Maybe we'll frost them instead

We finally took the Littles to the pumpkin patch this weekend. Misters favorite part was the tractor pulled hayride. He's still talking about it. 

We all picked a pumpkin, and the sisters helped me set them out in the yard later when He was in bed. 

This morning He was dazzled to wake up and find a bunch of muffins- because He insists that's what they are- growing in the yard. 

No idea how we will carve all those giant muffins. Or how to keep Hom from trying to eat them. 

Little One Turns SEVEN

Today my Little One is seven.  Seven.
It has been a wild year, full of challenges.  She moved to a new state/town/home/school.  She weathered Her father disappearing into residency and Her mother going back to work.  She had three health emergencies at school, including on picture day and Her birthday.  She lost three great-grandparents, a grandfather, and Her dog.   She switched schools again.  She started riding the bus, 2 hours a day.  She found out that when the year is over, She will switch again, and oh- also be moving across the world.  (More about that later).  She adopted a fish, took on gymnastics, piano, and swimming, and had a sweet baby brother morph into a 25 pound wrecking ball.  And she lost a bunch of teeth.
 Little One has dealt with all of these things in the Little-One-est way possible; with grace, resilience, and cheerfulness.  Little One, surrounded by challenges, peers out onto a horizon of endless mountains and sees a grand adventure in each one.  Her first instinct on facing any steep terrain in life is to find a foothold and start climbing.
As my little girl begins truly to grow up, Her innate drive to Try Hard is something I find so beautiful and inspiring in Her.  It's this adventurous, open-hearted spirit and willingness to go through the struggle of something new that has brought Her through to being a seven-year old who seems to excel at everything She tries.  It's because She tries, and tries, and tries again until She gets it.  I might want to be like Her when I grow up.  In the last year, Little One has covered a lot of ground.  She has:

- Done well in school, and been accepted into the accelerated STEM program at the magnet school that is practically in Siberia it's such an long bus ride from Her mother.  Ahem.

-Become a self-described "book addicted person", consuming books like a flame.  In the last year she has read the entire magic treehouse series, fairy series (good riddance), and most of encyclopedia brown, in addition to stacks and stacks of others.  She usually gets about 20 from the library each week, and burns right through them.

- Started gymnastics for fun and was invited to team-track.  Last week She completed a gym right-of-passage and climbed 20 feet of rope to stick Her name tag on the ceiling!

- Become super interested in robotics, and for Her birthday asked for "small motors, lithium batteries, and lots of scotch tape".

-Begun cooking meals and baking all by Herself.

- Gotten pretty good on Her bike, though not yet ready to let go of training wheels.

-Managed to keep in touch with friends from Her old school, and also make great new friends on the bus and at Her new school.

-Moved forward in swimming and with Her grandad's coaching learned to dive.

-Been a flower girl in both Her aunts' lovely weddings!

-Taught Her brother the alphabet song, and also how to Cha Cha slide.

-Grown tall enough to ride some of the rides at a theme park

-Taken good care of Her fish.

-Eaten probably several metric tons of sushi.  (should I not have put those last two in a row?)

-Realized that Her parents are not perfect (that one stings a little)

-Loved us anyways (at least so far).

-Loved all of us, actually.  All of of us in the immediate and extended family, neighborhood, and basically the world.  She loves the whole world.  She wants to take care of all the everyone.

Her Loves and Not-Loves:

Loves:
Sushi
Seaweed in any form
Japanese food in general
Hot Dogs/Tofu Dogs/anything called dog that gets ketchup on it
Home made bread and honey
French Onion soup
Ethiopian food
Brussel sprouts
Sugar.

Reading
Robotics
Pokeman (because the bus kids play)
Anything that ends with Her covered in mud
Traveling/visiting new places
Learning about Anything
Making Mister Laugh
Art projects and pretend with Missy
Chasing the boys
Riding the bus
Dancing
Cooking (French Onion soup is Her specialty)
Vegan Baking (Brownie Pie is Her top recipe)
Riding Her bike
Being altogether silly
Pigtails
Headbands
Sparkles/ruffles/fancy shiny anything
Sleeping/snuggling with Her sister

Not So Much
Mushrooms
Bell Peppers
The idea of cheese or eggs.  The look and smell and existence of them.
Sitting at the Peanut-free table at school
Missing Her dog
When Little siblings don't get the memo about Her being In Charge
The "frog" stretch at gymnastics
Playing with dolls/barbies
Scary movies or stories
Lights Out at bedtime (She would read until midnight)
Sleeping/snuggling with Her sister

Little One at seven alternates between being curled up reading, practically in a coma She's so still and  quiet and unaware of the rest of the world, and being a whirling top, cartwheeling through the living room, dancing in the kitchen, creating utopian worlds in the backyard with Missy, constructing 4-foot cardboard robots all over the basement, and asking ALL. the. questions.  About ALL the things.

