"Opportunity for Growth"

I love Xanthe when I'm practicing piano with her, or reading, working on flash cards, doing homework or driving to ballet.   She is delightful, fun, happy and funny.  But all of the other time, the other 20 hours of the day, she's whiny, pushy, hungry, thirsty and just a nuisance.  The bottom line is, she can't have ALL the attention ALL the time, and she cannot accept that.  She takes, takes, takes and doesn't know how to stop.  My life cannot revolve around Xanthe alone.

Her eating habits?  She KNOWS I feed her whenever she asks because I want to overcome her insecurity about food.  So when she sees me working with Ruby on schoolwork, she comes RUNNING.  Hungry.  The kid is playing me.  It is extremely frustrating to start out explaining a vocabulary assignment to Ruby and end up having an argument with Xanthe about how she's not hungry because we JUST ate.  When I say no to her, she crumples on the ground like a wet noodle and lies there moaning and whining.  It's hard to ignore that, so I have to leave the kid I'm talking to and deal with Xanthe instead.  When I practice with Freestone, Xanthe will lie on the floor outside Freestone's bedroom door grunting or whining, "I need a driiiiink!"  I literally can't have a conversation with anyone without Xanthe ruining it.  And we talk and talk and talk about not interrupting and waiting your turn.  Then an adult comes over and Xanthe stands between us, jumping up and down, shouting, "I have a owie on my finger!  I have a owie on my finger!"  I want to shout, "We don't care!!!"  It's humiliating to have Xanthe act like that.  I hate it when kids think they can interrupt adults, and I can't even get my own kid to stop doing it.

One of Xanthe's favorite tactics is to purposely go to another room, and shout for me.  "Mom!  Come here!  Mom!"  Today, we had two instances of that and two conversations about using your legs to walk and find Mom so that you don't have to shout for me.  Then she deliberately went down to her room when I got on the phone and started wailing, "Mooooom!  Moooom!  I want to do piano now!"  I lost it.  I completely lost it.  Shouting and everything.  It is a power struggle between me and the little Spicy Beast, and she is winning, hands down.  I would ask all of you, "What should I do?"  but I don't want to DO anything!  I want Xanthe to be able to entertain herself.  I want to be able to interact with my other children and other adults uninterrupted.  I want Xanthe to stop playing me, stop intentionally doing the things I ask her not to do.  And I want her to eat like a normal child.  I am just very, very frustrated with her today.  It's not as if she never gets any attention.  In fact, I'm feeling very resentful of the share of it that she gets.  It looks like I'm facing another one of those opportunities for growth that parenting so freely and generously gives.  I hope I'm able to eke out an inch or two here!

Freestone's Concert Review

 Lucky little guy, it was Freestone's turn to go to a concert with me last night.  Freestone told me that "even if the concert is a thousandth of a second long, it will still be too long."  Ari, who was also invited, told him, "I didn't want to go to the last one, but I forced myself to go and it was really good!"  If Freestone thought the same thing after this concert, he didn't let on....

Mom:  Wow, guys, wasn't that concert amazing?  Free, did you see the soloist?

Free:  Oh.  No.  I was looking at my legs the whole time.

Mom:  Did you hear how fast he played?

Free:  I tried to cover my ears.

Mom:  Thanks for going to the concert with me.  It was so exciting!

Free:  It was a big waste of my time.

I think getting a giant cupcake and a whipped cream-topped steamer at Starbucks after the concert helped alleviate Freestone's angst about never getting that hour of his life back that he had to spend tortured by the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto.  But this morning, to underscore the depth of his hatred for music, he said pointedly, "Mom, I hate musicals.  Do you know why?  It's the music.  It's all music and dancing and talking, and then it's over.  It's the stupidest thing EVER."

