road trip

Both Alaythia and Charlie have a few good sized road trips under their belts at this point in their young lives.   This morning  brought another one. 

Destination: America

Driver: Charlie

Contact in America who they are driving to see:  Chewbacca

Pretty female passenger napping with cozy blankets:  Alaythia

They are bringing all their worldly possessions with them.   At one point Charlie declared they had arrived, but Alaythia informed him that this was just a stop to get gas in the car, because America was a long way a way from St. Louis.

Snack was a high tea at a reliable British pub on the way: Arrival was greeted with squeals of delight:  “It is so clean here!” 

I guess the immigrants were so excited to stretch their legs after that arduous journey, that they did not have time to take a good look at the living room floor. . .

Charlie’s Finale Ballet Performance

Charlie and Alaythia had their ballet recital last Wednesday night.   Both sets of parents have decided that this recital also marks the end of their (short-lived) ballet careers.  For me the decisive moment came about 30 second into their performance, when I had begun laughing so hard I couldn’t see through the tears filling my eyes.  I glanced over to see Jonathan laughing and blushing a beet red.  In every direction were the convulsing shoulders of parents trying their hardest to keep from guffawing out loud.   Charlie?  He was totally oblivious, dancing a solo in head-banging style--wiggling his hips to the music and once, even falling down in his enthusiasm. 

Oh, and he and topped it all off by jumping off the stage rather than walking down the steps at the end. Yes, I think the ballet world will be better off without Charlie’s arabesque…and his parents certainly don’t have the guts to sit through more performances like that! After admitting this, there is not really much space left for saying we are proud of him, but we are.  He certainly enjoyed himself immensely.  (That counts for quite a lot at this age.)  And no one will forget his performance easily.
Here’s the video:   No extra charge for its anti-depressant effects!

let’s play pretend

It’s a play date at our house with Alaythia this morning and the imaginary plot line is getting a little too complicated for this adult!

I came running when I heard, "Mama Keren! Mama Keren san emergency!" 

Then I was firmly reprimanded since I was dull enough to not know that Charlie was Mama Keren and baby Slalie Ponchot was calling *her* mommy, not me.  

Now *mama Keren* is on the *weigher* with several tissues and a *toaster* on his chest.  And he has a *bad ear and mouth that needs a stacking cup*. From the looks of things, it's a pretty bad case, but on the bright side he has a pretty doctor who is wearing a very pretty blue polka dot apron.

So I'm sure he will be recovered by snack time!

how ‘duh boys and goyuls’ play

Charlie and Alaythia are fast friends and I have watched them play together a lot!  They have always gotten along pretty well, though Alaythia is more dramatic and Charlie more physical.         Lately, their gender differences have really been making a difference in how they approach playing. Now, along with the usual territorial toddler conflicts, their spats sometimes also reflect age-old differences between the sexes.

Take this morning, when Alaythia arrived at our house right after breakfast.  The happy reunion was made with much shrieking and chasing—Charlie always chasing. (Hmmm…men like the chase, but can he commit?)

Then Alaythia’s baby ‘Shally’ made an appearance (Opps!) and Charlie wanted to hug her.   Alaythia let him, but told him to be gentle.  (She’s been on the other side of Charlie’s over-enthusiastic hugs! )  After Shally was gently hugged, Charlie was ready to go back to playing  ‘chase.’  But  Alaythia told Charlie he was ‘Shally’s’ daddy, and that he should be very gentle with her because she was still a small baby.   He said, “No, I’m not!!” (Yep, a baby stops being cute when you are responsible…)  She said, “Yes you are!,”  Then she squeaked out, “Hi Daddy!!!” while moving Shally like a puppet, to prove it.  Cue roaring screams and yelling. Charlie had no interest whatsoever in playing house or being told what to do.  (Now that doesn't sound like a man at all, right?)

Skipping over my lecture on the benefits of differentiation and their spoken apologies, we move right along.  Hoping to diffuse things, I sent them out on the balcony to blow bubbles and draw with chalk.  And sure enough, they reconciled by doing something gender neutral together, just not quite how I imagined.  As a team, they united forces: chatting away quite happily about this and that while filling all my empty pots with a paste made out of bubble-blowing soap, chalk and dirt from my potted plants. 

After I busted up their mud pie making business and washed them all off, Charlie wanted to play superheroes with Alaythia. 

