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| Mommy (pouring syrup on Manda's waffle, and a big blurp came out at once): "Oops! Too much!"
Manda: "That's okay. I'm okay with too much."
Then there was yesterday, when Miranda and I were sharing a chocolate milkshake. I got a glimpse of Miranda the teenager, trying to get a date. It's been a long time since someone has stared at me so fixedly, with such an angelic expression, speaking in a beautifully sweet voice: "Can I have my turn now?" She all but fluttered her eyelashes at me. Now that I think about it, I should have tested whether she was staring at me or the milkshake.
I finished Theo's knight costume last weekend, it turned out well except I could have made everything slightly larger. The pants and tabard are sort of snug.The dragon costume is coming along pretty well. I finished the body and am working on the head. Miranda has said repeatedly that she doesn't want wings- apparently she will be the kind of dragon that flies without wings. Theo has very nicely offered some jewels (little plastic ones he got from preschool) to glue on the front of her costume that will sparkle and show her magical dragon powers.
Manda: "Tiger is scared."
Mommy: "What is tiger scared of?"
Manda: "The aliens. The aliens came down from their spaceship and scared her."
I'm not sure who's been talking to Miranda about aliens and spaceships. Maybe she's been sneaking down and watching the X-Files? Maybe she needs her own little tinfoil hat.
My nasty, hacking cough is back. I went to the doctor's this morning to find out if I have bronchitis again. Apparently I don't... yet. The dr. was willing to give me a prescription for antibiotics based on my past history, but I decided to wait to find out the results of the throat culture first. Instead I went to Walgreen's and got prescriptions filled for an inhaler and codeine cough syrup, plus some more daytime cough syrup and Sudafed.
The inhaler was $45! With insurance! What do true asthmatics, the kind that actually live by their inhalers, do if they don't have insurance? Sheesh. Of course it wasn't until I got home that I remembered the other stuff I needed from Walgreen's
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| Today I realized that the busy part of the year has started for me.
October starts with the fabrication of Halloween costumes, only briefly pausing in the middle of the month to remember, oh shit, I need to plan Theo's birthday party and get presents for brothers and niece (all of whom have birthdays in November).
Then November starts with Theo's birthday, slides on into the holiday card extravaganza (start design of cards and drafts of letter, pick out photos) and start of holiday shopping, pulls up short when I realize, oh shit I need to get Keith and Miranda's birthday presents.
December continues with the holiday cards (finalize design, get photos pritned, nag Keith to edit the drafts, fabricate cards) and holiday shopping, if I'm lucky by the end of the month finish the cards (write out envelopes, write out cards, get them in the mail). Oh yeah, and Miranda's birthday and Christmas.
Throw in a trip or two, and the quilt that I had sworn to finish by year's end (the one that I've been working on since before Theo was born). Oh yeah, and an overloaded work schedule, and gotta figure out where to put Theo for the two week winter break. Whew!
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We started making Halloween costumes this week. Theo spent most of September trying to decide which Star Wars character to be- he wanted to be someone who used the Force, so he was hopping between Darth Maul, Luke, and Anakin. Miranda kept piping up that she wanted to be Darth Vader (she would have been like, the smaller Darth Vader ever). Theo's original plan was to be C3-PO, and Miranda could be R2D2, but I just couldn't see Miranda keeping on and walking up and down stairs in a passable R2D2 costume.
About a week ago Miranda's answer was "A dragon! A blue one." Theo instantly decided he wanted to be a knight, so that he could fight her. Miraculously, they have not changed their minds, which is good because my rule is by October 1st, your decision is made, in order to allow Mommy to actually make the costumes.
So Theo and I went down to the Fabric Outlet today to pick up fabric. We got a grey satin to make armor for Theo, plus two colors of blue to make his tabard. He already has a sword and shield, the ones we got from Legoland, so we'll make a tabard to match the coat of arms on his shield. Today we made a scabbard and sword belt for his sword, and his helmet. The helmet is made of cardboard, covered with tinfoil, so it doubles as protection against enemy spyrays.
