimes when I was reading a book I would get her to read one of the words on each page, but she didn't really want to. She wanted to be the baby that got read to, she wouldn't even hold the book and turn the pages for me, because that wasn't me caring for her. So, woo kindergarden!

It is the end of the summer, Rebecca starts Kindergarden tomorrow, and I am regretting every hour of the last 5&1/4 years that I have spent on silly things like laundry and blogging and mental self preservation, rather than with her, as irrational as it is, because this is pretty much the end of our quiet morning time and quiet nap-time time. 5 1/2 hours at school each day. Although the nap-time time is coming to an end for it's own reasons, Penelope's nap time has become pretty erratic and I don't think it's only the canines she's been working on, although I can hope. I am really not good with napping every-other day, given that she is not the only child in the house, and Rebecca is going to keep (trying to) going to bed and waking up at the same time each day.

It is the end of the summer. We spent the first four weeks at Roque and with Nenny & D. Pa, which was lovely, although Rebecca was quite ready to come home to her friends by the end. We collected rocks, built steps down to Hemlock Brook from a new picnic spot, and she had her own table at the children's market on the Woodstock Green.

When we came back we bought a dishwasher, and ran various errands for a week. Then two weeks of summer camp at MVPNS for Rebecca, then several glorious weeks of (MOM WHERE ARE WE GOING) doing nothing summer, with play dates, a trip to Chuck E Cheese, one to Happy Hollow, Monday afternoons at the park, Wednesdays at Rinconada or farm, swimming at Eagle pool, Thursday night live on Castro, the start of Thursday afternoon Swimming lessons with Lillian in August, lazy Friday Art Playgroups, too many birthdays, and a billion summer park days and meetings for PACT (kindergarden).

Penelope and Yash had a joint birthday party on the 7th, before the Greene's left for France. We built an air rocket launcher which has definitely provided enough entertainment to justify its construction. We've built many rockets, and experimented with launching various substances such as falafel (Go Spencer...), glitter, candy, plushie rockets, and lots and lots of water. We really need to waterproof the solenoid batteries.

Penelope is very two. She is chatty, imaginative, and starting to both respect rules and throw tantrums. She is very firm on what she thinks should happen, but at the same time "Penelope Jane! Go back into the bathroom and turn off the water!" actually works. Not buying her shoes (she really doesn't need any more shoes) when we went to Payless because Rebecca's sneakers were too small and had holes in the toes = screaming and crying. But at the same time she is a very sweet and caring two who will try to help her big sister and give her hugs and play whatever game she wants.

Rebecca is five, and very ready for Kindergarden. When she went to MVPNS camp, she just dove in, even though the only person there she knew was Ellie, and she was off making her mom do some art project with her. We went to the PACT class posting on Friday, and were thrilled to see that every friend Rebecca has made over the summer and almost all of our fellow LAPP families are in her class. There are 2.5 kindergarden classes, so there were bound to be some, but everyone except for Audrey is in Teacher Terry's room 12. Drop off tomorrow is still going to be hard, and I need to remember to pack a handkerchief, since I cry about everything there is no avoiding tomorrow. Thanks genetics! Stupid over-emotional tear ducts. We'll see if I can handle the post-drop off traumatized parent coffee or if it's too embarrassing.

We've adjusted our schedule, dinner is at 6 now, bed time ostensibly starts at 7, but usually 7:30 before Rebecca has been dragged through her cleaning the floor chore, lights off at 7:45, dark story time over at 8, if Penelope didn't take 'too long' a nap everyone is asleep by 8:30, and awake around 7. Sometimes Penelope is awake at 6:30 and Rebecca doesn't wake up until 7:30, but that doesn't seem to be changing when I let her skip her nap. Children's sleep never does make sense. We will see if we can manage to get out the door on time with whatever it is we are supposed to bring...

Rebecca graduated from LAPP, summer has begun, but somehow I don't think we will be any less busy.

