milestones

Preschool is serious business.

Not really, in fact it's built on play. But they sure take the end of the year to extremes.

It's the last week of Toots's preschool. She went two days a week all year. Tuesday was a party in her class. Thursday there was a performance and awards ceremony. Here's a peek. The whole thing was utterly cute. So cute it could kill an ordinary man.

That's Toots in purple in the front row, with her class of Busy Bees. Behind them are the Froggies, 2 classes of the next age group up. 

We mother and educator types were slayed, weeped and wailed - not really, but we were a very teary lot. The Director for fourteen years also retired. It was said that her first students were entering college, entering the military and entering the workforce. She was incapable of reading her own speech. Toots's teacher presented the Director with a bouquet, etc, having worked with her for five years, and had her kids under her care for four years before that. She could barely get through her presentation, utterly weepy.

And then today was the Picnic Festival. Toots started off shyly, which is odd, because shy is the last word to describe her. But once she settled in, she had fun, fished for candy and toys, got tattoos, blew bubbles with her friends. But no matter how many times she built the courage up to go into the blown up caterpillar, she could not do it once the air blasted her in the face from within.

I don't have the slightest clue what has happened to this school year. A couple of weeks remain to the public school system for Mr. Cynic and Captain Comic. Mr. Cynic has his fourth girlfriend since September and will be a Junior next year. A Junior. I still can't get him to drive though he has his permit. He doesn't have a job. He is my baby, but he is taller than me (finally) and his voice is three octaves below mine.

Mr. Cynic smiling after his jazz choir concert. 

Captain Comic struggled his way into sixth grade and middle school, until the new school finally figured out how to comply with his IEP. Now, he is - for an aspergian - a social butterfly, eating lunch in the cafeteria with friends rather than his case manager's empty classroom. He has joined the homework club, and stays after school to complete his assignments, again with friends, rather than having knock down drag out screaming matches at home with me over them. He finally is getting the hang of riding a bike.

This was taken on the sly of him at the doctor's office 

when we went in for an acne issue a couple of weeks ago. 

He's reading a pamphlet on childhood diseases, and thoroughly enjoying it. 

I don't know about this growing business and how it affects the kids at the moment. But right now, this mother can barely take it any longer. How do I make it stop? 

 Just for a moment, though, because it sure would nice to one day not have quite so much laundry to do.

weepy

I'm having a weird week. I wake up every morning feeling very weepy. I want to put it down to exhaustion and possible perimenopausal stuff.  It's odd, like a biological impulse to cry. I don't feel sad or anything, just as if I will burst into tears over the slightest thing.

Then there was Toots's Preschool Art Show this morning and "Muffins with Mom" event, where I received a bunch of little hand and footprints accompanied by sweet little rhymes.  I swear they're trying to kill me with the cute. I couldn't even read the I leave my Handprints everywhere out loud for Toots when I unwrapped it, without catching a lump in my throat and my eyes becoming inexplicable fountains.

Tonight is Mr. Cynic's high school jazz choir - the one that was Grand Champion in the Myrtle Beach regional competition - Spring Concert.

Help.

I will need a large box of tissues.  I couldn't even make it through my niece's dance recitals over the years. I suppose I can just bring Captain Comic and Toots and go into parental management mode. Nah, it'll never work. Not this week. I think I will just let the tears roll.

Happy Mother's Day to the other weepers out there.

sixteen

My first born turns sixteen today.

Fall 1996, Gaga & Papa's house in Ct.

Tears start now.

Not because I'm sad, not because so much of my life has passed in that time, not because I mourn the passing of his childhood.

But because I am very proud of the child becoming a man before my eyes, as only a mother can know. Love keeps cracking me open to my own vulnerabilities and strengths that I discovered through growing him inside sixteen years ago and watching him grow, as best as I can without interfering with his fully realizing himself.

16 on 16:

1. He's a very old soul, and a very old soul is he.
2. He sneezes a lot.
3. He plays a mean electric bass.
4. He's teaching himself guitar.
5. He smirks, always.
6. He sings, really really well, competitively well.
7. He writes songs.
8. He writes books, has since he was in kindergarten.
9. He's fragile, in good ways.
10. He's strong, of spirit, not so much in body.
11. He is very very protective of those he loves.
12. He oozes into furniture, merges, becomes one.
13. He's kind of a space cadet.
14. He has a very dry wit. (Hence calling him Mr. Cynic here)
15. He has good hair.
16. The girls think he's cute, kind of like a pocket rock star.

