First Solo Play Date

It wasn't planned really. I just spoke to Marit, the mother of a classmate of Eliza's today (who's also a friend of mine), and she said Eliza could come over in the afternoon. I'd planned to take the kids to the British Club to meet other friends (Alex & Oliver). When I got home from work, I asked Eliza what she'd rather do: go to the swimming pool and playground with me and Miles and the Wareings? Or go to Rosa's house by herself. Mind you she was already fully dressed in her bathing suit and expecting to go to the pool. "Rosa's house! Rosa's house!" So I took her over there, and she jumped out of the car and was standing outside the gate yelling "Rosa! Rosa! I'm here!" She's only been there once before and that was maybe 6 months ago when we did a play group there, so I was surprised that she even recognized the place, but she did. "This is Rosa's house!" There were excited hugs and kisses between her and Rosa when she arrived (typical of what they'd do at school when they saw each other in the morning), and then they ran off to play. No good-bye mommy! No worries at all. She was there for nearly 3 hours and ate dinner with them. No fights or tears or accidents. When I arrived to pick her up, she cried. "I want to sleep here with Rosa!" Marit was kind enough to agree that Eliza could come back tomorrow morning. They leave at the end of the week for their summer holiday, unfortunately. I confess I'm a little concerned that she might be like her mother, always dying to spend-the-night-over with friends instead of staying home (boring). But I'm impressed that, like her brother, she's so brave and excited to be completely on her own.

Capturing Eliza

The days of Eliza's tiny voice and hilarious baby-ish expressions are numbered. We try to capture it on film when we can, but I feel I'm missing so much of it. In blogs and such, all her spunk and cuteness gets over-shadowed by Miles who has big 5-year-old ideas that take up more space and make adults think a bit. So when Eliza is presented with her brother, she's the picture of a little chirping nonsensical sidekick instead of the large personality who can hold her own that she truly is.

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.

More Active Appreciation: Eliza's Class

They didn't exactly line them up in rows and put on a performance. It was supposed to be more of a demonstration of the kinds of activities they do with the kids. At any given time, there were one or two kids wailing. All the little kids wanted to be sitting with their moms instead of participating in the demonstration.

The woman with the long dark hair is Miss Iman who is the Arabic language teacher. She is always talking to Eliza in Arabic which I asked her to do and appreciate since it does seem to have helped Eliza to understand quite a lot. Miss Iman's daughter Jude is in Miles's class, and she always comes down to play with Eliza after her class before I pick them both up...to E's chagrin... I think J sees E as her personal doll to be carried around and pinched a played with. In fact, E seems to engender that behavior in other kids, as well.

I wish I could load up more, or a longer one, but it appears to be more than our connection can handle. What you missed are her singing some Arabic songs, recognizing shapes by their Arabic name, and an activity where she identified the color of the circle being held up and a classmate wearing the same color.

Night-time Performance

Transcription:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Once I caught a fish alive 

(segue into made-up song)

Two tige-e-ers

This my-y ba-a-rette 

(in fact, it's mine, note slight challenging expression)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Then I let it go again

(with a little prompting from mommy)

Why did you let it go?

Because it bit my finger so.

Why... Sing with me!

Which finger did he bite?

This little finger on my right. Ow!

(segue into pretending she's a cat cleaning herself)

I want it baa.... (she's referring to the aforementioned tiny hair clip on which she'd been chewing)

...insert practical, callous mommy's unnecessary explanation for the obvious...as well as delegitimizing, modern-parenting apology...followed by successful distraction

That one. I want you to read the ant one. "Hey, Little Ant."

(...mother not hearing her daughter give the actual title of the book can only speak from her less specific memory...the one about the ants?)

yeah...the one about the ants

Hate to focus on the negative...

That Miles has made it to almost 5 years without seeing half the bumps and bruises of Eliza makes me feel that it's not totally my fault that she nearly broke her nose this past weekend. (I left my robe on the floor and turned out the lights when she was in mid-stride to my bed at 3 a.m. She subsequently tripped on the robe and landed on the end of her nose on the edge of our wooden bed frame.)

Courageous at time. Clumsy at others. Plodding on ahead, alone and in the darkness--that's my Eliza. We are supposed to keep a record of how the bruises change over the course of the next few days.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3