Petunia Turns Two

A week ago today, Petunia celebrated her second birthday. I'm still a bit in shock that my baby is two. (Not to mention the fact that her big sister is so, well, big.) Petunia's language isn't as clearly enunciated as Pumpkin's was at this age, and- as I learned at her two year check up- she is on the short side (10th percentile). So it is easy for us to think of her as a baby. But all of the sudden, she is two.

She has lots of words, and almost every single one of them has a cute pronunciation, unique to her. Some of our favorites are:

• ee-bye, for butterfly
• rella, for Cinderella (which, thanks to her big sister, is one of her favorite shows. She likes the slapstick humor in it, though- she laughs out load when the mice splash milk in the cat's eye, for instance).
• dee-dee, for empty or fishy. You tell the difference because she signs "fish" if she means fishy.
• boppy, for potty (which was confusing at first, because "boppy" is what Pumpkin used to say when she wanted to nurse. Petunia says "nuh" and signs "more")

She loves to take her baby (or one of her stuffed animals) for a walk around the block in the doll stroller.  This delights the neighbors- it is very cute. It is an exercise in patience for the adult accompanying her, though, as we frequently change directions, occasionally cross the street, and stop and smell lots of flowers. We also stop to hug any fire hydrant we pass. For some reason, Petunia hugs fire hydrants when she sees them. We can't figure out why, beyond the fact the hydrants are about the same height as she is.

She loves to play "Ring around the Rosie", and when that gets dull (and dizzying), we can easily switch her to  "The Noble Duke of York", which, let me tell you, gets tiring on about the fifth repetition. But she's so cute when she signs "more" and says "muh", that I usually tell myself it is good exercise and do it again.

She's a bit of a mommy's girl, but she likes to dance with Daddy. Her favorite right now is "Rehab", by Amy Winehouse. She's started signing along to the "no, no, no" part. My husband is very proud. I'm fairly annoyed with him, but grateful it isn't something even less appropriate. I prefer her rendition of "Wheels on the Bus", which she likes to do, complete with actions.

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Of course, we had a little party for Petunia. Two of her classmates came over, and my parents and sister were here. We had a jumpy. It arrived early in the morning, when we were still rushing around getting the house ready for the party.  Pumpkin and Petunia pestered us so much about going into the jumpy that we deflated it until we were ready. Petunia sat at the door and stared at it forlornly.

She had lots of fun in the jumpy when we reinflated it.

After we played for awhile, we had lunch, followed by cupcakes. I got them from Jennywennycakes again- I knew I wouldn't have the time to make them. They were both cute and yummy again, of course, even though Jenny was doing me a favor and squeezing us in last minute (with all the planning for the trip, I forgot to put in our order early). I had her do a bird theme because Petunia likes birds- "bird" was one of her first words and signs.

Pumpkin loved the cupcakes, and so did the adults. Petunia liked the frosting, and we got the requisite photos of her with frosting smeared all over her face.

Then it was naptime.

After nap, Petunia opened her gifts. One of the first cards she opened had some money in it for her. She clutched it to her chest and didn't want us to take it away from her. Once we got her piggybank out, though, she really got into putting the money into her bank. She'd finish putting in the money, and then look up and sign and say "more!"

She also got into opening the presents once she realized there were new things for her in those packages. She ripped paper off with abandon. She stopped to play with each new present- she's still young enough that the new toy in front of her is more tempting than the packages waiting to be opened.

This is in contrast to Pumpkin at her last birthday. Apparently at the age of four, the packages are more tempting.

With some coaching, though, she eventually got through all her gifts. We had a reprise of the cupcakes after dinner, and all agreed: it was a good day. Even if my little baby is now a big two year old toddler!

Weekend Reading: The Men Write about Work-Life Balance Edition

I've been reading a lot about work-life balance lately, and it has all been written by men.

It all started when I followed a link from my stats page to the search results that led someone to my Work-Life Manifesto post, and found, on the same results page, this post from a programmer and dad who is working fewer hours... and finding that his productivity hasn't really suffered. (Sound familiar?)

That led me to the Signal to Noise blog from 37signals. They have a lot to say about not working insane hours- here's a post I liked. I really like this quote:

"If you only have 32 hours this week to get something done, you’re not going to waste time."

A comment on one of their posts led me to this very inspirational interview with the CEO of Great Harvest Bread. I recommend reading the entire interview, but here's a quote that resonated with me:

"An important rule: never let anyone -- yourself included -- make you "pay" for taking a vacation. You work a bit harder before, but it's because you naturally feel like it. You work a bit harder when you get back, often, because you feel like it. But don't ever buy in to other people's myth that the work should stack up. It shouldn't, or something's broke."

And then someone's Twitter feed (probably @cydharrell) led me to the Study Hacks blog, which has recently "graduated" (sorry, couldn't resist) from writing only about how to have a decent life as a successful student to how to have a decent life as a successful working person. I'm finding a lot to think about in the series of posts about being a "career craftsman"- for instance this one about how following your passion may not lead to occupational bliss.

So why, exactly, have we let the work-life balance issue get framed as a "working mother's issue?"

