poetry

(guest post from Emile)


Larkin checked out a Fancy Nancy poetry book when we were at the library last weekend.  She got inspired, and dictated the following:

By Larkin

Having Tea Parties with my Dollies

Having tea party with my ten dollies,
Down in the hall-ie wallies.
One fell off, the other nine cried
"Are you hurt?  Are you OK?"
Then the other one said
"Yeah, but I think that I'll leave for today."
The other ones said
"Too bad our friend left,
We can still have fun together
without her."

One was reaching for the teapot when they lost their balance,
Fell into the mud, the others helped her up.
They asked "Are you OK?"
"Yes I am, but I think that I'm all done tea partying for today.
I'm going to go change my clothes."
The other eight forgot all about the ones they lost.

They continued their tea party, one reached for their cup
And fell into the reeds.
So the other seven helped the doll up,
They asked "Are you OK?"
She said "Yes, but I'm all done teapartying for today.
I'm going home."

The seven were just about to spin around and dance ballet
When the earthquake made one fall down
That one said "I'm going to go home.
I'm all done having earthquakes around."

The six started partying,
But when they were just about to have dessert after lunchtime
They found out that the earthquake knocked over the ice cream.
Everybody went home 'cause there wasn't any dessert.

The End

Ancient Ruins of Mess-opotamia

Discovered in the play room:

Scientific Method

When pea season was over, we had a few pods left on the vines that grew to a ripe old age. We thought we might as well keep the peas as seed for next spring and gathered them up. Since then, they had been sitting in a shallow bowl on top of our microwave. One particularly still evening, we realized that the peas were making some suspicious, albeit very quiet, rustling sounds. We decided it might be best to keep our seed in a sealed jar.

Soon, beetles were hatching out of the seed and Larkin and Finn have been keeping a close eye on them. After they had taken the jar outside and were quiet for some time, I asked them what they were working on out there. Larkin said, "We're learning about beetles. I've noticed you can learn a lot about something just by watching it." Hey: observation! A key step in the scientific method. I admit I'm not sure whether I said that out loud or not.

I went and sat down with them and asked what they had learned so far. The following is a pretty accurate account of Larkin's stream of consciousness: "Well, we know they can fly, even though you can't see any wings when they're not moving. They also like crawling up the edge of the jar and never seem to get hungry. And we know they eat peas because you can see the hole they ate through the peas and they're hollow now. I wonder if they're not eating because they want something to eat that's not peas. Maybe they would eat leaves since they like peas. [hypothesis!] Let's put this leaf in and see if they eat it." And thus an experiment was born.

The experiment within the experiment was how to get a leaf into the jar without all the beetles flying away. Several stern shakes of the jar seemed to keep them in line. I am sure, after more observation, a conclusion will be reached. Then, if necessary, the hypothesis can be revised and re-tested. Then again, maybe not. They've become distracted by drawing a zoo, giraffes first.

Current Projects

How, you ask, are we keeping ourselves busy while our house is in surgery?

Well, aliens are involved. Lots of aliens:

This picture simply does not do justice to their very lime green nature. Here's a close-up, although the color is still off:

And here is a depiction of the path of the meteorite which almost took out their spaceship:

We've also been exploring the mathematics of patterns and the artistic uses of positive and negative space:

Playing board games:

This one is Sequence (for Kids) and came to stay when Elly, Janelle and Kiyo came to visit. Along with Uno, it has been the recent favorite.

Combining egg cartons, corn husks, gemstones and glue in new and marvelous ways:

Blowing out eggs so we can keep the painted results around a bit longer:

And having very silly dinners at which we are repeatedly poisoned by our teriyaki chicken, edamame and yogurt:

Don't tell our house that life goes on without it.

State of the Union

My attention to this blog has lapsed somewhat in the last two months. We have packed all of our worldly possessions into a closet storage unit and a two bedroom apartment while doing the addition/remodel on the house that we've been talking about for years. Well, okay, *we* are not actually doing the remodel, but it is being done.

