Hello! We're alive. We had an extremely low-key Thanksgiving, observing our Important Family Traditions. Duchess was running a fever and feeling pretty listless, and the weather was crappy, reinforcing our vegetative tendencies. There was a lot of screen time. Today, though, Duchess was back on top of her health, and the weather turned cold and sunny, so in theory we SHOULD have gone on a family hike or something. However, all we managed was a hike to the grocery store.

And then I decided to take some photos, as we finally found the camera battery charger, and I was reminded that I had taken a photo of the girls with our street tree the day it was planted. (I had, of course, intended to take a yearly photo of the girls with the street tree. Perhaps it should be an-every-third-year tradition.)

And then I took some more photos. The usual things happened.





















































































Oh! Looking at these reminds me of the most exciting development from these slow-paced four days at home, which is that Skipper has worn several pieces of clothing that she had previously refused (such as the underpants, pants, shirt, AND sweatshirt she is wearing in these photos). This has taken some bribery and quite a bit of patiently waiting out tantrums (a major advantage of slow-paced days), and I am very pleased. All of the clothes she has worn, except one pair of underpants, have been accepted into the rotation, which has now increased to a whopping FOUR pairs of pants, SEVEN shirts, EIGHT pairs of underpants, and THREE sweatshirts. I feel that we can now move on with our lives. (And I also resolved the bad-smelling clothes issue, which turned out to be, predictably, a manky washing machine issue, easily fixable with a round of very hot water and vinegar.)

Happy Thanksgiving! Also, Happy December!

Ten

Duchess has been here ten years. Ten years. The alert, responsive, unsleeping baby is suddenly an eavesdropping, sarcastic, guffawing giantess who's been knocking around for an entire astonishing decade.

Things about Duchess:
1) Her favorite podcast is Ask Me Another. (Really, you can stop reading right now, because that's a full portrait. She understands very little of it, but she already knows that she's definitely going to grow up to be a person who enjoys things like Ask Me Another.)
2) Her favorite book is whatever she's reading right now.
3) Her favorite anything is almost always the anything she's doing right now.
4) Nothing that goes wrong is her fault. It's probably Skipper's fault.
5) When things go wrong, they are irreparably ruined and definitely worth insanely weeping and wailing and railing over, until she thinks of something else to do, usually within two minutes.
6) Oh, is that something new to try? Duchess wants to try it. Unless it's dangerous, because then forget it.
7) She wants to go to New York City more than anywhere else. Unless you're going somewhere else and you invite her, because then that's the place she wants to go.
8) She laughs at everything. (This makes Skipper crazy, because she hates, above anything else, being laughed at.)
9) She likes you. And me. And everybody else.
10) She wants to tell you, and me, and everybody, everything that flickers through her brain. In detail.
11) She has no notion that we might not be very interested.
12) She still believes that all the minutes come hopping along full of interesting and delightful possibilities. She has a wonderfully low threshold for taking pleasure.* She doesn't make things happen, but she enjoys or at least is fine with most of the things that happen.
13) She is so, so alive. People usually say that about people who make things happen, but Duchess eats up experience in a way that, while passive rather than active, is a very strong engagement with her life. She's always been intent on being here, caught up in the immediacy of what's going on around her, since the moment she was born. I don't know where life will take her (and it will take her, not the other way around), but she will be in it completely all the way.

*"Wait, we're getting the pizza DELIVERED? It's coming to our HOUSE? That's so cool! Wow! It's being delivered!"

Almost ten

Duchess will be ten tomorrow. Today, for Stage 1 of the birthday celebration, we took her best friend from kung fu along to the archery range. The older two had a lovely time, but Skipper struggled mightily to coordinate arrow, hands, and bow, and got extremely frustrated. Here are bad photos, and a very long, boring video, all taken with my elderly phone.

The annual ordeal of the "snow day" in Portland

Today the girls are home because school is cancelled. There is no snow. Granted, there is freezing rain, and the "wintry mix" is going to go on all day. But... there is NO SNOW!!! The whole point of snow days is to have snowball fights. And we can't. Because there is no snow.

