OK, here's the latest. First, the girls have both started singing this old song from a k.d. lang album (Shadowland)- "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes." For the longest time, they only sang the first line of it... "Don't let the stars get in your eyes, don't let the moon break your heart..." over and over and over. Which was cute and weird and funny and maddening all at the same time. Which come to think of it is a reasonable summary of much of parenting these days. Now Muriel knows more of the words, and it is the bomb when she sings it.
Remember when Naomi was speaking faux Hindi all the time? Well, now she can write in faux Hindi! Is there nothing her preschool won't teach her? If I weren't so lazy I would scan the drawing of a bobble-head doll she made (which she insists on calling a bobby-head doll, and that's funnier anyway, so why argue?) which has all the relevant information along the top in faux Hindi. She also loves drawing paisley patterns, expanding her standard repertoire of hearts, stars, flowers, and swirls.
The other day when I picked her up, her teacher told me that Muriel had almost made her cry that day. During their visit to the diaper room, which, Miss Beth informs me, is where they often have a chat, Muriel told her that she was not going to be at the school much longer, and she wouldn't be seeing her anymore. Muriel is going to change schools next month, so she and Naomi can have a summer together at the same school before Naomi starts Kindergarten. I am never that sure what Muriel knows, though. With the second one, I find it is hard to ever believe that she is not still a baby, so when she starts walking and talking and demonstrating her capacity, I still can't believe it's anything other than a marvelous trick the baby has learned. But here she is, conducting a little therapy session with her teacher about the upcoming sense of loss both of them must face together. Yikes.
It seems like maybe I have written about something similar to this before, but it's happening so much lately, I can't resist mentioning it again. Naomi and Muriel get along very well together, but they are two very different little people (also, people like to say that they look so much alike, but to me, they really don't at all). And each of them is now old enough to observe the other, occasionally, with some distinct person detachment, if that makes sense. So a few times lately, one of them will do something, and the other will make eye contact with me, and we will acknowledge together something about the other. Mostly it goes like this: Muriel does something hilarious, like talking about something and then throwing a really theatrical face very smoothly into the narration. Naomi will look at me with a big smile, like, "Did you see that?!" Or, at the end of the day, during the tired and grouchy time, Naomi will become overwhelmed by her feelings of whatever (this happens, um, often), and cry and cry, and after a while Muriel will look at me and say, "She's still crying!" There is something about this acknowledgment of the other kid as a person having their own separate personhood that feels mysterious and monumental at the same time.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Now School, New School
I didn't really post about Mother's Day, so let me say that it was a good, fun, weekend of sunshine and family hijinks. Friday night we had a real grown-up dinner date, Saturday we went to the farmer's market one town over, and later had a picnic at Kubota Gardens in Seattle. For both events I practiced not thinking about rushing on to the next thing, and I have to admit, it was worth the effort it took. Sunday I FINALLY got the little present Naomi had been agonizing over handing over or withholding since she had brought it home several days before- it's a frame she decorated, and drew a picture for.
In the afternoon, she and I took a bike ride around the new school she'll be going to. I can't believe I haven't thought of doing this before. She loved peering into the classroom windows, seeing the art work, reading some of the words written on large signs around the walls. And a few days later, we stopped in on the way to school, now school, to drop off her registration for Kindergarten. This girl, who seems so big and grown up at her preschool, who is clearly the oldest in her Sunday school class, who definitely runs the show when she and Muriel are playing, seemed so Little compared with the kids walking around at the elementary school. As an aside, when we talk about elementary school, she talks about Kindergarten, first grade, and last grade. Are they in first grade? Are they in last grade? Hee.
Friday I took Naomi to her five-year-old checkup, also known as her must do before Kindergarten check-up. She was super good and healthy, growing right up the curve like she is supposed to. She had a vision test, at which she stood up straight and tall and got around (after a slow start) to reading the letters in her actual five-year-old voice and not the baby talk voice that sometimes comes out when she feels the need to be silly as a mask for shyness. The nurse asked questions about what she can do: Can she name four colors? Can she count? A couple of other funny ones, I can't remember them now. The nurse also gave her a sheet of paper with three symbols on it that she had to duplicate, and on the back she was to write her name and draw a picture of herself. She got right to work with the ballpoint pen, and of course did not stop with a picture of herself- she had to be wearing a crown and a dress covered with stars and be accompanied by a cat and a smiling heart face.
