Pippa, Rowan, and a little bit of other stuff...

The day started with lunch at the park near the town harbor.

Rowan decided it was time to drive around the Park Loop Road.

Did I mention that it was windy?

Finally, we got some ice-cream bars before heading home.

As most of you already know, dad died on St. Patrick's Day. His cancer was an aggressive, untreatable kind and he died just over 2 months after he was diagnosed. He never recovered from the effects of a post-biopsy brain hemorrhage, but up until the end was able to smile and laugh a little bit, and was able to die at home surrounded by family which is what he wanted. We miss him more than words can possibly express. His obituary is in the Portland Press Herald among other places. The memorial service will be in Peabody, MA at Brooksby Village at 1:30 on May 2nd -- feel free to email me for details and directions if you want to attend.





This is just such a typical Dad moment - he and James were testing the video feature of our first digital camera 8 years ago. This is why we miss him.

Here's the short'ish version: after New Year's my Dad landed in the hospital with symptoms from what turned out to be a multi-tumor, highly aggressive, untreatable form of brain cancer. He then promptly had a brain hemorrhage that left him mostly paralyzed on the left side, with little ability to speak or move in general. He's confined to a hospital bed or wheelchair in a rehab center and my Mom is learning how to take care of him. We're not sure how long he has to live, but not very long. He's in remarkably good humor, smiles at everyone, laughs at jokes, enjoys company and music. My Mom is doing an amazing job -- she gets there early in the morning and leaves late at night, and stays at a hostel house for family of sick patients. This is the reason we haven't blogged in a while. I've visited a couple of times, and I'm going to bring the girls down to see him in a couple of weeks and James will fly down then, too. The whole thing royally sucks.

In girls' news, Rowan had her 15 month appointment and is doing great. She's 75th height, 90th weight, and 60th head circumference. She's got well over 30 words now, and knows 10+ animal sounds. Rowan has many 'signs' as well which she tends to make up herself. She walks everywhere, climbs on the furniture and can get down without blackening her eyes, and loves to drive Pippa crazy and imitate her every move. To the point where when Pippa had a stomach virus and had to carry a bowl around with her, Rowan insisted on having her own bowl and would periodically pretend to throw up in it. Her personality has really developed in the past few weeks and she's becoming a real 'little kid' instead of a baby. Pippa is 2 1/2 going on 16. She goes to school twice a week and still loves it, she's learning how to skip, and is trying to climb out of her crib (thankfully hasn't gotten there yet). She keeps us in stitches lately, some recent statements:

Me: How many times do I need to tell you not to throw that on the floor?
Pippa: Twenty.

Pippa: Mama, I have "pyoop" in my diaper. That's French for "poop".

Pippa: Mama, Rowan calls her binky a "buh buh". That's French for "binky".

Pippa reciting the French alphabet: queue, are, ess, tay, eww, vay.... the French alphabet has a "eww" in it. Like when I see dog poop in the yard I say "eww, please pick that up".

Pippa: Mama, I have a secret.
Me: What is it?
Pippa: I can walk.
Repeat with several variations such as I can eat, I can kick in the pool, I can sleep. Startling revelations, I know.

I asked Pippa to do something and she sighed loudly and rolled her eyes.
Me: That's really obnoxious when you do that. Are you imitating someone? (thinking it'll be someone at school)
Pippa: Yes
Me: Who?
Pippa: You, Mama.
Oops.

OK. Picture time.










And some videos:

Rowan shows her body parts.



Pippa loses her rat in an unlikely place.

Here are some more videos. Just click on the boxes - for some reason the pictures don't show up. And if you have time, even more.

Pippa decided (w/ strong encouragement by Dada) that she needed to leave Christmas pudding and bourbon for Santa. Here's the preparation...


And here is the leaving...



Here are Rowan and Pippa first thing Xmas morning.




Here is Pippa trying out her Christmas sled, straight from Santa's workshop -- he does wonders with plastics these days.

Merry Xmas everyone!

We got some snow today. About 14" on top of the remaining 4" or so we already had; the drifts are thigh high in places; the snowbanks are taller than our truck. It took James 3 hours to shovel us out, and that was with some very nice neighbors coming over to help.


















Lots more snow pics here.

Some more pictures to enjoy.


Pippa never lets me put her hair up. But decided that Louise -- the librarian that she loves -- liked pigtails, legwarmers, and sunglasses so she put on this outfit for her. I think Louise needs to come to our house and help her dress.

Here are a few more videos of the girls.



The girls 'snuggling'.



Pippa doing acrobatics, and Rowan eating the camera.



Rowan the Igor.



Pippa tires James out.

So Rowan took her first unsupported single steps on her birthday a few weeks back. Yesterday she started really stringing a bunch of steps together for actual walking.
Here's the video evidence:

Halloween was great. Pippa wore last year's dragon costume, and Rowan was a frog because she grew out of the bumblebee costume we were going to stuff her into. We went to a couple of Halloween parties, and trick-or-treated in our new neighborhood. Both girls had candy for the first time, really, and as Pippa has such a stash still I fear she thinks candy is now a daily activity :(














Every other week, Pippa has show-and-tell at school. Of course, they had a Halloween theme. This is what she wanted to bring -- one of our Halloween decoration bats with some plastic spiders. When I put these on the show-n-tell shelf, I noticed all of the other items kids' brought in were things like a plastic jack-o-lantern, a stuffed marshmallow-looking ghost, a princess hat from a costume. Oh.

Masha, Byron, Carlos and Elena visited us this past week, and we went to the farmer's market to pick pumpkins for carving. Carlos was rocking these great sunglasses.









Pippa and Carlos were absolutely adorable playing together all week. They rarely fought and had the BEST time. Unfortunately, I didn't get any videos of that. I did get one of their rare arguments. Here, they argue the vitally important question of whether a fire engine says "whooo-whooo" or "beep beep". They then move on to the thorny issue of whether the bird in question is a duck or a chick (it was actually a gosling) and what said bird would then sound like. Margaret is the first referee, I'm the second.




Pippa's preschool has weekly French lessons. I was reading Rowan an abc book when Pippa piped in that she wanted to sing the abc's in French. She then launched into this rendition. Notice that the only thing that makes this French is the lower tone and the ridiculously pursed lips. I could barely hold the camera I was laughing so hard.

We've had a pile of company this past week (thanks for visiting, everyone!) and I've gotten a few pics loaded already.






Here are a few old videos. Here's Pippa, singing Old MacDonald... or Mic-Old-Donald as it's known in our house.



Rowan pulls up and plays with James' phone, and Pippa tries to steal the limelight.