Lemony Webbles

deep breath

It's a whirlwind of activity around here, I'm just trying to catch my breath. It's only a whirlwind to me, of course, because I've got three little kids, so anything out of the ordinary happening makes our little dust devils that we normally have into a big sand storm. Billy's been sick, Teresa's acting a little off (hopefully she's not sick), I felt like I was getting sick yesterday but didn't (fa-shew!) there's family in town, the Festival of Ridvan started last night, we're having a birthday party here tomorrow night, we're going out of town for the weekend to see a bunch of people we don't get to see much, and I'm teaching a quilting lesson to Georgia's homeschool group on Tuesday. I'm ready for the quilting lesson, the rest will just have to go easy and slow so we all can catch up. I always get anxious about car trips if they are planned more than a day in advance because of all the preparation that I could do and all the plans that could go awry. When I was little car trips were a locus of conflict because we have some early-birds and some on-timers and some late-getting-ready-ers in my family. I do better with spontaneous trips that are planned the day of. But that doesn't always work out, especially with little kids, nor is it really the best way to organize my life, so I'm trying to learn how to stay calm and not get all overcome with anxiety about getting ready, leaving on time, getting places on time, etc. This reminds me that I was going to use what I learned in labor in the rest of my life. Now what was that again? Something about relaxing and being happy even in the midst of difficulty or pain. Oh yeah.

girls doing their things

Teresa has commenced doing really cute things that make me squeal and the girls try to eat her up. She's got some really big grins, not just half smiles, but smiles big enough that she looks like she's going to snort. And she does all these great cooing sounds and wiggles her whole body with happiness and surprised excitement when she's feeling good. We haven't captured that big smile yet, but here's her playing with Maya:

Here's Georgia with her tomato patch. This is the 'before' picture. In August or so I'll put up an 'after' picture.

Here's Maya rejoicing in her super soccer move: sit on the ball! You can use your butt in soccer, right?

Happiness is...

freshly squeezed orange juice that Georgia squeezed herself, made just for me.

Happiness is also a flower safari in the woods and the resulting picture-taking contest between Billy and I. Everyone's a winner in that contest, especially the flowers which remained unpicked by our enthusiastic flower pickers.

Billy took this one of a bluebell budding

I took this one (I don't know what kind of flower this is. I want to say trout lily but I don't think that's right.)

poke poke poke poke

In the meat section of the grocery store today, Maya walked right up to a package of two pork snouts, which are exactly what they sound like, and poked a hole in the plastic wrap covering them.

Billy and I groaned at the thought of having to buy them (though they only cost $1.50) and bring them home now that they were damaged. How could she pick the most disgusting thing at the store and create a reason for us to be forced to take it home? She was unfazed by the prospect but we were saved from that awful fate by a kind check-out lady who shared our distaste for pig noses and told us flat out that we did not have to buy it. Pha-shew! Billy (always a model of honesty) took them back to the meat department and told a meat guy what happened. He said that that happens all the time. Kids will walk by and poke a hole in each squishy pack of ground beef, all the way down the line. The meat guy just wrapped the pig noses in another layer of plastic wrap and put them back on the shelf. Hmm. That makes me a little nervous. I bet there's quite a bit more I would not like to know about meat packing.

messed with

preschool Spanglish

Georgia handed me our Spanish dictionary opened to a random page:

Georgia: Read this book to me.
Me: Well it's a dictionary. You don't usually read them straight through, you look up words that you want to know about.
Georgia: Well read this page.
Me: OK, I'll pick out some interesting ones. Here's cuello. That means neck.
Georgia: Oh, cuello. So like you're wearing a turtlecuello. (I was wearing a turtleneck shirt.)
Me: Exactly!

Later that day, after learning that nina (exept there's supposed to be a ~ over the second n so it sounds like ninya, but I don't know how to make that letter on my keyboard, so I'll just spell it phonetically) means girl from Sesame Street, I said to Georgia:

Me: So you're a ninya.
Georgia: And Maya's a ninya.
Maya: I'm not a ninya!
Georgia:(laughing) Yes you are a ninya.
Me: Ninya means girl in Spanish. It's OK, it's not something bad, it's just in another language.
Maya: But I'm not a ninya!
Georgia: Yes you are!
Me: It's ok, don't worry, you don't have to be ninya.
(I was so amused by Maya's perfect pronunciation during this exchange that I couldn't help prolonging her agony to get in a little more Spanish practise here.)
Me: And we live in a casa.
Georgia: What does casa mean?
Maya: We do NOT live in a casa!
Me: It means house.
Georgia: Oh yeah! This is a casa.
Maya: No! We do NOT live in a casa!
Me: Ok ok, does anyone want a snack? (change of subject to end Maya's distress)

I wonder why Maya was so insistent about that. Maybe it's confusing or she just wasn't in the mood or there's some developmental psychology reason for it. Its fun to play with languages with the kids after studying language acquisition so much in school because I get really honest reactions and feedback to whatever teaching method I try. Georgia usually laughs really hard when I teach her a Spanih word. She thinks they sound really funny. Examples that have made her giggle: hija (ee-ha), y tu? (ee-2), muy bien (moo-ee beeyen), once (own-say). (Translations: daughter, and you?, very good, eleven.)

On an almost totally unrelated subject, I saw the movie Spanglish right before Teresa was born and I really loved it. I thought the mother-daughter relationships described were so interesting and mde me really think about the potentials of that relationship.