The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

"You Have a Lovely Chicken"

After the haircut, the plan for Julia and me was to head to my parents' house to show them the new 'do and then go home.  I called Mom and said we'd be stopping by with a surprise, and then Meredith walked outside with Julia and me as we headed for the car.

Joan, my sister's neighbor (who we'd chatted with about Locks of Love before Julia's haircut), was outside, and Julia bee-lined in her direction and was around the fence that divides my sister's and Joan's properties.  Mere and I followed.

All of a sudden Julia came tearing back around the fence, wailing and crying and incoherent.  She headed straight for me and I managed to make out "It's chasing me!"

Meet Legs.

Julia Rose, By Any Other Mane

This morning I made egg sandwiches for Bill and Julia.  I'd put Julia's hair in a ponytail so she wouldn't get egg in it, and after that, I went by her and past the end of the dining room table toward the windows so I could open them and let some cool air in before the humidity took over.

I rounded the end of the table, and scattered on the floor I saw hair.  And a pair of red-handled children's scissors. 

Mouth agape, I turned to look at Julia, the question "Julia, why did you cut your--" barely spoken, and I saw this:

See it?  The hair that DOESN'T fit in the ponytail?  I hadn't noticed it when I put her hair up minutes before, and I'd also been walking around on the other side of her when I served her egg sandwich.

 

Initially my reaction was to keep scissors out of her reach for the rest of her childhood, but while Bill was putting scissors up on top of the pie safe (where she'd easily get to them using a stool stacked on a chair when we weren't looking), I decided to find out why.  I'm big (sometimes) on why.

So I sat down with her at the table and gently asked WHY she'd cut her hair.

And in a small voice, her little eyes brimming with a few tears, she said "Because I want to be a boy."

Ohhh, sweetie.

I remember that feeling.  Like it would be SO much better to be a boy.

And so I told her that cutting her hair wouldn't turn her into a boy.  And besides, she was just as strong and smart and brave and awesome as any boy.

She didn't seem all that convinced, but the issue kind of fizzled anyway.  I held her adorable little face in my hands and looked into her big blue eyes and told her that she was perfectly wonderful exactly the way she was - as a girl.

She said "Who do you think likes to play with the toy mice more, Scratchy or Softie?"

I tried to make my point a couple more times but she had already switched gears and was kind of past the boy thing - or at least past wanting to discuss it.

So I asked her if she really, really, really wanted short hair.  Because once it's cut, you can't glue it back on.

And she said she did.

And I asked her again, just to be sure.  And I used my Really Serious Abuot This voice, too.

She said she did.

I said that if she really really really wanted her hair short, (and I also told her she was NOT going to have hair as short as Alex's) I could call Auntie later and see if she could do it.

She liked that idea.

So a bit later, I talked to my sister and explained the whole thing, and she said she'd be home all afternoon.

After lunch, Julia took a bath and I washed her hair and combed all the tangles out. 

And then we were out the door and on our way.  (I asked her a few more times - really really sure?  She still was.)

"Look at me, Mom!  Aren't I walking like a big girl?"

I had her stand with her back to me so I could take a picture of her hair.  It's still wet from her bath.

When we got to my sister's house, Julia petted Ozzie, one if the cats, while I snapped a few more pictures of her still with long hair.

It's funny.  I remember it was (or seemed like) a HUGE deal when I got my hair cut short for the first time.  And I was...let's see...eleven.  It was the summer between fifth grade and sixth.  If I find a picture of myself (because of course my father took before and after shots) from that time, you'll never know because I have no desire to post it.  Sorry.

You'll just have to enjoy the Julia transformation.  She's way cuter anyway.

On the ride down, I thought about what to do with her hair, and rather than just sweep it into the trash, I thought we could donate it to an organization that makes wigs for people undergoing chemo or something.  As luck would have it, when we got to my sister's house, her neighbor, Joan, was outside and she and I were talking about the Big Day for Julia, and she suggested Locks of Love.  So that's one I'm considering.  Any other suggestions?  The ponytail we've got is over 10" long, so I know most places will take it.  If you've got another organization you support, or you've donated to, please let me know.

We went inside, Meredith (my sister) fixed some celery and peanutbutter for Julia, found a channel to keep her entranced (and sitting still), and then, it was time.

Part of me expected to get all teary-eyed about this.  I've been the one determined that Julia's hair would remain long.  It seemed so much a part of her.  The long, wild mane seemed to represent her bold, fiesty nature.  She'd stand there with her little hands on her little hips and toss her hair off of her shoulders while trying to boss Alex around or something.  Like Sampson, Julia's hair gave her strength.

Except that that's ridiculous.

And knowing Julia, it wouldn't matter where we hid the scissors.  She'd find them if she really wanted to, and she'd cut her own damn hair if she wanted to.

Much better, then, to at least have my sister do it so it would look good.

And so out came the scissors.

  

And after hacking through the hair, a few layers at a time,

The ponytail was off.

 

 

 

"Look, Ma!  No hair!"

After that, I put the ponytail in a plastic bag and my sister got to work tidying up the rest of Julia's hair.

That's Natalie grabbing a piece of raspberry Entenmann's coffee cake.  Julia is still glued to the Scooby-Do marathon my sister found for her to watch. 

This next one came out very blurry, much to my regret.  I love the angle, and the look on her face.

  

 

 

And that was one portion of Julia's Big Day.

 

Conversation With Julia While She Eats a Plum and I Try to Write a Post (not THIS post)

Julia:  Mom, do plums have seeds?

Me:  No, they have a pit.

Julia:  What's a pint?  (rhymes with splint)

Me:  No - a PIT.

Julia:  What's a TIT?

Me:  A PIT!

Julia:  What's a PIT?

Me:  The hard thing in the center of your plum.  It's like one big giant seed instead of a lot of little ones like blueberries have.

Julia:  Oh.

(she continues to eat, I continue to type)

Julia:  I found the pit!  It IS like one big seed!

Me:  Yep!

The Look

Getting Out of Dodge

We took the kids to the zoo today. Southwick's Zoo, which used to be known as Southwick's Wild Animal Farm.

My kids sometimes still refer to it as "Southquick's."

Whatever you call it, it's around an hour from our house and we generally go about once a year.

We'd promised the kids this trip as something to look forward to after all the intense work upstairs lately and our self-imposed polyurethane-induced exile.  So this morning, after a quick run to the farmers' market so I could get my goat milk and more rhubarb and honey sticks for the kids...and a few plants for the gardens (flower, not vegetable), we headed north.

The weather was kind of crazy today - overcast, then a tease of sun, then back to gray and ominous.  I was hoping we'd have overcast at the zoo.  It's much more comfortable than baking in the sun.  And that's pretty much what happened.  We wandered around looking at most of the animals, the kids and me taking pictures, in kind of humid but otherwise comfortable sun-free weather.  Rain began to fall toward the end, when we were in the Petting Zoo, which is made up mostly of an assortment of goats, a few funky looking sheep, a couple turkeys, a limping rooster (today, anyway) and, in their own little pen, a beautiful pair of Jersey calves. 

 

Look at that sweet face, will you?

Anyway, back to the weather...the rain fell harder as we race-walked through the parking area to our car and sped away to get something to eat.

I have favorite moments, favorite photos, favorite exhibits, all of which are different each time we go.  The Deer Forest, where you can feed corn kernels to the deer and wander around with them, is always a kind of otherworldly experience, at least for me. 

I guess I'm still a kid enough to think "Hey!  We're hanging out with deer!  With no fence between us and them!"

I also love the tigers.  Last year the two (one white, one orange) were just little cubs.  This year they're bigger, maybe teenagers, at least size-wise.  They're big, but they haven't filled out yet.

This year they were both snoozing, so I didn't really get much of a picture of either one.

Although I did want to climb on in and scratch this guy's chin. 

He reminded me of Scratchy a little.  I mean, come on.  Just look at that adorable little face.

Moving on...

The chimps?  Eh.  They don't do much for me.  And they were too busy discussing their shrinking pensions to care about anything going on around them.

 

The rhinos...well, the kids were looking forward to the rhinos.  Not because the rhinos are particularly exciting.  They don't move much, at least not when we're around, and today they were both sound asleep.

Look at that.  They must have had a really busy morning.  Right before we arrived.

WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!

Just kidding.

But anyway, the kids looked at the rhinos, and Alex took a picture or two, but mostly my children scanned the whole rhino habitat for piles of rhino poop.

Yes.  That's right.  Rhino poop.

The first year we went to Southwick's, which was maybe three years ago, there was a great big fresh steaming pile of rhino poop in the dirt, and Alex was so thrilled about it that I took a carefully composed photograph of it.  And there's a print of it up on the wall in the bedroom, too.  (In the former bedroom...the room the kids WERE sharing but once we get all our stuff moved back upstairs, it will be Bill's and my room.  And all the pictures, including the rhino poop picture, will be removed from the walls and distributed between Alex and Julia.  They'll probably fight over the rhino poop shot.

And today?  Alas, no poop to be found.  Plenty of stench, but no piles.  Ah well.  Win some, lose some.

Back to favorites...

Today, I think my second favorite thing was not even an exhibit - it was all the zillion chipmunks that scurry about. 

They're just so cute.

Oh, and speaking of cute, there was also this adorable baby:

He likes his hay.

I wanted him to look over, but he was just too busy.

Alex was also eager to take a look at the alligator.  Or crocodile.  I always forget.  Hang on, let me check...okay, it'a an alligator.

Most of the time, he's pretty boring, frankly.  He just hangs out there, right up against the inner fence (there are two, an outer and an inner, separated by at least three feet of space.  And usually he's asleep.  Or faking it really well.

But not today.

His beady little too-close-together-so-you-know-he's-up-to-no-good eyes were open and he was angled toward the fence...kind of hoping, I imagine, that a little kid might topple from its parent's shoulders and land on the OTHER side of the inner fence.

He moved his head and Julia jumped back.  She didn't like him at all. 

We left the area, and as we crossed paths with people heading toward the 'gator, Alex gleefully announced to all and sundry that "The alligator's getting ready to ATTACK!"  \

Security escorted us off the premises shortly afterward.

Just kidding.

Anyway, I've been saving my favorite part for last.  The petting zoo.

We paid fifty cents for kernels of corn for Alex and Julia to feed to all the goats.

And there were a LOT of goats.  Different kinds, different sizes.  Plenty of babies.

If Julia could have smuggled the lot of them out under her shirt, she would have.

As it was, we had to remind her of the rules...

One of which was "Do Not Pick Up the Animals!"

Julia, put the goat down.

So she did her best to recruit followers.

And when that didn't work, she tried to work on her herding technique.

You.  Hey, you!

Yeah, I'm talking to you.

Wait!  Come back here!

Well, that didn't work, so she switched tactics.

Okay guys, you can have all the corn you want, but ONLY if you come with me.  So line up in an orderly fashion.

Hey, I said an ORDERLY line. 

Oh, okay.  You can have some corn.

I think Alex would have helped with the smuggling.

At least, he might have.

Had it not been for...the hoof.

See that mama goat? 

She was hungry.  And persistent.

