Five elements of a story

CHARACTER:


Harper really likes the Olivia books by Ian Falconer. For the uninitiated, Olivia is a pig who acts and dresses very much like a precocious 6 year old girl. There is also a television show based on the books, but we watch it rarely. Mostly I don't mind Olivia (the books are clever, even if Olivia can be a touch impertinent), but when Harper started referring to Hudson as "her little bother, and when I noticed that she was spending a fair amount of time teetering and sashaying around rather imperiously on her toes/cloven hooves, and to rather porcine effect, I decided that perhaps it was time to scale back a bit.

PLOT:

That's Hudson doing some karate on the deck. His other favorite thing to do these days is drum. A couple of days ago while I was brushing my teeth, he sat down at the drums (which are in our bedroom because I can close the door and go to the opposite side of the house and it helps my nerves) and began to do a little something that sounded kind of like a Beat poetry reading. It went like this:

Hudson: (in a hushed,rhythmic voice) Once upon a time dere was an ARMY MAN!
cymbal: tsh, tsh, tsh
bass drum: BOOM.
Hudson: And a HUNTER!
bass drum: BOOM. Boom.
snare: tatta, tatta, tatta.
Hudson: And they had their GUNS! (which is pronounced "DUNS")
(BOOM, BOOM, tatta TATTA, TATTA, tsh tsh tsh, TSH!)
Hudson: And the army man said, "I will put my PISTOL (BOOM, BOOM). In my POTTET! betuz I will SNEAT UP on a MONSTER! (BOOM!)
And then the HUNTER (tsh, tsh, tsh) said, "Yet's RUN to the ROTTET SHIP!"
bass drum: BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!
cymbal: CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!


And that was the end. Apparently, the HUNTER is not as Sure About Monsters as the ARMY MAN.

Also, Harper has been asking for a while to have her fingernails painted. So, on Saturday, I complied:


They are very pale pink, which she found slightly disappointing.

SETTING:

Well, it is Houston in August. So, a touch WARM. But dry, which means the mosquitoes are mostly too hot to come out and play, which is something to be thankful for.

CONFLICT:

We ventured out for a little bike ride this morning at 9:30, to avoid the Siren Song of the Television, and it was going fine until Harper got hot after about 6 minutes and began to have some issues with her bike. "My bike is TOO HARD!! And this helmet is VERY HOT! And something is NOT RIGHT with my PEDALS!! AND URGHARGH I CAN'T GET IT TO GO FASTER THE PEDALS ARE STICKING AND THE BRAKES AREN'T RIGHT AND DADDY NEEDS TO FIX THESE BRAKES!! THIS BIKE IS....TRASH!" It was a very impressive display. I told her to stop yelling and that we were going to have a talk about her attitude as soon as we got home. I've just started reading a book that advocates delaying formal education (it's titled Better Late Than Early) and keeping your kids home in order to spend the majority of your time with them building their character through household work, unstructured play, lots of reading aloud, and community service. It seems pretty intuitive to me, but it is the reality of the actual doing of it that is hard. I get exhausted being as counter-cultural as we are as a family (hey, everyone--here come the vegan homeschoolers whose kids don't go to Sunday school!!) that taking on one more thing, even if it seems like the best thing, is a little daunting. I've been waffling about whether or not to "start kindergarten" with Harper this fall, and have decided (I think) to do so. Mostly because it seems foolish not to take advantage of the two hours she and I get to ourselves when the other two are napping in the afternoon. I'm trying to commit to a curriculum.

THEME:
Joy, mostly. With some irritation and fatigue at intervals far more frequent than I'd like.

Eighteen months

Today is Helena's half birthday. I'm going to write down her day today because at some point, I might find it interesting.

7:30am She wakes up. Harper goes in and gives her a couple of wooden puzzles to work on while I'm drinking my coffee and getting their breakfast ready (a very labor intensive activity which, this morning, required me to pour their cereal into a bowl)

8am After having thrown all of the puzzle pieces out of her crib, she begins to chant, "Ma-MA! Ma-MA! Ma-MAA!" I change her size 4 diaper and nurse her. Then she has her breakfast: oatmeal mixed with a jar of baby food (apples and blueberries this morning) and then an entire banana which I have to cut into slices or she would shove the entire thing in her mouth at once.

