May 6, 2011

  • May 6, 2011

    I’m probably going to regret not being asleep now, but I was awake in bed and then thought it’d be better to get up and write than sit there trying to snooze.  I think the fact that it’s light out at 5:30 a.m. now is contributing to this.  Anyway….

    I had some things I wanted to write down last weekend, but I got sick and slept a lot instead.  I wrote down some quick notes and we’ll see if I can remember what they are referring to.

    I was reading Hop Aboard, Here We Go with Madeleine.  It’s an old Richard Scarry book about vehicles.  There was an old station wagon in there, and Madeleine wanted to know about it.  I said it was a long car, and that people used them a lot before we all got minivans and SUVs.  Then Madeleine told me about how Daddy had gone riding in one of those.  I was not sure what she meant, but then she went on to say that we had taken pictures of him (I think).  Then I realized she was remembering when Karen had her wine-tasting birthday party and they had gone riding in a limousine to the wineries.  We did that this year, too, but Madeleine was at my mom’s house, so I think she was remembering the one from 14 months ago, and that surprised me.  Yes, we did take pictures, but I don’t remember us ever looking at them.  They might flash up on our computer screen sometime along with the 50 million other pictures of things I’ve taken.  But  I don’t recall mentioning anything about the limousine ride.  Maybe I did.  But mostly I think she remembers something from 14 months back, and that’s kind of impressive to me.  I know she told us things about her third birthday party (it had an Easter egg hunt that she remembered) and a lot about when we went to the beach last summer.  I guess she’s getting to the age where her long-term memory is developing and functioning.

    I used to take showers with both kids, but lately it’s become really hard with Grant.  There’s just lots of fussing, and he insists on looking at the water and getting it into his eyes over and over and over again.  So lately I’ve been trying to take showers at times when I can leave him with Brian.  But – that’s not the point of this.  When I do take showers with both kids, they usually fight about which shower to go to.  We have toys and towels and soaps in the bathrooms attached to each bedroom upstairs.  I make them take turns picking, but there’s still usually some whining (there’s lots of whining around here).  This time Madeleine went on to say, “All the cold toys are in Mommy’s shower!”  What?  The cold toys?  When I turn on the water they all become quite warm…  And then I realized that she meant “cool” toys. 

    The day of the tornadoes I talked to Merrie Jo on the phone several times, and also mentioned to Madeleine again about how they’re going to come to visit soon.  Then Madeleine said, “As soon as they get at our house, I’m (or was it “we’re”?) going to throw a party at them!”  This made me laugh and call my sister to tell her that when she gets here she better watch out, because there might be a party thrown at her.  She had already sent me the “helmet head” photo of the kids in their tornado room in bicycle and football helmets, and I told her that she should probably bring those when she comes to our house, to protect them from projectile parties.

    Grant said two things that I apparently found interesting enough to write down.  I was putting Madeleine’s shoes on, I think, and I wanted her to help me with something, so I sang, “What’s going to work?” (from the Wonder Pets) and it was Grant that answered, “Teamwork!”  And then later we were playing on the scooters outside, and Grant was going down a small hill backwards and he happily said, “back-ward!”  These words were both very clear, much clearer and precise than I am used to hearing from him. 

    I also wrote on my note paper (which was dated April 29, for the record) that it was cold in the house because Brian had turned off the heat.  Before he went to work he told me he had turned it back on, but as the morning went on I noticed it was still quite chilly.  And then when I investigated I found that he had turned the air conditioning on instead.  Ah, teasing fodder!

    And that’s the end of that sheet of notes.  Yay!