Spirit and logic

On Friday evening after dinner, I sat outside watching my kids draw with chalk in the driveway. A little boy Lyra’s age who lives a couple of houses down came running over to join them, and his parents followed (and even brought me a glass of wine because my neighborhood is awesome). We began chatting about a parenting lecture on “raising your spirited child” I’d gone to at the library last week that neither of them had been able to attend. I hadn’t actually gleaned much new info from the talk, although it had been nice to be surrounded by a bunch of other stumped parents.

“It was mostly just talk about personality types, structure and choices, logical consequences, all the usual stuff,” I told them. I said that, honestly, everything the expert had described as a “spirited child” basically just seemed like normal kid behavior to me, though I did appreciate the framework for thinking of personality types to help me understand the two different personalities I’m dealing with every day.

Then the subject changed to summer plans, while we corralled the kids and helped the younger ones negotiate taking turns on the swing in another neighbor’s yard. And it never occurred to me that Adriana had been paying any attention to what we’d been talking about as she drew rainbow after rainbow after rainbow.

Yesterday afternoon I was in the pharmacy with both girls. While we waited Lyra proved how much better she was feeling by climbing all over the chairs in ways that didn’t seem safe at all. My limited success in distracting her was hampered further as Adriana egged her little sister on. I finally apprehended Lyra as she scaled the back of a chair (what spirit!) and turned to Adriana in frustration, declaring that if she kept encouraging Lyra’s mischief, I wasn’t going to let her have dessert after dinner.

“That doesn’t sound like a logical consequence to me, Mama.”

Friends and I have been joking all along that the problem with parenting books is that our children don’t read them, but now I’m tempted to send Adriana to the library's next parenting lecture on her own.

Things Lyra has said to me this morning

"You look beauuuuutiful today, Mama." (Any time I wear a dress.)

"Wipe my bottom, and then you can get ready for the ball. You are so lucky."

"But I wanted Dr. Natalie to brush my teeth!"  (How is she even my child?) (Parenting gold star for getting the oral assessment form signed and turned in to school on the last possible day even though I've known about it all year?)

"I like animals. And I like meatballs. So I like alive animals AND dead animals."

"I'm going to eat lots of food and grow up so tall and then when dad dies I can ride in the front seat of the car."

"I love boys." (I know she means it totally innocently, but it certainly does make me feel like I'm going to have my work cut out for me in ten years or so.)

Book Review: Everything Was Goodbye

Sometimes I wonder if I just keep reading novels because I’m searching for exactly the right story that I want to read, and I read a lot of good books, but it’s never quite what I was hoping for. And then I read one like Everything Was Goodbye that is exactly right. It’s beautifully written, with imperfect characters and an achingly tragic love story. I got to cry all through the last few chapters--sometimes with happiness, sometimes with despair, sometimes with both at the same time.

Meena is the youngest of six daughters. Her parents immigrated from India to Canada when she was young, her father dying not long after so she has no memory of him. Everything Was Goodbye follows her from the time she is a teenager as she struggles with the conflict between what is expected of her by her family and the larger Indian immigrant community, to the time she is an independent adult, still struggling but having grown. She’s a character that truly matures over the course of the novel, sympathetic but imperfect.

I am fascinated by Indian culture, and stories by Jhumpa Lahiri, Anuradha Roy, and now Gurjinder Basran give me a peek inside a world that is just so beautiful, with customs and intricacies that I find mesmerizing. Everything Was Goodbye captures the uniqueness of the Indian culture blending into (and in some cases being unable to blend into) a western culture, and also what seem like universal emotions and desires. This story is the best kind of love story, with conflict and tragedy and romance.

I’m not saying the entire book is perfect. The language and descriptions are gorgeous, but sometimes I wonder if Basran overdoes it a bit. “The first snowfall held the city in its breath, casting a tinsel chill across the sky, a silvery glaze on windows, and a rosy glow on children’s cheeks.” It’s a fantastic description, colorful and rich, but also almost distracting. But then on the next page she writes, “He’d smiled, that smile that always made me feel two steps behind,” and I’m distracted again, but this time by how exquisite that description is, capturing something so simply yet stunningly. She describes a person as “illiterate in two languages,” another as “a shadow made real” and “more than a memory and less than a dream.” The descriptions of love are never trite, just emotionally true: “It seemed that the longer I knew him, the less I knew of him, yet the closer I felt to him.” I read these descriptions and the truth of them quite literally took my breath away.

