Well, huh.
So, she still loves me. I think.
But she also loves peaches and dresses and CHEESE! and shoes and cookies and pumpkin bread …
She only likes pasta and Ritz crackers, though, or so she says.
Tallulah is certainly not shy about showing her enthusiasm, or about sharing her opinions.
You shouldn’t be shy, either, about heading over to Hugs and Kisses and entering to win a copy of P. Allen Smith’s cookbook!
Tags: things they say
She loves me!
Tallulah was really upset when I put her down so I could load the washing machine this morning. And she wailed. Screamed. Scratched at her face in despair.
She said, “Hugooo!” which in T-speak means she wants to hug me. She does hug, and she does pat but she’s never done what she did today.
Today, after I finished what I needed to do and picked her up, she wrapped her arms around my neck and said, “I wuboo.”
She loves me! She really loves me.
I already knew it, but hearing it in that sweet little voice made all the difference.
Happy Friday!
My girl
P.S. This week’s Freebie Friday is hosted by Blessed Mom and she is giving away some scrapbooking goodies, which you can use to document moments like the one I had today! Go here to enter!
Brown
In Beans’ backpack today, instead of the usual packet of homework, was a sheet of paper outlining a project that’s due on Monday.
The project, in celebration of Black History Month, is to research and make a poster about an African American person to share with the class.
I wholeheartedly agree with and understand that all children should know and embrace differences and that black history is something every kid should learn. I’m in no way opposed to these lessons behind this project.
But this assignment made my heart sink a little because right now, if I asked Beans to describe some of his best friends, he would say (if he included skin color in the description at all) that they have brown skin and black hair, the same way he might say someone has skin like his (or a little bit lighter or a little bit darker) and messy blonde hair. He would not say, “They’re black.” It wouldn’t even occur to him lump someone into that broad category. Nor, for the record, do I think he would describe someone as “white.”
And I love that – that he accepts and loves and values all people without thinking about their race and that the only time he considers their skin color is when he’s trying to describe to his nosy mom which of the kids she sees in his classroom are the ones he likes to hang out with.
Again, for the record, I do talk with him about different kinds of people, cultures, lifestyles, and maybe I should have already talked with him about race … should I have? Is that what you do? And if you do, how do you?
(OT: For a while after I talked with him about homelessness, he worried that every person he saw on the street – even the ones running in the latest Nikes and designer sweat-wicking threads, iPods strapped to their arms – had no home to go to and wanted to give them blankets to keep them warm and food to eat. I love that about him, too. But that’s a whole ‘nother issue, right?)
Anyway, it’s not that I think a Black History Month lesson will make him think less or more of his brown friends – it’s just that I hate that he might start to think of them as being somehow different from him, or of them as different from him, if that makes any sense. I knew all along that it was only a matter of time before someone or something pointed out to him that society does make the race distinction. I just wish it weren’t so.
I guess what I’m saying is, wouldn’t it be great if kids never had to learn that there’s black and white? Wouldn’t it be great if we all thought of each other – if we had to consider skin color at all – as brown, tan, pink, yellow, olive etc.?
Tags: kindergarten, things they say
Falsely accused
Tallulah spoke her first full sentence several weeks before Christmas: “I fall down.”
She didn’t make a regular habit of stringing together a bunch of words after that, though, only gracing us with those complete thoughts here and there – when we would least expect them.
Fast forward to last week, when I was cleaning the kitchen while she finished her lunch. I looked over and noticed she had made a huge mess with her food and I said something like, “Who spilled all that stuff on your tray?”
I was, of course, being facetious.
She, on the other hand, was completely stone-faced serious when she looked me in the eye and said, “Beans did it.”
Beans was at school and had been at school for hours. Poor Beans. He’s in for a lot more of that, I’m pretty sure.
Wordless Wednesday
Rolling ...
rolling ...
rolling,
sledding,
and crying.
Tags: snow, Wordless Wednesday
Snow away!
I’m a winter weather person.
Somewhere around the end of September, Matt puts on his parka and walks around the living room bemoaning the end of summer, but me – I like the cold.
I normally like bundling up to go outside and I love even more being ensconced in my house with my family because it’s too icy to bother with going anywhere. Playing with my babies, hot chocolate, hot coffee, movies, snuggling with Sophie, and of course, frolicking in the snow, all lovely things I anticipate when the forecast turns to winter weather.
This snow, though – it has got to go.
But this winter has been brutal in terms of sickness and isolation and this snow is just … well, it’s been around too much.
Snow, have you not ever heard the old adage about guests and fish smelling after a certain number of days? Yes, I know you have left and returned a number a number of times, but really, surely you get the point. Just a little break, please.
You’re making me long for spring.
So there.
Tags: current events, snow, Things to remember
First day of kindergarten, part II
Beans started at a new school last week.
We had been on a magnet school wait list since the summer, and when a spot came open for Beans at that school, Matt and I had to make the choice of moving him mid-year or losing that spot altogether. It was a tough decision because he was doing great in his kindergarten class, we liked his teacher and … well, he’s in kindergarten. I think such a move has the potential for being tough on any kid, but it seemed especially cruel to subject a kindergartner – a creature-of-habit kindergartner no less – to such trauma.
But you know what? He’s happy. He was a little nervous the night before his first day at the new school, and he was a little nervous the morning we dropped him off for the first time. Since then, though, not a twinge. No drama, no trauma … just, nothing but a well-adjusted kid.
What was I expecting? A full out tantrum about how he didn’t want to leave his old school? A sobbing fit about how he didn’t want to leave his friends and his teacher and his routine and that he just simply could not survive going somewhere else? Huh. I don’t know what I expected.
My sweet boy has amazed me again.
P.S. Beans has a good bit of homework at his new school, and while he doesn’t grumble too much about doing it, he isn’t half as enthusiastic about such tasks as his little sister. Tallulah chirps “Homework!! Homework!!” over and over when I tell Beans it’s time to get busy, and we have to set her up with a copy of her own worksheets, pencils and crayons (I did give her the much coveted glue stick once upon a time, but when she rubbed it on her palms like the best moisturizing cream in the world and then stuck her hands in my hair, I’ve been a little less compliant.)
I don't hold out much hope that Tallulah will be as wild about homework when it's her turn to turn it in.
Tags: kindergarten
Wordless Wednesday
I can't believe my baby just turned 6. I hope his wish comes true!
Tallulah can't believe that cute boy at her brother's party is less than half her age.
Tags: Birthdays, Growing up, Wordless Wednesday
While juggling freelance writing gigs from her living room floor, Kim Dishongh has ordered her 4-year-old to let go of the cat's tail and told him, no, he may not paint the baby. She has shoved her laptop aside to explain death and define God. Life is a whirlwind. It's hard —and it's fun.
