Point-Counterpoint

Overheard:

Caroline: The rainbow is red, orange, yellow, green blue, indigo, and violet. [pointing to her own meticulously chosen rainbow colors in order]

Charlie: I do mine different ["diff-uh-wunt"]. I do red, yellow, brown, yellow, purple, orange, and blue.

Caroline nods, tolerantly -- you can almost read the thought bubble above her head: "These 3-year-olds are so cute with their attempts at the rainbow."

[brief pause busy with coloring]

Charlie, with a sort of professorial air: Did you know, St. Nicholas is another word for Santa?

Caroline: Actually, it's not for Santa. It's for St. Nick. Santa is similar but not the same. 

Charlie: Oh....

Now they're singing Winter Wonderland together and stopping periodically to amicably debate the finer points of "kids" versus "kiddies" in the "until the other kiddies knock him down" line.

The Improbable Athlete

Normally, I wouldn't call Mary the improbable athlete. But if you were to assess her soccer skills -- pardon me, skillz -- based solely on this collection of photos, you would assume she spent more time doing jazz hands, clown performances, or that thing where you cross your hands back-and-forth over your knees while wiggling your knees opened and closed than she did scoring goals.

But you'd be wrong! Mary closed out her season with 9 goals and a handful of assists, even though she also announced that she preferred defense.

She was never intimidated by the ball or bigger kids.

She was always in the thick of the action, arms and hair flying.

And she loved scoring. 

She is a much better and more focused a player than I was in second grade. And she has come so, so far since she was a tiny toddler who was so physically behind. I don't know if every parent revels in seeing her kid surpass her, but man, I do.

Her joy in soccer brings tears to my eyes.

Finally, Halloween

Yes, we actually did celebrate Halloween. You wouldn't know it from this blog, though -- until now.

Above, you'll see Charlie's pumpkin on the left, with Mary's on the right. (Mary insists hers is smiling -- she went in for a blocky mouth this year and is rather annoyed that people don't see that expression as cheerful. Maybe if you're eight, with a mouth full of big blocky new adult teeth, that's how you see smiles. ?)

Below is Caroline's. All three kids drew their designs, but I carved most of them, owing to some new, effective, and wickedly sharp pumpkin-carving tools. 

Below, the costume reveal!

Mary was a Sunset Fairy. Or possibly a Sunrise Fairy. Maybe she can be some kind of specialist fairy, who handles both of the purple-and-pinky dawn-and-twilight times. She had a hint of glam. On seeing herself in the mirror, she gasped, and then laughed, and said, "This is my favorite Halloween costume!" She had more makeup than I've ever put on her -- I am puritannical about letting little girls dress up like beauty queens 99.9% of the time -- and the effect, especially in person, was striking.

Caroline was a Ballerina. She was very very very enthusiastic about this costume. The pink ribbons were essential. She didn't catch a full glimpse of herself until after we had swept her curls into a loose topknot, put her tiara on, and applied her own delicate makeup. But when she did, she sighed rapturously, and said, "I am the perfect ballerina." She was, too -- she had this transcendent glow that made her look more like a Dresden figurine than a little girl. Except for when she was eating chocolate. 

Charlie was a fairly adorable astronaut. (Hilariously, Mary and Caroline were teasing him about being a good astronaut or a bad astronaut. All I would hear was "Charlie, you're a bad as-" and I would whip around, all astounded and horrified, and then realize they were just doing it. Again. And again.) I thought he looked fantastic, and he got lots of oohs and awwws at the doors. He also scored the biggest haul -- while Caroline was shyly, with shining eyes, telling neighbors that she was a ballerina, he was scooping candy into his bag.

On the spur of the moment, I dug through Mary's dress-up box and squeezed into a very stretchy witch dress, then plunked her enormous purple witch's hat on my head. I am (embarrassed? proud?) to say that the socks were mine, a hand-me-down from my awesome Cousin Edith.

It was cold (each of the girls had two turtlenecks on under her costume, and Charlie was basically wearing a down comforter in the form of a space suit), but we made it to 11 houses. Not bad for our neighborhood, when the long walks between front doors tend to tucker preschoolers out early.

 Belatedly, Happy Halloween!

Love

For MKPD, Love won the election last night.

Mary decided, on her own as far as I can tell, that it made her sad that people couldn't get married if they were both boys or both girls. We know a few gay couples, but they've never discussed the topic with her. The church we've attended is also staunchly supportive of gay rights, but I don't think she was ever around when that issue was discussed in detail. She seems to have come to this conclusion independently. And the election became a single-issue election for her.

This morning, she was waking up, and groggily asking me who won. "Barack Obama," I told her, and found a picture online of Obama and Biden on Election Night. She blinked at it sleepily. "Oh, and look," I said suddenly. "Maryland and Maine passed the same-sex marriage laws."

She sat up, suddenly. She looked at the iPad screen, read the words. And then she smiled and her eyes brimmed with tears and she threw her arms around me, burying her face against the front of my PJs. "Yay," she said, all muffled against the flannel.

