First, a little SPRING CLEANING:
Honestly it's been such a long two months I have no idea when I took that picture, but I remember I did it to get her to stop crying and it worked like a CHARM. Rosemary, if nothing else, is task- and goal- oriented. She likes -- almost always but not always -- being given adult responsibilities. I've let her cut with a knife for at least a year now (and she does it with aplomb -- she's a genuine help in the kitchen), Windex, sweep, supervise Louis brushing his teeth, walk to Esme's house alone (I think I may have given Alicia a heart attack, even though I was at the top of the hill watching her) and many more things that I can't think of right now! I wasn't there, but I would have been a great parent in the 70s when they let the kids run rampant by themselves around the neighborhood and I'm not convinced that we shouldn't do it now (except for car traffic and getting ostracized by my parent-peers!). I know that I for one, until maybe the last few years when I can see the benefits of being a kid (about the time I had my own!), was so incredibly happy to be a grown up an get to make my own choices -- I think not a day went by when I found it exciting that I got to structure my day the way I wanted and make my own choices. Crazy.
On the other hand, I still try to control my kids big-time :-) Especially about social interactions, as I've found it necessary. I never expected social exclusivity and taunting each other to start in preschool, but it certainly seems to, and I hate it. I got so tired of trying to deal with it myself that I enlisted the help of Rosemary's very talented Life Ki Do teachers -- they teach martial arts but the lessons of social skills/kindness to others, self-control and discipline, and doing your best (rather than competing with others) are very much built into the curriculum. The founder of the studio is very outspoken about the need to teach kids not to bully each other, and I agree. That said, I have learned a lot in the past two years, including how much to take seriously what kids report about each other and to their parents, how much to take seriously what other parents report to me, and also when to let up on my own daughter and stick up for her (which oddly wasn't always my first instinct). Basically, I needed some perspective. So I set up a special session for St. Mark's kids, which was attended by about 30 people, including parents, kids and a few teachers. It was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed sharing the school with our friends.
Bryson (one of Rosemary's candidates for marriage -- she's currently deciding between him, Luke, and Esme -- Bryson is coming up as the winner because -- I swear this is her conclusion that was not put into her head by me in any way -- she can't have babies with Esme) pulls Rosemary by her feet:
Stella pulls Flora:
We invited everyone to our house afterwards for pizza and s'mores, which was a blast. The easiest kind of party with almost no set-up, wow. We were amazed.
Beatriz was our resident marshmallow roaster:
Louis started Life Ki Do in March, and does the "Little Tigers" class where the parents participate. He has gone with James several times and really loves it and takes it seriously -- after all, he's been watching Rosemary do it for almost 9 months now, patiently (I have to say, he's a good boy -- he just sits with me and watches without being disruptive for the whole 30 minute class, and he's fascinated by it!). They do this thing called "ninja breathing" and a few months ago -- before Louis could really even talk (since his talking has developed THAT quickly -- it really has grown exponentially this month, even)
The kids have been getting up every day and working on elaborate creations together lately. This was one original creation which combines many of their
father's interests with their own -- it's a fishing pier, combined with a
rugby field, and a playground.
This was all Louis -- another fabulous installation:
Though when I was a kid, Easter was my favorite holiday, quite honestly as an adult I wasn't feeling it much -- until this year I guess! The kids are old enough, and were REALLY excited about it, so I got more excited about it. Also, my mother and my friend Eileen were also really excited about it, so I got more excited about it. I think the kids really enjoy routine anticipation; I guess since they remembered the egg hunt at school last year, etc. it was all the more exciting this year. Rosemary literally, and pathetically, took out the egg dying kit from the drawer where it was placed every morning for two weeks and just stared at it, took out the components, and lovingly examined each piece. She also pre-assembled all the crappy paper egg holders that come with the kit.
Easter weekend was also James's birthday this year (he was born on Easter Sunday!) which was fun -- we had a fabulous dinner at Texas French Bread on Saturday thanks to my dad and celebrated his birthday.
