Party

Ariel Saves the Day

The Duck Leads His Flock

I WANT CAKE!

We had C and D’s 5^th birthday yesterday. After much deliberation, they decided to have an art party with, most importantly, the “REAL Ariel.” They were so proud of having Ariel there that when girls showed up C would run up and say “Look over there! Did you see…the REAL Ariel is here!” And D would more casually say to her friends in her deep little D voice, “Yeah, she’s the real Ariel, it’s true.”

Ariel took turns face painting each girl (they invited all the girls in their class plus 2 sets of twin friends) while the rest of them did art projects. Unfortunately, I can’t endorse the art studio as the woman who ran it didn’t seem to be on top of her game (when we arrived 20 minutes before the party started she was sitting outside reading a book and “enjoying the sun”—and nothing was set up inside). After 2 art projects we had a lot of time left, so Ariel saved the day and read a few books. Then cake (they each picked their own…C was a tinkerbell cake, white with pink frosting, and D’s was a chocolate/chocolate Cars cake). L screamed her way through the singing of ‘happy birthday’ to D as she tried to get her chubby hands on some frosting.

All in a nice little party and the girls were thrilled to have their first “drop off party,” with both sets of grandparents there to help. (They even seemed totally on board with the “no gifts” request). (And they also made their sister YaYa a crown to match the ones they got at school).

CMD and DRD: The Drive for Five

In the wee small hours of the morning....

It is midnight and in 17 hours C and D will officially be 5. I am headed in right now wash my face and wrap your presents. I let myself get caught up in a work project tonight. For the past few weeks things have been a little crazy, and it takes something like your birthday to make me stop and realize that life is going by way too quickly.

I miss your 3 and 4 lb bodies. Am I allowed to say that? I told Andrew this past weekend that I think this year might be the best year of my life. And I mean it. Not that the best things will happen necessarily, but that years from now, it will be the one I remember. Even if I don't know it. But 5, 5, and 2 will be hard to beat, no matter what our family looks like in the years to come. LBD is still like a giant soft, sweet smelling little bundle of chub, and C and D's worlds still revolve, essentially, around me. It can drive me nuts at times, but I will miss the hell out of it when it is gone. For the past few weeks I have noticed that you are transitioning--transitioning from sweet little 4 year olds to more confident and knowledgeable 5 year olds. 4 is my favorite number, and maybe it is my favorite age. And never will I get those little girls back.

So who are you at 5? Honestly, I wish I had the guts to post your school essays in here, because I must say, they are pretty good. But then everyone would be hurling as they read them (or worse yet, stealing the poetic prose for their own kindergarten applications---because I mean who doesn't spend hours working on essays about freaking 4 year olds????? !!!!!!!) In all seriousness, writing those made me realize what cool little kids you are becoming (or did I have to think that to get myself to write all that...oh well, chicken, egg, who cares right?!?! : ))

Both of You

• You are good little bike riders. You love it when I tell you that I didn't ride a two wheel bike until I was 7.
• You have VERY young video taste. Everything scares you (fireman sam, the leap frog factory owner, the crazy toys in Toy Story even). Five minutes into Toy Story 2 you were yelling "turn it off!!" Quite honestly, I don't mind this at all, because it keeps you young from seeing a lot of videos, and as Lila starts to watch videos once in awhile you are happy to watch the same things for the most part (Berenstein Bears, Calliou, Franny's Feet). You have seen and enjoy Cars and Toy Story 2, and sometime in the next 6 months I'm going to let you see "Ariel's New Beginning" and maybe a Tinkerbell movie. You have never been to the movie theater but we think we are going to take you to see Cars 2 when it comes out.
• You are starting to notice that other kids get or do things you don't, and for this I have years of learning how to deal with it. "Other kids paint their nails all the time, other kids have high heeled princess shoes....it seems like other mommies are nicer than you." I don't mind the high heeled shoes for dress up and will relent, but the more I read the more I think that all things related to being "grownup" form a slippery slope, and the only thing standing between them and wearing makeup at age 10 is me. So I plan to walk what appears to be a very lonely road.
• The potty talk has definitely increased. It gets worse around certain friends, and Lila has even picked up a phrase or two. I didn't think I would be this parent, but I have actually put tobasco on your tongue after several warnings. Luckily you don't know any really bad words (how the HELL I have refrained from dropping bombs around them, I don't know).
• You are developing into good friends. Your best friend as school has special needs (she has CP), and for your birthday party, your biggest concern was that the party event be one that your friend could participate in and enjoy. You never seem to notice what your friend can't do (she walks with crutches) but instead tell me how she is a great climber. I have really learned something from watching you two be friends with her, because you neither ignore nor focus on her disabilities. You met another girl who also walked with a walker and you chatted her up, asking her about her special issues and telling her all about your 'best friend' and what she did. I would kill to be at such ease in those situations, and I hope you never lose it.
• You seem to be not the most popular girls at school, but still well liked. I would give anything to have you maintain that status in the next 10 years of your life but only time will tell. C seems more focused on getting the approval of the alpha girls. D seems focused on finding people who are nice and will play with her. You are lucky in that your class is generally filled with very kind little girls.

