Angry Birds and Poetry

Damon and Anne like to play Angry Birds on the computer.  (We don't have smart phones or ipads or anything cool--we're so last decade.)  Anne has tried to convince Damon to launch the eagle.  I guess it's an effective weapon against pigs or blocks or something (I don't know.  I've never played.).  Damon refuses.  He says it's disrespectful, the eagle being our national bird and all.

Different topic:  I was in Claire's classroom for a little while yesterday observing her progress.  She liked having me there and didn't want me to leave.  When she got home that afternoon she told me, "I was sad when you left, so I made up a poem to help myself feel better:

If we went to the neighborhood of a hare,
then what would we see there?

A blueberry bush and a kitten,
a horse and a flea,
the the cutest little puppy
that you ever did see."

To help motivate the kids (Claire) in school, we've told them they can earn pet geckos if they achieve their (Claire's) goals--10 days of goal reaching to get the cage, 15 days of goal reaching after that to get the geckos.

Geckos were Ange-babe's idea (Thanks, Angela!).  The kids are excited.  I'm excited, too.  I just found out geckos can live 25 years.

A Typical Dinner

I made tomato soup for dinner earlier this week.  While it was cooking, Claire asked me to lift her up so she could see what was in the pot.

"What is it?"

"Tomato soup."

"I thought it was spaghetti!  Why aren't you making spaghetti!  You tricked me!"  She ran away in a rage.

"If it smells like spaghetti, maybe you'll like it," I called after her.

Later the kids and I sat down to eat.  (Jake was still at work.)  Before the kids could get too far in their verbal abuse of the soup I said, "I don't want to hear anything except 'Thank you, Mom, for working so hard for us every day and making us dinner.'"

Damon and Anne dutifully thanked me.  Claire cried, "I can't do that!"

"Then just don't say anything, Claire."

"I have to say something to make myself feel better."  She dipped her finger in the soup, licked her finger and added, "Nice try, Mom, but it could have been better."  She didn't have anymore.

And I let it slide.  It was better than a melt down, so I'm going to call it progress.

Damon tasted the soup without eating it, but he didn't complain, either.  Anne had seconds and thirds.  I love that girl's tolerant taste buds.

The Presidential Campaign

I've probably mentioned before that Damon is a talker.  If he's not talking about interest rates, demographics, or how much money Jake makes (Jake considers this an intrusion of privacy and refuses to discuss it), Damon's talking about the presidential election.  Yesterday, his comments on the election prompted Claire to say,

"I hope Mitt Romney loses."

[Gasp! My child is an apologist and a socialist!]  "Why, Claire?"

"Because I want Dad to win."

[Sigh of relief...hey, why doesn't she want me to win?!]

"And then we'll all be famous."

Anne was on board with that.  Here's her campaign poster:

Anne gets confused.  She isn't sure if Claire has Jake running for president, king, or prophet, but she does know that when he wins, we'll all be wearing crowns.  And Barrack and Mitt (the colorless guys in the middle) will be upset.

Here's Claire's poster (Jack H! means Jake Henderson!):

Parents who think their children are brilliant are so annoying, but when their children really are brilliant, it's less annoying, right?  The guy on the left is Obama the donkey.  The guy on the right is Romney the elephant.  They're both saying "Boo." How does she know about party symbols?  I don't know!  She had no help or coaching with this drawing.  I love the hands on the bottom.  From left to right, they're clapping, handing Jake a trophy, a ribbon, and money.  So Jake could be a communist, a socialist, or a capitalist, since all three are after accolades and money.  But once again he's being crowned which leads me to believe that although there's an election going on, Claire and Anne are more interested in monarchy than anything else.

moving out

Pet peeve: when a child of mine tells me or anyone else, "Then I don't like you anymore!"

Ignoring this phrase to make it go away has not been working, so on Monday I washed Anne's mouth with soap.  She packed some supplies and moved out.  I took some pictures when she wasn't looking.  Here she is digging a hole for her tent pole.