She's at a fragile stage of growing up, wondering aloud if there's really such a thing as a tooth fairy, but not daring to think about applying the same logic to Santa.  She wants the freedom to wear Her crazy mis-matched outfits and to ride Her bike beyond our line of sight, but still wants cuddles and lullabies before bed.  She's beyond wanting us to read to Her, but still likes to read right beside us.  She thinks She should watch these movies Her friends talk about, like Star Wars and Jurassic Park, but hides behind me when Bambi's forrest catches fire.  Sometimes in gymnastics I watch Her, steadily stepping along the high-beam, and it feels familiar.  She's walking the line between a Little Kid and a Big Kid.

Knowing how close that era of Her life (and ours) is now, it's impossible not to look ahead, as a mom, and go breathless with the wonders and worries of the more complex years ahead.  But being around Little One helps me to keep from panicking.  Hanging out and chatting with Her, it's hard to imagine She could ever not be sweet, fun, and fantastic.  When I'm with Her, I see all those challenges ahead in the Big Kid years for what they are through the Little One lens- adventures waiting to be taken on and made into successes.  Mountains waiting to be climbed.

Seven on the Seventh.  A golden birthday! Happy, happy birthday Little One, my golden little girl.  We love you so much, and love going through all your grand adventures with you.  May you always climb with such strength.   

The Story of E

When J and I decided to adopt a friend for X, we wanted an older dog.  We searched and looked all over.  On our way out of the city shelter in Baltimore, there was a racket coming from a dark little side room.  The shelter volunteer let me go in and open the door of a medium-sized airline crate, jam-packed with puppies crawling all over one another, saturated in mud and waste.  Those poor little things.  Maybe I could just hold them a little?
The volunteer shrugged and led us to a visiting room, and dumped the lot out onto the floor.  J and I  played with them tried to comfort them, and then we went home.  We continued our search throughout just about every shelter and adoption event in the state.  Somehow we never found the right furry friend.  And somehow, we kept talking about those puppies.  Somehow, even though we had agreed not to choose a puppy- we ended up back in the same room, with the same puppies- the four left now that they had been made available for adoption.
They were all cute and full of personality.
Except one.
One didn't play and yip and nip and wiggle.  It didn't chase a toy or tackle our faces or chew our toes. It just cowered. It wasn't cute, either.  The runt of the litter, it was all black and had a body too small for it's head, which was too small for its ears, leaving it looking more like a bat than a canine.  It was painfully skinny and bony, mangy and scraggly with goopy eyes.  It had little scars and bald patches from being picked on by it's brothers and sisters.
It shivered by the door as J and I wrestled the tumbling roly-poly rest of them, and then slowly, quietly, so we didn't even notice, crept up, crawled into my lap, curled up, and sighed.
Oh my goodness.  J could tell by my face in that instant that resistance was futile.  She crawled into my heart the same time she crept into my lap.
E ended up in the shelter because her litter had been a "welfare seizure"- meaning they were forcibly removed from their first owner due to abuse.  Between that and being the bullied runt, she came with all kinds of problems.  Medical problems (mange, worms, mites, infections).  And psychological problems- terror at loud sounds, strangers, or long objects (brooms, mops, spatulas).