Charlotte

• You are 36 lbs and 41.5 inches. This puts you at about the 25th % all around.
• You spend two weeks as a defiant, limit-pushing kid who can't stop herself from getting into trouble. We will talk about how you are always getting in trouble and how not fun that is for both of us. Most of the time I can see you just wanting to make sure you are loved, but sometimes you keep fighting the situation because you can't express what it is that is really upsetting you. Then you spend the next two weeks being the kindest sister, the sweetest girl, the most grateful kid I have ever met. It helps me get through the first phase knowing the next is in store.
• You have an alter ego named “Camnut.” She is from the “wild, wild west” and she has a big southern drawl. She often 'flies on a plane from Houston' to come visit because, as you remind me, "Texas is part of the wild wild west." When you first introduced her to me one night when you were in the bath it was the first time one of my children made me laugh the way an adult would make me laugh.
• 90% of the time you have an extremely positive outlook on life. You view every time you meet a new person as an opportunity to make a new friend. You are quick to include people in all activities and you enjoy complimenting others on their skills or accomplishments.
• You are very protective of D and C. On playgrounds, for example, you will ask older kids to “do me a favor” and be careful around your little sister.
• You are not afraid to talk to adults. You will talk their ears off. Sometimes you will even tell them what to do, or more often, what not to do. ("I told that woman she shouldn't let her kid cross the street without holding hands." "I told that man he shouldn't bike without a helmet.") You don't always win friends that way, though you are often correct. (Or worse, you are passing on your mother's judgments, which I think are correct : ))
• You are, as your preschool director likes to say, "fiesty." One day at school they had wrestling matches. I heard through the grapevine (ie. all the boys' mothers) that you legitimately beat a little boy named Clay. It was big news in boyland. But when I asked you about it you said "Well I beat Clay, but he told me that if he had tried his hardest he would have beat me, but he didn't." (FYI, word on the street was that he DID try his hardest). You didn't seem to care either way, though I did find you teaching Lila how to wrestle ("Ok Ya Ya, walk up, shake hands, go back to your line, and now we come together and wrestle!")
• You love art, and you like learning from other people. You will often tell me that someone had school made something you liked (ie. a fan) and you asked them to show you how to make one. You are pretty creative at home with your art projects.
• You scar easily. This worries me because I don't want you to hit 17 and hate me because you have little scars all over you. The tiniest scratch can become a scar with you. So for the record, I am trying really hard to stop you from scarring.
• You still love pink, though you have added orange and purple to your list of strong likes. You also like to wear dresses a lot but, interestingly, not as much as D does. You also wear jeans. You are sort of shaping into a kid who loves pink but isn't necessarily into "frilly." Sometimes, I hate to tell you, you look like a little me, except that you have a much cuter walk.
• Sometimes I worry that of the three, you are the most likely to be 'left out.' I am trying to get a sense of why that might be the case. I think it is a combination of things--including that you are socially more mature than D, who is equally happy playing with a 2 year old as playing with a 5 year old, as well as the fact that you are more socially aware and sensitive, so you tend to feel you are being left out even if you are really just engaging in some 'me time.' Rarely do I see any of my kids actively excluding another (this is not what I experienced as a kid and it thrills me).
• You are becoming competitive, so far in a mostly good way. You like to win at Memory (which you are pretty good at) and you like to win at races, etc. Right now in swimming you are good for your age but you are the worst in your class of four girls--sometimes it demoralizes you, but you are significantly smaller than the rest of them and I see how hard you work to catch up.
• You are definitely going to be my fashion consultant, both because you seem most aware of that stuff and because you are oh so not afraid to be critical of me. You already say things that make me realize that you will be the kid that thinks "My mom was a good mom, but I am going to be different in that...." I can't fault you for it because I am exactly the same way.
• I think you may end up being, emotionally, the most difficult kid for me to raise--we are going to butt heads a lot. I also think you are the one most likely to visit me in the old folks home.

