Archive for May, 2012

Bookworm Memories


2012
05.22

Rose loves to play outside when she gets home from school.  Dillon could go either way, but Rose loves hanging out in the yard.  We have one rule, she has to keep me apprised of where she is at all times, she can’t move from the front yard to the back without letting me know.  (This rule was born of a moment of complete heart-attack-inducing panic one day where she was sitting on the swing playing nicely and I was screaming my head off looking for her in the back yard, but she couldn’t hear me because the traffic on the street can be pretty loud.)

So today she was sitting on the swing while I was making dinner and she came in and asked “can I take my book up into the tree to read?” 

I told her it was fine as long as she didn’t try to move while she was climbing.

The picture here only sort of gets at what she looked like as I spied on her through the window.  I remember doing that when I was a kid.  It always seemed like a better idea than it was, as your butt was likely to fall asleep and you would most certainly have little bugs crawling on you by the time you made your way down, but it was also pretty awesome.

And yeah, my daughter climbs trees in dresses.  Don’t judge.

Later, she brought her book in and went back out with her iPod on, and proceeded to serenade the neighbors passionately with a garbled version of the Hairspray soundtrack.  She comes in strong at the chorus, and her dance moves are awesome.  But I remember standing on my front porch when I was in 7th or 8th grade with my friend Erin, singing along to Whitney Houston’s How Will I Know as it blared out of my pink (cassette only) boombox.  Watching Rose, with her pink headphones belting out “Good Morning Baltimore!” really takes me back…

Religious Studies


2012
05.13

Working on Rose’s first communion workbook with her yesterday morning. The question she needed to answer was something like, “What did Jesus want his followers to do?”

Rose’s answer – “Turn water into wine.” I explained that while that was something Jesus did, he didn’t really expect that we would be able to do it by ourselves…

Four short stories


2012
05.11

My kids have been cracking me up lately. Here are a couple of sweet/funny/crazy things they have said and done…

Rose: Mom, there was a bake sale at school today.
Me: Oh, dang, Rose, I am sorry, I forgot I was supposed to send something.
Rose: Mom, you don’t have to be sorry, I only needed to bring something if I wanted to. It’s okay.
She’s such a sweet kid.  Really.  She’s so lovely and concerned with everyone’s feelings and really doesn’t want anyone to be upset.  A teacher at school stopped my mom on the playground to comment on what a “kind child” Rose is.  Those were her exact words.

Dillon: [getting in the shower] Mom, what is a coop detot?
Me: Uh, do you mean coup d’etat?
D: Yeah. [implicit ‘duh, mom…’] What is it?
These kinds of questions get me – because I have to tread the fine line between explaining something to him like he’s ten (and therefore talking down to him) and remembering that he’s ten and trying not to go too far into the weeds in my explanation…

Me: [Laying out clothes.] So, do you want to wear this shirt to school tomorrow?
Rose: Uh, no mom, I need to wear something I haven’t worn for a while. How about this one?
Don’t get me wrong, she’s always been extremely into clothes.  From pretty much the first thing I bought her.  (And here.  And probably a bunch of other places on this blog.)  But she’s never said anything that indicated that other people were paying attention to what she was wearing.  Heck, she’s had dresses and outfits she begged to wear over and over.  There’s a little sense of foreboding about this one…

Dillon and Charles traveled to Madison to see Neil deGrasse Tyson speak. More on that on Charles’ blog, I am sure – it is a great story and I need him to write it down. Rose just couldn’t miss school after missing a week to go to Louisiana with her grandma, so we had a girls’ day after school… We ran an errand to the Girl Scout store to pick up some badges for the troop, then we stopped at Maxie’s for dinner. We walk in, and Talking Heads’ Take Me To The River is playing. She immediately breaks into this funny little dance routine, and is totally rocking out as we are standing in front of the host station. Then the manager guy, who is behind the host station, breaks into a dance with her. It was pretty freaking awesome, and a testament to everyone – even complete strangers – pretty much loving Rose from the minute they meet her. We picked up fish and chips for her and sweet potato fries and collard greens for me, had a fabulous dinner, and spent the evening re-dying her pink highlights and fixing her manicure. We had an awesome night!