And no matter where Alex went...

Or how many other goats (and sheep) he tried to feed,

 

She kept going back for more.  Several times (I didn't catch any of this with the camera, unfortunately) she was practically climbing up Alex, trying to get the food, and at some point - just once - one of her sharp little front hooves hit him in a rather, um, delicate little area.  Alex was not amused.

He abandoned the goats and focused attention on the turkeys instead.

Julia looked at one of the turkeys for a minute, and then headed back to her goats.

(And may I just pause a moment here and say that I have leg envy?  Look at my child's calves, will you?  Those sculpted little gams?  Why?  Why?  She doesn't work out.  She doesn't think about nutrition.  She just has this perfect little strong body and yes, I'm small and petty, and I don't know where she got such great muscle definition because she sure as hell didn't inherit that from me.)

Sorry.  Momentary lapse.

Anyway, there she goes, striding in her purposeful little manner AWAY from the turkeys.

She swings her hair out off her shoulders and keeps going...

Until she gets to this one.

She's the goat whisperer.

Wait!  Don't go yet! 

I'll just grab this little handle here...

(She didn't really.)

Come here, my little baby.

I will hug him

and squeeze him

and name him George.

Through the Window

This past Sunday I was outside taking pictures of raindrops on flowers and plants - including this one, which I'm particularly pleased with. 

(You can see more of the raindrop pictures over at my little gardening site, if you're interested.)

Anyway, I started in the back yard, and when I came around to the front of the house, Alex and Julia were hamming it up in the big window in our living room.  So I took pictures.

 

I like this little series.  

Just pure silliness.

That's all for now!

They Spy

 

Julia has underwear on.  I say that so no one is distracted by her appearance.  And if you've been reading me for any great length of time, you wouldn't be distracted anyway.  She does this a lot.  If I had her perfect musculature, I might prefer to go about in my underwear most of the time, too.

Anyway.  this was taken on Saturday, about an hour or so before we went to the Swim Banquet.  I was finishing up in the kitchen and the kids had been playing in the pool moments earlier. 

And I heard them talking, deciding what to do next (it's so peaceful 'round here when they are getting along), and one of them picked out the "I Spy" book to look through.  It's a Christmas one that Alex got probably a couple of years ago.  It never gets put away with the Christmas stuff, though.  They aren't concerned with seasonality.  They just like to find stuff.

And I heard Alex say "Julia, I'll read, and you spy." 

And that's what they did.  I get such a kick out of listening to Alex read.  It's magic.  Really.  This little guy, who used to be a tiny baby YESTERDAY, it seems, has been reading for however long it's been now - seems like an eye blink, but it's much longer, of course.  How did that happen?  It's like he went from triumphing with the easy stuff like his name or "Mom" and "Dad" to taking it upon himself to read with his little sister.

And even nicer, at one point I heard him say "Wow, Julia, you're good at finding things!"  I love it when they say nice, complimentary things to each other. 

That was about when I quietly got my camera and tiptoed to the doorway and snapped a few pictures of them before they realized I was there.

Oh no.  I've been spied.  Back to the kitchen I go.

Put Down That Pipe, Boys, and Focus on Your Lemurs

I find it vastly amusing that when Julia is talking about Kratts' Creatures, a great animal show on PBS, she refers to the guys as "The Crack Brothers."

Applause

The kids were squirmy. 

Alex, at least, looked apologetic about it, like "But I'm only 6-nearly-7!  How do you expect me to sit still on this chair?" 

Julia, true to form, had no apologies.  She just flailed and wiggled and leaned and annoyed her brother and, at one point, while I had her strapped into my lap with my arms, she arched her back so she and I were nearly eyeball to eyeball, only her face was upside down, and, while staring at me, she pulled her lower lip down (or, in this case, up) to her chin.  It was a bizarre sight.  She laughed silently as I sat her upright again and hissed at her to behave.  Sometimes she would twist her little body around and grasp my face, staring intently into my eyes and then turn my head so she could whisper in my ear. 

Have you ever had a five-year-old whisper in your ear?  For one thing, they don't always get the idea that whispering is supposed to be a quiet affair.  For another thing, there is no polite distance left between her lips and my ear.  So the effect is ticklish, slightly spitty, and louder than necessary.  "But Mom, I just have to tell you something...(dramatic pause)...I just love you."  Fine, now be quiet and sit still.

We were at a flute and classical guitar concert in a library on Friday night.  Bill, my husband, was the guitarist.  This is the second (I think) concert we've brought the kids to.  Maybe the third.  I don't think my blood pressure can take too many more of them.

At least this time I was smart enough to sit several rows back, strategically ensuring that taller people would populate the space between the musicians and the wiggly children of one of those musicians. 

Ours were the only children in attendance.  The majority of the audience was made up of older folk, probably long-time members of the community who attended the weekly concert series of their local library faithfully.  They sat straight, and still, and paid attention, and, as far as I could tell, certainly enjoyed the music - and the musicians themselves.

Bill and Barbara have been playing as a duo for about fifteen  years - longer than I've known my husband, in fact.  So long that they communicate easily with an arched brow, a slight nod, or a n0-I-can't-make-eye-contact-now-or-I'll-lose-it chemistry.  Like an old married couple, but minus the bickering.  Or the laundry.

The kids adore Barbara and her husband, too, so bringing the kids to the concert should be a fun, relaxing family-ish affair.  And it is.  Well, except for me during the concert part of it. 

I made the mistake, in my desperate attempt to keep the kids on their best pretty good not throwing things behavior, of telling them at some point that "After this one, there are only 6 more songs."  Six more songs was easier than trying to explain two more pieces of three movements each.  Well anyway, from that point on, every time there was a break in the playing, both kids would turn to me, eyes expectant, and stage-whisper "Is it only three more songs?" or whatever number it was at the time.

Silver-haired heads would turn and smile and chuckle.  I would turn red and smile weakly and pray for lightning to strike me.

Fortunately, though, Bill had introduced the kids (and me) at some point earlier in the concert, so that, I think, cut us some slack with the rest of the attendees.  "Ohhh, it's the guitar player's kids.  Well, you know what they say about the doctor's/policeman's/cobbler's children..."  And that explains it.  Bill also mentioned to the audience that the kids KNEW they needed to behave because if they did, they'd get ice cream after the concert.

Yes, we firmly believe in bribes to elicit good behavior from our children in certain situations.  This was on of them.

"Only one more song?" Alex hissed at me.

"Can we get ice cream now?" when that movement, "Night-club 1960" from Astor Piazzolla's "Tango" was finished. 

"Soon," I said.

The audience clapped, and Bill and Barbara took their bows and made their way back up the aisle toward the door to the rest of the library, where their guitar and flute cases were. 

The clapping continued, and the guy who coordinates and hosts these Friday evening concerts made his way up to the front (there was no stage) to say a few words, thanking everyone for coming, and thanking Bill and Barbara for playing...and then he kind of reached toward Bill and Barbara with one hand, beckoning them forward. 

Horrors.

I heard the word "encore" whispered somewhere.  It hovered in the air near my ear, grinning at me.  It looked a bit like Julia. 

Pleeeease no encore....

I know.  I'm totally selfish.  The encore is a gift.  It's that little extra something, like the free glass of limoncello we used to receive at the tiny Italian restaurant we loved, years ago.  And the encore is a thank you as well.  Thank you for thanking us for playing for you. 

But.  It would mean one more song.  One more period of however many minutes of holding Julia the Octopus in my lap and trying to silence her loud whispers. 

But instead of an encore, Bill and Barbara stood and smiled and bowed again and thanked everyone.  Bill mentioned that the music was on his stand, if anyone cared to look at the wild notes of Michael Daugherty's "Yo Amaba a Lucy" (I Loved Lucy) or any others, and if anyone had any questions about it, feel free to ask.

And when he said "any questions," Alex's hand shot up.  He sat as tall as he could, arm reaching for the ceiling, silent, waiting to be called on. 

I had no idea what Alex was going to say, but if you had asked me, my guess would have been something like "Now can we go out for ice cream?"

Bill was looking elsewhere at that moment, so Barbara brought his attention back around to Alex.

"Yes, Alex?"

And Alex spoke up clearly to say "I just want to say thank you for teaching me how to play guitar."

Gulp.

That's MY boy.

There was a general murmury sound of "aww" at that, and I made sure to soak it all in. 

He is a sensitive, thoughtful boy at times.  I sometimes wonder what great thing I did to deserve him.

And then, of course, Julia stuck her hand up, too.  That wasn't at ALL predictable, was it?

"Yes, Julia?"

The room waited while she thought of something to say..."I just love you."

She is sweet and sincere.  At times.  When she's not a wild, hissing octopus on my lap.

