Just a note

I was looking at the coverage of the marches today, and I got curious and went to the Fox News home page:

At first I thought it said nothing about the marches, and then I saw the little item on the bottom lefthand corner.

Here's the NY Times:

No wonder it feels like we're living in different worlds, when your standard media coverage (not EVEN your facebook feed) looks so different.

Anyway, Skipper and I are off to the Portland march. Don't look for us in the Fox news coverage; we won't be there.

Also, memories of three and a half.

For grandparents and insomniacs (or maybe both): video of Duchess dancing

First day of new camps

Today Cook dropped Skipper off at a new camp for the week. He reported that she did not freak out or cry, which is great progress. She reported afterward that she enjoyed her day and made several friends.

I took Duchess to HER new camp, an intensive dance camp that is really just a lot of dancing (ballet, contemporary, hip hop, musical theater, "movement improv") with two short breaks for changing clothes and eating snacks - no "camp" activities or structure. We arrived exactly at what I had understood to be the "camp" drop-off time, but it turned out that the time was in fact the time that the first class STARTED. Duchess was pretty anxious about the prospect of being the worst kid there, and she was already sweaty and flustered because we had biked there at a sprint, due to a forgotten lunchbox and a subsequently late start. In this state, she had to hurry to change into her ballet clothes (and putting tight stretchy clothes on a sweaty body is never fun), and then walk into a class already underway. The age group is 9-11-year-olds, so of course Duchess was the tallest kid there by at least five inches. The other girls, almost all of whom have been taking classes at this place for at least a year, looked like delicate little ballet elves with perfect buns and pointed toes, and Duchess came in like an Amazon, towering over all of them, her hair haphazardly clipped and sticking out every which way.* I thought she looked gorgeous, of course, broad-shouldered and radiant with life, but she felt pretty terrible about the whole scene, and I left her hunching cautiously over a barre, warily taking the fifth position. When I picked her up, she was devouring some of the food she hadn't had time to eat, and looking kind of feral and wild-eyed, but she said she enjoyed the classes a lot. She wasn't the worst kid there, and tomorrow we're going to arrive a little earlier. She's looking forward to it. Should you be curious, she says that she's best at ballet, but enjoys contemporary dance the most.



*This has been happening all of Duchess's life. Because she's so very enormous, she often looks oddly out of scale, like Alice in Wonderland.

Triumphant peacock.

I am not the sort of parent who thinks her kids are the best. I tend to err on the side of underestimating them. Duchess danced her peacock dance at the Lunar New Year celebration at her school last night, and I was concerned that it would be a boring flop. She had worked on it a LOT under the tutelage of her Chinese teacher, but what I had seen looked pretty uninspiring, like a listless, jerky aerobics routine. She's not terribly graceful or coordinated, and she's really not concerned about stuff like attention to detail. (See?) But she's also a person who does stuff, as we know, and doing a solo performance (a solo DANCE performance!) is just a thing that people who do stuff... just do. She was nervous, but not terribly so, and she just took it all in stride. My concern was tempered by her casual attitude; I figured that if it was a disaster, she'd take that in stride, too, as she does with everything.

Anyway, she did her dance, all by herself, at the end of a typically boring but mildly charming bumbling-kid show, in the hot, crowded cafeteria. She did great. She didn't look nervous, though she also didn't smile or engage the audience at all. She just seemed like she had the whole thing in hand, like she was just doing it. Even a doting mom wouldn't say that she looked like a gifted or experienced dancer, but she looked like she had practiced, and she absolutely did not embarrass herself. And then her performance was over, and she was beset by friends and their parents congratulating and complimenting her, and she LOVED that. I think it might have been the best moment of her life so far.

(This, by the way, is a classmate and friend of hers. Not all of her friends are built on such a different scale from Duchess, but this is not unusual.)

(Skipper, of course, took this all as a personal affront. She was very worried that Duchess would humiliate herself, and then when it all came off well, she got really pissed that Duchess was getting so much attention. Poor kid - another lose-lose.)

