Take Us Out To the Ballgame

Ted has taken Julie, Joe, and Birdie each to Twins games at Target Field, but on Sunday he took all three at the same time! The bambini were filled to bursting with all they'd learned on their solo trips. Like, upon pulling into a parking space, Birdie chirped, "We won't be trapped. The bars are just there so our car can't get out."

As you can see, everyone was prepared for sun glare. It was not so much sunny as humid. By the end of the fifth inning, Julie and the bambini were wilting and Ted took them home before any of them pitched a fit. But it was still a preview of more good times to come.

"Reading" Bird

Birdie can often be found "reading" to her (stuffed) friends after being tucked into bed for the night. Sometimes, a quarter of her bookcase makes it into a pile that forms at the foot of her bed where she tosses them after she's "read" them. Around eight-fifteen last night, Julie told Clara it was time to put her book down and go to sleep. About fifteen minutes later, wails broke out in stereo. Ted dashed upstairs to investigate. Joe was crying because he'd heard a police car siren and--and this is not quite clear--possibly thought they were coming to get him. Clara was crying because Joe was crying--and because she thought the police were coming to get her a take her to jail because she was reading her book after bedtime.  Oh Fans. It's just too dear, isn't it? Do you think there's a library at such a prison?

Birdie recently "read" to Joe and Julie, too. The trio begins each day in the big bed snuggling and reading while Ted showers. Birdie read Grumpy Bird, which features a bird who wakes up too grumpy to fly and so walks instead, collecting friends along the way, all of whom want to know what he's doing. Our Birdie was, of course, "reading" by summarizing from memory and, of course, this just slayed Joe. Joe is six. He knows stuff. He is a stickler for The Rules and Doing a Things Right. Naturally, he could barely contain himself and demanded Julie re-read the book as soon as Birdie had finished "reading" it. It continues to be true: sometimes it is a drag to be the Big Brother, and sometimes, the Little Sister.

But Birdie is getting there. She has been  working hard at tacking down, definitively, alphabet neighbors G and H. They are collectively referred to as "challenge letters." (Guess who is always ready to throw down a challenge? Big brothers! Argh!) Other challenge letters include K and Y; W is also sometimes confused with Y.

Sooner enough, she'll be reading, too.

Pal

In other parroting news, we can report that Clara is experimenting with calling Joe Pal as Julie does. Birdie likes to give Joe a hug and kiss before she heads into her bed, and one night this past week, as she did, she said, "Goodnight, Pal." Then later that same night, she appeared downstairs to say that Joe was crying and needed Mommy or Daddy. As Julie followed her upstairs, Birdie called out, "Mommy's coming Pal! Don't worry Pal!"  We had to put on some lights and "the red-tailed hawk song" (Alabama's Dixeland Delight which some Fans will know--"red-tailed hawk sittin' on the wind), to which the bambini were introduced in the wake of bird camp.  We'll see if it's a trend, this Birdie calling Joe, Pal.

No Whole Big Debates

Joe had a great week at te sports camps he went to with Graham at the Jewish Community Center.  Joe reported that there was a diving board, and he did cannonballs off it "like, a hundred times." His counselors, Sara(h?) and Zac(h?) (who was dubbed Banana by all the kids for reasons no one knows), told Julie yesterday at pick-up that Joe and Graham were great kids which is always, in turn, great to hear from counselors and teachers.  Early mornings have been cool but afternoons have been hot. So on the way home, Julie and Joe had been stopping for ice cream cones. They have pretty much established that they both prefer McDonald's over the DQ in spite of the fact that there is no twist cone option. (The vanilla tastes better and there's always a drive they option.)  But on Wednesday, Julie verified with Joe that he wanted to do McDonald's, to which Joe replied yes, and also, "and I don't want to have a whole big debate about it." Julie laughed to hear herself parroted so perfectly.

Always Have the Red?

Remember when Birdie sucked her two fingers like Ted did?