She was excited at first.  (What girl doesn’t want to put on a swirly cape, and be chased by her man, right?)  But the fun ended when Charlie caught her and tried to wrestle with her.  “No, Charrrrlie!”  Being pinned to the floor by someone almost twice her weight was not her idea of fun or being loved (though it was surely intended that way).  The result? Dramatic shrieking, squeaking and pendulous crocodile tears.   Alaythia had no interest at all in scratching her fingernail polish while roughhousing.

After apologies and forgiveness hugs were offered, I called a truce for snack time.

In light of all the drama, it certainly made me chuckle with surprise when I heard giggling from the living room and rounded the corner to see this:Their choice was a perfectly negotiated peace between playing house and superheroes!

Not that I recommend this solution where there are real babies involved, but Shally’s mommy seemed to be advocating for her baby to be shot across the living room, so I didn’t feel the need to speak up.  The rest of the morning was spent happily trying to catapult ‘Shally’ and newly named ‘Slally’ (Wendy’s doll) into different containers.  What a perfect merging of the sexes! “An dat’s how duh boys and goyols play, YEAH!”

(…Now, how to turn this into some good marital advice, somehow….)

Conversations with Charlie -or- hitting our stride with 3-year-old logic

• He doesn’t go to school, and there is no context.  He made this statement out of the blue while I was folding the laundry:  “Mama, I jus’ don’t have time to go to space, because I left my backpack at school. Yeah, it’s so sad.”
• Charlie:  “Mama, I think Batman is good at banging down bad guys, but God is good at banging down monsters.”
  Mama:  “God is strong enough to take care of the bad guys too, honey.   God is real and Batman is part of a world that is a story, it is not real.” 
  Charlie:  “But I want to go there!”
• “Sometimes when you take a bite of rice and you cough real rough, your rice comes out.”
• Charlie: “I like me winning!”
  Alaythia:  “I like you winning, too.”
• Explaining to me about gagging on a bite of avocado, which he recently decided he doesn’t like: “When my throat wrinkles, that means it’s yucky.”
• Church:  pronounced “choach”
• “I wish that he was real. Superman.  So that I could ride on his back!”
• While holding his roll at dinner, and talking to us in a squeaky, high-pitched voice: “Hey, I’m hewpin’ the bread talk. Cuz the bread don’t know how to talk.  It’s a baby bread, so it doesn’t know how to talk.”
• Charlie, suddenly looking intently at the navy blue socks I’m putting on his feet: “Mama, are these Batman socks?”
  Mama: “I don’t know, Charlie.  We’d have to research that.  I don’t know if anyone has ever seen Batman’s socks.  I don’t know what they look like.”"
  Charlie: “Maybe us two, just you (pointing) and me, and not Wendy (pointing to her where she is foraging for crumbs under the dining table nearby, looking for all the world like a duck with its bum up in the air) maybe we could go to the world where Batman lives and we would see him and I would tell him to take off his boots and we could see his socks! Then we could talk to him about his Batman socks.  Yeah! That would be a good idea!!!!”
• A silly rhythm rhyming game has been going on for a few minutes.  Charlie has just got the hang of it and is starting to participate.  Then,
  Dada: “123 pot!”
  Mama: “123 rot!”
  Charlie: “123 this game is DONE!”
• Charlie at dinner, changing the subject after I asked him to eat his green beans:  “Daddy are you strong enough to bang a troll down with your glasses on?
  Daddy: “I don’t know, I’ve never fought a troll before.”
  Charlie: Maybe when I’m older we can bang down a troll togeddew.  Just the two of us.
  Daddy:  Maybe we could, if it was a mean troll.  What if it was a nice troll?  Maybe we could be it’s friend instead? We could invite it to dinner to eat green beans with us.
  Charlie: I’m not so ascared of trolls this day.  I’m still not strong enough.  But if it’s a nice troll we will talk to it and be nice to him.  But we won’t invite a mean troll to have supper with us.  [Turning suddenly to Wendy, who is scavenging for green bean scraps on her tray and paying absolutely no attention] I’m tellin a little troll story that had a little Billy goat that was not mean.  But I am not a Billy goat. I am a child.  So I like to eat lots of different things.  [listing now in a sing-song voice] Carrots…beef… noodles…[looking around, noticing his bowl, a moment of silence]…but NOT green beans.”
• Mama: “Charlie, why did you choose to spill those Cheerios and milk on the floor?”
  Charlie, cheerfully, while watching me wipe up the mess: “I just had the idea in my body to spill the cheerios and milk there and then we could take a cloth and wipe them up!”
  Mama: “I have an idea in my body.”
  Charlie: “What?”
  Mama: “This is my idea.  I think you should lean your chin over your bowl, like you know how to do, so that it doesn’t spill on the floor!”
  Charlie, shaking his head sadly: “But Mama, my mouth is just toooooo big for the bowl.”

