Serious Painting

Here's Miles "creating a board game like chess but about monsters," using his favorite colors: red (the color of lava and rage...he's into the word "enraged" these days which he feels is more accurate than "anger" to describe his feelings of frustration at times) and pink (a color close to red). Both Eliza and Miles are wearing oil cloth aprons I got for them at Christmas via Etsy. I can't find the woman who made these, but there're a lot of cool handmade things at the site. Miles picked out the fabric himself (see, red...and it's got a pink pocket with red strawberries, his favorite fruit next to red apples).

Eliza, the driving force behind getting out the paints, is seriously at work.

What happens when you leave a toddler alone with paint. (She did a very thorough job.)

BTW, Elizabeth, if you're reading this, Eliza loves the black Amsterdam shirt you gave Miles when he was a baby. She pushes aside all the pink and goes for the black any time she's in the mood to dress herself (and it's actually clean and in her drawer).

Harvesting the Garden

Fe and Eliza picked grape leaves from our vines out back. She soaked them overnight, then made a big pot of stuffed grape leaves that were certainly the very best stuffed grape leaves I've ever eaten. Buttery, lemony...even the kids ate them. Yes, they ate rolled-up, dark green, moist things that were good for them--leaves that have grown lush with absolutely no contribution by me, just lots of sunshine and a bit of soil and water. 

The size of it!

To the left of my hand are the tiny beginnings of the grapes. Last year they were pretty sour, so we didn't eat them. It never occurred to me to harvest the leaves, though.

Eating the grape leaves, Fe, Eliza & Miles in the shade of the unharvested leaves.

Oh, and I think we've got a cherry tree! It never occurred to me before how similar they are to plums. I never saw anything but maraschino cherries until I was an adult. The fresh cherries in season around here are delicious. Cold, right out of the fridge, they are the perfect hangover food.

Dry Pants Day

Eliza made it through the day at school with no pull-ups and no accidents! Somebody find me a sticker for this girl! Hell, stickers all around! Have a sticker on me!

However, on her walk to the car...bless her.

That said, I will try not to obsess about my children's various milestones.

Parent Teacher Day

David and I had about 10 minutes with Miles and Eliza's teachers yesterday. They didn't have folders or assessments to review. It was the usual casual sit down, and frankly, they said some of the same things to other parents, which made me feel like maybe they were not all that prepared. But then I'm on the parent side of things now, and we can be so demanding, can't we?

Miles's teachers said that they take him with them to make copies or run errands. He likes to be the helper, and that works for them to keep him occupied. When did I learn that this is how teachers deal with "trouble makers?" The whole time they spoke, I felt as though a translation from their parent speak to my teacher speak was going on in my head. But they said they were walking a line, wondering when they should make Miles understand that he needs to do what the other children are doing, that he can't always get his way. Yes, he flatters them: how they smell, what they're wearing..."I love you, Miss! That is such a pretty dress!" I can relate. Well, on the flattery part, I admit to encouraging that a bit. A woman likes to hear she looks good! But on finding the balance between firmness and reasonable fairness for a child's individual needs, that seems to be a doozy of a struggle some days.

They say he's learning well and seems to understand everything that he needs to know at this point, but he just isn't interested in participating in the lessons. Oh, he'll be front and center for story time, and he likes listening to music (or watching dvds!), but when it comes to repeating phonic sounds...boooring! He actually told me that last night: I don't want to go to school: it's boring! It looks like as much as I don't want to give him special treatment (i.e. Deal with it! We all did! It's your job to go to school! You're going to love reading--trust us!), it might be a good idea to start strategizing more on what he needs to be stimulated or else things could go sour, or rather stay sour, and potentially exponentially for the next 15 years.

Or am I taking things a little too far. He just turned 5, for goodness sakes. He's not even in Kindergarten yet. All he wants to do is play. Is that so unreasonable?

Eliza is the youngest in her class. I tend to forget she's just 2 and a half. You should see her on her new bicycle these days--with training wheels, but still! Her teachers still say she is fun to have around. They like her personality. She seems to really like school. Even at home in the morning she asks, hopefully, do we have school today? David thinks that, in part, this is her way to antagonize her brother who dreads school. Socially, she plays with everyone, and doesn't appear to have a best friend now. The dramas she has recently been throwing when we leave her at school (leg clinging, whining) are "for attention" since as soon as we leave, she stops.

She's not hitting others "for no reason" any more. She plays with typically boy toys as much as girl toys. She is learning all they are expecting her class to learn. Their only challenge with Eliza is that she chooses not to listen sometimes. She will ignore them when they are telling her to do something that she doesn't want to do. Sound like anyone else we know? Hmm, must review the parenting chapter that explains what I must be doing to reinforce this behavior in my kids. That said, I am 90% sure this rebelliousness in both my kids is genetic, though both my and D's parents report that we were "well-behaved" children. Could it not be a case of the old rose-colored glasses? OK, I will take responsibility for the rebellious nature and David will take responsibility for the disgruntled boredom. Or would that be counter productive?

Biggest good news is that they've agreed to let Eliza go to school with no pull-up on, and today after her first big-girl-panties day, she was accident free...until the final 10 minutes or so when she proudly told her teacher, when asked if she needed to use the toilet, that she already did her caca.