It’s so hard not to say more, but to say more might ruin the story which is so beautiful and unpredictable and complex.

They finally decided on indoor soccer. Because that's going to end well.

Scene: Adriana is reading a book on the couch, sulking because I don’t have the craft supplies she wants, while Lyra jumps off the armchair repeatedly, trying to get her sister to play with her.

Lyra: Let’s play tackle!

Adriana: No, I don’t like tackle games.

Lyra: Let’s play princesses!
Adriana: Okay, you be the princess.
Lyra: Yay! I’m a princess!

Adriana: I’m the wicked queen. Go clean my room.

Lyra: I’m a wicked queen too!

Adriana: I’m an evil wizard. Poof! You’re a bumble bee! Go live in a hive.
Lyra: I’m a magic wizard bumble bee.

Adriana: Your magic is only pretend. Mine is real.

Lyra: Then I am a real bumble bee and I will sting you!

Adriana: Mama, Lyra’s being mean! (bursts into tears)

I don’t travel at the speed of anything, but it’s because of children, not tessering

I needed bike tubes, and REI was right there. It was just going to be a quick trip in. I unloaded the kids from the car and headed for the store.

But before we could go in they both had to jump off each of the big rocks in the landscaping out front. And then they stopped to squabble over who would push the button to make the store’s door open. Inside they argued over whether we should take the stairs or the elevator upstairs until I reminded them that the cycling gear was downstairs.

On our way to the cycling stuff in the back corner, they stopped to consider the tents and kayaks. And then the kids’ bikes. And then to whine for new streamers/bells/baskets for their bikes.

Finally we made it to the boring stuff on the back wall. I took out my phone to double check the note I’d made on the side tube I needed. As I tried to recall whether I needed a presta or schrader valve and wonder why I didn’t write that down, too, Lyra yelled, “Potty!”

So up the stairs we went after all, because her voice was anxious, but apparently matters weren’t so urgent that she couldn’t stop to admire the display of kites before heading up the stairs. Or swing from the rails on the way up. Or hop like a frog from the top of the staircase to the restrooms.

Inside the restrooms she considered each stall before picking one. She washed her hands twice afterwards because impressed by the automatic soap dispenser, and made me read her the sign on the trash can about composting the paper towels. As we opened the door to leave the restrooms, Adriana realized that she needed to go too. At least she only washed her hands once.

Lyra walked slowly down the stairs, counting them as she went. When she and I reached the bottom, Adriana was in the toy aisle just beyond the kite display that had distracted her sister on the way up. They each asked for about three things as I attempted to usher them along. Then Adriana picked up a kid’s headlamp, asked how much birthday and New Year money she had left. She’d been coveting one “for so, so long,” i.e., since last week when she played with one at Lyra’s friend’s house, and was pleased to learn that she had the ten dollars she required to purchase one of her own.

We were almost out of the toy aisle when Lyra noticed the Audubon toy birds, the ones that play a little bird call when squeezed. She listened to all of them, then decided to get the emperor penguin chick (which will come as no surprise to anyone who knows her) with her own remaining birthday money.

They were quiet, examining their new toys, while I checked with the guy working in the bike section to make sure I was really getting the right kind of tubes for my bike. I grabbed four because maybe then I would never ever have to come back into the store with these two monkeys.

We went to the front of the store to pay. The kids both insisted on having their own purchases rung up separately so they could pay all by themselves. Lyra was too busy squeezing her penguin to make it chirp and jabbering back at it in her bizarre version of Spanish to remember to fight with Adriana over pushing the button to open the door, but they both still needed to climb around on the rocks out front, and then balance on the curbs on the way back to the car. I got them both buckled in, started the car and looked at the clock.

Forty-four minutes had passed since I’d turned off the car. Good thing it was just a quick stop.

My own little Peter Pan

Adriana: Can I use your keys to get my telescope out of the car?

Me: Dad took the car to a party.
Adriana: No fair!

Me: Well, you shouldn’t leave your toys in the car. You can get it tomorrow.

Lyra: Where’s dad?
Me: He went to a party.
Lyra: But...it’s nighttime.

Me: Grown up parties are different. They are sometimes at night.

Lyra: Do you think there will be a bounce house?
Me: Probably not.

Lyra: Is it a gymnastics party?
Me: Nope.