Update

My goodness. Working people have no time for frivolous things like blogs.

Here's what has happened. I keep going to work. Cook keeps going to work. Skipper and Duchess have a very nice babysitter, who did not quit on us after her first full day, during which (with Duchess gone on an all-day playdate) Skipper peed her pants, barfed in the babysitter's car, and then went into her room and refused to come out. Skipper is struggling with the transition. She has been very clingy with me, when I finally get home every night.

Duchess loves her new ballet class, which comes complete with a stern ballet teacher. Cook described returning to the class after hanging out at the playground with Skipper for a while, and hearing the teacher say crankily to Duchess as he came in, "Well, if you can do it in one direction, why can't you do it in the other direction?!" - Duchess apparently just shrugged in response. Cook felt the only way the teacher could have been more perfect is if she had a Russian accent, and maybe a wooden leg.  However, Duchess seems to be enthusiastic about the class at least in part BECAUSE the teacher is stern. Duchess feels that reflects a seriousness about the whole venture that she appreciates.

Skipper is tearing up the pool in her swim class, laughing and joking with the teachers, and working very hard. Mostly the girls are enjoying not having to go to school, though Duchess seems less interested in reading than normal, and has several times complained of boredom. It's probably a good thing that they have a babysitter who actually does stuff with them.

And we went camping this weekend! It was a lovely experience, and also allowed Skipper to confront her general fear of anything new. She was pretty crazed the first night, when we arrived late*, set up camp in the rain, and went to bed very late. "I want to go home!" she cried in despair, "I don't even know where I am!"  The next day we went to a hot spring nearby, and Skipper was very concerned about it. She had no idea what to expect, and that's a state that she can't abide. It turned out that she loved the hot springs. We barged in on the stoned skinnydipping vibe and ruined it completely with our swimsuits, children, and general loud ruckus,** but Skipper was absolutely down with it. She rolled silently around in the water, immersing herself totally and looking tremendously peaceful. Odds are good that she's going to end up working on an organic farm outside of Eugene in fifteen years, river rafting and hot-springs-lounging on her off days.

Anyway. That's the report. Work takes up a really unfair amount of time. My daughters are growing up. All is well.


* after a daunting drive that trailed off into what felt like remote wilderness, with a dubious turn and no confidence that we were going the right direction. Skipper said mournfully near the end of the drive, "Duchess? I think I'm having trouble... keeping myself... up." 
** not to mention my helpful commentary on the slimy rocks, the extremely hospitable environment for bacteria, etc. I think hot springs are pretty icky. Well, not necessarily hot springs, but hot springs with people in them. Ew.

As an aside.

I love Jasmine from So You Think You Can Dance.  So much. I want her to come live with us so we can have dance parties all the time. Or we could watch her dance. Or we could just hang out. Whatever works.

Saturday afternoon at our house.

Remember Dutch's beer wench dress? It doesn't fit quite the same, four years later.

Recommendations

Not much going on. I'm feeling a little insane about my job, and Cook is a little insane about painting the house and generally improving everything. However, the kids seem to be barreling along with their lives, loud and happy and, you know, growing up.
But what I really wanted to tell you is that I have a new TV thing! I just want to say that if I ever go on a reality TV show to show off my awesome dance skills, I would like to hope that I would get up there and deliver a pretty cool dance about the mating habits of insects.

Two things you need to know about me.

1) I really, really want to watch the Footloose remake.
2) I really, really love the original Footloose.

A gift, enjoyed twice.

This is Skipper and Dutch enjoying a package that arrived recently.

This is Skipper enjoying her new chair (which came in that package, wrapped in bubblewrap). She's "reading."

Dancing alone on a pedestal

A beautiful street

Happy Valentine's Day!

The sun came out here today. We went to the park. Dutch and Cook played some frisbee, crushing my hopes for a slot for Dutch on the 2020 Olympic team.

Skipper swang. Swinged. Swung. Whatever.

Also, here is Skipper napping on Cook yesterday.

Our camera is still out of commission, so Skipper's infancy is going to be recorded only on video.