Dylan

• You are 33lbs and 41.5 inches, about 25th % for height and 3rd % for weight. I have been told I need to fatten you up. This is hard because you eat a lot. So I am trying to push avocados down your throat. Being so petite is starting to wear on you a bit. I think you tire more easily and it frustrates you that the other kids run faster than you. You struggle with some milestones in swimming because you have no meat on your body to keep you afloat. Breaks my heart a bit, though I know there are much bigger challenges in life.
• As I wrote in your school essays, "Dylan is a little girl with a big personality whose greatest personal strengths are her individualism and her immeasurable determination and focus."
• Your quirkiness sometimes manifests itself in the form of OCD behavior. You need to be tucked in VERY tight at bedtime. You want your canopy closed just so. You want to be 'scooted up' to the table very close, but not too close (you have maybe a centimeter of wiggle room in your parameters, which leads me to get VERY frustrated sometimes). You have very specific demands for when you need to use the bathroom --silence, doors closed, and you always look in at the same spot in the room. White noise machine at a very specific level. You seem to have this OCD need to call us back in the room at least one time every night for some reason or another. When we call you out on it you say "Mom, I can't help it. I'm just a weird kid! I'm just built this way. Do you understand?"
• You have very specific clothing requirements too, which seem to be driven by comfort. Hence no jeans (too scratchy), three quarter sleeves tend to bug you (too cold). You still wear boys underwear but I'm worried kindergarten will kill that... you are already becoming more susceptible to what is 'socially acceptable" and for this I am sad. You like things SMALL... in Carmel sometimes you insist on wearing a sweater that is size 18 months...and yes, you can actually zip it up because you are a pixie.
• You think analytically. (Praying all my kids get Andrew's brainpower ...left brain, very analytical, focused, with just a dash of my very right brain, non linear, not analytical enough brain). You verbally process information and link it, and I am often impressed by the connections and conclusions you get to. Sometimes they are bizarre, but I totally see how you get to them.
• You love baby dolls. I wouldn't have pegged you as my baby doll kid, but I think you are pretty young in many ways socially, and so you love playing "baby" even as the other girls seem to want to graduate to Barbie.
• You hug like you never want to let me go at bedtime. Sometimes I am so tired I get frustrated, and then I chastise myself because someday I will give my left arm for a little girl who won't let me out of her grasp.
• You are funny, and I think you might know it. You’ll often be telling a joke or a story which you know is funny--you will try to keep a straight face, but then slowly lose it and smile. It’s one of your father's favorite things.
• You yell a lot, maybe because you can’t hear.
• You still require an audience to poop. While it often comes at inopportune times, they’re often some of our favorite times with you. They often result in 10-15 minute monologues (she’s enjoys the experience like a 60 year old reading the paper on the toilet) about whatever is top of mind. The topics are as varied as why the sky is blue to why Ho Ho is the funniest kid she knows.
• You have solid taste in music.
• You are socially young in many ways. I see this in how you are easily scared by things. I also see this in how you love to play with kids younger than you. You happily play with three year old girls, and--compared to C-- you are much less interested in playing with older girls. I often find you playing with LBD as if she were your equal. You are also easily hurt by people because you don't really understand how to play social games. Even things like boys at the park saying "Boys only'" will bring you to tears. Like your father, you are not a game player. Good for your future partner, but sometimes tough on a little kid.
• You are truly, truly unique, and I can't wait to see what you do with 5.
• I keep asking you to stop growing older. You refuse, but you tell me you think you might be able to stay 10 forever.

I love you girls.

Quotes

L: "BUT I WANT TO!!"

This is the mantra of the terrible twos, and LBD has it down.

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"One time?"

L's little plea, accompanied by one little finger that she holds up, when I tell her no ("No milk in bed, no more cookies, no more books, no eating outside the kitchen ," etc)

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At the end of a video I found C and D mesmerized by a Bare Escentuals commercial. It was disturbing. As I turned it off...

D: "Mom, do you want that stuff?"

Me: "NO, I do not."

D: "But it covers your skin flawlessly!"

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This morning I asked D what she wanted for her birthday.

D: "I think I am going to say I want you to have another kid born on Christmas."

Me: "Really, that is what you want?"

D: "Well, yes!"

Me: "Seriously?!"

C: "Yes, because YaYa was the best present any of us could ever get." (No, I am not bs'ing this)

D: Big smile "Yeah, she was" Big pause. "Besides, right now we don't have enough people to play duck duck goose at home."

C: "And I also want another baby brother or sister because then we can move into a bigger house." (How do you explain "inversely related" to an almost 5 year old?)

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D: Mom, did you know that a sister is way better than a friend?"

Me: "Why?"

D: "Because you get to play with your sisters every day but you only see friends part of the days."