I don't know if I can live up to this child -- I think even if I didn't agree with her I would admire her for her fearless belief in kindness and fairness and love -- but I am trying.

Playing Catch-up

Oh, where to start? 

We skated along through September with soccer and so forth:

Caroline, despite her initial enthusiasm, didn't like to actually play against other kids -- a bit of a handicap in her charge to become the next Mia Hamm. She thoroughly enjoyed the practice portions, but she really hated the competitive scrimmages. She wasn't alone. There was one kid I never ever saw take the field. There was another who would play like a champ for ten minutes and then burst into tears and spend the rest of the morning clinging to his dad's leg and hiccuping convulsively. Above, you can see La daintily returning the ball to her coach.

Mary, on the contrary, hit this fall's soccer season with some awesome aggressiveness. She's a very strong player this year -- she challenges the other team and steals the ball and then turns and takes it toward the goal. She anticipates position beautifully too and gets to the right spot. She's scored 6 goals so far, and had a couple assists. She is AWESOME. Why no pictures? I'm usually too busy screaming "GOOOO MARY!" to take pictures. I'll get some.

We went to Foxfield Family Day. 5% steeplechase, 95% percent other stuff. Oh the joy of the pony rides! Oh the face painting! Oh the moonbounces (not pictured)!

Charlie has been loving his new class at school (this year, he graduated from the Toddler Class to one of the Children's Houses). He likes both of his teachers, but he tells me there's one he likes a lot more, only because the other sometimes rubs his back at rest time and that makes him fall asleep. So he's basically nursing a grudge against his other teacher for her nap-inducing skills. Bad! Bad teacher!

Mary continues to be such a hilarious blend of mature and young, wittily funny and obliviously literal. We were following a car that, in place of those little decals representing the mom, the dad, a handful of kids and some pets, had a row of little Stormtrooper helmets -- two large ones and three smaller ones, two with bows. "Look at that!" she said, pointing it out to me. After a moment, she said reflectively, "I guess that whole family has gone over to the Dark Side."

Caroline's been having allergy shots -- did I mention that she tested positive for quite a few things, including yeast, thus explaining her dislike of bread, pizza, and a whole bunch of other things that have yeast in them? Anyway, the allergy shots won't do a thing for the yeast allergy, but they will eventually give her an easier time with all the airborne environmental things that plague her. She gets the shots twice a week -- two shots at each visit -- and she's such a stoic. They say she's their best kid patient because she never, ever, ever cries or fusses or objects. If this doesn't seem like the Caroline you've heard about, well ... let's just say when she's decided she wants something, a little pain is worth any amount of gain. And she has decided she wants allergy shots.

Her stoicism stood in her good stead when a really awful thing happened in early October. Through a complicated set of circumstances, her hands and legs and bottom were burned when a piping hot apple pie flipped over into her lap. I got her clothes off and her skin cooled down pretty quickly, but not quickly enough to avoid some bad burns. We ended up at the ER soon after and have been being followed by a plastic surgeon weekly since then. It's been tough to keep her comfortable and to wait and wonder how some of these burns will turn out -- all the way better? a faint scar? something more serious? There are photos -- but I'm not posting them right now. The good news is that she's much better.

Oh, there is SO MUCH to talk about. I'll try to get to it, I really will, but it's been hard to keep up. Thank you for bearing with me. 

Pneumonia

Oh. My. Gosh, what a week. Charlie and Mary both had pneumonia and were out of school for practically the entire week.

They're doing great now -- Charlie is coloring pictures of cars, Mary is braiding lanyards, and Caroline is overseeing their activities in between coloring princess pictures -- but it was tough to hear them coughing their little selves to pieces, and tough for us to be out of work so much last week.

But there were some bright sides.

Awww. Do you like how she's looking at the camera, to make sure we're getting all this cuteness? Yeah.

They watched a lot of TV and movies, as we merrily broke our self-imposed guidelines about little to no TV during the week, and as a result, this elaborate game was played out a day or two ago:

Mary to Caroline, her voice made husky by the pneumonia: "I will shoot you, after I shoot him!"
Caroline: "Who is he?"
Mary, her voice dropped impressively: "He is your brother."
Caroline: "Who are you?"
Mary: "I am Darth Vader. I am ... your father."

(pause)

Caroline: "I want to play a DIFFERENT game. Can we play "Annie"?"

 We've been listening to a lot of music too, because I've found that as we hurtle around town in my car, with the kids squeezed three across into the backseat, I can sort of keep the peace by letting them pick all the songs we listen to. A typical playlist -- an incredibly typical playlist -- might run like this:

• "Call Me Maybe," Carly Rae Jepsen (Mary)
• "Tell Me Ma," Gaelic Storm (Caroline)
• "Party Rock Anthem," LMFAO (Charlie)
• "Rolling in the Deep," Adele (Mary)
• "Hot N Cold," Katy Perry, (Caroline)
• "Folsom Prison Blues," Johnny Cash (Charlie)
• "Good Vibrations," The Beach Boys (Mary)
• "Don't Falter," Mint Royale (Caroline)
• "Hit the Road Jack," Ray Charles (Charlie)
• "Lights Out," Metric (Mary)
• "Wings of a Dove," Madness (Caroline)
• "Walking on Sunshine," Katrina and the Waves (Charlie)

... and on, and on, and on.

