Lots of art going on with the kids these days. Paper bits on the floor, pencil shavings strewn about, homemade playdoh drying on our clay tools. Beautiful and enthusiastic creations. Here are two of my favorites.

One afternoon I cut a bunch of simple butterflies out of our construction paper scraps (we are running low on supplies) and Simon spent many hours flicking paint on them and then pressing the sides together. When the paint had dried into their magically mirrored swirls, we used the sewing machine to sew them onto a stiff piece of paper. The stitches run down the center of each butterfly and so the wings are still ‘flying off the paper’. Simon and I both loved it so much that we found an old frame and hung the butterflies over his bed. If I had known that we would end up with a framed piece of art, the only thing I would have done is to cut more complicated butterfly designs to begin with.

 

The weather has been amazing this week. I’ve been trying to do some fall cleanup in the backyard while the kids run half naked in circles around me. All over the yard are these wood scraps, waiting for weeks to trip someone and smack out a tooth. So I got an old tote and cleaned them all up. All at once the kids were fluttering around, “Hey! Look at all this cool wood! Can we dump it out and build stuff?” So we collected some glue, nails and hammers and we got to work making homes for stuffed animals. We might paint them, but “We’ll have to wait until our soft friends are done playing with them.”

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

On Sunday mornings Dave and I hold hands between the rolling, poking, chanting pile of kids that fill the space between us. We duck our heads under our pillows and in that flannel tunnel we give each other eye smiles. And if there is sunlight filtering in through the leaves of the gynormous rhododendron outside our window, then all the better.

If there is sunlight then we sometimes decide to go out to breakfast. Years ago we didn’t mind reading the paper while waiting for a table and then eating in tight little restaurants with oil paintings and slowly delivered food. (yum.) But now I wait in the van in a strategic location where Dave can shake a coffee to-go mug at me through the window (I’ll stand near the man with the red shirt!) to signal our parental switch so I can spice my coffee just right. Noah’s bagels may not be particularly miraculous but we still enjoy our Sunday breakfasts out and we still eat leisurely. We just do it the park.

 

Simon loves to get his fingers in the dirt and he was all about the correct placement of the bulbs in the hole. Tess hates to get her hands dirty but whatever Simon is doing must be imitated at all costs.

 

Tess’ big fear lately is the sound of traffic (why???) so I was digging holes while she sporadically clung to my leg as if she could be completely absorbed into my thigh. We’ll see in the spring if anything comes up.

I was driving home on Rt 43, on the part of road that once had a huge cardboard box in the ditch which I watched slowly disintegrate over time. Sammy and Simon and Tess are all in the car. Maybe we are coming home from grocery shopping. We are listening to Carol King singing the Really Rosie album.

Sammy: Mom? I am having a tremendous feeling.

Me: Tell me about it.

Sammy: No, I don’t think so.

Me: Ok. Well, I’d be interested in hearing more about it if you want to tell me.

(long pause while Pierre apparently doesn’t care that he is being eaten by a lion)

Me: Are you ok? Are you feeling sick?

Sammy: No, mom, this is a golden feeling. It is amazing.

(pause while Pierre is saved)

Sammy: My body is filling up with power, Mom. Remember last year when I felt like my power was slowly draining away? When I was in kindergarten? Now it is coming back! I feel it in my arms and my muscles and my brain. It is filling me up! I didn’t know if it was going to come back and now here it is. Isn’t that great?

I’m cold but not ready to concede and turn on the heat. I’m wearing this old pea colored wool V-neck sweater with holes in the sleeve. The rain is back. Last night it woke me up at 3am dumping so hard I pulled the baby’s warm body closer and hoped the roof wasn’t leaking somewhere. Mornings are drizzle dark and I don’t set an alarm. There have been some mad dashes with umbrellas for the school bus, but we have not missed one yet.

This morning Simon wore his pajamas to school. The kid is so smart.

I am tired of the household chores. The dishes mock me, the laundry sneaks around the house playing with balls of fur. Dinner doesn’t seem to work out right. (I miss my bags of baby spinach) I wish I had the energy to shorten my jeans so I don’t look like I am wearing a levi thneed.

Much like last year, Sammy doesn’t tell me much of what goes on at school. He’ll give me a garbled play-by-play of the recess dynamics between bites of his after school bowl of Joes Os. Maybe later in the day some other school story will leak out but usually out of context so I have only guesses as to what it could possibly mean. Next week his teacher will have a curriculum night so we can see the classroom and get a better understanding of what goes on in the first grade.

Today I found proof that Sammy is thinking in school. For you , I will delineate the picture I found this morning. There is a main building with a clock on top which is Sammy’s school. There at the bottom you can see Sammy next to his desk with a piece of paper on the other side that he has been writing on. Then out of his mind are his thought bubbles. At school Sammy is thinking about (in clockwise order) kicking a soccer ball, home, his birthday cake, and riding the school bus.  

 

Since I decided to scale back Simon’s double preschool/5 mornings a week routine, dropping the long distance preschool, now he is just doing two mornings a week. We have found ourselves with wide expanses of time together. It feels so good.

We’ve established an art gallery for Simon and every day we do an art project. Today we finger painted and did color mixing. Yesterday we made puddles of glue and stuck old puzzle pieces in it. And then Simon made a cereal necklace with matching bracelet.

Every day we have been cooking something, no matter how small. Make a smoothie, toss a salad in the spinner, raid the pantry. Thanks to Molly for recommending this great cookbook for kids.

So much of Tess is consumed with observing and copying her family. Everything we do is imitated, much to the hysterics of us all. She loves to collect laundry, brush her teeth, put random things in the trash can, wash her hands, and drive the mini-van.  Anything that Simon does, she will do also, including facial expressions and tonal inflections. Most days she is like watching a soap opera in a different language.

Every time someone goes to the bathroom or makes any ‘I have to pee’ or ‘I have to poop’ announcements, Tess gallops after them to assist with the unfurling of toilet paper.

Now that she has some choice words that she can clearly pronounce, she will often demand “Potty” and point at her ass. So of course we are off to the soft blues clues potty seat environment, because what sort of mom would I be if I denied my daughter the potty? Like 10 times a day.

 

She sits and makes a swift grunting noise and then proceeds to shred the toilet paper all over the floor with some mashed up pieces making it into the (perfectly clean) water. I can’t leave her there, obviously, for the 20 minutes she takes. When I try and remove her, she points at the toilet paper and screams “No! Mine!”

 

But when she tries to pee in the bushes like her brothers, that is when we truly crack up. You can see in her posture that she is convinced that success is all in the arch. And she is wholly determined to be successful.

 

Watch out world.

(*disclaimer – in this post I am not implying that my 16 month old baby is potty training nor do I expect her to potty train any time soon)