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Somewhere along the way I told the girls about Hitler. No specifics, I just used him as an example of a 'very bad person' because I needed a clear cut example of one. Unfortunately, they keep coming back to him, only they refer to him as "Hitter." Examples of how they bring him up include:

--At the end of a discussion about why they shouldn't refer to anything as stupid or mean....C: "But I can tell Hitter he's stupid or mean, right?"

--After some discussion about why they need to show their mother a little more appreciation...and after a long silence, I hear a little D voice in the back, "Mom, I like you way better than Hitter."

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C was sick and missed school one day. D hopped in the car and furtively handed C something. I heard D lean over and whisper "We made these little bowls today, but they told us we could not take them home. So when they weren't looking.... I snuck it out."

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Our neighbor calls to ticket everyone. He enjoys calling to tow the nurses' cars who park in the spot between our buildings, and he will ticket our car if it is an inch in the red near his building (literally). Even worse, the Scrooge comes out in him and he does it most during December. C and D know he ticketed us once in December. The other day we saw him outside. After we got in the car C said (very seriously): "Mom, next time we see Santa we need to tell him to give our neighbor a lump of coal in his stocking."

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C, after asking me if I learned all these different things in school that she was now learning (and my answer was no for most). C: "Well why did you even go to school then if you didn't learn anything?"

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C was telling some story about her family to my friend's son Will and she says "Grandpa Michael, he is our grandfather. But he went to heaven. Then Papa took the job."

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The other day we were talking about our "favorite days."

C: "Mom do you know what was my favorite day EVER EVER EVER? The day that you were so sick you couldn't get out of bed and Daddy had to take care of us ALL day."

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C: "Daddy you must be a good swimmer---I mean, you grew up with a water bed."

Snow and Oranges

D in her woody xmas pjs
Hanging with the bear..

A short recap of our post Xmas activities:

We went skiing. It was fantastic. I only wish we could have been there longer. As 4 year olds C and D ski 2 hours together with an instructor. The first day they had spectacular conditions but they were just getting their feet. The second day it dumped snow and they managed great under the conditions. The third day it was a high of 7 degrees--it was so cold I could barely take it myself. They didn't seem to mind, but I may never show them spring skiing because they will get spoiled. Lila loved playing hide and seek in the house and having Gram all to herself. I really love spending NYE up there.

We flew back late the night of the first, it was brutal, but worth it. The next morning Andrew and I left on a sort of "ex-Trilogy" trip to Florida to see Stanford in the Orange Bowl. I can't really explain it other to say that it was even more fun than I thought it might be, and I was pretty excited. It was even fun to be a "wife" on the trip because we got a little separate girls hang/spa time. It was organized by a Stanford alum and I saw a lot of Stanford people I hadn't seen in years. In that sense it was more fun than reunion because it was a lot of people I enjoyed spending time with in college, but no one asked me resume questions or even about my kids. It was nice to see people who just knew me as me, not as a wife or mother.

In true "Trilogy" style it was an over the top event. The first night was a fabulous 80s cover band and Vince Neil. The second day was a very well organized tent complete with games and food, then Vince Neil and Jon Bon Jovi. My friend Andy gave me the thrill of a lifetime by letting me go back and meet JBJ before the concert. That noise you hear is the 17 year old in my shrieking with glee, and the 38 year old mother of 3 wasn't too sad either. Of course, in my pre-teen state of mind I didn't think to google the man and maybe come up with a few nuggets of info. (I'm sure he was really interested in meeting us too :)). Luckily my smart friend DR did, so while she talked I spent the meet and greet staring, drooling, and pondering how he ended up in the largest grossing band of 2010 and VN was available for 1/10 his cost. (Maybe the fact that JBJ drank green tea the whole time and looked like he had just done yoga, while VN's bus was filled with several very road weary "bandaids" who kept leaving the tent to smoke offered some clues). Such a thrill.

Oh, and it was really fun to watch the game and Stanford won. Now if only Luck can lead us there again next year, I'll start inviting myself NOW.

I came home and played the videos for C and D (and gave them the cupcakes from the flight, they were thrilled). Now they are huge fans too. Funny, I must be getting REALLY old, or my memory is getting worse, because now I can't figure out which video I enjoy watching more....(ps. these damn videos have made me several months behind in posting, so i'll get to them someday, i swear. For now, you will just have to trust me that A) JBJ was awesome, and B) my girls can sing the sh*t out of "Can't Go Home" as they call it).

Only 6 hours to go before kick off...

Vince Neil in a Stanford shirt (seriously)

My new BFF

No explanation needed

The cupcakes from the flight were about the only part of the trip I could share with them