And here is the result of my experiment to see if I could make my own "single baby" video. I don't think it's going viral, but you never know.

Halloween

Dutch was going to be a puppy for Halloween. Then she was going to be a princess. Then she was going to be a pirate. Then she was going to be "Superkitty." Then she found a pair of bunny ears in one of her random boxes of junk, and decided to be a bunny. No, a bunny with magical powers. Then today at tap-dancing class she got jealous of the kids in the store-bought Disney Princess costumes, and decided that she was going to be a ROYAL bunny.

The beer wench dances

The blue smiles!Skipper's first role in one of Dutch's ballet performances. Notice how Skipper is staring at Dutch, fascinated and bewildered. She watches Dutch all the time, probably partly due to an instinct for self-preservation. The ballerina also climbs trees.

Phew

I've perfected the "ballet bun." I'm a ballet bun genius! All it takes, after all, is 45 bobby pins and about half a pound of gel.

I forgot to bring the camera, so you'll never know how ridiculously cute Dutch looked in her ridiculous "frog princess" costume, and the video camera is out of batteries, so you'll never get to see the utterly hilarious frog princess dance, and you'll just have to take my word for all of it.

Cook watched the whole show, but he was too far away to be able to see much, and reported that he spent much of the time contemplating the poignance of little kids doing ballet. When I asked what he meant, he said "you know, birth, death, the innocence of youth, that sort of thing." Weirdly enough, I do kind of know, because watching the kids from the wings actually brought tears to my eyes. Something about their eager little faces and hoppity little bodies, and, you know, their lives ahead of them. That sort of thing.

Of course, I also had the much-less-poignant experience of spending about five hours out of the last 30 stuck in a room with a whole bunch of revved-up "ballet-ers," ranging in age from 4 to 7, all dressed in rented costumes, with their hair falling out of their perfect buns, and FORBIDDEN TO EAT ANYTHING. It was getting kind of scary by the end of each performance- they were all hyper and starving and the situation was rapidly devolving to a let's-get-Piggy point. We all survived, though, even The Totally Loony Kid who stole food, screeched backstage, and ordered me to "watch!" and then picked her nose and ate the booger. Dutch was a star, of course, well-behaved, cheerful, charmingly excited, non-nose-picking, and attentive to all instructions. (You'd never guess she's a horrible brat at home, if you met her out in the world.) She was very proud of herself. And I'm SO glad it's over for the summer. Dutch has the option of starting ballet again in the fall, if she wants and our budget permits, but I'm hoping she just sort of forgets about it.

Untrained

I don't style my hair. I don't wear makeup. I don't know how to do those things. I am woefully ill-equipped to be Dutch's mom. Not only is her Fanciness Standard way way higher than mine, but she chooses activities that require skills I do not have.

For her ballet performance next week she is supposed to wear "stage makeup - earth tones only!" and have a perfect bun "with no wisps." Dear lord. She doesn't even have long enough hair to make a bun! And nobody in the world except ballerinas and long-haired cooks wears hair nets anymore, so it's impossible to find them at, say, your neighborhood drugstore. And should I ever be able to find a hair net, I will then have to make a no-wisp hairdo out of it. I can barely remember to brush my own hair in the mornings.

I took a first step today and went to the drugstore where they did not have hairnets, where I also looked for styling gel or hairspray or whatever normal people use to style hair. I was just going to buy the cheapest and smallest container, but then I made the horrible mistake of looking at the ingredients list, which went more or less like this: "Gives you cancer, probably compromises your fertility, screws up your lungs, and then kicks you in the head when you're lying in the hospital bed." Why, I'd like to know, would anybody put propane in a product that people put on their skin?* So I had to go to Whole Paycheck and buy something else, which cost almost twice as much but doesn't have any death in it.

Anyway, I told her she's not wearing makeup. She can wear the tinted lip balm I accidentally bought. And we'll have to practice the hairdo all week. I'll post a photo!

*If you'd like to figure out how to find products that make you Fancy without putting your health at risk, check out Skin Deep.