I'm a little stumped as to how his armor look like armor and not, you know, grey satin pajamas, but I figure it will work out.
I ordered a blue sweatshirt and leggings for Miranda, and got purple felt today to make the ridges going down the dragon back. I'm planning on making her a mask that is basically a hat with a long visor, which will have the top half of a dragon's head on it.
Theo asked me today what I'm going to be, and I really have no idea. I may skip costuming this year. Actually, I haven't done a costume other than "hockey player" for years, so it's not really skipping, it's continuing a non-trend.
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| This morning on the way to school:
Theo: "Mommy, I want to learn multiplication next."
Mommy: "Okay."
T: "Addition is so easy I almost can't stand it."
M (trying to stump Mr. Know-it-all to prove that he doesn't really know it all, yet): "It's really easy, huh? What's 57 + 22?"
T: "Well, let's see. 7 + 2 is 9. 5 + 2 is 7. So the answer is 79."
M (panicking, trying to come up with something harder): "O-kay. So what's 48 + 17?"
T: "8 + 7 is 15. I'm doing the easy part first. 4 + 1 is 5, so 40 + 10 is 50. 50 + 15 is 65. The answer is 65."
M (internally): "Holy toledo, are we in trouble."
M (out loud): "That's right! That's really good! So, did Daddy or your teacher teach you how to add bigger numbers?"
T: "Oh, come on, Mommy, I do math every night from 12 until 6.15."
Theo has this ongoing epic about how he never sleeps at night, he just rests from time to time. What I think he means is that he wakes up a lot, and sometimes has trouble falling asleep.
The scary thing is- I think Theo did in fact teach himself how to add 2-digit numbers together. Keith says he might have showed him once, I don't remember ever showing him. Maybe he's watching older kids at school? I don't know if they add two 2-digit numbers in 1st grade.
We Are So Screwed.
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| Theo's been in kindergarten for 6 days now. So far, so good. This morning he commented, "I'm really liking kindergarten so far." He did comment over the weekend about how he wishes he were still at APS because he misses his friends. He doesn't seem to have made friends with anyone at kindergarten yet, but we didn't really expect him to. As Theo says, "It only took me a year to make friends at APS."
We all like Theo's teacher quite a bit. Theo came home the first day telling us that his teacher had taught at SFC for 14 years. My first thought was, "I bet Theo's got that wrong- his teacher couldn't possibly be old enough..." Then I realized that the teacher is probably, oh, my age, and if he went right to SFC after getting his certificate, yes, it's entirely possible..sheesh, I'm getting old (see below).
Theo hasn't really told us what he's been learning at school, so we're not sure if he's bored yet. I think it may not have occurred to him to be bored. I hope to find out more next week at the Back to School night. He did show me something yesterday. "Look what we learned in school today Mommy! Cap off, " takes the cap off a marker, "Cap on!" puts the cap on the end of the marker for safekeeping. On the one hand, not exactly on the CA Standards for kindergarten. On the other hand, I've been trying to teach him that for three years, so bravo!
Walking to school and the morning drop-offs have gone reasonably well. Ditto for the afternoon pickups. Keith and I have been experimenting with one adult dropping off both kids, and the other picking up both in the afternoon. The downside is that because of our walking routes, we don't get much time to talk to Angela about Miranda, because she's the first dropped off and the second picked up, so there's always a Theo bouncing around. It's terrific not to have to drive to work, though, and I like that I'm back to walking 20 minutes a day, twice a day, as part of my commute.
Miranda's had a bit of a difficult time adjusting. She doesn't like it so much that she's dropped off first and then a parent and Theo walk off to the mysterious exciting World of Kindergarten. I think she feels a little left out. She has never liked Keith bringing her to daycare- she always wants Mommy- and frankly Theo isn't always sympathetic or helpful when she has a meltdown. It doesn't help the poor little pumpkin that she has her second cold in as many weeks- she's been a pint-sized snot factory running 24 hours a day since almost mid-August.
