What An Age

Said at dinner on Saturday evening when the girls had a friend over:

Friend: My favorite word is "pineapple."

Amelia: MY favorite word is "noodle." Isn't that a silly word? "Noodle!" (laugh)

Evelyn: My favorite word is "NO."



Later, the girls were all practicing cartwheels in the entryway. They wanted to try headstands, and Evelyn ran to get me to demonstrate. So I did.

As I stood on my head in my entryway, the friend exclaimed in wild excitement , "WOW!!! HOW do you DO that?!? And at YOUR age?!?"

In Time

(Amelia on Christmas day, opening her new backpack from Uncle Jonnie and Aunt Courtney.)

Alan was in L.A. this past weekend, and Sunday it was my turn to play piano for the Breaking of Bread service. I was sitting on the platform and the girls were in the front row where I could see them. 

I had told them before the service they could leave to go get me some tissues from the bathroom--to give them a break. They left to do that. Upon returning, Amelia walked up onto the platform and handed me a bunch of tissues--stuck inside one of those white paper bags from the top of the toilet tank that are meant for disposal of sanitary napkins. Not many people noticed, but the one woman who did could hardly contain her laughter. She and I could not make eye contact.

As the service continued, the girls began whispering more and more to one another, and at an increasing volume. Amelia was being particularly goofy, so I motioned to her to come up to me and made her sit on the floor, facing me w/her back to the congregation. Then someone called out a hymn and I had to play. During the song, I could see from my peripheral vision that Amelia was no longer facing me. And she was not sitting still. She was conducting.

My piano skill level does not enable me to do anything besides look at the music and play. I had to decide which would be more distracting--a six year old conductor (whom many, I hoped, would not notice because their noses were in their hymnals) or messy piano playing (which would cause people to look up.) I kept playing.

After the service, a young woman came up to me, smiling, and said, "Nice conducting this morning!" I laughed and said, "Yeah--she was SUPPOSED to be in 'time out.'" She chuckled, paused then replied, "Well.. she was IN TIME."

Second Best Day

I posted this recently, but thought it was worth a second post: Amelia's love note to herself.

Today she gave me a love-note of sorts. This morning I made a list of everything we had to do. Amelia was in charge of the list. She re-copied it in the car on the way to the farmers' market. I hate errands. If Amelia hadn't been reading the list aloud in the car, I likely would have skipped the grocery store, natural food store, and buying that gift certificate for our neighbor.

The girls were great on the errands, but they kept fighting in the car. It was really frustrating, and we had some serious talks during which my annoying, low-pitched, thin-lipped, crazy mommy voice jabbed out uncontrollably. That voice probably creeps into their nightmares. Ugh.

At home, they played their creative games while I put away groceries.They put on a puppet show for me (puppets compliments of socks and sharpies.) We made a little headway in the basement mess that I've ignored since we had foam insulation blown into the walls in early December. (We had to move a lot of stuff--a lot--around, and never put it back.) Then we played The Essential Michael Jackson and danced like crazy people in the entryway. (NOTE: I dream of learning electric bass and playing The Jackson 5's "I Want You Back.")

After cheese quesadillas, we painted Amelia's wooden AWANA car, danced some more, and finally sat down to eat strawberries (what?!? in February??!? yes--I caved), and Amelia announced out of nowhere:

"This is the second-best day of my life."

What?!? All the errands? The crazy mommy voice? The basement cleanout? What?!?

"The first best day is a tie--the water park in Ocean City and the water park at Great Wolf Lodge."

I had this overwhelming sense of love, warmth, humility, gratitude, awe...you name it. Somehow today was the second best day of Amelia's life. Second only to the two times in her life she's been to a water park. How does that happen? I don't know...but a lovely snow was falling pretty much all afternoon, which I've always thought is its own sort of magic.

Oh how I love these girls. These days.