Refusing to go either up or down

The vacuum cleaner was the actual devil as far as she was concerned.  She would yelp and hightail it to what became her bunker- the exact center spot under our bed.  A passing motorcycle could send her there for the rest of the day.
She was hard to train because she couldn't stand raised voices or crates.   And you try getting a stubborn dog out from under a queen sized bed- it's like wrestling a rabid chimp while spelunking in a cave tunnel.
She had food issues to the extreme.  If I set out a full bag of dog food, she'd have eaten her way to the bottom until she actually exploded. We know this because she has eaten herself into violent illness every chance she's ever had. She'd inhale, engulf her food.  And she would eat anything.  We'd let her out to pee and find her tunneling into the compost pile, refusing to give up a half-rotten banana peel.
This got her sick all the time.  E throwing up became as normal as a colicky baby's spit-up- there was always something.  Once a neighbor threw chicken bones to her over the fence.
That ended in a week-long veterinary hospital vacay to the tune of a couple thousand dollars.
She got car sick. She hated to get wet.  She was afraid of dogs, squirrels, big rocks, steep hills, puddles, and everything else ever.
As she grew older, she drove us to insanity by growling at everyone who entered/walked by/drove by/made any audible sound from any distance.  At 45 pounds, looking like a sleek black german shepherd, she scared the bejeezus out of I don't know how many people.  Once she followed my grandpa around the house nipping his heels.  She always waited until no one was looking.  Poor guy had some dementia by then, and no one believed him for days until she got caught.

"Look at me I'm all friendly and harmless. Those feet look tasty though."

She developed a strange habit of picking out the weakest looking kid on the playground or person in a group, waiting until their back was turned, then racing over, nipping them in the butt, and darting away.  She was so stealthy, people sometimes would look around and think they had imagined it.
We sent her away to a trainer for weeks.  Not much changed, except our bank account.
But we loved her all the same.

As a puppy, neurotic and skittish as she was, she was so sweet, so affectionate.  She loved for me to rock her like a baby, to carry her around.  Even nearing 50lb, she always thought she was a lap dog at worst, a furry baby human at best.
Though we wanted a companion for X, he turned out to hate the idea.  The first thing he did when he met E was to bite her soundly on the nose.  Despite that, she adored him so constantly and gently that he finally gave in, and the dog who hates dogs would curl up to her to sleep at night.
E surprised us by becoming the quintessential loyal companion to all of our littles.  She'd fiercely guard and protect them from all real and imaginary threats.  She'd plays with them tirelessly, and was always, always there to snuggle. Ever since Little One was small, I'd look over in the yard and see Her draped over E like a blanket, suffocating her probably. Singing.  E would just lie there like it was the best day of her life, wagging her tail.


She's raised her hocks at every stranger, but never growled or snapped at our babies, no matter what.  She's patiently let them climb on her, dress her up, "wash" her, lead her around, tug on her ears, brush her, wrestle her, and take her toys.  I once was two steps too far away to stop Mister as He went up to her during her dinner, and curiously reached his arm inside her mouth- while she was chewing- and pulled out some of her food.  She just looked at Him, licked His hand, and went on with her kibble. 
She would never run away.  When we'd walk she kept her pace just at my heel.  She would do anything asked of her as long as she understood.  After nine years of being loved by us (even if she did drive J and I crazy half the time), she settled into being a really sweet, loyal dog.  To us.  To extended family, she finally got friendly, too.  To strangers, She would threaten death until J or I told her to back off.  Which frankly I was ok with. No one was going to abduct my Littles from the backyard while I get the laundry.   And she never, ever stopped loving to curl up in my lap.  It was her most favorite thing.  Except food.
Which is how we knew something was wrong.
It was actually Little One who knew first.
"Mom, sompin's not right with E.  Her tail's not right and her ears are all down.  I think she's sick." 
Little One and E have been best friends since day one.  They've spent the summer playing pirates digging for treasure together, being explorers racing around the yard, thieves stealing J's tomatoes for snacks, fairies learning how to fly.  (In fact I took her to the vet covered in glitter.)
Little One knows E like no one else.
After Little One's tip, I watched E closely.  She was acting droopy.  And, despite the fact that she'd been getting fat and the Littles had been getting scolded for feeding the dogs a lot when they weren't supposed to- she wasn't really eating much of anything.  X was eating her leftovers, and she hardly touched her bowl.
The more I thought about it, the more she didn't look fat, just weirdly heavy in the belly.  When my mom came, she agreed.  She urged me to take her in.  Knowing E, I assumed she'd eaten something she shouldn't have.  The Sisters came with me, and I joked,  "how much will it cost us to fix you up this time, silly girl?"  But it wasn't that.
It was a tumor.  The size of a small watermelon.  It was taking up her entire abdomen, squeezing her organs aside.  It was so big, it took a radiology specialist to ultrasound around it and find out where it was even coming from.  It was her spleen.  Apparently that happens, in dogs.  Sometimes.

