Sharpened pencils and a shiny apple

Tomorrow is my first day back at school, for my last quarter. I'm too tired to muster up any enthusiasm for school. I know what it'll be like. I'll probably learn some stuff. I'll probably reach new heights of caffeine-and-exhaustion-induced babbliness in class, and seriously annoy my classmates. I won't have time to do anything very well.

Then I will graduate.

The end!

Trudging to the finish line

I'm assembling my borrowed graduation regalia this month, preparing for my June graduation. I wasn't going to go through the ceremony, on the principle that it is kind of a silly way to spend time (and money on all the polyester stuff), but I reconsidered. I think that participating in the ceremony is a good way for all of us to close the door officially on this part of our life. Dutch can't remember a time when I wasn't in school, and Skipper knows more about urban planning than most people (she's participated in two rounds of survey-taking already). We've had a long hard slog over the last three years, and this is one tiny way to celebrate that we survived it. Besides, Dutch loves her some silly pageantry,* and is excited to see me in my spiffy polyester finery.

* Most official ceremonies seem to me to have been originally invented by preschoolers.

A beautiful street

Developments, or Why It's Sometimes Fun to Have Kids

There are two things happening in our home. They're cool things, and Cook and I aren't doing them.

Dutch is learning, finally, to read. She's been slowly inching along that path for a while, at her own pace. We haven't pushed her at all, though lately we've been saying things like "Oh god, you want me to read aNOTHER chapter of The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew?! You need to learn to read this yourself!" so that kind of counts as pushing. But she's suddenly getting much better at sounding out words, and more tenacious about nailing down harder words, and today she read a couple of her heirloom phonetics books and picked up some real momentum. I don't know how quickly this will progress, but it's really fun to witness.

Skipper is moving toward walking. While we don't exactly WANT her to be hurtling around vertical yet, it's impossible not to cheer her on when she stands up by herself, beaming proudly. Today she clonked around the yard in stiff-soled shoes for the first time, and seemed baffled but interested. She won't be walking any time soon, but she's on her way, and we suspect she has big plans.

It's done!

Done. Three papers, two group projects (one horrible, one not), three presentations - all done!

We also attended many mandatory meetings this quarter for various schools we were considering for Dutch for Kindergarten, and applied to four (it's all lottery-based, so "applied" means "filled out paperwork") a few weeks ago. We'll find out about that at the end of April.

Today was blissful. Cook doesn't have any consulting work this weekend, so we have NOTHING to do.* The weather was so beautiful that Dutch was able to wear a new sundress and sandals, and Skipper and Dutch and I did some gardening (I weeded, Skipper crawled around, and Dutch ran a Slug Execution Center on the patio).** Cook scrubbed the kitchen floor and washed all the sheets. We bathed both kids and started Dutch on a no-poo regimen.*** We went to the library. We grocery-shopped. I sorted through my box of random kids' clothing, put away a bunch of out-grown things, and introduced a pile of new-to-her stripey clothing to Skipper's wardrobe. It was all very dull and very satisfying.

Next week I am taking Skipper to Los Angeles for a few days. I'm dreading the flight, since Skipper is a normal 11-month-old, which means she is mobile, interested in everything, can't communicate effectively, and has the attention span of a gnat. Our 30-minute bus commute is usually an exhausting non-stop wrangle, and two hours on the plane next to a stranger is likely to be character-building for all parties.

That's the news. Happy spring break!




*Other than the usual, I mean. The backlog of housework looms large.
** Skipper ate some things when my back was turned. I think mostly grass, but I'm hoping she took care of a few slugs for me, too.
*** I plan to give this a try, but not right now - I figure we'll experiment on Dutch first. She already regularly goes a week or more without shampoo, and her hair never looks or feels icky (though it does get to smelling icky if not rinsed out).

The Four Foods That Skipper Likes

1. cheerios
2. stale semi-wholesome graham crackers
3. seaweed
4. olives

3 Things Dutch Likes

1. Unicorns
2. Los Angeles
3. TV

For you.

This was today.

In other news, Dutch watched and loved all 190 minutes of "Heidi" this weekend. She informed me several times today of the healing powers of "fresh mountain air."

Status updates

Today I was home with the girls by myself all day. I haven't done that since the summer (I think), and it's different now. Skipper wants to do stuff now, the pesky child. It was a long day. Though that may have been at least partly because I didn't drink any coffee, and I was barely functional until 4, when I was able to caffeinate.

Highlights of the day:
1) Skipper bit Dutch, really hard, because Dutch was physically blocking her from invading the area where the Shirley Temple paper dolls were spread out on the floor. To Dutch's credit, she only screeched and didn't backhand Skipper in retaliation; there were still toothmarks on her arm five hours later. Alas, this is only the beginning.
2) I got to give the "there are lots of kids worse off than you" talk! Dutch was complaining that it wasn't fair that I refused to allow her to purchase the frog-turns-into-a-prince gimmick toy, and I informed her that it is ridiculous for one of the richest people in the world to complain of unfairness regarding lame-ass gimmick toy distribution. I said that a kid who has no food and has to eat mud cookies, for example, is allowed to complain about the unfairness of that. Dutch, a compassionate soul, agreed that a kid who has to eat mud cookies DOES have a right to complain about unfairness. Then Dutch, a charitable soul, suggested that she could mail a dime to Haiti for kids to use, and she'd be sure to include a return address in case the kids wanted to send the dime back.
3) Tonight, after I kissed Dutch goodnight, she said "Your brain is shaped like a zero!" Which is pretty much how I feel these days, but I was still a little insulted.

Brainwashing 50% complete

This morning I looked at Dutch's latest "journal" entry at daycare. Usually, they are assigned a general topic for a drawing ("draw something you like to do when the sun is shining"), and they dictate the explanation to a teacher, but this time they had been allowed to write ANYTHING THEY WANTED. This was a picture of some people (with big round empty eyes!) wearing crowns. The narrative went more or less like this: "This is my family. My daddy is the king, my mommy is the queen, and my sister is a princess. I'm a princess too. All my friends are maids. We're helping people solve problems with their cars by using wagons."

Oh, the problems with cars.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dawilson/2623785708/

Mayberry

With the beautiful weather we've had the last two weeks, all of our neighbors have appeared out of the woodwork. We've discovered two 7-year-olds and a 5-year-old, all within a three-house distance either way. Dutch forced me to go over to introduce ourselves to the kid across the street yesterday, and then spent an hour playing with him in his back yard.*  and today we were ambushed by the kid who lives two houses to the west, and Dutch spent 40 minutes playing in HIS back yard. The kid in the house just to the east of us was having a play date this evening, but I expect would otherwise have been involved somehow. We've also been told that the Bad Kid who used to live down the street moved away last fall, so it's all innocence and sunshine now. And pogo sticks.

Not much news, otherwise. Dutch has branched out from figure skating to luge (which she prefers to skeleton), but I think we've watched all the available videos. And Skipper has developed a truly delightful habit of pooping only at daycare; neither Cook nor I have changed a poo-ful diaper in weeks.  She must have realized that her nighttime waking habits were diminishing her popularity.


*I made awkward conversation with his dad for a while, and then just ditched Dutch and went home. I figured the family seemed pretty nice, and probably wouldn't kill and eat Dutch. I'm not a full-on let-your-kid-make-his-way-across-New-York-City-alone free-range-kid parent, but I'm not too worried about the neighbors. She had a great time, too. Apparently, this kid thinks that magic potions and fairies are really cool.