I've been updating the photo documentation of the remodel pretty regularly here. Despite several unforeseen delays, the contractor is still claiming they should meet our four month completion estimate. That would put us back in the house in early-mid November.

The transition to apartment living has been pretty smooth, but certainly not without a hitch. Larkin and Finn feel a little uprooted from their nest, but they are excited enough about the prospect of their new rooms that it has not been too traumatic. They have been fluctuating very regularly between wanting to stay at the apartment forever and wishing we could move back into the house immediately.

The kids have enjoyed having a flat, paved expanse right outside the door that they can ride their bikes and scooters on.

Emile takes them swimming in the pool almost every evening.

They've also been pretty thrilled to have lots of kids around who are ready to play. Before now, I don't think Larkin has ever turned down the opportunity to play, but having so many kids around has allowed her to be a bit more discerning in her friendships. The other day, she came in from playing outside saying she needed some space from one of our neighbors. "He kept saying he was going to go home if we didn't play what he wanted to play... so I told him to go home."

It has been interesting to see Larkin and Finn become a united front when there is conflict with other kids. They often don't want to play unless they are both there in case back-up is needed. I think this is partly because there is some clique-ishness among the kids who have known each other longer and there is safety in numbers.

More on recent activities soon.

Cops and... Uh... Others

(guest post from Emile)

So I was driving with Larkin and Finn the other day.  We saw a police car with it's lights on at the side of the road and after a little bit of talk about police Finn asks "why do cops only get bad guys?"  Trying to promote a more shades-of-grey world view I was all "well, they try to just catch bad guys, but stuff happens and people for the most part aren't just bad or good guys, they're mostly just people who sometimes do bad or good things, etc. etc.."

Larkin comes back with "I'm mostly a good guy!"

To which Finn's response was "Well, I'm mostly a superhero."

Bathroom Humor

On our way over to the coast to visit Jim and Mary, the kids and I stopped at a rest stop for the usual reasons (running around like maniacs and a visit to the bathrooms). We found a nice, big handicap-enabled stall that accommodated all three of us quite nicely. Apparently Larkin and Finn had not encountered an auto-flush toilet before. It flushed while Finn was still on it (we theorized that it was confused by lightweights) and a great deal of shrieking and giggling over the foolishness of a toilet that thinks it should flush while occupied ensued. There was repeated hilarity when it did the same thing to Larkin. When I was done, there was more giggling and chattering and speculation about when it would flush again.

When we left the bathroom, which had been unoccupied when we entered, we discovered a little old lady with a walker waiting for her turn with a great big grin on her face. She announced: "Boy, I haven't been this excited to use a bathroom in many years... it sounds like a great one!"

Fundamentalism

This week, while shopping for fruit at the Co-op, Larkin discovered what I think is the fundamental basis of variable algebra: "You know, if you take two bananas and add another two bananas... you have four bananas. But if you take two bananas and add two nectarines... you just have two bananas and two nectarines."

After a long pause, she went on to explain the basics of hierarchical classification structure: "Well, I guess you could just say you have four pieces of fruit."

Nerd-In-Training

Both kids enjoy counting things. There was a recent argument in the car about how many of us were in the family. Larkin insisted there were four. Finn calmly claimed only three: "See? Zero... one... two... three!"

Life In A Small Town

Mere hours after we dissected frogs, we went down to the library. Larkin went to greet Laurel (her favorite librarian), as usual with a hug, and the first thing Laurel said was, "Hi Larkin! I hear you dissected frogs this morning!"

Real Boys Wear Fuschia

We went shopping for new kids' sun hats today at the closet-sized retail store attached to the manufacturing facility for SunDay Afternoons. Larkin and Finn were hoping for bright colors and fabulous patterns and were a bit disappointed by the selection when we got there. Finn fell in love with a hot pink hat in his size very quickly, and Larkin was despondent that they only had a paler pink in her size.

