juliloquy

party for Shmoo's sixth

Another photo-intensive post! We survived the party. A clear path of birch tree seeds coats the hallway from the kitchen to the playroom and living room. All four of us (and the attendees, I'm sure) are exhausted. New friendships, toys, and art supplies. Success!

Cupcake preparation:

Same format as last year.

Bounce house.

Best friend. And marshmallow mouth.

 

Foods my children eat

Bad photos to commemorate major life events

Shmoo is now in Kindergarten! He began August 24th and goes full days to a public charter Montessori school. He likes it, even though he made a comment the other day about "all the work" they have to do.

 

Roo missed the cutoff for the 3-year-old class by four weeks, so she's home with me for now. We are taking advantage of community events at the library, parks, etc.

In other news, I now have bangs for the first time since 1991. (Wait, I did some brief hair experimentation during my Peace Corps years [not to the extent that lovely Gretel did!], although I grew that out pretty much right away.) Anyway, my friend Jen wanted to see, so here it is. My sister joked that bangs are "White Trash Botox" (while confessing that she is also currently sporting bangs). Blurry photos, I find, are great for getting rid of fine lines, too. I'm getting used to the bangs and no longer feel like I'm wearing a wig when I catch sight of my reflection.

literary contraband

Tonight I left Roo's room to give a bedtime snuggle to da Shmoo. As he drifted off to sleep, I noticed that Roo had left her room and was standing in the hallway. I was going to tell her to go back to bed, but I instead I watched for a moment. She bent over, picked up some library books that I had left near the hamper, and returned to her room. I heard her bed creak as she climbed in. The lights were out, so she wouldn't have been able to make out much of what was on the pages. I peeked in just now and had to take a picture. What a sweet little sneak.

I've taken some video of the kids playing and will have to post somewhere soon. These unscripted, day-in-the-life sorts of videos are becoming my favorite: They offer a good glimpse of the kids' personalities and interests.

I am feeling that, kids' age-wise, we're entering the golden time of parenting. Shmoo has left behind most of his anger about the move (honestly, would you have suspected it would be such an adjustment for a 4- [now 5-] year old?). He feels connected to his school community and routine. We are also disciplining Roo more now that she is old enough to learn and know better, and Shmoo is responding well to the sense of fairness (that she doesn't get everything she wants because she's a baby anymore). And Roo is able to follow some basic instructions and reasoning. Hooray!

dramatic reenactment

A few days ago I tweeted this:

When we told HPR about it that evening, Shmoo asked again whether he could have another cod liver oil capsule. I hammed it up and said "I'm sorry son, you can't have more cod liver oil until tomorrow." He registered his complaint. HPR remarked that we needed to get it on film, so he grabbed the camera and voila.

geek and freak

Time to give some kid updates! Shmoo is currently sick (some virus that I'm fighting, too). I'd never wish illness on anyone, of course, and I'm only lighthearted about it because it's nothing serious: it certainly takes the edge off his five-year-old-boy energy. Which is nice since we have been unable to leave the house today. (Did you hear? There's some snow.) He's been well enough to fashion rockets out of Legos and a can-eating machine out of a foam and magnet fort set thing. He's all about science and engineering. He received a kitchen chemistry set over the holidays and has been doing experiments ever since. We've also been checking kid science DVDs out of the library to feed his obsession.

He's still loving Pre-K and is in love with his teacher. He hasn't met a bff like his Safiyyah from our Philly daycare, but has a few favorite (girl)friends. Always with the girls. Yesterday we were at a fast food restaurant with a play area, and when Shmoo gave the recap of the play area, he said: "I met a friend, and he was a BOY." He is awful—I mean awful—with names. So yup, we have the makings of an absent-minded professor.

Of those names he does know, however, he likes to play the name game. For example, Loki cat became "Okus." So yeah, we really should have thought it through before we named our new cat Fritchie. HPR and I are careful about not cursing, so Shmoo doesn't know the meaning of the word (or even that it is a word), but I overheard him calling her "Itchy Bitch."

Moving on to Roo. Her personality is blooming, has been for a while. I've said it before, she can turn the world on with her smile. As always, she is passionate about books, animals, and anything her big brother is interested in. She is fascinated by monsters and ghosts and loves the Amanda and Oliver Pig and Skippyjon Jones books. I need to find more ways to get her around kids her age, because she really loves and needs it. 

