Getting the Garage In Order

Julie was asked recently what has been the biggest surprise about living at White House. She thought if two. First, she has not quite yet grown accustomed to its size relative to Raleigh House. Often at White House, she does not know where someone is and frets that Berenice has escaped. At Raleigh House, she always knew where everyone was and often, it was within a three-foot radius. Second, she has not yet grown accustomed to how when you have a dishwasher, you arguably need more than eight glasses, plates, and so on. But it's all rather lovely and every day, it looks less and less like we are in the midst of moving. Yesterday, a July day with September-like weather, everything in the garage was hauled out and then almost everything was put back in a new home.  But not before Joe had played with almost all of it.

Birdie's Imaginings

Birdie, in princess skirt, and Mommy's shoes

These days, Birdie spends a lot of her time pretending to be, variously, Mommy, a teacher, or a princess.  She will usually pretend to be Julie (in her role as Mommy) when she happens upon a pair of Julie's shoes.  Birdie will slide them on and then clomp and shuffle about saying, "I Mommy!  I Mommy!"  It makes perfect sense to Julie that her shoes are the hallmark of Clara pretending to be her, less because she thinks of herself as a shoe maven, and more because she recalls hearing Grandma Connie clip and clap about in her high heels when she was not much older than Clara is now.  At one point, she had a pair of the plastic high heels one can still buy in toy stores which she referred to as her "barkley shoes."  (All Julie can figure is that this was a way of saying the shoes were barking, or noisy, but the etymology could be rooted in something else altogether lost to the adult memory.)

Clara often plays teacher at the table during mealtimes, or when she's been tucked into bed before falling asleep.  At the table, she will instruct us all not to speak until she has raised her hand, put it down, and then pointed at one of us; then, that person may speak.  Often, Clara as teacher issues rather elaborate instruction sets.  When she is in bed, she "reads" to her animal friends.  Over the weekend, while Ted and Joe were out at one of the fiesta of birthday parties to which Joe was invited, Julie--all the way downstairs--heard Clara upstairs cry out "GOOD JOB, DORA!  GOOD JOB!"  accompanied by loud applause.  (One can only imagine that Dora had read the book or explored the whole of the African continent from Clara's bed.)

It's during outside time at school that Clara turns into a princess.  Daphne and Silvia are also princess, of course, as well as some other girl whose name we've not quite yet doped out.  Must study the cubbies soon!  Clara has allowed that Julie might visit Clara in her princess castle, but only if Julie wears a long dress.  No mention has been made of shoes though.  One assumes slippers.  Glass of course.

Pretty in Pink

Around the time that we moved into White House, a package arrived for Clara Jane from Grandpa Tom and Lynn.  It was a small brown paper bag containing a froth of pink fabric.  We set it aside until the house was a bit more unpacked and a bit less of collection of land mines upon which frothy pink fabric confections might catch and tear.  That time arrived this weekend and thus it was that Birdie spent most of the weekend decked out in a pink tulle and be-ribboned skirt and headdress.

Walking

We Minnesota Ekkers enjoy a walk. A certain Joe and Clara Fan who went to college with Julie will remember Julie cajoling her to walk to the White Hen our senior year. (She might maintain it was with greater frequency than it actually was; she was less fond of a walk.) In fact, the first time Julie and Ted ever went out on a date, they took a walk--along Lake Michigan. Julie remembers thinking that here was a boy after her own heart and, well, we all know how fantastically that turned out!

So the fact that we can walk to the KinderCare, Starfoxes, and Trader Joe's from White Houe in under five minutes (and several parks and the DQ in under 10) makes White House that much more perfect for us. We've also taken to walking to and from school weather permitting. The trip requires one crosswalk button to be pressed so we all get to practice our diplomacy. Here we are this past Friday morning. It was show 'n' share day so Kitty and the Lego fire truck were along.

