The kids are growing

Cora's wall chart:




She woke up today and said "I feel like I grew last night." Sure enough, she sprouted in just the last week and a half.

Oliver's chart:

Cooler weather is comng

We enjoyed breakfast on the deck this morning, wrapped warmly in sweatshirts and long pants. The air temp was in the mid to high fifties, which felt absolutely chilly after six to seven weeks of eighty degree mornings. Fall is coming soon. We won't really have fall colors due to the drought, but these crisp mornings are one of my favorite times of year.

Kate is flying to Cincinnati in a few weeks for her first mobile StoryCorps gig. She started her Nashville training yesterday after a week of intensive training in New York last week. She's doing great, and we're both excited about the possibilities of this job. I have pestered her to blog about it a bit, but she has been too busy so far. She'll be a Nashville StoryCorps facilitator. Awesome!

Readers

I don't know how, but I somehow survived last week. Kate was in New York City training for her new job, so I was single dad, trying to take care of the kids and work.

Of course, that's not true at all. I was single dad with grandparents in town. There is a universe of difference. But even with abundant help I was frazzled by Friday.

Cora is loving first grade, as we knew she would. She is getting more confident with her reading, and has begun to discover some of the calming qualities of becoming absorbed in a book.

Oliver is also practicing his "reading." He asks me to sound out words as I read them and identify letters. Last night at bedtime we were reading an alphabet book. I made the sound of the letter:
"M...Muh...Muh."
Oliver then scanned the page and found his favorite picture...
"Muh...Muh...Rabbit."

He doesn't quite have the hang of it yet....

Copying big sister

2007_0826_091914AA, originally uploaded by Wingates.

Oliver parrots everything that Cora does. This picture caught him in the act, studying every detail of big sis, copying her walk, her hands.

Kim and Rich's first dance

The best first wedding dance ever.

Aunt Sarah explains:
Halfway through Kim and Rich's "first slow dance", the DJ stopped the song - seemingly an accident - but within moments, Rich flung off his coat and he and Kim broke into the most magnificent booty-dance that they had choreographed just for this event! Soon after, the dance floor was full of family and friends shakin' it up!

First day of first grade

Tomorrow's the big day, and Cora's ready for it. Tonight at bedtime as I told her about my first day of first grade (Brian was shocked that I actually remember it), it struck me yet again how grown up she's getting. This afternoon I took Cora and her friend Ily to the pool, and listened to them chatting away in the back seat about boyfriends and kissy games. I suppose I should be glad they weren't talking about eggrolls. I casually said that they were still a little young to be getting into all this kissy stuff, and Ily agreed, saying they should probably wait until they were thirteen, when they could get married. I almost swallowed my gum! When I reminded them that only grown-ups get married, Cora said, "OK, when I'm a grown-up I'll marry my boyfriend Ben Firestone." So much for Mommy's two cents.

But let me reel in my fast-forwarding Mommy brain -- back to the here and now, in which Cora is not getting married, but simply heading off to first grade. Brian and I are so grateful that she'll be back at Abintra this year, her first in Lower Elementary. She'll have an enclosed wooded area as her playground, a teacher who will speak mostly Spanish with the kids, and, best of all in her mind, this will be the first year she'll have field trips. Getting to sit with friends on the magical Abintra mini school bus, leaving the confines of campus for the wider world, getting that much farther away from mom and dad -- what could be finer?

Woah, Mommy, rein it in again. For now, she's still my little girl, asleep in her top bunk with a teddy bear tucked under her arm, dreaming a six-year-old's dreams and resting up for her big day tomorrow. Right where she's supposed to be.

Special needs

The days are getting shorter now. I know this because Oliver woke up at 5:30am and it was still dark outside. Like the farmer who knows when it will rain and the ancient mariner who charted his course by the stars, I grope my way through the celestial universe by my children's sleep schedules and other domestic cues. Cranky wife? Full moon's coming. Cranky me? Same.

Considering that Oliver now refuses to sleep when it is light outside, I knew I had a small window of opportunity to get him to go back to sleep. I walked in his room and he was sitting up in the dark. He'll usually take a little water and go back down. He looked at me and demanded firmly, "I want my Crocs on!"

Of course I tried to ignore his request--who sleeps in shoes? It's just not natural--but he would have none of it. It was still dark but I knew dawn was a few minutes away. So I told him to lay down and went off in search of his Crocs. It felt like Mission Impossible: Find the Crocs. Find the Crocs. Put them on his feet. He must not see the dawn or the mission is doomed. He will never sleep if he sees the light.

