Brownie: she's not what's for dinner

As I have probably mentioned, Gillian started playing violin last November. She has grown in leaps and bounds since then. She has been playing piano a while, but violin is more challenging-you have to hold the bow right, you have the make sure you bow the right direction in the music, you have to have your fingers in the right place to make a real note....not like piano. Sean works really hard with her to learn violin. And it's seriously no picnic to teach her anything.

So, we have been psyching her up for her first solo recital. We had to come up with some reward that would encourage her to practice-really practice-so she would be prepared. So we came up with this sticker chart:

This lays it on the line: to get something you really want, you have to practice-HARD-and earn it. Well, guess what she decided she wanted? I'll give you a hint: it's small, furry, alive, and looks like this:

So, you may remember the fish debacle. Or not really the debacle, but how over cleaning the fish bowl I was by the time Greta (who I didn't have the heart to tell Gillian was actually a male Betta) finally kicked it. Because something every parent on earth will tell you is when you "get your child a pet" what you are actually doing is signing yourself up for months or years of custodial pet care. The kid, if they actually have the attention span, might feed the pet for a month or two, but they won't ever get in the hang of cleaning up after it in the true sense of a pet owner. Make no mistake-at the end of the day, I bought MYSELF a Betta fish and many afternoons of scrubbing calcified and soggy fish food out of tubes, off of a tiny stone castle, and out of the pump with tiny pipe cleaners and a fish-tank-only toothbrush. Loads of awesome.

But, this violin thing was a big deal. And she was really nervous. So, we decided we could get the damned hampster-IF Gillian could get past her practice issues (which are mostly about the fact that she HATES being corrected for anything-chip off the ol' block) and promised to love the hampster and take care of it (which she did, absolutely earnestly).

So, behold, our 5 year old wonder performing at a real auditorium, with a 100+ person audience of parents, siblings, and grandparents.

We could have burst right open from pride because we knew how nervous she was-and she did GREAT. She didn't break under pressure. She kept it together. And she lingered a little too long while her adoring audience clapped for her-because it's some heady stuff to be loved by complete strangers. But then it was our time to pay the piper, and she reminded us that it was time to settle up. The next day the girls and I and Auntie Kim headed out to PetCo for the hampster accoutrements. Auntie Kim is an animal guru, you see, and even helped manage a pet store. So, she put everything we needed in the cart while the girls adored some puppies, and kittens, and fish, and rodents. But they were fresh out of hampsters. We left PetCo with $108 worth of hampster supplies and no hampster (I didn't know of the exorbitant startup costs, trust me). We went to another pet store in Evanston and they had a young female hampster that Gillian was immediately in love with-WIN! Auntie Kim bought the hampster and we were on our way. Gillian named her Brownie. She even made her a banner, not unlike the one she had on her incubator in the NICU:

(I don't know of you can see that Brownie has a crown-The Hampster Princess. She has to be royalty to run with this crowd)

At long last, her need for rodent ownership was satisfied. For a job well done, she got a rat. No, I got a rat. Because I know who will be cleaning hundreds of tiny hampster nuggets off of surfaces and out of the cage.

At any rate, for what it's worth: Welcome to our slightly crazy household. Hope you fit in well here. (and-what was I thinking?!!!)

You want to know what's ironic?

Sean's great-great grandfather, William A. Colledge-the original Colledge that came here-immigrated to the United States from Glasgow, Scotland in 1887 to Michigan (born 1856, has records of a graduate degree in in London, graduating in 1886).  In 1890, he married June Wilson, whose father was the State Treasurer of Illinois for 30 years. He got his Doctorate of Theology in Michigan in 1892. They moved to Illinois, and he taught at Columbia College, downtown, for years (the "Columbia College of Expression") where he was a professor of English Language and Literature (and wrote books! Like encyclopedias about "every department of human knowledge".) He and June had a single child, Edward. June died and Edward went on to marry Frances Marshall in Illinois. At some point, the family moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where William died in 1927, and where the Colledge family took root.

