My son wants to make a cake for his sister. And he wants it to say: “I love you Jo. I know you are at a sleepover right now. And I will see you when you come home. Love, Opie.” (We only had enough cakes for parts 1 and 4.)
I know it’s a big fat jinxy risk to say this (especially heading into 72 hours of nonstop Together Time) but these kids, they get along. They love each other, and they show it. They share. They back each other up. They want to spend time together. It is a beautiful thing.
Of course I also know it doesn’t really have anything to do with me being a good mom. I am just very lucky. But I try hard to notice and acknowledge and praise.
For some words (crazy ones? You be the judge), go visit Binkytowne, where I am guest posting today on behalf of the vacationing Amy. She asked me to describe my most memorable vacation. You’ll have to click over to find out if I followed the rules.
When I went on a trip to Urbana illanou. My uncal said my hol famliy cood see a huge mashing called Shop Bot work. In orter to make it work my ant Amy, hoo is an artist, and I had to cerate a dasine. We drew a bunny for a dasine on her conprter. My ant Amy sent the dasine on her conprter to my uncal. My uncal uploaded the bunny dasine into the Shop Bot. The Shop Bot cut the bunny shap out of a picee of wood. Then we took it back to my ant and uncal’s house. To pant it with my ant. We panted it wite and this weekend we will pant it with pingk spots.
If you’re looking for charming Easter pictures of my shiny-haired children (and why would you be unless you are my mother), move along. They both had the rattiest, sticky-uppiest, messiest cases of bedhead this morning. Jo’s was reasonably decent by the time we went to church, but Opie’s … forget it.
It actually reminded me of the day of my grandmother’s funeral. My brother was in the middle of one of his months-long bike trips and for whatever reason had decided not to cut his hair or shave his beard until he completed the trip. Just try to picture the result of the combination of bike helmet, sweat, and longer and longer hair, day in and day out. Trying to whip him into shape for the funeral, my sister and I each took a huge handful of hair gel and attacked the wiry mop on top of his head. It worked about as well as my attempt to flatten Opie’s locks this morning.
And it’s still cold here. Which inspired a haiku.
Breath visible on sunny Easter morn — want a nice cool Eggsicle?
“Spring” break ahoy this week (finally). In a few days we’re off to visit my brother, who these days has hair so short that hair product is entirely unnecessary.
Of the many things that surprise and please me about my children, their relationship with each other tops the list. They truly enjoy each other’s company, play together nicely, show mutual affection, and have each other’s backs.
Sure, they squabble, but Jo is remarkably patient with Opie’s 3-ish-ness, and Opie happily allows himself to be bossed around by his big sister most of the time. If he’s having a tantrum, she creeps up next to him and tries to calm him down. Then she runs back and forth between him and the adult on duty, negotiating a truce. Several nights a week, they sleep side by side in the two trundle beds in Opie’s room.
Jo recently brought home a worksheet from school called “My Special Feelings.” It’s a series of sentences that she had to complete: “I am happy when,” “I am good at,”I am afraid of.” My favorite: “I feel safe when … my brother hugs me.”
See, now this is why I wanted (still want? not sure yet) another one.
Despite the rough start*, we did have a nice weekend, filled with the usual stuff (birthday party, Sunday school, ice-skating lessons) and capped off by just-the-four-of-us Superbowl party. Given that my parents met and married in Pittsburgh, I rooted for the Steelers and was thus richly rewarded. At one point Opie decided to go shirtless, which (of course, right?) prompted his father to paint his torso with a giant letter S (vaguely visible in the video).
*Thank you for understanding my need to post somber haiku. As Amy so rightly pointed out, this stuff has to come out in bits and pieces and that’s what blogs are for.
If you ever tire of it and want the more cheerful version of me, you can always read my Family Fitness blog. Just so’s you know.