However, the weather is giving me a chance to deploy the "wear clothes-you-normally-reject for a short period just to get used to them" strategy with Skipper. (I don't even want to tell you about the way things unfolded yesterday morning, when I forced Skipper to wear pants because of the freezing, howling wind. Let's just say that it was pretty awful and leave it at that.) First, Skipper and I picked out an outfit for Duchess. Then Duchess picked out (from the basement duffle bag that now holds most of Skipper's clothes) an outfit for Skipper. They got dressed and complimented each other extravagantly. The 15-minute time limit has elapsed, and Skipper is STILL WEARING HER OUTFIT.

Skipper continues to very much prefer clothes with pictures of animals on them. These are mostly made for boys, because girls' clothes do not usually feature the kind of bold, bright, large graphics that Skipper likes. Even my favorite brand of children's clothing, (of which Duchess's outfit entirely consists) which emphasizes bold and colorful, keeps the girls' clothing designs relatively muted and delicate. Because... girls are muted and delicate?

The things you can control.

Skipper continues to refuse to wear anything but a very small roster of clothing items. Every night and every morning we have been having the same insane discussion* with her, and Cook and I are both extremely over it. Yesterday I took everything out of her dresser and closet that she hasn't worn in the last month (she has a ton of clothes handed down from the twin Blond girls), stuffed it all in a large duffle, and put it in the basement. Her wardrobe is now composed of the following clothes that she will consistently or occasionally wear: four t-shirts, three pairs of shorts, one pair of pants, seven pairs of days-of-the-week socks, three pairs of underpants, one hooded sweatshirt, two raincoats, one pair of sneakers, one pair of too-small crocs, one pair of rainboots she will wear only if the alternative is getting her sneakers muddy, two hankies, three kung fu uniforms, a leotard for gymnastics, and a swimsuit for swim lessons. Period.

While this is plenty of clothing for most purposes, it is problematic because a) it is difficult to launder her clothes quickly enough, given our schedules and lack of a dryer,** b) several of these most-loved clothing items are getting very ratty, having experienced several owners and now getting worn and washed at least twice a week, and c) the wardrobe is really not warm enough for the kind of weather we're getting into. Also d) it's a little embarrassing to send your kid to school every day wearing the same clothes, especially when they're ratty.***

I ran into an acquaintance recently, and in the course of our conversation I discovered that her kid has very similar issues, that also seem to be a blend of control and sensory issues. (Her kid also has very conflicting reasons for disliking different pieces of clothing, and abruptly decides she doesn't like a piece of clothing she has loved for months.)  It was a relief to hear that, but also alarming, as her kid is nine and has been like this for years, which suggests that this is not necessarily a short-term problem, as I had been hoping.

I can't figure out how to solve this. My acquaintance has her kid wear clothes she dislikes in the evening for an hour at a time, so she can get used to them without having to wear them all day, and we may try something like that. It isn't very helpful to take Skipper shopping, as she has no interest in it, and doesn't want to try anything on, but it's also very risky buying her anything without her trying it on, because odds are extremely high that she will dislike it. It also pisses me off to have to buy her anything at all, given that she has an enormous collection of clothing already.

Anyway. Presumably the situation will improve. I expect.


*"I don't have anything to wear! Waaaaahhhh!" 
"You have a dresser stuffed with nice clothes," 
"NO I DON'T!!!! WAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

** Skipper has several times gone to the basement to dress herself in half-dry clothes off the line. Sending your kid to school in DAMP ratty clothes that she's already worn to school twice that week provides bonus mortification. Also, clothes hung to dry in our basement this fall smell slightly unpleasant in a dank way, which suggests that we need a better dehumidifier and makes us all smell like maybe our family lives clandestinely in an elderly person's unfinished basement, which further increases my anxiety about what Skipper's teachers think of us.

***I must acknowledge here that I also very much prefer to wear baggy, comfortable, ratty clothes, and I also have a uniform that I wear when I have a choice - it is notably comprised of two hooded sweatshirts, one ratty cotton cardigan, one pair of jeans, and my four favorite t-shirts. The main difference between my choice wardrobe and Skipper's is that there are fewer pictures of animals in mine. However, unlike Skipper, I am willing to wear other things when I must.