Bakers C and A share what they know about bread… and how to eat it too!

If you are a baker, you need to take your work seriously.  Don’t forget your apron.  Grab a partner and sprinkle the flour liberally.  Make sure you ignore sister entirely and forget all about the fact that you are her entertainment for the hour.Grease the pan, roll your dough.Then put a toothpick in for every year you have been alive so you can tell your loaves apart—What? You didn’t know that’s how the real bakers do it?  Well, then you just learned something, didn’t you?Then put it in the oven to rise and bake.  Careful don’t burn yourself!  (Oh, Mama, this oven is not hot yet!)Good bakers enjoy to clean up while they wait.  In fact it might even be more fun than baking—if you are a real baker.  Because real bakers don’t stop until all the flour is wiped up, even from the floor!And while those loaves rise and bake, Baker C and Baker A say, “Please, play marbles, read books and color with chalk.  But don’t forget to check on the loaves every 30 seconds while they cool.”  (Baker C recommends taking a bite directly from the loaf as soon as you can pick it up.)  Mmmmmm just in time for lunch.Because every good baker knows you have to eat at least a slice while it is still warm!

“An dats how it woks!  Yeah.  Dat’s how it woks!”

C and A do Ballet

Much to Jonathan’s chagrin, I signed Charlie up for a free ballet class offered by one of our seminarians. Alaythia spends Wednesdays with us and so I thought it might be a fun activity for them to do together. Today was their first class. So we ate an early lunch and got dressed up in our ballet clothes. Of course Alaythia wore pink tulle and looked like she was trying to set a trend for next year’s fashion runways. Charlie did not. He wore his ‘ports shawts’ (sports shorts) and ‘neakews’(sneakers). They were both very excited. Getting these three car seats into the back of our Honda Accord has got to be one of the spacial triumphs of the year. (Acclamations can be sent to Kaybn, Alaythia’s dad.) In fact the first time I tried to close Alaythia’s door it just popped back open again. Turns out it needed a firm hip check to latch properly! But fit they did. And we were off to ballet class in the pouring rain!Parents weren’t allowed to stay around and watch, so I sneaked this photo just as class was starting. (Can you believe that carpet????) Apparently there will be a recital in December and they are learning a little bit of the dance every week. Today they learned first and second position and how to jump in those positions, as well as something called a passe. Charlie also informed Jonathan that they touched their toes. They get a lollipop at the end of every class, so motivation is high to return again next week! Doesn’t Charlie look manly against that sea of pink froth? Stay tuned for more C and A ballet adventures!

Driving…

I do declare the joy of imaginary play is blossoming just like the trees around here!

(Please also notice (and praise her with many praises), how quick little “a” is to share and trade plates with Charlie. It’s a simple moment of triumph in their intense relationship and reflects much hard work and discipline over the last 9 months for all three of us! And, of course, reality is, that I had to edit out the tussle over the rooster plate that followed close on the heels of this encounter! Still, it brings me great joy to see it. )

more of C and little A

There is just so much cuteness when the two of them are together that it is hard to resist posting pictures and telling stories.  I heard Alaythia firmly tell Charlie, “Don’t call me Eya, call me Alaythia!”  The next day, on the way to their house, he was practicing to himself in the car, “Not Eya, Ayaye-ah.”  And sure enough, when he saw her, he tried to say her full name!

With the weather being warmer, we got to go to the park several times this week.  It was wonderful to be out in the fresh air and sun!  (Notice they both have vests on and are holding balls…woe is me when they can’t have/do everything the same way!)Running to our ‘pooh’ bridge.  They throw pinecones and sticks off into the little stream below and then watch them float.  It is very entertaining!After all that running at the park they eat big lunches, take long naps and wake up thirsty for warm milk.  Sometimes they snuggle up in the blue chair to watch a “show” while they finish waking up.  It’s really nice having friends!