All that white fuzzy stuff is her tumor

We were told there was about a 50/50 chance that it was either a madly aggressive and lethal cancer, which would kill her in short order no matter what, or a totally benign growth that could be cured by just taking it out. But if we didn't take it out, it would eventually explode.  Which would be a sudden, scary, awful thing.
We couldn't know whether she'd make it through surgery, or whether it would really help her in the end.  But I feel pretty confident, that if there were some different kind of emergency, and it came down to life or death for me or my family and E could decide?  She'd defend us with all she had.
So we sent her in.  Her heart wasn't beating properly, and medicine didn't help it.  But we decided to go ahead anyways.  Amazingly, she made it through.  A ten pound tumor was removed, she spent the afternoon recovering with her IV, and though she was wasted on whatever was in that cocktail, she drunkenly walked out of the hospital, and we brought her home.
She seemed to be getting better. She wasn't eating, but she drank some water, cuddled and nuzzled us, and refused to pee anywherebut the greenbelt down the street.  So we walked.
Missy drew her a "most specialist pictuh evah ba-cuase I love her to im-PIN-ity- and that's the muchest".  Little One read stories and sang to her.  Even Mister understood she wasn't well, and pet her gently, calling her name softly.
J came home from a night shift, and I'd just taken E on a trip down the street and back.  He was laying with her while I cooked.  The Sisters went to play at a neighbors house.  I've never let them do that before.  But today they were gone, just at the time J came running out of the bedroom, calling me.  There wasn't time to even dial the vet.  She started to breathe quickly, she kind of spaced out, and then...she stopped breathing altogether.
And now she's gone.
I'm so awfully sorry that she didn't have a chance to recover and feel better, even for a day.  That she was drugged up and had staples from her chest to her tail and never understood why we did that to her.  As her Person, I feel responsible for everything that lead to that moment, and for everything I could have done better for her in the last 9 years.
I think it's cruelty of fate for a little girl to lose Her dog two days before starting a new school.  I'm sorry for X who will miss his friend.  I miss the security of letting the Sisters play in the yard while I work, knowing E would be kind to them and alert me if any danger came near.  I miss the certainty of a cuddle and a greeting every time I looked her way.
But I'm glad that it wasn't as painful as it could have been.  I'm glad she was home, with her People right beside her.  I like to think that confused as she must have been, perhaps she knew we were trying to help, and that we loved her.
Which we did.



And we do.

Meeting Little One the day She came home

Best friends from Day One

Helping LO learn to crawl

Helping Her learn to walk

Meeting Little Miss the day She came home

 

