Category: Kids

Categories
Kids

Are Gymnasts Born or Created?

Over the summer I thought Alison might be interested in gymnastics, so I signed her up.  You know, just to pass the time until she could start real ballet at age five.  There was a waiting list, naturally, but the call finally came last week that a space had opened up.

This is a child who does not like new places, new people, or new things.  I anticipated her sitting on my lap while the rest of the class participated, at least for the first few weeks.  Especially since she is only just now, in the fourth week of school, not clinging to me at drop off and crying intermittently throughout the day.

 *

Lo and behold, Alison jumped right in there, made friends with each kid in the class, and tackled every new obstacle with gusto.  There is something about gymnastics that struck a chord with my girl.  She balanced and jumped and flipped and pulled, smiling all the while.  I have never been more proud of her, and that’s saying a lot.

As we left, Alison asked if she could come back to gymnastics every day.  When I had to tell her no, we could only come on Mondays, she promised to go right to bed, forever, if she could come maybe twice a week, then.

Her attitude has improved so much after just the one class, that I’m beginning to think it would be worth the money to pay for several classes each week.  If only so that I can spend more time with this sweet, happy child instead of the whiny, bossy kid that had, until recently, taken up residence in our home.


* Sorry for the major blur – it’s hard to get a good shot, with no flash, from across the room!

Categories
Food Home and Garden Kids

Inchworm: Friend or Foe?

One of the perks of living out in the country is the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables available to us whenever we feel like picking some up. 

Right now, we’re eating our fill of peaches because they are about to go out of season.  And by the way, fresh, ripe peaches straight from the tree?  Delicious.  And paying a couple of dollars for a whole box of them?  Also delicious, but in a whole other way.

Oh, and have I forgotten to introduce you to my daughter’s newest “pet”?

She keeps him in a mason jar in her room, and feeds him cut up peaches.  He’s peach colored, too, so sometimes it’s hard to spot him in there.

Are you sensing where I’m going with this?

We discovered him on the table, under a napkin, after we finished a feeding frenzy involving about a half dozen (thoroughly washed) peaches.  I’m hoping he was a loner, and didn’t have a family.

Regardless, I think I’m done eating peaches…. at least for now.  But maybe forever.

Categories
Kids Letters Life in general

Dear Diary

Late Summer, 1986

Dear Diary,

Guess what??  This weekend we went camping with some of the people from Daddy’s work.  It was at this cool lake where you can’t walk to your camp site, you have to ride in a boat.  We found a good spot where us older kids (’cause now I’m a FOURTH GRADER!) got to have our tent on a whole separate beach from the grown ups and little kids.

When we first got there, we had to jump over a little tiny stream to get to our beach.  But Daddy said they were releasing the dams and so the water kept coming up higher.  Me and some of the other kids built these little walls out of sand to try and keep the water from coming up to the grown up campsite.  But then the water came up anyways and we had to move all the stuff up higher from the water, and then it was this big long walk from the stuff to the water.  But Mommy said it was better than having to move the stuff a bunch of times.

One of the grown ups put a log over the stream so we could balance on it to get to the big kids’ beach.  It was so funny when Jennifer fell off the log!  But I’ve had gymnastics so I know how to walk on it without falling.  But then it wasn’t so funny when we were in the tent changing clothes, ’cause it was getting dark, and just when I was coming out I heard somebody scream.

I looked at the stream but I couldn’t see the log anymore, the water must have covered it.  And right there next to where it was supposed to be, Sabrina was going under the water.  She’s a little kid (I think she’s maybe two years old because I remember when she used to be nursing) and so she’s not supposed to come over to the big kid beach.  But she did anyway, maybe when nobody was looking, and she fell in the water and I saw her go under, and she didn’t come back up.

Later everybody said that there was lots of screaming, but I didn’t hear anything because the inside of my head went really quiet.  All of a sudden my legs were just moving so fast and I jumped in the water to the bottom and picked her right up.  I held on to her so tight and kicked my legs super hard, so we would be on top of the water instead of underneath it.  She put her arms around my neck and we just held on to each other and I kicked and kicked until a grown up got there to take Sabrina to the shore. 

