Emma on a Wednesday

The other day, Emma caught me worrying over my to-do list and barraged me with questions about it. Today, she made one for herself. Here is Em's to-do list, exactly as she wrote it in her notebook:

Wendsday to do list!
1. Get ready for school
2. Read a book or watch T.V
3. Do my homework
4. Read more books/if I want
5. play on my ds./if I want
6. play with my ponys
7. Play dress up!
8. Sing!
9. Dance!
10. Fashoin show!
11. Make a to do list for thirsday
12. Take a shower
13. Get into pagamaes
14. pick out my clothes
15. Go to bed

She completed #s 1-5 and 11-15. She gave herself the grade of 91 D+, which is apparently a very good score because in to-do list grading you want to get as close to an F as possible. (I have no idea why, and my brain started to bleed when she explained it to me, so I am unable to replicate her reasoning here.)

Then she asked me what grade I got on MY to-do list today. I told her I had no idea, but that it really doesn't matter because tomorrow is another day.

"What do you mean?" Emma asked.

"Well," I sighed, "I just mean that I'll get another crack at it tomorrow. My to-do list never really ends. My whole life is basically one long to-do list."

"Really?!" Emma shrieked. "That is SO COOL!"

Sophie on a Wednesday

Sophie: "I like it when Emma hits my arm when she is being naughty and throwing fits."
Me: "Really? Why would you like that?"
Soph: [shrug] "I love my sister."
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Soph: "When dinner is ready and Daddy comes over to visit our house, can I show him my boo-boo?"
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Soph: "Mommy, I'm hungry. Can I have square cheese?"
Soph: "Mommy, I'm bored. Can you put in a movie?"
Soph: "Mommy, I'm cold. Can I have a blanket?"
Me: "Here you go. Anything else you need? My blood? My soul?"
Soph: "Hmm. Your soul? What is that? Can I play with it?"
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Soph: "Mommy, I have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?"
Me: "How about the bad news?"
Soph: "Ok. Halloween is OVER!"
Me: "Yes, I know. That is sad. But what's the good news?"
Soph: [long, long pause] "Um...speaking of...can I have a toaster strudel?"

Happy Halloween!

It takes a real man to carve a fairy

My husband not only tolerates living in a houseful of women...he embraces it. Indeed, despite his legitimate right to claim some man-time among this pool of estrogen that he calls home, he almost always puts our needs above his own. Case in point? Chris loves to carve pumpkins, and this year he had glorious visions of creating something spooky and scary and fierce. But the girls had other plans. Instead of complaining, he got to work...and painstakingly carved the fairy Silvermist.

He's currently watching the first game of the World Series while us chicks marvel at his craftsmanship. (Remember, I said he almost always puts our needs above his own. When the Cardinals are in the World Series, all bets are off. And I say...enjoy, darling. You've earned it.)

He's pretty awesome. Methinks we will keep him.

Pop Dancing

A new dancing video! Happy Friday, and enjoy.

One Viewing Note: the video fades out right about the time Emma starts hitting herself on the head, and then fades back in just before Chris and I begin begging for gently encouraging the grand finale. In between were an additional FIVE MINUTES of dancing that I left on the cutting room floor. Allow me to sum up what you missed: stomping, mugging, bizarre hand movements, beating of one's own body, giggling, desperate copying of one's older sister, and excessive posing.

Okay, you may commence viewing now.

A pumpkin ate my finger!

This was the best I could manage with a sawed-off Qtip. If anyone knows where we can get inexpensive polish pens for design stuff like this, let me know. (Nail painting is one of my secret weapons - it keeps the girls occupied, happy and still for at least a half hour or so, and it's actually kinda fun to do.)

Happy Halloweeeeeeeeeen!

Indigo Girls...You Complete Me (And My Daughters?)

For those of you who skip the ramblings on this blog and go straight for the cute stuff, I'll reveal up front that there is a video of the girls singing at the end of this post. Now you can just scroll down and click, if you so choose, instead of wading through my long-winded love letter to the Indigo Girls.