Do you know what Free does like?  Drawing smiley faces on his practice chart.  It's a good thing he has his OCD tendencies to get him through violin practicing until he learns to appreciate music.  In the three weeks he's been with his teacher, he hasn't missed a smiley face yet!  He wouldn't dream of leaving one of those boxes blank, even if he adamantly refuses to play something if there's no box to check for it.  Maybe I can make him a checklist for concert-going. Or just let him stay home and play video games for the next ten years?  You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink, I know, I know.  You can splash a few drops on his face, though, and hope he sticks his tongue out.

Specials

Mom:  Guess what, guys?  Tomorrow, I'm going to take all the SPECIAL kids to a fabulous concert!!

Freestone, perking up:  What is it?

Mom:  You're not going to believe how lucky you are.  It's the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto!

Freestone, running away:  I don't want to be special!  I don't want to be special!

Oh, but you are, Freestone!

Very Important Xanthe

It may be 80 days until Xanthe's birthday, but she was the VIP in her kindergarten class this week.  She always makes sure everyone knows that she is "VI," but this week she has proof.  Her kindergarten teacher said so.  Xanthe was terribly excited to have me come and talk to her class about how important she is.  She kept walking me through it:  "It's right after the bell rings for recess.  So when you hear the bell ring, you come.  OK, Mom?  Now, when do you come?  Right after the bell rings."

My part on the program was a little weird.  It may have been because coming in contact with Xanthe's teacher makes me feel like I've been hit with a tranquilizer dart.  Her voice is so soothing, I just desperately want to lie down and take a nap.   Anyway, I told the class about Xanthe and held up the poster that she had glued pictures to.  I pointed to a picture and said, "This is Xanthe the very first day we met her.  See her little pink outfit?"  Then Xanthe piped in, "Ya!  And the pants didn't have a bum!"  Babies in China are potty trained right off the bat.  They don't wear diapers, and their pants are "split" up the crotch, so that if you squat, a convenient space opens up for potty purposes.  But what fool would try to explain that to a classroom of kindergartners?  Uh, me.  When I saw the confused looks, I turned to the other Chinese girl in the class and said, "Isn't that right, Jade?"  Oh my gosh, Jade was a year old when she left China.  She's not an expert on Chinese potty training!  She said, "Huh?"

Then, because I didn't know the kids' names, I called on one boy with a big band-aid on his forehead by saying, "Yes, band-aid boy?"  Other kids started giggling, and not in a nice way, and I thought, "I probably just doomed this poor five-year-old to a nickname he'll go to college with!  Poor kid.  What is wrong with me?  Eventually the question-and-answer time degenerated to questions like, "What is Xanthe's FIFTH favorite color?" and "What does she like to do best besides ballet, piano, eating, playing with her friends, going to school and being at the beach?"  I said to the teacher,  "How many questions do the kids get to ask?"  She cut them off and took down last week's VIP poster, a pink-and-brown-themed montage of pictures double-mounted on lacy, flowery backgrounds with computer-generated captions and antiqued paper edges, and hung up Xanthe's poster which...you've seen. No parental intervention whatsoever, and it shows in the scissor-fringed edges and liberal use of glue on the fronts of the pictures.

I love my little VIP.  She is a lot of fun, even if I do sometimes feel like she needs a few more parents to fully address her needs.  That kid can suck up ALL of EVERYONE'S attention and still demand more, but she's a flaming ball of energy, and that's just how flaming balls of energy operate.  Love you, Little X!

Happy Birthday to MeeBee!

Ruby has a new nickname, coined by Ptolemy:  MeeBee.  And MeeBee turns 12 today!  Hooray!  Our tiny adult is finally old enough to go to Young Women's instead of Primary, is (mostly) out of grade school, and is on her way!  What an exciting time in her life.

