Finally posting this -- my JANUARY post (part 2) although I had started to write it almost a month ago. When you see all that was going on you'll see why it took me so long though I really would like to try to do this more regularly!
Before heading back to school to the grind, there is always that glorious period where the holidays are over, but most people are still out of town and on vacation, and there is nothing to do but stay at home and play with new toys. This Christmas was the year of the Lego and Rosemary and Louis both had sets to build, but of course Rosemary managed her 1500+ piece set more or less by herself, over just a few days (and then of course we put it away and it hasn't emerged since -- they really do have more fun with the $25 bag of Legos which were not part of a set that I bought to bring to Scotland from the used toy store, and they build and rebuild things with those all the time):
Then it was time to put away the tree and decorations which is a several day affair. Rosemary was super-helpful and helped me do all of it this year. I had the absolute weirdest deja vu feeling with Christmas this year -- it seemed like the past year, 2013 had just flashed by and I had just been putting up and taking down Christmas decorations the week prior. I don't like it -- time all of a sudden has accelerated for me!
A cute snowman ornament that Louis and Maureen made this year:
We had a few relatively unpleasant tasks this year prior to going back to school. First off, when James was away in New York, the day came where we could no longer deny that Lobsterdog was a ROOSTER. Honestly, it was not really a surprise.
Lobsterdog, the day before we took him back to the farm:
In case you're feeling sad, look where he gets to live now!
Poor Rosemary, not looking too happy about saying goodbye to Lobsterdog (in cage, temporarily):
Seeing Rosemary and Louis looking like they were about to cry, the nice well-meaning farmer hands us -- without consulting me -- this baby chick on the way out. Says to me, "Ma'am, if this one ends up being a rooster too, I'm really sorry." So that solved none of our problems.Getting the chick was kind of a series of disasters, but the kids I guess learned a lot about life and death. The one pictured below was named Skye, and we had her about 48 hours. She did not stop chirping DAY OR NIGHT so I guess she was either very happy or deeply distressed until the end. The second day we had her she started falling asleep a lot on her side which seemed really un-chicken like and I was wondering if she was cold or just super lonely and freaked out and needed a friend or two -- they aren't really supposed to be alone. Of course it was a Sunday when all the chicken supply places are closed, so I had to look on Craigslist for who might be selling chicks on a Sunday, and finally found a former cop who had a bunch in his garage. We picked up two more chicks (I figured one of them would die so we'd at least be left with two) and a heat lamp, named them Scottie (short for "Scotland") and Hot Chocolate (Louis's random name) and then things seemed to be better until one day (maybe the next day, I can't remember) I found Skye dead. I mean just about an hour after I checked on her. It was pretty sad, Rosemary woke up the next morning and went immediately to check on the chicks and before I could tell her, she noticed Skye was gone. So went to school sobbing that morning. Her kindergarten teacher was really sweet about it, and told the class what had happened and it sounds like she got lots of hugs and love.
Anyway, to fast-forward the chicken saga quite a bit, of the three we got that week, only one in May still survives, the one named... HOT CHOCOLATE. This little bugger is a fighter -- survived the other two's virus (?) or whatever made them sick, and also a vicious, horrid attack by the other older chickens just when we thought they would accept her into their flock. The poor thing was pecked nearly to death and, suckers that we are, we ended up taking her for stitches and chicken surgery. She is now, I am happy to report, very healthy, albeit skittish (and living alone in a dog crate until we have the nerve to try again and know she's big enough to fight back). She might grow out of that timidness -- just the other day she killed a lizard all by herself and wouldn't share with the others!
James had knee surgery in January. It was kind of scary for him and for me not knowing the recovery time, general anesthesia, etc., but it was necessary. The kids were very sweet and made him -- and me -- about 20 early Valentine's while he was in surgery, as depicted below. The surgery was remarkably effective in taking away the pain he felt, though he has been dealing with swelling now for five months.
We had an extremely fun, adventure-filled weekend with our great friends Kathleen and John, which included a camping trip at Enchanted Rock (with Caroline and son Isaac), barbeque at Cooper's, pastrami from James, recruiting them to build a basketball hoop on the front driveway for Rosemary and Louis, and a delicious and fun-filled dinner at Eden's East -- a lovely urban farm/restaurant (My friend Eileen wrote about our meal
here on her blog.) It was really a blast to have them and hope they make a regular occasion of it.
January and February really were crazy this year weather and schedule-wise. We had I believe 3 days where school was canceled all together and I'd say at least 5 where school started 2 hours later than usual -- all but one were in these two months. All -- I'm pretty sure -- were on a Tuesday or Thursday, the days I'm supposed to work a full day (I work just an hour or two M, W, F mornings when kids are in school). Ms. Janet told me the first week of February was the
first week that the kids had a full 5 days in school in a given week (and for us, even more so by taking 2 days off for Port Aransas). So, I was unfortunately under a pretty great deal of stress -- lots of disruption to my very much chock-full schedule that doesn't allow too much room for error + a relatively new job (just started at Safal full-swing in November) + James was teaching in the late afternoon two days a week so those days meant solo dinner/bed -- but we still managed to have some very good times.
When it wasn't freezing cold, we had some glorious days, like the one below -- in January -- hanging out with the kids by Zilker Rock as if was summer (right after this Carson gets mad at me for trying to get her to stop climbing the 30+ foot tall moon tower):
Louis and his new friend Grant making "gates" during Happy Hikers at Wild Basin:
Yep, this is January/February folks -- a perfect afternoon at the Twin Falls greenbelt entrance, where all brave kids (not poor Rosemary but honestly she has so little body fat that I think she just was way too cold to do it) got in the water and had an absolute ball. Ferral kids -- or nearly so -- just the way I think childhood should be:
Rosemary's second report card :-) Ha ha. Just wanted to show she's getting all "4s" in case you're worried -- hopefully will slip in a few more 3s and 2s before too long so she doesn't get too uptight.