I love him very much, and I like him, too. He's pretty darn cool. And speaking as his mother, I'm kind of glad he's still a pipsqueak.

Valentine's Day 2011, He let me do this.

I love you, K-Bear, Happy Birthday. 

ages & stages

The kids
Mr. Cynic is currently approaching his 16th birthday and is away on a trip with his high school competitive choir. I let him pack himself, and only asked a few did you remember type questions. There was a slight problem with a cufflink and studs order not arriving in time and Honey and I scrambling to get a second set the night before the bus pulled out of the parking lot at 6:30am yesterday. Of course a few hours after he was on the road, the online ordered set arrived, so now we own two. Men's formal wear is now covered well in our house, who would ever have imagined that?

Captain Comic is approximately twelve and a half (August he'll be thirteen, lord help me).  He takes a SPED bus to his middle school, and the policy in place until yesterday was that he got off the bus before the rest of the students disembarked from their busses because of his sensory integration issues with crowds. I received an email yesterday that he has been wandering the halls in the mornings and scaring teachers by jumping out from behind corners and doors. In effect, revisiting the topic of either keeping him on the bus until he is released with the rest of the students, or assigning a paraprofessional aide to him during that time period of the morning. I have been talking about his need for a para because of his wandering since Day One at this school last September. I have to say my first reaction was to giggle when I got the email, because I can just picture him and his delighted shifty grin as he jumps out and exclaims, "Waa!" at a select teacher.  He does it often at home.

Toots turned three two weeks ago today, had a princess party and promptly became a rather bratty one after that, with potty training regression included.  This morning's tantrum was of great magnitude. She observes Captain Comic's less desirable behaviors and parrots them. I told her and Honey that we will be having consistent use of time outs to rectify this, and we all need to be on board with it. Her behavior lately has really been unacceptable.

However, she does still have ample cute moments such as when we sat down to dinner last night:

Toots: Where's my bruver [Mr. Cynic]?
Mom: He's in South Carolina for his Choral Competition.
Toots: Well, go pick him up!

Writing
After writing off writing last week during the kids' spring break, I decided it's now or never, and conferred with Grandma to take Toots off my hands so I can get out of the house to write everyday this week for a few hours, while Captain Comic is in school, and Grandma is on board. Monday, I futz around the house while telling myself I would write all morning. I had it all laid out, and couldn't get a grip at all from where I had left off when I last visited my manuscript. I am in the middle of the manuscript in a complete overhaul and found it very hard to work on a chapter that still felt like the prior drafts, when I needed to clearly move forward. I think most of my problem on Monday was that I just had not looked at it in well over a week.

Tuesday, I was excited, having looked at it the day before, to take the manuscript with me out of the house and to my writing group. I wrestled with the chapter, doubted every edit I'd done in this draft and questioned all the work I've done on the book in the past six months, which has been a lot of changes. I kvetched after a couple of hours, and sat back down in front of it and finally saw a way out of the problem I was wrestling with. Then the other writers in my group all started having similar issues with focus and what to do next and decided to break for lunch, right when I found the groove I needed.  It's okay, it happens. I knew I would work on it again the next day at the library.

Yesterday, at the library, I attempted to continue where I left off the day before. It was like typing through drying concrete. The further I went, the slower it got. It was painful to watch myself go through that, because I know what I need to do. I'm just stuck in this middle of the book chapter and know what comes after is pretty well put together; I just need to get through this for the rest to make sense and flow well again.

So here I sit, writing this instead, so that I can process my way out of the concrete, while eating a late breakfast, because Toots was such a pill this morning before preschool, I couldn't get my own stuff together for after her preschool drop off.  But as soon as I finish, I am packing this dang laptop up and heading to my windowed corner of the library to sit with my muse, if she will visit today. I think she will.

growing

Last May 1, Toots stood at the top of the slide, surrounded by wisteria and I snapped one of my favorite shots of her. She was very contemplative.

Then Monday this week, she did it again. 

But first she danced a smidge.