The sales lady seemed to be very concerned by Finn's color selection and mounted a rather impressive offensive to convince him to choose something a little more... well, masculine. She went back into the warehouse and somehow managed to find all kinds of bright colors and patterns that are no longer manufactured. Finn was very diplomatic. He agreed to try on every hat she (increasingly desperately) offered. This happened about five times:

Sales Lady: How about this one? It has fishes and lizards! Look at that beautiful blue color! Do you like it?

Finn, putting on the hat: Yes, it's very nice.

Sales Lady: Wonderful! Would you like to buy this one?

Finn: No, I want the pink one.

On the plus side, in her desperate attempt to find Finn a suitable boy's hat, the sales lady did manage to find a hot pink number in Larkin's size. Once she was convinced that I really was fine with whichever hats they chose, we parted on good terms. She even said something about how nice it is to give children choices when they have so few in their lives... and she never once introduced the concept that Pink Is For Girls.

After the sun hats were acquired, we went grocery shopping. Finn solemnly informed the Co-op cashier that "the bad guys stuck used chewing gum under your counter." Without cracking a smile, she thanked him for his intelligence and said she would have the good guys clean it up later.

Still later, we were home and the kids were playing a computer game. It was a Blues Clues educational game where Blue would give out clues and the player had to guess where she was. I couldn't see the screen, but I heard Larkin guess "Antarctica" and then the somewhat insipid, congratulatory game's voice reply, "That's right! Outside in the snow!"

Family Portraits and Chewing Gum

Larkin worked up these beauties for us:

Clockwise from the top left: Jenny, Finn, Emile, Larkin. Apparently, Emile's hair started out as antennae before she decided to go with a more traditional approach. Our noses sparkle.

We also made some chewing gum this week:

Made with chicle sustainably harvested from Sapodilla trees in the Guatemalan rain forest. Larkin took one look at the stupendously sticky mess that was the chicle and figured (correctly) that it must be the tree's sap. It turned out much firmer than store-bought gum and nobody seems terribly interested in chewing it, but the process was fun.

Positive Spin

We were listening to Myshkin in the car, as requested by Larkin. "I really like the way she sings. Her voice is very musical. In fact, her voice is *so* musical I can hardly understand a word that she's saying."

It has been interesting to see how different Larkin and Finn are in social situations. Larkin is very high energy and is pretty much always ready to play, especially when we're around other kids. She never needs a break, always has to be convinced when it's time to go (no matter how long we've stayed), eats only when STARVING unless it can be incorporated into a game and generally just go-go-goes.

Finn, on the other hand, needs breaks. He'll play just as intensely and enthusiastically as Larkin for an hour or two, and then find somewhere to be by himself. Sometimes he watches part of a movie and sometimes he just finds a room or space outside where no one else is playing. It seems like he usually takes a 10-15 minute recharge period before he jumps in on the action again.

I've always been kind of impressed that he knows he needs that space and finds ways to take it, but I was downright taken aback when I overheard him telling a friend, "I need to go away for a while or someone is going to get bit." That seems like a lot of self-awareness for a three year old.

Dissection Party!

Nothing says a good time like formaldehyde, dead frogs and young children wielding scalpels. We ordered some double-injected frogs and invited over Larkin's new friend (Christopher, who introduced himself as a scientist when they met at the library park) and Hunter. Everyone was very excited as we set up.

Okay, honestly, regardless of how the picture looks, they were very excited. Larkin and Christopher were at a perfect age for this. They wanted to identify all the organs (with the help of the handy-dandy dissection guide) and see all the different layers of skin, fat, muscle and bone. They cut open stomachs to look for bugs and were pretty thrilled when Larkin's frog turned out to be quite full of what must have been eggs. They spent a very focused hour exploring their frogs.

Finn and Hunter spent about half an hour with their shared frog, and it was a bit more of a slice and dice operation.

They enjoyed some organ identification, too, but were mostly studying how to take a frog apart. This is what happens when a frog spends half an hour with two three year olds with scalpels:

Was that too much information?