I found the Crocs, put them on his feet, gave him some water and tucked him in. But there was one problem. Anyone who sleeps in rubber shoes knows that they stick to the sheets. His feet kept grabbing the edges of the sheets and yanking them off his body as he tried to get comfortable. I'm thinking, stay calm. The dawn is coming. I raised the whole sheet up like a tent and let it billow down over him, covering him completely. Not satisfied yet, he protested: "I need a friend! I need a friend!" I grabbed the softest stuffed animal I could feel in the dark and placed it in his arms. With a quick good night I ducked out of the room. The sky brightened minutes later. Mission accomplished. I haven't heard a peep.

Return of the pillowcase

When I turned off the light in Oliver's room tonight, he bounced up again as soon as his head hit the pillow. He looked down and pointed a finger at his pillowcase.

"Daddy....there's a smell in there."

He's like a drug dog lately with our linens. At least it was his own slobber this time.

We agreed it was time for a fresh pillowcase--first thing in the morning. The last thing kids need is a little leverage in delaying bedtime. In the meantime I just flipped the pillow over and rotated it to a smell-free area. He approved and went right to sleep.

Conversations I Can't Believe I'm Having #1

Yesterday, in the car, after picking Cora up from playing at her friend Ben's house, who has a younger brother and two older boy cousins who live across the street:

Cora: "We beat up Jack today! We were punching him and hitting him! He said I beat him up! And do you know what? One time Ben got under Jack's legs and kicked him in the penis!"

Me: Launching into an educational lecture about private parts and personal injuries, well-meaning but surely eye-rolling.

Cora, barely containing herself in the back seat: "And Dad, do you know what Jack calls a penis!?"

Me: "No, I don't."

Cora: "An eggroll!!"

Me, trying to sound disapproving but actually trying not to laugh: "Hmmm."

Cora went on to describe their fighting matches and how she is accepted into the boys only wrestling club because she is so tough. (Jack is twelve or so and can take the abuse, and yes they are supervised by a parent).

At the end of the conversation, trying to salvage what little of the moral high road I had left, I reminded Cora to never kick anyone in their private parts, especially a boy in the penis.

Cora: "Daa-aad......eggroll."

Me: "....Okay. Don't kick them in their eggroll."

Kim and Rich's wedding

2007_0811_165246AA, originally uploaded by Wingates.

We were at Kim and Rich's wedding over the weekend.... a great time was had by all!

Click on the pic to go to the Flickr folder from the ceremony and such. Hopefully more details will follow....

little spidey

and his trusty guitar....

Morning breath

When Oliver wakes up in the morning he usually comes into bed with us for a little while. Sometimes he drifts off to sleep, other times he pelts Kate with things from the nightstand while she tries to keep sleeping.

Yesterday morning he fell back to sleep. Kate and I both managed to slip out of bed to get the morning started. After a while I heard him squirming around in our bedroom. When I came in to greet him, he was sitting in the middle of the bed with a grumpy look on his face.

"What's up, bud?"
(pointing to one of our pillows) "That purple pillow has stinky breath."

I took that as a cue to change the sheets. I remember being a kid and being oversensitive to big people morning breath. They just don't realize how much more morning breath a big mouth generates. I wondered how my dad's breath could consistently smell like an old leaf pile first thing in the morning. Now the tables have turned.

owbries

Oliver is talking pretty well now, but there are still a few phrases that he still mixes up. We know they won't last long, so we're enjoying them while they last. Cora's longest lasting jumbled word was "breftik" for breakfast.

Oliver's:

"owbries" eyebrows
"PVS kids" PBS Kids
"sunscream" sunscreen
"Carro me" carry me

We'll miss them when they go....

Mommy's dream come true

Okay, I never dared to hope that this might happen, but Cora made me BREAKFAST IN BED this morning. Here's the story:

Brian left early this morning to teach class, and had Cora set up with morning cartoons while Oliver and I slept in together. When Teletubbies (Oliver's favorite) came on, Cora came in and got him up to watch. Now, Cora's pretty much over the Tubbies, so I heard her start to bang around in the kitchen and figured, in my sleepy stupor, that she was fixing herself a bowl of cereal.