Lyra: Will there be cake?
Me: I’m not sure. I don’t think it’s a birthday party.

Lyra: Are you sure it’s a party?

Adriana: Lyra. Grownups have boring parties. On purpose.

Lyra: I think I will stay little forever.

Sometimes motherhood make me insanely sentimental. Or sentimentally insane.

The girls both fell asleep in my arms tonight. When I realized Lyra was asleep, I held her a little while longer, then eased my body away from hers, kissing her cheeks and stroking her hair before I left her room, little on my mind except for getting dishes done and getting Adriana off to bed. A couple of hours later, though, as I felt Adriana's breathing change, I thought about the point in the future when she won't let me hold her while she falls asleep anymore. It's already pretty rare, although many nights I'm beside her reading my book. The are nights now that she kicks me out of her room so she can fall asleep on her own, or she falls asleep reading a book and I go in later to turn of the light. Lyra still falls asleep in my arms pretty much every night, but that will stop too. And those thoughts didn't bother me much, because even though it's something I'll miss, I also know that it will happen (is already happening) gradually, and that we'll be ready for it. But tonight it occurred to me, very suddenly, that with each of them it will happen for the last time but I won't know it's the last time until later. I won't be able to record it in my memory and hold onto it as it's happening. And maybe that's best. And maybe I'll still remember it clearly, the way I can still recall the last time Adriana nursed. Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll just remember all the nights in a giant blur as this time when they are so small gets further and further into the past. But I wish I could somehow preserve the feeling of my little girl's warm body against mine, the way we fit together. the way she wiggles for a while before settling in, the weight of her body seeming to increase as she relaxes, and finally the change in her breathing that means she is asleep and I can slip away whenever I want, but I never want to immediately, never want to just dash away from the peace and sweetness of my sleeping girl.

I was going to use a line from the Tom Waits song for a title, but then I remembered what that song is actually about

Last summer the girls discovered the ice cream truck. It would pull up near the park where we were playing and they would beg to be allowed to get a treat, and sometimes I would let them (and get myself one too, of course). Now whenever we hear the music they begin howling for ice cream. The problem (I mean, the one besides wanting to limit our consumption of sweets) is that the ice cream man in our neighborhood seems to be, as a friend put it, a retired NASCAR driver uninterested in making a sale. We have chased him around the neighborhood on our bikes--tricky because there are lots of loops and streets that don’t go through in our neighborhood, so it can be hard to tell exactly where he is, or to get to him in a timely manner once we figure it out--and run down the street as he turns the corner. My girls are working on their technique, though, and have caught him twice in two weeks.

To begin with, Adriana made a list, which charmed me,

Catch Ice Cream Man Do List

1. Hear music

2. Kids run outside

3. Mama get walit

4. Mama run outside

5. Kids jump and wave

6. Buy ice cream

7. Eat it

“Walit”--I love it!

They followed that list last week and were successful in getting themselves a cold, artificially flavored, HFCS-laden treat (plus one for the little boy three houses down). It was thrilling and they have been very frustrated with my refusals to buy them more ever since. But tonight we had just gotten home from their gymnastics classes when Adriana swore she’d heard the ice cream truck music. I wasn’t convinced, but I needed a little bit of time to get dinner on the table which is always easier without tired, hungry, grouchy children underfoot, so I gave her some money and let them wait out in the driveway where I could keep an eye on them as I cooked.

Lyra began yelling at any neighbor who walked or drove by, “Have you seen the ice cream man?” The UPS man drove up to deliver a package across the street, and she asked him, too. “I keep hearing his music. I’m sure he’ll be along soon,” he told her. “What kind are you going to get?” Finally I heard the girls shrieking with glee as the music grew louder and the truck turned onto our street. I stood and watched the girls make their selection, with Lyra speaking for both of them and Adriana paying.

And then I watched the UPS truck pull up again, right behind the ice cream truck. The driver hopped out, thanked the kids for catching him, and bought himself a treat.

Adriana and Lyra brought their treats in and put them in the freezer without argument, and both ate good dinners before sitting down on the back step to enjoy their dessert. I couldn’t resist picking up my camera, as I wondered if they’ll remember any of this: the hot sidewalk under their bare feet while they wait for the truck, the excitement of seeing it turn onto our street, the way the ice cream tastes, or just sitting next to one another after dinner. I hope they do.