Like da Shmoo, she is quite verbal, but she still has some sweet & contagious pronunciations. Of course, I can't think of them right now, but here are three:

1. bonk = bont
2. grownup = bomeup
3. snuggle = sundle

She has taken to "reading" books out loud: saying whatever story occurs to her, regardless of whether it matches any illustrations or subject matter. She even does it with calculus textbooks, instruction manuals, and blank notebooks. I know this is a common thing for kids to do, but Shmoo never did it (he flipped through books silently), so it is novel for us. She also makes up songs with plots: operettas, basically. Of course by the time we get out the videocamera she has moved on to another activity, but I do hope to capture one on film.

She's also not bad at throwing and catching balls, which is pretty remarkable considering that the other three members of her immediate family, while active, are not very competitive-sports-inclined. 

Both kids are enjoying the snow, although it's taller than Roo. (Photos from Snowpocalypse Round 1 here. More to come if it ever clears up.) There has been high drama with Roo about the wearing of gloves/mittens. Roo is also obsessed with icicles and demands we get them for her even as we're driving in the car and the icicles in question are at the top of a three-storey building.

Both are still early risers, so I need to just post this and get to bed.

icebreaker

I took Shmoo ice skating yesterday. It was his third time ever, all in the span of a month. (The first time was in San Francisco.) He really really loves it, which is great because he otherwise has some serious couch potato tendencies. As it turned out, I spent most of the hour skating backwards, since that was the easiest way for me to support him. My calves are really mooing today.

Some highlights:

• 2010 hockey hair is much cuter than 1985 hockey hair.
• A dad at the rink asked me whether I knew who Laura Ingraham was. I said no and he told me I look like her. I've now looked her up. Wow, between that and the Coulter without makeup comparison two years ago, I realize I've missed my calling as a [your adjective(s) here] conservative pundit. So I guess, depending on my hair length, I have two good choices for Halloween.
• OMG I am glad I'm not a figure skating parent. The gear and the footlockers and the diva-wrangling. I'll take my science/literature/music nerds any day. Although I may be imitating another pundit by becoming a hockey mom because . . .
• HPR ran out with the kids today to buy some hockey sticks. Can you believe he's never heard the "make like a hockey stick . . ." line?

just alright with me

We have been doing holiday festivities up proper around here. Shmoo couldn't be more zazzed about it all. We have watched Olive and the Grinch and Frosty and Charlie Brown. (Not Rudolph. Looks like someone's done some serious copyright restricting there; we can't find it free anywhere online.) Last weekend I took the kids to a live nativity with real animals, including a camel.  Shmoo's review: "The camel is big . . . and STINKY!"

As I mentioned before, the kids have been playing with their nativity sets. Shmoo has this one and Roo just received this one, both from my parents. Roo took baby Jesus for a ride in her toy stroller, along with a wind-up penguin. Also, according to Roo, the manger is where he gets his diaper changed. Jesus, not the penguin.

So you can see I'm trying to give the religious aspect of Christmas a lot of play around the house since public events focus so much on the secular.

It appears the religious theme has sunk in. The other day, Shmoo said, "If I ever have a son, I think I'll name him Jesus." (Anglo pronunciation). I nodded and thought thought to myself that could be a very satisfying name to give a child, and not for the reasons one might think. Imagine:

"Jesus! What do you think you're doing?"

"Jesus! Get off the cat RIGHT NOW!"

And of course my favorite: "Close the door! Jesus, were you born in a barn?"

glad it's the last week of daily posting

Not feeling a theme to post today. I peeked around the NaBloPoMo site to see whether they have a suggested topic, but I couldn't find it. So I'll just say what I did today. /yawn/. I'll take any topic suggestions/questions you have!

Woke up in the outskirts of Pennsburg, PA, at the home of HPR's mom and step-dad. Roo woke me up at 4something. I got her back to a fitful sleep, but had to lie beside her on the floor next to her portable trundle bed (thanks, Aunt Cathy!). A bit later she was still restless, so I took her to another room and we slept a bit more. She woke for the day, ready to play, at about 6:30.

I had been in deep REM sleep by then and thought about waking HPR to take the early shift with Roo, but Shmoo was asleep in the same room and I didn't want to risk waking him. So I went downstairs with Roo and set her up for playing. HPR's mom and step-dad had work and his sister had school, so they were bustling about getting ready to go. Shmoo woke up after a while and came down to play. I pointed out to him that the donut fairy had come (I made a trip after we arrived Tues. night).

