Eleanor's butterfly birthday party

So I settled on a butterfly theme for Nora's 3rd birthday. We invited over six of her three- and almost-three-year-old girlfriends, played a couple games, made a craft, and ate snacks and cupcakes. It went off pretty well! I am convinced that for this age, a morning time slot and brief duration (less than 90 minutes) are key.

Here's Eleanor in her butterfly dress (which I made last fall, but she hadn't gotten to wear yet), matching beads on her braids, and the blingy necklace and bracelet I made her for her birthday (real pearls and Swarovski crystal, thank you very much!) Of course, after about five minutes, she got tired of them and whined until I took the necklace and bracelet off. Sigh. Oh well; maybe in a few months I can win her over.



The bracelet, complete with butterfly charm.



I also made matching name bracelets as party favors for all her little friends, rather than the usual goody bags full of candy and small things to lose or throw away.


As the girls arrived, we gave them each "butterfly antenna" headbands to wear. We played "pin (well, tape) the antenna on the butterfly" first. Butterfly poster courtesy of Scott!








Then we headed downstairs to make our craft: tissue paper flowers. I tried to pick something within a three-year-old's grasp, but I overestimated; it was beyond one of the parents, too! The girls liked the flowers, though their involvement basically extended to choosing the colors of tissue paper.

Our final activity was supposed to be a butterfly hunt (like an Easter Egg hunt ) but I couldn't find any tiny plastic butterflies, so instead we hunted for the butterfly's "friends" (snakes, lizards, frogs, and other bugs), which Scott hid around the upstairs during craft time.





For snack/lunch, we had fruit, "caterpillars in cocoons" (aka pigs in blankets, but I thought my renaming was fairly clever), and tiny finger sandwiches in the shapes of butterflies and flowers.

And of course, the piece de resistance: butterfly cupcakes!



I made eighteen of them, in pink and yellow. The wings and antenna are made out of chocolate and pastel melts, freehanded onto wax paper and then wedged into the frosting with some chocolate frosting for bodies. Pretty cute!


It was kind of hard to fit candles on, though!


All in all, a good party! And this afternoon, the whole family got naps, so a good day for all!

I have a sweet, sweet son

Today, during "rest time" (we've abolished naptime in favor of quiet in-room play now), Miles decided to write some letters, probably inspired by the Frog and Toad story, "The Letter".

Before dinner tonight, he proudly brought his efforts to me. He wrote one letter for Mom, one for Dad, and one for Miss "Lora".

Here's mine:


Transliteration:

DEAR MOM
IM GALD (glad) YOU
CARE ABUT (about)
ME ALL THE
TIME AND E-
VER (ever)

People, I am saving this one.

I'm also relatively impressed by his spelling, if not necessarily his four-year-old-boy manual dexterity.

Dad's and Laura's involve random crayon colors that don't photograph well, and I think he left some words out or mixed them up on Dad's (It says, "Dear Dad, Time you home come live (or lie?) down me I with love Dad.") I think this refers to looking forward to Scott coming home (he's out of town this week), and how they like to snuggle in Miles' bed when Scott reads to him at bedtime. It's a little convoluted, but obviously lovingly meant.

a few Easter photos

The family on the porch, in our Easter finery. Scott is of the school of thought that a guy ought to wear a suit on Easter and Christmas, at least, and he's pulling Miles in his footsteps (although I've been far too cheap to actually buy Miles a suit yet). Who would've guessed that the guy I started dating in college - the one who owned one tie and whose "dressy" pants were the corduroy ones without holes - would turn out so dapper?

You can't tell, but I actually was wearing pantyhose, a skirt, and a modicum of makeup! A red letter day for sure.


Eleanor shows off the Easter dress I made her. It has a very fluffy skirt, which she likes, and a giant bow on the back, which annoys her. I am far from a brilliant seamstress, and this was only my second try at going "off the pattern," so to speak. I took elements I liked from two patterns and a couple other dresses I had seen and tried to create my own. It mostly worked.

I note, I am also getting better at braiding. I intended to braid her entire head in sort of a zigzag pattern, but after the first two hours, I decided we'd be in better spirits for Easter if I just left it.


Nora's pink painted toenails and new summer sandals. I didn't notice they had a heel until I brought them home (who puts a heel on toddler shoes? I mean, this shoe was available in a size 5, which is barely walking for a lot of kids.) Oh well. She looks VERY tall now.


