Kindergarten is Great! Well, Except For...

...."it's boring most of the time, and we have to sit and listen to the teacher talk, and I already know the stuff they're teaching me, except for Spanish, which is kind-of hard but not really, and also I'm really tired and I don't want to go to school today so can we just go home?

Camping Night In The Backyard

We've got hot dogs, we've got graham crackers, we've got chocolate and marshmallows  We've got a cool tent bought on the cheap, courtesy of more experienced camping friends.  We've got air mattresses, a radio, and an old pine stump that needed another good burn anyway.  It all went well until the toddler spilled a drink on the laptop, finally killing it for good, and until Av decided that the great outdoors was just too creepy at night and went upstairs to her own bed.  Yay for practicing camping in the backyard.  We'll practice some more, and hopefully at some point it'll get less creepy.

Language Explosion, pt.2

Can't keep up.  She's now at the stage where she imitates everything anyone says, so it's hard to tell sometimes which words are actually "real" words and which are just parroted syllables.  But some of the ones I have "proof" of are:

Pumpkin ("punk - ken!")
Nurse!
Thank you ("bink yoo")
You're Welcome ("Erwelk")
Dress
School ("Gooo!")
Knee
Bandaid ("Bend-end")

It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses A Toothbrush

Eight-year-old sleepovers, at your house.  Parents' nightmare?  Nay, I say.  A chance to experience other people's children, with all their wonderful peculiarities.  One of my daughter's BFFs is with us tonight, and it's been one of the most fun evenings I've had in a long time.   Maybe you're coming to conclusions about my marriage I would rather you not, but if so, cut me a break.  I'm in my mid forties and I've been married for a decade and a half.  Novelty rules.

Tonight, it comes in the form of M., a child I've known pretty much since she was in the womb, and yet every time I see her, she blows my mind.  Case in point:  in the van, riding home from a traumatic (for me) visit to the grocery store, in which I'd felt the need to apologize repeatedly to the blank-faced check out girl when my 4-year-old sat in the cart between the sushi and the toilet paper sobbing hysterically because she didn't get to be the one to put the green juice on the scanner, M. provided the elaborate (and successful) distraction of a made-up universe combining features of the outside world flying by on Military Cutoff road with her own visionary elements, like trees that grow toys and sidewalks that sprout tin soldiers.  My children eagerly joined in, carried on the tide, and the 4-year-old's distress was utterly forgotten, without me having to lift a finger to do any parenting.  Sweet.

Later, at the rez, there was a dance party, including hat-wearing balloons in honor of my eldest's "actual" birthday (the party's next week).  M. staged a wedding, between herself and her stovepipe-sporting balloon groom.  The script went like this:

"Will you marry me?  Here's a ring."  (a black balloon, that had earlier represented an evil plague in a completely different vignette)
"Why, yes, darling, I will."
"Blah, blah, blah, we're married....okay, I'm dumping you, me and my ring are going to live happily ever after."  (I'm not kidding: this is word-for-word.)

Me:  Well, congratulations, I hope you two will be very happy.
M: [cracks up]

Later, again: "Story time" aka "We're being as cute and funny as possible so you won't make us go to sleep" 
Av:  Once upon a time there was a fart, named Fartle.  And he had a friend who was a burp, and her name was Burpette.
M.:  You should change his name to Fartio, so they can be like Romeo and Juliet.

Me:  [No verbal response.  Stunned.]

Later still:  "Okay, girls, let's brush teeth!" (this is me).
"Where's my toothbrush?"
"Same place it always is."
"I want to draw with crayons before bed."
"No, it's getting late."
"Well, where's my toothpaste?"
"I don't know, ask your father."
"Why can't I draw?"
"We've covered this.  It's late."
"Why isn't Elena in bed?"
"I don't know, ask your father."
"Are we going to make more green goo tomorrow?"
"I don't know, ask your - "
M : "Can I borrow some liquid saline?"
[Record needle slides off noisily.]  "Uhm....liquid saline?"
"Yeah."
Okay.