The boys were at a Twins game last night, so the Birds had dinner (macaroni and cheese and watermelon) al fresco on the front stoop so they could watch the world go by. After they'd been sitting there a while, Birdie asked Julie if she--Birdie--would always have the red on her leg. Julie said she would, that it was her birth mark. Clara asked if other people had birth marks and Julie said they sure did, but that they came in all different shapes and sizes and colors and they were unique--fancy for no two alike. And then Birdie asked if you could get one by touching it.

Julie just said no, that you had to be born with one. But her heart squeezed, wondering what might have been said to Our Birdie to prompt the question. Maybe nothing. One hopes such questions just came out of the blue, the way questions do when one is four. But kids are kids--all different, but for a long, long while trying so hard to be anything but, and ridiculing those that don't confirm to the ideal of the moment.

There are times we're asked, "What's that?" By now, it always takes Julie a beat or two to catch up to what the person asking is seeing, because she doesn't notice the birth mark anymore. When she asks herself what leg Birdie's birth mark is on, she has to flip through pictures she's saved in her heart--Birdie lying on the big bed as a baby, and was it on the leg visible, or no? Birdie learning to walk, her chubby legs swinging, clumsy; May, so she was in shorts--right or left?  That sort of thing.

Then that was that. The Birds ate their watermelon. Beautiful night for watermelon with a beautiful little girl, with a birth mark.

Bird Boy

Bird Boy and Birdie on the wolf outside the Bell's main entrance.

Inside a terrarium in the See and Touch Room.

Joe was been all this past week at the Bird's Eye View camp at the Bell Museum of Natural History on the University of Minnesota campus. This was his first camp of the summer sans buddy so we were worried about how it would go. (Everyone likes a buddy.)  We are proud to report that Our Hero took it all in stride like it was no thing at all and by the end of the first day was playing in the foyer at pick-up like one of many in a pack of puppies. He now walks about spouting all manner of bird fun facts like: "A pigeon flaps its wings faster than a perigrine falcon but a perigrine falcon flies faster than a pigeon."

That particular factoid was relayed Saturday morning which began with Our Hero, tucked between us, watching a You Tube video of a naturalist talking about a red tailed hawk. Then we had this exchange:

Ted to Joe: "If you could be any kind of bird you wanted to be, what would you be?"

Joe: "A red tailed hawk or great horned owl."

Julie: "Those are strong and powerful birds."

Joe, matter-of-factly, "They're raptors."

Julie: "Would you be a predator then?"

Joe, laughing: "No! I would live in this family and be your pet."

So today we went to the Bell so Joe could show us all around.  It must be said that he walks about like he owns the place.  He was full of all the rules about how things are done, like, you can't touch the "screens."  (It is perhaps a sign of the times that he is calling the glass in front of a museum display a screen.)

This next week Our Hero will be reunited with Graham for two back-to-back sports camps each day at the Jewish Community Center before he returns to the Bell for two more camps to close out August.

And then: first grade.  !!!!!

Our Hero Loses Another Tooth!

Our Hero has lost another tooth!  This time, it was his bottom left tooth.  It had been hanging on by a thread all week, and came out last night in the middle of the night.  But it's gone.  Joe was awake when it came out and wanted to show it to us, but as it was the middle of the night, he decided to put it back in his mouth for safekeeping.  This thinking makes sense only to a six-year-old, obviously.  Not surprisingly--to the over six-years-old crowd--the tooth was gone by the morning.  We can't find it anywhere.  Joe thought he might have missed his shot at getting money from the Tooth Fairy, thinking also that she operates on a strict teeth for cash policy.  At the same time, he also seemed to question--albeit briefly--the whims and wiles of this Tooth Fairy when there was no money under his pillow this morning.  He had, after all, lost a tooth in the middle of the night.  So. . .did the Tooth Fairy stiff him or what?  We reasoned that as she had left money when he lost his first tooth--also lost and thus not tucked under his pillow--she must leave money for the actual loss, rather than the tooth itself.  And as to why she hadn't come last night, we reasoned that she had probably already left for the night with her basket (Clara) or bag (Joe) of money when Joe's tooth came out, and so did not have the money to give him on her.  So we think she will visit tonight.