I love this kid. The other two are pretty cool, too.

look what she did

While I was sequestered away with Captain Comic on Sunday afternoon for hours, look what my little Toots did all by herself:

Looks like we have another writer in the house. She won't be three for another couple of weeks.

Sincerely,
Proud mom. 

independence

This morning as we were all readying for the day, Toots walked up to me to request specific snacks to take with her to preschool.

I have a bunch of food allergies, etc, that her pediatrician advised we keep her away from until she's three, then we can introduce them incrementally. First she walked up holding one of Grandma's granola bars, I read the ingredients and had to tell her no. Then she went back to the pantry, where she can now reach to open the door, and returned with a pack of microwave popcorn.

Toots (with big inquiring grin): cannI haf pahtorn?
Mom (unwraps plastic but doesn't move to make it just yet because I was in the middle of something else): Sure.

Next thing I heard from the kitchen is the sound of the stool scooting across the floor, then the door of the microwave opening, then closing, then beeping on and starting.

I darted into the the kitchen with a big pat on Grandma's arm on the way, as both of us grinned at each other. There she was sitting in front of the microwave, proudly demonstrating her patiently waiting dance on the stool while watching the bag puff up and rotate. When it started popping, she patted out a little beat on the countertop along with the popcorn.

Toots (turns at the sound of my footsteps entering the room) Yook Mommy, I makin pahtorn!

the teen

I don't mention as much about my oldest as I do the other two. So I will share a tale of him now.

Saturday, I took Mr. Cynic out for a driving lesson, not in the high school parking lot, but on actual roads.

I nearly died. The boy panicked as we approached a main road and started veering off to 'pull over' to avoid it by having me drive us back into a subdivision from the main road.

Because we live in a coastal plain, the roadsides here have culverts for flood control. He nearly drove us into one, a near barrel-roll, passenger side - me - first.

I can hit some pretty high notes as a soprano. Never this high, except maybe while I was giving birth to him.

My driving lessons with him do not generally involve screaming, but I had said "Don't!" about seventeen times in quick succession before screaming "Stop!" in an operatic fashion.

Think the Queen of the Night Aria from Mozart's The Magic Flute - without the surrounding tune. Just that flute-like high note near the end.

I suggest when you get to this stage of parenting to take a few more trips around the big parking lot in your area.

Eventually, I got a pretty good laugh from it. After I stopped shaking violently. He's generally a cautious kid, hard to get him to drive over 20mph. I taught his father to drive with him and his brother strapped in toddler and infant seats in the backseat, way back when. So I know I can do this, and survive to tell more tales.


 

toots has a great idea

Toots started riding her bike.  I will post evidence below.  In the meantime, this evening, she rode her little bike around the house and:

Toots: See ya later!  Bye!
Grandma: Where you going?
Toots: I'm going for a ride!
Mom: Where to?
Toots: I'm going to ride to summer!  Okay, Byyyye!

I wish I thought of that.


Last night she peddled herself for the first time. Witness:

toots's fabulosity

This morning I met with Toots's preschool teachers and Honey for her first Parent Teacher Conference. Thankfully Honey's work is pretty close to preschool, so he could bop over to the meeting and back to work easily. It's his first PTC.

We knew she was fun, smart and imaginative already, but it was nice to have official confirmation.

To quote from her teachers' notes:

...is a delight to have in class. She has strong communication skills. She is very smart and extremely imaginative, especially during free play.

...also interacts well with her peers. She plays well with others, including others in her play. She is always willing to help others.

Of course, she is not perfect, and that is good to hear, too.

...does need to work on following directions, especially during circle time and clean-up time. She also has problems sitting still.

Thank you for sharing her with us.


They also said that her imaginary play has a logic to it.  She's not wildly imaginative, there's always a story to it.  The other day, she was in the play car on the playground. She was going to the store, but hadn't decided yet what she was going to buy when they asked. Then the car got stuck in traffic, and then she accidently drove into the river and had to escape from it before she drowned, completely acted out with swimming across the playground sand to safety.

I've got a neat kid. Three of them, in fact. This big imagination stuff with logical storylines must be genetic.

And she's not even three yet. :)  That's my girl!

Toots in the day after christmas snowstorm in VA

my heart is big

My son Mr. Cynic made his internet debut. He made this for a group AP History project. He wrote the songs, he acted, etc. The first song is a snippet of a prior project about, if I recall correctly, the Spanish Armada. The guys included it for a laugh from the class.