8:30am Down from the high chair and she is off. I really need another baby gate that isn't being used as a doggie gate. She can run now and she darts from one room to the next, smiling and babbling and not minding at all when a certain brother or sister yells, "NO HELENA!" or, "NO UHYAYNUH!" when she gets all into their stuff. She is still very disposed to put everything in her mouth, especially very hazardous things like marbles just the exact size of her esophagus. Thankfully, she spits most things out after a brief taste.

9:30am If we're staying home, I put her down for a morning nap. Today we went to Target. It was pretty empty, so I let Harper and Hudson run races down the aisles. Helena watched from the cart and squealed her approval. Hudson performed some very impressive karate moves on aisle 9.

11:30am Lunch. Today it was yogurt and some peas and brown rice. Usually she has some grapes or cantaloupe or watermelon or blueberries too.

12-3:15pm A nice, long nap. In her sleep sack, which she calls her "sleezak" which makes her sound kind of like a little Polish baby.

3:30-5pm Play time. This afternoon we tried out the new pool we picked up at Target for $14.99 today, which seemed kind of expensive until I realized it's still five dollars cheaper than the $20 we paid to go to the new West U. pool a few weeks ago.

5:15-6pm Dinner. Tonight she ate a large bowl of black beans, some diced tomatoes, some quacamole, and then applesauce. Then the rest of Hudson's black beans because she cried a little when I mistakenly assumed that surely her stomach must be about to explode and tried to remove her bib.

6pm Bath. And teeth brushing, which she really enjoys.

6:30pm I nurse her and put her to bed. In her sleezak. I put her down, she pops in fingers index and middle on her left hand and, I assume, falls asleep. I do not hear from her for 13 hours. It's beautiful.

She is saying lots of words, sometimes on cue. I don't know how much she weighs--maybe 20 pounds? She is mostly wearing size 18 months clothes, and size 5 shoes, I think. Her hair is really curly in the back and I had the husband do a dread-lockectomy on a couple of tangled beyond repair ringlets yesterday. She is finally discovering books, but I have yet to read successfully with all three kids. Helena wants to interact with the book by grabbing it and turning 3 pages at once and maybe tasting it a little, which tries the patience of Harper and Hudson. Hudson gave her a little coloring lesson on Sunday:


In other big Hudson-related family news, there is this: I'm doing as well as can be expected. A little frayed, perhaps. But the boys in this family just love to drum. So the girls in this family just have to embrace the rhythm.

That's what he said

Harper took some pictures of us last week.
I'm thinking I'll get her to take the Christmas card picture this year then we'll just photoshop her in.

Hudson has a new pair of silver Nikes that he loves very much. He can put them on by himself, thanks to the velcro, which I love very much. He still needs help with socks and tight-necked t-shirts, but he's getting himself dressed pretty well in the mornings. I especially like it when he puts his cargo shorts on backwards. I don't fix them usually. He's maturing in so many ways, probably because he'll be 3 1/2 in a couple of days. He accidentally stomped on my bare foot with his aforementioned new shoes (which he puts on upon awakening and only takes off for sleeping) one day last week and I yelped loudly because 30 pounds of stomp with a hearty waffle tred is a surprisingly agonizing combination on a bare foot. He said, "I'm SAW-WEE Mommy! You need my night-night?" and he trotted off to his bed to get his special blanket, which he then gently rubbed on my injured foot. Sweet boy. He's gotten pretty into being an army man and a hunter lately. He needs pretty constant validation that his own life is meeting the Army Man Standard: "Do army mens eat yodurt? Do army mens do tarate? Do army mens ride bites? Do army mens mommies wipe their poo-poo?" That last one got a hearty, "They do NOT! Army men wipe their very own poo-poo!" And I totally cracked up one morning when he was getting himself into position for said procedure. He almost fell off the stool but caught himself and said, "Whew! Dat was yike Spider Man!" and I said, "Yes, I'm certain that is the sort of agility displayed by Spider Man when his mommy wiped his bottom."
He got this Nerf gun a few weeks ago and he does a fair amount of stalking around with a very stern expression, hunting for Monsters. One morning while I was brushing my teeth he was sitting on our bed watching, and he said, "Sometimes, army men shoot other army men." He watched my face carefully, pretty certain he was giving me some new information. "Yes, sadly, they do," I said, thinking he might have some follow up question. And he did: "Can I have some granola with my yodurt? Do army mens eat granola with their yodurt?" I am sure there are some army men who eat granola with their yogurt, I answered, glad that we were done with war for now.

