The Art Show

Kalina with "My
Chinese Fan" (bottom)

I think one of the many pleasures of being a little girl (because Kalina still is, really) is that you see beauty everywhere. And then you think you can create it--and in many cases you can. The other times, you might get super-upset, crumple your paper and throw your pencil across the room, but that's beside the point, and more likely to happen during spelling assignments than art, for the most part.

At any rate, we've long known that Kalina's sense of beauty tends to bypass frilly dresses and instead show up when she's admiring spring flowers (even the weeds), gorgeous classical music or cursive writing. She has remarkably good taste.

Which is why when the opportunity to participate in a homeschool art show presented itself, I asked Kalina if she'd like to. Her "yes" answer brought with it fresh inspiration to create new art, as well as a discriminating look at some projects she'd done throughout the year. She settled on two pieces inspired by our beloved around the world study, which we prepared and entered.

"My Chinese Fan" was created during a study of China, after we used Google to look at the breathtaking Chinese landscape watercolor paintings you can find on the handy-dandy Internet. We used extra-long paper, then fan-folded our finished and dried work. I will always remember this project because Naomi participated, and Elise's fan turned out lovely, too. Kalina's shows a flowing river, fish, flying birds, a footbridge, trees, bushes and mountains in the distance and I was quite impressed.

Kalina and "Northern
Lights" and her little
sister/associate art
critic.

Kalina painted "Northern Lights" as we explored Norway and after using YouTube to take us on a tour of some spectacular displays caught on video. She was immediately enchanted, and again used watercolors (her favorite medium) to show her impressions using a rather nice hand-picked color palette. Elise also did a picture, and they all turned out nicely (how could they not?). We matted Kalina's picture, then she insisted on painting the mat brown to look like a frame. Which totally made sense to me, I suppose.

In further preparation, we speculated about how many people would enter the show, and the likelihood of receiving a prize. We'd recently read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which helped us put this potential "golden-ticket moment" in perspective. Did Kalina think she'd win? I casually inquired. "I don't really think I'll win a prize," my little realist reasoned. I continued the same vein of questioning later: was she excited for the show? "Yes, I'm so excited that I could win a first-prize ribbon!" It seems we had just the right combination of realism and fantasy. And I had my hopes up for her. The only challenge remaining would be to temper my hopes and help Kalina (and myself) enjoy the event, win or lose.

On the night of the show, Kalina donned her best pocket dress and sparkly gold shoes, put Lisa in her best Easter dress and even refrained from putting up a fuss about brushing her hair. We were all excited to see Kalina's artwork on display!

Kalina was given a ballot to vote in the artists' choice award. She'd get to pick a winner from each grade level, and yes, she could vote for herself (although she almost didn't!).

As we approached the kindergarten work, I briefly wondered if we'd accidentally stumbled upon third grade. Large-scale collages, bright paintings and drawings better than my own met my eyes. Whoa, these kids are good! Or assisted...

And my heart sank as we headed to first grade: Among a few show-stoppers, Kalina's watercolors seemed sweetly pale in comparison. I was glad to see that my little girl at least enjoyed seeing her artwork displayed, and seemed every bit as interested in other kids' art as she was in her own. I gave up hope of Kalina winning a prize amid the semi-professional 6-year-old creations and moved along with the girls through the rest of the show while Matt managed Naomi in the crowd. I also mentally prepared my strategy for consoling a heartbroken young girl when she walked out ribbonless, and for convincing her that the evening wasn't wasted.

Kalina gave all the artwork careful and gracious consideration (rushing only through the last of the photography, as her capacity for enjoying art became depleted), most often voting for flowers and pretty pictures or sculptures, including an oven-bake-clay nativity, a graceful ballerina paper sculpture, and several flower photos. Many of her choices won prizes. She also bypassed the sole cake entry (cakes are art, and thank goodness I managed to get Elise away before she could sneak a tiny fingerful of that particular work of art) to vote for a butterfly picture instead. Elise, on the other hand, vocally voted for any artwork with any sea animal theme, in addition to her very enthusiastic (loud) bid for the cake. It's a good thing she couldn't spell, or she would've seen that I'd written Kalina's choice instead--Elise watched me very carefully, but didn't find any grounds to contest the fact that "cake" doesn't, in fact, have nine letters in it.

Then Elise pulled us through the refreshments line, eagerly claiming a large cupcake as her own, and we joined Matt and Naomi with full plates to wait for the prizes to be awarded. And wait, and wait. The room was stuffy, the wait was long and three little girls approaching their bedtime needed to run around outside. So we did for a bit while Matt saved our seats.

