Things Freya says

Not sure what the "rule" is for how many words kids are supposed to know by 18 months, but we have been delighted with the things Freya's been saying of late:

• off/ab
• donkey
• Lucy
• fish/Fisch
• out (directed at dogs in kitchen, complete with a good imitation of our pointing gesture)
  
• jacket/Jacke
• up
• down
• cookie/Keks
• poopoo (a remarkably reliable announcement of what's going on in her diaper)
• sock/Socke
• shoes/Schuhe
• Mama
• Dada/Papa
• "Bo" for Beau
• "Goca" for Mocha
• Apfel (oddly she only uses the German word for apple)
• car/Auto
  

So far, English dominates her vocab, but she is already getting very good at using German with me. It's pretty entertaining to watch her stubbornness duke it out with her hunger when she wants a cookie from me and I ask her for the German word. About 75% of the time she goes in search of Steve :-)

What is it about ducks?

One of Freya's favorite animals is the duck, and she even makes a growling quacking sound. Oddly enough, my mother really likes ducks, too, and I was thrilled to find one of her favorite poems online, by Frank W. Harvey (1888-1957):

From troubles of the world I turn to ducks,
Beautiful comical things
Sleeping or curled
Their heads beneath white wings
By water cool,
Or finding curious things
To eat in various mucks
Beneath the pool,
Tails uppermost, or waddling
Sailor-like on the shores
Of ponds, or paddling
- Left! Right! - with fanlike feet
Which are for steady oars
When they (white galleys) float
Each bird a boat
Rippling at will the sweet
Wide waterway…
When night is fallen you creep
Upstairs, but drakes and dillies
Nest with pale water-stars.
Moonbeams and shadow bars,
And water-lilies:
Fearful too much to sleep
Since they've no locks
To click against the teeth
Of weasel and fox.
And warm beneath
Are eggs of cloudy green
Whence hungry rats and lean
Would stealthily suck
New life, but for the mien
The hold ferocious mien
Of the mother-duck.


II


Yes, ducks are valiant things
On nests of twigs and straws,
And ducks are soothy things
And lovely on the lake
When that the sunlight draws
Thereon their pictures dim
In colours cool.
And when beneath the pool
They dabble, and when they swim
And make their rippling rings,
0 ducks are beautiful things!
But ducks are comical things:-
As comical as you.
Quack!
They waddle round, they do.
They eat all sorts of things,
And then they quack.
By barn and stable and stack
They wander at their will,
But if you go too near
They look at you through black
Small topaz-tinted eyes
And wish you ill.
Triangular and clear
They leave their curious track
In mud at the water's edge,
And there amid the sedge
And slime they gobble and peer
Saying 'Quack! quack!'


III


When God had finished the stars and whirl of coloured suns
He turned His mind from big things to fashion little ones;
Beautiful tiny things (like daisies) He made, and then
He made the comical ones in case the minds of men
Should stiffen and become
Dull, humourless and glum,
And so forgetful of their Maker be
As to take even themselves - quite seriously.
Caterpillars and cats are lively and excellent puns:
All God's jokes are good - even the practical ones!
And as for the duck, 1 think God must have smiled a bit
Seeing those bright eyes blink on the day He fashioned it.
And he's probably laughing still at the sound that came out of its bill!

why walk when you can run...

... that seems to be Freya's motto. As soon as she figured out bipedal locomotion she was off and running. Literally, and preferably holding on to a leash, sippy cup, or any number of objects.



Meanwhile, I just try to keep up :-) After finishing the Portland marathon in a new personal worst, having added a whopping 2 minutes to my pace, I am now trying to maintain a fitness routine involving swimming, the gym, and the occasional run. Not that easy, as it turns out, and thankfully our gym is open 24 hours.

On the right are a few more pictures of end of summer fun. Now that the rains are upon us, we are investing in in-door toys that keep Freya moving about. May have to test ride a few rocking horses.

A wiggle of babies

That's the collective noun for a group of babies, or so we decided today at the monthly baby brunch.


(From left to right: Freya, Veda, Gabriel, Ryan, Avery, Rachel, and Ada)

Earlier today, Freya and I reconnected with the group of parents that Steve and I met at a pre-birth class at OHSU last year, and were tickled to discover a group of happy babies and like-minded parents. The babies obliged by lining up, albeit briefly, for a group shot. I was grateful to get some pediatrician referrals, and to discover that there is a functioning babysitting circle already in operation. Who would have guessed that our random group of parents would continue a lasting bond -- at the time, all we shared was the anticipation and trepidation of labor and one harried lunch hour trying to find a place to eat at the not yet fully open South Waterfront zone.

On the move

The last 2 months just flew by, what with my work life getting back to its crazed travel schedule. Luckily Freya is quite content hanging out with Steve and Oma, or so I tell myself in the tradition of "bad mommies" everywhere.

But I am not the only one on the move. Freya is speedcrawling across the lawn, up and down the driveway, up the stairs, down (with a little help from a friend) the stairs, and all over the house. She is experimenting with standing handsfree, and seems days away from walking unassisted. The beach is her favorite new place, not least because of all the sand, seaweed and driftwood she can put in her mouth.



Her big brother Beau is on the move, too, from one pre-graduation party -- sanctioned and otherwise -- to the next. His steps towards adulthood are no less dramatic than what Freya serves up, luckily he's mastered the art of walking in a straight line, and is moving on to figuring out college dorms, banking, and - most importantly in the short run - planning his fabulous trip to Europe.

And finally, all of us are on the move back to Portland! Our stint in Marin comes to an end next Monday. Not a moment too soon, as summer gets into full swing in the Pacific Northwest and we have been missing our garden.

Ode to Oma

After over 20 years, my mother and I have been living together again for the past 8 months. It's been working out much better than any of us expected, proving the old adage that daughters becoming mothers does wonders for the family dynamics. A few weeks ago we celebrated Ingrid's 70th birthday with a big dinner party, and we both had to think very hard about the last time she and I celebrated a birthday together on the actual day(s). We think it was sometime in the 1980s, before I went off to boarding school. Sometime in the 1990s we had a party on the mid-way point between our two birthdays, but basically it's been a while and now we get to enjoy each other's idiosyncrasies on a daily basis -- or at least until the CIS kicks her out, but that's a topic for another day. In the meantime, because I don't say it enough (and because I'll be very lucky to have Freya say it one day):

My Mother Rocks!

We have Liftoff!

Over the last two weeks we have been watching Freya put together the principles of locomotion. Hand out, another hand out, face plant. Hand out, one knee out, another knee out, belly flop. Then, the other day, she out them together in sequence, and boom, we have liftoff! She is off and crawling, routinely covering the 40 feet from living room to kitchen in increasingly more fluid motion. There was a hilarious pause when she transitioned from rug to hardwood floor - it reminded me of the difference between mastering downhill skis on the bunny slope and doing your first real run: technique matters! Several face plants later, she got the hang of the more slippery surface, and has been exploring the majority of the house ever since. Favorite stops include the book base with Beau's school binders, the garbage can (shiny and intriguing), and the fireplace - fun with ashes.



Suffice it to say, we are enthralled!