Can a mother be more proud of the musicality and creativity of her child? I don't think so. I am soaring. Except that typo in some of the print stuff, but that must be one of the other kids.  ;)

It's on youtube.  Go ahead and share. 

the meaning of love

While making breakfast this morning, I opened a new maple syrup bottle.  Toots watched and gasped.

Toots eyes widened and vocal pitch raised exponentially:  Hah! Maple Syrup?!
Mom: Yes, this is maple syrup.
Toots sweetly:  Ooooh!  I love you, too!
Mom small chuckle: Maple syrup means love?
Toots: Hm-hmmm. 
Mom:  Aw, I love you, too.

i did it! hooway!

Of course, what is so exciting is that she took out a puzzle piece and put it back into the puzzle.

Today was preschool orientation for Toots's class.  When the first week of April rolls around next spring, there will be cupcakes galore.  Every child is aging into the class next week at age 2.5. 

Toots met two boys and their baby siblings, and one young girl.  There was folder with another girl's name on it, but that family was a no show for orientation.  It'll be a small class for a while, until some more kids age into it.

Toots was very excited, the rain came down on us for the drive there and back - and in the parking lot from the van to the door and back - in sheets.  I felt like I was standing at the base of Niagara, as I tried to coax her to buckle in or out. 

She has to do it herself.

But she was not going to miss this for anything.  She cracked up all the adults, as she was the most engaging kid there. She's a born leader, apparently.  She was very polite to the other kids, and took everyone's picture with the toy cameras - "Say cheeeeese!  [click] Thank you."  Gee, I wonder why?

She and her new friends all played very nicely near each other, and sometimes even together as they all explored their classroom.

A little while after we came home, she was awfully quiet, so I went looking for her to give her some lunch, and found her passed out across the arm of the sofa. This never happens anymore.

It was a very exciting morning.

this week random

The quilt is sitting on a folding table in the living room awaiting a fabric hoop.  It has been patiently waiting there since Sunday evening.  Although I drew in the design yesterday.

School Starts September 7th around here.  I have three orientations/open houses to attend - high school, middle school and preschool - this week. I have already attended a  Booster Club meeting for Mr. Cynic's jazz choir.   Toots will start preschool in October when she 'ages into' the 2.5 year old program.  Thankfully, they are holding a spot for her.

The edits are once again in a holding pattern, because my kids are bouncing off the walls and I am obsessed with a quilt.

Captain Comic is a spinning top of transitioning to middle school anticipation/ anxiety. A case of sick tummies has been making its way through the family in an unpleasant way, too.


Today, I am taking all the kids out to buy sneakers, socks and underwear for the boys.  I am setting my goals small and late.  I'll go out for school supplies later in the week - if Hurricane Earl doesn't stop by for a visit. In that event, I will go during Labor Day weekend.  I take Mr. Cynic for a haircut on Friday.  He is currently resembling my older brother circa 1978 with the curl of bangs across his forehead and wings flipping away at his temples.  Captain Comic had his cut last week.  I never would have survived both in the same week.

I know.  I am nuts - school supply shopping on Labor Day weekend. My life is mayhem, and I like it that way.  At least the mayhem is somewhat manageable these days, and when it isn't, I throw my hands up, I yell,  and I laugh myself silly.

family & the new pizza tour of new england

One of my favorite yay moments of our trip was visiting my niece in her digs in Worcester, MA.  She is finishing her BA this coming school year and I am very proud of her.  She has always been a self-motivated and curious student, an active go-getter and compassionate soul.  This summer she worked a rebuild mission trip in New Orleans's 9th ward.  I really admire her.  I want to be her when I grow up.  :)

She's also silly as can be.  Look what she taught her youngest cousin:

She took us out to a new organic pizza place in Worcester, Flats.  Their sauce has a simple clean flavor, much like Pepe's in New Haven, CT, the Original pizza place. There is some conflict about whether pizza was "invented" at Pepe's or some other place in NYC, but I maintain it was Pepe's.  Anyway, another pizza we got at Flat's was a pesto, portabello and goat cheese number that if you are ever within a three hour drive of Worcester, is worth the detour.  Deeeeeelissssshhhh!  and the whole wheat crust was to die for.