When the awards ceremony began, the speaker made all the kids promise, out loud and in unison, to be okay if they didn't receive a prize ribbon. They would all receive a participant ribbon (Kalina perked up and smiled, and I quickly and quietly made sure she felt okay about walking up to the front to receive it--she said she was), and they all might receive a prize on a different day with different judges, as all the work was beautiful. But not all would receive a big fancy prize ribbon. This was a good reminder for the parents, too, and especially for me and the other mommies in the room. I braced myself.

It was cute to see the kindergartners head to the front to claim their prizes, and I briefly wondered whether I should've entered Kalina as a kindergartner even though she's doing first-grade work and could very well be in first grade. But I think I answered my own question.

Then it was time for the dozen or so first-grade entries to receive their awards. The judges were kind in that they often awarded a couple honorable mentions, even going as far as double first-prizes if it was warranted. And a volunteer was kind enough to follow around the judges and record their comments so that each winning artist would know something about how their artwork was received. The first honorable mention went to a child whose painting made good use of lines and dots, and I knew it couldn't be Kalina's.

Kalina is in the back row with her
artwork and her ribbon!

But the second honorable mention was described as showing the emotions of the artist and making good use of the paper. And then the title "My Chinese Fan" was read, and then Kalina's name, which I didn't even hear, and before I knew it I was ecstatically urging a smiling Kalina out of her seat and up to the front to claim her prize! It took a little urging, but Kalina's not actually one for stage fright, so she confidently made her way through the audience and accepted her ribbon. Her ribbon!!! The first prize she's ever won! A first prize for Kalina (which was an honorable mention)!

The unassuming burgundy ribbon Kalina brought back to her seat validated my parenting, and my whole life up until that point. Honorable mention. The professional judges who know about these things regarded my firstborn's work as worth honoring, and mentioning in a public ceremony. They agreed with me that she is incredible, a work of art herself. We She won!

Plus, I wouldn't spend the ride home trying to convince Kalina that it was just fun to see her work displayed, and others' work and get to vote for other kids. There's always next year...

I was proud of the judges for seeing beyond the bright colors and "I took an art class and this is what my teacher told me to do" artwork and awarding home-grown, simple art that they believed showed something beyond a pretty picture. I was proud of Elise for supporting her big sis even when the evening wasn't about her (at least there were treats), and for only asking to hold a ribbon, not keep it. And I was proud of Kalina and I for winning an award. I mean, Kalina.

I started to notice, though, that I was a bit more excited about the ribbon than Kalina was. I asked her: how did it feel to be up there with your ribbon? "Not too scary," she replied. I haven't been able to get much else out of there other than a smiling "No!" answer to my question about whether she thought she'd win a prize, and a few affirmations that she's proud of herself.

One thing's for sure, and that's that there will be more art. There may be more art shows, and possibly more ribbons, but either way, it sounds like Kalina will continue to be enthralled by the beauty around her, and occasionally capture it in a way that pleases her. And as she moves forward in life, that's really the best prize of all.

Supergirls

We all made kringle to learn about our
Norwegian roots, thanks to Grandpa
Les's kringle-rolling expertise and
 Grandma's ability to track down the
family recipe!

Childhood seems to jump from one trend to the next. Kalina's "animal phase," while at its most intense during her twos and threes when she wouldn't wear a shirt if it didn't have an animal on it, has continued in one form or another, while Elise has officially pronounced herself "not into" dinosaurs anymore, even though they were a really big thing a year ago and were resurrected briefly in February. Phases come and go, and you never know which ones are going to last. Will Elise purchase an ocean and hang out with clownfish as a grownup as she intends? The jury is out--but I will say that if anyone could do it, she could. She has only to learn to put her face in the water...

Am I cute enough yet? How
about now?

Sometimes the girls' trends are very inconvenient. Like beads. You'd think beading would be a fun, easy, developmentally appropriate activity, but then, since you can't keep an eye on them at all times because you have a wild lemur toddler to keep track of, you start noticing that the beads have made their way into every room of the house. Soon there are more, and more, and then there are special ones that we have to go
looking for ("But Mommy, I needed the bumpy purple sparkly bead--this is the bumpy purple not sparkly one!") and then it's gotten Way Out of Hand and Daddy hides them all, even from me presumably so that I can innocently say, "Sorry, Sweetie, I don't know where your beads have gone." Or possibly so that I can't pull them out again in a moment of weakness. And six months later, Mommy is still sucking up the occasional bead in the vacuum. It's not that the girls were reckless--they were actually very deliberate about making their bead families and bead groups and carrying them from room to room as they played and gave the beads names and tours and then never managed to put them away, either because they were too special or because something else happened that was even more special that drew their attention immediately elsewhere (like an empty tissue box they could make into a cage for something--probably beads).

