Determination, of various sorts

We went to Silver Lake on Friday. It was warm enough to swim, so the girls went in their bathing suits and life vests, and they had their first real experience of a western Washington lake. This particular one is really a glorified pond, but there was a beach with sand and a roped-off kids' area, and the girls loved wading and splashing around. They went waist-deep, which was as far as the rope went, but decided not to go further, even though I said they could. (I didn't say I would go with them. I had not worn a bathing suit. I was prepared to get wet going after one of them, but I was not excited about it, and maybe they noticed that.)

I noticed the distinctive smell of Washington woodland, a sweet woodsy smell, which now that I think of it probably  comes partly from overripe blackberries. They noticed the sand and how the underwater plants started growing a few yards out, and the freshwater clamshells, and how in this beach there were no waves and no tide. But mostly, Chloë noticed...wait for it...the ducks. There were a dozen or so mallards and wood ducks floating near shore, and she was absolutely charmed by them, especially when they swam right near her. "I've never seen a duck so close before! Look at its webbed feet!" This flock was very tame; they had obviously decided being chased by small children was worth it for the free food. "That boy is feeding the ducks!" she said, pointing to a boy around eight or so who was tossing chips to the waiting birds nearby. "I wish we had brought food."

"We brought animal crackers," I said, and then as her face opened with hope, "but it's not good for the ducks to feed them." She asked why, and I told her (there was also a helpful sign not far from where the boy stood). I could see and hear her reluctance, but she said decidedly, "Then we shouldn't." I was proud.

* * *

We went to the Lynnwood Skate-and-Bowl on Saturday, for the Norwescon kickoff. Chloë has skated three or four times before, but Maia never has. When they got into her skates she had some trouble standing, but she worked at it, and shuffled gamely across the carpet. After some practice she fell down a slight incline--not her first fall, but her first one that hurt. She cried, naturally, and said she didn't want to go on the rink, so Eric took Chloë out, as she was ready to move on. But they hadn't gotten more than a quarter of the way around the rink when Maia said, "I wish we were with Chloë and Daddy," and I said, "We could go out and try to catch them, " and she said, "Okay."

We stepped into the rink. She was mostly shuffling her feet back and forth, and steadfastly ignoring all my attempts to teach her otherwise, but she clung to my hand and managed some forward movement. She fell a couple of times, but she kept getting back up and shuffling some more, and every once in a while she would exclaim, "I'm doing it!"

Meanwhile ahead of us, Eric reported later, Chloë was struggling to get better, and crying, as she too often does, "I can't do it." We've noticed that Maia tends to be better at things that require physical agility--I blame jaundice--but I don't know how much of that is her much more positive attitude. Chloë has shown determination to do a few things--such as guitar; she got one for her birthday and has been surprisingly diligent about asking for "guitar lessons" from me and about working on her fingering, even though she finds it difficult. (We're looking for a place for lessons around here with an actual teacher.) But most of the time if she has any sort of difficulty, she dissolves into tears and won't keep working on the problem without a lot of prompting. Maia has that reaction sometimes, but more often she just goes ahead and tries things. We never quite caught up with Chloë on that trip around the rink (though Eric spotted us and visited), but at our closest point I commented to Maia, "We're halfway across the rink," and she looked back and said, "No, Mama. Not halfway. Look!" I looked back and realized that while I'd meant halfway around the rink, we were all the way across, and she was awed at the distance she'd skated. She wanted to stop after we completed our circuit, and not long after that we traded our skates for bowling shoes, but she was so excited and proud of herself, and so was I.

Status report: Chloë, 3 years 9 months

Chloë this month is...well, mostly, obsessed with her body videos. "I saw a cloud shaped like a stomach!" she told me coming home today. "And the intestines under it!" 

She's very keen on electronics in general; shows are still big, but the tablet with its Youtube and my phone with its Wonder Zoo app (she likes catching animals for the zoo) and her LeapPad with its math game are much more interesting.

