Sometimes my kids call each other “keegher.” Based on the context and their tone of voice, I could tell that “keegher” was an insult, but I didn’t know exactly what it meant. I was curious, so yesterday I asked Livia what it was. She said, simply, “Someone who’s not awesome.”
Still curious, I asked her, “Am I a keegher?”
She said, “No. You’re a mommy.”
Whew! I guess that means I’m still awesome. 🙂
Dear Livia,
The other day I refused to give you something that you wanted, and you threw a fit over it. I said, “I’m sorry that makes you sad.” You replied, “I’m not sad. I’m MAD!” I had to laugh, because it was so similar a story Grammie likes to tell about you. She says that at Christmastime she reminded you to be a good girl so that Santa would bring you lots of presents, and you replied, “But sometimes I get so MAD!”
You do have a bit of a temper, that’s for sure, and a very strong will. You still insist on doing everything your own way, no matter what. For example, sometimes you put your underwear on backwards. I don’t see how that can be comfortable, but if I tell you that they’re on wrong, you say, “But I like them that way!” You sometimes wear your shirts backwards, your tights inside-out, your socks upside-down. We let you wear them that way rather than argue with you.
And that would suggest that you’re capable of putting on your own clothes, right? Absolutely, and you know how to put them on right, too. But sometimes you insist that we help you put them on. If we don’t, you get MAD. Yet if we offer help when you don’t want it, you get MAD!
Your Vovo watches you for a few hours every week. I’m so glad that you get to spend time with her, not only because she’s just about the nicest person around, but also because she sees past your temper tantrums and admires your independent spirit. She has her own special ways of managing you, giving you buttons and baubles and yarn to play with, not to mention a lot of attention and special treats. You’re always in a good mood after spending time with her.
Sometimes when you’re throwing a fit, it seems like you want to stop, but you just don’t know how. You say, “But I can’t help it.” I keep telling you that you can, and I am certain that someday you will get your temper under control. Then, my dearest girl, I think you could rule the world.
Love,
Mom
Once upon a time I gave my husband (then boyfriend) an ant farm. It looked really cool. It was filled with a blue gel that was supposed to provide the ants with their tunneling material, food, and water. Amazing stuff! And the farm had its own lighting system. The only problem was that the ants had to be ordered separately and at the right time of the year (so that extreme temperatures wouldn’t kill them en route). We never got around to making the order.
Years later, my husband thought our kids would like an ant farm, so he finally ordered the ants. They arrived in a tube.
“Ants can sting. Supervision required.”
My husband poured the ants into their new home. Here they are walking around on top of the gel.
The thirsty ants paused to drink and examine their new digs.
The ant farm still looked good, even though the gel was old and a bit shriveled around the edges.
The shriveling of the gel had left the ants with an easy path to the bottom of the farm, so they start tunneling from below instead of above. This picture shows their progress in one area of the farm after 24 hours.
Here is their progress after three days.
Eleven days since their arrival, their tunnel system is pretty complex. The ants seem to keep themselves busy. There have been no casualties.
The kids were very excited about the ant farm for the first couple of days. I think they might have lost interest now, but I still check on the ants’ progress every day. And if nothing else, the ant farm makes an awesome night light. I’m glad we finally put this thing to use!
Here is an excerpt from this morning’s conversation.
Marshall: I want Mommy.
Daddy: Mommy has gone to another country. She’s in the Internet.
Marshall: But I can see her!
Mommy (in a robot voice): I am not Mommy. I am a robot.
Marshall (in a robot voice): I am a robot.
Mommy (still in robot voice): He is eating. Robots do not eat. He is an impostor.
Marshall (still in robot voice): I am an eating robot. I eat Cheerios. I play. I send people to their rooms.
Livia (from the bathroom, in a robot voice): I am a robot. I go potty.
Tuesday
I got woken up early by Marshall, who wanted me to remove the tick from his bed. At first I didn’t think it was a tick, but I wasn’t wearing my glasses. Once I picked the thing up and had a good look at it, I was really unhappy to see those eight creepy legs. It was a dog tick. It was also a very dead tick, which was good, I guess.
How are so many of them getting inside, though? The indoor tick tally is now up to 6 (two live, four dead) for just the month of May. It’s troubling. I hope they all died without taking a bite out of any of us. The outdoor tick tally is only 2 (both nymphal deer ticks, the most dangerous kind). If we hadn’t been avoiding the yard, I bet the number would be much higher. In any event, it is already the tickiest year we’ve ever seen, and it’s still early.
My husband left me with the kids all day so that he could take care of some business. Livia insisted on accompanying me and Marshall to the bus stop. While we were waiting, the kids kept getting close to the grass on the side of the driveway and I kept yelling at them to get away. My full-blown tick paranoia says that no grass is safe grass. That is probably true, but I feel bad for trying to stop them from doing things that are perfectly normal.
There was a caterpillar hanging on a web string over the driveway. They asked me to get it, which I did. We put the caterpillar on a stick and Livia enjoyed carrying it around with her. I got some great pictures of her with it. She didn’t want to let it go. I found an old plastic container to put the caterpillar in (and a nice leaf for it). We kept it overnight and let it go the next morning.