That was a bad trend, but it ended pretty quickly, thanks to Daddy, only to be discovered and pulled out again about a week ago. This time, though, as we're all six months older (with the exception of Mommy, who has aged approximately 2 and a half years), the main activity is sorting beads based on various characteristics into "rooms" in a tackle box. The white ones are marshmallows, the un-fancy colorful ones are medicine, and most of the rest are off limits to anyone actually wanting to do anything with them. And the marbles are a family that gets to play in the beads. This is much better, as I can at least justify all this sorting as pre-math, plus it's been humbling to see that order can come from near-chaos. I reflect on a daily, if not hourly, basis that it's really a good thing that Naomi never puts anything into her mouth--including most food.

Partners in crime: don't they know
Mommy doesn't let them play with
the rug? In their defense, Mommy sends
mixed messages by photographing
before reprimanding.

Other not-so-helpful trends include:
Knock-knock jokes. They could/can tell terrible knock-knock jokes for hours on end.
Very loud mooing (Kalina, followed by Elise, followed by Naomi)
Jumping out from around corners and shouting "boo!" I know I have commented on this before, but it was a doozy.
Hating carseats (Kalina, Naomi)
Hating the high chair (All three at various times)
The 15-minute diaper change (Naomi, and probably Elise)
Clipping hair accessories all around the house (Elise? Kalina? Not sure who our "phantom clipper")
Being scared of everything, or pretending to.
Needing to be the first one into the van every single time and crumpling into a pile of tears if it didn't happen.
Singing the same line of songs a million times in a row (make it stop!!!)

Elise is all set for her
Peppermint Twist ballet/tap
recital!

Then there are the trends that can actually be helpful, like Supergirl. Just who is Supergirl? The strongest, bravest, most capable girl in the world: E-l-i-s-e! Supergirl can do anything! she'll announce while punching the air and probably getting into some sort of offensive stance with her feet (which she must have learned from the boys at preschool).

Supergirl is super enough to shrug it off even when she doesn't get the purple bowl she wanted for her breakfast cereal (it's in the dishwasher), and also if she pinches her finger a little or has to clean up all her sea animals from the bathroom sink. When you're four, this is the stuff of super-powers.

It's...Supergirl! She can carry library bags (for a few minutes, anyway), rescue a little sister in need of a half-grape, buckle her own carseat in under 10 minutes (usually) and memo-read whole Princess Sofia books!

This was a good phase, but it hasn't lasted: not getting the coveted purple bowl nowadays crumbles our sweet 4-year-old, and more so if her 6-year-old sister has snatched it ahead of her. The horror! I miss supergirl sometimes.

What other phases do we run across as we travel this life together, always in the same room and experiencing the same emotions because we just love each other so much?

Angles, all of them.

There's a numbers phase ("Mommy, can I have a googol Goldfish for snack? How about just a billion, then?") and a tying phase, when all kinds of stringy things around the house end up in knots. Also, the "what does 'aghjfkozyu' spell" phase, when it's interesting to hear Mommy try to educate through goofiness. Kalina had a huge "what do you get when you mix blue and orange?" phase, during which she eventually seemed to actually memorize all the color combinations and come out on the other side with decent color sense.

Lately, we've all been greatly enjoying a certain park that has a lake with baby snails. We're there all the time, and no one gets tired of it except for Mommy, who becomes physically exhausted after an hour or two of restraining the toddler from taking a big step in. We also do lots of gymnastics and tricks, frequently hurting each other physically or emotionally in the process (usually on accident, thank goodness, but it needs to stop).

Aside from beading, Elise is currently enjoying her ponies and being nice to her little sister (just a phase?). Kalina can't get enough of her fairy books, of which there are probably a hundred, so it might be a long phase. Fortunately, she's generally happy to read them aloud to Elise, a day I have been looking forward to for about 4 1/2 years. She's also enjoying making things out of dandelions ("Ooh, look! A dandelion!" in the voice that would normally be reserved for fairy spottings).  Kalina, however, is not as "phasey" as she used to be, probably because she's older than she used to be. Her favorite activities are playing with her sisters, flipping through books, ballet and staring off into space thinking deep thoughts.

Naomi is so excited to help
sweep that it's hard to catch
her in a photo!

And since Naomi's whole life is pretty much a phase, here's a run-down of what she's up to:
Naomi now sleeps in until about 6:00, give or take, and loves to engage anyone in chase and other games. We play "boo!" in a much cuter and less antagonistic way than her big sisters do, we play mixed-up animal sounds, we make little jokes and we fill pretend cups at the pretend kitchen in addition to fixing a host of pretend food, such as pizza and toast with honey.