prodigal dog

We had a good weekend. We very much enjoyed our annual visit from the Tamisieas. Clare was Harper's first friend, the summer she turned one. Mrs. T was my good friend when I worked at Children's in Dallas, AND we've each managed to have three kids at very similar intervals, which makes for lots of shared experiences. We miss them and wish they didn't live so far away. Helena was asleep and John Paul thinks taking pictures is a major impediment to his well-being. But here are the rest of us:

Yesterday we went to a church to hear Randall Goodgame sing about bears and tractors and bees who don't say please. The kids at my house are very fond of his cd, "Slugs and Bugs and Lullabies," ESPECIALLY a little ditty called, "Tractor, Tractor." We were running a smidge late (because our air conditioner died--more on that later) and we sprinted in just as he was finishing the first verse of "Tractor, Tractor." So, crisis averted. Hudson and Harper thought it was fantastic, even if they sat very still the entire time instead of partaking of the frolic like some of the other kids. They get a little star-struck and overwhelmed. Hudson did a few, very subtle hand motions and clapped a tiny bit, all the while sporting a very stern expression. He does the same thing at the library story time. He got caught up in "Wheels on the Bus" a few weeks ago and actually "beep, beep, beeped," then, when he caught me looking, he jerked back to attention with his hands clasped tightly in his lap. Apparently the crazy dance moves we work on at home are not for public consumption. Incidentally, Randall Goodgame also writes songs for grownups, and there's a song on his "War and Peace" album about the day Charles Schultz died that may have the most well written lyrics I've ever heard.

So, the air conditioner at our house has decided it is tired and needs to rest. Which isn't as dire as it could be because, 1. It has been raining and so the temperature is not as shocking as it might be this time of year, and 2. Because the husband, when he realized that we were going to be sans cool air for at least 24 hours, promptly headed to Lowe's for TWO window units. Which, if you are keeping count, brings our total number of window units to THREE. Which earns us lots of You Know You're a Redneck bonus points. Oh, and I just remembered that just as we were finishing lunch with our friends yesterday, a LIVE ROACH scurried across our kitchen counter, and the husband, in his zeal to get it, knocked it under the table where it came within millimeters of Mrs. T's foot before meeting its death by 70% isopropyl alcohol (which the husband keeps in a large spray bottle for household uses both cleaning and insecticidal). In case you didn't know, nothing says "I hope you and your children enjoyed your freshly prepared sandwich lunch at my home" like a live roach show.

Then today while we waited at home all day for the air conditioning guy, who finally showed up at 4:45 pm, Hudson lost his stuffed puppy, Cooper. We looked everywhere for Cooper and couldn't find him before nap time. I looked in all of the usual hiding places to no avail. When Hudson got up from his nap, I asked him what the last thing he remembered doing with Cooper was. "I frew him UP. In the kitchen!" Can you guess where Cooper came down? Can you? Did you guess in the trash can? Under the coffee grounds and plum pits and the entire overripe, cut in two watermelon I had to throw away at lunch? Yes, then, you are correct. And no, the air conditioner is not fixed. Of course there's a part to replace. And of course the store is already closed. So they'll be back "first thing tomorrow." And to that I say crank up the window unit.

It's been such a long time

Now you have a Boston tune whirling through your head and that is supposed to help you forget that I have not blogged in approximately an eon. Or perhaps an epoch. I don't have much of an excuse. But I realize that when I go this long between posts I forget little things that I don't want to forget. Like the fact that Hudson's been really working on finally making the 'k' sound, instead of using the 't' sound. He's really guttural about it, like maybe he summons it from down in his bronchioles somewhere. He'll say, "Yisten, Mommy: 'cuh, cuh, cuh!" and I'll say, "That's terrific, little man! Now can you say 'cupcake'?" and he'll beam and say, "Tup-tate!"