The weird thing (yes, I was getting to that) is that William Colledge commissioned an architect named Dwight Perkins to build him a house in Evanston in 1906 (the William A. Colledge House). And that house is two blocks from the place I take his great-great-great granddaughter to Wiggleworms class. Yeah-what are the odds that someone from Scotland that lived in Illinois for a part of his life and live the rest and have generations of family born in Florida would have someone 5 generations later move back to where he lived (completely unwittingly) and take a baby great-great-great-granddaughter to class steps from where her American heritage began? One of those mind-blowing things.

The William A. Colledge House in Evanston:

The St. Matthews Episcopal Church where Addie takes music class, and where William A. Colledge could have been a member:

And here is the venerable old man, himself. He looks like people should listen to him (wait, is that a dimple in his chin?).

More:



Stitches

Or How Our Easter Sunday went from this:

and this (so fun!)

 and this (see? excited!)

To this (what's this? Numbing salve??!! Giant anethesia needles?!? ER??):

and this (yup-sucked exactly as much as it looks like it would (and the bad part is inside and down):

So, Addie made it to the ER on Easter Sunday. It took far longer for her to get there than I imagined it would, since she's my daredevil. She's the one with all the nerve, but little sense of potential consequence. I suspect she will be the one who just might give me a honest-to-God heart attack when she base jumps from the Sears Tower, or something like that.

We started the day with a super fun Easter Egg hunt dressed in the fabulous dresses Nonni and G-D bought them and super awesome fancy hairdos (per request). Then we went to church and had a very nice mass about The Day. Then we came home and I got busy busy with lunch preparations. And Addie took a nap, and Gillian refused to eat the meal I worked on for several hours. After Addie woke up, we went over to our favorite park, Lazarus (2 blocks away-a trip solely intended to let them run off some energy).

Imagine-Sean and I were together at the playground with them (Two Adults! Two!!)-perfectly balanced to ensure all would be well...I thought. Well, Addie lately has been crawling on her hands and knees to get across this "bridge" (read-5x5 beams suspended by chain about 2.5 feet high) and was showing me how she could do it herself (well, because she likes to do everything by herself and because formerly, she always had to have someone hold her hand across), and when she reached the end she got distracted by someone yelling and looked over toward the sound. Her right hand missed the plank, and her face smacked down onto the rubber plated metal platform on the end of the bridge. The she fell a couple feet to the ground. Like slow motion, I ran over and scooped her up, afraid to see what teeth she had just knocked out. Or what she had done to her face or head. I held her TIGHT because I was pretty sure she had just disfigured herself for eternity. I pulled her back to take a look-blood kindof streaming out of a small slit on the bottom right side of her mouth. A friend at the playground who is a doc (how lucky is that?!?) took a look at the little gash-looking lesion and said she might have bitten through and said we might need stitches and that we should go to the ER. So we did. Addie cried for about 1 minute and then was kind of amazed by the blood and asked if she could have a bandaid now? (because I always tell her she's not bleeding so she doesn't need one).

So, Sean and I hustled back to the house to get my wallet and the car (G stayed there with friends) and I took Addie to the ER. We waited for HOURS. Thank God for iPhones and Netflix. When we got in the room, several people came to visit-a resident doc who was young and boyishly handsome, an older Indian nurse, and eventually the attending doc. The older Indian woman asked Addie "Did Mama hit you?" and Addie looked completely annoyed, gave her the chin down, brow-furrowed stink eye and snipped "NO." She would totally have rolled her eyes if she knew how. Well, the resident and attending found that the bleeding that I was having Addie hold a tissue to the whole way there and for two hours in the waiting room wasn't the problem. It was the inch long VERY deep gash on her inside bottom lip that was doing that-the one we all missed (the one most likely slit open by her freakish vampire-like canines). Oops.

Anyway, it took 2 hours in the waiting room, 2 hours in the "Rapid Care" area (oh, the irony), and because I requested a plastic surgeon (it's her FACE; don't judged me. I have seen many a botched lip repair in this lifetime) it took an extra couple of hours because they had to summon him from his  suburban home. In the meantime, the nurses crowded over Addie to put this numbing stuff on her lip, and proceeded a few minutes later to give her shots-6 of them-in her lip, gums, and cheek, while she layed there politely with her mouth open like she was asked-no whining, no crying, no tears (insert the staff collective awe at her bravery)...and they told me we could wrap her in a "coccoon" which would serve to keep her arms and legs from clawing at the hand with the needle and messing up the stitching (and put her into a full-fledged panic complete with banshee quality screaming, I am sure). I asked if I could just lay next to her and hold her and if we could NOT restrain her. So, that's what I did when Yuppy-Johnny-Cheekbones-Plastic-Surgeon (Read: middle of the night attire than included: cashmere sweater vest, monogrammed buttom up, khakis and those leather shoes that have the little tasles hanging off them) stitched her gash shut.

