Last Post of the Year

Another year, another New Year's Eve that finds me frantically cleaning and cooking for friends to arrive this evening.

(Resolution #1: Declutter so that having friends over doesn't require hours of "where should we shove this random thing that we never use and has no place within our chaotic organization so that people don't see it" action.)

As such, I don't have a lot of time to blog, but I thought I should do something to round out the year, at least while EJ is happily occupied with her Wall-E book and I am not being asked to surrender the computer so she can "type [her] words." Yes, those are actual words by the way, mixed in with gibberish---she has around 15 words that she can easily type on her own, as evidenced by the fact that she frequently:

a) wakes up before us
b) crawls out of bed without us hearing her with the baby monitor
c) climbs up on a dining room table chair
d) opens the laptop sitting on the table
e) finds Textedit in the dock
f) double clicks it and opens the application
g) hits shift+command+plus multiple times to increase the font size
h) types words from memory, including her name, friends' names, mama, daddy, ada, lovey, (her beloved blanket) pickles (her stuffed animal bunny), puppy (her stuffed animal dog), spot (her stuffed animal dalmatian), Chicago, her grandparents' names...there are more but those are the current favorites
i) hits command+p to print
j) follows the print prompt and hits return
k) runs to our room and screams, "Mommy, can I print???"
l) goes to the office and picks up the page (that she printed before asking) from the printer
m) runs to our room and screams, "Look what I typed, Mommy! Mommy, are you getting up?"
m) remembers to ask about printing before she hits command+p (prompted by my sleepy reminder muttered from my bed)
n) repeats process over and over, asking before each print-out if she is allowed to hit print, sprinting down the hallway from computer to printer, generally convincing us to crawl out of bed with her screamed question-sprint-screamed "look what I typed" activity

(Resolution #2: Hide laptop better at night, or find some freebie computer on Freecycle for her to pound on.)

It is interesting to think that, while she is still unable to completely master writing all her letters (some are really recognizable now, others are toast), she can actually spell, nonetheless. Santa, aided by some parental elves, figured out that she might enjoy a toy that capitalized on this new found love---spelling and counting---and he brought her a Tag for Christmas. Say what you will about keeping kids with natural, non-computerized toys---she has plenty of blocks and plenty of imagination, but she is also absolutely loving this reader. We find her in bed at night with all of her regular books, "reading" them aloud to her stuffed animals, and this has not waned since we introduced the Tag.

Christmas was wonderful---Mike and I got to spend some great time with our parents, our brothers & sisters-in-law (one brother is still unmarried, but boy, do we love his girlfriend), and our aunts, uncles, and cousins. EJ had a grand ol' time, as evidenced by this photo:



We had one sad farewell this Christmas---we traded in our very loved, memory-filled Honda CR-V. Mike and I purchased Harriet, the Red Car Wonder, in April of 2000, 9 months into our marriage and a few months before we would purchase our first home together (although we didn't know that at the time.) We drove that car back and forth from our home in Virginia to Wisconsin to visit family countless times, and it was also the vehicle that brought us down to the Outer Banks for our first anniversary, to the woods of West Virginia for a weekend get-away, to Williamsburg and Monticello with visiting guests...I could go on and on. When it was time to say goodbye to DC and move to Chicago, Harriet brought us across country, packed to the gills but still as reliable as ever on those sometimes treacherous stretches of Pennsylvania highway. When we had EJ, Harriet converted from young-married-couple car into baby-carrier extraordinaire, managing to still look sporty from the outside even as she was crudded up with fallen cheerios and spilled milk bottles.

Unfortunately, across the past couple of Chicago winters, Harriet stopped being a reliable defroster. Case in point---even as we were feeling melancholy the day we were bringing her for trade, she iced up on the inside of the vehicle, and we laughed as we scraped little bits of snow all over us in the front seats. It was time.

Thanks to the generosity of my parents, we now own a minivan. Pros: the inside of it is a parents dream. Cons: It is exceedingly hard to park in our parking lot, in the city, etc. Thankfully, we already discovered that if you back into a snowbank in the alley while trying to maneuver through the tiny parking lot gate and the bumper unhinges, it can be snapped right back into place. I'm sure we'll learn other exciting lessons along the way.

(Resolution #3: Practice parking minivan, over and over and over and over.)

So, with a new car in the back and a whole lot of New Year's Eve sushi-making to prep for, I'll close by saying here's wishing everyone a great new year. May it be as active and happy as a three-and-a-half year old. Well, maybe not quite that active.

EJ and the Secretary

I was just listening to the news and heard President-Elect Obama's nomination of Arne Duncan for Secretary of Education. We get asked a lot, living so close to the Obamas, if we ever see the president-elect, and the answer is always no. No, we really don't see him, just his house and his security. We do see the Duncans, though, almost every day.

One of Mr. Duncan's kids is in EJ's preschool class, and I can say with no hesitation that they are quite a lovely family. EJ had a brief conversation with Arne once---usually, his wife, Karen, does the drop-off and pick-up, but about a month into school this fall, Arne came in with her. He is a very tall man---he was a basketball player---and when he came out on the playground, EJ walked right up to him to ask him, "Who are you? What are you doing here?" I guess she was struck by the sight of this tall guy she had never seen, and had to get the info. Karen and a few other parents told me about the interaction the next day, saying how cute it had been. She wasn't worried, just curious, and not afraid to go right up to him and ask him what he was up to on their playground. That's our kid in a nutshell.

