Tantrums

It's not easy being three.

That's not actually what Kermit the Frog sang, but he certainly could have.  Because it's definitely been our experience so far. 

Don't get me wrong -- Alex is as cute as they get.  When she's cute.  But when she's not being cute, it brings to mind our friend Beth Sigall's comment, "The only thing worse than 'the terrible twos' is what follows -- threevil."  That's right:  Three + evil = "threevil." 

And I have looked into the face of threevil.

Take last night.  Jane had a leadership meeting for Gladney's National Capital Family Association last night, so I left work early and headed out to the Westwood Country Club to meet her and do a car swap.  (She got the BMW convertible; I got the Ford Explorer with two girls in car seats.  Fair trade?)  Ella-Anne was asleep (she does a lot of that -- she's seven weeks old), but Alex was despondent ("I want to go inside and see all the mommies!" she cried out in between shrieks). 

But she didn't get to go inside and see all the mommies.  Instead, I got in the car and started driving the girls back home.  To try to quell some of Alex's active sadness, I asked her, "How was school today?"  She responded, between sobs, "I don't like having a great time at school any more!" 

I just laughed.  This made her madder.  She sobbed and sobbed for about five minutes.  Then, approaching a red light, I got an idea.  "Give me your binky, please," I asked.  (The 'binky' is Alex's blanket.  She has three of them, almost identical, and her affection for them is no less intense than Linus Van Pelt's love of his own security blanket.)  "MY BINKY!" she screamed.  "No, I'm just going to borrow it."  So she handed it to me, I balled it up, and pretended to bonk myself in the head with it.  180 degree reversal.  Alex got a wide smile on her face and laughed, and said, "Again!"  So, since I am still Schmucky the Clown, I did it again, and then pretended to lecture the binky ("Oh, binky!  Don't bonk the Daddy.  Bad binky!").  Gut-busting laughs followed.  "Again!"  But the stoplight had turned green, and so I handed "the bink" back to Alex and said, "Only when the light is red."  Fortunately, I encountered only two more red lights on the way home; otherwise, I might have self-inflicted a concussion.

Another frustrating aspect of threevil is "running away."  It might happen at "jammie time," when Alex, instead of coming to Mommy or Daddy for help in getting her jammies on, runs away (sometimes adding "Chase me!").  Or, more nervously, it might happen out in public, at the grocery store or elsewhere.  We've -- speaking of stoplights -- started a bit of a game here.  "Red light!" one of us would say, and Alex is supposed to stop on a dime.  (I'd say 50% success rate at this point.)  "Green light!" and she can go.  "Yellow light!" means she is supposed to slow down.  And "Purple light!" means that Alex is supposed to stop where she is and do a crazy dance in that spot.  That's just funny when it works.  I wonder what other parents think when they see that.

At the same time, the principles of manipulation that Alex is learning occasionally have their upside.  Alex's efforts to delay her bedtime now include, "I need to give you a hug and a kiss!" or, more simply, yelling "Hug!" -- followed by running to me (or Jane) with arms outstretched. 

In that same vein, one of the best things ever is coming home, walking in the door, and having a little girl come running to the door, arms outstretched, yelling "Daddy!"  She leaps -- and I mean leaps -- into my arms, gives me a tight hug around the neck, and pats me on the back. 

It makes the tantrums worth it.  Almost.

Picture day for the girls!

Last year, Jane and I went to a benefit dinner with Joseph and Rachel Firschein, and we bid on a bunch of silent-auction items.  Because the economy was so questionable, we ended up being the high bidder on a lot of those things because we were the only bidder on a lot of those things.  One of these bargains was a set of family portraits done by a professional photographer.  Today, Jane took the girls and had some portraits done.  Here are some of the best ones.

Alex's first day of preschool -- year two

Alex in our driveway before day one:

"Babies can't go to school.  They're too little."

Such a big girl.

As Mommy says, "When exactly do they learn the cocking the hip thing?"

Family resemblance

Even before we saw our first photos of Ella-Anne, the folks at Gladney were breathlessly telling us that she was the most beautiful baby many of them had ever seen. Of course, many of them never saw Alex as a baby, but I'd have to agree -- Ella-Anne is an awfully good-looking baby.

And Alex is an awfully good-looking three-year-old, at least when she isn't laying on her back, legs kicking, shrieking.

On some level, it is true that all babies look pretty much alike. Remember what Winston Churchill said: "All babies look like me. But then, I look like all babies." But we've all encountered some babies who elicit responses like, "Oh, bless his little heart." (Translated: "Oooof.") Still, one thing that we've all observed over the last week -- and we've already had Ella-Anne for a week, today, believe it or not -- is that Ella-Anne seems to bear quite a resemblance to her older sister.

Now, I am quite aware that our daughters are adopted, and had different birth mothers and birth fathers. But still . . . . Here's Alex at the same age Ella-Anne is now (having the first bath administered by Daddy, which gave her cause for concern):

And here's Ella-Anne:

I see it. But then, I'm the Daddy, and I'm not paid to be objective.

While I'm here, here are a few more famous July 28 birthdays (besides Jackie O) that Ella-Anne shares:

Beatrix Potter (1866)

Marcel Duchamp (1887)

Rudy Vallee (1901)

Vivian Vance ("Ethel Mertz") (1907)

Earl Tupper (inventor of Tupperware) (1907)

Frankie Yankovic (1915)

Peter Duchin (of the eponymous orchesta) (1937)

Bill Bradley (1943)

Jim "Garfield" Davis (1945)

Sally Struthers (1947)

Georgia Engel (1948)

Vida Blue (1949)

Lori Loughlin (of "Full House" fame) (1967)

Elizabeth Berkley (1972) (a helpful reminder of every father's principal duty, according to Chris Rock)

It was also the day in 1914 that Austria declared war on Serbia, starting World War I, and the effective date of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1868) -- two events that shaped the course of American history.

Photos: Bringing Home Ella-Anne

Tale of the tape

Though Alex and Ella-Anne share birthdays only nine days apart (July 19 and July 28), I'm having a hard time remembering that we had had Alex for a month at this point (almost seven weeks old), whereas we've had Ella-Anne for only five days so far. Going back to the old blog allows me to make some comparisons:

Alex versus Ella-Anne
5 lbs., 6 oz. weight 5 lbs., 4.5 oz.
18 inches length 17-7/8 inches
7/19/06 birth 7/28/09
8/3/06 arrival 9/8/09
15 days age 6 weeks (42 days)
Cancer sign Leo
Dog Chinese sign Ox
Degas Famous b'day Jackie O.

Finally, a quick congratulations to Papa (John Hutchinson), whose team today won the U.S. Tennis Association Missouri Valley Section championship (here is the tale of that tape) in the Super Senior 7.0 NTRP level division, advancing to the National Championships in April 2010. Nana said the championships are going to be held in Indian Wells, California, but this makes it look like they're going to be in Surprise, Arizona. Surprise!