Hands down, the game my family is most obsessed with plays most often is Scrabble. I’m not even sure when this habit got started, but anytime my brother, sister, and I are together it is ALL ABOUT the Scrab. Being the Word Girl in the family, I assumed I would have a natural advantage, but that is not the case. My brother, the visual artist (and in recent years, his wife–another artist) is the undisputed champ. I talked him up so much that two years ago, one of our neighbors came over on Christmas Eve for a game just to see Steve in action (and got his butt kicked for his trouble).
brought a travel Scrabble set on their month-long camping honeymoon and played nightly
keep track of all the games they play on a spreadsheet. Data gathered includes total points scored, who played the Q and Z, any bingos, and probably more obscure information too.
I still play against them. But I go into it knowing that if I come within 50 points of their scores, I’ve done really well.
We also do have an alternate game in case we are all tired of getting clobbered. Syzygy is a fast-paced, board-free version of Scrabble. Each player creates her own grid of interlocking words using letter tiles. You start with 9 tiles, and when you’ve used them all you call “Draw!” and all players must grab another. You then continue to incorporate these new letters into your crossword; you are free to change anything you’ve already put down. The game is over when all the tiles are gone and one player has a complete crossword with no leftover tiles. (And then, half the fun is checking everyone’s work and arguing about the liberties they’ve taken with the English language.)
(Gift tip: If you’re shopping for someone Scrabble-obsessed, they must read Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis. Both a fascinating character study and a how-to manual for Scrabble nerds.)
If you smelled blog blast on this one, bingo! (50 points to you.) Post yours by midnight tonight and you could win a fat pile of fun video games from EA.
5. About stop lights, go lights, and slow down lights
6. How to play the guitar
By the way, Jo and Opie are certain their new sib is a boy. Because they have consulted the Magic 8-Ball, and not only did it say that yes, it’s a boy, it also said that it’s not a girl. So, totally definitive.
At some point in kindergarten, every time Jo went to the school library she would only check out totally boring nonfiction books with some variation on the title Caring for Your Pet ____ or All About [Dog/Cat Breed X]. These were dry as dirt earnest, detailed manuals published by the likes of the ASPCA and the American Kennel Club. Not exactly my idea of soothing bedtime reading, but who was I to interfere with my child’s interest in books/science/companion animals?
In the months since we have come to discover that the kid had an ulterior motive. She filed away all the details and used them to craft her master plan. And now, once a week or so we hear “When Folly dies can we get a bichon frisé? And then, you know bichon frisés get along with cats so we can get a cat? Or a rabbit, and also a guinea pig.”
After she tried this a few times and I responded with horror at her blasé attitude toward the death of our beloved pet, she amended her request thusly:
“When Folly dies, it’sgoingtobereallysad, and then can we get a bichon frisé?”
We’ve had this dog since before the kids were born and they really do have a sibling relationship. By which I mean a love/hate kind of a thing. She tries to steal their food and they freak out. Then they feed her their leftovers right off their plates. She grabs their toys, they grab hers. They play together intensely for awhile and then ignore each other intensely for awhile.
She’s over 10 years old and she has a heart murmur. She sheds, she barks viciously at the vacuum cleaner, she sometimes refuses to go outside and then has accidents in the basement. And when she’s gone, it’sgoingtobereallysad.
(Photo is from 2002 and is one of my all-time favorites.)
I am grooving on this little girl this week. To wit:
1. Last night she voluntarily, cheerfully, and capably washed a huge sink full of dishes. I may still have to remind her regularly to take her plate to the sink and put her pajamas in the drawer, but did I enjoy having post-dinner clean-up cut in half, at least just that once? I did.
2. For the past few days she has been giving Opie “homework assignments” after school. She dot-to-dots letters and numbers for him to trace and then gives him a letter grade for each page (ranging from A+ to Z-). He loves it.
3. She was one of two kids from her school chosen at random to spend the morning at our local fire station. She was so excited you would have thought she’d won the lottery. She got to slide down the pole, have lunch from McDonald’s (no firehouse chili?!), and be driven back to school in an honest-to-god fire engine. She tried on the gear and reported that the helmet was so heavy she couldn’t walk in it. And one of the firefighters nicknamed her “Crumb” because she was the smallest kid there.
My son wants to make a cake for his sister. And he wants it to say: “I love you Jo. I know you are at a sleepover right now. And I will see you when you come home. Love, Opie.” (We only had enough cakes for parts 1 and 4.)
