We’ve been reading The Flip-Flap Body Book with Ngaire. She’s picking up details from it surprisingly quickly, and is showing some flair at comparative anatomy and physiology, causing much attendant craziness. Witness:

Ngaire: This is Lightning McQueen’s brain [pointing to the front roof of a small toy].
Me: Where is Lightning McQueen’s womb?
Ngaire: Here [pointing to his undercarriage].
Me (to the Husbandlet and Adrian and Jessica): Hey, apparently Lightning McQueen has both a brain and a womb!
The Husbandlet: You know what that makes him?
Jessica: A woman?
The Husbandlet: No, one of those … you know …
Me: Those?
The Husbandlet: You know, those horse fish things.
Me: You mean … a seahorse?

Yes, that’s what he meant.

Husbandlet here: In my defense, I’ve never claimed to be an ichthyologist. I only study animals with fewer vertibrae than I have. Shoot, I’ve never taken a class on fish, unless you count gourmet cooking …

In preparation for AfricaFest 2009 (a.k.a. a visit to the Husbandlet’s parents), we recently took the kidlets to the post office to apply for their passports. It was there that we realized that we had never ordered a copy of Liam’s birth certificate.

Ngaire’s passport was ordered, no problem (and arrived about two and a half weeks later, WOW), but home we went to send in the paperwork for Liam’s necessary info. His birth certificate arrived early last week, so I promptly made him another passport appointment for 2 p.m. on Friday (because if we left the ordering to two and a half weeks before departure, you can bet that that’s when the State Department would be processing passport applications at a zippy nine-week interval). Please bear in mind that both parents must be present to order a passport for a minor, each accompanied by several forms of I.D., and the passport people in our county apparently turn into pumpkins after 3 p.m. This meant that the Husbandlet had to leave work early. Also, I had to wake the kidlets up early from their naps. Crankiness? Why yes, there was crankiness.

We got to the post office, where we couldn’t find Liam’s passport photos. The nice passport man gave us half an hour to run home and ransack the place, which we did, to no avail. Back at the p.o., the nice man was willing to take new pictures for us, but was also willing to accept $30 for such services. We abandoned all hope of achieving anything at this particular post office.

However, the downtown post office (less desirable due to limited parking) takes walk-in passport applications till 4 p.m., so with an hour to spare, we dashed off for a final home-ransacking (fruitless) and then to the mall to get replacement photos taken at Ritz ($12.75).

The gentle reader will be glad to learn that we did, in fact, get that passport applied for at the second post office, where the clerk barely looked at us and certainly didn’t look at our I.D. Ngaire and Liam whiled away the wait by being almost unbearably cute crawling around and playing together … Ngaire imitated everything Liam did, and words cannot describe his pleasure at her attention. Indeed, I am rather proud of how well the whole family handled the incident … the kidlets were remarkably patient while being repeatedly strapped into their carseats and driven places and then forced to wait in lines, and the Husbandlet and I managed not to argue bitterly, or even very much at all. I credit our incredible restraint and maturity. Possibly some credit is due the antibiotics I was taking for my ear infection, though, which gave me stomach cramps and thus rendered me less feisty.

Really, our ordeal entitled the kids to some TV (they got it) and the adults to a stiff drink (or at least some hot dogs). I’m hoping that our equilibrium will remain unrattled when those passport photos turn up in some obvious place tomorrow.

In the end, all the adults and all but four of the kidlets got the Incredibly Contagious Virus. We averaged two adults and one child down per day, plus another set recovering from the day before. The Husbandlet’s poor aunt and uncle were the last to succumb, the night before and the morning of our departure, respectively.

Aside from that, it was a fantastic beach vacation. Lots of beach time, a little Shakespeare, and good food for anyone well enough to eat it. I personally ate my weight in chocolate chip cookies … yes, relatives, that’s where they all went.

Our little nuclear family made the entire 10.5-hour trip home on Saturday with no noxious emissions from Ngaire and Liam, who represented 50% of the vomit hold-outs. In fact, they never did come down with that particular bug. But they did manage to pick up a completely different virus on the way home (fever only, thank goodness), which knocked Liam out on Sunday and got Ngaire on Monday night.

The Husbandlet and I missed the fever, but we both have ear infections. Want to come to our house?

In more delightful news, Liam is now a) walking all over the place, and b) pretty much completely weaned. I haven’t nursed him since the middle of the night on Sunday, when he was sick. He drinks either soy milk or generic Lactaid, and only lifts my shirt now to poke his finger in my belly button.