Boyz-n-Girlz

The play-date after school went something like this:

Miles (shirtless): Maria, do you want to play super strong thing? He keeps jumping from building to building. And he only lands on the tops of trees, and his feet are twice the size of buildings. They're 67 meters long! And his hands are 28 big! 

(He has to go shirtless these days since the Hulk and the Thing are shirtless. Apparently, no shirt can contain the bulging muscles of the super-super-super strong. BTW, we've never let him see any superhero movies or tv shows - he plays totally from images in his pre-school-level comic books and what he's picked up from friends on the playground. It almost feels like child abuse to deny him, but David feels even more strongly about the no-watching-violence thing than I do.)

Maria (clutching a tube of sparkly pink lipgloss): Eliza can't use this. It's only for big girls. (Eliza jumping up and down and whining.) OK, she can use it, but only on the top lip, not the bottom. (Eliza smearing it on her nose, top lip and bottom lip.) She put it on her bottom lip! (It's hard without a mirror, I suggest.) But I can put it on perfectly without a mirror!

The play-date went on to another friend's house, more of a mom gathering with the children doing their own thing wildly about the property. There was some joint play, but at one point the 4 girls played dress up: not the superhero kind, but the pink, sparkly, make-up, high-heels and tiara kind. Miles spent a good portion of the afternoon alone in his classmate's big brother's room, playing out imaginary fights between his many action figures. 

So is this how it's going to be from now on?

May Days

May pole dancing, cotton candy, clowns, draft beer... See, being abroad is not all that different. To quote Travolta: "It's the little things..." Like calling that inflated funhouse type bubble thing kids jump in  a bouncy castle. (What do we call it?) We're behind the high walls of the British Embassy instead of in a wide open park. And there are imitation Persian carpets on the ground instead of picnic blankets. And there's a significant number of Filipino nannies helping out with the big Jordanian families instead of just a mom & dad utilizing a serious off-road stroller to manage their two.  

Friends: Adam (Falastine's husband) and Leanna at the May Fair.                                                          

Ben (Caroline's husband) with Emily

Spiderman! Where are you coming from, Spiderman? Nobody knows who you are!

Roaring tiger, Eliza, with her future sister-in-law, Maria (Leanna's big sister). These friends of ours are leaving next month, moving to Copenhagen (where Adam's from). Falastine (who is Palestinian / Arab Israeli) is my pilates teacher and was my Arabic teacher last lear. We carpooled and have been doing play dates with the kids (and adult dinner-partying) for over a year. We'll miss them!! But Maria and Miles's sincere plans to get married (this was decided some 6 months or so ago and is discussed by them as a sure thing coming) ensure that we will see each other again.

 

Here we have some pre-bed wrestling or as Miles called it, Monster Attack. Or something like that. Miles prefers to go shirtless these days, as many superhero types, to show off his muscles. 

The beginning of the end of innocence?

Miles and Eliza had a roaring good joke going between them at dinner last night.

Miles: (in that na-na-nany booboo sing-song tune cherished by children all over the world) Eliza is a caca. (laughter)

Eliza: Miles is a caca. (laughter)

Miles: Eliza is a caca. (laughter)

Eliza: Miles is a caca. (and so ad infinitum)

Me: Children, we do not talk about caca at the table.

Miles: (in an almost teenager-like sarcastic tone with an indulgent little chuckle): Sure, Mom. We NEVER talk about caca at the table.

...it was only a matter of time given his Brigham blood. Of course, mother that I am, it was all I could do to stifle my appreciative giggle.

Another weekend away

To take advantage of the wonderful spring weather, flowers and rare-for-Jordan green hills, we went to Ajloun this past weekend, even after the last two week of travels with Jack & Barbara. We'd originally planned to go with J&B to Ajloun on the first weekend they arrived (I had organized a big group of friends to go up, too), but the weather turned cold and rainy so we bagged it. Nice as the spring weather can be: bright blue skies, warm sun and cool breeze, the weather can suddenly change and be grey and dusty with a strong wind that's sometimes wet. They call this period of spring khamseen (meaning 50) for the 50 or so days when the weather flip flops due to the dust clouds blowing north from the Arabian peninsula. 

And unfortunately we had bad luck again: partly cloudy, the wind a bit too cool. It was do-able though: we were able to get us a dose of nature. The kids climbed trees, ran trails, picked flowers, flew a kite, tossed a ball, picnicked and followed the short, dramatic life of insects. 

I found that I am still anxious at night while camping - some mothering thing. It was very cold, and I was half-consciously worried the kids would catch their death if they kicked off their blankets. I was surprised at how deeply appreciative I was to be back home.

It makes for good memories though, like Miles asking me to sing lullabies to the tent full of kids and requesting the old Brigham favorite "little milo dear, little milo dear, the night is very near..." but with a new verse for each child, which they thankfully fell asleep to.

Another nice memory: Eliza climbed up a tree to an adult's shoulder's height with no help at all. That girl has spunk!

Slideshow

 Here Miles leads the children in a rousing chant of nonsensical hilarity.