Did I mention that my kids love music? It's one of those inherent things about children that I adore. These scenes play out every single day in my house.
This one is from Valentine's Day. We were cleaning out some old costumes and GirlChild found some fake hair to really put her in the mood to rock out. She's looking into a mirror in case there was any doubt. I love the way she makes up words and has her rock-n-roll pronunciation. And how she throws in a "Baby" every now and then.
And then there's yesterday. I woke up Sunday morning to the drumming and singing. They do this for hours. This is four minutes and probably only remarkable if you are related to these children, but figured I'd post it anyway. Again, I love her stream of consciousness lyrics and her made up rhyming words. The drum solo is also particularly awesome.
All week, my son has had the esteemed honor of being Honeybee of the Week. On Monday, he brought in a poster of himself detailing what he likes to do, a big photo of himself, and an opportunity for him to list his talents and skills.
On Tuesday, he brought in a favorite toy. For the Christmas road trip, I got him a string. Ok, it sounds chintzy but you know how you can loopdeloop it all around your fingers to make different things like cat's whiskers and stuff liek that? Well, I taught him some and it was perfect for the car. Kept his hands and his brain busy (and his mouth quiet). So, he brought that and showed his mad string skilz to his class. Emma was quite impressed (more on Emma soon).
On Wednesday, he was supposed to show a hobby that he enjoyed so he brought his soccer team picture and his end of season medal (even though they never won a game).
Yesterday, he brought his favorite song. He chose "No" by They Might be Giants.
And today, I ate lunch with him in the cafeteria then read his favorite book to his class. First of all, the cafeteria smells EXACTLY the same as it did when I was seven years old. Like tater tots and that gross thick chocolate milk. I need to start making his lunch again. Not a nutritious option in the place. But I digress...we ate lunch then headed back to his classroom where I read to his class over ice cream.
Today, the whole class got ice cream because they had been some kind of superstars when it came to walking in straight lines (I'm not kidding) and they had received a high five from another teacher. I'm only slightly disturbed that my son is being rewarded with ice cream for standing in a line. Something about that is so off. But, again, that's a sidebar.
He has recently discovered Shel Silverstein and loves it just as I did when my mom first bought me A Light In The Attic in 1982. I once heard that Shel Silverstein, along with being a celebrated children's author, was a very popular party guest when he was alive. That he'd sit at the piano, slightly drunken, and could make up the lewdest, most perverse and funny songs and poems on the spot. He actually wrote Johnny Cash's "A Boy named Sue" AND Loretta Lynn's "One's On The Way," two of my most favorite songs growing up with a mother from Kentucky. That fact makes me love him even more.
Here's how it went just an hour ago. Keep in mind, the kids are totally engrossed in frozen sugar on a stick. Watch my son as he downs that ice cream.
I got the Mac back from the genius bar last night (I'm all about Apple but seriously, the "genius bar?" come ON!) The good news is it wasn't the logic board. Something about the power supply and $171. In any case, it's fixed and I have it back.
So, I am spending today getting caught up on everything. You don't realize how totally dependent you are (by "you," I mean ME) on your computer until you don't have it for four days. I was able to reply to emails on my phone and look some stuff up as needed. I also managed to get my house really really clean because I had nothing else to do all week. But I couldn't really get in there and do anything. So now I'm back. Or I will be back next week once I get caught up.
Drew has this fancy shmancy Mac laptop with all these bells and whistles for work. It's loaded with everything and i don't even know how to turn it on (not kidding). But one cool thing it has is a built in webcam. I know, the rest of the world is all about webcams but I'm not so much. So, when the kids would get fussy or bored, we'd open up Daddy's laptop and make a video. They love watching themelves. I also tried a video blog earlier in the week and if i can edit it down (God, it's soooo boring) maybe I'll post it.
In the meantime, here are a couple videos of the girl singing some songs. With Mommy's help.
She knows all her positions and is the star leaper. Other than that, she likes to be serious, look around, and stare at her crotch a bit. She is my daughter.
I only got a little weepy when she pranced in with her arms over her head on her tippy toes.
Monday through Friday, my daughter naps at school. Like clockwork, she lays down on a little mat covered with a clean sheet and she doses off to the sound of some classical music. I know this because I used to pick her up from school directly after nap time and a few of those times I arrived a little early and saw the whole scene--darkened room, 10 sprawled out kids with blankets half covering them and a few with the jacked-up nap hair headed for the potty. Everyone whispering.