Last night was New Beginnings at the church for Young Women's, and Ruby and four of her friends were welcomed in.  For Ruby, it was perfect timing, on the eve of her 12th birthday.  The others have to wait months before they turn 12, but Ruby can jump right in there.  She has been participating in the activities all month, since I'm a Beehive advisor and some of the Tuesday night activities were at our house, in preparation for New Beginings.  Ruby helped dip the chocolate-covered frozen bananas for refreshments and helped me design the invitations that the Beehives made for the event.  The Beehives were responsible for pulling off the evening from planning to implementation.  Golda conducted the meeting and also introduced Ruby, and I was proud of the great job she did.  Here's what she said:

Ruby Marlene Dopp turns 12 tomorrow.  She has been very excited to come into young Women's for a long time and is very excited to go to Girls' Camp this year with me - her sister, her cousin Lexie and my mom.


Ruby loves to cook and bake.  Her specialty is rice pudding.  She also loves to do ballet, modern and jazz dance.  She plays the guitar which she loves and plans to go to a college for guitar and dance.


Ruby is a great writer and likes to draw, paint and sketch.  She has recently started homeschooling for the first time and she is really enjoying it.  She is the patient peace-maker and comedian in our house and she is working oon finishing the Book of Mormon this year.  So that is a little bit about Ruby!

There's lots more about Ruby that we love.  She is at lunch with Scott right now, and is planning to make her favorite, chicken peccata, for dinner.  So stay tuned for more festivities!  Love ya, MeeBee!

Broken Rib

 I don't get to do THIS very often!  Taking the top off a violin is fun and exciting.  It's a very expensive repair, costing more than a lot of the violins I fix, so it's rare that I get to slide my opening knife in there and pop a top off.  It's nerve-wracking, but also easier than you might think, since the top is designed to be able to come off in case of emergency.  Of course, there is always the possibility of something going very wrong at any point.  The top is made of spruce and is only a couple of millimeters thick, and the varnish can be fragile, too.  Being a natural material, wood can turn on you at any moment, just like one of Seigfried and Roy's tigers.  If you know the wood's stressors, though, you can usually avoid disaster.

Looking inside the violin is like spying on the past.  You get to see the maker's workmanship and the history of damage, if there is any.  There's always a little dustball inside, and sometimes an inscription that you can't see from the outside.  This poor violin had a traumatic injury to one of its ribs.  I put the broken piece back together and made a silk patch for it before I glued the top back on and returned the fiddle to its former glory.  It's a nice-sounding violin, and I hope it gets to play many hours of beautiful music with its patched-up rib.  Get well soon!

Mother-Daughter Book Club. It Worked! Next Book...

No, it's not Hanukkah.  It's our Anne Frank/WWII/Jewish history book club.  I was really pleased with our first meeting.  Along with our discussion of the diary of Anne Frank, the kids made simple Stars of David to remind them that the Jews in Europe during that time period had to wear a yellow Star of David.  Araceli put red glitter on her star, which is probably disrespectful, but reminded us of the youthful spirit of so many of the children who died in concentration camps.  We talked about the Holocaust, what it must have felt like to be a young girl living in hiding, and the tragedy of Anne dying.  She had so much to give!  The discussion was great, and the girls had a lot of insight.  Much more focused on the book than the discussion at grown-up book club, which invariably strays to labor and delivery and/or breastfeeding.  Am I right, girls?  But I love it!

We also read Tuck Everlasting for the younger kids, including our token boys, Freestone and Ethan.  Boys ARE invited!  :)  We got into a pretty good discussion on Tuck Everlasting, too, about whether we would have drunk the water, and at what age, and what it would be like to live forever and never change.  For refreshments, we had spring water that may or may not have had Fountain of Youth powers (we'll have to wait and find out), and windmill cookies, German Chocolate cookies and delicious chocolate cookies that Julie brought.  Thank you!

So, the book for February, by consensus, is The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett.  I don't keep many books, but The Secret Garden was a member of my permanent collection of Dell Yearling books when I was a kid, I loved it so much.  And its going to be fun to have an indoor garden party in February!  If you didn't come this time, open that door to the secret garden and come next time.  It's great having an hour where kids can talk about what they've read and observed, and learn from each other.   I lend and borrow books from my book club friends, Thursday lunch friends, blog friends, my mom and my neighbors, too.  I guess I'm trying to give that same sense of community to my kids, because I couldn't live without it, and I hope they never have to. 