Midnight attire for Dr. Cheekbones included slip on tassle shoes not unlike these:

Addie did not whimper, she did not cry, she did not try to fight the doc or nurses. She laid there way longer than she is willing to keep her mouth open for a tooth brushing. The internal stitches were put in with a hook needle approximately the size of a mosquito eyelash and there was a good bit of digging around trying to find where the string went or the knot (somehow this did not phase me even though I got light-headed digging around in my leg to take my own stitches out when I had a lesion removed)). I watched from 4 inches from her face and gave her a calm steady stare and reassuring words. The upper stitches were put in with a fish hook sized hook needle and about 85% of the way through that Addie FREAKED-started crying while also obediently keep her mouth wide open. Whether the numbing stuff was wearing off or the tugging on her mouth was freaking her out, I don't know. But the surgeon said he has three daughters and none of them would have tolerated it nearly as long (or at all). So we got discharged at 12:30 am-6 hours and 22 minutes after arrival. We survived. Addie might always have a little scar in the spot on te corner of her mouth, but it could have been worse-the teeth all were fine. But, that there is another thing to add to my motherhood tackle box of training experiences for the future.

Adventures in Boundrymaking

Y'all-I'm tired. It has been an interesting couple of weeks. The girls have been testing us and eachother full throttle. I never fully appreciated how whining can make you a tiny bit crazy. Or how many times a kid can go to time out in one day.

We have entered the phase where for some periods of time the kids are constantly picking at eachother-deliberately taking the other one's stuff, only to gloat "I took your uuuuunicornnnnnnn!" so they can enjoy watching the full on melt-down drama that will ensue. Or Gillian blocking Addie from walking down the hallway. Or nagging eachother to eat their food. Or fighting over who gets to pick the show on TV. Or whether or not the sky is blue. Or they kick eachother or put their feet on eachother, or do something else that is otherwise imflammatory. I tried to impart to Gillian that there really is no point in arguing with Addie, but she can't help but continue to correct her when she says something that I usually just answer with "is that right, Addie?". Then a full out battle begins.

The misbehavin' spread to music class too. Gillian looks bored and uninterested in her group violin class. She even dropped her instrument one day because she was messing around. She wasn't paying attention when her teacher was talking, but would stare at other kids, or out the window, or at the carpet. In her private lessons she was talking like a baby, and when she was chastised, she would make this sound ("ehhhhhhhhh", breathlessly) that is driving me insane. If you knew her teacher, well, she has very little patience for that. She is good and strict, and that is the best fit for Gillian. Sean had been working with her and taking her to her lessons, but he said he was done after she dropped the violin. So, I had to think good and hard about how to turn this runaway train around. I pretty much know that positive reinforcement is a million times more effective than negative with Gillian (and probably with most kids). So, Sean and I both started working with her during practice-imagine the undivided attention of both parents at the same time!!! Her fantasy!!! (my job is to give encouragement and reward her for good work, his is to teach her bowing and finger placement, etc., since he plays violin). Each good pratice can earn her up to 5 tokens (we used tokens to reward doing chores without being asked, being nice to eachother, doing what they're asked without arguing, etc.; Each token=$.10 toward a treat or toy on Saturday), and 1 sticker for her sticker chart (see below). A good lesson earns her TWO stickers on her sticker chart ad up to 5 tokens. If she has a truly stellar private lesson, she gets ice cream afterward on a small private date with mama.