Rebecca made a working hammock for Penelope by tying a large scarf to the car headrest posts. She was very happy in her little cocoon for a good long time until one of the knots slipped...

We are finally trying to find a dishwasher to fit in our tiny house with no dishwasher. I'm tired of spending 1/2 hour every night washing dishes. It's a complicated puzzle where we can fit it in though, because our kitchen cabinets are only 14" above our counter, which is itself not very deep. So I feel like I am wasting too much time shopping for dishwashers... We are exploring over counters, installed in counters, portable floating around our kitchen... but I am really supposed to be spending my time either working or getting ready for our long summer trip to Maine and Vermont. The kids have been spending a lot of time with babysitters, and I have been spending a lot of time working. I'm going to be taking two laptops with me on our trip...

Rebecca deserves more of a writeup for turning five, and Penelope is turning into such a little person, it's all me-too! mee-too! But it's going to have to wait until I'm done with my presentation for work...

I am so behind and overwhelmed with everything.

A wake up conversation (all Penelope): "Pick me up!" "My helmet!" (mom: Really?) "Wear it?" "It's falling off..." this becomes a repetative sleepy chant.

We went to New Orleans and Penelope became scared of dogs, and planes and many other things. She's hitting that 'I'm two, things are scary!' age, when Rebecca stopped going down slides and started thinking that Chuck E Cheese was really creepy. Penelope is still going down slides, but after one dog growled at her and another chased us (mostly playfully) down the street.

New Orleans was fun, we went on a swamp tour and saw alligators, birds and swampy trees. We also got to see two Easter parades, and Lauren was right, parades in New Orleans are different, every float that went by threw something at us or our neighbors. The first parade we caught in a somewhat uninhabited block, and since we had kids we ended up with an armful of stuffed animals in addition to a plentiful supply of mardi gras beads and some plastic eggs with candy. Then everyone else gave us all their stuffed animals because they didn't want them. I didn't want them either! Some of them were surprisingly nice though. I told Rebecca she could bring four home with her, and she did a very good job giving all the rest of them away to other kids we met walking down the street. She kept all the ones that made noise. The $1 praying bears thankfully both broke before we left, and Rebecca agreed that we could just bring the sound boxes home with us to try and fix. I think it would be fun if horribly annoying to collect all the stupid sounds that toys make and glue them all over a board. Cacophony. The shopping was fun, the cemeteries were interesting. The trees on St. Charles were permanently decorated with old mardi gras beads, sort of like a decrepit christmas street. The first day we were walking around (Saturday) Rebecca spent half the time digging beads up out of the dirt. Then Sunday we got a boat load thrown at us and that was the end of that obsession. We only had to bring a few of the broken ones home with us...

When we got back from New Orleans, a couple days later Penelope and then Rebecca came down with the worst stomach bug they have ever had. They were throwing up every 1/2 to 1 hours for about 24 hours. Rebecca is finally to the blissful (for mommy) age where every time she needed to throw up she managed to do it in a bucket. So although I didn't get any sleep I also never had to change her sheets. Maybe it was just this bug, they were both very uncomfortable for quite a while before they had to actually throw up. And it seems like it wasn't that long ago since the last time that Rebecca did throw up in her bed. Anyway. So after being in New Orleans through Wednesday, and going back to school for one day on Thursday, then she got sick on Sunday and was out of school the entire next week, because that virus was so bad I wasn't going to chance sharing it, even though she was fine and perky on Thursday...

The last month we have been exploring nanny types since I took a contract at work. Shouldn't be too long, but it's taken up all the non-existant slack in our schedule, and I'm pretty worn out, especially with extra end-of-school craziness. I don't like any of our nanny people so far, but it's all just temporary. We will survive.

After six months or so of telling the 'princess story', where Rebecca and Stella went through a tree and ended up in the magic princess valley, where there is a castle filled with princesses and you turn into a princess when you get there and the castle adds another room, and there are elves and dwarves in their underground city, and (nice) dragons and lots of fairies everywhere, and a rainbow unicorn and pirate treasure and mermaids, she finally wanted Rebecca and Stella's parents to find their way into the princess valley too. Now they are building a new castle, because they aren't allowed to live in the princess castle.