I sometimes wonder what I did to deserve her, too.  Heh, heh.

~~~

(Oh - and in case you were wondering, yes, the kids had their ice cream.  Barbara, who knows the area, brought us to a little ice cream stand not too far from the library.  Julia had a cone of vanilla, Alex had a cone of mint chocolate chip.  The cones - and Bill had ordered the "kiddie cone" size - were ENORMOUS.  They ate as much as they could, but no way could they finish.

And after that, we all went out for dinner.)

Sparkley and Clean

Some time last week I came across this sight in the bathroom on the main floor.

We've moved the kids' toothbrushes and so forth to this bathroom while all the work is going on upstairs. 

As I'm typing this I'm trying to remember why we did that.  I mean, we didn't move our own toothbrushes or other personal items downstairs - just the kids'.  So it isn't to prevent us all from having to brush our teeth with wallboard dust or anything, because we'd certainly want to avoid that ourselves, and not just protect the kids from the dust....  I'm at a loss.  Ah well. 

Anyway, one morning, after the kids had brushed their teeth and gotten dressed and were playing in the basement, I saw this mess.

Of course, I kind of had an inkling as to who was responsible, but in order to avoid an accusation of age/gender/personality profiling, I hollered to both of them.  "WHO DID THIS ON THE BATHROOM MIRROR??!!"  And then, to save time, I followed that up with "JULIA???!!!"

And she freely admitted it and seemed puzzled by my tone.  In fact, she seemed proud.

"I made it all sparkley and clean!" she told me. 

Ah.

That's the same description she uses after she's put her toothbrush away and finished spitting.  She comes to wherever I am and bares her tiny, newly scrubbed, fake-watermelon-flavored teeth so I can see for myself and approve her efforts.

And so I thanked her, and praised her hard work, and sent her back to play.

My Baby Girl is Five

Yesterday was Julia's birthday.  We didn't have a party - we're going to do that sometime late next month after (fingers crossed) all the construction mess from the bedrooms is cleared and the kids' rooms are painted and set up.  We'll have a double birthday party for both Alex and Julia, since Alex's birthday is in a few weeks.

And to prevent any hard "i don't wanna share my birthday with her/him" feelings, I promised to make them EACH a cake, and I told Alex he doesn't have to play with Julia's friends.  That seemed to work.

Anyway, it is a cliche, but it is true - I can't believe Julia's five.  In some ways, she's been beyond five for ages anyway...but in other ways...I'm still sleep-deprived from her infant-hood.  It is thanks to Julia that I got to see late inning excitement when the Sox were in the playoffs in 2004, so I can't complain TOO much.  It was pretty cool, just the two of us downstairs, me glued to the tv and her glued...well, latched on, I guess...to me.

Sigh.

It was funny yesterday - at some point it actually hit home with Julia that she had turned five.  For real.  She looked so surprised. 

For dinner last night I made her favorite - macaroni and cheese (not from a box).  I thought briefly of going to the local fishmonger and asking for assorted fish heads, so Julia could feast on all the eyes, but I skipped that.  Fresh caught is best.

The very best thing about yesterday morning (to me) was that Alex was INCREDIBLY nice and sweet to Julia.  That ended after school when we didn't have time to play on the playground because Julia had gymnastics and Alex pitched a little fit and cursed the day gymnastics was created (or something like that), but that was over eventually and he was pretty decent to his little sister for the rest of the day.  Except at T-ball practice when she punched him in the balls.  I didn't see this - Bill told me about it.  She also was a little over-zealous in her fielding, resorting to fighting other (smaller or younger or more docile) kids and wresting the ball from their little fingers so SHE could throw to first.

I've started thinking she needs to play a different sport.  Extreme fighting comes to mind.

But anyway, here are a couple of pictures I took of the birthday girl yesterday morning before school.  She's wearing her clip-on princess earrings and holding her new mama elephand and baby elephant - the elephants are from her brother.

 

 

Happy Birthday Baby Girl.

And What a Very Pretty Hat

Lately Julia has discovered the fun of pressing the button that lowers her window (I was going to say "of rolling down her window," but I guess that would be me showing my age?) and, as I drive her home from daycare, hollering "HI!" out the open window to anyone we pass. 

Some fuddy duddy part of me things she shouldn't be doing this, so I try to shush her, but it's not so effective when I'm laughing at the same time.

Earlier today I had some errands to run.  Julia was with me, and we were at a red light at in intersection when she bellowed "HEY GUY - NICE MOTORCYCLE!"

My head whipped around and fortunately the window was shut.  I also didn't see anyone on a motorcycle.  But I guess she'd seen one go by. 

Anyway, among my errands, I had to pick up a few things at the grocery store.  I tend to start at the produce end and work my way to the other end - that's how I write out my lists.  HowEVER, I am used to the OTHER store I go to, and this one isn't laid out quite the same, so I ended up having to go all the way back to the produce section again, because in THIS store, that's also where the in-store bakery is.

Exciting stuff, I know.

Anyway, I'm looking at all the breads and rolls, trying to find what I wanted for tonight, and Julia is sitting in the kid seat of the shopping cart.

And suddenly I hear her call to another customer.

Now - I will pause here, because you have to hear this in your head a certain way.  Hers was not the sweet little girly voice you might imagine.  It had a more sullen, sneering tone, but not quite that mean - kind of a midpoint between mockery and apathy and sullenness.  Like a teenager on a happy day.

And the target?  All I saw was the back of a little old lady as she pushed her cart toward the frozen fish.

"Hey, nice lipstick!"

I don't know where this comes from.  I was not at ALL like this.  I wasn't.

"We're Going to the Playground With Our ButTOCKS."

That was Julia's explanation when I asked her about this picture she drew the other day:

 

The two smaller people are Alex and Julia, of course.  Julia wasn't entirely sure who the grown-up was.  First she said it was Joe, then I think she changed that to one of her teachers. 

Obviously it wasn't me, or there'd be butTOCKS hanging off the edge of the paper.  Hahahahaha.

And in case you need help (not that you should, but this was entertaining for me to do) recognizing the butTOCKS in the above illustration, I have pointed them out for you in the image below.

 

Oh, and on a sort of related note (more words from Julia's mouth), my parents were here last Friday and we were all in the living room - parents, me, and both kids because Alex stayed home from school because he had a cough.  JUST A COUGH, people. 

Anyway, I don't remember what conversation may have been taking place at the moment, or maybe there was just a lull, but anyway, Julia suddenly announced

"We belong to the fart club!"

I have not seen my mother laugh so hard in ages.  Really.  She was sitting in the tan chair in the living room, rolling back, her eyes squinting and her whole face ready to burst with laughter.  She was holding it in to be ladylike, I think.

And you know, I don't know where my kids get this.  Well  - okay, I do - I married him.  But it's just so alien to me, because you see, when I was a child, people didn't DO that.  Not in my family, anyway.  I don't even think I KNEW the word "Fart" until I was in elementary school.  And even then it just seemed like something people maybe talked about, but no one DID except for maybe the kid that they made up some chant about that ended with "the car couldn't take it/the car fell apart/all because of (insert name here)'s/supersonic fart!" 

But in my house?  No one ever did the F word.  Or anything like it.  Perhaps we just ate such a well-balanced diet that we never HAD excess gas to emit.  I don't know. 

But anyway, here I am, in a household where my children and my husband are members of an elite gas-producing group called The Fart Club.  I was not a member for ages until Julia heard me burp and I was granted a limited membership. 

Anyway, back to my parents.  And Julia and her big mouth.  And Alex's.  They went on to explain the requirements for membership and that Mommy was, sadly, not a full member. 

Conversation rolled along uneventfully after that for a bit, until Julia shouted (because why just talk when you can shout to the person three feet away from you?) "Alex!  Do your ARMPIT FARTS!"

And he did.

Alex showcased his armpit farting talents in a glowing display of not ONLY armpit farts, but also the often-difficult Behind The Knee Farts (egged on by his sister, of course "DO THE KNEE ONES!") followed by the professional-caliber Squeakers.  (Armpit farts that require superior manipulation of the cupped hand and armpit cavern in order to produce thin, high-pitched squealing sounds.)

My children were manic, carried away by Alex's talent and Julia's enthusiasm.

And my mother was overcome.  All she could do at that point was sort of sprawl across the chair, eyes watering, laughing helplessly.

Big Day

 

Two outdoor projects yesterday that had nothing to do with the Bedrooms Project:

1.  Install a lock on our bike rack.

2.  Take the training wheels off of Julia's bike.

Standing Up

Last night Bill and Joe (nephew) were outside hitting a few balls around in the back yard while the pizza I made was in the oven. 

Julia wanted to go outside with them, so I said sure, and off she went. 

She's a funny mix of girly-girl and tomboy.  She wants to play with the boys - be they 6 feet tall or more, or her own size and carrying T-ball bats.  She wants in.  But she's also all about her My Pretty Ponies and her Barbies. 

Anyway, Julia went outside with the men, and I was in the kitchen, half listening, half making pizza.

And at one point I heard Joe say something, but I thought - no, that couldn't be what I heard.

But I'd heard Julia say "I have to go potty" as she ran from the back yard...and she didn't come inside.

Turns out I heard right. 

Joe had gone to retrieve one of the balls Bill had hit off to the side in our neighbor's yard...and as he rounded the truck, there was Julia. 

And she was peeing.

Neatly and tidily, too. 

Standing up.

Shoes in Twos

One of the many things on my To Do (or To Try To Do) list yesterday was to clean the corner of the kitchen that houses all the coats, boots, shoes, hats, mittens and gloves, sports stuff and whatever else gets dumped there as children and husband come in the door.  (I, of course, never dump anything there.  Nope, not me!)

Julia was home and while I cleaned out the shoe bins and boot tray, I asked her to sort the shoes and boots into pairs. 

A bit later she summoned me to take a look at her work. 

 

(Please 'scuse the dirt - I cleaned all that up after the shoes went into their freshly cleaned-out bins.)

She was SO proud of her work - and the whole arrangement - that I took pictures.  First of the shoes, and then of her proud little face.

 

Oh, and yes, her shirt is on backwards.  I already told her.  "I know.  I like it that way!" is her response.  Every time.

Saturday in the Kitchen

Well, I needed to make bread, first of all.  And I also needed to bake for the upcoming week's Tuesdays with Dorie post.  And, because the week AFTER that is "my" Tuesday - my recipe selection - and because I wanted to be sure to have THAT recipe made well in advance, just in case there were any problems and also so I could be sure to have the post and photos ready in plenty of time, I decided to do that TWD recipe as well.  And since I was making bread, why not make more bread.  I'd cooked the last four russet potatoes in preparation for the potato bread I'd planned to bake, and I also had three big sweet potatoes on the counter that I decided to bake, mainly to clear some space and to cook them before they started to get soft.  And, hmmm...if I'm going to make potato bread...I wonder what it would be like if I used sweet potatoes?  Do I have a sweet potato bread recipe? 

I had no idea.  I poked the sweet potato skins with a knife and popped them in the oven to bake while I flipped through a few bread books.  There were SWEET sweet potato breads - mainly quickbreads and other sweet items.  Nothing savory.  Not in the books I checked, anyway.  And no, I didn't check all of them.  I wasn't in a book-perusing mood.  I was in a cooking and baking mood.  So I made up my own sweet potato bread recipe.  And I'll post that later, maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow.  I'm happy with how it turned out, I will say that.

So I made a total of four loaves of bread, a coffee cake, a batch of cookies, and - for dinner - gnocchi.  I only needed one potato for the bread, so I had three left to play with, and gnocchi sounded perfect.  Easy to make, comforting to eat.

Julia had helped a bit with the cookies, and when she saw me peeling a potato, she grabbed a chair from the dining room to stand on and demanded that I let her help.  Once her hair was in a pony tail and an apron was tied around her little waist, she was ready to go.  (Hands washed, too.  Yes, Mommy, with soap!)

She watched me scrape skin off the potatoes, and then helped me put them through the ricer.  She spooned salt, I scooped flour.  She cracked eggs.  I poured olive oil.  We both tossed everything together, taking turns with a fork.  Once the dough was just combined, it was time to make ropes.  Or worms.  She's nearly five.  She's quite familiar with worms.

I didn't take pictures; I've photographed the process before for this site, and I just wanted to get the gnocchi made so I could get dinner ready.

I did, however, ask Bill to take a couple of pictures while Julia and I were working. 

We were standing at the counter - me, barefoot on the floor; Julia, barefoot on her chair.  We wore aprons, our hair was pulled back and out of the way.  Our hands were dusted with flour, and we were intent on our work as we rolled sticky blobs of potato dough into long "worms" of relatively uniform thickness. 

As we worked together, mother and daughter, I had this feeling, as I sometimes do while working in the kitchen, of...of being more than just myself.  And of how, while I am "me" the whole time; I am always "Jayne" no matter how old I am or what my position is in the family - daughter granddaughter niece sister aunt wife mother - I am also NOT the same person. 

The view changes and overlaps and rewinds.  I see things through different eyes and from different perspectives.  It's disconcerting.  I am me, but suddenly I am not just me, watching my daughter's small, slightly awkward, determined hands manipulate dough in an imitation of mine.  I am also my mother watching me, her small daughter.  And I am also her mother, my grandmother, watching.  And one day, perhaps, Julia will be the mother, and she will step into this spot, standing where I am now and feeling the same sense of multiple selves that I do on occasion, while she watches her own daughter try to be a big girl. 

I Don't Remember What This Was All About...

 

 

 

But it makes me smile.

A Cat and His Boy, Guitars and Crayons, Pennies and Quarters

 

I love this picture. 

Alex is always on alert for cute cat photo opportunities.  While I was making dinner he yelled "MOM!  YOU'VE GOTTA SEE THIS!"

I yelled down something dull and stodgy like "I've got my hand in a chicken cavity - I can't go anywhere right now!"

And then Bill somehow quietly yelled to me "He's on the couch with the cat" so I washed off my hands and raced halfway down the stairs to peek.  Sure enough, Alex was on the couch with Scratchy.  So I ran back up to the kitchen, grabbed my camera, and took too pictures before Scratchy, fed up with the flash, departed.