Guess what? Since we made the chart, she has had THREE out of THREE stellar private lessons (and just about every practice has earned her all the tokens possible since we started with the chart). She cannot wait to get to the end of her chart and choose a very special date to go somewhere fun with the whole family or just with Papa or just with me (smart girl-she immediately asked if we could go to Nonni and Grandaddy's, but I had to add the condition that it had to be in Chicago or nearby). We are still working on the group class, but at least she isn't laying on the floor or dropping things-she just still seems unengaged in class. She has TWO recitals the last two weekends of May, one of which she is playing solo with a pianist who is not her violin teacher. I am a wee bit concerned that her discomfort of playing in front of others or having attention put on her by strangers might be too much, but she could surprise me and be a total ham like I was as a performer. Plus, as her teacher said, she gets to wear a beautiful dress and have a party afterwards.

Now, if we could only move past this phase and have more peace at home. I'm not trying to say they never get along, because they really are sweet and loving to eachother a good bit of the time. I just think this phase is rough and my attempts to be consistent are exhausting. I am really curious to see how the dynamic changes when they're both in school next year and stay at aftercare every day. I think Gillian will turn into the lionness big sister like I have seen her do before. Like, that "I can pick on her but don't you even think about it for a second" kind of thing. Maybe that will help create a closeness that will push the petty bickering aside.

Musician

Gillian has been playing her violin for 4 months at The Music Institute of Chicago. She has a group "Twinkle" class and private lessons. In the "Twinkle class" they are learning to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with 6 different rhythms (like in 8th notes, triplets, 16th notes, etc). We are very proud of how she is doing, and the Suzuki Method is really interesting to watch in action. It's a method where little kids are taught songs in a certain order while learning bowing and posture at the same time. The first song is Twinkle. She was in the Twinkle class for 5 weeks before having her recital because she was in a "pretwinkle" class before that. We pulled her out of the pretwinkle because the Twinkle was a better fit with regard to our schedule and the teacher.

Here is a snippet of her recital. The whole thing is too big to embed here. I admit, I got a little verclempt. My baby is growing up.

Scenes from potty training...

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd-Adelaide is 100% potty trained. Some nights she even remembers to get up and go and has a dry pull up in the morning (for Gillian, accidents ceased completely somewhere around 4.25ish yeards old). We even went to target a few weeks ago and got her regular big girl cotton underpants (she picked Dora, but if they had Diego, you can bet that would've have been her first choice). She wears big girl underpants except at nap and bed time, when she wears pull ups.

Of course, there were many sweet and pantless moments in the past 2 months since she started toying with potty training... like the night she brought a training potty full of excrement to the kitchen to share her awesomeness with us. She said "Look mama, I did it, ALL.BY.MYSELF!". Since then pooping has morphed into wanting to have me hold her hands if she's having a hard time and holding my hands if I tell her I'm trying to go potty (really it's so I can have some peace and privacy (never ever happens) but she takes it as I am having a rough go of it). But, anyway, she was about the same age as Gillian when she started, unprompted, to go on the potty. She prefers then big potty, and doesn't seem to have any hangups over #1 or #2 on the potty (Gillian had a few months of only wanting to poop in a diaper and pee on the potty). She likes to bid #2 adieu. I think potty training being their idea worked best in our House of The Strong Willed. Now, if I could take the same tact with eating...I'm working on it.

Leave of Absence

Yikes, it's been a long time since I posted! Well, like is just swimming on by, and we have had a crazy dead -of-summer-in-the-middle-of-March the past two weeks and the week before that I went to California and the week before that the grandparents were in town (Nonni did us a huge favor by hanging out to help with the girls while I was in San Francisco)...so not much energy for posting. Lemme back up a sec.

We have had a fab winter...a bit bleak as far as sunshine, but it has been in single digits just a handful of times. I'll take it. Then these past couple of weeks-AAAAHHH! I mean, it all started with a little thaw, but we have had temps in the 60s-80s the past couple of weeks, 8 of which were in the 80s. We haven't missed a beat pretending it's August, digging out the sandals, dresses, short sleeves, sun hats , and sunblock.

We even got to celebrate our first Baby Wranglers Happy Hour on St. Patrick's Day (this looks quiet, but there were about 30 people at the playground that night)!

Addie is so excited about the weather that she acts like this in music class. Oh, wait, she always acts like this in music class...(can I tell you how her teacher reminds me so much of my mother that I get super nostalgic every single class? She is wonderfully silly, completely down to earth and unpretentious, and isjust absolutely fabulous...just like my mom was)


It's a far cry from this February day, though it was great for it's own reasons.