 Here's her Teddy bear, either tied to a tree for security purposes or being hanged.

Here's the tent, completed with a sheet and Damon's help.

It was a hot and humid day.  After a few minutes Anne got "tired and bored" and moved back in.  I haven't heard "Then I don't like you anymore" since.

It's fun to swim at the YMCA

I thought I was going to be a daily blogger for a few days there, but it turns out I only blog when I'm avoiding something I don't like and that can be put off.  Right now I'm avoiding making a grocery list and going shopping.

Last week was the beginning of summer break.  I bought a YMCA membership and the kids and I swam there a lot last week.  Damon and Anne and I enjoyed it.  Claire is still terrified of the water, even after 10 days of private lessons last summer.  At the Y I strapped plenty of floaties on her, more than Anne had on even.  Anne paddled all around having a great time.  I tried to convince Claire she could do that, too.  She screamed, cried, sobbed "You're torturing me!", and clung to my body or swimsuit like, well, like a drowning person.  (Don't worry--my swimsuit is very sturdy.  Not one of those flimsy things girls wear to showcase their hot bods.  No matter how hard Claire pulled, she'd never be able to expose anything.)  A swim instructor was so concerned she left her class of little kids to give me some tips on how to acclimate Claire to the water.  Sigh.  We're gonna keep trying, though.

Once we're out of the pool, though, Claire really shines.  The girls and I go in the women's locker room to shower and change.  Damon goes in the men's locker room where I hope he rinses off, and then he waits for us, dripping, in the hall.  He WILL NOT change in the locker room.  People would see him naked.  I remember how horrified I was when my PE teacher made us shower in the high school locker room, so I try not to make a big deal out of his shyness.  Even Anne hates getting dressed in the locker room.  She somehow manages to shove herself in a locker (maybe 8"x18"x8" small) and get dressed in there.  It's amazing.  But Claire and I are able to get dressed like normal people.  Claire's an interesting mix.  At the kindergarten program two weeks ago she was very nervous to have everyone looking at her.  She kept turning away from the audience to shelter herself.  But in the locker room she doesn't worry about it, and at the pool, she's not bothered a bit by everyone staring while she screams her head off.

state of being

Damon, AKA mini-Jake: likes money, especially saving it.  Worries about inflation, and believes the government should not allow it.  Sometimes asks if I've paid the credit card bill yet.  Gets upset if he doesn't get to bed early when he has to get up early the next morning.  Master Chung calls him a serious student of Tae Kwon Do, and believes he has the potential to be a black belt some day.

Claire: has a hard time going to sleep before 10 p.m. if I don't give her melatonin, unless she has had a lot of exercise.  Getting her to exercise a lot is difficult.  Is "excited and nervous" for 1st grade. (She met her 1st grade teacher and classmates last week.  From what I can pump out of her, none of the kids I requested are in her class.  I can't get a class list so she can start making friends over the summer because that is illegal.  I swear the school admin's primary goal is to thwart us at every turn.  %#&*@!)

Anne: says she doesn't sleep at night, but does an excellent job lying motionlessly and noiselessly in bed from 9 pm to 7 am with her eyes closed.  Really wants a cat for a pet.  Finally lets me listen to whatever music I want in the van.  We went through a rough patch where songs had to be "wild."
Wild= The Cars, J. Geils Band, Bon Jovi, John Cougar Mellencamp (sp?), The Beatles, The Police, Mad Outlet, anyone with a heavy beat and questionable lyrics. (I like some of their music, too, but I don't allow songs like "Angel in the Centerfold" in my car, which broke Anne's heart.)
Not Wild= Adele, Jimmy Buffett, most classical music.  If she grows up to be a porn star, it won't be my fault.  If she grows up to be a tattooed alcoholic searchin' for her lost shaker of salt, heck, it could be my fault.

a drop in the bucket

"(yawn) I'm tired," I said, getting into the van.  We had been grocery shopping.

"You can't fall asleep in the car," said Anne.  "You could wreck and have to go to jail."