She is thriving in school -- very few issues other than the day and the school year are too long! I think she was really intellectually stimulated at the beginning of the year -- big push in reading and excited about learning new things (science, etc.), but now I think it's starting to feel repetitive and easy (very little math, she's way ahead there) and no longer novel, so it's dragging.
Socially, only one "drama" this year with a little girl in Esme's class (a different class, they are only together on the playground occasionally) -- I have heard that she is a particularly aggressive girl and possibly "trouble" but I'm sure Rosemary was having friend-jealousy too. Anyway, when Rosemary said for her evening "prayer" (we go around the table and say what we are thankful for about the day) that she was thankful that Shaya let her play with Esme today I figured it was time to give the teacher a call... and it cleared right up (she went to playing with other friends). She's pretty strong in the face of adversity, even if it makes me really uptight and upset! Recently Nani was here and went to volunteer at my weekly shift for "Centers"(small group work, math, art, etc.) with me and we both noticed that Rosemary was basically holding court in class. She doesn't exactly fit in with the other girls, but also doesn't seem to notice too much or care (thank goodness)... and she certainly is a...err... strong leader.
From her friend Katherine's mom (she is similar to Rosemary in many ways):
Kat:
“Rosemary and I made a club today.”
Me: “Oh, cool. tell me about it?”
Kat: “It’s Sarah, Kate, Kalina and Isabella. We called it the giggling girls club”
Me: “So you all giggle a lot?”
Kat: “Rosemary and I aren’t in it! All those girls do is walk around and giggle. So we made them a club.”
All this independence will surely bite her in the butt from time to time but I -- who is much more socially sensitive and prone to conformity -- have to remember to not panic and enjoy it and hope her heart gets broken as little as humanly possible.
Rosemary (and Louis) started basketball at the Y in February. She and Esme were the only two girls on the team, and I think Rosemary was the only one who hadn't played before. I was really proud of her -- though she is naturally athletic, it is easy to be intimidated under these circumstances. She was a good sport -- she tried to keep up and kept a good attitude and then -- helpfully -- got MAD when
none of the boys (it apparently starts this early) would pass the ball and were being totally ball hogs. So she fought back (despite, I will add, not much support from the well-meaning coach) with some really great defense and ended up improving a lot. Louis I would say was totally not ready -- nor were the vast majority of four year olds (basketball is a bit too complicated I realized later on), and after a few tear-filled games/practices, I gave up and stopped taking him.
And I did my semi-annual art purge -- you'll see Louis has some great works here and can write his name:
Monsters, by Louis:
On the left, dinosaurs (rotate 90 degrees to the right), on the right, a penguin
On the left, someone driving a bus, on the right (rotate 90 degrees left), an angel fish
I believe these are two people whose house is burning down
Under a rainbow:
A book he was writing with Kyle -- clearly he must have wanted to kill the bad guys and she stole his story line (there is lots of talk about that these days). We don't really know how to address the bad guy scenario -- Kyle tries to tell them that they don't have to kill them, but they could try to make them their friends. James takes a more judicial approach (he doesn't understand this at all). Sheila tells him (this is my favorite) that God didn't make bad guys, people choose to be bad or good (he understands this I think). He doesn't agree that any girls can be bad.
Sample questions from Louis on five minute drive home:
"How is every vehicle in the world made?"
"Why did God make birds?"
"If God made birds to eat bugs, why did he make bugs?" "If bugs are there to add nutrients to the soil, why do birds eat them?"
"Why does the radio sing?"
"Why did Jesus die?" (the other day he was pretending to be one of the "knights that killed Jesus" -- he also really likes knights after our Scotland trip. Knights and Spiderman, which he knows of exclusively from merchandise)
"When can we have lobster and crab again? Can we have it in California? -- But don't tell Aunt Summer and Uncle Dev that I told you to ask them for it?
Rosemary wrote a few books "for Louis" and you can see some of her writing below was well. Some sample pages.
"The Raindrop Page":
"The Thunderstorm Page":
Kyle put on another great play which we went to see. Rosemary and Louis got their first set-design credit here, since she built several of the props and backdrops at our house with the help of the kdis:
And, if this wasn't enough great stuff, we had a wonderful long weekend in Port Aransas with Dolly and Felix and kids, which was absolutely everything we were hoping it would be (despite the truly frigid temperatures). There really, really isn't anything like having your best-friend-from-childhood's (someone whom you really thought the sun and moon revolved around -- basically first love) children play together happily with your own children. It's extraordinary.
At Aransas National Wildlife Refuge --I biked with Rosemary and Sadie while Dolly jogged, and the men supervised little boys on various forms of transport (bike train, Skuut, and car):
After so much exercise both sets of kids konked out on the way home -- perfect!
Biking around the marshes in Port Aransas:
And of course we had several delicious dinners with lots of Gulf shrimp:
At the very very cool science and nature museum in Corpus Christi (where we saw a dolphin in the bay from outside, as well as a tugboat named Rosemary):
Two bats hanging around:
This exhibit made Rosemary tell me -- out of the blue -- that she wanted to learn to ride horses. So she's signed up for summer horse camp -- we'll see how this goes! She's not always the bravest but she said she was SURE!
At the Corpus Christi aquarium on a frigid day! We had a lot of fun:
As they say, my cup runneth over
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