Partners in crime

 She loooooved snow

All 3 too happy to get in trouble

Adventures In Learning

I can't believe the summer is winding down.
Little Miss is very excited to be returning to Her montessori school, where She will be starting Kindergarten.  She's very, very excited to be staying all day this year.  I am very, very much in denial about the whole thing.  I like to tell myself that it's the same montessori class (mixed ages 3-6) so it's not really really kindergarten.  Even though it is.  I try not to think at all about Her being gone all day.  I just can't with all that.  But I'm glad She's going back to a school that we all love and which I am pretty sure will be a positive educational, social, and emotional experience for Her.
That's Montessori, though.  You get all this happy fuzzy stuff, and all it costs is an arm and a leg.
Public school, on the other hand.  That is free!
Sadly, Little One's kindergarten year was worth just about exactly what we paid for.
I actually liked the school.  The principal was competent and nice, the teacher was friendly, the kids were all as cute as only a bunch of snaggletoothed 6 year olds can be.  I liked the other parents and hosted a weekly coffee and cake so I could hang out with all their awesomeness.  I got to know the nurse (a little too well) and trust her to look out for my girl.  I PTA'd it up and was elected to be the VP this year.  Little One and I started a book club after school.  It was a dream to be able to walk both Sisters to school every morning.  I mean, Little One's school is about one block from our house!
The thing is, Little One had all that Montessori pre-school.  And She has this voracious appetite for learning.  She's been known to randomly get interested in something- the revolutionary war, or greek mythology- and go on a bender where She can't read or hear enough until She feels like She's learned Alllllll The Things about it!  So.  Before school started, I met with the principal, and said I thought maybe She should start in first grade.
The principal smiled, and chuckled, and gave me a "hey now, Tiger Mom, let's take it down a notch!" speech, and showed me the door.  Ok.  So, maybe, her points about Little One having just moved to the area, and going to public school for the first time, and the food allergies and all that being overwhelming as it is were valid.  So we went to kindergarten.
At the first teacher conference of the year, in October, Her teacher said to me,
"well, Little One has already met all the indicators for the end of the whole year! So... She's good!" Thumbs up.
I said, "Great, but, so....what's next, then?  I mean, She needs to keep learning throughout the year...new things, right?  So...what's the plan for Her then?"
Teacher stopped smiling.  And that was the start of the trouble.
Little One loved kindergarten, in that She loved recess.  She made lots of friends and became "leader of the girls team" on the playground, and loved everyone in class.  She got awards for being helpful and respectful in class. But She complained a lot about being bored.  She would finish the homework for the month in one evening, but I gave Her other work from bookstore workbooks, and She read a lot, so I wasn't really worried.
Then I went to parent day.  Waiting for my turn to observe the class, another mom greeted me all teary.  "What happened?" She asked.  "What did Little One do, to be punished like that?"
I was alarmed.  What DID She do?!
"She has to sit all by Herself! All the other kids are together in groups, but She had to be in the corner by Herself all morning!" 
So I asked the teacher.  "Oh no, She's never in trouble! But mornings are reading centers, and She's in Her own group.  There's one kid who reads at a level 8, but the others are all 2s and 3s, and Little One...is a 16.  She just can't read with the other kids." 
I observed.  Little One, who was reading chapter books at home, still had to sit at circle time and repeat over and over, "C says Cuh! C says Cuh!"    
She raised Her hand after a story, and was waved away, "Little One I KNOW you know the answer, so let me ask someone new".  There were worksheets later. She finished Hers in two minutes.
"What does She do now?" I asked the teacher.
Blank stare. "Well, it's a 15 minute center... so.  She can rotate when the bell rings."
"Could She read a book or something while She waits?"
"We can't let everyone do whatever they want. They have to stay at their center. The rules are the same for everyone."
I was in class for three hours and Little One did basically nothing, the whole time.  But She was still expected to sit still and be quiet.  By Herself.  Keep in mind, because of Her food allergies, She was already seated at Her own table at lunch.  She already had to stay apart from other kids while they ate the school provided breakfast (which She wasn't allowed to skip watching Her classmates eat, as that would have made Her tardy and reported as a truant).  So except for recess, She was set apart all day.
At home, She started saying that reading wasn't fun, because you couldn't have friends if you can read. She started pretending She didn't know how to do math.  She became so used to doing all academic work in 3 minutes or less, that when I introduced a challenging problem at home- something She would have exalted in before- She would get frustrated and call it dumb and give up.
I talked to the teacher.  I asked if She could be grouped with kids from other classes who were at Her reading and math levels.  But it was no longer "policy" to group kids out of their assigned class.
I asked if She could get worksheets from first grade teachers to work on while She waited during center time.  I was told it was absolutely not allowed to introduce anything outside the KG curriculum.
I pleaded for Her to be allowed to do Her work at a table with other kids. I had to actually beg, and promise to tell Her to hide Her worksheets so She wouldn't be a "show off" and make the other kids "feel bad".  Later, Her teacher said she turned out to love having Little One at the table with other kids, because She "helped them all with their work".  But, other than getting different books to read and some extra homework (to appease Her mom), She was never allowed to have any work that entailed learning something new.  All. Year.
Now, I know that a kindergarten teacher has a really tough time, because there are 15 students and they are all across the spectrum of learning.  Some have had 3 years of preschool, like Little One, some have had no school, or are just learning English.  That's a lot to handle, trying to meet all those needs.  I understand prioritizing the kids who need help to catch up- they need that help.
But as an advocate for my child, I couldn't accept that She had to spend six hours a day bored out of Her mind and being made to feel like an outcast.  I couldn't stand seeing Her wonderful passion for learning squelched as if it were a nasty habit.  I had a lot of talks with Her teacher and even the principal about how I could help Her, and got nowhere.
At the end of the year, I went to an info session on what the curriculum covers for each grade level.  It was clear that the work She was doing at home was about the middle of second grade level stuff.  So J and I asked to skip Her to second grade next year.  People, you would think we had asked for the actual Holy Grail. You would think I had asked them to bring me a pink unicorn.
The administration had heard of this mythical "skipping of grades"....but never actually SEEN it. It didn't really exist.
But since we insisted, they had to do something.  So they decided on an "evaluation period".  They pulled Little One out of class parties and music and art, to test Her and test Her with reading and math specialists.  At the end of this three month period, I went to a meeting.
I was told that, while She got the answers right on the math tests, She had to be failed on the evaluation, because She wouldn't always explain why She got those answers. She was docked points for doing math in Her head, because She didn't show Her work.
Example:
"what is 18 take-away 7?"
"It's 11".
"WHY is it 11?"
"... Because you had 18...then you took away 7."
"Can you show me why on paper?"
(on paper): "18 minus 7 is 11 because that is what is left."
Wrong.
I was told that, while She was reading on an end of second grade level, She wasn't ready to start second grade, because when the specialist asked Her about the books, Her answers were short and to the point, and She preferred non-fiction, factual information over discussing how She felt about things.
The reading specialist pointed out that not once, not once, did Little One ever re-open a book to look for the answers- which was a VERY important indicator for using resources.