The highlight of Miles' Easter basket: a $1 toy that launches a helicopter/fan blade-like thingie into the air. We've already lost one thingie on the garage roof; only two to go.

Encouraging note: I didn't include much edible in the kids' baskets: a pair of socks, a book, a seed kit to plant, a small toy, a box of tic-tacs, 4 mini chocolate eggs (jellybean size), one candy necklace, 3 gummi bunnies, and one egg full of jellybeans. To me, this seemed modest at best (which was my aim). I was pleased to see Eleanor exclaim excitedly, "Wow! We have LOTS of candy!"

Now, how do I help my kids continue to be content with what, by US standards, is perhaps a paltry amount of spoils? That's a question for a lot of areas in life, I suppose: how do we maintain an attitude of contentment in a culture of excess? Something I ponder, but haven't reached any light-bulb moments yet. I'll let you know if I do. (And yes, I do realize this has connections to the food issues that have plagued me for most of my life. No easy solutions there yet, either.)

Coy...

...and not so coy!

Guess who seems to have inherited Mommy's smug smile?


The angelic siblings. This is about 20 seconds before Eleanor revolted and, in tears, declared it was HER turn with the helicopter/fanblade thingie and she wasn't going to smile for any more photos. In fairness, it was past lunchtime, and she doesn't do well on an empty stomach.


A big Daddy-hug made everything all better, for a few minutes at least.

Why is it that Scott is so much more photogenic than I am? Or perhaps I should claim it's my own skill with the camera?


Miles and his Daddy. For a very wiggly, can't-sit-still four-year-old, he is still wonderfully cuddly. Sitting "next to" always ends up as sitting "on." Sometimes at the dinner table, he just reaches over and wants to hold hands with me or Scott. And sad to say, his most annoying habit (which I'm trying to learn not to be annoyed by) is his habit of reaching over and fiddling with my ponytail when we are both reading next to each other. I note: this is Miles I'm talking, about, not Scott. Anyway, I am guessing that "touch" is one of his love languages for sure!

brief anecdote

Eleanor: Mommy, do you have your teeth out?

me: (no idea what she's talking about) Um...what do you mean, honey?

Eleanor: Daddy left his teeth out.

me: (still no idea) Are you sure? I think Daddy has all his teeth in his mouth still.

Eleanor: No. Daddy left his teeth at Mr. Dan and Miss Amie's.

me: (light slowly dawning) Oh! Well, yes, Daddy left his BLUEtooth at Mr. Dan and Miss Amie's. So...um...yes, but that's a different kind of tooth. Never mind.

And another thing I'll miss when it goes away: Eleanor's "Windy da Pooh." Makes me giggle.

Have been frantically busy lately, but hope to have some time to catch up on blogging, low priority that it is...

not the best day

It was a rainy morning. Which means I slept very well, and found it difficult to get up. In fact, I shut off my alarm and just lay in bed until Miles woke me up (which I knew he would do sooner or later). We were lazy in bed together until Eleanor joined us. I asked her to go potty, but she refused to do so without help, and I was just too drowsy. Until she started crying that she peed in her diaper, and - waddling like a bowlegged duck - finally agreed to go to the bathroom. Then I had to get up.

I skipped my workout (it was too late, after all) and decided to do creative projects with the kids: namely, I chopped up a cardboard box in to millions (actually 121) tiny pieces, and with their tempera paints, painted different colored numerals on each one. It was my intent to make a version of the "Math-It" game I played with in my homeschooled childhood, to encourage Miles to learn his addition facts. And the game creation went pretty well. The kids entertained themselves for an abysmally short time stringing beads onto necklaces with the new blunt needles I had bought especially for the purpose. Eleanor then went around whacking things with Miles' plastic ruler. And I kid you not, twelve seconds after I said, "Nora, please don't hit things with the ruler; it might break and you would hurt yourself," it happened. The ruler shattered, and one piece grazed her eyeball. She's crying, I'm panicking, and Miles is screaming his head off that she broke HIS ruler! Her eye bled a tiny bit, but she stopped crying rapidly, and it looked like just a scrape on the white part of her left eye. She seemed fine, but I dutifully called the pediatrician to see what he thought, and NATURALLY he said he thought I ought to take her to the ER to get checked out. We don't mess around with eye injuries, he says.

