Sarah and the orange crayon

Sarah drew me a picture today, all by herself. She found the paper, she found the crayons, and she opened the box without help:


Masterpiece, isn't it? I have this vision of someday getting frames for my kids' artwork, and having a place on the wall to show it all off, along with a small card to the right of each piece:

Pumpkin
2008
orange crayon and scratch paper
private collection

(This may actually be an indication that I need to find a paying job back in the arts world and let my kids be kids.)

It is a pumpkin, apparently. Sarah showed me the picture and I said, "That's beautiful, Sarah! So much orange! Is it a pumpkin?"

"Gueah!"

"Or maybe spaghetti. Is it spaghetti?"

"No no no."

A few minutes later she was in the playroom, working hard at something important in the play kitchen, and she showed me the dishes she had put in the oven.

"Is that dinner? What are you making me, Sarah?"

In answer, she pointed out of the room, then led me back to the dining room where her drawing was still out on her little table. She put her finger down on the paper.

"Pumpkin? Are you making me pumpkin?"

"Gueah!"

Free handbags!

Seriously...it's turning out to be quite the good day. Beth learns the macarena, Sarah draws me a picture, we decide to get Beth night potty-trained for once and for all...and now this: Handbag Planet giving away a handbag an hour as a site launch gimmick (and viral marketing campaign, which I totally respect). On the delight-o-meter, this is like Piperlime without the pesky do-I-wear-an-8 1/2-or-a-9? dilemma.

"The library is not a shrine for the worship of books." — Norman Cousins

(Good thing, too. I'd get kicked out.)

Do I have a significant, thought-provoking, fodder-for-good-discussion book I should read for my book group? Well, yeah. It's The Preacher's Daughter by Beverly Lewis, in case you're interested (and I am, I really am). Did I check it out while we were at the library today? Um, no. The hour we were there was all in the kids' section: storytime with a good dose of songs and dances, and some time on the computer so Beth could have a multimedia Tomie de Paola experience, and some looking at and waving to the turtles, Overdue and Renewed.

The following falls under the category of either Tragically Hip Mamahood or Spectacularly Bad Parenting...but I just couldn't help myself. We checked out a stack of kids' CDs, including "Sesame Street Hot! Hot! Hot! Dance Songs." Last song on the CD? The Macarena, Muppet-style. Beth can now do the dance, after a (decade-old) fashion.

Sarah's new word, and budding candy addiction

I was standing at the kitchen counter the other day when Sarah came up to me.

"Mama? Mama? Emanem." Expectant look.

Emanem! I can add a new word to her scant and oddly selective repertoire: elbow, okay, me. This is the child who understands everything we say but doles out her own words like a miser parting with shiny new quarters. But she loooves food, and she knows I keep M&Ms in the cupboard (and, failing that, always a Costco-sized bag of chocolate chips).

I opened a brand-new bag of peanut butter M&Ms and gave her one. I figured I should encourage her in her attempts to verbalize her wants. And, you know, the look on your kid's face when you give her chocolate? Priceless.

Blue caboose

Scott got an e-mail this week from a Bentley administrator inviting faculty and staff on a train ride. Specifically, a ride on a restored 1913 (or thereabouts) Boston & Maine wooden caboose. Bring the kids, food on board, etc. It's a two-hour ride up to New Hampshire where the train is, but we figure, hey, this sounds like a lot of fun. And Scott has always wanted to ride in a caboose.

Turns out? The administrator and her husband own the caboose. It had been damaged by a fire during a railroad strike, and they took the time to restore it and get it operational again, and it's absolutely darling. Bright blue, big B&M logo on the side, shipshape inside painted white with blue cushions on the seats. There are seats at the front, a small galley area, then benches along the sides that double as beds. At the very middle there are built-in ladder rungs that go up to the top of the cupola, where there are two facing seats on either side. We ended up sitting in one side of the cupola — just enough space for the four of us — and the girls happily munched on cookies and sandwiches and drained their juice boxes.