Anyway, we had a lot of fun and I would just like anyone who is considering a similar experiment to know that it smells a whole lot better when you don't have 35 kids in one enclosed room working on dissections.

A New Camera!

We finally got a new camera, so we can now prove that our children have not gone the way of our houseplants.

See? Not even a little brown and shriveled.

We fixed up a kid's bike with training wheels! I think Larkin would actually be fine without the training wheels at this point except that she can't quite reach the ground with her feet so she relies on them to keep her balance as she stops. Finn would be a little more secure if he had any inclination whatsoever to watch where he's going. They've had some tumbles, but so far the bike riding has been deemed totally worth the danger.

We have been repeatedly asking Finn if we could cut his hair because it looked so annoying (to us!) and he recently agreed to a summer shearing. I wish I had a before picture, but suffice it to say that the above photo is after about 6 inches of hair were clipped off. I have enjoyed seeing his eyes again, and he has enjoyed hearing everyone tell him how handsome he is with his new haircut.

In other hair news, Larkin's hair is almost down to her waist and she recently decided to grow out her bangs. They're almost long enough to tuck behind her ears, but she may tire of them before they get all the way there.

There are lots more pictures at the Picasaweb site... we'll probably be a little trigger-happy with the new camera for a little while.

You may also notice that we started a Food Album for Larkin. She has always been a cautious eater, and we've been feeling like it's easy to get stuck in ruts of what food we offer her. So we've been taking pictures of the foods she enjoys eating as we make them so she can browse through the album and choose what looks good. This album is only for foods that can be made using supplies we usually have in stock so gratification can be relatively instantaneous. The specialty trip-to-the-store-required items album can come later. It's amazingly difficult to make food look tasty in pictures.

Larkin has been sewing! I cut up some soft old clothes and she finished the edges so we have new nose wipers:

Not-So-Dire Straits

The kids are bopping around the house singing "Get your money for nothing and your chicks for free." They think they are singing about some utopian world where Emile doesn't have to work and everyone has chickens.

Reality Check

Recently, Finn has been very interested in understanding which parts of books, games and movies are fantasy and which are reality. Sometimes the distinction is complicated: "Are there dinosaurs in the real world?" Well, no, but there used to be. "Are unicorns extinct, too?" Well, no, they never were real. Sometimes it's more straightforward: "Are there really ferris wheels?" What, he thinks the fair we went to (less than a month ago!) might just be a really good dream? Distinguishing fantasy creatures from real animals definitely seems to be a recurring theme.

The kids have decided that, after we pay for the house addition (I'm so glad they're on board with the idea of a bigger house or saving would be much more difficult), they'd like to save money to go on a family vacation via airplane. Next stop, Mars. I told them that one might be a little out of our league, savings-wise, but they were fairly adamant. Larkin thought I was quite the killjoy: "I mean, all we need is a ship that can keep us alive during the trip and some kind of collapsible structure we can set up to keep air in when we get there!" Well, when you put it that way...

Other interesting conversations today: Why dark colors absorb heat and light colors reflect it, why sometimes it's better to draw people without noses, what an owl pellet is, why casseroles aren't very good before they've been baked even if you're really really hungry, why i might prefer to have washable marker washed off of the bottoms of hands and feet before said hands and feet scale the furniture, whether or not we'll adapt well to city living for a few months, why goggles don't work very well when some hair is trapped under them.

Fatherly Love

Sitting at the kitchen table watching Emile go out to the trailer for work, Larkin announced rather wistfully, "that's a great father, that one is."

Larkin's Song

(sneaky guest post by Emile...)