I have been an Indigo Girls fan for almost 20 years. Our one-sided love affair began when I was a freshman in college. (Good lord, has it seriously been NINETEEN YEARS since I first went off to college?!? I feel sweaty even thinking about it. Or maybe I'm just having a hot flash. But I digress.) My roommate, Rebecca, brought this weird contraption called a CD player. Now, CD players weren't all that new back in 1992 - I'm not that old. But I grew up in a super-awesome-but-financially-strapped-family, so CD players were certainly new to me. (In fact, going from a town of 500 people to a campus with over 30,000 students, many things were new to me at college...but that's a post for another day.)

Rebecca taught me many things during our four month stint as roommates, before I drove her across campus to another dorm for fear she'd commit murder if she lived with me another day. (No worries...we ended up great friends. Life is strange, no?) Here's just a brief list of some of the life lessons I learned while sharing space with Reba:

1. The power of a good hug.
2. The joy of executing the perfect prank.
3. The exhilarating release of throwing rotten fruit and watching it explode into a zillion pieces.
4. When you hear a vacuum running and Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" playing on repeat, it means you will not be sleeping in your own bed for awhile.
5. Not everyone is a TV person.
6. You can love someone and still want to strangle them.

But the best thing Rebecca brought into my life was the Indigo Girls. I still remember the very first time she played me "Ghost" off of Rites of Passage. No other song, before or since, has ever reached into my heart and squeezed. I lost myself in the haunting music and lyrics. It was almost as if I was in a trance. I know it sounds dramatic, but I knew at that moment I'd found something special that would stay with me for the rest of my life. And I was right.

Simply put, I fell head over heels in love that day. And over the last two decades, my love has only grown stronger. To say that the Indigo Girls is my favorite music group is a bit of an understatement. I own almost everything they've ever produced - including several rare discs that were only released overseas. I've seen them in concert at least 20 times. (At this point, I"ve seriously lost count.) "Power of Two" was my wedding song. If and when I ever get up the nerve to get that first tattoo I've been fantasizing about for years, it will be a quote from one of their songs. And on one perfect day in 2004, I even pulled a few strings at my PR job (which is a nice way of saying that I begged lots and lots of people) and was able to actually meet my idols. I spoke to them, shook their hands, and then watched them perform in front of me, close enough to touch, in a tiny radio studio with only ten people present. A framed picture of us from that day hangs in my bedroom, and a glance at it is still enough to bring tears to my eyes.

 I brought my friend Bonnie with me, basically so I had someone to hold my hand and keep me from passing out, and then she almost edges me out of the picture! Amy and I are like, "Sorry to intrude Bon and Emily, but can we be in this photo too?"

People throw around the word "genius" way too often, I know. But truly - as musicians, lyricists, poets, singers, and performers - Emily Saliers and Amy Ray are GENIUSES in their field.

So...uh...yeah. I love them. And I've loved introducing them to my daughters. The girls don't dig a lot of their music. It's hard to fight the power of what's on the radio, like Kesha (I refuse to spell her name with a dollar sign - I REFUSE) and Lady Gaga, particularly with my seven-year-old. But a few songs have stuck. Hands down, their favorite is "Galileo." We sing it as a lullaby almost every night, and my three-year-old is especially enamored with the song. I've tried for months to get video of them singing it together, but as is the case with kids, the minute they sense you really want them to do something, they won't do it. So, despite Grade A begging/bribing/manipulating on my part, they have steadfastly refused to do the performing monkey thing for the camera.

But the other night we had guests over, and suddenly the girls decided to show off. I actually got a video of them singing "Galileo." They skipped a verse and spaced on a few words, but they nailed most of the song.

I cannot adequately emphasize in writing how much joy this video brings me, so I'm not even going to try. Just...enjoy.

Summer in October Continues...

Fall Fun While It's 80 Degrees Outside

 Waiting for the bus...

 Bounce!

 Pumpkins!

 Pumpkin decorating!

  

We love Summer/Global Warming/Heatstroke in October Fall!

Summer In October

Mother Nature gifted us with Summer in October today. The girls and I took advantage of it.

Sophie (literally) hanging out.

If only this kid weren't so camera shy...

Is there anything better than rolling down a hill on a beautiful day?

 

I've written and deleted at least 10 captions for this photo. 

The truth is, seeing it just leaves me speechless with gratitude.

Exercise, mental health, and butt scratching

I wrote a post today for Erasing the Distance's blog. Wait...you've never read Erasing the Distance's blog, you say? Well, what are you waiting for? Check out my post, and then take a look around. Explore. Read up on ETD. We are a pretty cool organization, if I do say so myself.