I kind of want to switch myself to our pediatric dentist

Adriana’s dentist appointment yesterday wasn’t a complete disaster. And that’s the best that can be said for it. The girl seems to have inherited my anxiety about teeth cleaning, and paired with her normal behavior in new or rare situations around people she doesn’t know well? My expectations for her cleaning appointments are never very high. Yesterday she hid under a waiting room chair as soon as they called her name. We opted out of some x-rays that probably would have been good to have, because none of us thought it would be worth the battle, and eventually she did consent to having her teeth cleaned. She laid on my lap the whole time, and refused to talk to anyone. The hygienist and dentist remained calm, took their time, spoke quietly and rationally to Adriana, and were, in general (and as usual), amazing. There were no threats or bribes, just reasoning, explaining, and being sympathetic to Adriana’s anxiety.

Her anxiety seems wholly rational to me. I mean, the polisher? That vibrates my teeth? Good lord, I feel that all the way down to the base of my spine. Only crazy people aren’t afraid of the dentist! Of course, I don’t say any of that in the presence of either child, and somehow Lyra hasn’t gotten any of my anxiety. This morning when a different hygienist called Lyra’s name, and then asked if she had pronounced it correctly (which she had), Lyra told her, “No, you say it ‘Queen of Lemonade.’ L-Y-R-A. Queen of Lemonaaaaaade!” Then she held the hygienist’s hand, climbed into the chair by herself, prattling on about Finding Nemo and going to the aquarium and nurse sharks and hammerhead sharks and great white sharks. The only time she resisted at all was when the light shone too brightly in her eyes, but they gave her a pair of sunglasses to wear and she was immediately back to being cooperative and chatty.

All this is to say: I’m thinking about taking Lyra with me to my next dentist appointment to help keep me calm.

Still funny after all these years

Me: I hate foosball.
Brian: Look, if it's causing a problem, just tell me, and I'll come in. If that's too hard, maybe we need a code word. Like, say, "armageddon."
Me: [laughs hilariously because 1998]*

Later...
Me: [doing dishes]
Brian: [playing foosball]
Children: [general obnoxiousness]
Me: ARMAGEDDON

Later still...
Adriana: [argues with her sister]
Lyra: [argues with her sister]
Both girls: ARMADILLO!
Brian: [Dies laughing]
Me: [Dies laughing]

*http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blbyol4.htm

After sunset

When I visit friends in Berkeley, I usually stay until the girls’ bedtime, so that I can get them ready for bed there and then just toss them in their beds when we get home. So most of the time it’s dark by the time we’re leaving, but somehow we left tonight just after the sun went down and there was still some light in the sky. As we headed toward the freeway, Adriana pointed out the moon--a slender crescent shining against lavender. Then we were on I-80, headed toward home and I glanced across the bay. The water was rippled and silver, and Mt. Tamalpais was a purple silhouette on the other side with a thin mist around its base. I spend along, and soon Treasure Island was another shadow surrounded by fog, and then the city sparkled against the watercolor sky. The girls were drifting off to sleep in the back of the car after a long day at the zoo with friends and being spoiled by their surrogate grandparents, while I drove and listened to some of my favorite music and felt so, so lucky to be here.

My little introvert

I have a vivid memory from childhood. My mom and grandma took my siblings and me to see Make-A-Circus at the marina. The circus performers put on a show that told a story, and then kids in the audience got to go join a group during an intermission, learn a couple tricks, and be part of the next part of the show. It seemed like a fantastic idea, right up until the part where they divided us up by ages, so that we could learn age-appropriate skills. The oldest kids got to juggle or walk on stilts, while the youngest ones just did somersaults. I don’t know exactly how old I was, but I’m guessing I was about seven and my sister about four (and my brother still a toddler and not old enough to participate), and so we were put in different groups. I didn’t last long in my group. I didn’t know any of the other kids. I didn’t know the grownups who were running things. I was out of my element, and so I began to cry. I was old enough to be embarrassed by my own behavior, so I made up an excuse--a stomachache or a headache--and got sent back to sit with my mom again. My sister was bolder and did fine with her group. She got her face painted and did forward rolls across the ring with the other preschoolers during the second act.