And how one night I could hear Hudson and Harper giggling like crazy while I was putting Helena to bed and they finally came running in and said, "MOMMY. Look what we can do!" And Hudson got directly in front of Harper and she wrapped her arms around him from behind and lifted him about 3 inches off the ground. They thought this was quite a Feat. In fact, when Harper saw a 6 year old girl carrying her toddler sister at the mall today, she said, "I can pick my brother up too!" And she did. And he didn't mind. I think she only outweighs him by about 6 pounds now, so it's probably not entirely safe for either one of them. But it's almost as good as a hug, and after all this time, I'm certainly not going to deny Hudson that pleasure.

We got to take a little trip with our dear friends the Bowsers. We went to a lake house west of Austin and it was pure delight. Helena's favorite part was probably the wind chimes. I didn't get a picture, but she would reach out to clink them together and get a serene smile of bliss on her face listening to the resulting chime. Harper and her friend Estie had all sorts of fun, but Harper declared sitting in this swing that the neighbors brought over to be her Absolute Favorite Thing, though you certainly can't tell by their expressions in the picture:


Hudson had lots of fun splashing in the Llano and fishing a little with Daddy, but when I asked him on the way home what his favorite thing was, he said, without hesitation, "The Elmo computer." My kids who have, for the most part, been deprived of any toys that make any kind of electronic noise (for my sanity, not for any deep philosophical protest) are inexorably drawn to them when they encounter them elsewhere.

Speaking of Boston, he was 100% cute, 100%of the time, and he sounds like a tiny baby pterodactyl (or, as I imagine a baby pterodactyl might have sounded--that was before recorded sound, right?)

The husband and Mr. B spent some time talking pipes and tobacco and puttering around in a golf cart:

And as for me, well, there was a hammock. And temperatures were in the 70's most of the time. And I got to talk for several uninterrupted hours with a dear friend. That is a recipe for goodness.

dog days of summer

I haven't felt like blogging. I've been doing lots of Thinking, which is generally useless and exhausting and results in not much other than a general feeling of disquietude. As I get older I find I am less able to be certain about anything, which is much more exhausting than being right ever was. So.

We made a rather impromptu zoo trip this morning and it started raining just as we pulled in the parking lot.

Top Five Benefits to Going to the Zoo Even Though It Is Raining:

1. You will get a good parking place.

2. The temperature will be 80 degrees instead of the 97 degrees with a heat index of 103 that had been forecast.

3. Puddle jumping.

4. Frisky animals like Baylor the brand new elephant, who was doing lots of extremely cute things like galloping.

5. Spending lots of time in places like the bird house and the reptile house and the aquarium, which usually get a perfunctory walk-through just to escape the heat. There were several delightful middle school aged volunteers in the reptile house, one of whom who was a fount of information. He told us, among many, many other things, that Blanco the white alligator is actually a leucistic gator and not an albino. He (the boy, not the alligator) had Asperger's, and his unusual gifts were being put to very good use, except when he kept trying to show a model of a toad to a toddler, who did not want to see the toad and began to cry. The volunteer kept asking the mother, "I don't understand why he is crying? WHY is he crying?"

So, what else? We went to a free Houston Symphony outdoor concert last week. The conductor likes to give a little backstory between songs (which meant some disturbing information last summer when the theme was Russian Fairy Tales) and before they played "Finlandia," he explained that at the time it was composed, Finland was oppressed under Russian rule and that the melody was a reflection of the tumult. Harper asked why the song sounded scary and sad and then happy and I tried to explain and failed miserably. I said something like "Well, Russia wanted the land where Finland was and the Finnish people didn't want to give it to them but they took it anyway, which made the Finnish people sad then, listen to this peaceful part? Okay, that represents the Finnish people getting their country and their freedom back, or maybe it's a reflection of their wistful longing for freedom...and hey, it's also the melody to "Be Still, My Soul"--we sing that at church sometimes.." and with that ended my paltry attempt at explaining patriotism, or imperialism, or was it Marxism? Czarism? Oligarchy? Hegemony?

Tonight while I was giving Helena her bath, Harper wanted to play "school" with Hudson, which I thought was a great idea. She loaded up her backpack, got her bike out and said, "Okay, Hudson, you are the little brother who stays in his room and plays quietly while I ride off to school with the other big kids." You can imagine how Hudson felt about his role. He hopped on his tricycle and sped after her down the hall and it all just fell apart from there.