For you, low-quality photos

School pictures:
























Halloween. Duchess is an 18th-century silversmith's apprentice, and Skipper is a penguin (felt mask made by Cook). Vast heaps of candy were collected. According to Duchess, only "the old people" guessed what she was (though they all thought she was Paul Revere, which was not her intent), and complimented her on her costume. Everybody else thought she was a pirate, which would have disappointed her had she not been laser-focused on accumulating vast heaps of candy.

Conferences

Today Cook and I attended parent-teacher conferences for both kids. Here is what we learned:

1) Our kids are much better behaved, more attentive, quieter, and more perseverant at school than they are at home. Skipper's Japanese teacher asked us "Is Skipper ever silly at home?" and all the teachers seemed to want our kids to talk more in class.

2) Skipper's teachers don't know how well she can read, or how many of the hiragana she knows. She's withholding that information pretty effectively. (This does not reflect on the teachers, as even Cook and I don't really know how well she can read. She really hates to be exposed in any way.)

3) Both of our kids are doing exceedingly well in school, and are appreciated by their teachers. I suggested several areas we think Duchess needs to work on, and her teachers provided specific examples to demonstrate her strength in those areas, leaving me feeling like some kind of terrible pushy parent who never thinks her child is good enough. Am I?

4) All of our kids' teachers (Skipper has a Japanese teacher and an English teacher and Duchess has a homeroom teacher and a math teacher) seem pretty competent, which is nice. They also seem to care about the kids, which is very nice.

So... it's all good.

Also, the kids went to nature day camp yesterday; they're going again tomorrow. Duchess's camp theme yesterday was a role-playing game - essentially, Dungeons and Dragons for ten-year-olds running around in the woods with foam swords, shooting each other with foam-tipped arrows while pretending to be a Cougar Kin Ranger (Ranged).*  They also practiced lighting fires and throwing knives, of course. I can't really think of a camp better-suited to Duchess, and she loved it, in spite of being, yet again, the only girl in the group.  She is very enthusiastic about going to the overnight summer camp version of the roleplaying theme, because a WEEK of running around the woods with foam weapons! If Duchess does not end up leading a chapter of the SCA in college, I will be extremely surprised. Skipper liked her camp (in which her group went on a quest to find a pumpkin and make it into a house for a homeless faerie)** okay, and even participated a little bit. Yay!

*As opposed to a Ranger (Melee). Got it? See, if you're Ranged, you get one arrow, and if you're Melee, you get a sword.
** This is the kind of camp where it's spelled faerie. We're talking deep nature nerds here.

Tips for the Fat Lazy Bike Commuter

Now that I've been bike commuting an 8-mile round trip almost every day for a few months now, I feel qualified to make some recommendations to others like me, who are neither fit nor fearless. Here is what I have learned.
1) Wear clothes that wick, especially for your underlayers. I'm usually a natural fibers sort of person, and I do not perform any activities that have led me to think that I might need "technical" underpants. I guarantee that nobody in Patagonia's design or marketing departments has me in mind as they do their work. However, I have learned that sitting around all day in sweaty clothing is crummy, and apparently "technical" means "hey, your clothes don't have to STAY sweaty!" So unless you're bringing a complete change of clothes, I highly recommend some nice synthetic wicking fibers.
2) Find a good place to change. I do not recommend my own changing spot, a humid, stuffy public restroom where homeless people also go to change. Ventilation would be nice.
3) Take it slow. Stop for pedestrians. Chat with other slow bicyclists and pedestrians. (You're going too slow to chat with anybody else.) Notice the scenery. Is that a bird singing? Isn't this nice?
4) Wear antiperspirant, even though it's a little disturbing, and definitely doesn't go with your philosophy about what people should put on their skin. I am already continually in danger of violating of cubicle-world etiquette because I have a very hard time not blurting out whatever I think to the person who happens to be nearest me, and I do not need to give my cubicle neighbors another reason to request a seating re-assignment.
5) Wear your boots. They're still the best.