As we were pulling up to the house in the car today Larkin asked if I could play the "we all live in a yellow submarine" song. I said that we could put it on once we got inside, but by the time we got through the door she had become distracted by singing lyrics. She asked if someone could write down her song for her and this is what Jenny recorded:

We all live in a yellow submarine
yellow submarine
yellow submarine
And the skies of the yellow submarine floats by clouds
Floating by houses
And past flying red jewels
A dog barks at us flying by
And then an army of floating jellyfish
Say the world's going to be invaded by water
And then a giant nice piece of cloth comes
And stops the world from being invaded by water
And then a giant sword comes and battles the piece of cloth
But the piece of cloth won
And a river comes and gets the piece of cloth all wet but they didn't know the piece of cloth was a cloth fairy
And the cloth fairy got ready and dried herself off with her spell

;)

Socialization, Gastropods, and Game Theory

Larkin has reached the age where, everywhere we go, people ask her about school. Where does she go? Is she in kindergarten or pre-school? Where *will* she go? Lately, when the well-meaning public asks her when she's going to school, she throws her arms in the air and cackles a gleeful, "NEVER!" She occasionally appends a quietly thoughtful, "Unless I decide I want to." I usually get a curious look from the adult in question (the questioning adult?)... as if they think she's acting out and expect me to put her in line. Unless queried further, I usually just smile and nod.

Finn recently made friends with a younger toddler at the park. This young'un was rather shy and Finn had a hard time figuring out how to coax him into a more involved interaction. The successful solution? Pulling a slug out of the nearest buried irrigation valve box and thrusting it toward the other kid: "See? Slimy!"

We recently purchased Qwirkle, a board game sort of like Scrabble for people who aren't reading yet. It's actually quite a fun game which requires tactics and strategy... in other words, a nice change of pace from Candyland and Hi-Ho Cherry-O. The first few times through, it was a very cooperative game, in which we all saw everyone's tiles and I helped Larkin understand which moves were legal (and kept Finn from running off with all the orange tiles). Recently, Larkin has been wanting to play "properly," with tiles hidden from opponents, and rarely asks for help finding a move. One of these days, we might even keep score.

We just spent five minutes trying to show Larkin and Finn how I managed such a richly timbred (are you allowed to adjectify that?) vibrato when announcing that their cheese toast was ready.

When Finn fights bad guys and wants to make sure that they're *really* taken care of, he eats them.

We recently took the kids to the fair and enjoyed 6.5 hours of stomach-turning rides on top of corn dogs and frozen lemonade. We had an agreement about how much money we would spend there: the amount in our wallets. When I spent the last of my cash on game tickets, Larkin took her share and then suddenly got a very worried look on her face: "Oh no, have we paid for our house addition yet?"

Speaking of our house addition, today the kids and I delivered what was (hopefully) the last piece of paperwork to the County before they approve our building permit. If all goes well, we'll be out of here by June 1 so the roof can come off. AAAAGGH!

Addendum to Dentist Post

At some point, after the dentist has referred to me as "Mom" many many times, Larkin confided to him: "Her name is Jenny. That's what I call her so it would probably be okay if you did, too."

Prior to a conversation with the dentist about diet, Larkin and I talked about how the dentist might try to talk to me about the way she eats, rather than talking directly to her. She thought that was odd and it led into a kind of interesting discussion of parenting philosophy. She was somewhat shocked to discover that, in our culture, most kids don't have the freedom (luxury?) to eat whatever/whenever they want. After a moment's indignation, she announced: "You guys have the right way of having kids!"

It turned out to be a moot point since the dentist looked at her diet (we wrote down everything she ate for a week and when we brushed teeth) and proclaimed that any problems with her teeth must be genetic.

Dentist-Assisted Tooth Fairy Visit

Larkin had a tooth that was bothering her while we brushed her teeth, so we went off to the dentist to get it fixed. We were referred to a fabulous pediatric dentist who uses nitrous oxide with kids to help calm them so they don't have to go under general anesthesia for dental work (which is, apparently, a shockingly common practice). Larkin loves going to the dentist for cleaning, but this was the first time she had any actual work done, so I was a little leery of how the experience would go.