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

I am infatuated with this book.  I can't say enough about it.  I don't even know where to start!  I LOVED this book.  Amy Chua is funny and wry and sarcastic and brutally honest, exposing her ideas as well as her successes and failures in stark honesty.  So many times, I laughed at her parenting style, because I have a little bit of the Chinese Mother in me.  Just a little bit.  Not enough to demand the high levels of achievement a real Chinese Mother demands.  (Chua points out, too, that a "Chinese Mother" can be anybody.  A Jewish dad can be a Chinese mother.  It's a philosophy.)

Whether you agree with the Chinese parenting model or not, you have to concede that Amy Chua has some good points.  She refutes all the arguments you would naturally come up with against ultra-strict parenting, like, "I want my kids to like me,"  (Do all Western kids like their parents?), "I want them to explore their individuality," (with what tools?)  "I don't want to hurt their self-esteem." (Then help them develop abilities they can be proud of). Her rebuttals to those arguments are very thought-provoking.  Here's a passage from near the end of the book, after the two daughters have admitted that they are glad their mother drove them so hard.  Amy Chua says, and this is one of her rants, "All these Western parents with their party line about what is good for children and what isn't - I'm not sure they're making choices at all.  They just do what everyone else does.  They just keep repeating things like, 'You have to give your children the freedom to pursue their passion," when it's clear that their passion is going to turn out to be Facebook ten hours a day.'"  Harsh, huh?

You have to admit, she has a point.  I can tell immediately when someone comes to me to buy or rent a violin, which kids will stick with it.  If the parent says, "We'll just try it out and see if she likes it," they are going to bring the violin back within three months.  Of course the kid isn't going to like practicing.  There is not a kid alive on the planet who is capable of making himself practice, every day, all alone, and succeeding.  He will never get to the point where he has enough ability to have fun and feel confident unless someone shows him how.  So his parents will have given up without giving him the chance to succeed by expecting a commitment from themselves and the child.  Kids crave structure and challenge.  They grow on it.  It allows them to explore with the confidence that someone believes in them, knows the rules and expects them to adhere to them.  The plain truth is that parents who raise high-achieving kids invest huge amounts of time in their children, while the standard in the U.S. is just far less time spent working with children on educational or other pursuits. 

Another point the book makes, which I totally support, is the lack of respect shown to teachers and parents in out society.  The teacher/student dynamic has been lost.  While children are people with important ideas, they are also in a stage of life where their job is to learn and be taught.  The Chinese way is that the child has complete respect and obedience toward the adult.  The U.S. Army adheres to the same idea of hierarchy because insubordination could be deadly.  It is a model for success and for building good relationships.  The majority of kids who were raised the "Chinese" way demonstrate great love, respect, gratitude and admiration for their parents and the teachers who guided them.  On the other hand, what is there to respect from a parent who sits back and lets the kid explore?  That's not hard.  That's easy, and it's a copout.  That philosophy is to Chinese Parenting what a Jehovah's Witness pamphlet is to the Bible.  The pamphlet you can read in ten minutes.  The Bible you could study and build on for a lifetime. 

I'll just give you one more example:  I have three or four main suppliers for my violin shop.  One is Howard Core Company based in Arkansas.  Each time I want to place an order, the person on the phone says, "OK, what's your zip code?"  Then they look me up, as if they've never heard of me, even though I've done business with them for over ten years.  It takes them days to get around to shipping.  My favorite supplier is Patrick, a Taiwanese-American businessman in Irvine, CA, who always answers the phone himself with, "Hello CIRCE!  What can I get for you?"  If I forget something and call 20 minutes later, it's too late.  The shipment has already gone out.  I get Christmas cards from Patrick.  He knows all about my life and vice versa.  He has two daughters who are both at Ivy League schools, and parents who live with him and his wife.  Don't know anything about the temps who answer the phone at Howard Core.  I'm just saying, it's two different business models.