When the doctor came, it was a joyful reunion- we haven't seen her in over a year, not only because our children have been remarkably healthy, but because she has been out on maternity leave with her second little boy. She is the nicest, best doctor ever in the world, to borrow the superlative favored by my children. Not only does she take very good care of our children, and support and reassure us copiously about our decisions around their health, but she also appears to take real delight in seeing them, and in how they are growing, and just generally gives the kind of sincere and believable positive family feedback that you need every so often. Even though Naomi hasn't seen her in a while, she remembered the doctor, and how much we like her, and immediately adopted the half-spazzy dork behavior that takes over when Gramma first shows up, for example. It was funny.
Then, the shots! I had told her she was getting a shot, but it turned out to be four. If it had been one or even two, she would have come through with her extreme courage intact. But with two in each arm, I can't really blame her for crying, which she did only for a moment. When it was all over we helped ourselves to a sticker (purse dog wearing a sweater won out over Thomas the Tank Engine and Spider Man), and headed to the mall food court for pancakes (her choice for lunch). I had sort of envisioned a chatty mother/daughter luncheon, but we both just sat there eating, paying maybe too much attention to the other people around us. Still, it was fun to be with just her. She ate a lot of pancake! Then it was back to now school, her little arms sticking out of her sleeveless dress, two bandaids each.
In the afternoon, she and I took a bike ride around the new school she'll be going to. I can't believe I haven't thought of doing this before. She loved peering into the classroom windows, seeing the art work, reading some of the words written on large signs around the walls. And a few days later, we stopped in on the way to school, now school, to drop off her registration for Kindergarten. This girl, who seems so big and grown up at her preschool, who is clearly the oldest in her Sunday school class, who definitely runs the show when she and Muriel are playing, seemed so Little compared with the kids walking around at the elementary school. As an aside, when we talk about elementary school, she talks about Kindergarten, first grade, and last grade. Are they in first grade? Are they in last grade? Hee.
Friday I took Naomi to her five-year-old checkup, also known as her must do before Kindergarten check-up. She was super good and healthy, growing right up the curve like she is supposed to. She had a vision test, at which she stood up straight and tall and got around (after a slow start) to reading the letters in her actual five-year-old voice and not the baby talk voice that sometimes comes out when she feels the need to be silly as a mask for shyness. The nurse asked questions about what she can do: Can she name four colors? Can she count? A couple of other funny ones, I can't remember them now. The nurse also gave her a sheet of paper with three symbols on it that she had to duplicate, and on the back she was to write her name and draw a picture of herself. She got right to work with the ballpoint pen, and of course did not stop with a picture of herself- she had to be wearing a crown and a dress covered with stars and be accompanied by a cat and a smiling heart face.
When the doctor came, it was a joyful reunion- we haven't seen her in over a year, not only because our children have been remarkably healthy, but because she has been out on maternity leave with her second little boy. She is the nicest, best doctor ever in the world, to borrow the superlative favored by my children. Not only does she take very good care of our children, and support and reassure us copiously about our decisions around their health, but she also appears to take real delight in seeing them, and in how they are growing, and just generally gives the kind of sincere and believable positive family feedback that you need every so often. Even though Naomi hasn't seen her in a while, she remembered the doctor, and how much we like her, and immediately adopted the half-spazzy dork behavior that takes over when Gramma first shows up, for example. It was funny.
Then, the shots! I had told her she was getting a shot, but it turned out to be four. If it had been one or even two, she would have come through with her extreme courage intact. But with two in each arm, I can't really blame her for crying, which she did only for a moment. When it was all over we helped ourselves to a sticker (purse dog wearing a sweater won out over Thomas the Tank Engine and Spider Man), and headed to the mall food court for pancakes (her choice for lunch). I had sort of envisioned a chatty mother/daughter luncheon, but we both just sat there eating, paying maybe too much attention to the other people around us. Still, it was fun to be with just her. She ate a lot of pancake! Then it was back to now school, her little arms sticking out of her sleeveless dress, two bandaids each.
Friday, May 07, 2010
Found Some Flow!
