I said, "It's when you really, really love someone or something."
Sam: "Know what I adore?"
me: "No, what?"
Sam: "Frida."
He's been working a lot at school on following directions, listening, and doing things the first time when asked, and we've been working on those things at home a lot too. He's spacey the way certain other members of our family are spacey (ahem!), which is to say, he's often so absorbed in his own thoughts that he misses what others are saying to him. It's tough for him, but these are good skills to learn.
Our piano arrived today! And now we can barely turn around in our living room. I'm excited to start playing again, though-- haven't had a piano for 14 years. Sam's excited, too.
We've been opening gifts daily/nightly for Hanukah, and had latkes the first night (and Omi's dumplings last night-- a bit funny to eat fried pork dumplings for a Jewish holiday, but hey, they're fried!) Sam's gotten Katamino, which we're all enjoying (OK, not Beanie yet), some watercolors (expanded color options), and a cool t-shirt with a beetle screen-printed on it. Bean's gotten a couple of little wooden toys and a Bumbo (yay for Craig's List), which unlike her brother at 3.5 months,
she actually fits in at 4 months.
She's getting too long for a lot of her 3-6 month clothing, stretching her legs with irritation in her toe-confining sleepers, so it's time for another clothing rotation before we go to MN for next week (brr!).
Sam's home from kindergarten today with a cold he's been fighting all weekend. He was up a couple of times last night coughing and stuffy, so given that I was just planning to run errands anyway, we're hanging out at home. I'm sensing an approaching piano lesson...
And finally, at the risk of jinxing myself for the rest of time, a report of a successful late-afternoon in 2-child parenting: after picking Sam up from school on Friday, I needed to run three errands in Harvard Square. After finding parking (no small feat in itself), I bundled a bunting-clad Bean into the fleece sling and hefted a big bag of boxes to mail. First, because Sam hadn't had a post-school snack, we went to Burdick's chocolate shop for the best hot chocolate in the world (and a couple of gifts). We enjoyed our respective treats, and then headed back out into the darkening cold to the post office around the corner. On the way, Sam announced that he had to pee... but Chipotle's free bathroom was just a block away, and I managed to keep my cool even when Sam grabbed the nasty edge of the toilet. Back at the post office, the line was long but moving quickly, so we played a game of 20 questions while I juggled the Bean, Sam's coat, and the big bag of boxes, until I had to fill out a customs form. At the counter, I discovered that I needed to fill out the deluxe, longer customs form-- so, bouncing a now-impatient Bean, I started writing while Sam began the Whine of the Impatient Four Year Old... until I remembered the customs form clutched in his own hand. Handing him a pen, I suggested he fill one out too. "Oh! sure!" and he carefully wrote something like "PLZ RAP WF RED PPR" (please wrap with red paper), finishing just as I finished mailing 3 packages and buying stamps. He gravely handed it to the clerk, who just as gravely accepted it, and we were on our way. One extended stop-with-bonus-nursing-break later, and we were done, headed home for candle-lighting and latke-frying with no lost tempers or hats. And just one parking ticket.
Please continue recording the minutiae of such afternoons, for all our sakes. Someday I will need to be reminded about why this job was just so dang hard and what counted as a triumphant day in the years of early parenting. Most admiring of your afternoon, with necessary interventions, detours, and creative thinking. And do you mean to say you actually got a place to sit at Burdick's??
ReplyDeleteLove the comparative Bumbo pictures: both of your kids are striking specimens of the human species. We're also marveling at the size difference of our #1 and #2; A. weighed in at her 1-year checkup just where E. was at 6 months. Have notes about E. at about this age "running down the street" to see her friend; hard to imagine A. doing that, as she is still is most definitely a babe-in-arms.
P.S. To clarify: by "striking" I meant really good-looking!
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