HPR was up by 7 something and we traded off childcare activities, eating, bathing, and some computer time. We decided to take the kids to the Crayola Factory and Canal Museum in Easton. We packed up the car and left by about 10:40. We arrived in Easton at 11:19 (a missed call told me the time). Roo had fallen asleep about 10 minutes before we arrived, which was not ideal, but we persevered. The factory/museum is fantastic and we stayed for a couple of hours and probably could have stayed longer if we weren't bumping up against naptime.

Shaky from low blood sugar, we got into the car to head back west to the Allentown area. Roo kept asking for a snack and we kept having to explain to her that we only had apples, which we offered to her, but which she didn't want. Then I found two fruit leathers in my purse (angelic chorus). Roo and Shmoo were doing a silly imitating game with each other that made us smile. I mean, it was pretty obnoxious, but they were making each other happy and didn't rely on us to entertain them, so it was music to our ears.

We ran into a bit of traffic, so didn't get to the grocery store until about 2:30. We grabbed a bite to eat from the Asian buffet and then HPR and Shmoo went to gather our small list (pie, berries, and cider). Stopped for some wine (I had to go back into the store because the clerk had directed me to Beaujolais rather than Beaujolais Nouveau), then arrived at HPR's dad and step-mom's empty house at 3:30. I crashed on the couch a bit until everyone got home. (His dad was at work and his step-mom was picking up his step-brother at the bus station.)

And we've had a great evening with them and the puppies (one black and one chocolate lab). The amount of wine consumed may have something to do with my lack of ideas for a post. The exhausted and nearly napless kids went to bed with only a glimmer of protest. A lively discussion of politics ensued.

It's 10:30 now and I'm going to drink some more water and head to bed. Most noteworthy parts of the day were Roo's obvious playing-up-of-the-cute for her grandfathers and Shmoo's focus on dog training. Our theory is that Shmoo loves to have someone to boss around who actually listens to him.

guest post - Shmoo and Buddy Bear

Shmoo's class has a mascot, Buddy Bear, whom the kids take turns taking home for the weekend. They write/draw/tell about their adventures. HPR and Shmoo wrote up our weekend and here it is.

Friday

Buddy Bear and I rode to my house in the bicycle trailer. Mommy pedaled. I wore my helmet, and Buddy Bear was safe in the backpack. When we got home, we made soup and Buddy Bear helped. It had squash, apples, coconut, and cashews, and Buddy Bear put in the apples and stock. Then Daddy came home from work, and he was surprised to see Buddy Bear! We played Candy Land, and Buddy Bear won! Hurricane Rooster (my sister [Roo]) tried to wreck the game. It was so late, so we went to bed. We read The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr. Seuss. We liked it.

Saturday

We woke up early so we could go in Bucky Car to Daddy's work. We dropped him off and went to the "Egg Sandwich Restaurant." Then we went with Mommy to the beach [at Cunningham Falls], but it was closed. The other part wasn't closed, so we went there. We threw acorns into the water. The seeds sank, but the caps did not. We saw some huge birds in cages. The black vulture flapped and pecked at us, but it was in the cage. Maybe it thought we were after its food. There were also owls, hawks, and a falcon.

Then we went to the library in Thurmont. I like that one more than the one in Frederick. They had a snail race, and I guessed that the pink one would win. It did! I played on the computers a little. After that, we went to the nature center in Fountain Rock. We played in the playground and got soaking wet. [Roo] fell asleep, so we didn't feed the fish or turtles. I thought I saw a trout, and it was very big. There's also a lime kiln that dumps burnt lime into wagons.

We went to Daddy's work to pick him up. I bought some tattoos of birds like the ones we saw today. We went to a banquet at Daddy's work. I got two pieces of brownie. One was shaped like a cupcake. Then we went home and it was past my bedtime.

Sunday

It was so sunny that we went to Baker Park instead of Quaker Meeting. Sorry, God, but I wanted to play. We rode the bicycle there, and Mommy pedaled. We went to the fountain, but it had no water or bubbles! (On election day, someone put purple bubbles in it!) I jumped off the stage over and over. I played in the sandbox. I followed a girl in a moon dress. Then we rode home in the bicycle.

We were so sleepy that we took a nap! When we woke up, we made chocolate-chip cookies. Then Daddy came home. We had a dance party and listened to Shonen Knife. Then we wrestled and wrestled.

 

PS: The wrestling photo is from Friday. Today's wrestling photo revealed too much clutter.