OK, you "just want your child to grow up to be happy."  Well, if you don't figure hard work and education into the equation, you're going to be hard-pressed to define happiness, let alone achieve it.  When I went to buy this book, I couldn't remember the title, and I asked for Anthem of a Dragon Mother at Barnes and Noble.  Between the two employees helping me, they could not decide how to spell anthem.  I am not kidding.  Amthem?  Amthum?  But I bet they had lots of time to "explore their passions" growing up.  As adults, unfortunately, they don't have the money or the success or the the time to develop those passions because they are working for minimum wage at a store that clearly has nothing to do with whatever their passions are.

The thing I love most about this book is that, if you read it with the right spirit, you will come to the frightening and liberating realization that the way you do things and have been taught to do things might not be the only good way.  Your first impulse will be to defend your own assumptions, but don't.  This book is too much fun to dismiss out of hand!  Even if you HATE the author, you will LOVE the book!  You'll probably end up loving the author, too, though, just like her daughters do, despite her mistakes and shortcomings.  For me, I'm going to be more of a Tiger Mother after having read the book.  Ari came to me this morning and said, "Ugh!  I am SO! SICK! of buttoning and unbuttoning my jammies EVERY!  DAY!"  We have a long way to go before these kids are overworked.

Have a Coke and a Smile

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO6nz_TQGS0&feature=feedu

Ruby Academy

At 9:00 sharp this morning, Ruby Academy began its first day.  Ruby had three 15-minute quick-start assignments in geography, grammar and spelling. At 9:45, she had her creative writing class with Coco, focusing on imagery, while Xanthe and I did piano.  At 10:30, Ruby went to math at school.  Home at 12:00 for lunch before kindergarten and 30 minutes of reading alone.

At 1:00, Ruby sliced and diced veggies for our dinner while I lectured her on the events leading up to World War Two, which is our first three-week unit.  With Anne Frank being our first book, we started in about 1933 with Hitler's rise to power and the gradual losses of freedoms suffered by the Jews in Nazi Germany.  It was an interesting place to start time-wise, because my grandfather was on a mission in The Netherlands from 1931 to 1933, and his journal mentioned Hitler and some of the political events that took place.  Thinking about Opa actually being there made history more real for Ruby.  I won't have her read Sarah's Key, but I did tell her the horrible story of the cupboard and said that, even though it was a fictional story, it underscored the atrocities that actually took place.  Heavy subjects for the first day!  Tomorrow, she'll start reading Number the Stars by Lois Lowry.  I promised her that she would love the book.

Once the stew and the lecture were finished, we went to guitar and were home shortly after the other kids got home from school, right in time for Ari's cello lesson, practicing with Freestone and then running Golda and Ari to ballet.  Since Ruby did her practicing before school, she was free for the rest of the day, except for creative writing homework, reading and her jazz class.  We ate her stew for dinner, and it was delicious.  All in all, it was a fun and exciting first day of school.  It's going to be tricky fitting everything in and staying focused, but there are benefits, too.  Guitar during school hours, time with Ruby at this stage of her life, more attention for the other kids after school hours, and all the things we get to learn.  I'm realizing that we won't have time for some of the extracurricular activities that I want to do, so we'll do them on weekends with the rest of the family. Another plus!  Last night, I had serious reservations about the homeschool thing.  Stage fright?  After a good, successful day, I'm more confident.  There will be hard times, but I'm really grateful for this opportunity.  It was a necessary change, and now everything is in harmony...for now!

Will Work for Food

Dear Jennifer,

Do you have ANY other gigs for us to do?  Any Primary songs that need to be sung?  Choir stuff?  Caroling?  We'll play any instrument you want and sing any part you need in any venue at any time of day.  All we ask in return is just a few more slices of heaven.  Apple pie this good doesn't last long!  The kids are practicing now, just hoping that someday, maybe, they'll get another call from Jennifer, asking them to sing in Primary again. 