October

Hi! We're still hectic. We make dinner in our new slow cooker a lot. Anybody got a good vegetarian slow cooker recipe? 

Last weekend we went to pick pumpkins, plus the usual round of extracurriculars. (Duchess's Chinese teacher, who was irked last year when Duchess chose to participate in the Vietnamese fan dance rather than the Chinese pony dance, asked Duchess to perform a Chinese dance at a conference downtown in November. I'm not sure where she gets the idea that Duchess has the dance chops or the level of commitment to perfect a solo dance performance in a short period of time, but they're working together independently to make it happen, and Duchess is enthusiastic, so I guess it's all good, if a little weird. But it means more time on top of everything else.)

Anyway, here are some photos from our visit to the pumpkin place. If you have time to kill, you can see photos from previous visits in 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011. (I'm pretty sure we went in 2009 and 2012, but there is no evidence.)

It has been grey and rainy. Skipper has now conceded the need to occasionally wear a raincoat or a sweatshirt over her t-shirt and shorts uniform. You will notice that she's wearing the same beloved outfit in every photo in this post. She will wear two other outfits, but only if the primary outfit is unavailable.

Skipper seems to be powering along at school and her after-school program in a reasonably happy and successful trajectory. She wrote this all by herself. 

If you're having trouble deciphering, the four facts Skipper knows about bats are: 1) Fly, 2) Mammals, 3) Vampire bats suck birds' blood, and 4) Eat bugs. Please note the evocative drawing of the sad bird whose blood has been sucked. 

Here is a portrait of the author.

People who try

Yesterday Skipper performed with her taiko class in public, in front of probably 80 people at the end of the harvest festival at her school.  She worried about it, but she didn't balk. She was obviously nervous during the performance, and seemed pretty lost, but I don't think that's outside the realm of normal for a five-year-old with exactly three taiko classes under her belt. She was very, very proud of herself.

Last week, as Skipper was talking about something she was going to do, she said "... because I'm a person who tries new things." I wanted to take a moment to shed a few happy tears, but I just said "Yes, you do try a lot of things." And she does, damnit. She tries new things on a daily basis, lately.

In other news, Duchess is wrestling with a lot of Big Things about adolescence and self-presentation and who she wants to be in the world. She's started dressing differently, consciously choosing clothes she identifies as more sophisticated, and spending time making her hair as straight and sleek as she can given her limited tools. She struggles with how to present and identify herself at school- is she going to try to hang out with the Cool Girls, or is she going to sit with the Nerd King* and make up silly songs? Only time will tell. In the meantime, she also tries new things.

*He's back! Turns out the Magic TAG school is much less flexible than this one about letting him skip school a ton to pursue his own projects. So he's back, though he's in a different class than Duchess, and she spends time with him at recess whenever she can. This exposes them both to ridicule, both because of the cross-gender friendship, which is not really socially permitted, and also because he is very short and Duchess is very tall, so they look silly together in a way that calls attention to the gender problem... Of course the Nerd King handles this with his usual aplomb, which gives Duchess some courage.

Who would want a pumpkin that's just orange?

Skipper went on a field trip. She brought home a pumpkin. (It's green and knobbly. I asked her if she had a lot of choices, and she said dismissively, "yeah, but the other ones were just orange.") She also, the same day, had her first day of kung fu aftercare, so it was a long hard day of doing hard new things. Skipper, as you know, hates to be revealed to be less than perfect, and joining a class that has been running for a month of weekdays is the sort of thing that makes her feel very exposed. The kung fu teacher said that every time Skipper seemed to be panicking and "brimming over" he asked her if she wanted to skip the thing they were doing, and she said "I will do it." Skipper's life is full of moments when she has to push forward into the thing she doesn't want to do, often because the alternative feels even worse to her. She's usually pretty tired by the end of a day of pushing painfully forward, alone, while around her other kids seem to be bobbing easily along. She's doing really well, honestly. She seems to be settling in to kindergarten, she likes her teachers and classmates, she likes school, she likes kung fu... It's just not easy. I think there will be many more moments of ease as she gets more and more comfortable in her routines, but it's never going to be just easy.