Helena ate an entire block of sauteed tofu pretty much by herself tonight. She has also been devouring raspberries and cantaloupe and kiwi. She has really discovered puzzles this week.
And Wilberforce the horse, whose handle has been commandeered by a certain brother, who uses it as a gun, or sometimes, a sword:

Harper took some pictures of Sasha this afternoon and they, all very many of them, look about like this:
Here is a ranking of the people who live in our house based on how much they like Sasha.

1. the Husband
2. Hudson
3. Helena
4. Harper
5. me

Hudson and Helena are always happy to see her, and greet her with sounds of delight. Harper likes her very much, but gets annoyed when anything of hers gets chewed on. The curious thing is, the fool dog loves me with an ardor that is difficult to explain. It's possible she even likes me a teeny bit more than she does the husband, who feeds her and tends to her and talks to her in a special voice. Is she trying to win me over because she senses my indifference? I don't really MIND her, except when she won't do her number two business outside because the grass is too long or too wet or whatever ridiculous, fastidious princess and the pea reason she won't go outside even though she is a DOG, and then she comes in and instead does her number two business in the front room behind the table. I don't like her then. And she is still pretty puppy-ish in that if I haven't seen her in awhile and she is quiet, it's pretty certain that she has found something unacceptable to chew on, for example my pale pink ballet flat, or something unspeakable from the trash, or a dart from Hudson's new Nerf gun. But every night when the rest of the house is in bed, she insists on curling up behind my head on the top of the couch cushion and she is calm and sweet and peaceful and every few minutes she'll sigh and open her sleepy eyes and stare at me adoringly and I like her then.

Harper chose the stories before bed tonight and this is what we read:

1. Wifrid Gordon McDonald Patridge by Mem Fox, ill. by Julie Vivas (LOVE her illustrations!) (I defy you not to cry when you read this book. It's not sad for kids though. It's about a little boy who lives next door to an old folks home and he helps one of the ladies get her memories back. Beautiful.)

2. Angus Gets Lost by Marjorie Flack. (We like Angus and his antics.)

3. The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Weise. (I'm not sure I'm pronouncing Yangtze correctly when I read it.)

4. Sheep Take a Hike by Nancy Shaw, ill. by Margot Apple

5. Wheels on the GO! (Hudson's choice--it's little poems about different vehicles, like race cars and jeeps.)

a time to dance

After months of anticipation, including a countdown that started the day after her birthday, Harper finally had her first ballet class on Friday. It did not disappoint, though I think there was a little more "this is your right foot, so I'm going to put a sticker on your shoe" than, "THIS, my glorious ballerinas, is how to execute a perfect GRAND JETE!!" she had been expecting. The class is actually a ballet and tap combination, which means the girls get to change shoes in the middle of the class, which I think must be really fun for the teacher. Hudson did not like the situation at all. He kept asking if Harper was going to stay in that room forever, or if she would be coming home with us at some point. I explained to him that she would just be away from us for 45 minutes, which is, of course, the same as forever to a three year old boy. He kept his sunglasses on the whole time, even though we were inside, and at one point I asked him what was wrong and he said, "NUFFIN'" in a gruff voice that was almost crying but trying very hard not to. The reunion was very sweet and Harper was more than ready to tell him all about there being three other girls who were ALSO FIVE and two other girls who ALSO LIKE PINK. Hudson decided he is ready for Karate Class or maybe Army Man Class and probably Drumming Class. I told him maybe when he is five and he seemed okay with that.

Harper drew a little combination Father's Day card/First Day of Ballet picture. She sounded out the words and spelled them all by herself.
"HAPPEE FOthRRTS DAY"--which very much reminds me of:


So Owl wrote...and this is what he wrote:
HIPY PAPY BTHETHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY
Pooh looked on admiringly.
"I'm just saying 'A Happy Birthday'," said Owl carelessly.
"It's a nice long one," said Pooh, very much impressed by it.

We like our Daddy, by the way. He wanted to go to a nearby Bass Pro Shop to look at guns and tents and knives and things. So, after church, we did.