Her favorite book is "Goose," a big book of Mother Goose nursery rhymes with amazing illustrations that she can't get enough of. She's sat through all 50 in one sitting before, and we read through it several times a day, including during diaper changes (anything to get her to sit still, plus I like the illustrations as much as she does). Naomi also briefly enjoyed Pattycake, before preferring Itsy Bitsy Spider, which faded as Little Bunny Foo Foo grew in popularity. She asks for them via hand motion, and occasionally tries to sing along.

Matt caught this giant 65-lb. catfish on
4-lb. line over the course of 3 1/2 hours.
So I suppose he deserves a spot on the
blog. :)

The 20-month-old has been saying her sisters' names for a couple months ("Nina," and "Lees" are her current pronounciations) as well as her own, which is a bit of a mouthful to get out and sounds more accidental than intentional, except I hear it dozens of times a day.

Naomi adores drawing, gluing, cutting and taping like her big sisters (especially Elise, who for a solid month did nothing but craft), and begs to be allowed to stand next to them on one of our craft stools to make her own mini-masterpiece (supervised, of course). She has an awesome grip, already holding writing instruments the right way. Possibly partly from all of her coloring, she has learned a color or two, specifically blue and purple and occasionally red and pink. And she likes drawing pictures of her family that look more like snakes than anything else. Will she take after her daddy in this way?

Grandpa Les spent 6 hours a
day doing this, and Naomi
spent the next week (and
counting!) utterly spoiled.

She also follows in her sisters' footsteps, literally, as they run and dance around the family room and practice gymnastics. And she's adept at taking care of various animal critters and dolls, giving them baths, naps and feedings and regular enough intervals for stuffed friends. On her sunshiney days she's a happy little girl who contentedly and intently plays by herself, but likes to join in other activities as well. On her not-as-sunshiney days she knows how to set her own boundaries (i.e., whine enough to get her way if it's not out of the questions--smart girl!), but generally doesn't fuss for long when some of those boundaries get crossed ("But I LIKED the current state of my diaper!").

Naomi's also become quite a daddy's girl, which is super-sweet, especially on the days she chooses to wake up before any human should be awake. "Daddy!" she cries, and Daddy is officially outvoted, since Mommy is still sleeping off Naomi's first year of life. Annoyed that Daddy has to attend work every day in his "vroom-vroom," she asks about him all day long and toddles as fast as her cute little legs can carry her to the front door when he walks through it.

Naomi will suffer through a
painting shirt for the privilege
of painting. Fortunately, once
she loses herself in her art she
forgets about the shirt.

The girl is pretty amazing at everything, in fact, except eating. We have made progress: she can now tolerate veggies and meats on her plate (she recently graduated to a booster seat), as long as they're not the only thing. She eats tacos with gusto, and still some pureed veggies, but has even started turning down fruits lately. Or, more likely, chewing them up, spitting them out, and insisting that I eat them. Fortunately, she had actually moved up to the 9th percentile at her last doctor visit, at about 19 1/2 lbs.

A few quotes from the past couple months that have cracked me up (yes, they're mostly from Elise: at 4 and in a good mood, she keeps us laughing all day long, and for that we are all grateful!):

Elise: Can I be an eagle, but say "whoo, whoo, whoo?" Then that's what I want to be. So if you hear "whoo, whoo, whoo," you know it's me being an eagle!

Kalina: I thought wars were when people on opposite sides of the country sent mean notes to each other.

Elise: I thought wars were when two sides fought each other inside a fence.

Easter eggs with Uncle Tom!

Naomi: Daddy: Cute! ("Gu!") Mommy: Cute! Kalina: Cute! Elise: Cute! Naomi: Cute!

Elise: Mommy, would you like a cookie, and then you could share some with me?

Elise: Mommy, can Kalina and I split this candy (a Starburst)? We would cut it in half and each get half. And Kalina said that I could have her half. Me: Whose Easter candy did it come from? Elise: Mine. Me: Didn't you already have your Easter treat for the day? Elise: Yes, but we'd split it. And she said I could have hers.

Elise: Mom, it's not too bad being a servant. (While setting the table.)

Uncle Tom: Elise, what kind of bird is on your shirt? Elise: A flamingo, but I don't really consider it a bird. Uncle Tom: Then what is it? Elise: Oh, it's just an animal. Me: Why isn't it a bird, Elise? Elise: Because it's in water, and birds don't really go in water. Me: Is a penguin a bird? Elise: No. Me: How about a duck? Elise: No. Me: Then what are they? Elise: A penguin is just a penguin, and a duck is just a duck.

Kalina and her group examine
the Easter basket in a very
orderly way.

Candy to love, bunny to love,
candy to love...

Poor Naomi in one of her last happy
moments on Easter. And then there
was an ER visit...she is fine, but the
matching dresses will have to wait
until Mother's Day.