20 May
Wesley and Mary have been playing Star Wars in the yard. He pointed his finger and said, “I’ll get you, Darth Vader!”
Mary shouted, “I have TWO light sabers!” [Query for nonexistent editor: lightsaber? light saber?]
Wesley replied, “I have NINETY-NINE light sabers!” And then, after a moment’s thought, “And 100 hands, so that I can use them all and STILL point at you!”
5 May
So, this weekend, Mary has a dance competition today, and Wesley had a birthday party yesterday. Conor took Wesley to his party, while Mary and I ran errands (including stuff to get ready for the competition). It was a ridiculous list of things to do–dropping off some newsletters, going to the strawberry patch (not to pick, just to buy some berries), Target, Costco. Mary is excellent company on such an outing, because she doesn’t think anything is boring.
It was a beautiful day, and the strawberry farm had a truck selling ice cream, so we shared a milkshake, and as we were drinking it, Mary said (after a contented sigh), “You must be so happy to spend the weekend with me.”
Mostly because she’s so modest?
She is right, of course, although I wouldn’t have minded having Wesley and Conor along as well. She loves to go places with just Conor or just me, though. She added, “And you can have a whole Mary weekend!”
3 May
8:15 p.m.: I kiss Mary good night, close the door, and come downstairs.
8:36 p.m.: I hear a suspicious THUMP from her room, followed by “Don’t worry about it!”
8:45 p.m.: I hear what sounds suspiciously like a chorus of “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” coming from her room.
9:20 p.m.: I call up the stairs, “Go to sleep! No more singing and thumping!”
9:40 p.m.: Mary comes down the stairs and asks, “Do you want me to wash any dishes?”
14 Apr
So, we had tickets to see “Hello, Dolly!” today–turned out to be quite an outing. The kids got dressed up for the occasion:
After the show, we went out to dinner.
The kids drew while we waited for our dinner to arrive:
Mary loved the soup.
We walked around town a bit:
Wesley took this picture of Mary:
We wound up the evening with another walk around town and popsicles. The kids said that their favorite part was the ice cream cart and some ducks we saw while wandering. Just in case you wondered whether the afternoon of culture excited them.
7 Mar
So, I was feeling a little guilty the other day for how many dinners my kids eat in the car. Mostly, this happens on dance class nights; I pack an after-school snack and a “snack dinner” for each kid.They sit in the back with their lunchboxes, and I drive. (Or Conor does.)
They both end up doing their homework in the car, too. We have a “homework box” with paper, pencils, pencil sharpener, glue stick, scissors, etc.
Anyway, I was thinking, isn’t that lame? I mean, family dinners are supposed to be around the table. And we’re all supposed to be there. And eat together.
But then I thought about it a bit more, and I realized that the dinners in the car are great. I just hadn’t thought it through.
For one thing, while I think snack dinners would get boring, the kids love them. Sometimes I wonder, “Who would want to eat turkey, a roll, and sliced vegetables for the three hundredth time?” But then I remember that the answer to this question is “Mary and Wesley.” They are totally happy to eat the same thing over and over again, and they’re willing to eat healthfully as long as I pack healthfully. It seems boring to me, especially because I prefer my food hot, but they eat well and they’re happy, so who cares?
More importantly, though, I have also realized that the lack of a table doesn’t matter: they tell me about their day, have conversations with each other, and generally do all of the things that a family is “supposed” to do during dinnertime.
Sometimes I ask them to relate the best part and the worst part of their day (Wesley’s “best” part is usually the food he’s eating).
Sometimes we talk about what they learned in school. Or they discuss a movie or a book they like. Or we talk about their homework or their friends or what we’re going to do this summer.
The best part is, I’m driving. I’m not feeling like I need to be putting in a load of laundry or grading a paper. Driving means that I can have a conversation, but I can’t do anything else. So I’m not distracted from what they have to say (unless, for example, someone cuts us off on the highway–but then we can talk about safe driving or good manners or the appropriate–and inappropriate–use of curse words).
So I don’t feel guilty about it anymore. It’s nicer on Fridays when all four of us are in the car, instead of just one parent, but in any case, it’s a family dinner. It counts.
25 Feb
So this weekend was the first big competition of the year for Mary’s dance studio–they attended one at the beginning of February, but without a lot of the new dances. This weekend was the first time Mary performed her group number from “The Lion King,” her trio, and the big ballet team number.
I have to say, when we agreed to put Mary into the ballet team, I had no idea how big a group it was going to be. There are 37–37!–girls in this dance. It’s “Friends” from Coppelia, and the music is great. The teacher/choreographer (also known in these parts as “aunt Elaine”) put together this dance, and for the first few weeks it was barely-controlled chaos–I mean, it was amazing to me that they didn’t crash into each other. It got more and more polished, of course, but in a smaller space it’s hard to imagine exactly what it’s going to look like on stage.
The answer, apparently, is: it looks fabulous.
It’s the most exciting, fun dance. I am not knowledgeable about ballet, and usually I am more interested in other kinds of dances, but I love this one. I think it reminds the audience that ballet is supposed to be fun, is supposed to be entertainment, is supposed to tell a story. The crowd in the auditorium–including all of the people who had come in just to wait for the next number, which featured their own kids–was transfixed by it.
Anyway, it’s just shocking to see it on stage and see how ambitious and lovely it is. And it’s wonderful to see the girls Mary’s age dancing with the seniors (and all of the ages in between) and see ALL of them understanding what the purpose of the dance is.
I don’t have any onstage pictures–not allowed–but here is one of Mary showing off her costume:
costume
And here’s one of the massive crowd of girls getting ready to go on:
They won first place, by the way–which is fun, even though it’s not really the exciting or important thing. The exciting and important thing is, everyone in the auditorium was happy by the end of their dance. It’s a totally irresistible, happy performance. Way to go, Miss Elaine. I can’t even imagine how much vision it takes to put together so many pieces and be able to think ahead to what they’re going to look like.
p.s. The whole studio did well this weekend. And Mary’s other dances were a lot of fun–the new musical theatre number and her trio were both adorable.
14 Feb
So, Mary wanted to make Valentines for her classmates. She decided to make hot chocolate on a stick (I know, random, but we saw it on the internet a while back). She did a great job–did almost all of the work herself, in fact!
Chocolate!
She stirred it for roughly 100 years, until all the chocolate was totally melted.
Very melty chocolate:
After she put it in the pans, she added sprinkles, because all sweets are better with sprinkles, she tells me.
Lots of sprinkles.
She put a heart marshmallow on each one.
Wesley even helped her (although he had opted for the box of Star Wars cards, himself).
Festive, right?
She put a card on each one.
And now she has a box of them, ready to go. I’m not sure why Wesley looks like he’s trying to garrotte her in this photo–in real life it was sort of sweet but in the picture he looks like he’s up to no good.