Beth was a bit nervous at first about the open windows (oh my, the view!), while I was keeping one arm around Sarah to make sure she didn't dive headfirst out of hers. But Beth got over her fears:


Sarah, sick of me hanging onto her waist while she stuck her head puppylike out the window, decided the cupola was boring and the main level (and resident Cocker Spaniel) would be much more fun:


She also made friends with a six-year-old girl who mother-henned her quite well, tried (unsuccessfully) to get out to the observation deck, and waved out the window at a train we passed along the way. Scott asked the caboose owners' daughter if her dad had always had trains. "Yeah," she said. "They've just gotten bigger."

Help! I'm parenting a teenager!

Okay, not really. But here's Beth slouched down on the couch last Thursday, watching TV:

Here's the outfit she was wearing that day: a vintage-look silkscreened T-shirt and straight-leg jeans (check out the pose):


The absolute last straw was when I was stirring frozen peas into a pot of boxed mac 'n cheese and called her to lunch. She stalked into the kitchen, looked at the bare table and the pot on the stove, said, "I can't eat it. You're still making it," and stalked back out.

First day of preschool

Apparently the way your kid reacts to stress at age 3 is the same way they'll react to stress when they're 13 and 30. If that's true, I know exactly what the first day of junior high school will be like, and it's not going to be good.

Bethie was sooooo nervous about her first day of preschool. She couldn't sleep the night before — kept coming out of her room with various excuses and finally an "I can't sleep!" Poor munchkin — she worries about new situations, and despite the fact that she'd already met her teacher (a wonderful home visit) and that we'd been talking about preschool for quite a while, she was just a little bundle of nerves.

It even carried over to the next morning. Here's Beth wearing her jacket, backpack, and nervous smile, ready to go to school:



Scott stayed home with Sarah so we could do the first day unencumbered. Once we got to school she found her cubby with her picture in it, hung up her things, and trooped into the classroom with some other kids. And there were foam beads at one of the tables, and the kids were making necklaces. Less than ten minutes from the time we'd walked in the door, she was happily stringing beads on yarn. I told her I was going to have to leave, and I would pick her up at the end of her class, which was only an hour and fifteen minutes long that first day anyway. She barely looked up to say goodbye.

When I picked her up, her teacher commented that Beth had spent her time playing with the boys: sand table and pirate ship. Well, yeah. That's my kid. Boys aren't icky yet (except for Daddy, and when she says it she giggles) and what could be cooler than a ship that looks like it's from Pirates of the Caribbean?

Now that she's been going for a week (I started this post right after her first day of school, but somehow haven't found time to finish it until now), my anxious girl is gone — replaced by a kid who bounces out of bed at 7:00 on school mornings. She has three other little girls she plays with regularly, and she will happily chatter to anyone who asks about what she did at preschool. (Unless I'm in the room and I've already asked her, in which case she'll sigh and say, "Mommy, I already told you." So perhaps Scott and I are supposed to communicate telepathically?)

Miss Sarah also adores preschool, and is miffed when she has to leave with me. Life is so unfair when you're not yet 2 and your big sister gets to do cool things.

Say-ings

I have the Bethisms, and since we call Sarah "Say-say" sometimes (it's a reference to when Beth couldn't say her name and called her Baby Sayah) I figured I'd call Sarah's version Say-ings. Do stop me if it's too, too...well, okay. It is too-too much. It's my blog, and I'll be nauseatingly cute if I want to.

A month ago she was barely saying anything at all; now she'll tell us animal sounds (particularly "baa!" and "gack-gack-gack" for "quack"), enthusiastically point out Elmo, and point to her elbow and say "e-bow." "Yes" comes out as "guesh" or "gueh!" and she finally picked up "no-no-NO!" which I'm not thrilled about, but there you are.

Beth started preschool yesterday (more on this in another post) and I'm "guesh"ing that Say picks up quite a few more words without her big sister to intercede for her in a "Mommy, Sarah wants..." kind of way. Right now she makes herself understood (and quite well, too) with a combination of points, "uh-uh-UH!" grunts and frustrated yelling.

