Girls

Here are a couple of videos to illustrate the blossoming awesomeness of sisterhood!

First inklings of true empathy

So, Wednesday, Gillian and Addie and I went up to the "coffee store" to get a little breakfast while the kitchen floors (newly sealed) were drying. Gillian was decked out in full-on fairy princess attire (magic musical wand, wings, rainbow socks, sparkly pink skirt, pink princess crown, etc.), and she was bestowing everyone we passed (even cars waiting at the stop light) with blessings and good wishes. (can I say that not a single person could resist a huge smile at the spectacle of Her?) We got to the coffee store and ordered our drinks and breakfast sandwiches, and sat down at a table to eat. Before long, a woman and toddler (17 months) came in to visit one of the employees (they were clearly his wife and daughter), and Gillian and Addie both wanted to play with her. Gillian was completely enamored of this child (Evelyn) and was all gentle and sweet with her. Addie wanted to poke her eye out and kept pointing at it exclaiming "EYE. EYE. EYE!" (sometime I feel like I live in a psychedelic alter-universe). Gillian then decided she wanted to share her magic wand with Evelyn and they played some more. Evelyn was SO in to the wand, so you can imagine the tragedy of having to leave and take the wand with us. Evelyn's little face crumpled into tears-a complete lack of understanding about toy ownership; in her constant state of presentness she was confused as to why one minute she had this fabulous new toy, and the next it had to be taken away.

So, we left. The minute we left, Gillian started saying how she was sad that she made Evelyn cry by taking away the wand. She said she wanted to go back and give the wand to her so she could be happy, and that she could borrow it and we could get it next time we see her. I told her we might not see them again, but she could give it to her if she thought it would really be ok if she never got it back. So, about half way down the block, Gillian said, firmly, "I want to go back to the coffee store and give her this wand. I have my pink one at home." Mind you, the pink one is made of a paper towel tube and some streamers, and definitely doesn't play magic blessing music, so this was BIG for Gillian. She deliberately wanted to give a superior toy to a total stranger. So, we went back to the coffee store. We went in, and Gillian went over to the baby and her Mama, and held up the little wand-in all truthfulness an offering of likely only momentary happiness for Evelyn (but I will never say anything except that Evelyn will probably play with the wand under rainbows with unicorns, kittens, and sunshine for the rest of her life). Evelyn delightedly took it and started waving it around and pressing the button to make music like Gillian had shown her. He mother said "Are you SURE?! Wow...you must be the best big sister in the world!" (I kept my snort at this comment inaudible). Evelyn's Mom dabbed the tears away at the corner of her eyes at Gillian's utter selflessness, and I got a lump in my throat too. Because here, smack dab in the middle of the hellish 3s, I saw that my girl knows what is right, and has a big heart, and that she will be ok. We will all survive this phase.

I knelt down and looked her in the eye and told her how proud I was that she wanted to make the little girl feel better and was willing to give one of her favorite things away to do that. We left again, Gillian skipping ahead, feeling buoyant by her own ability to make someone else happy. On the way home, we talked about how she had filled all our proverbial buckets and how good it feels to to that.

Home

There is this house we came across, and it's just so us. And I could imagine our girls safely running around in the back yard, watching them while I am cooking dinner from the kitchen. We made an offer, and we waited for the verdict from the sellers after assessing an offer from another potential buyer, and the sellers are completely unrealistic, so the other potential buyers walked. I guess that's what happens when you overprice your property in a market akin to a SLUG. But the status now is that we are waiting to see if they accept our second counteroffer, and then we begin the mad dash to get our place ready for a market we can probably not sell in. Because our purchase will have a sales contingency. I am not optimistic about our ability to sell our condo, but I hope our loving restoration and building updates will make an impression on someone, and we can beat the odds.

But here's the thing. I had this big plan to live here for 10 years and pay this condo off, at which time we would buy something in Florida and have our summer and school year residences. All of this sounds nice over a glass of wine, but really thinking about yanking Gillian out of Chicago at the tender age of 13 sounds miserable (because I totally remember 13 years old, and wouldn't wish it on anyone, much less someone starting over someplace). And then we were discussing the idea of maybe having more children. Yes, I went there. More. Children. It is quite possible that I am completely mad. Aside from this three-year-old-hell, I love being a mama, and one day I want to have another child. But that aside, Sean and I looked at eachother and had an epiphany that we don't want to live in Florida except to be near his parents...and truthfully, there is more to consider than that. We love this city. We love the intelligence of public transportation. I love my job. We love Anna for our children. We love being 1 block from Lake Michigan and parks. Sean has more work prospects here. We have a church community we love and it has an affiliated school that is perfect for our kids (and not too expensive as far as parochial schoools go). So, the scale tipped back toward Chicago.