I was a little envious of my sister and the other kids, but also so relieved. Some of it was stage fright, I’m sure, the anticipation of being in front of so many people (even in a group of kids), some of it was likely insecurity about whatever skill my group was being instructed on (I have no memory of what it was), but I think most of it was my fear of doing something new and being away from people I knew (even if they were nearby). I have memories of other times when I didn’t want to do something unless I knew my mom would be along with me, or that my sister or a friend would be doing the same thing, too. I can still call up the feeling of anxiety that I felt. Actually, I still feel that exact same anxiety when I’m doing something new without anyone familiar along, and I also feel it vicariously when I watch Adriana sometimes.

I’ve read a lot of things that say it can be particularly difficult to parent a child who is different sort of personality from oneself--introverted parents don’t understand the needs of extroverted children, and extroverted parents are baffled by their introverted kids, but I’m finding that the opposite is often true.Sometimes I am baffled by Lyra’s extroversion: as we head off to a new place she tells me that she’s excited to make new friends, and she answers questions from adults she doesn’t know without any trepidation. I identify more with Adriana’s introversion. I like to think that the way she is with stories and words comes from me, but I really see myself as a child when I see her with a group of kids she doesn’t know, or when I see her get overwhelmed by a group of people she does actually know.

But I ache watching Adriana cope with new situations. When people she doesn’t know ask her questions, she turns to me and hides her face. I usually answer for her (if Lyra doesn’t jump in and do it first) and don’t force her to speak if she’s not comfortable, because I understand. I remember feeling that way as a kid. If I can’t do something new with her, I try to make sure she’s with a friend. Like me, even having her little sister there makes her feel better about something. I watched her at a birthday party this weekend, noticing how she stuck close to her sister, how she panicked when she thought she wasn’t going to sit next to her sister, how she let her sister answer questions for her.

I have to admit not all my difficulty comes from empathy. Sometimes it’s just so frustrating to me that she doesn’t want to do something because I want her to do it and know that she can do it. I’m finding that identifying with this aspect of her personality doesn’t always help me to be a better parent to her. Certainly, I know that she needs to arrive places early and have time to warm up to a new situation, and I am able to give her the time she needs after we’ve been around a big group (or even after being around kids all day at school) to just read and cuddle, or to just set her up with craft supplies and let her draw and cut and glue in peace for a while. But while we’re in that big group it’s so hard sometimes. I get frustrated that she’s clinging to me, that she won’t just answer the question someone has asked her, or that she’s making trouble with her sister. I know that the trouble with her sister is one way of seeking out our attention: I have been pushing her to do something she’s not comfortable with, so she acts up so we’ll remove her from the situation--she wants to be taken to a time out. But it can be hard for me to identify the problem before she starts to act out, and I end up angry.

But sometimes it helps that I can remember feeling the way she seems to. At least I can look back at how I handled a situation and realize what went wrong. I can remember how hard things could be for me as a kid. And I can be so impressed by her when she does something that I know I would have struggled with. One day recently when I was working in her classroom, I watched her get up in front of everyone and talk about what she had done in her art class. She spoke confidently--a strong voice, complete sentences, real facts about what she had learned and created--and I knew that I would have been terrified to speak in front of everyone at that age, even when I knew all the other children. I thought I saw a familiar look in her eyes, a nervousness that I understood. Yet she was standing there, doing so well, and I was so proud.

And I’m also starting to push her a bit more now. I’ve let her turn down invitations to go home with friends after school in the past, but the last two weeks in a row, I’ve encouraged her to go for it. She’s been reluctant but has acquiesced. “Maybe you and Lyra should come with me?” she asks. “What if you pick me up after school and take me to their house instead of me just going home with them?” she proposes. And I say no and promise I’ll be on time to pick her up, and then proceed to worry that I’ll get a call saying that she’s crying at school and refusing to go anywhere without me. The first week we did it, I found her up to her elbows in a mud puddle in her friend’s backyard, a mud puddle they had created and were proceeding to excavate with shovels and toy trucks. The second week, I knocked on the door, and Adriana had her friend came downstairs reluctantly when they were summoned, all decked out in costumes. Both times she begged for five more minutes, because she was having so much fun, and I gave them to her, because it was nice to sit with another adult and chat for a bit while the kids played, and because it was so wonderful to see her happy in spite of her earlier anxieties.