Trip Story: Pasadena and Bakersfield

I'm finally making time to write up the first day of our California Car Trip. I didn't intend for this post to be so long in coming, but I came back from vacation to immediately turn around and attend a local conference, then we had Petunia's two year birthday party and an out of town guest, and Hubby had a week long series of meetings at work, starting at 8 or 8:30 every day and ending no earlier than 5. (Seriously, who schedules something like this? I think they should send the partners of all the employees flowers, because this sort of thing upsets the delicate balance of things....) But now Petunia is home sick- a sore throat, from the looks of it, but nothing serious, and she's already on the mend- and that week long series of meetings at Hubby's work means that I'm taking the day off with her. So I am turning my attention from the string of DVDs she likes to watch when she's sick and writing a post.

Anyway, back to the trip... We left home after dinner and bath on Thursday night, and drove a couple of hours north and east to Pasadena. Petunia slept most of the way (it was pretty much her bedtime when we left). Pumpkin looked out the window, insisted on listening to her music, and asked us a seemingly endless stream of questions before she finally fell asleep, too. It was a good start to the trip.

I had booked us into a Howard Johnson near Pasadena City College- I figured there was no point being in the thick of the trendier part of Pasadena, since we were arriving late and leaving after breakfast to go to Kidspace, our first tourist stop on the trip. The hotel worked well for us, and was at least $100 cheaper than the option I had looked at in the more happening part of town, so that was at least one lodging win for the trip.

Kidspace is a pretty cool place. Unbelievably, I have not a single "failed" photo from this stop (i.e., a photo without one of my kids' faces in it), so I cannot provide photographic evidence- you'll just have to take my word for it. We started in the toddler room, which was a pretty standard play area for young toddlers. It was nice, but nothing special. We should have skipped it- but it did keep the kids entertained while we studied the map and figured out what we should go see. There was a splash fountain, and an indoor exhibit with some really well-done climbing features that Pumpkin decided looked to scary for her. They had a small bug exhibit. Pumpkin thought it was cool to see a tarantula, while Petunia preferred the butterflies. There was an outdoor garden with some great water play areas. But the highlight for our girls was definitely the tricycles- there was an area for preschoolers with marked lanes and traffic signs. Pumpkin absolutely loved stopping at the stop signs. We can only hope that this is foreshadowing for her qualities as a driver when she is older! There were also some smaller trikes in a less structured area for toddlers. Petunia was thrilled to have her own trike to ride. She is too little for the ones we have at home. She pushed the trike around with her feet with a big grin on her face, and screamed at us when we told her it was time to go.

We had lunch at the surprisingly decent Kidspace cafe, spent a little time on the good public playground outside the museum, drove by the Rose Bowl (it was literally right next door), and then headed out of town.

Our eventual destination was Three Rivers, which would serve as our base for a visit to Sequoia National Park. I didn't want to make the entire four hour drive in one go, though, so we stopped in Bakersfield. The drive to Bakersfield was surprisingly pretty- the freeway cuts through hills that in September are the color of browned butter, beautiful from a distance, but parched and scrubby looking up close. The hills are dotted with grey boulders and muted green trees that look perpetually windswept.

I had picked out the California Living Museum as a good stop in Bakersfield, and I was right. It is a small zoo, focused entirely on animals native to California. The size was perfect for a short stop,  and they have done a good job landscaping it to give you the feeling of space.

We spent a lot of time looking at the mountain lions and bobcats, saying "meow".

We also spent a fair amount of time looking at the bears, saying "rarrr".

And Petunia waved bye-bye every time we walked away from an animal, which was just as cute as it sounds.

All in all, it was a good stop. From there, we headed to the restaurant I'd picked out for dinner: a local brew pub called Lengthwise.

The food and beer were good, not great, but they had an old Ms. PacMan game in the corner, and we all got a kick out of that. Pumpkin and I both took turns playing, but Hubby was the real master. We eventually tore him away from the console and left. We stopped by a park to run some of the wiggles out, and then strapped everyone into our car and head off for our next stop.

Zenbit: Mad Dogs and Englishmen

 It was even mid-day... and there was sun!

Location: Santa Barbara, California, USA

Date: September 24, 2011

Weekend Reading: The (Mostly Old) Tech News Edition

This will have to be short today- Petunia turns two tomorrow, and I have lots to do!

But I couldn't leave you without random links to read this weekend, could I?

First, an interesting post that postulates on possible involvement of Iran in the recent attack on DigiNotar, the Dutch certificate authority company.

Then, a post from Female Computer Scientist on the impact of face-recognition software.

Also, I pre-ordered a Kindle Fire this week- I've been wanting a tablet, and the low price tag was too much to resist. Also, I like the smaller size, since I intend to carry it in my purse sometimes.

So I found two articles in the Harvard Business Review on the potential impact of the Kindle Fire interesting. Also, this article in Tech Crunch on the new Kindle gives a good overview.

Finally, this has nothing to do with technology, but come on- talking birds! (As an aside, there is a flock of parrots in Brooklyn that have learned to mimic car alarms. That sounds cool until you hear them in the middle of the night....)

And if you haven't posted your tips and tricks for traveling with little kids yet- go over to my last post and do so!