~~~~~

Girl With a Paintbrush

Yesterday afternoon Julia wanted to paint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She told me she was painting a sunset.  For Alex.  Because he was sick.

Julia

"Daddy, guess what's my favorite bug!"

"Ummmmm, a bumblebee?"

"NO!"

"A butterfly?"

"You got it!  How did you know?  They just...POP out of their canoe...and they're a butterfly!"

Trust

It was on Monday.

Bill was at work, Alex was at school.  Julia and I had an assortment of errands to run. 

First we went to Staples, one of my very favorite stores in the whole wide world.  I love office supplies. 

I had to get just a few things.  Julia asked if she could get a package of post-it notes and since she'd been almost very good in the store, I said okay.  Don't want to crush the office supply spirit in my daughter, of course.  She picked out bright pink (of course) for herself, and asked if we could get orange ones for Alex.  I said yes - I'm always happy when they want to get something for the other one. 

A bit later we went to this little shop that sells swimming gear to get Warm Belly suits for the kids.  They're taking swimming lessons at a different place now (we quit the Y - did I write about all that?  In a nutshell, we were tired of the lack of real instruction.  Too much playing around or down time, not enough actually swimming.  The new place is amazing.  One-on-one instruction and the kids are swimming or doing SOMETHING the whole time.  It's a bit of a change for Julia, especially - in this class she is challenged more, and she's having a hard time with it.  But at the same time, she loves her teacher.  So the class is chlorine and tears and hugs, over and over.  But she is learning so much more.) and the pool, I don't know, is maybe colder then the one at the Y.  Anyway, both kids' teeth chatter, and Julia's teacher suggested these suits for the kids.  She wears one herself.  So that's what Julia and I were doing on Monday morning.  Because I am a procrastinator, and their next swim class was that evening and I still hadn't bought the things yet.

We got there and picked out a purple one for Julia and red for Alex.  (The only orange one there was too small.)  They have adjustable velcro straps over the shoulders, so as Alex's genetically pre-disposed to tallness little torso grows taller, we can adjust the suit.  Julia.  Well, she's at the small end of her suit size, so she'll probably have the same one til she's twenty.

Anyway, that was the morning.  We came home and I went upstairs to work on some projects in my little work are in my bedroom.  Julia sat on the bed and tortured played with one of the cats, and eventually she crawled into the bed and, after thrashing around a bit, fell asleep. 

Woo hoo!  Uninterrupted time for me! 

She slept for an hour and a half - then I had to wake her up so we could go pick up Alex at school.  I brushed the tangle of hair from her face and kissed her, and when she woke up she immediately started crying and said her tummy didn't feel good. 

I kissed her forehead and her cheeks, and she felt hot, but she'd also been fully dressed under all the bed covers.  She was a little sweaty, too, but again, that could be from being too hot all that time.  I uncovered her and quizzed her about her not feeling well.  Did she think she was going to throw up?  Did she need to go potty?  Was she hungry?  She hadn't had lunch, really.  Just a little snack that she didn't finish.  She said she wasn't hungry. 

She kept crying, too.  I got her into her boots and coat, hat and mittens, and into the car.  She was quiet (a sure sign something was off) and whimpery and sad.  We got Alex, came home, and I brought Julia upstairs to take her temperature.

Of course, the battery had died in the digital thermometer.  So I'm kissing her head, feeling her torso, trying to decide if she truly feels HOT or if she's just over warm from crying, or what.  I attempted to take her temp the old fashioned way with a glass thermometer under her tongue, but I was too worried she'd chomp down on the glass, swallow mercury and shards, and go insane while her insides slowly shredded, that I took the thing out after only a minute.  Inconclusive.  I don't think she even kept it under her tongue.  I know I didn't like doing that as a kid either.

So what to do?  She felt on the warm side to me, and she doesn't usually wake up crying like that.  Swim class was in about an hour.  Should she stay or should she go?

She felt warm, and she just didn't seem right to me.

So I called and cancelled her lesson.  Bill could bring Alex, and I'd stay home.

About a half hour before the class, Bill called - he was nearly home, should he just go straight to the pool and meet us there?  I told him no, come home, Julia's sick.

He said "Oh." and in that word I heard a boatload of doubt and suspicion.

The previous swim class had been a hard one on Julia.  She was basically taken outside her comfort zone, and she was scared to go back.  Of course, nothing bad was going to happen to her.  Her teacher is fabulous - has Julia do a little something new - face all the way in the water, or swimming about three feet on her own - and then lots of hugs and "I'm so proud of you!" and then maybe something less scary, like swimming using the pool noodle or floating on her back.  So like I said earlier - chlorine and tears and hugs.  

She was a mixture of scared and proud, and wasn't all that excited to go back.  But we'd kept being supportive and encouraging and we told her Miss C would NEVER let anything bad happen to her.  It might be scary at times, but that was part of learning to swim.  And if you face your fears, and work through them, you'll be all the better for it.  (Of course, it doesn't work on trips to the dentist, but that's just me.)

She hadn't said anything earlier about being scared of her swim class - in fact she was VERY thrilled about her new purple Warm Belly suit (which she insisted on calling a wet suit) that day.

But.

So Bill's voice in my ear on the phone allowed some doubt to start working on me.  Julia genuinely seemed sick.  The whole waking up from the nap crying part was so unusual for her....but.

What if?  

It's not like she's never been sneaky.  She's four.  It's part of being a kid.

But she'd felt warm.  Her cheeks were flushed.

I went downstairs to where she was lying on the couch, watching tv.

I asked how she was feeling.

"Not good."

"Julia, did you say you were sick so you wouldn't have to go to swim class?"

She didn't answer.  Just snuggled under the blanket.

"Julia, are you REALLY sick, or did you SAY you were sick so you wouldn't have to go to class?"

She started crying.

"Julia?  Are you REALLY sick?"

"I don't want to go to swim class!"

Grrrr.

"Do you feel sick?"

"I don't wanna go to swim class!"  She was crying and not looking at me.

"Julia, DO YOU FEEL SICK?"

"I just don't want to go to SWIM CLASS!"

"Are you saying you feel sick because you don't want to go to swim class???!!!"  I was getting angry.  Trying to be sure she understood the question and appalled that I'd been duped.

She nodded.  Crying.

"Julia, you lied to me.  I know you're scared to go, but you can't pretend to be sick just because you don't want to do something."  (oh, really?  since when?)

She cried more.  "I don't want to go!"

"Do you feel sick?"

She shook her head.

I swallowed all the yelling that was welling up inside me.

"You can stay down here, then, and you'll go to bed right after dinner.  If you say your sick, you're going to be treated like you're sick."

I went upstairs.

I was furious.  At her for faking it SO WELL.  At me for falling for it, and at Bill for figuring it out so fast when he wasn't even here.

He got home and I filled him in and he nodded like he wasn't the least bit surprised.  I found myself defending my blindness - her warm cheeks, her sweaty head, no lunch, the crying.  I was more annoyed about being fooled than I was about Julia's deception.  I ALWAYS know when they're hiding something.  "How did you know, Mom?"  "Because I'm a Mom.  I just know."

Til now.

Bill took Alex to class, and I tried, unsuccessfully, to convey to him that I didn't want him to tell Julia's teacher of her recent confession.  Because, truth be told, I didn't want to look like an idiot Mom who can't read her kid. 

Dammit.

I made dinner.  Fish tacos.  Easy to do when you use frozen fish sticks.  I was too grumpy to be more creative than that.

Julia seemed to perk up a bit while Alex and Bill were at the pool, so I squashed that quickly and efficiently.

"Julia, do you understand what a lie is?"

"Yeah."

"What is it?"

"...I don't know."

"A lie is when you tell something that isn't true.  Like when you said you didn't feel good but you really just didn't want to go to swim class.  That was a lie.  When you tell lies, it makes it hard for people to trust you.  To believe what you tell them other times.  I'm really not happy about this, Julia."

"I'm sorry." 

Bill and Alex got home - Alex did really well and got two lollipops for his efforts.  He'd eaten one in the car and was finishing up the next one as he came in the door.  Bill was full of praise for him.  He also told me Julia's teacher had suggested a make-up lesson - maybe Thursday?  I said fine.  Call her.  I was still wallowing in grumpiness and feeling like a fool.  Of course I was overreacting, but I was too busy DOING it to notice.

Bill thought I was annoyed about the make-up lesson.  No.  I was just frustrated because DIDN'T HE UNDERSTAND HOW ANGRY I WAS THAT MY FOUR-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER PUT ONE OVER ON ME SO WELL.  She SEEMED SICK. 

I don't like to be wrong.  I know.  Get over yourself, Jayne.  But honestly.  She really seemed sick.

Anyway, we sat down to dinner.  Alex told me I could win a cooking contest (because fish sticks wrapped in soft tacos are so innovative and tasty, apparently) and Julia didn't want anything to eat.  Just maybe some cheese on a taco.  I fixed that for her, but she just sat and cried.  And cried.

Something in me let go, and all the annoyance evaporated.  She really felt bad about her story.  Time to stop being the dispenser of morals and just give the girl a hug.  So I did.  Several.  She sat in her chair and I sat beside her in mine, and I just hugged her while she cried.

She finally stopped, but she still didn't feel like eating, so I told her to go ahead back downstairs and I'd sit with her in a few minutes.  She went back to watching Sponge Bob or whatever was on, and I ate dinner.

After the plates were cleared, Bill gave Alex a guitar lesson and I went downstairs.

Julia looked so tiny on the couch, all wrapped up in green blankets, her small, sad face on the pillow.

"Would you like me to lie down with you?"  I asked.

She nodded. 

I slid under the blankets beside her and gave her a kiss on the head, then turned to watch the cartoon.

And then Julia made some little noise and threw up.  Not much.  I kind of thought it was some kind of burp with benefits, but she suddently had this "OH NO" look on her face and before I could say anything, she REALLY threw up, on me, the blankets, herself.  Just liquid, but still.

She started crying.  Again.  I shot questions and orders at her:  "Do you think you're going to throw up again?  Upstairs!  Run!  To the bathroom!  Hurry!"  I ran along behind her, a Border Collie, nipping at her heels.  pleasedon'tthrowuponthestairspleasedon'tthrowuponthestairs...

She made it to the bathroom and I flipped up the lid and the seat and told her to just stay there, just in case.  I ran back downstairs and grabbed the wet blankets and tossed them in the washing machine, then went back upstairs in time for Julia to retch again - productively - a couple more times.