So, there's the house, and our plans to grow our family a little more, and a condo that is so expensive. Did I mention that? We spend $1020 a month on stuff that is NOT a mortgage for the priviledge of living here. If I added that to our mortgage, we could totally afford a HOUSE in this city. But honestly, I have been all Zen and rational about this (maybe for the first time in my life about something like this), and it wouldn't take much talk myself out of the house. It is a bit scary to have the financial burden 100% on you (unlike our condo, where it falls on 26 units). It is not EXACTLY done the way I would want (for example we tore out half-assed pergo floors and paint-caked trim in our condo five years ago, and yet the house has all of that in various places); BLUE kitchen countertops; unfortunate upstairs porch enclosure with unfortunate tearing out of original italianate under-roof mounts...Sean would have to insulate the garage for a shop (which would take some time)... But. Most importantly, we love the community around us. Our neighbors are more like family, and I love feeling like we live on Sesame Street on a lazy Summer evening, when everyone is out on their porches or in the garden hanging out. Darla and Kate are like Gillian's aunties (away from aunties), and she truly loves them bunches. In fact, Darla and Gillian have a date this weekend. So, there's all that. Oh, and our AWESOME new porches. So, we are oddly ambivalent about the whole thing. That all said, the house is about a 10 minute walk from where we live now, so there's no reason to get dramatic (we can see everyone as often as we do now, but just won't be able to holler off the porch at them), but it is amazing to see everyone out and about everywhere you go in the neighborhood. I don't think you get that as much in neighborhoods with single family homes.

So, light a candle that this all works out, but we are so totally ok if it doesn't. If it is God/The Universe's will, our place will sell in a reasonable time frame for a reasonable amount of money. And we will have our forever-house that has enough space for our growing family. And is close enough to The Neighbors We Love to make it OK.

Odds and Ends

Oh, how I neglect writing about Adelaide. I gave you play by plays of every breath Gillian took, and Adelaide lives her life in anonymity because blogging falls by the wayside. But for a moment, I have to tell you how absolutely delightful Addie is. Addie is sweet and funny. Right this very moment, she loves to dance and kicks her legs up when she’s shakin’ what her mama gave her. She leans in for many sweet kisses and goes “mmmmmmmmmmmmmm-mah!” when she makes contact. She loves a quick snuggle, but is very busy, so doesn’t linger long in your arms (unless she’s feeling under the weather). She is very chatty, and mostly sounds like she’s speaking Japanese, inflection and all. She imitates every single sound, so Gillian saying “tickle-tickle-tickle!!” in a high pitched voice sounds like “dee-dee-dee-de-de-de-de” from Addie in the exact same tone. I can tell when Addie says “kitty cat”, “bye-bye”, “Hi!”, “boobie”, “poopie”, “baby”, “bottle”, “Papa”, and “Mama”. Other words are not nearly as obvious. Addie still makes a habit of pooping in the bathtub nearly daily. If not in the bathtub, sometimes on the floor after a refreshing bath and while I am drying Gillian off. We call her The Mad Pooper. In fact, anything brown or debris-like is “POOPIE!”, like crushed dead leaves on the stroller foot rest yesterday (I guess one could argue that it kinda looked like bathtub debris)..

Addie takes Gillian in stride, and hits back when hit, and snatches back when Gillian snatches from her. Of course, I struggle with the fairness issue, which is apparently all the rage when you’re almost-four-years-old. So, when Addie steps on Gillian or hits her, it’s an accident. When Gillian does the same thing, she gets a time out. See? Not fair! She is totally not down with the differential treatment. So, that’s a tricky discussion. Mostly it goes like this “When Addie does that, she doesn’t understand what she’s doing. You have to be a big girl and show her how to act. If you do it back, it becomes a game or it shows her that hitting is ok, and it’s not. Mama or Papa or Anna will make sure Addie stops. When you were a baby, we didn’t hit you back when you hit because you didn’t know what you were doing, just like Addie doesn’t know.” Boy is that a doozie of a complicated explanation. I mean, even elementary rationale can arrive at the fact that my explanation is complete utter BS. So, add the unfairness to the “we’re-putting-you-out-to-pasture-in-PreSchool-while-we-sit-around-with-Addie-all-day-playing-and-having-fun-and-eating-ice-cream” and you have a touchy situation and a very disgruntled little princess who has ALWAYS been the Center of the Universe. Until that Stupid Baby was born, anyway.

Needless to say, Gillian has a conscience. It was with shame that after (ONCE) saying “I HATE ADDIE”, and me answering that with “Well, that’s so sad, because Addie loves You”, she said “well, I love her too, but I want to play with you.” So, I try and I try to give her words to express how she’s feeling so it doesn’t come across as physical anger. Yesterday, she actually said she wanted Nonni all to herself. That was a breakthrough and a little warning that Addie would only bare the brunt of Gillian’s jealousy if we didn’t have concrete time visiting her grandparents by herself.

In the end, I am sure my girls will grow closer as they get bigger and as Addie becomes more fun to play with. I see glimpses of the future, and it is giggly and bright. But being almost-four-years-old is rough, and that’s a fact.