It always makes me laugh when the girls have had the camera (except when they drop it, of course.)
Thank you to all who've been an encouragement as we seek "the peace that passes all understanding" in the issue of the girls' school. I just keep learning lessons in letting go of my own ideas and sitting still enough to REALLY know I'm trusting God.
The other day the girls and I took a stroller ride to a playground we'd not visited for a while and it was SO refreshing. It was warm, daffodils were blooming, and the girls are really learning to do fairly well sitting all squished together in the Burley while I get my much-needed exercise. (They get to walk on the way HOME.)
When we arrived, a group of middle-school and high school aged kids were playing a wild game of tag on the playground, and immediately Evelyn wanted to join in. She just walked right up to them and asked if she could play. I wanted to stop her (not wanting her to get hurt, not wanting them to be annoyed, etc.), but I let it go, and they accepted her with amazing kindness. She and Amelia both played tag with them, and afterward Evelyn insisted on giving the girls of the group flowers we'd picked on the way over. It was really sweet. Evelyn just CRAVES being with other kids and joining in their games.
On the walk home, we enjoyed passing conversations with people and their dogs, a very friendly neighbor with the longest dreadlocks I've ever seen (the girls LOVED that!), and a group of ministers outside a local storefront church in hopes of getting to know the youth who pass by. (I keep wanting to do my own photo series on the storefront churches in our neighborhood--there are so many and they each have such unique characteristics!) It was one of those evenings that felt positive, full of openness, diversity, and true warmth.
This has all melted by now, but a week and a half ago I took the girls up to RVR to have their first bike rides of the season. They did pretty well, although Amelia kept needing to be pushed up inclines and Evelyn's one training wheel kept slipping out of place and she fell about four times. Tough kid--she still wants to ride her bike.
Don't even ask about the school thing. I have had a lot of conversations with God about it, usually shedding tears when I think about the WONDERFUL open houses I attended at both City Neighbors Charter Schools--only to have her 25th on the waiting list at one and 58th on the waiting list on the other. There weren't even 20 spots open in these kindergartens and hundreds of applicants.
She's 60th on the waiting list at the Green School. She actually got into the Spanish Immersion Kindergarten, and even though we LOVE the idea of her doing all her schooling K-8 in Spanish, we visited the school twice and there were so many red flags--quite discouraging. I kept thinking it would get better, but we just can't bring ourselves to send her there. I'm too tired to type out all the reasons.
The ONE good thing about the last visit to the Spanish Immersion school, though, was that I met a woman who told me about another charter school that will be brand new in the fall. It's not as close as any of these others, but still not too bad, and because it is brand new it doesn't have as many applicants. I went right home and looked it up and called, got an application and ran it over. It sounded like the Kindergarten was full but the waiting list was short...haven't heard for sure yet. That particular school's focus is health, and the kids will get 75 minutes of movement, PE, or dance every day, and will study nutrition as part of their curriculum. That certainly sounds good so far. There's an open house for that one on Tuesday, so you'll know where we'll be. (I'll miss another night of AWANA...between my sick kids and these open houses, I've been a really bad AWANA leader this year!)
Then there's Calvary Lutheran School. What a sweet, tender place. I'll have to upload a few pictures from the Grandparents' Day last week. All four grandparents came, and the girls felt really special. The Grandparents felt special, too, and I heard it was a great time. My father-in-law took lots of pictures, and I'll have to upload some of them.
Through all of this I've been really challenged to trust God. Not since having two miscarriages and wondering if we'd ever have kids at all have I had these knotted-up feeling in my gut that make me wonder what God's got in mind and why it's NOT the same thing that I've got in MY mind. It's been pretty humbling to realize that for most of my life God has done a lot of what I've expected or asked Him to do, and I've not learned to really trust Him when the future is truly uncertain. I know it's only Kindergarten, but it's my child--it's going to be a HUGE part of her world next year, and a huge part of her daily influence. Whew.
Mimi in the bathroom with handsoap.
(to the tune of Lucy In the Sky by the Beatles)
Courtney and I took our kids to the Science Center Friday night and got our biggest CHARGE out of the electricity show, where I got to be a CONDUCTOR. (Actually, the kids liked making whirly-gigs and dropping them off the 3rd floor balcony best,
but it didn't suit my corny pun.)
Courtney took this picture on her phone and sent it to us, and when Amelia and I looked at it Saturday, she said quietly, "Mommy, I thought my hair was going to STAY that way."
"Did you WANT it to stay that way?"
"NO!!"
Well, then. I'm glad everyone's happy!
Today, as Alan so aptly put it on his Face Book status, he started his white-knuckle grip on his 30's. Last night we went to D.C. to hear a friend of his from NYC play in a really awesome trio, and at the end Alan was suddenly green. Uh oh. I got to drive home, although I proved that the only thing worse for nausea than going over Baltimore's ba-zillion potholes is trying to avoid them.
So Alan spent his birthday feeling pretty beat up, although he was able to enjoy the chocolate chip cookies Evelyn and I made for him.
Maybe this will take the sting out of NEXT year for my talented, cool, witty, wordsmith-ing, husband who makes up great games to play with his girls while shouldering an awful lot of their care.
Evelyn and Amelia were upstairs a while ago playing "Brunkin' Bonko" with Alan.
On Thursday we heard from our #1 hopeful school for Evelyn--there were 17 kindergarten spots and over 200 applicants. They drew the names for the lottery and Evelyn is #25 on the waiting list. Sigh. As Alan said, "At least she's not 199th on the waiting list." We've not heard from the other three yet--maybe they'll come in the mail today.
While it was my hope to pontificate a bit about our lives in the city, thoughts about the girls and school, I've got these two little people crawling all over my feet getting into the drawers below me because I made the mistake of telling them we'd make cards "when Mommy was done." That last part is a difficult concept for them. Evelyn is standing next to me whispering into my ear, "Pssst---get out the pictures! Psssst--get out the pictures!" referring to the pictures we cut out of magazines, Christmas cards, and extra photographs for making homemade cards. My favorite thing about the cards they make is that they glue all the interesting stuff onto the INSIDE of the card. I used to re-fold the cards so that their artwork was on the outside like a "normal" card, but then I figured it was kind of a metaphor for what we're always supposed to be making the most attractive and lovely.