She was really sick.

And I have to admit - I was glad.  Not glad she was vomiting.  That's no fun for any of us. 

But I was glad she had been telling me the truth.  I thought back to my earlier interrogation - trying to figure out if she felt sick really, or if she was trying to get out of swim class.  And the answer was now fuzzier.  Less clear.  She felt sick AND she didn't want to go?  She felt sick AND SO she didn't want to go?  She felt sick BECAUSE she didn't want to go?  Who knows?  And what does it matter, at this point.

I cleaned up Julia's face and the couch, put new blankets and towels all around.  Bill brought in a bucket for her, just in case.  But she seemed a lot better.  No more crying.  She was perkier - more like her usual self.

Later, when we were rehashing things, Bill wondered if maybe she'd cried so hard she made herself throw up.  After all, she seemed SO much better immediately after....

Possible, yes, but I didn't think so.  Too much lag time in between the crying jag and the race to the bathroom. 

And I told him I'd had a couple times when I'd maybe eaten something that didn't sit well with me, and I spent several hours just not feeling right, and then, finally, I'd run my own race to a bathroom, and afterward, I felt completely fine.  Like nothing had happened.

So it was certainly possible - or probable - that Julia ate something in the morning that made her feel sick when she woke up from her nap.  She'd spent several hours feeling lousy, and then, finally, got rid of it and felt better.

And I had second guessed myself.  I'd doubted my own intuition, my motherly radar, and I'd believed the worst of Julia.  Believed that she wasn't really sick; that she was faking it and lying to me.  And that she'd been successful.

And I was wrong about that.  I was right the first time. 

And she hadn't lied.

Trust.

I need to remember to trust my own Mommy gut instincts.  And Julia's gut, too, apparently.

Trust. 

I should not have been so quick to doubt. 

To doubt myself or Julia.  Myself, especially.

Lesson learned.

And While I Was Writing the Previous Post...

Julia was upstairs.

In theory she had gone up there to brush her teeth.

Of course, she must Waste Time And Drive Her Mother Crazy before she can settle down to actually do something as mundane as brush her teeth.

So I heard other noises...a clinking sound - she was disassembling the Diplodocus she or Alex had built out of Legos at some point and left beside one of the bathroom sinks.  I let it stay because it was huge and rather impressive, and I like to encourage my kids' artistic/creative sides.  Most of them.

Anyway, I hollered up to check on Julia a couple times.  "Are you brushing your teeth?"  "I'm putting the toothpaste on my toothbrush!"  "ARE YOU BRUSHING YOUR TEETH YET?"  "I'M PUTTING TOOTHPASTE ON MY TOOTHBRUSH!"

If she had a toothbrush the size of our truck, I'd believe her.  But she doesn't.

I was trying to type up a post.  Just a little one.  Just something.  I really didn't want to have to go up and check on her.  But she is someone who - at least right now - requires a lot of checking up on. 

I heard another sound.  The sound of someone standing on the toilet.  The seat and lid down...someone (who could it be???) standing on it, maybe looking outside, and NOT putting toothpaste anywhere near a toothbrush.

"Julia, GET OFF THE TOILET!"

"I'M NOT!  I'M PUTTING TOOTHPASTE ON MY TOOTHBRUSH!"

Maybe that's code for something, and I have to crack the code.  It's seeming like "I'm putting toothpaste on my toothbrush" must stand for something else.

I sat there, mid-post, and buried my head in my hands for a moment.  I really didn't want to go upstairs and tower above her shouting meaningless noise at her laughing little face.  Some days, I want to wave a white flag and just crawl into bed.

Alex volunteered to go see what she was doing.  My little knight.

He went upstairs and suddenly shouted "Mom!  You better get up here!  Quick!"

Oh great. 

I trudged wearily up the stairs and as I turned right at the top of the stairs I saw, reflected in the huge mirror above the sink, my daughter. 

In her underwear. 

Standing, on one foot, on the TANK of the toilet. 

Her other foot was hidden by Bill's towel.  The towel that was hanging neatly on the towel rack that runs along that wall, beside the toilet.  Julia had looped her left leg up over that towel rack and now her foot was jammed in and she couldn't get herself out. 

Coincidentally I'd just read Sheila's post about the Nureyev bio she's currently reading.  Maybe Julia was trying to be a ballerina.  The towel rack was her barre?  I don't know.

But I got her foot out.  I showed her the Princess Ariel toothbrush on the counter - dry of bristle and devoid of toothpaste.  I explained what a LIE is.  And told her to brush her teeth.  NOW.

That is a little peek at my morning.

How's yours going?

Since Her Own Aren't Pierced Yet

 

So I bought a kit, and beads, and more beads, and oh, too many things to admit to, and I started teaching myself to make very simple jewelry.  From the kit, I made several stretchy bracelets (which I gave to Julia), and a couple pairs of dangly earrings, which I had in a plastic container on the work table in mybedroom, along with the necklace I made most recently (from the kit.) 

Now, because of the cats, particularly the kittens, who see our home as their toy store, I am REALLY good about putting sewing and jewelry-making things away when I'm done working.  I don't want the kittens playing with pins, or tiny beads, or anything else.  And they would, if given the smallest of opportunities. 

So I KNOW that I did not leave the two plastic containers and those earrings just OUT like that on the table yesterday.

I also didn't leave a purple unicorn on the ironing board.

Or put earrings on the unicorn's ears.

 

I wonder who could have done that.

It sure is a mystery.

My Daughter

(Pictures are unrelated to the text of this post, in case you're anticipating some food-related story.  Just figured I'd clarify that up front.)

Two little bits about this small girl-child I "gave birth to" - I really think she was dropped off at the hospital by strange-humored fairies.  I can't think of any other explanation.

Anyway.

Monday night we were at a wake and a brief funeral service for an older family member on my husband's side.  Just setting the scene here. 

We had allowed Julia to bring two of her Barbies along, because we figured they'd keep her occupied and she'd be less likely to steal flowers from the big arrangements up front.

We sat together and the kids were very good throughout the readings and prayers.  Alex was quiet and polite and only fidgeted near the end, and Julia was - for her age - good and fairly quiet, and though after each reading and prayer she whispered to me "Is she done yet?" it wasn't loud enough for anyone else to hear.  I think.

Anyway, while part of the service was going on, Julia was leaning against me, holding her Barbies (who, because this was a serious occasion, were both clothed for a change) and being quiet and respectful.  I had my arm around her, and was occasionally rubbing her arm or her back or patting her on the arm - basically trying to keep her quiet through mommy sign language, I guess.

So we were sitting like this, and I was looking at the priest as she spoke, when I felt a small hand on my hand.  I looked down, and Julia proceeded to lift my hand off of her arm, raise it over her small self and deposit it - my hand - in my own lap. 