And for those of you that only read this blog to hear funny anecdotes about my kids and really wish I'd stop talking about ME, here's a little tie-in nugget for ya...

Sophie: "My friend Margot cries when we eat peaches at school, and I don't know WHY! That's just crazy."
Me: "Well, it's not "crazy" - it just means she probably doesn't like peaches."
Soph: "But peaches are YUMMY!"
Me: "Well, I think so too...but not everybody likes peaches. Different people like different things."
Soph: "You mean like how I like to scratch-a my butt but other people don't like to watch me do dat?"
Me: "Um...well...yes, that's exactly what I mean."

When you crawl around inside my brain, it tickles!

My friend Gen turned me onto this blog entry by playwright Catherine Trieschmann. Not only is the post exceptionally written, but I actually gasped out loud the first time I read it. While I recognize that juggling life and motherhood is a (sadly) common struggle, the author's specific insight into the challenges of raising a family while working in theater was particularly resonant for me. It was as if this woman had climbed into my brain, ripped out all the festering frustration and helplessness over how to balance being a mother and an artist, and rearranged the jumbled mess into a perfectly crafted missive.

What an odd experience to realize that, in many ways, a complete stranger knows me more intimately than some of my closest family and friends.

Thank you, Ms. Trieschmann, for allowing me to express myself through your beautiful words.

Latelys

Lately, Sophie has started adopting the phrase "speaking of..." into her vocabulary. Once in awhile, almost by accident, she uses it correctly. For example, I was talking about the zoo and she said, "Speaking of the zoo, can we go see the elephants when we get there?"

But usually she shortens the whole phrase and/or uses it incorrectly, yet always with this focused, thoughtful look on her face that conveys just how much she's trying to converse on an adult level. Sample exchanges from this morning:

Me: "What would you like for breakfast?"
Sophie: "Speaking of...can you read me a book?"

Me: "Clear your plate, please."
Sophie: "Speaking...it looks like it raining outside."

Me: "It's cold today, isn't it?"
Sophie: "Speaking of dat...I gotta poop!"

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Lately, Emma's robust ego seems to have taken a hit. She's doing okay in school and likes her teacher a lot, but her self-esteem isn't as healthy as usual due to a number of things - new environment, new kids, lack of old friends, harder curriculum, etc. She was scared to go to school this morning because she's convinced she'll get a zero on her reading test and the teacher will kick her out of class. The other day, she told Chris that everybody thinks her best friend is pretty and they want to be her friend, and nobody thinks Emma's pretty or wants to be her friend. It makes me so sad to hear my normally (over)confident daughter talking like this...not only because I hate hearing her unhappy, but also because I fear it is only the beginning of voluminous amounts of self-doubt to come as she grows older.

However, I was bolstered to hear her typical self-belief emerge in the car yesterday while playing with her sister. Although, per usual with Emma, she took it just a little too far.

Sophie: "I don't want to play that game."
Emma: "Yes, you DO! This is MY world and I make the rules!"
Me: "Em, what are you talking about? You don't control the whole world."
Emma: "I don't mean EVERYBODY'S world, Mom. Just YOUR world and SOPHIE'S world. Duh."

Hello, second grade. Nice to meet ya.

Last Tuesday was Emma's first day of second grade.

I rise at 6am so I can sneak in a shower before the rest of the family becomes conscious. After dressing and a little primping (I get nervous on the first day of school too...meeting the teacher, seeing other parents, etc.), I walk quietly into Em's room and mentally prepare myself for whatever spew of fury she might unleash on me upon her awakening. Technically, we have slept in this morning - normally the bus arrives at 6:30am, which means we rise very early indeed. But regardless of whatever extra minutes have been stolen because we are driving to school this day, history indicates that Emma will not be thankful. She HATES not being allowed to awaken on her own, and being the one tasked with getting her up and ready is not a job for the faint of heart. I take a deep breath and shake her gently.