This month Rebecca learned how to swing by herself, and Penelope is starting to jump. Penelope has been practicing and practicing and practicing and it is really cute.

Penelope has been mildly obsessed with mittens and putting socks on her hands. She recently got socks on both hands (except for her pinky finger which she was mad about) by herself. She's starting to pull socks off her feet. She's never been interested in undressing herself, but maybe dressing undressing will start soon. She is trying to pour the gallon of milk into her cup by herself. That isn't so great.

She just recently asked to use the toilet and actually pooped in it, rather than asking after she had already filled her diaper. She'd probably have more luck if her diet wasn't so high-fiber. She's also very concerned that Curious George isn't wearing a diaper in the story books...

3/26 - Penelope asked her first 'why?' question, in reference to cold cold-smoked-salmon, 'Warm it up mommy.' 'No.' 'Why?' 'Because.' 'Why?' 'It would be an abomination.' 'Why?' 'Because.' 'Why?'...

Rebecca's logical abilities are developing appropriately. When Jesse was telling stories that we were all activated by quarters, and that Mommy put Daddies quarter in in the morning, Rebecca said, no, who would put Mommies quarter in? And Jesse said, 'Daddy puts in Mommy's quarter', Rebecca convincingly shot that circular logic down.

Penelope is full of wiggles and adores the word no. Nnnnnnno! She loves her friend Shira, and is very upset when we have to leave Lisa's house to pick Rebecca up from school. She spent the last car ride saying 'my shira' mournfully over and over again. She knows many of our friends names, lellie, aya, (y)ash. She has an amazing (for a 1 year old...) tripodish grip when she draws, and she's started drawing teeny tiny line marks, baby writing, and she *always* wants to draw or paint. On anything... She adores reading Maisy, and actually likes nap time. She loves her 'puff', Jesse's old baby feather comforter, and her binkey, although she doesn't need either of them. She doesn't have any really special animals. She doesn't nurse anymore between snack times, just morning, nap and bed. She usually falls asleep nursing for nap time, but puts herself to sleep at bed time. She's started throwing tantrums, which is sort of adorable, and a sign of things to come.

In the beginning of December we visited Nenny and D.Pa for a week, and went to David and Alice's wedding.

At the end of January we went on a last minute trip to Tahoe with Spencer, Anya & Yash and Rebecca had her first two days of skiing.

We are in the throes of determining Rebecca's kindergarden for next year. PACT/Landels/Waldorf??? Haven't done much else for the last couple weeks. I am wrapped up in and depressed by the whole thing.

Rebecca has stopped giving people 'hand-faces' when she doesn't want people to look at her because she's embarrassed that she did something wrong, which is great, she's feeling less self conscious. We've also made it through a period of awful not doing after dinner chores, just rolling around in the kitchen for an hour saying she was too tired. She's still fundamentally a rule follower, and I'm thinking her sister is *not*. We'll see. Rebecca says she is excited we are going on a cave adventure with Anya Greene next weekend. We've also seem to have made it mostly through a period of awful whining (a long long period) by starting to send her out of the room (usually when we were eating, especially right when we are sitting down to dinner) when she starts whining, and telling her she can come back when she is ready to act nicely, because whining is like hitting other people. She likes talking about whether a number is odd or even, and that two twos is four and is starting to work out what two of other numbers is.

Penelope has started pushing cars, climbs onto our bed *through* the bookcase at the foot, and is trying to learn how to jump.

Tonight Penelope demonstrated her first clear verbal understanding of temporal sequences, when after 'dark story time' I said, mostly to myself and expected Rebecca to answer, "Now what's next?", and Penelope answered in a very sleepy voice "be-cca lap time." I was very surprised, partly because she does *not* like it when Rebecca gets mama snuggles.