Then she looked me straight in the eye and whispered loudly and somberly, "Hands to yourself."

~~~~~

This morning I'm home with both kids - they've got colds - Alex's is particularly gross and disgusting, 'nuff said - and I figured they don't need to be sneezing and coughing all over their classmates and teachers today.  So they're here, and - I'm almost afraid to type this for fear it will jinx things - they're playing nicely together.  For, like, the past hour and a half. 

Anyway, I made them a cave (they were jaguars or leopards and apparently NEEDED a cave) by draping blankets over the foosball table in the basement, and they carried stuffed animals around in their mouths (mental note:  wash those stuffed animals today) and Julia gave birth to multi-hued baby cats by pulling them out of her pajama top.

A few minutes ago Julia came upstairs with one of her little toy horses - a plastic creature with a coat of that slightly soft fuzzy stuff all over it.  Well - before this morning that's what it had.  No more.  Julia was in the process of peeling all the grey fuzzy "skin" off the poor creature.  She didn't want it to be grey any more.  She'd done most of it but couldn't get the last bits off three of the horse's ankles.  So, since it was already too late to glue the grey back on, I went ahead and peeled off the remaining skin.  I handed her the now-albino horse, and she went to show Alex.

He said to her "Julia, what's that hole for?"  And she looked, and made some sound of disappointment and then brought the white horse to me and dropped it in my lap.  And expressed her dismay in one word.

"Damn!"

I stared at her.  "What did you say?"  (I was thinking /hoping she'd named the horse "Dan" and I'd misunderstood her.)

She smiled and shrugged and said "Damn?"  (Poor mommy, she's going deef.)

"I don't want you saying that, Julia."

"Why?"

"Because it's not a nice word."

"Okay."  And then she pointed out the holes (there were more than one) in her white horse - where the eyes had been.  She asked why there were holes, and I told her "because you peeled the eyes off" and she accepted that without comment and went back to play with her brother.

I'm blaming my husband for her growing vocabulary.

I only say bad words in the car.  You know, because of all the bad drivers out there.

So far she's only repeated one of my descriptive terms once.

That I know of.

"I'm Being a Princess"

 

 

That would be "Princess With Egg Yolk On Her Face and Who Knows What On Her Pajama Top."  Just to be clear.

Post-Bath Hot Cocoa. With Marshmallow Fluff.

 

Story Time

 

I took this one about a week ago.  Softie was in her favorite napping spot by the window.  And Julia, in one of her maternal moods, provided a pillow, a "blanket" (that tiny yellow square thing on Softie's lower body), and - a story.  It's a baby book called "Faces."  Julia brought in a chair from the dining room, sat down and read the book to Softie who, as you can see, was entranced.

Unsupervised

 

 

 

And let's not even discuss the conflicting messages I send when I say "Julia!  Don't DO that!" and then "Hold your hands still so I can take a picture."

 

Going Goth via Sharpie

"Your shining autumn ocean crashing"

Last night, after dinner, after dishes, but before bedtime, we were all downstairs just hanging out. 

Sponge Bob was bleating creepily on the TV.  Alex was half watching.

Bill unzipped a guitar case and called Julia over.

He started playing "Silver Springs" and singing quietly to her, nodding. 

Julia started to chime in.  It's her favorite song lately.  She still has some lyrics to sort out, but I kind of like her version.

"You could be my sil-the-spring,

Blue green commas fashing

I would be a oh the dream

Your shinging autumn ocean crash-ih-ih-ih-ing..."

I found a clip of the live version from Fleetwood Mac's tour in 1997.  Interestingly, that's the same year Bill and I met.  Significant?  Probably not.  But still.  Interesing.

Anyway, when I first played this for Julia, she gasped, wide-eyed, when she realized what it was.  She hugged me tightly, and then she just sat and watched.

So back to last night.

Bill played, and Julia started to sing, but then she suddenly stopped and ran upstairs.

When she came back down, she was holding this:

 

And then, microphone in hand, she was ready to sing.

Julia in Sepia

 

 

 

 

 

You can put the child in sepia, but you can't put sepia in the child.

Or something like that.

Pink and Glittery

 

She thinks she's a teenager.  She loves talking on her purple plastic cell phone and wearing glittery nail polish and applying her shiny pink lipstick. 

Her conversations on the purple phone go something like this:

"Hello?  Oh, hi....yeah....I know....yeah...no....no....no we don't have any chocolate pudding.  Okay, bye."

Fortunately for me, she's not a teenager yet.  She's only four.

Buttoning Her Own Buttons

     

Yeah, it's mid-October and it was in the thirties when I got up this morning. 

But Julia has inherited my dress-inappropriately-for-the-season-and-go-outside-barefoot-even-if-it's-cold gene and this is what she opted to wear yesterday.

 

Besides, it's pink.  That's what's important.

The thing is, though, it buttons up the front.

 

And the holes are kind of tight.

 

I offer to help.

   

And sometimes she might let me do a button or two.

But mostly she wants to do it herself.

 

She is very determined.

And some mornings my fingers get tense with the urge to claw their way in and get the buttons done up quickly. 

 

But when that happens, I try to sit on my hands and keep my mouth shut and just wait.

 

So that she can do it - all by herself.

   

And learn that it's important to keep trying.

 

Over and over.

 

Again and again.

 

No matter how long it takes.

 

Or how frustrating it may get.

 

Because the reward - that feeling of accomplishment -

   

Is so worth all of the effort.

Just ask Julia.

   

Dating Rituals of the Younger Set

My daughter, as of several minutes ago, has nine boyfriends. 

It took her most of the ride home to get the number sorted out.  First she said five, then seven, then six, and finally, just a block from our house, she settled on nine.

I knew of one.  A little boy in her Pre-K class.

Yes, Pre-K.  Just in case you are new to this site, my daughter is four.

Back to the boyfriends.  There's the one, Z, in her class.  She said the others "don't live there any more; they live next door."  To the daycare.  Oh.

She is so casual about them.  She speaks as if nine boyfriends was the norm.  And, I guess, if  you're a pre-schooler, maybe nine IS the norm. 

Their names, besides Z, are, if I remember correctly, Chewie, Lar, Pretty, Cutie, and four others that rhyme with each other but I can't remember the rhyming root, so I couldn't even make them up.  I don't think she's known them as long.  Pretty and Cutie are, as boyfriends for my daughter, a bit questionable.  Lar - I don't know where he came from, his name sounds Skandinavian or something, except he's missing the "s" I expect to hear on the tail end of his name.  And Chewie...well, I guess a big, strong, gun-toting space pilot is someone good to have in your corner...but I would have hoped she might have gone for Han instead.  Ah well.  And that brings us back to Z.  The only one with a "regular" name, which is why I'm just giving you the initial.  He's real.  And she's been with him the longest.

She and Z like to climb trees and - according to Julia - lick the bark.  I would bet he's a sweet, quiet boy who is perfectly content to let her boss him around.  Just a guess.

O, to be four and in love.

Of course, that's all going to change in a couple of years.

Alex, my son, who is six, is no way in heck going to hang out with a girl if he can help it.  At least not at school.  At this age, girls are icky.  He and his friends spend some of their recess running from the girls.  You know, so the girls can't touch them and give them cooties, or whatever it is the toxic girls are icky with these days.

Just last year, when he started Kindergarten, his first best friend in the class was a girl.  He attended both boy and girl birthday parties, and boys and girls attended his.

But that's all changed now.

And I wonder how they handle it.  This sudden separation of the sexes.  After all, kids grow and change and - eventually - mature at different rates, and how frustrating and sad and confusing it must be, as a girl, especially, to discover that you are no longer just a kid, playing with whoever was in your neighborhood.  Even if you were the only girl and played with a whole mess of boys - first it didn't matter, and now, all of a sudden, this year, when you are six, it matters.

You are no longer invited to play ball, but you haven't figured out how to play with the girls, because before, it didn't matter.  So you stand there, on the playground at recess, fitting in nowhere. 

And then, because you started out playing in the rougher world of boys, you communicate as best you can in a way you think maybe they'll understand.

You shove one of them.  Or you hit one.  Because, well, he's a sweet boy and you thought he was your friend.

You say HEY, look at me!  I want to play ball, too!

Unfortunately, they no longer understand what you're saying.

I tried to explain this, sort of, to my son yesterday. 

He, the recipient of physical miscommunication this year. 

But he's gone over now.  He's six, and a boy, and if there are other boys around, he can't be friends with or play with a girl.  Not right now, anyway. 

She will have to figure out how to play with the girls.  At least for now.

Until the boys learn - again - that girls aren't icky at all.

The Artist Currently Known As Julia

       

 

And then this gem...

 

"Hey Mom...word!"

 

 

I really have no idea where we got this girl.

Ham, Ham, Ham, Ham and Ham

Last night while dinner was in the works, Julia asked if she could have a slice of cheese.  It was still a while til dinner would be ready, so I said sure.  She had two slices, in fact.  And I told her that was IT until dinner.

A little while later, Alex was hungry and wanted a snack, too, since Julia had had one.  He doesn't like sliced (American processed cheese product) cheese, so we went back and forth on what he wanted and what I said he could have.  Finally, we agreed on a couple slices of ham.  And I told him that was IT until dinner.

He headed downstairs and I went to check on the rice.

Almost immediately Julia came up the stairs, and before she could say a word, I said "No, Julia, you can't have any ham, you just had cheese.  Dinner will be ready soon."

Well.  That didn't suit her at all.

She launched into a demo of all her best whining and begging and writhing around on the floor and pleading and being angry and demanding and more whining and more writhing and grabbing my leg.

And through it all, she kept repeating, "I just want some HAAAAAAAAAAAM!"

Apart from the whining, it was kind of funny.

I stuck to my guns and kept telling her dinner would be ready soon.

"I DON'T WANT DINNER, I WANT HAAAAAAAAAM!"

On and on.

At one point, frustrated because I obviously wasn't taking her seriously enough, she hollered, from her position on the floor, "Fine!  Then you can't be my MOMMY any MORE!"

And I couldn't help it.  I actually shouted "YAY!!!" Just to be funny.

She didn't think it was funny.  Just one more example of how thoughtless and uncaring a mommy I was.  Her tears got fatter and she started crying.  But it wasn't because I seemed glad to not be her mommy.  No.  I told her I'd always be her mommy, no matter what, so she might as well get used to it.  And she wailed.  "But I want a piece of HAAAAAAAAAAAM!" 

Nope.

"But if I say 'May I please'????"

"That's very polite, sweetie, but no, you can't have any ham."

She scooted out of my lap (I'd sat down on the floor to hug her in my motherly way) and began writhing again. 

I stood up and checked on the tofu and eggplant mixture I was cooking.

And then it came.

Her crescendo of emotion.

She tore her pink shirt off her angry little body and SLAMMED it on the floor, and as she did that, she roared

"THAT IS WHY I WANT SOME HAAAAAAAAAAAAM!"

We locked eyes for a minute, hers glared darkly at mine.

I looked down at the pink wrinkled mass on the floor.

And I bravely said no again.

When dinner was finally ready, I gave her two slices of ham with her dinner.

She ate those and nothing else.

Sharing and Caring

Last night while I was making dinner and Bill was mashing up mint leaves to make us some mojitos, Julia came upstairs and asked if she could have a cup of water.  I asked what she needed it for, but she just went over to the drawer where we keep all the plastic (i.e. child safe) cups and started looking on her own.

A moment later she was showing Bill why she wanted the cup.  "Look," she said, and held up her hand.  She was holding an escapee from Bill's 55 gallon fish tank in the basement.  Another of the hatchet fish had gone over the wall only to discover that no, the water isn't clearer over there, in fact, there is no water - only beige carpeting.

The fish was dry and stiff. 

Bill told her to hang on a minute and he'd flush it, but she backed up, slightly horrified, and said no, clutching the fish in her tiny hand. 

"Okay...you don't want to bury it?  Hey - go throw it on the compost pile."

"No!"

Around that point Alex came upstairs to see what was going on.

"Look," Julia said somberly.  "A dead hatchet fish." 

"Can I hold it?"

"NO!" 

"Just for a MINUTE!"

"NO!"

"Mom, Julia won't let me hold the hatchet fish!"

"Julia," Bill interrupted, "Let Alex hold the fish.  Alex, you need to give it right back."

"NO!"

"JULIA" Alex spoke loudly and sternly.  "Remember - IT'S NICE TO SHARE!"

(And what was I doing, besides trying to record all this in my head so I could write about it later?  I just stood facing the stove, cooking my little quesadillas and mini pizzas for dinner, and trying not to laugh too much.)

I guess Alex got to hold the stiff little fish for a moment because the bickering stopped.  Alex gave the fish back and went off to wash his hands, and Bill told Julia to go put the fish on the compost heap.

So out the door she went. 

A bit of time went by and Julia hadn't come back in, so I looked out the kitchen window and noticed that she was crouched down by the sprinkler (it was off).  She kept leaning forward, like she was trying to drink from it or something, and I called out to her to ask what she was doing.  She just looked at me and kind of backed up a bit. 

A couple minutes later she was still out there.  This time she was in the pool.  With her little plastic watering can.  Which had water in it.  And Julia was holding it up and peering into the water in the watering can.

And I thought, okay, she's still trying to revive the fish.

Sure enough, the fish was inside the watering can.  At first she couldn't find it because it had become stuck to the inside wall and she couldn't see it.  But Bill sloshed the water around, loosened the fish, and we were back to where we were originally.

Julia didn't want to put the fish on the compost.  So Bill said "Come on, we're going to bury him."  Into the bathroom they went.  Bill put the fish in the toilet, and (and I'm listening to all this from the kitchen) then he apparently took a couple of sheets of toilet paper and said to Julia "Now we'll give him a little blanket...okay, now say goodbye..."  And - flush.

Except - the fish didn't go down.  It was so light it just stayed at the top of the water and refused, somehow, to get caught in the little whirlpool and dragged into the great fish tank in the sky. 

Several times, Bill tried to flush the little thing, and no dice.  So we let it hang out there a while.  I thought maybe, somehow, if it absorbed some water, it would go down easier.  No, Jayne, that doesn't work.

Eventually, the fish did cross over to the other side.  I'm not going to elaborate.

But we kept thinking about Julia, and her initial request for a cup of water.  She is such an independent "I can DO IT MYSELF!" little girl...she didn't bring the fish up and ask for help.  No, she was going to take care of things on her own.

Sometimes it can be aggravating - her wanting to do everything herself.  For one thing, there are some things she just can't do - either because she's too small, or because I don't want her frying her own eggs just yet.  But oh, she wants to do everything.  And I have to remind myself to take a breath sometimes and step back, and marvel at all the things she CAN do, and how determined she is to at least try to do everything else in her little world.  I have to remember that sometimes, even if it's inconvenient for me, I need to let her do things - things I would do far more quickly - because it's good for her to try, and fail, and try another time.  I want her to be independent and capable. 

And I delight in her sweetness.  When she's not hitting her brother with a whiffle ball bat, she's a very caring, compassionate and thoughtful little girl.  She carries bugs and worms so carefully in her tiny hands, so as not to smush them. 