After dinner we played in the tent. I wanted to rest a little, and the kids decided (all on their own) that I needed Crocky (my stuffed crocodile) and a couple of blankets. They fetched the things for me. Of course, once we were all in the tent, Livia stole Crocky for herself. 🙂
Lying in the tent was the most relaxing thing I had done all day, even with kids moving around like wormy squirmies (that’s a reference to a “Wild Kratts” episode that is currently Marshall’s favorite thing to watch). Then they hid their stuffed animals under their shirts. They enjoyed running into each other, impacting on their cushioned bellies like silly sumo wrestlers.
Later that evening the air was fresh and cool and there was a light rain. I let the kids dance barefoot in the rain, even after they got thoroughly soaked. They were just enjoying themselves so much. But it was bedtime, and eventually I had to yell at them to get them back into the house, which is too bad. Then they wanted a shower, so I let them take a shower in their bathroom. It took more yelling to get them out of the shower. Their behavior was so unruly that neither one of them got a book before bed. That’s life with kids, though: morning, yelling, fun, yelling, fun, yelling, bedtime.
Wednesday
I played my piano today. Marshall and I even spent some time making music together, he with the glockenspiel, me with the piano. We did homework at night instead of in the morning. We had a discussion about some words that can be spelled with the letters HEART (the subjects of our homework), and I drew a basic TREE on the back of the homework. Marshall surprised me by not only coloring the tree beautifully (as an apple tree) but by also drawing and coloring a bunch of other trees around it. What a lovely picture!
Thursday
I was reminded of a quote from Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking With Einstein.
Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it.
I was so thoroughly bored with my routine that I decided to take a long weekend, starting that afternoon. I had a dentist appointment. Afterward, instead of returning home to boredom, I went to Target. While browsing I heard a little kid, and I thought, “Wow, that sounds like my niece.” I looked up, and it was my niece. She was with my sister-in-law. Running into them, which was such an unlikely event (given that neither of us live in that town), increased my sense of novelty.
We strolled around the store together, chatting about this and that, until saying good-bye by the greeting cards, where I started my shopping in earnest. June will be a busy month for my family. We’ve got two anniversary parties, a birthday party, a bridal shower, and of course, Father’s Day coming up. It felt good to get all the cards taken care of. I also bought the kids some cheap bug containers and magic wands.
I stopped at the library on my way home. Most of the books I got were for work-related research, but I got a landscaping book and Tina Fey’s Bossypants for me. I also borrowed some movies, including Tron (because my husband mocked me for never having seen it), and Downton Abbey.
When I got home, I was happy to see that the wedding present I ordered on-line had arrived. But it was huge! I had ordered the shower gifts at the same time, which of course I wanted shipped to me. And I’m so used to bringing gifts with me to the wedding that it never even occurred to me to have it shipped to the happy couple directly. But I doubt the newlyweds would appreciate having to find room for the thing in their car at the end of their long wedding day, so I guess I’ll have to pack the thing back up and pay to ship it to them. Oops. Perhaps I shouldn’t have let the kids play with all the bubble wrap 🙂
And speaking of playing, Livia put her new magic wand to good use. She said, “Abra To-Dabra!” I was immediately transformed into a frog.
Ribbit!
Dear Kids,
It all started when Marshall brought home a special homework assignment from preschool. The homework consisted of some pictures and instructions for coloring, circling, etc. There were so many instructions that I knew it would take a while and that he’d need my help for most of it. I also knew that Livia would get jealous. So I decided that we should ALL do the homework. I made photocopies for me and Livia. Then, armed with our bucket of crayons, we set to it.
And we had a ton of fun! I was amazed not only at Marshall’s ability to handle the different instructions, but also Livia’s. So I decided that we needed to do homework every day. I paged through coloring books to find suitable pictures, added things to the pictures as necessary, wrote instructions, and then photocopied the pages. You were thrilled with our new homework assignments. So I made more, and sometimes even created the images myself.
Here for example, is one of the exercises I made for the letter “a.” You were supposed to trace the “a” in the top right corner, write an “a” in each apple, color the apples, then color by number the inside of the big “a” using the colors of apricots, apes, apples, ashes, etc. And what a great job you did!
When we were working on the letter “S,” I drew snakes to illustrate the shape. You loved the snakes and asked me to draw “the biggest snake in the world.” So I drew a big snake for each of you. You colored your snakes and added barbs (in imitation of some stripes I had drawn on another snake), then you asked me to cut eye holes so you could use them as masks. You chased each other all over the house holding these masks to your faces.
Scary!
Once we’re done coloring, Marshall runs to fetch the tape. Then we tape the pages to the glass doors of the curio shelf in the dining room, where they light up the room with their cheerful colors all day.
We’ve been doing homework nearly every morning for over a month now. I don’t know how much longer it will last. One day you might decide to give it up, and that day could be soon. Marshall complained about the homework this morning, saying that coloring letters was boring, but then he perked up when we started reading the letters (today’s exercise involved the short words WET, HOT, DRY and DOG, CAT, COW). Both of you were excited to be reading words. So maybe you’ll stick with it. I hope so. I enjoy the time we spend together this way.
Love,
Mom
I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and type of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.
The family that flowers together, showers together.
White Wetting
Beaded Bluets
Dandelion Drops
Inner Spheres
Downy violets looks so pretty against the brown grass and dead leaves that still litter the ground in early spring.
They seem to like living around the rocks.
And in the rock.
(You know your driveway is in sorry shape when a violet can do this!)
Behold the first violet of 2014!
First Violet
April 19, 2014
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