But, let's remember we are usually struggling to get out of the 30s this time of year, so we're giving thanks. And lots of it.

So, where to begin....Well, Addie never stops talking. She started unlocking her mouth with an imaginary key to give herself bites recently (not sure what that's about), and will still be belligerent unless we pretend every bite is going to see someone in our circle of friends and family...oh, and we started giving her tokens for doing chores like brushing her teeth, making her bed, putting her pacifier away without being asked, and staying in her bed at night. And after a whole week of this, she feels pretty awesome to cash in her tokens for a $1 toy in the Target dollar bins. Wish I had been smart enough to limit Gillian's shopping radius to this area, but alas, she has discovered that there are much more awesome toys to be had in other parts of the store (I try not to let Addie know that part exists). I rue that Gillian's barbie switch will be turned on, since last week she told me: "I like barbies now. Just today." when I questioned her wanting a princess bride barbie by the fact that she has a giant Disney princess barbie house and several princesses and princes and rarely ever touches them (btw-she chose to save her token money until she can buy the princess bride barbie-the kid has willpower).

Gillian is also in love with braids and wants me to braid it wet every time. That way it's "wavy". She actually gets a lot of compliments-it's softer and sweeter looking than a crimping iron from 1982 (see her hair in the beach pic, above). Needless to say, I need to get on the french braid wagon ASAP (confession: I am pretty terrible at french braids), because Gillian is a GIRL'S GIRL. As bossy as she is, she seems to be pretty beloved...I just got her first playdate request from the dad of a BOY at school. Huh.

Addie told our baby sitter within Sean's earshot the other day that "I don't like to eat my dinner because it makes Mama MAD!" and dissolved into fits of evil laughter (for the record-I don't get MAD, I get exasperated and leave the room. We haven't taught her that word yet). This doesn't bode well for adolescence at all. She deliberately is disagreeable to get under our skin. It takes supreme effort not to be annoyed by her efforts to annoy me. In fact, I have never heard of such a young toddler being so completely aware of their own evil powers and their desire to maniplate and BREAK YOU. She had two blisters on her feet the other day and was freaking out when Sean tried to get her in the bathtub-crying and throwing a fit because she was worried the water would hurt the blisters. So she was striking "trying-to-get-a-cat-in-the-bathtub" poses of resistance with the limbs for after whining for a couple minutes about how it would hurt. Sean has less patience than I do about reasoning with her, so he just picked her up and unceremoniously lifted her up (which served to heighten the feigned terror of putting the boo boos in the water) and Sean said "Come ON, Addie, will you just get in the bathtub, please?!?" and you know what she said?? She said "Oh, o-KAY, Papa". Like she was 14 and completely irritated by the entire exchange, except she doesn't know she's supposed to roll her eyes when she says that. And then she cackled like a little monster who loved making lots of trouble. Amazing. And-she loves to tell people this story.

It's ok with me if the warmth hangs around a while.

Just Love

Sad and depressed, Thursday night Gillian told me she missed spending time alone with me. Friday we went on a date, and our friend Darla joined us. Of, course, it was an evening of enlightened conversation. Darla gave Gillian her first recorded interview:


Gillian created new fashions with her napkin:

Gillian is a magnificent child. I love being her mother. ♥

Yesterday

When I was younger, I lived in a different world. I was fearless in a young kind of way. I was broke, and I didn't really care. I loved falling in love. I enjoyed wallowing in the turmoil of relationships ending. It resulted in beautiful art and poetry. I have always been intense, but it was completely unbridled back then, like some kind of wild horse. I was moving toward someplace, being in school, but the rest of my time was playing in bands, eating, drinking, and breathing music, and making art and writing in my journal. Time has tamed that, and age too. I have grown up, and find that not struggling the way I use to puts a damper on my direct line to untapped creativity.