And she tried to bring a hatchet fish back to life.

Too Quiet

I was in the kitchen.

Bill was giving Alex a guitar lesson in the living room.  (Yes - Alex is learning to play.  It's unbearably adorable.  I'd post a picture but every time I try to capture him sitting in his chair, perfect posture, one foot on the stool, guitar resting on his leg, eyes intent and serious as he looks at either his music or at Bill - he (Alex) looks up at me and grins his goofy "I see the camera!" grin and it kind of spoils the impressiveness of it all.  But some day I'll get my picture.)

Anyway - guitar lesson going on, and I was probably cooking or something. 

Julia was upstairs, not trying to get in on the guitar lesson.  Hm.  That should have been the first clue.

At some point, Julia comes part way down the stairs and says hi to Bill. 

He turns to look at her.  And since he is in the middle of a lesson, he calls for me.

"Jayne?  I think Julia's got water all over her..."

I figure she went and stood in the shower stall in the upstairs bathroom and turned the water on briefly.  She's done that before.

I go into the living room and it doesn't look like she's THAT wet, but...something doesn't look quite right.

Um, Julia?  What were you doing upstairs?

"Nothing."

"I don't think it was nothing.  What were you doing?"

She sighs.

"Well, I was cleaning the sink with my brush and it got on me but I cleaned up all the black with my brush!"

She ends her little explanation with a smile, her voice rising slightly with pride in her accomplishment.

"Can you show me?"  I ask.

"Oh, SURE!"

She heads up the stairs.  I follow.  I think I already know.

The first sink looks fine, and both her new toothbrush and Alex's are lying near it on the counter.

Then I look over at the other sink.

Yep.  Just as I suspected.

Good thing it wasn't waterproof.

It will wash off her head.  Eventually.

The Julia

Lately whenever Julia's mad at Alex she'll holler at him  "YOU'RE FIRED!"

She was cute and all...

when she was a baby...but I don't want to go back to all that sleeplessness.  So NO MORE NAPS for Miss Julia.

For the past bunch of days (I lost track), after a VERY welcome period of sleeping through the night (finally - she just turned four in May), Julia has been waking up from, she says, a bad dream, coming into our bed, falling asleep promptly, and both snoring and grinding her teeth.  Loudly.  So I get up, carry her limp little body (and her elephant) back to her bed and tuck her in - and then she wakes up and is thirsty.  So I give her something to drink and trudge back to bed.  On average, that's all been happening around 3 in the morning.  And then, as soon as the morning sunlight caresses her face, she is AWAKE!  And READY TO START THE DAY!

This is around five o'clock.  And I'd be more than happy to get up then, if she hadn't kept me awake earlier in the darker part of morning.  And it catches up.  I can do with less than 8 or 7 or 6 hours of sleep - but when the sleep is broken up into bits and pieces, then it's not as easy.  And so these last few days I've been just...sluggish.  I could also blame last week's bout of 90+ degree weather.  I don't like it much.  But I think it's mainly been the interrupted sleep.

And so I was VERY happy to wake up this morning around five - and realize that Julia had slept through the night and WASN'T EVEN AWAKE YET!  Yay!  So I lazily dozed off again and she came and woke me up a little later.  And that was fine with me.

And I think some of it's because she didn't have a nap yesterday.  The several days before yesterday, she had dozed off, either in the car on the ride back from visiting my Dad on Father's Day...or on the way back from the grocery store...or snuggling on the couch with her own Daddy, watching a movie or something.  (They both fell asleep then - it was very cute at the time.)

So, yeah.  My plan for the summer?  Keep her busy and NO NAPS. 

Unless I get one, too.

"I Didn't Do It"

This is my daughter.

Julia.

With her beloved and well worn pink (ish gray) elephant, the straw hat I got for her at the Farmers' Market a couple of weeks ago, and her new sunglasses we got this morning because her other two pair are broken.

She wanted me to take a picture of her sporting the new shades, and I suggested she wear the hat, too.

And here's the series...

Before we started these, Julia had helped me make some popsicles, which, once they're frozen, I'll write up and post on here.

I bought some new popsicle molds this morning, because they were cute and because I wanted a bunch, so I can have several different flavors going at a time.

Much of the time, Julia is like this - especially one on one with either parent.  She likes the undivided attention.  And when she can have that, she's the epitome of cooperativeness.

And helpfulness.

And honesty.

And truth, justice, and the American way.

So that was this morning.

We'll skip ahead now, to about half an hour ago.

I was outside watering the vegetables, as many of them were wilting in this sweltering zillion-degree weather.

I pretty much leave the flowers to sink or swim (wilt or stand tall) because we aren't going to be eating them, and to me, that makes them a bit more expendable.  Except the roses that had been Bill's mom's.  Those outrank the vegetables, the fish, and probably even me in Bill's heirarchy of Things That Must Be Kept Alive.

But I digress.  I was out there with the hose, making sure the peas and the hop vines and the tomatoes and squashes and lettuces and various and sundry other herbs and veggies were hydrated. 

I'd told the kids where I was, and that they should STAY INSIDE because it's so hot.

Well, of course they followed that directive to the letter.

First, Alex came outside and started kicking a ball around the yard and asking if he could take his shirt off since it was so hot.  And I told him no, he didn't have sunscreen on underneath it, and I really would like it if he would go back in the house.

And, without any grumbling, he did.

And two seconds later,

"Hi Mom!"

there was Julia, coming across the yard toward me, her summer dress tucked in her green underwear in front. She's a trendsetter, that one.

I repeated the same request with her that I'd asked of Alex, but had to open the door for her as she's still just a bit too short to reach the door handle.  I let her in the house and asked her to stay there while I finished up, and that I'd put sunscreen on her when I came back in.

I'm sure some of you can see where this is going.

I finished saving the lives of the food-bearing plant life, coiled the hose back around the...the hose thing attached to the deck...you know, the thing you coil the hose around.

And I went in the house.

And this is what I saw:

 

In case you're not 100 percent positive that what you think you see is, indeed, what is in that picture, let me assure you that yes, it's a chair (from the dining room) with a footstool (from the bathroom) on it...and a topless bottle of sunscreen on the footstool (bottle of sunscreen HAD been up on top of the fridge, which is right there behind the chair - it's black) (oh, and the top of the sunscreen bottle is that small blue thing on the floor at the edge of the cabinet).

And all that white glop on the chair?  Why yes, yes, of course!  It's sunscreen.

My first instinct?  Grab the camera.

Second? 

"JULIA!"

"Yes, mama?"  (She calls me mama when she's being sweet.  And deceptive.)

"Can you come up here, please?"

"Okay, mama!" 

She comes up from the basement, and preceeds me into the kitchen.  I point to the sculpture in the kitchen and ask her "Do you know anything about this?"

And she said (naturally) "I didn't do it."

And then she turned to look at me.

And I asked "Are you SURE you don't know anything about this?  Did YOU do it?"

And she shook her head no, and told me, sincerely, "Alex did it."

Uh huh.

So I called him upstairs and asked him the same question.

"Alex, do you know anything about this?"

And he went over to the chair/stool/sunscreen bottle and looked at it all for a moment before turning to me and shaking his head and saying "No, I don't know who did that."

Of course, he also looked at Julia.  And then at me. 

He left.

And I asked Julia again.  "Did you do this?"

And again, she said "No, I didn't do it."

I reached over to try to rub in the patches of sunscreen so she wouldn't look so...painted.  She brushed my hand away and took over, near one eyebrow.

I told her to be careful not to get it in her eyes. 

And she nodded and said "I got a lot on me." 

And I said "Yes...so DID you do this?"

And she looked at me again. 

"No.  I didn't do it."

Farmers' Market Friday

It's Friday (really?) and after we drop Alex off at school, Princess Julia and I are off to the Farmers' Market.

Should be interesting today - it's POURING rain right now and that's supposed to continue through the rest of the morning, as far as I know.

But go we shall, because it's fun, it's our routine, and because I need eggs and I'm hoping Bill the honey stick guy will have eggs again.  What else will we get?  Who knows - depends on what's there.  We're going to look for a couple more vegetables to fill in the remaining gaps (as announced by my husband, the gardner) and apart from that, it's just going to be a see what we can see kind of adventure.  No lobsters this week.  Can't do that all the time - it would cease to be a treat.

So, because I don't have enough time to get into anything else at the moment, I leave you with a few pictures of Princess Julia, Twirling While Wearing One of Her Birthday Tiaras and A Spotted Dog Ring:

   

Ta-Da!

  

She's so stylish.  And twirly.

Okay - we'll be back later.

Overheard

Julia is in the other room, playing with crayons.

The crayons are talking to each other.

"But I'm a girl...I have pink!"

Farmers' Market with Julia, 5.22.08

For the second week in a row, Julia and I have gone to the Farmers' Market at Goddard State Park.  It's still relatively early in the season - the first day we went there were only a few booths on hand - most of the farms were selling plants - flowers, vegetables, herbs - rather than produce.  There were a few other booths, including Buttonwoods Bathworks, which sells soaps and lotions and scrubs (oh my) made of local ingredients.  Julia picked out a peppermint soap and I bought a foot scrub.  And I bought a black columbine - I love black or dark, dark flowers. 

This time around (Friday, the 22nd) there were more booths open and more people shopping.  And - to Julia's great delight - more dogs to pet.

I bought a bunch of garlic scallions to use in a salad I planned to make over the weekend...

and I bought a parsley plant, a plum tomato plant, and an Italian eggplant plant to fill in the gaps in our own garden.  (The parsley and eggplant seeds were past their prime and didn't germinate, and some furry varmint ate one of our San Marzano tomato plants.) 

All along the way, Julia made friends with the farmers and customers, chatting away, inviting them to her birthday party (which had already taken place), telling them all how old she was and that in another year she'd be five and would go to the same school as her brother.  And it was such a wonderful experience because no one was impatient with her.  Every single person gave her all their attention, asked questions, and basically became her new best friend.

We also bought honey sticks from one of the two apiary stands.  Julia was attracted by the colors...

Licorice, strawberry, orange, cherry, root beer, blueberry, lemon, coconut, apple, and raspberry.

I bought some honey, and some grade B maple syrup, and then we were on our way.

The Farmers' Market was Julia's favorite part of our busy morning, and I have to say it was mine, too.   

Tuesdays With Dorie (and Sunday With Julia - no, not THAT Julia, MY Julia): Perfection Pound Cake as Birthday Cake

Long enough post title for you?

 

This week's Tuesdays With Dorie challenge was to make the Traditional Madeleines found on pages 166-168 of "Baking, From My Home to Yours," and was chosen by Tara of Smells Like Home.   We were also given the option of choosing one of the past TWD recipes if we didn't have the correct pan to make the madeleines. 

And so for two reasons, I didn't make the madeleines.  First off, I don't have the right pan, and though I could pretty easily get one, there was reason number two - my daughter's birthday party and the requisite cake for that.  So, in my merry two-birds-with-one-stone killer way, I picked the Perfection Pound Cake, which was chosen back in January, long before I was a member.

Pound Cake, as Dorie mentions in the "Playing Around" section of the recipe, "lends itself to variations minor and major."  And that's exactly what happened with mine.  I had asked the soon-to-be Birthday Girl what kind of cake she wanted.  Asked her several times, in fact, because I know how often her mind can change.  Ultimately it boiled down to these three requests:  Strawberry cake, Purple on the outside, with Pink flowers on it.

Purple on the outside was simple enough - just color some fondant and that would be that.

Pink flowers - nothing I couldn't accomplish with some pink royal icing.

And the strawberry cake?

I used Dorie's Perfection Pound Cake recipe - tripled, because there would be at least 14 people, if not more, and I generally make about twice what I realistically need because I'm insecure that way.

To the cake, I added some orange zest, because, well, I've been using lemon (and lime) a lot lately, and I needed a change in citrus. 

And I sliced about 3 pounds of strawberries or so and macerated them briefly in some sugar.

And so here's how it all went down....

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour or 2  1/4 cups cake flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 sticks (8 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

4 large eggs, at room temperature

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Getting Ready:

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.  Butter a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan or an 8  1/2 x 4  1/2 inch loaf pan.  Put the pan on an insulated baking sheet or on two regular baking sheets stacked one on top of the other. 

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar on high speed until pale and fluffy, a full 5 minutes.   

(Add in the orange zest.)  Scrape down the bowl and beater and reduce the mixer speed to medium.  Add the eggs one at a time,

beating for 1 to 2 minutes after each egg goes in.  As you're working, scrape down the bowl and beater often.  Mix in the vanilla extract.  Reduce the mixer speeed to low and add the flour, mixing only until it is incorporated--don't overmix.  In fact, you might want to fold in the last of the flour, or even all fo it, by hand with a rubber spatula. 

Scrape the batter into the buttered pan and smooth the top.

(And scatter the strawberries on top and press lightly into the batter

Put the cake into the oven to bake, and check on it after about 45 minutes.  If it's browning too quickly, cover it loosely with a foil tent.  If you're using a 9x5 pan, you'll need to bake the cake for 70-75 minutes; the smaller pan needs about 90 minutes.  The cake is properly baked when a thin knife inserted deep into the center comes out clean. 

(The heart-shaped pans ranged in bake time from about an hour to an hour and a half.)

Remove the cake from the oven, transfer the pan to a rack and let rest for 30 minutes.

Run a blunt knjife betwene the cake and the sides of the pan and turn the cake out, then turn it right side up on the rack and cool to room temperature.

So those are my Perfection Pound Cakes - with strawberries pressed into the tops.  They smelled phenomenal, and I had to fight my family off in order to keep the cakes safe for Julia's party.

Once the cakes were cool, it was time for the construction.  I couldn't exactly level the surfaces of the cakes, because I'd end up slicing away a lot of the all-important strawberries.  And I could have put the strawberries in the bottom of the pan...and I had thought about it...but I forgot until I'd filled the first pan, so I just pressed them on top.

I also didn't want to cover the whole thing with fondant because - again - the strawberries.  They looked so yummy...I couldn't hide them.

First, I sliced each cake in half, so I'd have two layers per cake...and I slathered seedless strawberry jam in between the layers.

I also wanted to enhance the appearance of the strawberries, so I melted down some apricot preserves and glazed them with that.  Nice and moist and shiny.

Then I wrapped ribbons of fondant I'd colored with "aster mauve" and "delphinium blue" around the edges of each layer.

And to all that, I added some fondant ribbons and royal icing leaves and flowers, and this was how it looked:

Later on, after we'd sung "Happy Birthday" and Julia had blown out the candles, I started to cut the cake.

And in that momentary silence, my little Birthday Princess said,

"I don't want any cake.  I just want ice cream...I don't really like cake."