I still cannot believe that we live in a place where all of this is happening around us---it is absolutely surreal. We'll miss the Duncans, but it sounds like they are in for quite a wonderful adventure, and I'm so pleased for them.

Like This

I think it is time to introduce EJ to Star Wars, because I can only imagine her description would be something like this adorable girl's version. Enjoy!

Remind Me Not to Fly With You Again, Kid

EJ has dictated two new stories to her teacher, Tiauna, which both center around her plane flight to Washington, DC (a feature of her first story already shared on this blog). Her latest rendition, however, has me wondering if it is a good idea to fly with her again. Judge for yourselves.

Story #1, Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Today I went to school. I flew on a plane to Washington, DC. I did a lot of bouncing and played a cake game. Then Kate came. We played with numbers. The End. By: EJ.

EJ did, in fact, play with Kate (her beloved babysitter) on Monday afternoon, at which time she and Kate made "flashcards" with her notebook paper of all of the numbers from one to twenty. Kate dutifully came up with a different picture for every number---three stars, eight hearts, twelve corn stalks, seventeen snowflakes---her creativity knows no bounds. This is why she is my beloved babysitter, too.

Story #2, Thursday, December 11, 2008

I got some ice cream with black things on it. And I went to school and there was show and tell and the boys and girls played and played. I took a plane to Washington, DC and it crashed in the water! I got back up and flew back in the sky and landed right here on the ground. I pointed to my teeth and I stomped my feet and made bubbles and went potty. Then I go to school and went to the house and got a Saka baby. The End. By: EJ

Spunky little kid, isn't she? The plane crashed, but she just got back up and flew to ground. Sure, it is a happy ending, but even still, I'm going to wait awhile before I book tickets with her for DCA.

Story from a Future Blogger

We just returned home from preschool, and in lieu of the voluminous amounts of art I usually have in hand (EJ is apparently a most enthusiastic painter while at school), I received a story told by EJ, as dictated to her teacher, Tiauna. The story has been placed inside a photocopied outline of a winter hat, which leads me to assume that the kids were asked to tell a winter-time (or hat-related) story. There is plenty of space in the hat for a good preschool tale, but EJ's story is busting at the seams (no pun intended) to fit within the bounds. She's a chatty one. Where could she have possibly picked up that trait?

So, with no further ado, here is her story:

One day, my mommy drove me in the car to a grocery store called Hyde Park Produce. I wore a hat with blue eyes and a smile named Lightning McQueen. I like to go to school someday, called KAM. I like to do woodworks, and fly in a plane to Washington, DC. Then I go to school and paint pink paper with Ava and Harry. By EJ.

Quotable EJ/Bad Mom

Out of nowhere, EJ just turned to me and said,

"Mommy, girls go on rocket ships. Boys can go...um...swimming in a pool."

Good to know. Sorry, little boys planning on a career at NASA---apparently your time has passed. The good news? You can relax in the pool while the ladies take care of the universe.

Also quoted earlier this week, upon receiving a freshly-baked, homemade banana muffin:

EJ: "Mom, this is a Ralphie muffin!"

Me: "What? A what muffin?"

EJ: "A RALPHIE muffin. Ralphie wears a hat, and this muffin is wearing a hat. It is just like Ralphie."

I realized at that moment that the muffin in question had a broken muffin cap, with only one side protruding from the base. It looked like a baseball cap, which is exactly what the character Ralphie from the Magic School Bus book and television series wears every day. A Ralphie muffin, indeed.

Here's one more, my favorite of the bunch. On Thanksgiving, EJ climbed up to my mother-in-law's piano and began "playing" Twinkle, Twinkle as she sang. My very creative mother-in-law heard this, and promptly came into the room with some masking tape and a marker. She marked the notes on individual pieces of tape, placed each tape label on a key spanning a c scale from middle c up, then handed me a piece of paper. She suggested that I write out the song for EJ to follow (see, she's very creative), and I did so. CC, GG, AA, G...I wrote out all four lines, then placed the paper on the music stand.

EJ immediately began slowly and methodically playing the piece, at first stating the names of the keys as she pressed them, but eventually singing some of the song's words as she found the labeled keys. We were all pretty impressed, but the best was yet to come. Once she had run through this a few times, she made this request.

"Momma, can you get Grandma back in here with the tape? I need more ingredients for my song. I'm following the recipe, and I want more ingredients."

Yes, the notes are the ingredients and the sheet music is the recipe. I just loved that she put that together on her own.

Unfortunately, I am not so great at putting puzzle pieces like this together. Take this morning, for example, when we arrived at her preschool 20+ minutes late because we overslept (I was up until 4:00 a.m. doing schoolwork), and I realized that she was one of two children without snowpants on. Today was the first snowfall of the season, and it was absolutely beautiful without being too cold, so her whole class was out playing in it. When we left the house, I had just assumed that they would be inside today---I must have converted into a real Virginian during my years away from the Great Lakes. EJ has great snowpants, it just never occurred to me that they should be used when it snows. Me = super smart.

When I came to pick her up, I was told that children also need shoes for the classroom, since wet boots remain in the hall. Well, of course they do. Did all the other parents figure this out, and bring shoes for their kids to use in the classroom during the winter? Yep. Thankfully, my daughter is unphased by my parental dullness, and appeared quite happy to be wearing some spare slip-on shoes that her teacher had on hand for such an occasion.

I guess Quotable Mom for today would be, "Who is that little girl's mom? Bringing her to school in boots but no snowpants, then not even packing classroom shoes for her to wear the rest of the day? Oh, wait. That mom is me. Zoinks."