Cuter than robots

I discovered while watching Wallace and Gromit videos with my girls that it was just what you might call “MST3K: Kinder Edition.” I always mean to take notes on their running commentary when we watch movies, and the other night when we sat down to watch Josh Ritter’s concert on NPR, I realized that I really needed to. So this is a self-indulgent blog post (I suppose that’s redundant), that got a little long, even though I tried to edit it down (so you don't know all the times they fussed that the other one was being too noisy or pushing or argued about whose turn it was for my lap). And also an example of why I don't take my children to anything but daytime concerts outdoors.

As the band takes the stage

Adriana: Wait. Are all those guys Josh Ritter?

Me: No, that’s his band. He can’t play all the instruments at once.

Lyra: I’m in his band.

Adriana: Mom, Lyra’s telling lies.

After a close-up of Josh Ritter

Adriana: His face looks all scratchy.

Lyra: I hope he doesn’t kiss anyone.

Adriana: I hope the first song is Snow Is Gone.

After a shot of Zach Hickman

Lyra: Can I have a mustache like that when I grow up?

Adriana: When will he sing Snow Is Gone?

During Wolves

Adriana: Hey, is this about the Wolves in the Walls? Does he read Neil Gaiman?

Me: I bet he does, but that’s not what this is about.

Adriana: [begins howling like a wolf]

Lyra: Stop that! I can’t hear the music! Mama, Adriana is a-noise-ing me.

Adriana: Mom, Lyra can’t say “annoying” right.

Me: Girls. Seriously.

Adriana and Lyra: [howl like wolves]

Josh Ritter: Wolves underneath the stairs/Wolves inside the hinges/Circling round my door/At night inside the bedsprings/Clicking cross the floor

Adriana: I TOLD YOU THIS WAS ABOUT WOLVES IN THE WALLS.

Josh Ritter: [encourages audience to howl]

Adriana and Lyra: [howl like wolves]

Lyra: Don’t worry, Mama. I’m a coyote, not a wolf. Don’t be scared.

During New Lover

Lyra: New blubber? Is he singing about blubber? Hey, he’s got a song about seals and whales! How come he’s not saying anything about seals and whales?

Adriana: No, he’s saying “New lover.”

Lyra: I love you, I lover you, I lovest you, Mama.

As something goes wrong with our connection and the music and video both stop for a minute

Lyra: Keep singing, Josh Ritter! Now!

During Appleblossom Rag

Lyra: He said apple blossom! That is a flower that grows on an apple tree! Can I have an apple?

Adriana: This isn’t Snow Is Gone. When will he sing that?

Lyra: The blossoms don’t come until the snow is all gone.

Adriana: You’ve never even seen snow.

During Hopeful

Lyra: This song has a lot of words.

During Harrisburg

Adriana: The train song!

Lyra: Mister Mustache is singing!

From then on, anytime the camera focused on just Zach Hickman

Both girls: Mr. Mustache! Mr. Mustache Man!

During Joy To You Baby:

Lyra: I think he’s singing about his baby. Hey, Josh Ritter! Hey, Josh Ritter. Don’t kiss your baby until you shave. You’ll hurt your baby!

Adriana: I like this better than “Joy To The World.” I’ll sing this at Christmas. I bet Jewish people like it too, so it will be good for Hanukkah and Christmas. And maybe my birthday.

As To The Dogs Or Whoever begins

Adriana: It’s the underwear song!

Lyra; Do you think it’s about rocket underwear? I have rocket underwear. They are the best underwear in the world.

At the end of the show

Adriana: Wait, they’re leaving? That’s it?

Lyra: Where are they going?

Me: Just offstage. They’ll probably be back for an encore.

Lyra: What’s that?
Me: It’s where they come back and sing extra songs because everyone was cheering so much.

Lyra: Can I pick the song?
Adriana: It better be Snow Is Gone.

Lyra: THEY’RE COMING BACK. ALL THE JOSH RITTERS ARE COMING BACK. EVEN MUSTACHE JOSH RITTER.

Adriana: This is still not “Snow Is Gone.”

After the concert ended (“Is really finished this time? Maybe they’ll come back again!”), the girls talked about how someday they would go to a real Josh Ritter concert, not just watch on the computer. I decided to keep the show I’m going to in Oakland a secret for now.

Travel journal: Australia!

We arrived in Australia! this morning. (I noticed this past week that none of us say Australia. It always ends with the exclamation point.)