The tooth had apparently abscessed in a fairly magnificent way, so out it came. The moment the dentist came in, he started this horrible, patronizing constant patter about how beautiful, brave, etc. Larkin is. I cringed, Larkin ate it up. As he worked, and Larkin became more stoned from the nitrous, he talked about the bugs he was hunting down in her mouth and how brave she was as he hunted and on and on and Larkin never even realized that she got novocaine shots, a tooth pulled and another cavity filled as long as he was in there already.

Larkin had a bit of a hard time not being able to talk with all the paraphernalia in her mouth. She thanked the dentist for every compliment, causing him to add "very well-mannered" to his growing list of glowing attributes. At one point, the dentist told her that she was "the bravest person on this table," causing dental work to halt long enough for Larkin to reply: "Yeah, well, I'm also the *only* person on this table." The dentist claimed no one ever called him on that one, and thus "clever" was introduced into his patter.

I have some "full disclosure" issues when it comes to our kids... I had a very hard time not telling Larkin all about exactly what the procedure was and what would be happening when. In the end, I'm glad I bit my tongue... Larkin had some pretty serious dental work done and is excited to go back the next time. Hooray for inane, patronizing patter!

When faced with the dentist's Wall O' Bribes full of candy, cheap toys, toothbrushes, etc, Larkin chose a pair of sunglasses because she had recently lost hers.

Once she realized she had a tooth pulled, Larkin became very excited. We have a book called Throw Your Tooth on the Roof (Thanks, Alex!) which describes what different cultures traditionally do with lost teeth. I asked her what she wanted to do with her tooth. "I want the tooth fairy to bring money and candy... and I'm going to create quite a challenge for you guys by putting it under my dragon pillow's butt! I think you should get some candy for Finn, too, so he doesn't feel bad that I got something and he didn't." I love the way she embraces the magical while acknowledging the practical.

So the tooth fairy brought a dollar and a bag of her favorite (non-hippie) m&ms. The next morning, we were woken by the crinkling candy bag and a whispered, "I just wanted to thank you for getting my favorite m&ms... you guys are the best."

Later that morning, on the way to the park, Larkin was chatting in the car about all the wonderful things she could get with her dollar... and how would she ever choose... and how many of what could she buy with a dollar? After this had gone on for awhile, I realized (I suffer from a sometimes unforgivable obliviousness to consumer culture) that there is actually a store where everything costs a dollar! Once the kids understood the concept, we were off to the Dollar Tree (Larkin made sure that Finn could have a dollar, too, before deciding to go).

I was quite amused to discover that Larkin and Finn have very different shopping styles. Larkin wanted to look at *everything* in the store to see what was there, and then decide what to buy. Finn picked up everything that caught his eye and carried it around insisting that was what he wanted, then immediately rejected it for the next best thing. Finn (who spent the whole ride over talking about how he was going to get candy after I mentioned that was one of the things they would probably have in the store) went through an orange star balloon, a package of small squishy balls, a horse's head on a stick riding toy, a hard toy horse, a plastic gun, and probably a few other things before happily going home with an orange glow-in-the-dark sword. Larkin got a huge, foil, helium-filled butterfly balloon.

Then we had a lovely long morning at the park which ended a bit sooner than we would have liked when Finn slipped into the duck pond. Apparently, I have gotten lax about packing spare clothes in the car. Ah well.

Boredom

Larkin, in the car: "I don't think I've ever been bored a single minute in my whole life... in fact, I don't think I believe in the word."

The Birds And The Bees

One day, I was chatting with one of the volunteers at the Book Exchange who has a very active role in the lives of her grandchildren. She told me about a conversation she had with them about a family member who was going in to the hospital to have some blood tests done. Her 7-8 year old granddaughter wanted to know what the tests were for, but she didn't know. Her granddaughter concluded that it was "probably to find out if she's pregnant." She replied that those were usually urine tests, not blood tests. Her granddaughter's response was "oh, yeah... and that's how you get pregnant, too." She figured that, as a grandparent, that was not something she was compelled to address one way or the other.