I am meditating on that because last night I went to see Neutral Milk Hotel. I played on their second album what seems like an eternity ago (it was, in fact, almost 15 years ago). It was a spectacle because no one has heard from Jeff in many years and he hasn't toured before now since 1998. There is so much speculation as to why, and he packed up and decided to leave the whole scene after releasing a game-changing album. I hear Jeff in lots of other bands, like the Decemberists, who seems to have been wildly influenced by him. In 1997 my band toured with them (oh, what fun that was!) and another band and during that tour Jeff asked me to play uilleann pipes on the new album. A couple of months later, he flew me in to record in Denver. I stayed a week and a half or so, and it was intense and wonderful to be with this collective bunch of beautiful artists. We stayed with the Apples in Stereo-Robert and Hillary-and recorded in a studio in an industrial part of the city. We played a show one night. I was happy to be part of all that. But I also knew that for all the way we glorify bands and the beauty they give us, sleeping in a different bed every night, eating shitty food, and drinking too much wears on your after a while. And how you give and give and give. That wears on you too. But when you're young, it's an adventure.

After the show last night Laura (Elf Power) was standing out in the lobby, and I decided to say hello. After placing me in her ancient history files, she enveloped me as a very old friend and asked if Jeff knew I was here. I told her I didn't think so, so she grabbed my hand and took me backstage. He is the same as always. He didn't have a nervous breakdown like they said. I never believed that anyway. It was so excellent to see him, and although we didn't have much time to catch up we shared a little. He said he's always wondered what happened to me; he asked me what I've been up to, and I said "I vaporized into thin air" and he laughed and said "me too". During the show, some rude self-serving attendee shouted "where have you been?" and he answered "with the love of my life-I don't know, that's enough for me". We talked about what he's been up to (not for me to disclose-ask him yourself) and his plans (which, sorry to say, don't include more music tours) and my girls. and poetry. I told him I was glad he found the love of his life. I met his sister-in-law. He gave me his number in case I'm ever in NYC. I talked to Scott, who is a beautiful musician in his own right, too. Scott has a photo of his little girl taped to his guitar.

So, we all moved on. Laura said none of them do this much anymore, so I'm not the only one. Even the people revered for changing music forever have found other things to be passionate about. It's the natural progression of things. My thing (environmental health) is more stabilizing than music ever was, and I don't even have to bleed for people to get paid. I reckon that is what happened to all of us. That price is pretty high to offer yourself up night after night to entertain people. I look back at my young self all vibrant and beautiful and I have a moment of longing for all those fresh raw moments that shaped the rest of my life. But I wouldn't go back there if it would change the trajectory of my life and take away my babies. Not for all the fame on the planet and a million dollars.

Value

One of this kids in Gillian's school died this morning of brain cancer. He was in second grade. He struggled for a year with it until it swallowed him up whole at 6:45 this morning. She had come home last week with a little star attached to her dress button that said "pray for Jake", and we all prayed for Jake, and now he's gone home. That was the answer for that little baby soul. The one God sent here as a sacrifice to teach the rest of us all something about love-what you love, how you love it...why not to take for granted the things you love will always hang around waiting for you to figure out how to express your love.

These lessons are a little hard on people. I know a few things about losing people I love-they're all dead now except my gypsy sister. All I could say this morning when I collapsed into Sean was something about how people can forgive God for being selfish enough to take that baby back when he hadn't given all the joy back he could have given. That's such a human thing to say. It's born of grief-the grief I feel for his mother who has been fearing this day since he was diagnosed...who has prayed by his bedside for moments and days and months...who only wanted to watch him grow up to be a virile young man with his own joyful family. I felt that grief for a second, hearing the story about how he sweetly smiled in his last moments and how he was given last rites by Father Grassi. How no parent on this wide green earth should ever have to ask for someone to give their baby his last rites. But how beautifully he took them. How wise he was, glimpsing over the edge. The they said to him was "heaven is beautiful, and it's ok to go home." How his mother informed the school that "Jake earned his wings peacefully this morning."

I'm thinking about how we get tangled up with this place when it's a blink. We make castles in the sand. We build them up, these monuments of humanness, and they wash away in the ebb and flow of eternity. We are each a grain of sand, nothing more...but so beloved by the sea that our constructs fail the will of the lapping waves, and away we go. They say everafter is beautiful, and peaceful, and so.familiar. So his little grain was enveloped to be joined with everything that has ever been or ever will be--in the tapestry of peace that is the universe. Godspeed, peanut.