~~~~~

Everyone else seemed to like it.  And of course I'd made way too much, but I gave everyone a chunk of it to bring home, and this was all that was left:

So Happy 4th Birthday, Julia! 

Next year you get pie.

Typing in my Tiara

We had Julia's birthday party yesterday.  Family and some friends, food, cake and ice cream, and - best of all - nice weather, so people could spend some of their time outside.

Today...the cleanup.  I didn't do much more than pack up the leftover food and stick it in the fridge (not that there was much of it) last night. 

And that tiara I mentioned?  Yes, I've been sitting here checking email and other peoples' blogs this morning wearing one of the tiaras I'd bought as favors for the other little princesses that were invited to the party.  Julia told me to.  So I did.  Not much fight in me this morning.  Thing is, none of the invitees from her daycare came, so I'm left with a lovely selection of sequined tiaras in assorted colors.  And bags of assorted necklaces and rings and bracelets, too. 

Right at this very moment, Julia is traipsing through the house in her underwear, adorned with a necklace, three rings, and a bejewelled barrette in her hair.  She is stunning.

The party was fun - really, a nice number of people.  I'm actually glad the daycare chicks didn't come, though it would have been nice if their parents had RSVP'd so I wouldn't have planned for their attendance, just in case they showed.

But anyway...Julia had fun, and that was the main thing.

The birthday cake I made is going to be the focus of my Tuesdays With Dorie post tomorrow, so I'm afraid I won't be sharing pictures of it today.  I can share this with you, however:  I had asked Julia several times (just to make sure she didn't change her mind) what she wanted for a cake.  She wanted a "strawberry cake" with purple on the outside and pink flowers.  So that's what she got, with a bit of artistic license on my part.

(Update:  Julia now has 4 necklaces, 2 barrettes, one hair clip, and no rings.  I think the rings were a bit cumbersome.  She can only handle so much bling.

Sigh.

I'm just looking around.  You know, I had the house looking so nice...but whatever.  The debris is proof of a good party, I guess.

Gotta go get Alex moving along for school...and then it's time to tackle the kitchen.

Talk to you later...

Happy Birthday, Beth!

My daughter was born close to but not on the same date as Beth's birthday.

Beth and my sister, Meredith, have been friends since the first grade, and Beth has also become my friend, too.

Of course, the fact that Julia was NOT born on Beth's birthday had caused a bit of friction between us, but I think Julia's antics over the years have softened that somewhat.

That, and the fact that in personality, Julia is very much a mini-Beth. 

Not 100% though - there is that whole eyeball eating thing....

Anyway, in honor of Beth, here are a few Julia anecdotes.

~~~~~

Last week, when we had Bill's guitar students over after their juries, and we served them lots of food, part of the spread included cheese, and one of the cheeses was brie.

Julia loves brie.  She doesn't always remember the name, but when she refers to "The Squishy Cheese,"  brie is what she means.

Well, we had some brie left over.  As well as the three other cheeses served that night.

Alex doesn't like brie.  He likes cheddar.  So one afternoon Alex was hungry and wanted some cheese and crackers.  Cheddar and crackers.  I cut up some slices of cheddar and put them on crackers, and he was happy. 

Julia wanted cheese and crackers, too, but not cheddar.  She wanted the squishy cheese.  So I got that out, sliced some up, put it on some crackers, and gave it to her.  And she was happy.

I went upstairs to put laundry away or something...and a bit later, I heard some sort of scraping noise coming from below.  I went downstairs, because, having known my daughter for a while now, I had a feeling I knew what she was doing.

And sure enough, when I got downstairs and rounded the corner on the way to the kitchen, there she was:  standing on a chair in the middle of the kitchen, surveying the counters.  She was looking for the brie.  The scraping sound I'd heard was Julia bringing that chair from the dining room to the kitchen. 

Unfortunately for her, I'd put the cheeses back in the fridge.  But she probably would have figured that out, given enough time.

~~~~~

Another brie story...

(And yes, in case you were wondering, we DO live on brie.  It goes so well with the caviar and champagne.)

Anyway, this may have been the same wedge of brie...we only had a little of it left, and I'd put it out on the counter one evening, before dinner, for us to pick at while the meal was cooking.

At some point, Julia and Alex had gone downstairs, Bill was in the music/computer room practicing, and I had gone in to look up something on the computer.  I had a great view of the hall, and the doorway to the basement, and part of the kitchen.

Julia came upstairs and wanted another piece of brie, so I cut her a little bit and off she went.

That sentence I just wrote?  Repeat it.

Then she decided she didn't need me, so she managed, probably on tippy-toes, to cut herself a little more cheese.  Fine.  I'm all for self-sufficiency.

And she did that once or twice more. 

And then I saw her edging from the kitchen toward the stairs...hands behind her back, smiley "nothing to see here" face shining at me.

"Julia, did you take the rest of the cheese?"

Still smiling, she nodded...and held out her left hand, which was clutching the last hunk of brie.

~~~~~

Last week, before the dinner for Bill's students, (well, his and the other guitar teacher's students, really), Bill had been fighting off a case of bronchitis.  He stayed home from work a couple of days, and his only comfort came from watching the original three Star Wars movies.  Julia would join him sometimes, but Alex didn't like the movies at all.  He is my Ferdinand the Bull, preferring peace and beauty to light sabres and blasters.

Anyway, Julia loved the movies.  I don't know if it was because she got to hang out with Daddy all by herself and that made it special, or if it's just her nature.  I think a bit of both.

She's seen bits and pieces of the movies a few times now, especially Empire Strikes Back.  I think that's her favorite.  (She's also her mother's daughter.) 

Got all that background stuff?  Good.

Last night at dinner, out of the blue, Julia said "I love Star Wars."

Alex, who doesn't, asked "Which is your favorite part?"

And Julia didn't even have to think.  "When the tauntaun dies."  She ate some more spaghetti.

Alex asked "What's a tauntaun?"

Julia, laughing:  "It's a big animal with FUNNY HORNS!"  And she made twirly motions with her hands at the sides of her head.  She could also have been referring to Leia's coif in the first movie.

We ate in silence for a moment, and then Julia got a dreamy look on her face.  She was still thinking about Empire Strikes Back.

"I love Yoga," she sighed.

~~~~~

And so,

A very Happy Birthday to you, Beth!

Love,

Jayne, Bill, Alex...

and especially,

Julia

Tasting Menu

A few weeks ago my husband and some of his buddies brewed up a batch of beer (about 20 gallons) to be divided among the four of them.

One of the guys brought his daughter along - a little girl right around Julia's age.  This is the second time she's been over, so she and Julia were already well acquainted.

Long before that first play date, the little girl's father and Bill and I had been sharing stories about our respective daughters and their rather strong little personalities.  We all figured the two of them would either hit it off or become mortal enemies.  Fortunately for all, they hit it off.  More or less.

Blinks

Bill put a few large crickets in the lizard tank and Julia stood nearby - not too close - to watch the lizard stalk his prey.

He finally scurried down from his leafy perch and got one, then scrambled back up to gulp the thing down.  It was a big cricket, so it took a little work.

Julia came rushing over (to where I was sitting, six feet away) to tell me all about it.

"The lizard caught a...a girl cricket!

"A girl cricket?  How do you know it's a girl cricket?" 

She thought a moment.  "Because she's got...blinks." 

"Blinks?"

"Yeah, just like I got blinks," she put her fingers near her eyes, "and you've got..." she peered closer, looking in through my glasses, "...wait a minute...you only got little blinks," she said, with pity, and went back to watch the lizard devour his meal.

Bill looked at me.  "Blinks?"

"Eyelashes."

"Oh."