Oh, and she learned to do a somersault, too. Not communication, just awfully cute.

Somebody's been watching too much Wonder Pets!

Beth, to Grandma, who's reading her a book about dinosaurs: "Those guys eat this guy."

"That's right. If there's enough of them."

"They use teamwork and they take him down."

Bethism #7

Beth, playing with a rubber duckie while I'm taking a bath: "I'm putting this duckie under the water because he's gonna get baptized."

Rite of passage, or "Hmmmm...does this fit?"

Between toddlerhood and kindergarten there are the preschool years, also known as the sticking-things-in-various-orifices years. Beth is running headlong into this: tonight she stuck a little round noodle (thanks to Google I can tell you the singular of "acini di pepe" is "acino di pepe," but that probably doesn't help anything) in her nose. Utter panic on Beth's part when she realized it was really stuck! Fortunately I got her to blow out her nose — she usually blows in — and I extracted the noodle.

I know, I know — it's my fault for serving her Italian wedding soup. But it's her favorite!

Just wonder what's next....

Money management (pre-K version)

We pay a 5-cent deposit on bottles and cans here in Massachusetts, and though I'm good about rinsing them out and bagging them, I usually forget to take them back to the grocery store. So a while ago I made a deal with Beth: if she remembers to take the cans to the grocery store and helps me feed them into the recycling machines, she gets the money for them.

Much enthusiasm. It's very cute to see her carrying two unwieldy plastic bags filled with soda cans across the parking lot, and though she can't reach the machines, she's perfectly happy to hand me individual cans and then carry her little redemption tickets through the grocery store.

It's turned into quite the big deal. She is figuring out how many cans give her how much money, and we're cementing the idea that she can earn money by doing some work. We count out her tithing (awfully cute to see her solemnly hand her tithing envelope with all of 13 cents in it to the bishop!), and once she has a dollar (and five cents for tax, which is another good discussion about government and everyone helping everyone else) she can take it to Target and pick something out of the dollar bins. Anything above and beyond the $1.05 ends up in her piggy bank, and we talk about savings.

How did I stumble on this? I have no idea. But I feel like such the good mom for the hands-on cross-curricular learning experience. And Bethie loves her newest acquisition: a pair of plastic Hello Kitty bracelets.

Birthday, and other good things

Yes, we spent a week and a half in sunny Southern California, and yes, it happened to coincide with our seventh(!) anniversary and my birthday. Perfectly glorious weather, old friends who are still good friends, the beach, the Mouse. Heaven.

Oh, and murderous traffic on the 5 (and the 405 and the 110 and the 101 and the 10). We snagged a bright blue Prius from the rental agency to mitigate the gas costs, but there's no mitigating the time on the freeway with two peevish children. I remember L.A. having bad traffic. Really. I think it's just easier to handle without squirming and fussing in the back seat, especially if I can't hear the urban music mix on KCRW over the fussing. And with a sunroof. I definitely miss my sunroof.

Beth and Sarah have new buddies, thanks to my oh-so-considerate friends who have kids just their age. We got to see Allison & Chris's fabulous house (especially fabulous because Chris did all the work himself, and they lived with his parents for 18 months while he was doing it). Awfully cute to see Beth and Annelise walk to their Moonbeam class holding hands. Lisa and I took all of our kids to the beach and to Downtown Disney and they got along beautifully while the two of us talked and talked and talked and talked and talked. Beth and Benjamin really hit it off:


We spent time with some friends from ages and ages ago — dinner with Ashley up by her work in Burbank, and with her parents and sister and brother-in-law on the beach in San Diego. All of which was lovely, and easy (once we got through the traffic), and felt very familiar. Beth had no interest in the waves and was perfectly content to sit and chat with Gary and Nicole and Mike, who were just as content to sit and chat with her.