"Anne," said Claire, "Even if mom goes to jail, there will still be plenty of other ladies in the world."

michigan beach

Saturday we went to South Haven.  It was a good day.  The kids' willingness to smile for the camera is matched only by my amazing photography skills.  Whoops, there goes Lake Michigan, pouring onto Canada.

Whoa, now it's headed for Indiana, or whatever is south of us.

sandbox

"Aren't the kids getting too old for a sandbox?"

Jake asks silly questions sometimes.  My idyllic childhood included a sandbox, so obviously my kids need one.  "I played in one until I was 10," I told him.

"So Damon will play in this for one year."

Damon is nine already?  Sheesh, those years slip by.  "Oh.  Well. I probably played in it until I was 15.  And if the kids don't play in it, then I'll play in it myself."  And I have.  (Wow, am I awesome at castles and moats.)  The kids have played in it, too, including Damon--he was at school when we got the sand in and I took pictures, though.  So there, Jake.

Here's where I started wishing we'd put the sandbox in the front yard like the garden.

 

If there's some secret to getting your kids to pose in a non-weird way, I wish someone would let me in on it.

Pictures

Damon at his baseball team photo shoot.

Anne giving a tour of the flowers in our yard.

Anne demonstrating how she helped me dig the sand box.

Now, if I spent half as much time cleaning every day as I spent digging the sandbox, I'd have a tidy house--for an hour. Which is why I don't. The sandbox will stay done forever. No matter how hard I work, the house will not stay picked up. "Cleaning the house while the kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk while it is still snowing," you know. "Just train the kids to clean," Jake says. Just pull out all my hair while I crack a whip, he means. Okay, I'm done ranting. On a less frustrated note: Jake finished the sandbox for us on Saturday! As soon as I find the camera cable, I'll show you.

Birds, a bee, life and death

The other day Claire gave me my orders as she was running off with Anne to chase away bee-eating birds: “Mom, you stay here and watch Biggie” –a bumblebee we had rescued from a bucket of water—“Make sure he doesn’t die.”
“I can’t stop something from dying.”

“You just have to keep it from dying.”

Oh.  Sure.  No problem.

Later, when Biggie flew away, Anne called out, “Biggie, come back and visit!  If you get hurt, fall into the bucket again, then we can help you.”

Claire said, “Anne, if he dies, we can’t stop it.  But we won’t let that happen.”

In other news, Damon found his mouse dead this morning.  It was sad (for him).  Mice don't like to be alone, so the kids are convinced we're going to have to let the last mouse standing (Claire's) go in the woods so it can find other mice.  Could this be the end of our mouse invasion?!  I'm crossing my fingers...

Fairly Recent Quotes

Claire: "If you don't make Anne do a session [that's what we call Claire's 2-hr therapy blocks] I'm going to be jealous of her for the rest of my life!"

A few weeks after that she said, while crying: "Why am I the only one who has to do sessions?"

She used to love her sessions. Once school got out, she didn't like them so much. The tutors have been focussing on making therapy more fun and less work since she said the above, and it has made a difference. However, she is pretty excited if a tutor calls in sick.

Damon, while trying to make an airplane out of cardboard: "This is hard because some of the parts I just don't know how to make because I've never had an engineering class." (This was news to me: last I heard, he could make a space shuttle easily if he just had the right stuff.)

Anne: "When I was born my mom forgot to name me Jessica, because that is a more beautiful name."

Meet Janet

She's the one on the right. She was Whitney last week, and Annie (not Anne) before that. But I'll still refer to her as Anne.

Quoth she as we walked to school to pick up Claire and saw a man walking toward us:

"Who is that human?"

I didn't know, but was glad she clarified. For a second there I thought she was talking about a car or tree.

When we were in the bathroom brushing her hair:

"Anne, do you want to grow your hair out?" I asked.

"No, I just want jewels."

Whenever she helps me find or make something I say, "Anne, what would I do without you?"

She says, "Uh, panic."