Her drawings have become increasingly complex and original. We have a "gallery" in the hallway now of her pictures. One is a flower I drew that she merely colored in. But the others are flowers in dirt; a campfire with sky above; a slide on grass and flowers; and another campfire, but with a guy roasting marshmallows over it, all completely drawn by her. And then there's this gem that she came up with during Colorforms play:

I did the seesaw and helped make the swing set long enough to accommodate all three swings she wanted by putting multiple Colorforms end-to-end. She did the rest. And then there's Legos:

I helped with this too, especially when she started screaming about the Legos not staying up. Now she knows about supports. But it was her idea and she did most of the work. 

In a way it's been a tough month. I can't even indulge in the "I bet she'll be an X when she grows up" because, contrary to her plans, I know she can't possibly be a physician and an artist and an architect and a dentist and a teacher and an astronaut and a circus performer. ("Watch my trick," she says, and balances on her head. But that's not actually the trick; the trick is a somersault which she accomplishes about a third of the time. She used to be better at it.) Luckily, "evil overlord" is a catchall job description.

Helping with that last, she's becoming more and more bossy, both with us and with Maia. We're still learning when it's worth it to reason or argue with her and when we need to assert our essential parenthood. "You don't order me around!" Chloë told me at dinner tonight. My answer was, "I'm your mother. That's part of my job." I can still shut her down with a well-placed yell or ultimatum, but she usually collapses into loud tears when I do, so I'd rather not when I don't have to. 

As for Maia, Chloë's very fond of telling her "No! Don't color on my picture!" or "Don't eat your hands!" or "Come to my room for a sleepover!" She's actually drawn multiple pictures depicting things Maia shouldn't do (take her lip balm, mostly) with "MAiA" and "ON" (she still hasn't captured the concept of writing left-to-right) written on them. She's so funny. But they still get along great, especially now that Maia's able to play and understand better. With the weather improving we've been getting outside as we can, and they love playing in the sandbox or using sidewalk chalk or flying kites together. She's finally learned how to ride the tricycle, including turns, though she still fusses when she gets stuck. She likes to have her own way, but she's also very encouraging to Maia. She's excited about Maia's party and the present she picked out (and also the one that we picked out), and will happily wait for her or fetch things for her, and they do decently well on sharing, even the LeapPad.

And now that she's finally mastered riding her tricycle (she rode all the way around the block today! And kept going even after taking a tumble!), she's found a new way to have fun with her little sister:

She's a very sweet big sister. Funny and silly and creative and smart. Definitely a keeper. Besides, I'm going to reach the age of bodily ailments soon and she'll be able to tell me exactly where my duodenum is.

Status report: Chloë, 3 years 8 months, and Maia, 23 months

The girls are impossibly cute and impossibly annoying and impossibly smart and entertaining and impossible, in general. In fact, logically speaking I don't have children. Then why am I so tired?

Chloë and I have spent the last few nights' "I get to stay up late because I had a nap" times looking at Youtube videos of the digestive, skeletal, and circulatory systems. She's been especially interested in her My First Body Book lately and has been asking questions about it. A couple of days ago she asked Eric to draw her the outline of a body, and proceeded to color in the organs and veins just as they suggest in the book. (The heart was below the stomach. Otherwise, it was pretty accurate.) "The video on digestion is my favorite," she said this morning. "Can we watch them again?" I am the proudest parent of a three-year-old ever. Even if the next thing she wants to watch is the Hemaway ad so she can watch someone pooping.



We got Chloë a math-based game for her LeapPad for the trip. She's already played every level and won every badge, and still plays almost daily. I venture to say she likes it.

She made a snake out of clay at preschool, and shortly after she brought it home I opened up the modelling clay they got at Christmas. I ended up making most of the things that first session (including a puppy for Maia that she was enthusiastic about, even as she slowly squished it into nonexistence), but a few days ago Eric let them play again and she made her own nest and eggs:



She is the most talented girl ever.

Maia has decided that limit-testing is a great pastime. "Don't do X," I say sternly. She stops and says, "I not doing X any more." Then, as soon as I've stopped eyeing her, she does X again.