Thank you so much!

Circe

Thank You, Dr. King

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4AItMg70kg

I am so thankful to live in the reality your dream helped to create.

Anti-Inversion Tools

Help! Help! I can't see the sky! I remember being in Minnesota in April one time, and my teeth hurt from the cold every time I opened my mouth outside. It was eight degrees Fahrenheit, and that was in April. And I lived through four Midwestern winters, so I know that it's technically not that cold here when it's 28 degrees, but it sure feels cold when the ice won't melt and the sky is a solid sheet of white.  Here are some of my Anti-Inversion Tools:

 My beautiful salad, like everything in my life right now, is about being in denial that it's winter.  Looking at those fruits and veggies, can't you almost feel the Miami heat?  (If you're actually in Miami, Tricia and everyone :), don't answer that!)

 Dogs in tutus.  Who cares if we're living inside of a dirty sock if you can get a cute little canine to wear a tutu?  What kind of a monster ARE you if that doesn't make you chuckle.  (Trajan?)

Planning.  I've been organizing for Ruby Academy, and I am loving it!  I thought my life couldn't be parsed into smaller blocks of time, but now it is, and I am so excited to be embarking on this thing with Ruby.  Mostly, it's just fun using the Sharpies, but I have other educational ideas, too.  Don't worry!

Because it just happens to be All About Ruby this month, here is a sneak peek at her newly Coconized room.  Ruby spent a solid week organizing her closet and bedroom.  It looked good until Coco swooped in with her expert eye and made it wonderful!  I know Ruby wants to post pictures on her blog, so I won't steal the limelight.  Just a little lamplight.  Isn't it darling?

I guess I do have quite an arsenal of Anti-Inversion Tools.  And I didn't even mention taking Freestone to see a Muggle Quidditch match.  Talk about funny!  It was a fundraiser at the high school for Haitian Roots, and I thought Free would love it.  He's reading the first Harry Potter book and keeps telling me all about Quidditch.  Muggle Quidditch is an actual game that people really play.  It's sortof a cross between basketball, volleyball and dodgeball, and all the players hold a broomstick between their legs.  Free was far more interested in explaining all the various rules and plays of Quidditch to me than watching the game.  He did love the Snitch, though.  He speculated for days about how they were going to work the Snitch.  He decided that it was going to be a remote control snitch, along the lines of a remote control helicopter, and he was excited.  The Snitch turned out to be a high school boy in a bright yellow shirt who would run onto the court or through the crowd or along the balcony, prompting the chasers to chase him.  Just as I was asking myself how long a Muggle Quidditch match could be, the Snitch was tackled by both of the seekers, and the game ended.  Right in time, too, since Ptolemy had sliced his finger getting it caught in the bleacher and Yogo Togo was waiting.  Immersed in Freestone's imaginary world, I hardly had a chance to notice the cold or the color of the sky.  Where we were, it was blue skies and flying Nimbus 2000's all the way.

Favorites for Golda

 It was nice of Golda to "Tag" me on her blog post, since she knows I probably have really boring answers to most of these questions.  But here you go, G.  I sure love you.  You're a star in my book.

1. Favorite piece of jewelry or hair accessories - pony tail holder, aka elastic.
2. Most important favorite thing - cell phone
3. Favorite Make-up - lipstick
4. Favorite article of clothing - socks.  Must have socks.
5. Favorite drink - Almond Roca steamer
6. Favorite smelly thing - Downy
7. Favorite food - butter
8. 6 favorite people to tag...six?  Can anyone help me out here?  Brittany, you do one.  And your mom!  And all the rest of you.  come on, it's January and you really have nothing else to do!  :)

Love ya, Golda!