And then I swam to the shore, too, but I was wearing my Jordache jeans (the ones my mom bought me, NEW! from KMart!) and man they were so heavy when they were wet and I was all of a sudden really, really tired.  The grown ups were all there and they were all telling me I was so brave and Sabrina’s daddy gave me a big hug and told me I was a hero.  But I told him I didn’t try to be a hero, my legs just went and went.  And Sabrina’s mommy told me she never saw anybody move so fast, ever, and that she was lucky that I didn’t get frozen like the grown ups, whatever that means, because I SURE WAS COLD.

Me and Sabrina sat by the fire, wrapped up in blankets while the grown ups moved the big kids’ tent over to the big beach.  I was watching Sabrina and she was so still and I never saw her be so quiet before, except when she was sleeping.

Her daddy kept thanking me and I even saw him cry, and I didn’t know that daddies cried.

~ Andrea

Categories
Entertainment Kids

Nemo, and Other Undesirables

With my first child, I was adamant that she wouldn’t watch TV or be overwhelmed with “character” stuff.  Through that first year, I was pretty successful.  She was blissfully ignorant of cartoons and their merchandise, and our house was a Disney-free zone.

Then we came upon Alison’s first birthday closely followed by Christmas, and were inundated by gifts covered in Disney Princesses, Dora the Explorer, and Thomas the Tank Engine.  Gifts which, incidentally, Alison loved passionately.

Fast forward a couple of years, and enter a new baby on the scene.  A baby who, at the tender age of 15 months, knows the names of a lot of cartoon characters.  Not necessarily because she watches THAT much TV (although, yes, I admit she comes running at the first notes of The Backyardigans theme song) but because she has inherited Alison’s STUFF.

Stuff in perfectly good condition, stuff that’s actually pretty well designed save for that cartoon character smiling up from its surface.  A necessary evil?  Perhaps.

I have come to appreciate the educational cartoons and characters for the learning tools they can be.  Alison is much more willing to learn Spanish because she hears it from Dora and Diego as well as from us.  If she’s forgetting her manners, all I have to do is call her, “Princess Cleotasha” and she’ll shape up faster than if I try reminding her to be polite.

And Blythe?  Well, she spotted some juice with Elmo on it at the store the other day and could not rest until said juice was resting comfortably in the cart next to her.  Who can turn down a little voice saying, “Emmoh, pease?  Peeeease, mama, Emmmmooooooh?” 

Say a little prayer for me, m’kay?

Categories
Kids Life in general

Kindergarten *sob*

Well, it’s here.  The first day of Kindergarten.  We’ve talked about it and planned for it and had play dates with kids in her class.  We lovingly chose her uniform and put everything she needed on the shelf in her room.  We picked out special foods, and placed them in the shiny new lunch box.  Last night we practiced getting them out, and talked about eating the treat last.


But this morning, she didn’t want to brush her hair.  Or her teeth.  She didn’t want to get dressed, or take a first-day photo.  She didn’t want to carry her brand-new Hello Kitty bag.  She wanted to stay home with me, and play with Blythe.

I promised her a Popsicle when she got home, and that produced a smile.




Bribery – it works every time, I tell ya.



Her dad and I took her to school, and helped her put her lunch box and bag in the spot marked, “Alison”.  We reminded her of her friends, the playground, the crayons, the strawberries she’d get to eat at lunch. 



Look at that nice Kindergarten class room.  Doesn’t it look warm and inviting?  Not to Alison.  To her, it looks like a torture den.  A place where her heartless mom is willingly handing her over to strangers.




And here, people – here is where I had to peel my child off of me as she cried, and push her into the classroom.  Parents aren’t allowed past the door, see.  And then I had to turn and walk quickly away, lest she see the tears streaming down my face.