Her story made me wonder how someone could get to that age without a clearer understanding of such things... and made me wonder what strange misconceptions (heh) were in my kids' heads. The very same day, I was reading a book with Larkin and Finn in which someone was described as "having no father." Larkin's response: "What does it mean she 'has no father'?! *Everyone* has a father... or at least some man willing to give up his sperm."

Apparently we crossed that bridge without ever even noticing it was there.

We've been having unseasonably chilly weather (don't worry, the sex talk is over) the last few weeks. We were sitting at the kitchen table, watching as the snow melted out of the trees:

Finn: "Snow falling out of trees?! What the hep?"
Larkin: "Heck, not hep."

While we were at the grocery store, Finn leaned out of the cart and sniffed me so ostentatiously that a fellow shopper actually asked him what I smelled like. His response: "Like a human!"

Edible Driveway

Throughout the summer and fall, our half-mile driveway is lined with blackberries, pears, apples, cherries and plums. Larkin and Finn love to graze their way down to our mailbox, sometimes saying things like "I'm hungry, let's go for a walk!"

This time of year, the road is a little more barren of goodies... but they have discovered the delicious miner's lettuce that grows in patches along the route. The most lush patch is right at the mailbox and they often pick a handful to munch on their way back home. I do my best not to think about the various contributers to that patch's particularly vibrant lushness.

The kids walk along, chatting or singing songs, taking bites from their handfuls of leafy greens and occasionally holding them up to me: "Want a bite of my bouquet?"

U.S. Out Of Children's Lives

Larkin has been noticing more and more that the world is not always fair to kids.

After reading an alternative Cinderella story where her father is simply missing and presumed spineless: "Where's her father? Why isn't he standing up for her? It's not like he's dead or something."

In the grocery store check out line, observing a kid melting down: "Why won't his Mom buy him that candy bar? Look at all that stuff in their cart-- I think they can afford it! ...Can I buy it for him?"

Watching Jimmy Neutron: "Why do his parents keep telling him not to do stuff? It seems like they'd be happy that he likes doing super cool smart inventiony things."

At the park, watching another kid trying to get their parent's attention for a very long time while they were involved in a long conversation with no acknowledgment: "Let's go help her get down from the slide. It looks like her Mom is useless."

Also at the park, baby crying in a stroller, Mom chatting on cell phone: "That baby is crying. It needs to be picked up. It might be hungry or lonely... WHY ISN'T THAT LADY PICKING THAT BABY UP?!"

Watching "Max and Ruby," children's books turned television series in which their parents are inexplicably missing and Ruby takes care of her little brother: "Why does Ruby always try to control Max? It shouldn't matter to her what he wears or what games he plays. At least she reads him stories before bed and stuff."

On an unrelated note, our camera has been broken for a couple months, so I will do my best to go into a picture-taking frenzy when we have the situation remedied.

Reading and Writing

Disclaimer: Some ghostwriting from Emile.

Watching literacy happen is a fascinating thing. Larkin has been interested in words, letters and writing for a long time, but it seems like the last week or two has seen a real explosion in synthesis.

The "rhyming game" has been a popular one for quite a while... someone says a word and then we take turns listing other words that rhyme with it. We've also been playing a version of 20 Questions (which, for our purposes, is more accurately Infinite Questions). In the last couple weeks, one of the clues Larkin hands out (which she often likes to do even if we don't want them yet) is what letter the item in question starts with.

Reading has been a huge activity lately, for both kids. We read all of Charlotte's Web in 5 days last week. Graphic novels are very popular... we can easily burn through a "Bone" in one sitting if my voice holds out. They ask me to point to the character who is speaking as I read so it's less confusing. Last time we read the latest Bone, Larkin would occasionally stop me and point to one of the words in a dialog bubble saying something like "that must be 'close' because it has an 'o' in it."

Emile and Larkin have been reading the Harry Potter books at bedtime. I admit to being a little peeved that I am not the chosen bedtime reader. :) They're already in Book Three and a whole new chapter of imaginary play has been inspired.