I didn't have high expectations for the journey here, but even my normal attitude about traveling with kids (just expect it to suck) didn't prepare me for this flight. Lyra puked in the car on the way to the airport. I assumed it was carsickness until she puked again not long after we started the second leg of our flight. And I realized she had a fever, too. We were the middle two people in a four person row, with a non-English speaking granny who had an almost-two-year-old riding on her lap on one side, and a very understanding father of three young boys on the other side. He cheered Lyra on for telling us in time to give her one of the airsickness bags, taught her how to call the flight attendants to bring us more, and told her what a good sport she was being. Meanwhile, Brian and Adriana slept for most of the flight about 30 rows back (also in center seats).

Lyra was doing pretty well by the end of the flight. She nibbled on the fruit on her breakfast tray and drank some juice, and managed to keep both down. She was in pretty good spirits as we approached customs, at which point Adriana, who had gotten a bit queasy during some turbulence toward the end of our flight, projectile vomited all over the floor of customs. Luckily I still had her change of fresh clothes in my carry-on, so I took her into the restroom and got her changed, and we made it through customs without anyone throwing a temper tantrum, which I believe is a first for us.

We got to the flat we're renting in Petersham easily, met the incredibly nice woman who owns it, and after getting cleaned up and having a snack, we set out to explore the neighborhood, getting lunch and gelato in Leichardt, and giving the girls a chance to play at a playground.

The kids are fascinated by the birds and plants they don't recognize, but drop bears are a bit of a problem. Brian warned the kids about them well in advance, telling them that sun hats would keep the bears from landing on them to nibble their ears. Basically, our kids don't like to wear their hats, and so we lied to them. But it's kind of backfiring. Adriana was almost afraid to leave the flat because of her fear of them (although by the end of the afternoon she was just trying to spot them). Lyra has declined to wear her hat and at any mention of them (or of Australia!) insists loudly and angrily, "We are not in Australia!"

Lyra's still a bit fussy and not feeling great (perhaps the last sentence already made that clear), so we're sticking at "home" for dinner. The woman who runs the apartment stocked the kitchen for us, so I was able to throw together a lentil soup, and there is already stuff here for breakfast tomorrow morning, so hopefully everyone will wake up healthy (or at least healthy enough to concede that maybe we are actually on The Continent That Shall Not Be Named) and we'll be able to get an early start.

Underwear and sexism and toddlers, oh my!

Lyra's been mostly potty trained for about a month now, so yesterday I took her to pick out some new underwear. There were two racks in the store: one had underwear in mostly primary colors and prints of rockets, cars, and dinosaurs. The other rack was pastels--pink, purple, and turquoise mostly--and prints of flowers and hearts. I showed them all to Lyra who gleefully picked out rockets and dinosaurs.

Then we got to the register. The young woman looked at what we had and asked me, "Oh, didn't you see? We have a rack of girls underwear too."

"But in the training pants, the cut's the same, right? The only difference is the colors and the prints?" I figured I had better made sure, since Adriana had never been interested in colors and prints on the "boys" racks, or even the ones on the "girls" racks that weren't pink.

"They're the same," the woman said. And then she turned to Lyra, "Did you see the pretty underwear? You're a pretty girl. Don't you want some with flowers? You don't want boy underwear."

"Those are not boy underwear. Those are my big girl underwear. For me. Boys can't have my underwear," Lyra said. Loudly.

I kept my mouth shut, but you know what? I was proud.

Worlds

I like listening to the girls talk to one another when I’m in the car with them. Sometimes they ask each other questions about the parts of the day they’ve been apart, sounding like small adults; sometimes they discuss what they see out the window; sometimes it’s they play little role playing games--mostly house or scenes from their favorite books; and sometimes (so, so often lately) they squabble over seemingly ridiculous things (and so I don't always like listening to them talk).

Yesterday in the car, Lyra began telling a story about “another world that is underneath our world.” Adriana has always seemed like a storyteller to me, and it’s fun to see that same trait developing in her sister. “The other world is full of magical animals and fairies.”

Adriana jumped in immediately to correct Lyra. “There is only one world and it is this world. There is not another world under it. Under us is just crust and mantle and core.”

I joke that Adriana is such an engineer sometimes--the way she thinks about things, the way she takes problems apart, the way she looks at the world very scientifically. I think it’s actually just the way kids her age are: they’re learning so much and gathering information and figuring out how the world works. She’s still imaginative and prone to flights of fancy--she is only six after all (and I think the imagination is part of what helps her figure things out)--but I can see that Lyra is still very much in a more fairy tale world compared to her sister.