Good Sport

Doing volleys at the last tennis lesson at Grand View Lodge.  Joe's got pretty good hand-eye coordination so he popped most balls over the net.  The last lesson was the first time Birdie was game so her experience was a little different!

As you know, Fans, Joe has been spending the bulk of his summer at one camp or another, the first of which was the Y's Summer Sports Sampler.  There, he sampled soccer, basketball, baseball, and floor hockey and capped each day with a swim.  He was praised for trying everything with gusto and his sportsmanship, but his counselors also noted that on every day except the day on which they played baseball, Joe didn't have much interest in playing when it was game time.  Julie asked Joe what was up with that, and Joe matter-of-factly replied, "Everyone wants to take my ball away." Julie laughed, but also thought, "Of course.  Of course!"  Keeping the ball away from the other team, or getting the ball for your own team is, of course, the point of soccer, basketball, and all kinds of other sports.  Our Hero understands that and doesn't object to the point itself.  But being in the middle of a scrum of a bunch of people running and otherwise moving is decidedly not for him, at least right now.  (Baseball is the one exception in the sports that Joe sampled so of course, he liked that best of the four and did actually participate in the game.)  He likes golf and--we now realize--tennis for the same reason.  That is, they aren't played in a big swirl of people all jockeying for the ball.  The realization was like the bat, connecting with the ball, and hearing that satisfying crack.

Good Times, Good Friends

Originally posted Thursday, July 24, 2014.  Mysteriously re-posted out-of-order by Blogger gremlins when a font correction made.

Longtime Fans may recall our friends Sanne and Todd, who up and moved with their daughters, Elsa and Anja*, to Seattle about four years ago after a stopover in Utah. We have not stopped missing them since they left. Happily, Todd's family gathers in Wisconsin once a year, so we see him and his ladies once a year at least. Today was that day.  We rented canoes at Lake Calhoun and paddled around the chain of lakes, and hit the St. Louis Park pool. Such good times, such good friends.

*It's true: they are a sister duo with almost the exact same names as the sisters in the best movie ever, if you are preschool or elementary school age. Elsa is even older, too, in this duo!)

In Other Words

In other Birdie news, we can report that she is firmly in that moment where you can hear the connections her mind is making through the funny language missteps she makes. A recent example came when Clara was relaying her order of pasta with alfredo sauce to a server when we were out at Grand View Lodge. (The bambini have started trying to order for themselves if we're in a relatively calm place.) Clara asked for her pasta "al fresco," and bless the server's heart, she took it right in stride.

The other thing Birdie will often say these days is to do with carbonated beverages. She will sometimes have a sip of two of sparkling water or something with sparkling water in it. She deems such drinks "spicy."

Using Her Words

Grand View Lodge had a wooden crate of communal sand toys that the bambini used most every day we were there. One day, Joe had gotten Clara a water gun--a pistol, if you will--from which Clara wandered too far at a moment when it was spied by a boy slightly older than Joe. He naturally scooped it up, reminding Our Birdie of the vulnerability of, in particular, shared toys and the rough justice that often characterizes the negotiations of childhood. Oh but Brigade, you should have seen her. Her voice may have been shaking, but she used it to tell the boy that her brother Joe had gotten that for her, she was using it, and could he please give it back. The boy tossed out the old finders keepers line, to Clara, and then to his mother who had by now intervened. His mother was having none of that and so the boy pitched the gun at Birdie who scooped it back up and kept it near from then on. The assist from the boy's mom was key. Without it, the gun surely would not have been returned. Still, we were proud of Our Birdie trying to set things to right with her words.

Grand View Lodge

Fans, we are back from a week at Grand View Lodge on Gull Lake near Brainard, Minnesota, which indeed had a grand view, and where we had a grand time.  We swam every day, went on a pontoon boat cruise (all of us), played tennis (all of us), played golf (Ted and Joe), went horseback riding (Ted and Julie--we galloped even!), chased after chipmunks (one was christened Jumpy) (Joe and Clara), and went to the lovely spa (Julie).  As we say, it was grand.