So I got decorations this year, though I hardly needed to since the kids made so many in school, and I was able to gather MANY stuffed bunnies from our stuffed animal bin:
Those pink bunny candles are from my childhood!:
And we dyed eggs with my parents and Aunt Mo:
That evening we moved onto the next challenge: egg-blowing. Rosemary and I had received a goose egg and a duck egg at the farmer's market that morning and put Nani to the test. It turned out to be WAY too hard --until my dad had one of the more brilliant ideas I've ever heard. He suggested that we take one of those compressed air cans with the thin little straw attached that you use to clean keyboards (which we happened to have) and use it to blow out the egg. Heck yeah! It worked like a charm. We could have blown a thousand eggs that night.
As ANYONE reading this far down clearly knows, I am not known to promote leisure amongst my guests. I put Paul and Maureen to the task of assembling hundreds of Lego figurines for the egg hunt (I couldn't bring myself to stuff all the eggs with candy -- I'm not an anti-sugar fanatic but I have my limits -- so I used Lego figurines, some candy, and our foreign coin collection. The Legos were very popular, I think the kids were too young for the coins, but I did make Rosemary polish all the coins so they were shiny which I think was a nice touch). It turned out to be pretty hard; glad they were there to do it as my dad, unlike the eggs, didn't do the greatest job -- he had about 50 "extra" parts left after they were assembled. Granted, he did it with both Rosemary and Louis on his lap!
I won't forget easily Louis running into our room full speed yelling "THE EASTER BUNNY BROUGHT ME MY OWN WORKBOOK!!!!" He was so thrilled, I was thrilled and a little sad (of course Rosemary had pretty much finished his workbook by the end of the day). Both kids also got these awesome Citiblocks, which I think are beautiful and I think they will be able to incorporate into their many, many other kinds of structures that they build:
Mom and Dad took the kids to church so we could get ready for our big afternoon Easter party. Beautiful Suzan Cerny and Rosemary Suzan go to church:
One great bit of unexpected entertainment was when it started to threaten rain, quick-thinking Paul (Maureen's boyfriend) and Paul (their roommate) jumped onto the roof to put a tarp over our pergola. It was a funny site to see them up there trying to spread it out, enlisting the help of the folks below to evenly spread it.
Then there was the EASTER EGG HUNT! Paul, Paul and Maureen did a great job hiding over 120 eggs all over the back yard. We gave Louis and the little kids a head start and they did pretty well. Can you find them?
Tom helped the kids count loot, and carefully sorted and tried the jellybeans:
Dad, Rosemary, and I had a lot of fun picking up the pig from Sebastian (he was French) at the Farmer's market. I am not squeamish -- was tested in hunting school -- but I did have to cut him short on his detailing of how much milk the pig suckled and how hard it was on the mom. Don't want to hear that.
James lovingly makes a rosemary-lavender brush with which to brush his suckling pig with oil. Of course, the whole time we were thinking of the 30-year old mulberry wood they used to smoke the pig on the villa... ah... la France. What memories....
Trying to scare us with the frozen pig...
And skewering it. Even Rosemary didn't like the fact that it had to go through the eye...
My awesome husband hand rigged that rotisserie so it would work over our fire... it turned slowly for eight hours!
Karen, Jody, and Eileen
Karen and Tom:
Clearly we didn't have enough candy! So it was time for the all-Texan Easter tradition of a bunny pinata, courtesy of the Hales. This time we let the big kids go first:
Damn, those two girls are birds-of-a-feather -- just standing there like vultures, not even hitting the pinata (a distraction), waiting for the candy to fall:
More self-praise -- this was a great spring/Easter menu! One of my best. We had:
All with herbs (dill, mint, parsley, rosemary, and lavender) from our garden! And fabulous French rose and after dinner some of the finest single malt Scotch (including the Laddie 10, thank you Becky and Murray!) thanks to our Scottish connections. And mom set a great table on our new 12-14 seat outdoor teak table that she found for us, which was perfect.