Yellow Tang

Freestone is an idea guy.  Occasionally, he thinks up an idea that is somewhat compatible with reality.  Today's idea wasn't.  The school crossing guard has a Golden Retriever that Free likes, and he came home from school and asked, "Mom, can we get a really big dog who can sleep under my bed and be with me at all times?"

Absolutely not!

But, I told him, if you practice for a hundred days in a row, I will take you to the pet store and you can get a...(here, my brain is cataloging all the animals we've had that were a bad, bad idea and coming up with...nothing)...a...mouse!  I cringed as I said it, thinking of all the cage cleaning and the probable early death and the inevitable run to the pet store during school hours for a look-alike.  But because I am that stupid, I was willing to buy a mouse if it made Free do his practicing.  (But not for ninety-four more days, which is four days after Xanthe's birthday, in case you're not counting.)  Freestone largely ignored the mouse idea and glommed onto my other suggestion:  hiding one of my dad's Afghan hounds under his bed, brushing it and taking it for walks.  That idea got an enthusiastic "ya ya ya!" 

Then the weirdest thing happened.  Freestone came with me to take Ruby to meet Scott at NSL court so he could drive her to guitar.  I realized the pet store was just down the street!  Freestone was overjoyed when I offered to take him to look at the pets.  What can I say?  I'm a sucker for pet stores, and we don't have one in our neck of the woods.  Plus, I thought if I could get Freestone excited about some cheap, tiny pet, practicing would be so easy!  See, he started with a violin teacher who isn't me last week, and he's all fired up about checking those boxes on his practice list.  Now we have to keep thinking of ways to keep the interest level up.

A few days ago, someone noticed that the clock said 7:11.  One of the kids asked Scott if they could get Slurpees because it was 7:11, and he said, "Get in the car!"   Walking into the pet store tonight, Freestone said, "I can't believe Daddy took us to get a slurpee just because it was 7:11, and now you're taking me to see pets!!"  Both Free and Ptolemy were mesmerized by all the cages and tanks and exciting inhabitants therein.  Free gravitated right to the fish tanks and I thought, "Great!  A five-dollar bowl and a ten cent fish who lives for three days.  I can do that!"  But Freestone was thinking more along these lines...

 Right away, he chose a Yellow Tang, which is essentially a thirty-dollar guppy, for those of you not familiar with the salt-water aquarium world.  Even though he had this whole scenario envisioned where he practices for a hundred days and gets the fish and the million-gallon tank, Free still had to look at every puppy, every chinchilla, every finch and every fish.  It was like the best day of his life.  I followed him around, watching him earnestly peer into the various cages, standing on tiptoe.  Ptolemy, ever the dutiful younger brother, was equally enthusiastic about each creature, squealing and pointing at everything Freestone looked at.  At the end, when we were staring at the massive tank we started at, Freestone asked if he could practice more than once a day.  Because if it took him a hundred days to get one fish, he could only get three fish a year.  Well, well, who am I to deny a child the joy of practicing twice a day?  I thought about it and said, "Hmmm...I guess you could practice everything two times, if you think you have time and it sounds fun."  He answered, "Good.  Then we'll have to get a pretty big tank, otherwise my fish might not have enough room."

In the car on the way home, Freestone said, "Sometimes I think you're the worst parents in the world...and sometimes I think you're the best parents in the world."

"When are we the worst parents in the world?"

"At bedtime.  My bedtime is way too early.  I'm too much of a night owl.  And the lunches you pack.  I've been starved since the beginning of the year!"

"When are we the best parents in the world?"

"Now."

I love Freestone.

No Boy

 No no no no no!

 Nao

 Nooooooooooooooo

This boy loves to say no.  He has numerous inflections, some of which mean no and some of which actually mean yes.  Some no's mean "I'm tired" and some mean "Where is everybody?"  If you ask him if he wants to go in his crib, it's a brief "Nao."  We had some friends over and their little girls were petting Star.  From across the room, Ptolemy came running, shouting, "No no no no no!"  He guarded Star's head with one arm and fought off the girls with the other, pointing at them and chastising them with his NO.