Another good pizza place we enjoyed on our trip was by her recommendation as well.  Gregory's Pizza in Monroe, CT.  I didn't find a link, and I'm still pooped, so I didn't try very hard.  All the online reviews seemed positive at a glance, though. When we stayed at Big Bro's house, this was what we got for dinner to entertain Honey's brother, sister and brother-in-law.

The thing that struck Honey and me was that even what we used to think was a bad pizza in New England, is still a good pizza where we live now.  I don't want to say that good pizza is part of my nostalgia for New England, but we can only find a halfway decent Phillie style pizza as the best around here. Pizza is just a necessary part of our family experience. 

My children are deprived.

When we stayed with friends in North Cambridge, we convinced them after a hurly burly day to just get pizza in the neighborhood, though they recently (witihin weeks) moved in and hadn't tried Marco's yet. Again, looks like good reviews on the net, but not a website.  The thin crust was excellent, perfectly crispy and chewy.

I have to say, part of the appeal of our annual trips to New England is the search of a good slice.  I wanted to hit a couple of old favorites, or even Pepe's, which is more in my Honey's childhood locale, but I was pleasantly surprised to find three new places - to me anyway - and really enjoyed them.

Sadly, Newbury Pizza, which was a regular good giant cheap slice during my main Boston proper days, is under new ownership.  What used to cost a buck and fill me for the afternoon now costs about five dollars, according to the person with whom many an afternoon slice was had there back when a big cheap slice was often all I ate in a day. Eh, the sauce was always a tad too sweet for my taste anyway.

And that's Cath's new pizza tour of New England, 2010 edition.  Seriously, you have to try Flats if you are ever within a day's ride of Worcester.  It's small, the staff is friendly and the pizza is gorgeous.  Worcester is a pretty happening little old industrial city - culturally, Boston's slightly more boisterous younger sibling. 

A walk

Please pardon the cell shot.

My ankle has not entirely healed, but it's been nine weeks since the original owie, and I'm tired of not walking, doing yardwork, gardening, etc.  It's a torn tendon, and takes time to heal, especially since I'm no spring chicken. 

Heck, I'm old enough to say, I'm no spring chicken.

Mr. Cynic and Captain Comic have been away for nearly three weeks now, and that means, between my ankle and the boys' absence, Lucy has not been walked.

She has started to pee the rug and chew things again, much like when we first adopted her from the SPCA, three and a half years ago.  She chewed my aircast the other day.  I took it as a sign to stop wearing it.

I'm talking about the dog, not Toots, who is in the stroller wearing the Red Sox hat.

After a few days worth of yardwork in the well over ninety degree heat and humidity of nearly one hundred percent, I say nearly, because if it were 100%, it would be raining all weekend, which it didn't, though it should have - horrible run on phrase within phrase, but I'm getting to it, really - I decided it was about time I took the dog and the girl for a walk. 

It is summer after all.

The ankle survived.  Sort of.

We saw a goose on the lake.

We saw lifeguards bored out of their skulls tossing a football across the pool, because it was too hot for anyone to swim, and dark thunderhead cumulous clouds were gathering.

We saw M, our 16 year old neighbor who asked when Mr. Cynic will be back, because the pool is no fun without him.  She was surprised by how much Toots had grown, since she saw her as a newborn.  I was surprised by how much M has grown.  I should have asked if she's driving yet, but was in too much shock thinking how I met her as a tiny twelve year old.

We saw flowers and a low flying jet.

And we scooped a poop and carried it home.

i moved the goal posts

I made a plan for the week where I had the house to myself.  I stuck to the plan to a degree, but I moved the goal posts.  Please bear with the mixed metaphors.  I'm sure more will come.

I finally got my printer to work and printed the manuscript.  I was going to read through the first half easily then deal with the big edits for the second half this week.

But when I saw it on paper, I needed to, once again, work more on the first half.  I've been working on that half since February 2003.  I think it's about time I moved to the second half, don't you?

Anyway, one thing I came across: for a couple of name changes, I used an edit function in my word processing program to auto fix. This maneuver screwed up any other word in which the sequence of letters of a that very short name appeared.  It inserted the new name, also a short name, but not the sequence of letters in the middle of other very common words. 