C: "Did you know, that on the school's red-yellow-green behavior scale, Little One has been green, every single day?"

Punk Reading Specialist: "No, but what does that have to do with.."

C: "Ms. LittleOnesTeacher, has Little One ever broken a rule in your class or failed to ask your permission before doing anything She didn't know the rule about? No? So, Ms ReadingSpecialist, I have to ask.  Did you ever tell Little One that She was Allowed to look for answers in the book?"

PRS: "Um...no."

C: "Because I'm pretty sure She would have thought that would be cheating."

PRS: "Well. Oh.  Well.  She still was supposed to...it's a...uh...it's an indicator...."

Right.
In the end of the meeting, it was clear to see that they had never really considered skipping Her.  They don't believe in unicorns at all.  All of the reasons given were basically that while She could get all the answers right, She was shy enough with strangers to give them a reason not to move Her.
In the meantime, while all this testing was going on, the principal called me in for a talk.
"You know, not that we're trying to get rid of you, because we love you guys. But there is this school, a magnet school, for kids like Little One who are just...how can I... who are sort of....humming along at a different frequency.  You might just consider it." 
It happened to be the day before the deadline to apply for this mysterious odd-frequency school, so we just turned in the paper, just in case.
Then we had to send letters from teachers, letters from us, transcripts, report cards.  Little One had to do an interview and go to a testing session which we were not allowed to watch.
We googled and found that there are people whose whole career consists of tutoring little snaggletoothed 6 year olds to pass that test.  That hundreds of people apply, and only 25 get in. So we forgot all about it, and went back to trying to skip Her a grade.  
Then we got an acceptance letter.  
Supposedly, it is the same curriculum, but there are "acceleration opportunities" for STEM subjects. And there will, they promised without my having to ask, definitely be other kids in Her reading and math groups, doing the same stuff.
The place is an hour away.  Little One has to be there, and leave there, at the exact same time Missy has to be at, and leave from, Her school over here.
Instead of walking 5 minutes, I'll have to drive Her 15 minutes to the bus stop, where She will have an hour long bus ride to school.  If She has an allergic reaction or an asthma attack that doesn't respond to medication, as She did last year, I won't be able to rush right over.  There will have to be an ambulance.  This school does NOT sound fun, for ME.
So we deliberated and discussed, talked and thought, J and I.  What to do? Then we asked Her.
The so-called Queen of recess, who loved Her friends and teachers so much, what Her preference would be, so we could consider that in our decision.
She didn't miss a beat.  She didn't hesitate, and She was unequivocal.
"Please.  Please please.  PLEASE let me go to the new school!"

"But you know you won't see all of your friends any more. It will be all new. You won't know anyone there, and it will be different."

"Yes, I know.  But I can make new friends! And different stuff is good, cause that's what's an adventure, mom.  And besides...maybe...maybe...maybe at the new school, I won't have to teach the kids stuff all day with their work.  Maybe we could work together instead. That's all I want."  

 Ok then. I'm nervous about Her being so far if something goes wrong.  I'm scared to death of the bus.  I'm going to miss Her those two hours a day She will be commuting to school, and I can only hope it will be worth it.  And truthfully?  I'll miss the PTA and the moms I chatted with at pick up and all of that too.  All I can do is try to follow my Little One's lead, and make new friends. Hope that just maybe it will be a place where She can fall back in love with learning.  And realize that different is good, because that's what's an adventure.

Not Breaking The Internet

C:"time for dinner! We are having daddy's famous chickpea masala!"

Littles:"yay!"

Then Little One gets all teenagery and rolls her eyes. She deadpans: "famous? It's not famous."