If Scott gives me a hug, Tolly runs over, scolding  "No no no!"  He pushes me away and hugs Daddy, saying, "Aaaaawww!"  That means "I'M cute!  Not Mama!  Me me me!"  He may not have more than a couple dozen words right now, but it doesn't matter.   Ptolemy only really needs one!  Although it is nice to hear his adorable little "ya" once in awhile!

Janu-arty

Is there anything more maudlin than Christmas decorations in January?  All of our Christmas is hiding in storage rooms where it belongs, but I just couldn't put away the tree in my room.  Ari reminded me that it was time for the tree to go, but it doesn't have decorations on it, and it's snowy and pretty, so I told her I was thinking of it as my "Winter Tree" and leaving it up.  She said, "Okay, Mom.  But I bet a LOT of people who see it are going to think it's a regular Christmas tree."  Anyone want to be in January denial with me?

Another way to ignore the inversion and the freezing cold temperatures is to do art projects.  Break out the paints, fabrics and craft kits!

This was a few weeks ago.  All 23 cousins came over and did a self-portrait for Grandma and Grandpa.  The littlest kids' (babies) portraits were done by their big brothers and sisters.  I don't know what happened to the pictures I took of the finished mural, but maybe they'll turn up.  I first painted the backgrounds one of three colors so that the finished mural would have some continuity.  We arranged the self-portraits from oldest to youngest, and it is so cute to see the progression.  I love how it turned out.  I never help kids with their painting, but with little kids, I do take it away when I think it's done, because they just keep working on it until it's a brown blob if I let them.

Ruby painted this fish for Grandpa.  Love it!  Lexie did a painting for Grandma that I don't have a picture of.  It turned out really great.

Ellison and Ari had a painting day.  Ari sketched a fairy and E did "The Scream."  Fabulous!

Xanthe (makeup artist: Golda) wanted to copy a Monet painting of sunflowers.  His are prettier than Van Gogh's, I think.  Xanthe's are a little drippy.  Must have been a rainy day for those sunflowers!

Scott oversaw the soapmaking craft.  It was fun! 

I don't know what came over me, but my friends brought a pillow pattern to lunch last week, and I had to make one.  (Without the pattern, of course.  No patience for doing it right.)  It was great fun on a Sunday morning to cut an arrange the pieces until Scott said in a mocking voice, "Oh sorry I didn't get my lesson planned, but I did make the cutest pillow!"  He was right; I was ignoring the Young Women's lesson I had to teach.  I put the pillow away until after church, and the lesson went well.

 While I prepared my lesson, Araceli made a scripture bag for Xanthe.  She used the soft, fluffy blanket that she had accidentally burned a hole through when she draped it over her lamp for a ceiling in her fort.  Oops.

This is Ari's Sunday night creation.

And a sample of Xanthe's photography. We have dozens of close-ups of Xanthe's nostrils and eyes, but this one of her foot is cute, somehow. I might have to delay Xanthe's photography career until she can learn to take pictures without making the camera sticky. What is she doing, licking the lens or something? I dunno.

 And finally, Xanthe's VIP poster, due in a few weeks.  She plans ahead, this kid.  I think the poster is still a work in progress.  It's keeping her busy, along with her birthday party invitation project.  Day after day, Xanthe writes notes and stuffs them in envelopes.  She calls them birthday party invitations and says, "I can't believe my birthday is coming up!  I can't believe it's almost April 10th!"  Many a phone conversation has been interrupted by an impatient voice yelling, "I can't BELIEVE my birthday is coming up!  Mom?  Mom!"  If you get an invitation that says, "MOMXANTHEESMAESEEMYLIKE," you'll know to pencil something in on April 10th. 

With any luck, a few more art days will see us through the heart of winter and into the spring and, finally, Xanthe's birthday!