I can barely get through reading the first half without wanting to hunt down Bill Gates and torture him.  My facial expression, when I hit upon one is like unto Bill the Cat.  Do you remember Bill the Cat?  Here's a refresher, and a starter for those not in the know.

Berkley Breathed gets all credit for creation and imagery of this character from his strip, Bloom County.

Second, where I made changes, I need to smooth transitions of blocks of text better.

Third, my a/c broke.  Honey called the repair folks to come on out the afternoon of the same day I had a meeting of a different sort in the morning, so any chance of working on the manuscript was null and void for that day.

And Fourthly, with the place to ourselves, I successfully shifted Toots to napping and sleeping at night on her own in her crib without much difficulty at all.  And we got a good start on actively potty training. 

Toots and I also had a lot of fun just hanging out, we girls, mom and daughter, goofing around the house and such.

I think that was awfully important, too.  don't you?

And Fifthly, is it fifth?  I've lost track.  I trimmed the boxwoods and repotted the driveway markers with new little japanese hollies, so a couple of rather short drivers - are you lookin' at me?! - can see to get out of the driveway without hitting the brick borders of the culvert bridge.

Milestones

Yesterday was full of milestones.

In the morning, five minutes prior to Toots's 9:30am clockwork diaper change, I was proudly presented with two handfuls of poop.  Time to start potty training in earnest.

I know, I swore I wouldn't poop post, but she's two!  It's all about poop these days!

Last night, my little darling ran around repeating, "Is evwone a weady a WOCK?!"

Translation:  Is Everyone ready to ROCK?!

When she got an appropriate response, of "I'm ready to rock!" or "Rocknroll!" she replied, as if she were the recently departed Ronnie James Dio.

"Okay then! LET'S ROCK!!!"  Though she doesn't quite have the maloika down just yet.

Captain Comic had a nice one, too.  When he saw Toots stirring from her nap, he gently uncovered her, said sweetly, "Did you have a good nap?  Want to see Mommy?"  And even though, she was slightly thrown by who was waking her, she let him carry her to where I was sitting.  And he did a nice job of that, too. 

There's hope for his gentility, yet.  ;)

This space was reserved for a movie review

I took the younger two of my children to see How To Train Your Dragon today.

I was going to review it here after I saw it, but considering I took a two year old Toots along, because she used to be such an enviably good baby, there will be no review.  The devil has taken her place.

About when I had chased her up and down the center aisle stairs multiple times (nicely, mind you, she just wanted an adventure, unless I thwarted it, then screams ensued), I knew we were done.

Here's how I knew:  A woman got right in my face and yelled, "I paid a lot of money to see this move!"  (We were at a matinee showing - the cheap seats) 

So I looked her in the eye and declared, "So did I."

Then she said she would call the authorities.  I thought, real nice lady, there's 10 minutes left.  We came to the matinee because I had the toddler with me.

The good news is Captain Comic really enjoyed the movie, and stayed in his seat the whole time.  Now that is an accomplishment, especially considering I left him in there on his own.

on lipstick

Before my mother would ever leave the house, she had to put on her lipstick or she felt naked.  It was a deep red when I was very young, but as the 1970s and 80s progressed, she tended toward earth tones.  And she still prefers an earth toned lipstick to this day.  She still won't leave the house without it.

I rarely in my forty-four years of existence wear lipstick.  More often in the last couple of years than ever before, as my lips are drained of their former natural pinkish hue, most likely due to sheer exhaustion, and sleep and vitamin deficiency. I was always more of a lip balm kind of a girl, if anything. There was a huuuuge Carmex phase, but I'm over that now, by about a decade and a half.  I loved Burt's Bees lip balms, but developed allergies in my late thirties, and can no longer wear Burt's Bees and expect to breathe because of the coconut and almond oils in them.

These days, I have a couple of berryish, slightly more than skintone shades with names like 'shy' and 'tenderheart' tubes in my purse for the color/dryness emergency.  Still, rarely do I actually use the stuff.

Enter my daughter.  She started raiding my purse for the sheer fun of dumping contents quite some time ago, but now she goes in for specifics:

I've said it before, and I'm sure I will say it again.

I'm in trouble when she's a teen, aren't I?

photo note:  the orange hue around her mouth is not because she is diseased or due to my terrible photog abilities.  she recently had been gnawing on a carrot.