Re: a), Liam’s walking really took off at the beach house, partially because he also learned how to turn on TVs, of which the house had many. He would stagger around the room with his index finger outstretched, the better to hit power buttons when his lurches took him their way.

Ngaire adored the beach. I think she had an unmitigated blast the whole week. She didn’t seem to mind getting knocked over by waves, but she was most interested in darting in and out of the water while conducting complex cooking games involving sand. Her behavior was so pristine that I’ve decided she needs more exercise and have signed her up for six weeks of baby soccer starting in September.

I also ordered her books for Sonlight’s P3/4 program. Ngaire is a little sponge, and I’m looking forward to making my educational attempts with her slightly less haphazard.

In totally unrelated news, I have two recommendations: Go read Ivy and Netflick Penelope. The first is a tightly written, far less wordy heir to Dickens, and the second is perhaps the most original movie I’ve seen in a long time. I loved the script.

We are currently enjoying our beach vacation in North Carolina with a bunch of family … nine adults and eight children in all.

Unfortunately, the Husbandlet and I seem to have brought the plague (i.e., the stomach flu) into our midst. We came down with it the day after we arrived, and now two others have succumbed. I feel like a character from And Then There Were None, waiting to see who will be next.

The day before her third birthday, Ngaire took off her diaper and wouldn’t let me put another one on her. We haven’t been totally accident-free, and she’s mostly refusing to poop in the potty, but other than that, I consider her completely self-potty-trained.

(While I was writing the above paragraph, Ngaire peed on the floor of her room upstairs, so I think I will never mention her track record online again.)

I used to joke that, as soon as Ngaire turned three, a switch would flick and she would suddenly turn into a mature, obedient little angel who put all bodily output into the toilet. Amazingly, it almost came true: Aside from a recent vicious circle of being naughty at bedtime (climbing into Liam’s crib bearing all sorts of paraphernalia, much to his horror at being thus rudely awakened), which kept her up too late, which made her cranky and disobedient the next day, Ngaire really does seem more mature all the time.

She can now dog-paddle around the big pool, bobbing in her little inflatable suit, and after weeks of practicing jumping into the baby pool, she now leaps confidently into the big pool with Daddy. She knows most of the major bones of the body, a bunch of names of dinosaurs, and a lot of the major creatures of the sea. She has mostly outgrown picture books, though she retains an affection for some of them, and we now read short chapter books together (the Amanda Pig series is a favorite, as are any books about dinosaurs). Her memory is amazing; about 90% of her conversation consists of quotes from books or videos, expanded upon and used in context. (She and I recently had a fun conversation where we tried to come up with as many synonyms for “said” as possible; she matched me word for word.)

She is fascinated with cats, dirt, mud, bees, and butterflies. She has a bit of a dictatorial streak, which, combined with her extreme independence, trend-setting, and frequent direction of those around her (“You want to run and say ‘Look at the cat!’”) would make her an ideal auteur filmmaker in 1960s France. Her favorite colors are red and purple, and she has recently given up shirts (no, stick with me here) in favor of dresses and only dresses. She will wear shorts, but only under a dress.

Ngaire is extremely strong-willed. I think my biggest challenge as her mother is knowing when to back off and when to exert my own will over her. My own personality inclines me to the latter, but I am reminded that frustrating one’s child is not a good idea. As with the potty-training thing, sometimes my efforts to direct her meet with success only when she’s ready to go along with me. That isn’t always a big deal, but try telling me that after she’s jumped on top of Liam for the eighth time that night. (OK, that one is kind of a big deal.) I am looking forward to pre-homeschooling her this fall, but I’m keeping myself open to the idea that she may ultimately need some space from me in order to learn without resistance. She may not. We shall see.

On the more positive side, she is also one of the more openly affectionate children you will ever meet. She melts the hearts of all around her with her generously distributed hugs and kisses. While she often goes into her own little world in peer group settings, she is almost never unkind in any way to other children around her. In groups of adults, she transitions seamlessly into the spotlight, giving performances of the Hokey Pokey, Sandra Boynton songs, and old sea chanties.

One of our biggest Ngaire-related surprises was realizing this year that Ngaire is not, as we had previously thought, an extravert, but is in fact quite introverted indeed. We were fooled by the fact that she would only play happily by herself when there were lots of other people around. Silly us. When she disappeared into her room and hid in the corner when playgroup met at our house, I finally got a clue. However, she has recently learned that other children will get in on her little schemes if she talks to them, which has opened up a world of social possibility to her.

I consider myself quite privileged to be her mother. It’s amazing to me to remember her as a baby … indeed, it’s rather hard for me to believe she ever was a baby. She has come a long way, and I’m looking forward to seeing her continue to grow.