C: "well, sure it is!"

LO:"is it on a website?"

***crickets***

LO:"yeah. Didn't think so. Not famous." 

But Her Vocabulary Is Progressing Well

The miracle of learning to read is an altogether different experience with Little Miss.
She wants to be able to read.  Secretly.  She practices and tries- when no one is watching.  She is learning, slowly, but it is not. yo. business.  
So.  Practicing together takes patience.  She gets frustrated, She says She gives up, She huffs and puffs and wriggles around.
But She reads.
So tonight we practiced.  It was brilliant, watching what She can do- if She will.  When we finished, She went to bed frustrated that She'd had to try so hard, and mad at me for sending Her to bed (an hour past bedtime) instead of next reading to Her.
But Miss is so extremely practical.  She wants to know the reasons for things.  Once She deems them necessary, they will be done.  So as I tucked Her in I tried to explain to Her the magic of reading.

"When you know how to read, you can do ANYthing!  You want to fly? You can read about how to become a pilot or how to build an airplane! If you want to go down under the ocean and meet an octopus, you can read and learn how to become a diver, and where to find an octopus.  If you want... (searching for something relevant to Her interests)...if you want 50 cats, you can read all about how to take care of cats, and-"

Miss can't take it anymore.  She interrupts, Her fists clenched, Her eyes piercing: "Arg! FIFTY cats? FIFTY?! UGH! Mom- that's WUH-DIC-A-LUS!"

I can say nothing.  I mean.  She's right.

Missy: "Fifty cats. Theh would be no woom foh anyone. Wu-dic-a-lus."

And She rolled over and went to sleep.  

Bad Blood

A benefit to writing your own story is you get to be the hero if you want!  Which, of course, I do.  SuperC! Saving the day by changing the baby with one hand and sticking a bandaid on the preschooler with the other, while answering the gradeschooler's questions about why a / is used to denote fractions.  Tum-ta-da!

But every good hero has nemeses. One of mine, is Kidzbop.  

This diabolical entity is many things.  But in my life it takes the form of a Pandora station that plays all the crap pop songs you have never heard of because you are not a 12 year old girl, and then plays them in re-mixes performed by Alvin and the bleeping Chipmunks.  

I have Little One's Kindergarten teacher to thank for this monstrosity.  Apparently, she liked to play it in the afternoons and let the kids dance around to such educational gems as "all about that base".  The Disneyfied version.  She let Little One set it up, so Little One knows all about how to get Kidzbop on any device.  And She is. OBSESSED.  

It is all Kidzbop, all day.  Every. Day.  And so, SO loud.  

In my effort not to already be the curmudgeonly older generation (too much) I mostly try to just plaster on my haunted grin, and bear it.  Though sometimes it feels a little like the CIA is probably playing a joke on me, spying to see how long it will be until I crack under the torture.  

Sometimes I get into it and dance along. But really, guys, as a general thing?  

Chipmunks singing Katy Perry??? Why????

Every time I think I win a battle against this villain, playing something else, or hiding the iPad, it's little minions find a way to blast it again. 

Last month I arrived in Ethiopia, allllll the way across the world, in a place where there is no Pandora.  No Spotify.  No iAnything.  No Kidzbop! And what do I see. 

 I CAN'T ESCAPE!

Both Sisters are into this stuff.  

But at least I have my uncorrupted baby. 

Last night, I was washing Little Mister in the tub.  He started singing. 

Mr: "ya wa ga baaaah bod! ya wa ga baaaaah bod!"

He's so cute! Right?  So cute, all innocent and tiny, singing in His sweet little voice in the tub.  Singing His cute little made-up song.  

His sisters hear Him and start giggling.  A little too something, those giggles.  

They clap for Him and say, "Yes! Yes that's right!"

Then they start signing.  They start singing: "baby now we got bad blood you know we used to be bad love..."  

And I realized my sweet baby was singing some violent, angry, girl-drama Taylor Swift song.  

He learned Bad Blood before the ABCs.  I die.  

Kidzbop Strikes again.    

