January 29, 2011

I think I’ve got a bit of the winter doldrums, perhaps.  I took Madeleine to a make-up ballet class (because we missed one during a snowstorm), and the older girls were there and I watched them a bit, and I was so sad.  Sad that I never really had the chance to be as good as they are, sad that I’m not dancing now, sad for all the things in my life that I haven’t done well enough, sad for all the things that I’m too nervous to accomplish… that kind of thing. 

I was thinking of going to the adult ballet classes again.  It’s always irritating, because they’re only 75 minutes instead of 90, which drives me a bit crazy, because a proper class really needs to be at least 90.  But I was thinking it would give me more motivation to go to the gym and eat better.  If I have a reason to do those things, then it would be much easier.  And then I’d get that happy feeling of accomplishment.  That’d be nice.

Yesterday was Grant’s third birthday.  I let him have a late nap so he’d be awake for his party at 7.  So then he wanted to stay up really late.  When I said it was time to go to sleep, he said he didn’t want to go to sleep, because it was his birthday.  That was a bit more sophisticated of an argument than I was expecting from him. 

Madeleine lost her first tooth last Monday (January 23, 2012).  It was the lower front one on the right (from her perspective).  We had already had a very trying sort of day, where everything seemed to go wrong, or at least was irritating.  Let’s see if I can remember…  we went to my Grandma’s house, and almost got into an accident on the way.  My garage door opener disappeared (Brian stole it, because the back door was stuck shut because of ice, so he needed to go through the garage door.)  Now that I think of it, a lot of these are reasons why we were late to my grandma’s house.  Before we left, Grant fell flat on his face in the kitchen and screamed and screamed, and when I stopped hugging him I realized we were both covered in some blood, as his face was bleeding next to his mouth.  Grant was tired all day and was wild at my grandma’s and it was all just very trying.  So we came home to let him take a nap.  As soon as we got home Madeleine went to get some yogurt to eat.  I wasn’t really paying attention, but something happened, and then I saw her and she looked so sad and terrified and in pain.  I asked what was wrong and she opened her mouth and showed me where her tooth was gone, and there was blood there.  It hadn’t been loose (that we knew of), and so I was concerned.  She started screaming, and then I went and called the dentist.  My general sense of things from the phone call was that it was probably okay, but that they couldn’t diagnose it over the phone, and they let me bring her in.  So I took her in right away, and they took X-rays to make sure it had come out all the way.  The X-ray showed that it had, and you could see the permanent tooth coming up.  The tooth next to it in the front also showed the permanent tooth coming up underneath, but not as far.  The dentist thought that tooth would fall out in the summer. 

So after that things perked up (Grant still had no nap, but we managed).  We came home to try to find the tooth, but I couldn’t find it anywhere.  Then Madeleine said she’d been over the garbage can when it came out, and Brian had already taken the garbage out.  So, no tooth.  But we got Madeleine excited about the tooth fairy coming.  And she just went on and on about how she was soooo thrilled that the tooth fairy was coming this week, so that she would have her own money and be able to buy Grant something for his birthday.  It was so sweet!  Brian and I talked in code about it, and Brian was wondering what my “favorite number” was (which was really an idea of how much the tooth fairy should bring, so she could buy a present).  During this conversation, Madeleine said her favorite numbers were 13 and 3 (she just thought we were actually talking about our favorite numbers).  And lo and behold, the tooth fairy left her 13 dollars.  How did the tooth fairy know?    Brian suggested to Madeleine that she buy lollipops, and I had mentioned a shirt, and so she ended up getting him a bag of lollipops and tootsie rolls, and a dragon shirt.  It’s an exciting blue dragon shirt, and she picked it out, because it is like the dragons in Skyrim, which the kids both love. 

Well, it’s time to go to church now.  So adieu. 

Grant has been a bad sleeper again the past few nights.  The 3 nights previous to last one he woke up for an hour or two each night in the middle.  He'll lie there in bed quietly, and you'd swear he was sleeping, and then he'll bust out saying, 'I love you Mommy!" or "What are you doing, Mommy?"  I love you too, kid, but I'm sleeping, and you should be too.

This morning he woke up before 5 a.m. and we were up.  We opened the window and looked outside, and then Grant had his version of a conversation with me, I guess.  Some of the things he said were, "Where's Jupiter?" and then, "Jupiter's sleeping?"  Yes, Jupiter's sleeping, and you should be too.  Then he said, "Jesus born!"  I think that came up because looking out the windows reminded him of Christmas lights, and of how they were there to celebrate that Jesus was born.  Then he exclaimed, "One hundred even number!!!"  (He loves to go around and say that 100 is an even number, and that 11 is an odd number.)  Then he asked, "What clock is it now, Mommy?"  So I told him, and then he informed me that, "Madeleine is afraid of ten o'clock."  Yes, yes she is.  Today when it was going to turn 10:00 this morning, Madeleine made herself a little cave out of two laundry baskets pushed together, so that she could hide from ten o'clock.  Grant thinks it's fun to copy Madeleine, and he found a hiding place under the blankets of the bed. 

Madeleine is obsessed with the clock too.  I think she manages to point out to me every single day each time the clock digits are all the same, which happens at 11:11, 1:11, 2:22, 3:33, 4:44, 5:55.  If you tease her and ask when it's going to be 6:66 she'll laugh at you and say of course you know there is no such time.  She's also afraid of 10:00, but has a mild fascination with the other hours, too.  So she's always doing math, telling you how many minutes it will be until 10:00, or till 1:11, or till any other of her favorite times.  The other day it was 9:42, and she knew it was going to be 18 minutes till 10:00. 

I've been practicing her letter sounds for taking the dual language program entrance exam.  She's a good reader, but she just knows a lot of words from memory, and from piecing parts of words together.  If she doesn't know a word, she approximates it from her knowledge of other words that look similar, and does a pretty good job of it.  But if you ask her the actual phonetic sounds of individual letters, she doesn't always know.  Or at least not as much as you would expect from a girl who can read as well as she can.  So I guess I'm having my parental moment, trying to get her ready so she can get into the program.  I really want her to be in it, so she'll know Spanish (since I'm bilingual), and also so she'll have a challenge in school.  It'd be tons of fun to go volunteer in her classroom, and the teacher is my aunt's friend, and it'd just be a good thing.  I don't want her not to get in because I was too busy teaching her about planets or prime numbers or things like that, and not enough time teaching her the short i sound. 

I guess that's enough for now.  I'll try to write a bit more often.  I just seem pretty content with things, and don't feel the need to write down everything they do anymore.  Though I should say today they were being zombies and running around in the dark and eating peoples' brains.  Well, Grant was.  Madeleine was the Yeti Zombie (from Plants vs. Zombies) and she would run away after a short while (as that is what the Yeti Zombie does).