On our anniversary Lisa had planned to host a dinner party, and to that end she invited a bunch of friends from our L.A. 1st days, and at the last minute she had puking kids (not conducive to a good dining experience) and the lovely and talented Dora-chan stepped in and took over. And then she blogged about it, and I'm surprised and touched by her Xenocide reference, because it's a part of the book that really speaks to me, and something I've had in the back of my mind as I try to put together this little family of ours.

My birthday involved me packing the girls into the Prius, driving up the 5, and spending the morning in the L.A. fashion district — reminder of the times when I lived close enough to walk there (and no, it's not as bad as you think). All three of us now have Ugg knockoffs to keep our toes warm this winter, and I have a faux Coach bag, and the girls have frou-frou fancy dresses for next Easter. Beth kept asking, "Mommy, why are you talking Spanish?" and I didn't have an extremely good answer for her. (Um, it's easier?) And then I happened to meet an Orthodox Jew from Buenos Aires who was sightseeing and wanted to see the "real" L.A. Delightful man, fun chat; he wanted to see something a little more historic, so I pointed him toward Olvera Street. I hope he enjoyed his visit.

We drove west, had lunch and saw a movie (the American Girl one, which was cute) and then Beth threw up her Jamba Juice in the car on our way home. So there I was in south-central L.A. with a half-naked kid on the sidewalk and a bag of baby wipes, cleaning off the car seat, and if there's a Mom Olympics there has GOT to be a good start value for that event. I was still in a pretty good mood, though, and Beth is none the worse for wear.

If I can't live there, this is the kind of vacation I want: somewhere with palm trees and sun and old friends and interesting people and lots of kidlets running around and enjoying some good chaos.

Jen, this one's for you

(Note, please, the correct conical princess hat AND the pink-and-purple gown. Seriously. It's the Mouse version of my Lady Macbeth costume. There are deep, deep childhood memories to be mined here, and they all involve the word "mousemeat.")

Terrified by the Mouse

We're in Southern California, which is fun. Right now Beth is curled up on her so! cool! fold-out sofa bed watching Dragon Tales while trying to ignore Sarah, who's climbing all over her. But Tuesday and yesterday we went to Disneyland [insert flashing lights, over-orchestrated music and dancing cast members here].

I tried to prepare Beth for the whole experience, but no amount of looking at the resort website and watching YouTube videos of spinning teacups and little girls meeting princesses can really prepare an easily-overwhelmed three-year-old for the madness of Disney. We made it through a few kiddie rides and the Muppetvision 3D show at California Adventure without a total meltdown, but seeing Cinderella live and in person was just too much for her: she clung to the stroller, refused to get down, screamed, cried. Sarah took her cues from Beth and hid behind the stroller too. We saw Mickey Mouse (decked out as a tourist, cool Hawaiian shirt and all) across the plaza; I asked, "Do you want to go say hi to Mickey?" and Beth said, "NO."*

Fast-forward two days (including lots of talking about what we're likely to see, looking at brochures and spending some more time on YouTube) and you get this:



The girls got to meet THREE princesses: Mulan, who was a total mystery to both of them (Beth referred to her later as "Sulan"), Princess Minnie Mouse, and (drum roll, please) Ariel! Beth's favorite princess ever. Beth walked over, gave Ariel a hug, and just didn't let go. And still didn't let go. Lots of good photo op time for Daddy. Mommy just got all teary. So, so sweet. Aw, shucks. We were doing a pretty good job at avoiding general Disneyfication, and now this!

* Day 1 turned out okay by the end, but it took two somewhat-familiar carousel rides, a chocolate-covered Mickey Mouse cookie, and a nap to get Beth in the right frame of mind. We went back after dinner and enjoyed ourselves immensely!

More Spectacularly Bad Parenting

Scott, my weird-news-junkie husband (er, that means he's hooked on weird news, not that he's weird) just alerted me to this: NZ judge orders 'odd' name change

Short version:
Some phenomenally wacked-out people named their child Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. The girl, apparently a lot brighter than her parents, was horribly embarrassed by the name. (Her friends knew her as "K.") She was put in protective custody so her name could be changed, presumably to something more (cough) mainstream.