Last night we were listening to some classical music (bear with me, this is not a total non sequitor). When Beethoven's 9th symphony came on, Larkin listened for a moment then threw her arms in the air and announced, "this is the best music in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD!" Later, when we were talking about who wrote the music she enjoyed so much, I mentioned that his first name was Ludwig. Her next statement confounded me for a minute before I figured out that she said, "Ludwig has a 'wig' just like Hedwig has a 'wig.'" I'm so pleased that, in her mind, Harry Potter's owl and Beethoven have a wig in common.

Alphabet books have seen a recent surge in popularity, too. Especially the horse/cowboy alphabet books. Finn likes them because they have horses and cowboys... Larkin likes to find every incident of the letter-of-the-page.

Writing continues to be one of Larkin's favored art forms... she still likes to copy text that we have written. She has liked to type on the computer for a long time as well, typically making blocks of repeated symbols. Yesterday she asked Emile to set up the computer for typing and fetch her catapult (from Eli, a board with a fulcrum so you can stomp on one end to launch things from the other). Why? She wanted something with her name written on it to try to copy. After all had been arranged, and CAPSLOCK adjusted so that symbols showing up onscreen would match the letters on the keys she went ahead and copied LARKIN.

When she has wanted to type her name in the past it's mostly just been "Ok, what's the next letter?" after each one, wanting us to show her the key. This time, the first time through her first name she mostly just wanted some general hints about where on the keyboard the next letter came, and reassurance that she had the right letter once she found it. Then she wanted to copy her full name from something, so Emile typed it out and positioned the cursor one line down. This time through again she wanted the name of the letter said but for the most part seemed to be finding them from the name.

Then she wanted to know how Emile could type her name so fast. "Hours and hours and hours and hours of practice typing."

There is definitely a literacy revolution afoot.

Matrimony

One of our exciting holiday celebrations this year was Don and Vicki's wedding. Larkin and Finn were thrilled to be involved, and for their benefit it was partly a costume wedding. Larkin wore her brand new princess dress and Finn dressed in his cowboy duds. Their mission was to follow Don and Vicki down the aisle (with Emile, as it turned out) and deliver the rings to the officiants. They performed their duties with great aplomb and made their way to their seats for the remainder of the ceremony.

Finn lasted about thirty seconds. I whispered that we needed to sit quietly so everyone could hear the ceremony. He said he would just go hang out in back. I re-emphasized that quiet was paramount. He said, "That's okay-- I'll sneak." So he hopped down from his seat, assumed a half-crouched subtle, sneaking posture, and loudly stomped his big cowboy boots all the way back down the aisle to where Jim was DJ-ing in back. It's a good thing little kids are cute... and that the bride and groom in question were very tolerant grandparents.

At the reception dinner, Vicki produced an attention-getting silver whistle when the toasts started. Larkin *really* wanted to blow that whistle. I explained that it was only getting blown as people got up to say a few words about Don, Vicki and/or the wedding. Her response was immediate: "Well, then... *I'll* make a toast!" After the most ear-splitting whistle of the night, Larkin stood up on her chair, raised her glass, and announced "I'm glad Grandma and Grandpa got married!"

It was a lovely wedding, Don and Vicki made some very thoughtful allowances for the kids, and a splendid time was had by all.

Preoccupation

While Larkin was sewing buttons on a hankie, she suddenly realized that was something she could do as a job. Later that night, she asked Emile to make a list of all the things she might do as employment one day (as dictated by herself, naturally):

animal helper
baseball player
light fixer
yoyo champion
finder
builder
bouquet seller
dressmaker
rescue center worker (like diego)
teapot fixer
sewer
knitter
light fixer (yes, this one came up twice)
boardgame seller
painter

Emile asked what she liked doing most right now, and the immediate answer was "digging up buried treasure!" When Emile told her there were actually people *in the real world* (a big point of distinction in our house) who were treasure hunters, she immediately declared that was her intended vocation.

A quick web search revealed a TV show dedicated to real life treasure hunts. An episode is at the top of our Netflix queue.