Then lo and behold, she comes into the bedroom holding a plate of fresh cut canteloupe, and also on the plate a bowl of cheerios with yogurt (the way I like it). She even brought me a cloth napkin, and the only spoon she could find that was clean -- one of Oliver's old blue rubber-coated demitasse spoons! I tell you what, I started crying right then and there. Happy tears, I reassured Cora. I kept blubbering how sweet she was to do this and how much it meant to me -- I hope I didn't freak her out. It just came out of nowhere and happy crying was the only response I could muster. I think she knew she'd done something really great to get such an emotional response from me.

That's parenting for you -- just when you start to think that all you are is a giant snot rag to your kids, they go and do something unspeakably wonderful and thoughtful and help you remember that all the hard stuff is totally worth it in the end.

Oliver's Fs

Oliver has started doing something that Cora used to do when she was about his age. He enjoys playing with words, particularly substituting the first letter of every word in a sentence with a particular letter. His favorite is "f". I just make sure not to talk about trucks.

So tonight for bedtime he requested and I sang, with f's substituted throughout:

Fender Fepherd
Finkle Finkle Fittle Far
Fock a Fye Faby
Fing Fow, Feet Fariot

Then, after songs:

Me: "Good night buddy."

Oliver: "I'm a fig foy. A fig two years old foy. I'm Foliver."

Me: "Good night Foliver. Feet feams."

Ollie: "You're a fatty."

Me: "I'm a fatty?"

O: "Uh-huh. Before you were a fatty you were a Brian. Before I was Foliver I was an Oliver."

And as I left the room after saying good night I heard him call out behind me:
"Fud Fight Fatty!"

Camp and sleep

Cora came home from camp yesterday with an arrowhead necklace. Any camp that makes arrowhead necklaces is a real camp. She has been creek hiking, pool swimming, dancing, making crafts, and tomorrow hopes to go horseback riding. When asked if they go inside when it rains, she responded, "there is no inside." She loooves it.

Oliver is developing opinions about how the world should be. Lately he is most passionate about 1) not napping and 2) not bathing and 3) not eating. Thank goodness he's our second child, because none of these things have phased us much. With Cora we would have had all the child rearing books out, anxiously soliciting opinions from anyone with a child past or present. But now it's mostly amusing, sometimes annoying.

Like Cora before him, Oliver really needs his naps. So a nap strike is not pleasant as the day wears on. Last week he fell asleep in the car for a while. He woke up groggy and cranky. He said, "I slept in the day. That means I am a baby."

With Cora we used to go for convenient afternoon drives down the Natchez Trace Parkway, a scenic highway with little traffic, no billboards and more deer than buildings. Eventually Cora would drift off to sleep with nothing to keep her attention. This worked successfully for probably three days. Then the fourth time she cried out "I know what you're trying to do! No Natchez Trace! I won't fall asleep!" It took her an hour to fall asleep that day, and we scrapped the tactic after that. So far Oliver still zonks out in the car, but he's catching on. Kate picked Cora up at camp this afternoon and noticed that Oliver was yawning in the back seat. After a few turns Oliver called out, "Don't drive around, Mommy! I'm not going to sleep!" He conked out a minute later. But he's on to us. We're keeping the Natchez in reserve, for when the time is right.

da kids

2007_0701_173238AA, originally uploaded by Wingates.

Curious?

No, the washer/dryer didn't eat Brian. I'll explain in another post...

Being With Flowers

Our good friend from Omega, Anthony, stopped by for a brief visit with his friend Jacob, en route to the Bonnaroo music festival in Manchester, Tennessee. Anthony is Omega's official floral artist, adorning the classrooms, dining hall, and entire campus with the most gorgeous, inspired floral arrangements you could ever imagine. He was asked to do some of his work onstage at Bonnaroo, with Michael Franti of the group Spearhead. Soon after they arrived, Anthony had to take care of the flowers he brought with him for the show, and he found a willing (and gentle) assistant in Oliver. Here's a video:

Lorri Honeycutt's Big World

I know I've already sent out an email about these fabulous photos, but for those of you who didn't get a chance to check out some of Lorri's "work," here's your chance. I found her at a booth at the Decatur Arts Festival in Georgia, while strolling around with my good buddy Rachel. I find her pictures to be so whimsical, simple, and soul-soothing I just had to share them with everyone I love. She told me Whole Foods will be carrying her 2008 calendar, so it sounds like lots of other folks like looking at her little people too. She's got Holiday cards, thank you cards, large and small prints at her website, www.bigworldphoto.com. Definitely an artist worth supporting!








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