OK, fine. Miles is still howling about his broken ruler, while Nora is excitedly repeating, "We get to go to the doctor now? I get to see the doctor. He will look at my eye. Can we go now, Mommy? My eye is OK. But the doctor will look at it. Let's go to the doctor!" You get the idea.

IS there a good ER to go to with small children? I dread it. Swedish Covenant has a nice waiting room, but nary a toy or a children's magazine. The attractive fishtank amuses for a while, but not for an hour and a half, I'm afraid. Anyway, after 90 minutes of trying to keep my whining, overactive, and starving children from drumming on the backs of grouchy sick people's chairs, tapping on the fishtank glass, swinging on the velvet ropes marking out the place to stand in line, running laps around the waiting room, and slaloming around frail old ladies in walkers, we finally got in for our 30 seconds with the doctor. She looked at Nora's eye, said "She seems fine, right? I don't think we need to bother checking the cornea. It looks fine to me. Here's a prescription for some antibiotic eye drops just to keep infection at bay."

OK, my doctor could have done that. WAY faster. And cheaper. (Did I mention how long we had to play Ring-around-the rosy, London bridge, and "let's pretend we are seeds growing into plants" in the tiny cubicle before the doctor even showed UP?)

What a waste of a day.

Now I'm sitting on the sofa feeling VERY frustrated with my attempt to translate Mandan (an almost extinct Native American language). I'm supposed to be presenting my "findings" at a symposium in three weeks, and I don't HAVE any findings, and it's ruining the precious remainder of my spring break. Why did I sign up for this?

disillusioned

I was working on Eleanor's hair the other morning (is it just me or do a lot of my anecdotes start out like that? Somehow I think this hair thing is consuming more of my time than I realize.) Eleanor, bored, starts fiddling around with the plastic container of shea butter (for her skin, not hair).

Eleanor: Thank you, God, for this!

me, thinking to myself: how sweet! Something is sinking in!

A few moments later, Eleanor still can't get the plastic tub open.

Eleanor: This is too hard, God!

me, thinking to myself: oh look, and now she's taking her little problems to God. Wow!

Another moment passes.

Eleanor: I am God.

me, thinking to myself: oh, dear. So much for that.

a touching surprise

This afternoon, I heard an unexpected sound: my doorbell. I wasn't expecting a student, and didn't see the UPS truck out the window, so I figured it was some marketing/sales type, and grudgingly went to open my door and say I wasn't interested.

Instead, I found two of my former ESL students! And I am ashamed to admit, one of my first thoughts was, "Oh no! High-context culture (theirs) means I have to invite them in, feed them, and sit and chat for AGES when I have a huge presentation due tonight that I intended to spend my precious "naptime" hours working on."

Anyway, I smiled, hugged them, and proceeded to, yes, invite them in, offer something to drink, and sit down with them. Incidentally, I had never had these students in a class per se, but last summer I hosted a conversation practice/lunch group at my house on Saturday mornings, and these two guys were among the most faithful attendees. They told me that they had come up on purpose to see me, because they missed me at ESL classes. (I am not teaching this semester because, frankly, the every-Saturday from 9-2 commitment became too much for me since that's just about the only family time we have, with me in school or singing nights, Scott traveling for work, and then naptimes in the afternoons and church on Sunday mornings. So I resigned. But now I'm sort of rethinking it!)

We sat and chatted for an hour or so before I sent them home with a couple jars of homemade strawberry jam; high-context culture means gifts are appropriate, right? Conversation is a bit of a struggle, since they're definitely still English language learners, and I haven't spoken Spanish since the AP test in high school, not to mention that I'm not especially gifted in making small talk anyway. But it turns out they want to invite me to a party (the end of the year ESL party) and had lost my contact info but remembered my house. They also want to know if I like roller coasters (yes) and want to come to Six Flags with them sometime this summer. Arturo brought me a DVD (he's a DJ, and I think it's his demo disc) which has his email address on it, so I wouldn't lose it again. Both guys were just amazingly sweet, and kept telling me how much they appreciated my teaching, etc. Vicente kept reciting English idioms we had worked on last summer - "better late than never" was a favorite, as well as "a penny saved is a penny earned."

I was just incredibly touched. These guys went out of their way (I think they took the bus up here!) to come thank me and offer a way to include me in their lives again. I almost got all teary. And you know what? That hour of conversation was a blessing. And my presentation went just fine.