Well, it has happened: Muriel and I have been invited to partake in a play date with Muriel's little classmate and... her nanny. Her mom is the one who has been trying to set it up. She contends that Muriel is her daughter's favorite at school, despite the fact that she refers to her as Mario. I don't know that we will be able to make it happen, though I do feel a little compelled to try to accept the formation of some friendships through (and for) Muriel, since it occurs to me that we are amassing quite a delightful group through Naomi (something I didn't really anticipate...). And perhaps the nanny too is a delightful person and we will get along famously. I don't know.
Anyway, I am already a week away from last weekend, and partway into the new one, but I am still going to look backward to report on the kinds of grownup play I cooked up for myself. First, Saturday was May Day, so there were some cheesy May Baskets (paper cones) with bouquets cobbled together from our front yard. The flowers included lilac and lavender, and as a result were spectacularly fragrant, if a little garish and raggedy. Also, I finally tried out our good friend's bread recipe, which is of the wait around a long time, but don't do much manual labor variety. It was about ten times better than the bagels- delicious!
Last but not least- the sewing! Hand sewing is not something I am very good at, but I am just going to have to come right out and admit that it is ridiculously fun and enjoyable. I had a project in mind for Mother's Day LAST YEAR, and bought the fabric and cut it up according to the pattern. I just never got around to actually sewing it. So last weekend, with only a few days before the mailing deadline, I started to crank out the little birds (resulting in a total of 6).
Although the sewing was fun and relatively easy, the attaching of the birds onto the sticks, and the balancing of the whole thing was well nigh impossible. Jim was a huge help, and deserves a medal for coaxing me to keep trying with the final construction when I was ready to quit (and had in fact announced it officially). Even finding a box to ship the thing in was a pain. Oh well. It's there now, so like it, Mom!
My kids, of course, have no trouble finding their flow. I was thinking I should post once with all the "Pretend..." statements that I hear one or the other of them make in a day or two, and of course immediately after I thought that, Naomi busted out with the longest ever "Pretend..." statement. It was something like, "Pretend we were mermaids, and our parents had died, and we were under the water, and you were there, and we said, what the? Who are you? And then you asked us if we would come and live with you because you loved us, but then you had to make a spot where the water wouldn't come out, so we could live there with you, so you did, and then we came to live with you?" (Um, and so on...) Here's the "somersault court" that Naomi and Muriel constructed. The double somersault is quite something.
Anyway, I am already a week away from last weekend, and partway into the new one, but I am still going to look backward to report on the kinds of grownup play I cooked up for myself. First, Saturday was May Day, so there were some cheesy May Baskets (paper cones) with bouquets cobbled together from our front yard. The flowers included lilac and lavender, and as a result were spectacularly fragrant, if a little garish and raggedy. Also, I finally tried out our good friend's bread recipe, which is of the wait around a long time, but don't do much manual labor variety. It was about ten times better than the bagels- delicious!
Last but not least- the sewing! Hand sewing is not something I am very good at, but I am just going to have to come right out and admit that it is ridiculously fun and enjoyable. I had a project in mind for Mother's Day LAST YEAR, and bought the fabric and cut it up according to the pattern. I just never got around to actually sewing it. So last weekend, with only a few days before the mailing deadline, I started to crank out the little birds (resulting in a total of 6).
Although the sewing was fun and relatively easy, the attaching of the birds onto the sticks, and the balancing of the whole thing was well nigh impossible. Jim was a huge help, and deserves a medal for coaxing me to keep trying with the final construction when I was ready to quit (and had in fact announced it officially). Even finding a box to ship the thing in was a pain. Oh well. It's there now, so like it, Mom!
My kids, of course, have no trouble finding their flow. I was thinking I should post once with all the "Pretend..." statements that I hear one or the other of them make in a day or two, and of course immediately after I thought that, Naomi busted out with the longest ever "Pretend..." statement. It was something like, "Pretend we were mermaids, and our parents had died, and we were under the water, and you were there, and we said, what the? Who are you? And then you asked us if we would come and live with you because you loved us, but then you had to make a spot where the water wouldn't come out, so we could live there with you, so you did, and then we came to live with you?" (Um, and so on...) Here's the "somersault court" that Naomi and Muriel constructed. The double somersault is quite something.
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