Next week, life rolls on, pneumonia (presumably) recedes, and Mary starts soccer, Caroline and Mary restart piano, and Charlie and Caroline begin staying at school for lunch and some afternoon activities three days a week. What do I start? Making a lot more labels for lunches, presumably!

In Absentia

No, we did not lose ourselves on the dunes and never come home. Instead, I took an unscheduled vacation from blogging this summer and left y'all hanging. Sometimes, there's so much going on that you don't know where to start!

I still don't know where to start. But in the next few days I'll be starting to post again and, while I won't be able to recount every detail of the summer with the usual amount of specificity, I do have anecdotes and pictures to share! For the moment, I'll leave you with this:

Pure

 and

 total

silliness.

From top to bottom:

Caroline and Charlie snuggling with Big Puppy, whose future is so bright that he has to wear shades.

All three kids rediscovered their winter coats, gloves, boots, hats, and scarves and charged outside into the heat to play.

Mary says: "So call me maybe." Hello tween years, here we come.

OBX Day One

Atop the dunes in Jockey State Park

A (very) brief stint with my long-lost stunt kite.

Hot tub!

Getting ready for tubing!

"Steve Holt!"

They loved the speed.

Esme kept saying "Make it go faster!"

I actually got Caroline into the tube.

Mommy on water skis. So fun.

Triumphs

... of one kind or another.

This one's a big one. Guess who's wearing undies these days?

HOW COOL is THAT?! OK, it's a pretty awesome milestone anyway, but for a kid with spina bifida, especially where his is/was, it's friggin' awesome. I could write this whole entry in underlined, bolded, italicized caps, and it still wouldn't be enough shouting for the AMAZING AWESOMENESS of this development.

Charlie signaled his readiness by removing his Pull-Ups and hiding them in unexpected places around school and home, slipping his pants back on, and going commando until people noticed. Well, OK, kid, stop with the subtle hints. And please stop taking your diapers off before bed, because, sorry, but you're not there yet.

In other triumphs, the girls completed their third race event this season and have qualified as Triple Crown winners!

I have no pics of Caroline's race, because at the last minute she insisted on me running it with her, but here's Mary yukking it up at the beginning, and working hard a quarter-mile in.

So proud of them!

This and That

Whitewash
I inherited an impulsive, hell-let's-DO-this-thing trait from both my parents, so it should come as no surprise that after a year of being a woman of inaction, and grimly disliking the terrible, low-quality builder's brick that dominates one wall of my family room but not doing a thing about it, I sprang from my bed while everyone was napping the other weekend, went downstairs, and whitewashed the entire mantel and hearth.

Before:

After, and at night, so with totally different lighting:

 The next day, with another coat, the fireplace doors removed, and still other lighting:

 

Lest you cry out that brick is sacred, etc., etc., let me offer you a close-up of this stuff so you can see its cheap orange-ness and brutally rough surface on all planes.  

If my brick had had the beautiful variation and glow of aging bricks baked to mellowness in a Southern sun, with smooth, time-worn faces, and gently meandering lines of mortar, I would have been all over that. But instead they were brutally regular and unendearing, with uncompromising lines of dingy mortar marching between them, and ineradicable smoke stains. (The photos, in fact, are friendly to them, minimizing the '70s rec room effect. Oddly, the photos also make the latest effect look whiter than it is.)

Anyway, the room is much brighter. And it's nice to have that litter of junk off the mantel. Now to put the perfect painting up. And find some new fireplace doors, which, it turns out, are a seasonal item at Lowe's ... and not this season.

Swing

  Three kids. Having fun. The picture of Charlie especially cracks me up. He looks like a big kid!

Bleah
Poor Lala. A couple nights ago she came and got me out of bed, saying in a tiny little voice, "Mommy, I threw up."

Like all parents everywhere, when awoken in the night by this announcement, I asked hopefully as I stumbled into her dark room, "Are you sure?" I suppose somewhere there is a parent whose kid has answered, "No, I'm not sure," and it turns out it's all a mistake and everyone goes right back to bed. But I don't think that happens very much.

As is so often the case, Caroline was right. She had thrown up. And she proceeded to get sick again and again for the next several hours. Poor baby -- I would follow her into the bathroom and hold her steady while she suffered through the whole business, and you know, when a kid is really sick and their little body is racked and convulsed by the process, it's hard. Jared took over later in the morning and kept her comfy in between visits.

Finally, our pediatrician (problem: I occasionally call him "our vet" by accident. I don't know what it says that I get these particular terms mixed up, but probably nothing good) called in an anti-nausea med for her, and with that and some Pedialyte, she turned it around. By the next morning, she was shakily devouring a banana at the kitchen counter, and she added graham crackers and applesauce and even peanut butter as the day went on. So, yay!