I ask: How stupid do you have to be to name your child Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii? 'Cause if you're going to name your child after husky-voiced 1930s film star Tallulah Bankhead, SPELL IT RIGHT! (That's probably what the kid was embarrassed about...not the "Hula" or "Hawaii" part....)

I really should be writing a talk for church tomorrow. Just overcome by the appalling lack of parenting skills out there.

This has been causing endless hilarity around our house this week

...mostly because Scott and I keep repeating it at odd times. Tonight we couldn't even get through the whole thing without cracking up.

From the Shouts & Murmurs column, "Animal Tales," in the June 30 issue of The New Yorker:

DALMATIANS

“Hey, look, the truck’s stopping.”

“Did they take us to the park this time?”

“No—it’s a fire. Another horrible fire.”

“What the hell is wrong with these people?”

Yeah, we're odd. Read the whole thing here.

Not exactly a visit to the Louvre. But then, when you have kids, who wants to see the Louvre?

Um...in the bathroom at the children's museum, there's a shadowbox of animal poop. Little mounds in varying shades of brown. Labeled: fox, toad, moose, squirrel. (Go ahead — say "moose and squirrel." It'll make you feel better.) Ever so appropriate a display for these little scatalogically-minded people who are in there to go potty.

The museum trip was my adventure buddy Rose's idea late last night, just spontaneous enough that I could tell the girls this morning that we were going on an adventure, and wouldn't that be fun, and they were waaay excited but able to take it in stride. We played on some Blue Man Group-esque wind instruments made out of PVC pipe, and played with the weaving exhibit (which has opened up a whole new world of classification for Beth, who was delighted to find that her sandals were woven, and so was the basket, and so is the plaid pattern on Daddy's shirt), and saw a play (Beth called it a movie, which tells me I definitely haven't been doing my job as a promoter of the arts). Sarah was fascinated with the wind display — she'd reach up as high as she could to put a hollow ball in a plastic tube, then push a button to trigger a blast of air that shot the ball out. Over and over again.

There's also a recycle shop at the museum, where local businesses donate things they're getting rid of in bulk. Amid bins of plastic wheel-shaped dohickeys and sheets of surplus plastic paperclips and unused folders for conference packets, there was a find: the magnetic sheets left over from making stick-to-the-fridge paper dolls. And then Rose found a bunch of wallpaper samples, and we concocted a paper-doll-making scheme: we'll use the sheets as templates to make cardboard paper dolls and clothes that attach with Velcro.*

So, yeah: great day at the museum. And, for your enjoyment, two Joshisms:

First, a classic from any apartment-dwelling kid: "Beth, can you come over and play in my backyard? When I have a backyard?"

And: on the way home, out of the blue, Josh piped up, "I love you, Beth."

"I love you too, Josh." And then companionable silence.


_______________________________________
*Brooke, one of these sheets will be rolled up in my luggage when I come out to visit. This has Ellabelle written all over it.

Beth and the snappy comeback

Yesterday Beth clocked herself falling off the couch, and despite Scott's best efforts at getting ice on the owie immediately, she ended up with quite a shiner. So we coached her to say "You should see the other guy!" if anyone comments on it.

She thinks this is hilarious, and in true three-year-old fashion has been repeating the joke over and over and over, giggling like a loon every time she says it.

Oh, and her emphasis makes it even funnier: instead of "You should see the other guy," it comes out "You should see the other guy!" I love my kid.

From the photo archives

I've been meaning to post some of our better pictures....

Getting on the T at Alewife...not the train, just the T

Beth and some friends playing on the turtle at the park in Concord


This was the view all the way home from my seat on the train


Beth the giraffe girl on our trip to the zoo

Sarah's first water balloon. She isn't quite sure what to do with it.

Beth got to ride a pony! Such excitement...and such horror when I discovered a flea after we got home. Totally worth it, though.

Beth being an "alligator" at her swimming lessons

Sarah reading to Pink Teddy

The girls in their sundresses

Sarah feeding Baby Margie (with some help from her daddy)