I ordered a bunch of new school clothes, including a backpack for Miranda, that arrived last week. Since then Miranda's been totally enamored of her "packpack" as she calls it. It's almost longer than her torso (it's a Lands' End TinyTake, designed for kids 3-5 years old, but she's on the small end of 2 1/2) but she doesn't care. She'll happily unzip it, cram stuff in, zip it up, announce that she's going to work, and parade through the house. Today we inadvertently left her packpack at Miss Angela's and at bedtime she was incredibly teary-eyed and insisted we go and get it.
Tonight Miranda was just a tantrum wrapped in phlegm wrapped in a soggy tissue- but Theo was surprisingly polite and well-behaved. Sometimes I wonder if the two of them have a whiny stick they pass back and forth.
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On Sunday I was at the cheese shop waiting in line when I overheard this conversation between two girls ahead of me in line:
Girl A: "I love this song. It came out in 1992. I was in fifth grade."
Girl B: "Really?"
Girl A (in a taunting voice): "Yeah, and you were just being born, So I was writing cursive when you were just being born."
I refrained from chiming in that I was well out of college when Girl A was in fifth grade.
Then I went down to Canyon Market to pick up some bread. The guy in front of me was buying a Muni FastPass, which is now $55. And I said, "Wow, I was just thinking of how much FastPasses were when I first moved to the city."
Guy in front of me: "$18? Shows how old we are, doesn't it!"
He looked like he was well into his late 50s or early 60s. I'm not sure I really relish being lumped into the "we" he was describing- but I liked him (and felt more like him) than the barely-older-than-teenyboppers at the cheese shop.
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| Going-away parties at APS are known as "Happy Goodbyes". They are culminated by the gathered group seeing "Happy Goodbye" to the tune of "Happy Birthday" and the passing out of treats. The APS handbook says "Parents provide healthy snacks to share."
Theo wanted brownies and Chessmen cookies. We baked brownies and he decorated them with sprinkles. Not exactly healthy, but what are they going to do, kick us out of school? Theo's pal Ruby had her happy goodbye at the same time, and her family brought popsicles, which I guess are slightly more healthy. So the schoolyard was full of kids with a popsicle in one hand, a brownie in the other, some of them also asking for cookies. Theo had at least four cookies. Most of the kids would get a cookie and then ask Theo what chess piece it was- some of his pals, whom he has already indoctrinated into the mysteries of chess, would also help out. Too funny.
I'm not sure if it's really sunk in with Theo yet that he's left preschool. He knows we cleaned out his cubby, everybody gave him hugs and wished him luck, the teachers talked about being penpals. If Theo runs true to form, he'll act out a lot for a few weeks, and then six months from now he'll tell us that he really misses preschool.
In all the excitement, we lost Blund Bear. I'm hoping that we just misplaced him at school, that someone will find him and set him aside so we can go pick him up, but it's unclear exactly where along the line he was lost. Somehow it's very symbolic that Theo lost Bear on his last day of preschool.
On the other hand, he's being saying since April that he hates school and it's boring. A lot of that is his contrary nature, and some of that is, as LizzyBoo said, that kids discover the power of words and thus try out that power by using strong language, e.g. he's trying to shock. But I think that Theo figured out, maybe sooner than his preschool pals, that he was getting too old for preschool and needed new challenges.
So, we're looking forward to starting kindergarten. We have a welcome BBQ to go to tomorrow, where we'll meet other families and get to talk to Theo's teacher. I still need to gather his supplies for the earthquake kit and attach name labels to his clothes.
What seems odd to me is that there were no lists of school supplies that Theo will need. I remember very clearly getting lists of what kinds of notebooks, etc. to buy- and making a special trip to the store to stock up. But his teachers told us that they would provide everything he needs. I wonder if that's just because there isn't much needed in kindergarten, or whether that's an effort to make things simpler for low-income families.
Anyway, we did indulge in the time-honored tradition of getting some new clothes. We also got Theo a backpack and a new lunchbag.
School starts Monday- we'll be starting over again getting to know a new community, working out a new commute schedule, getting into new routines.
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