She's also very fond of ordering me around. When she greets me when I get home in the evening, she says, "Hug, Mom? Hug?" Then, as soon as I pick her up, "Take your jacket off!" She likes to take hold of my cheeks and move my face around, probably for the faces I make while she's doing it. "Open your knees," she says when she wants to stand between my legs when I'm sitting on the couch; and if she wants to be enclosed in them, "Close your toes."

She knows most of her letters and some of her numbers. She persistently forgets about the existence of the number five, but otherwise is doing pretty well on counting, too. She now calls Chloë "Chwoë" instead of "Toë." It's still very cute, but I kind of miss Toë. Her voice is so small and high and articulate. She's the funniest thing.

She enjoys playing the "I'm your blanket Mama" game, meaning that she stretches out on top of me and I pretend to sleep (complete with snoring noises), and then she gets up and walks away and, if I don't do anything, prompts, "Where your blanket Mama?" whereupon I say "Hey, where's my blanket? Come back, blanket!" And she does.

She's not in pain. She's just sleeping. Can't you tell?

The girls have been doing a lot of "sleepover" and "make a nest" playing in their rooms. After bathtime they get their hair combed--Maia, too, now, and I just adore the little curls at the ends of her hair--and Maia gets a diaper on, and they romp around and try to jump on the bed when we aren't looking. Then they fight over whose book is whose and whether the kitty belongs to Chloë or Maia (it's Chloë's), but on the whole we're still glad we have two instead of one.

They had a good time on Easter. I hadn't planned on doing an egg hunt for them, but Chloë remembered last year's and asked after it, persistently, so I hid eggs around. They picked them up. And, true to form, if they missed one we'd say "There!" pointing, and they'd say, "Where?" while looking right at it. When do young children learn to see?

Chloë keeps asking about going back to the skating ring (where her cousin's birthday party was more than a year ago) and they were both terribly excited about their return to the park when the weather turned (briefly) warm a few days ago. So am I, for that matter. We've got some seedlings started that they helped plant, and I hope to get the garden in shape to plant more things outdoors soon. They'll love it.

Conversations with Chloë

[At the park]
Me: It's time to go home.
Chloë: I want to play just a couple more minutes.
Me: No. It's time to go. I told you a couple of minutes ago that we'd be leaving soon.
Chloë: I want to plaaaaaaaay!
[Screaming and sobbing ensue. I yell. She wails. We start walking out of the park.]
Me [noticing her rub her eyes]: Do you want me to carry you?
Chloë: Yes. [Brightly, as if there are no tears on her cheeks:] Thank you for going to the park!

[At bedtime]
Chloë: I want the space story.
Me: Okay, I will tell you the space story. Then I'm going to go, and you're not going to whine about it. Okay?
Chloë: Okay.
Me: [Tells the space story, in which Dora, Boots, and Isa help Chloe get to Pluto's moon to retrieve her spare engine to fix her spaceship. Chloë, as always, giggles when Boots says "But where's the sun?" and Dora says "It's right there, Boots. It's the brightest thing in the sky" and Boots says "Oh yeah. Silly me" and finishes the story with "and they live happily ever after" when I forget.] Good night, sweetheart.
Chloë: But, but I want...
Me: We agreed you weren't going to whine. Remember?
Chloë: But I like to whine.

[In the garden]
Me: I'm going to take this plastic off the dirt.
Chloë: What is dirt for?
Me: ...It's for growing things. This is where we're going to plant our vegetables when it's warmer.
Chloë: Can I help?
Me: Sure. Can you move these sticks to that pile over there?
Chloë: Okay!
Me: Hey, look! A worm! [Picks it up, shows her.]
Chloë: Wow! [I put the worm back. A few minutes later:] Where is the worm?
Me: It's in the dirt.
Chloë: Okay. [Later:] Thank you for working in the garden!

[After reading a book]
Me: We're going to the bookstore tomorrow. We can get you a new book. What book would you want?
Chloë: I don't know. Another llama* book for Maia. And maybe Where Are Baby's Eggs?** for me.
Me: ...I will put those on the list.

*We have Llama Llama Nighty Night. Both girls adore it.
**A Karen Katz book advertised on the back of one of her other Karen Katz books.