A Fun Day

Today, Ted got up at 5am to head up to Bemidji to collect Cousin Nick from the French immersion camp he's been at the past two week's at Concordia Language Villages.*  It's a four hour trip there, and another four back obviously, and there was a program in between.  So the bambini had a long day with Julie, and vice versa.  The morning was filled with swimming lessons, the usual trip to Target, a trip to the Container Store, and a stop by the library.  They were, respectively:

• Awesome!  The bambini both love swimming class and Julie likes to sit and watch them splash around with no other obligations.  (It's especially nice if she has stopped at the Caribou down the strip mall beforehand.)  Today was an assessment day.  Joe is moving to the next class (Littles 4!) and Clara is going to stay in Littles 1 unless she can keep her face in the water for a few more seconds at a time.  She's all about putting it in there, but she likes to pop it right back out with this big grin on her face--and adjust her goggles (Accessories!  Birdie never met one she didn't love.).  She's a pretty awesome floater.  You should see her, Brigade.
• Not awesome.  If one goes to Target solo with both bambini, one has to get the unwieldy two-seater cart.  Once the fruit snacks run out--which is in about two minutes since they are inhaled--the bambini are restless and looking to do what they can to call the attention of every Target guest to them.  Heaven forbid one need to spend a moment considering, say, towels for the downstairs bathroom one now has.
• Better.  It was dicey at the outset once Joe realized that "the store to get y'all hampers at!" was really The Container Store: "AGAIN?!?!"  Julie defined "attitude" and introduced the slang, "Check it at the door."  As it turned out, selecting hampers was fun and "didn't even take 10 minutes!" (which had been Julie's original estimate for the time that would be spent inside).  Joe got green ombre; Clara, yellow ombre.
• Awesome.  Now, it's true that the library may have been awesome because Julie told the bambini that if it wasn't, she's pick them right up and walk right out without picking up The Berenstain Bears No Girls Allowed if they did not act in a manner befitting being in a public place, but awesome they were in any case.  Thus, No Girls Allowed was borrowed.  It's another amazing B. Bears title.  Mama Bear is wise.  Papa is well-meant, but a bit of a doofus.  Lessons are learned.  Endings are happy.

In the afternoon, Ms. Anne came over with her boys Nathan and Andrew.  Nathan is a worldly rising second grader; Andrew is Joe's age.  (The best part about their visit is that the not-yet-filled water balloons that had been floating about the house ever since Joe's birthday party were filled and exploded and are now out of our lives and home.)

Ted and Nick were home for a bit after Ms. Anne and her boys left, but then they left for the Twins game and ballpark dinner.  So Julie and the bambini had ballpark dinner on the deck: hot dogs and chips.  Berenice helped herself to half a hot dog (which she promptly barfed up within five minutes of eating it--inside; oh of course, inside) which made Joe wail like his arm had been eaten instead and of course, he wanted another hot dog, so in frustration, Julie gave him her hot dog before stomping off to make herself another hot dog and be, generally, fatigue-induced grumpy in an entirely self-pitying way, beating herself up for not being able to summon more sympathy for Joe's response to the Great Hot Dog Steal.

And then Joe said, apropos of nothing, "Mommy, today was fun!"  And just like that, it was, and Julie remembered that you can be frustrated now and again, and still be loving, and loved.  (She feels this is one of the primary lessons of parenting--and it appears all the time--but it is, nevertheless, one she is still learning.)

*We know some Fans will be interested to know that Cousin Nick said it was "awesome."  He wants to go back, and for the four-week program, which is, apparently, for credit.  It would probably be even more fun next year because one could skip over all the "what is this going to be like?" apprehension, and awkward first day nonsense, right to the awesome.  His three most favorite things were: 1. Playing soccer, 2. The food, and 3. His cabin mates, three of whom were fluent French speakers hailing from Senegal, France, and Quebec.  Cousin Nick reports that they really did speak mostly French there except sometimes for the people who were there learning English (like the three who were native French speakers), and said that it was weird not to be hearing it all the time now.  He has a beret, Fans! We might need to start calling him Frenchie.