It’s so tempting to jump in then, to instruct Adriana to let her sister be, to let her go ahead and tell her stories. But Lyra didn’t seem to mind, and continued on the story, so I let it go. It wasn’t long before Adriana was interrupting again to point out a scientific inaccuracy, this time to lecture on volcanoes. And I got to marvel at how much she’s learning at school, about how she really seems to understand things and can explain about plates and magma and pressure and eruption to her sister. And then I marveled again as Lyra listened carefully, seeming to take it all in, and then said, without missing a beat, “The world under this one has volcanoes and the volcanoes are full of fire dogs having parties. And the world above this one has an owl as big as an elephant for a king.”

Rose and The Witch

A story by Adriana
(original spelling preserved)

Once upon a time there was a little fariy named Rose. She herd a rore and she didn't no if it was just a dream or if it was real so qietly she creped out of bed got her rocket and took it out side and climbed in. Then she started it and she didn't no how to control it so she crashed in to a monster and it fell asleep. Then a witch put a spell on Rose. The spell made rose fall asleep. The next day she turned in to a snow fariy. The next day she turned back in to Rose the fariy and came home from her exvender. The end.

Boring bliss

I've had a productive few days this week--nothing major has been accomplished, but I've managed to knock a lot of little things off my to-do list. I joked last night that since I'd done so much, I was basically done for the week.  And that's why nothing practical happened this afternoon. I played tag with Adriana and her friends after school and climbed on the ropes on the playground with them. At home we watched an episode of Mr. Rogers, then did the same kind of art he had done on the show--drawing what we heard as we listened to classical music. I took them out for dinner, since I hadn't wanted to stop playing and drawing with them to cook, and we drove home singing songs. We skipped bath in favor of dancing and a few extra bedtime stories.

So when I said nothing practical happened? I think actually meant that I believe I spent the afternoon the most practical way I could: just enjoying these awesome girls and feeling lucky that I have so much time with them.

/schmaltz

Words

Today I dropped our car off for some body work. Lyra was with me and wanted to know why we were leaving the car behind. I told her they were going to get rid of the dents.

"And the car will have no more dents?" She thought about this for a few moments, then said with honest concern, "But where will the coyotes live?"

We went round and round on this one (because WTF, kid? Coyotes?) before I realized that she was hearing me say "dens." I promised her that we weren't going to make any coyotes homeless by getting our car fixed.

***

Adriana is currently lying in bed trying to fall asleep (at least in theory), but her reading has taken off lately, and while she hasn't yet discovered the time honored tradition of reading under the covers with a flashlight, her brain can't seem to shut off the words running through it. So I keep getting called in to answer "urgent" questions on matters of spelling:

• "What is the I before E rule again?"
• "Did you know some words can rhyme even when they're not spelled the same?"
• "Crossing doesn't start with X, but signs always say 'X-ing.' Why is that?"

I suppose at some point I should  stop going in to answer the questions. But I can't stop my curiosity about what she's going to ask next.

She just called me in to tell me that she would remember the difference between "here" and "hear" by remembering that "you hear with your ear. Get it, Mom? Because the last three letters in that kind of hear actually spell ear?"

At least she's cute.

I had to try hard not to laugh when she said the bit about living on the same planet

Last night Adriana was singing a song from school that lists the months of the year. She did it first in English, then in Spanish. Then I heard her singing "Shanuarysh, Febshuarysh, Shmarsh, and Shaprilsh." At that point I looked up from my book and asked her why she was singing it so silly. "Mama! It's not polite to call other languages silly!" And then she informed me that those were the words for the months in Hebrew. I guess that's what Hebrew sounds like to her, but I pointed out that what she was doing was akin to throwing an O on the end of every English word and pretending it was Spanish--so also not very polite. 

She considered that for a moment and then said, "But the Jewish calendar has different months completely! Even though we live on the same planet! Are they south of the equator? Is that why?" I told her no, and then she began to wonder if there were even words in Hebrew for the "English" months of the year since the Jewish calendar was so different. I assured her that there will still be words for the Western calendar even in cultures that use lunar calendars for religious observances. At which point she began wondering about what to spend her red envelope money on next month, and we moved on. 

There is so much awesome in how this kid's mind connects different things she learns about.