Living The Dream

There's a thing about my job with this charity.  It's amplified, I think, by every heartbeat with which I truly believe in what I am doing, in who I am working for.  It's this inability to keep work and life separate, at all, because the two things live together in my heart.  They share real estate, so there isn't such a thing as moving from one to the other at the end of the day.
There's not such a thing as leaving anything at the office, because for one thing my office is my house, so I'm literally always in it.  But for another, the work isn't about place, it's about what's taking up space in my thoughts, in my heart.  I have a photo above my desk of the AFC kids when they were small.  It's tacked up with the little handmade cards and pictures they've given me over the years.  So that when things get hard, I can look up and be forced to remember why.
I read something lately about this "do what you love, love what you do" mantra.  I believe in that concept in a sense.  But it sounds so breezy, like doing what you love means you're just hanging out riding on endorphins all the livelong day.   That would be some strong kool-aid.
This past weekend we had a big fundraiser in Los Angeles, and there were so many wonderful things about it.  I had the chance to work with some really good people, to share a story and cause I wholeheartedly believe in.  The team there did a good job and people came and understood the mission and supported and that was great.
I also missed a lot of sleep, missed my kids, missed the only weekend J has off this month.  As happens in life, there were also glitches and issues and problems, and in the end I'm home still dealing with those things and I'm entirely exhausted.  I'm feeling a little defeated, discouraged, overwhelmed.  In all honesty?  I feel like quitting.  I want to pack up and go be a hermit on a mountain somewhere and stuff my fingers in my ears and sing "LALALA!" to just completely drown out the world.  I would bring a lot of chocolate.
Haven't we all had those days? Maybe not the hermit thing.  But days when it feels like your best is not enough? Like there's never going to be an end in sight where it will be enough? When we feel like quitting.
I feel about this job much the way I feel about parenting.  I love it.  I love it.  I love it deep down to my core, out my fingertips and toes and through the atoms of each cell in me.  I want to be here.  I asked for this, and I jumped for joy when it happened, and I feel it is my great privilege and honor and joy to get to do this with my one life.  I. Love. What. I. Do.
But that is the easy part.
The hard part is not the loving.  It's the doing.  It's the part where even when I feel like quitting, I just... don't.  It's the part where I'm so tired, in my body, in my heart, that I can't get out of bed in the morning.  But- for the things I love- I do.  It is rehashing the same issue with the same people on the phone for hours and hours when I was supposed to be at dinner with my family.  It's staying up all night going over the books and the math again and again.  It's telling my son for 500th time to please sit down in the bath tub.  It's cleaning the pee off the floor.  It's enforcing the rules when I'm too tired to talk, and wondering what I'm doing wrong that I really have to explain again why we don't jump on the trampoline with pencils in our hands.  It's laying down finally at one am and popping right back up to soothe a nightmare. It's stopping what I'm doing- even if it's something very important to me- to ooh and ahh over the leaf She found with the orange spots, because that's something that is important to Her.  The hard part is doing what I love.
No matter how big and how sincere my Love is, for my work, for my kids, for the people and things I care about, there are times I fail them.  There are times I feel like I have no business doing anything for anyone, and times I really think the hermit thing with the chocolate has got to be the way to go.  Things are hard sometimes. Even the ones I love. Maybe especially those.
I won't do everything right or take everything in stride, and I certainly don't expect to be kicking back with my kool-aid riding those perpetual endorphins anytime soon.  I'm tired and I have heartburn and someone else's snot is in my hair and I've been yelled at a lot today.  But when my alarm clock goes off in the morning, I'll will get up, and just start moving.
Because I love what I do, I do what I love. 

Baby You're A Firework

 For Independence Day, we celebrated with all the standard stuff.  Picnics, bounce castles, popsicles.  Construction paper flags, big band music, and glow sticks.
Documentary videos and books about the history of the declaration of independence, of America, and fireworks.  And of course, fireworks.
I think this might be the first year Little Miss has stayed awake long enough to see any.  Since last year we were all sleeping by the time the sky lit up, it was also Little Mister's first encounter.
He was amazed.  At first, He jumped and held onto me like we might all be about to blow up, and looked at me like, "whatintheholyheckmom!" But when He saw that I wasn't in a panic, He settled in to watch (from the safety of my lap).
He kept pointing up at the display and saying, "Color! Color-color! Color! Nice."  
Nature celebrated with us, too, as a big orange harvest moon climbed up through the lights.  It was as amazing as the fireworks.  Mister pointed- "Ball!" He asked for it.  "Ball! Please?" 
Oh my Mister.  If only I could fetch you the moon, I would.
Luckily, the whole point of the holiday is that you are lucky enough to belong to a country in which you have the freedom to chase any dream you choose.  If you want to shoot for the moon? Have a ball.