We slow it down.  We put on tea tree oil lotion and Burt's Bees lip stuff and we have foot rubs, and we start the humidifier, and we talk about all the nice stuff moms do to help us when we have stuffy noses at night...we find our stuffed animals and we snuggle in together, and we set boundaries about who can wake up who and when and under what circumstances.  We make decisions about the lighting.


Conversation between me and the husband, after I "put the kids to bed":

Him: "So they're down?"
Me: "Sure, sure.  I just explained it to them -  you can get up in the morning if it's after seven, but no waking the adults until after seven-thirty.  I made them repeat it several times, I'm sure they got it."
Him: [pregnant pause] "If the water swallows you and you drown, it proves you're not a witch.  This has that sort of logic to it."
Me:  "I'm not gonna bother lifting my middle finger. Please, just go ahead and picture it."

She's sweet, and she's different, and she's one of my daughter's oldest friends, whom she's going to miss so deeply when she moves across the country next month.  I will miss her indelible contribution to my family dynamic on the occasions I get to experience her uniqueness.  And I'll miss my friend, too - her mother.  It won't be as easy to get together, but I have a feeling we'll still get the opportunity once in a while.  I hope so.

  










     

Recent Quotes and Recent Pictures

Avery: "Why do strong scents of stink make you want to cough?"

Elena: "Hip hip....todaaaaay!!!!"   Later: "Hip hip.....tomorrow!!!!"

Avery's 1st grade roller coaster!

All the friends together at Avery's 7th

Strike a pose

Karate kid

Karate kid with awesome karate teacher!

Cool girl at Ashboro Zoo

Checking out the sleeping lions

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Elena Quotes of the Day

I congratulated her on her first trip out of the house (to the grocery store) without diaper or pull-up, which occurred today.  She even took advantage of the public restroom while we were there.  She accepted my praise by saying matter-of-factly: "That's my job!"

Later, playing in the house, she declared that she was older than me.
"Are you?"  I replied, distracted by something I was doing on the desktop.
"Well,"  she amended, "I'm older than Avery."
"Oh," I said.  "How old are you?"
"I'm three." (pronounced "free") "So I'm tiny and fly-ee."

Spring Fling face painting...wow!

Exploring at the Ashboro Zoo

Loves her some goggles.

Posing in princess attire

Watching a scary episode of My Little Pony with big sis

She's 3!!

What a great birthday for our little "baby" Elena!  It was 70 degrees and sunny all day.  Dead of winter.  We took Avery to school in the morning, then went to Target at Elena's request (she loves to "go to the store").  Picked up some streamers and other party necessities.  Went home and played outside, decorated her cake, played outside, cleaned up the house, and played outside.  Elena set the kitchen table, carefully pouring a cup of water for herself and each of her party guests (that would be Mom, Dad, and Avery), and scattering party hats & funky sunglasses around.  After we picked up Avery from school, things got even more exciting.  Avery put on some dance music and we started hanging steamers and balloons, and after about an hour the kitchen looked like a party store exploded in it.  Elena was ecstatic.  "Don't sing Happy Birthday to me," she told me at one point.  "It makes me feel like I can't talk."  Dad came home from work early so he wouldn't miss the party, and we played with the 600 balloons we blew up over the course of the day, and Elena opened her presents.  She got a unicorn pillow-pet constellation light, and a barbie princess fishing game from Dad - a huge hit.  Played with those a bit, then dinner under the streamers, then cake - yes, we did sing Happy Birthday, and she was delighted after all.

Three years ago yesterday she was born in the luxury of her own home.

First birthday:

2nd Birthday:

3rd Birthday:

Dressed up for the (briefly) cold weather

70 degree January day = wild horse rides

In Big Bird hat, getting ready to decorate cake

Just finished hanging streamers with big sis

Princess

Avery puts the final touches on the cake