For once, she doesn't whine or growl or moan or burrow under her bed or burst into wails of protest at the horrible cruelty of being forced awake at such a ridiculous hour. She simply stands and heads to the bathroom. I silently thank the first-day-of-school gods for this rare occurrence and walk to the kitchen, where Chris is making Emma breakfast. He has decided to take the day off work so he can hang at home with the little one while I accompany Emma to school without the distraction of my ever-present shadow, Sophie P. Once Em is fed, brushed and dressed, we grab her book bag, lunch and 5 lb. sack of school supplies (I am not kidding...that sucker was HEAVY) and head outside for the obligatory first-day-of-school-posed-pic before hitting the road.

We pick up her best friend O, O's mom and little sister on the way. By the time I drop Em off at school, find parking (impossible), lug the 5lb bag of supplies and my own sorry butt several blocks to the school, ask three different people where the second grade pod is, and find my way to where I am supposed to be, all the students have already been sorted (kind of like in Harry Potter, minus the hat) and I have missed it all. My grand plan of holding Em's hand during the class assignments and consoling her if she is separated from her best friend has gone up in smoke. I discover Em already sitting at a table in her new classroom with a shell-shocked look on her face. Her eyes are bigger than saucers as she catches me in her gaze, waves me over and says in a voice edging toward panic, "O isn't in my class. None of my friends are in my class."

At first glance, it appears true. Virtually none of her friends from first grade are in her class this year. Weird. Bad. Exactly what we feared! Seriously, Em has had nightmares for weeks about this. Oh no. Still, she holds it together pretty well. We listen to her new teacher, Mrs. Whitfield, explain how school will work this year, and I see Em relax a bit as she focuses in on what her teacher is saying. Mrs. Whitfield appears tough and no-nonsense, but also warm and caring. I watch her in action and marvel at how this tiny, lone woman manages to corral 30 seven-year-olds when I can barely handle one. I stay for awhile, help the kids get their school supplies filed away. I am tasked with aiding four kids with lunch money and one table of students with labeling folders. I complete neither task, because children are constantly pulling at me, shouting "Hey, you!" and "Mrs. Jen" and "Parent!" while asking me questions about this, that and the other. Mrs. Whitfield is very gracious when I inform her of my failure, and I wonder again how she keeps everything running (relatively) smoothly and finds time to clean up after parents like me who fail to finish the tiny assignments they are given. I feel good about this teacher, and I hope that Emma does too.

Suddenly, it is 9am. I've been helping for an hour, and now it is time to go. The school has not-so-politely requested that all parents get the heck out of dodge. Em is clingy as I hug her goodbye, and I fear she is going to break down. But she rallies as I whisper in her ear, "I am so proud of you, my little second grader, and I will see you when you get home." Then I flee the scene before either of us starts bawling in the middle of Pod 221. I am actually wearing mascara for once, so bursting into tears would be a disaster on more than one level.

I go about the rest of the day as best I can. I get Sophie to preschool, eat a lovely brunch with husband, enjoy a divine and much-needed nap. But all the while, I worry worry worry about whether or not Em is having a good day. I receive the most fabulous news ever around midday - that Em's new morning bus pick up this year is 7:14am! - which bolsters me for awhile. But as the hours tick by, my anxiety grows.

Chris is the one who gathers Em from the bus stop. He takes her for a celebratory slushie before arriving home. The minute they walk through the door, I know all will be okay. Em has a huge smile on her face, and she declares that she LOVES LOVES LOVES her teacher Mrs. Maria. (How cool, that she lets them call her by her first name? This sort of makes me love her too.) Emma is bouncing around, full of excitement. I sigh a huge breath of relief and settle down to hear all about the fabulous day of this glorious second-grader of mine.

Pull my string and watch me go

We made our annual trek to Ohio with the Dippel family and had a glorious week, as usual.

Honestly, the above sentence just took me fifteen minutes to write. Camp is over, school hasn't started yet, and I've been stuck at home with both girls for most of August. After weeks of constant conflict resolution between my warring darlings, my brain has officially stopped working. I've become like one of those dolls you buy in the store that says certain things every time you pull a string in its back. I automatically shout "NO!" and "Stop it!" and "Have you lost your MIND?" when nudged, and otherwise my brain is in sleep mode.

Because I don't have a spare five hours to compose an eloquent paragraph about our vacation, I'm just gonna leave it at this: We had fun. Check out the videos below if you want a laugh. Our poor children, born into theatrical families...and poor us, too. Please, save a little of your sympathy for us?