But on Saturday and Sunday, it's a whole different scene. When we first moved into this house, back in April, we sort of made a decision to skip the nap. GirlChild was three and her brother wasn't napping and, we hoped, skipping the nap might help with bedtime. We were wrong. As any seasoned parent knows, Sleep Begets Sleep. An overly-tired child who is about to fall over from exhaustion is nearly impossible to get to sleep. Instead, said child is hostile and mean and poised for a tantrum. By mid day, we'd find her crashed out in front of cartoons, asleep on the floor where she had been 2 minutes earlier playing with her doll house, or she'd fall asleep on the 5 minute drive to the grocery store which makes standing there at the deli waiting for someone to slice your turkey absolutely no fun at all. She needed that nap.
That's how April through about July went.
Towards the end of summer we tried just getting her to take a nap in her bed. Tuck her in. Give her a kiss. "Sweet Dreams. See you when you wake up and we'll go to the playground." And then we'd be downstairs paying bills or cleaning out the garage and we'd hear her on the monitor doing everything BUT sleeping. "Hey! Let's pull every dress I own off the hangers in my closet and try them all on. Wouldn't it be cool if I pulled all my books off my shelves and stomped on them?"
We'd go up three or twelve times and do the tuck-in again and after an hour or so of that, we'd just give up.
By about September, we realized that she'd sleep with us if we laid down next to her. We could bribe her upstairs and into a bed if it wasn't HER bed. So, each Saturday afternoon, I'd stop folding laundry the minute she was done with lunch, make a big deal about the girls only nap we were going to take, climb in our bed with her and sing to her and stroke her little head until she was out cold. Then I would slowly sneak out, trying to do the pillow replacement strategy (you know where you wrap her hand around the pillow in hopes of fooling the child into believing it's really you?) close both doors leading to our room so she's in the soundproof chamber, and get back to the gazillion chores I can only do when she is gone or asleep.
That worked for a while. Until she peed in our bed a few times(hers has the plasticy thing for such occasions. Ours does not). Plus, she was demanding our bed at nighttime and it also meant our room was out of commission for a few hours and I couldn't go in there while she slept. The other issue was that Daddy would not work in this situation. If he laid down with her, here's how that went:
Drew asleep in 2 minutes. GirlChild downstairs. Drew has no clue she's even missing.
By November, we convinced her that she must sleep in her own bed. And she does each weekend day. But not without great effort both days (and don't even get me started on Christmas Break). Now, she has lunch and we say about, oh, 13 times as she eats, 'Ok, right after lunch, it's nap time. Straight upstairs. Nap time. No arguments."
She and I go up. She insists on jammies. Change clothes. Turn on this humidifier that we really only use for the sound at this point. (It sounds kind of like a jet engine and buffers her obscenely loud older brother who insists on singing and talking and yelling down to us from the playroom as she sleeps).
We snuggles into her bed with the appropriate friends. Madeline. Stanley. Pink Bunny. Sookie. And then, basically, I proceed to hypnotize her. It's really the only way I know to describe it. She rolls over on her side and faces me and she stares at my while I sing and scratch her head. I could just as easily dangle a pocket watch in front of her eyes and tell her, "You're getting very sleepy...The sounds of my voice is making you veeeery sleepy." It works about the same way. I sing quietly and gradually get slower and quieter and her eyelids get heavy and then it's all over and I sneak out.
Drew has attempted on many occasions to duplicate my nap magic to no avail. If Mommy is not present at naptime, the girl does not nap. This is both a blessing and a burden. It's nice to have this thing with her. But it would also be nice if someone else knew the secret recipe. Still, it reminds me of when I was nursing her-that quiet time with her looking up at me. Having to stop whatever I was doing so I could be completely present with her. She only relaxes if I relax. God works in mysterious ways, after all.
I was thinking earler about how Drew turned 30 just weeks after we got married and moved to Seattle. We had this master plan in 1997 to start a new life together, figure out what we wanted and do it all on the other side of the country.
Ten years later and it only now feels like the master plan is coming together.
Here we were in 1997 having dinner in our little apartment with my new Seattle family, both of Drew's sisters and their husbands.
For my dear pregnant friend who now gets to sleep in on Sundays and snuggle and have lots of fun sex and go to breakfast and then come home and nap...As you're watching this keep in mind the four (five?) glasses of wine I drank the night before:
I'm going to return to my list of Misc. any day now. For now, consider this a commercial break, so to speak, of GirlChild "Doing Mommy's hair" while Daddy videotapes it for posterity. Both kids are fresh out of the shower and looking for a way to fill up the few hours before dinnertime.
I love how she speaks in my voice, telling me I have yogurt in my hair (which is what she hears me tell her constantly), telling me to look up, saying she's sorry when she slices my scalp with the comb.
In the end, it was the Mommy-on-the-camera (as opposed to the real Mommy in front of her) I think she was most interested in.