Happy New Year

Is there anything quite like hearing the angelic giggles of little girls "playing so well together!" downstairs?

Is there anything quite like finding the bathroom covered in water that didn't come from the sink and a Barbie in the toilet when you go down to see what's so funny? "But Mom," said Claire, "Rapunzel was only trying to get her shoes back," (which Anne flushed down a few months ago).

And that pink dress is sopping wet. Apparently swimming in the buff was an afterthought.

Nice

Anne loves to help me make things in the kitchen. (Another thing that should have been a warning flag regarding Claire: she wasn't interested in imitating what I was doing.) And for a three-year-old, she does a good job pouring in ingredients and stirring. Before you go thinking what a good mom I am, let me come clean by confessing I try to cook as often as I can when she's otherwise occupied: her help doubles the job time.

One day when we were making something I told her, "Anne, you're going to be a great chef when you grow up." She replied, "I don't want to be a chef when I grow up. I just want to be a mom." Aw. I felt so good.

Then on Wednesday Claire's tutor Jessie was here. During one of Claire's breaks, (FYI: every 50 minutes Claire gets a 10 minute break outside the session room. Just thought you might want to know.) Anne went into the session room.

"Hi, Jessie!"
"Hi, Anne!"
Anne turned to me and said, "Mom, Jessie is way much nicer than you."

Now, Jessie is a way much nice gal. There's no denying that. But I thought I had been very nice that day myself. Jessie says two words to her and she earns way-much-nicer status? Come on.

Halloween Costumes

Wow, Jake was an unusually bad photographer on this one. Claire looks pretty bad. BTW: it is Claire's perogative to change her mind. At a Halloween party on the 30th and at my parents' house on Nov. 1, she was Batgirl. On Halloween she was Tinkerbell.

Jake's office had a costume contest. His group went with a "sheet" theme (Jake's idea). They tore up some sheets and added accessories. Jake wore a cowbell and was Bull Sheet. Others in his group were Piece of Sheet, Oh Sheet, etc. They won the contest.

Disturbing

I love Halloween, but it is a weird holiday. It's strange how tightly we Americans hold onto this pagan/early Christian celebration or whatever it is.

In the store this skeleton seemed like a fun decoration, and it has been. The kids love it. But Jake pointed out that it's sick to have a child-sized skeleton. I told him that proportionally it is an adult. But he's right. It's sick.

Milestones

On Monday Anne started putting two words together: she said, "Bye, daddy" when Jake went to work, and she said, "Mommy hair" while she pulled my hair.

Last Monday was also the second Monday in a row in which I washed, dried, FOLDED AND PUT AWAY 4 loads of laundry. I can't tell you proud I am of myself. I hate laundry, but it has to be done, so I'm going to do it, by golly.

If I had been able to look into the future 6 years ago and see this day when getting laundry done made me proud, I would have been very depressed at what the future held for me.

Perspective is everything.

Love at Home

Anne was born a little too soon for Claire's comfort, and has not made it into Claire's heart yet.

Claire was sitting at a child-size table this morning having an imaginary birthday party. Anne came to sit down with her and Claire pushed her away.

"Can't Anne come to the party?" I asked.

"No. Anne is not welcome to the pahty." (Too bad we're not still back East. Claire's inability to pronounce r's would have fit right in.) "But Penelopede is welcome to the pahty," Claire said.

The pet millipede is curled up dead at the bottom of his container. Claire says he is sleeping.

Anne

This is our darling Anne. She's almost 18 months old. She's a remarkably active child with a cheerful disposition, provided she's allowed to do whatever she wants to do.


She's something of a tease: she loves to grab whatever Claire is playing with and run away with it laughing. She is very affectionate, except when you ask for a kiss or a hug--that's when she smiles, shakes her head, and says, "No!"


Her words include: no, uh-huh, uh-oh, mommy, dada, Ceh (Claire), Anne, mine, cracker, cookie, nana (banana), no (nose), up, down, poop, bum, yuck, and mik (milk).