Now we both had to admit -- having the suckling pig was great fun, and all the men enjoyed watching it roast, but it was a lot of smoke to inhale for James for 8 hours, and a lot of work. It wasn't NECESSARILY better than what we get out of his Bradley smoker. On the other hand, our meat provided an after-dinner puppet show and endless entertainment:
At the very end of this blog, I'm going to put a bunch of kid anecdotes that I don't know how to fit elsewhere. Most involve Louis -- for a reason. I know I keep saying it, but because Louis's speech was SO limited until recently we really didn't know what he was thinking. It's been fascinating to hear him talk and tell us what he's thinking -- increasingly so all the time now. Late speakers are interesting because once they do talk, they have way more to say than a typical baby.
LOUIS
- This is an old one, but points out how sneaky Louis is. At Christmas, Julie made a pie. We couldn't find the vanilla ice cream ANYWHERE even though I was 100% sure I had bought some. All of a sudden everyone realized Louis must have taken it (it's very telling we all realized this) -- we looked in all the usual places, including his workbench from Aunt Summer. We looked in his plastic toy BBQ. And there it was, only slightly melted! Hidden away for personal consumption...
- Louis was climbing up the tree on top of the treehouse, which is really way too high. I told him, "Louis come down right now!!" He said: "Mom, can you please go inside and close the door?"
- Mina: "Oh Louis, you're such a cute baby! Oh, no not a baby. You're a big boy." Louis: "I am LOUIS SPINDLER and I KILL BAD GUYS!"(This is incredible to me, where does he get it? I guess at school because he's NEVER seen any TV that has superheros or bad guys or guns -- in fact, I think the ONLY TV he's ever seen is Sesame Street and Busytown, and he is constantly walking around making shooting noises)
- James's childhood friend Bob was in town and brought the kids gifts. He brought Louis a little bug collection box which the kids both adored, and spent the afternoon collecting rollie pollies. At the end of the day, he proudly announced to me that we could eat the bugs for dinner! (Several times). It was so cute, and he was SO serious, that I really, truly almost conceded. I was *this* close... I wasn't happy about it, but I didn't see any way out.. Fortunately we diverted him some way or another (we can outsmart him for maybe another six months?)
- Louis at breakfast: "Mommies don't kill animals, only guys fight hogs." Dad: "What? No, we had a mommy on our hunting trip!" Louis, "No."
- Louis, upon seeing someone with dark skin at Home Depot, "Nana is dark." (I only list this hear because I found it remarkable that he made the comparison and told me about it right away -- ala Nurture Shock)
- The most amazing moment of the past several months, which literally about broke my heart in a thousand pieces was at a recent birthday party. When leaving, he looked our hostess in the eye and said, "Thank you for having us."Oh my God. Maybe someday his sister will follow suit.
ROSEMARY
- Rosemary says, out of the blue, "I now love playdates with Bryson and Esme!" That was really cute, and gratifying to hear, since we changed her classroom in January and Bryson is in her new classroom. Overall, it was a great move. I think both girls feel comfortable making new friends now.
- This is not a great thing, but she's in this shy/awkward phase which I should understand as I was the same way, but she sticks her hands in her mouth and whispers her answers and looks down, even with my parents. Drives me nuts.
- She on the other hand does all this super-bossy assertive grown-up behavior. Like, she was arguing with Louis who gets to sit by me at dinner (a rarity, usually its who gets to sit by James) and she is swifly talking him out of it, and says to Louis, "Are you cool with that?"
- She currently -- apparently -- has Esme enrolled in a10-step program for learning how to be a teacher. Esme is on step 2. She is also teaching Louis what to do when Miles hits him and she's not there because she'll be in Kindergarten (aww....sad) and trying to convince Esme that she should love Louis more than Miles (???)
