Daddy home?

While the big girls were at
camp, Naomi and I played
peekaboo behind a tree!

 "Daddy home?"
Spend any amount of time lately with Naomi, and you'll hear these words.
"Daddy home? Soon?"

What a cute little questioning voice, raising slightly at the end to indicate a question (she's not quite a grammarian yet, and must rely on tonal inflections). What a sweet sentiment! The 1-year-old misses her daddy.

It begins shortly after he walks out the door for work in the morning.

"Daddy home?" Naomi queries, looking at the rest of us through sparkling eyes to see if we laugh because she means it as a joke this time. She hasn't always meant it as a joke, though--and in fact, at first it was nothing short of a tragedy if the answer was "no." I tell her that she's silly, and that of course Daddy isn't home, he left for work! We have a good chuckle, and then continue with breakfast.

After breakfast the inevitable happens. Naomi gets a little bit hurt. She's crying, and through her tears wonders:

And why do they want Daddy home so
much? Look what he let them do!

"Daddy home?" It's not quite so cute and high-pitched this time--more of a sob, of course. The poor girl is hurting, physically or emotionally, or both, and apparently only a hug from Daddy can soothe the affliction. Naomi is not happy with the negative answer, but soon is demanding a consolation prize in her distressed state: "'lise hug! Nini hug!" and her sisters are happy to oblige. Naomi cheers up.

"Daddy home?" She asks again a little while later and looks around expectantly. We're in the middle of getting dressed, frustratingly not much closer to her beloved parent's already much-anticipated arrival than we were last time. When I remind her that he's not, she wonders if it'll be "Soon?" I let her down as easy as I can: "He'll be home at supper."

Kalina composed her own
music!

The toddler is blessedly distracted for a while by dropping off the bigs at their summer camps. While they learn circus skills (Elise) and craft with fabric (Kalina), Naomi and I are enjoying "Mommy camp," in which we take advantage of all the sweet little toddler play places that Kalina and Elise are mostly too old for. I get to revel in precious and innocent young toddlerdom, and Naomi gets some brand-new experiences because sadly, she has never gotten to attend baby storytime at the library even though she's now almost aged out of it. She is a pro at baby storytime, by the way, and was joining in the fingerplays and sharing toys like she's been doing it her whole life (but maybe she has?).

"Daddy home?" Naomi brings up the topic again as we're on our way to collect her big sisters. Fortunately, since we're not home either, I know she can't get too upset and she's simply making conversation in the car. "No, Sweetie," I remind her again. "Where's Daddy?" "Work!" she proclaims. "When will he be home?" She really does know the answer, now if only she had an actual concept of time: "Supper." But she goes on--after all, we're stuck in the car so we might as well chat. "Nini home?" "Kalina's at camp." "'lise home?" "Elise is at camp, too!" And now she gets silly: "Mommy home?" the girl says with a smile in her voice. "Silly Naomi! Mommy's in the car with you!" Sometimes she goes on asking about various family members, including Poky (especially Poky), or sometimes she loops back to Daddy again. But no amount of asking will bring him home. Fortunately, we soon arrive at camp, and we can bring the big girls home with us, and a certain level of order is restored in the sweet toddler's mind.

Elise found Ice Cream Sundae
at a garage sale for 25 cents.
I paid because I knew there
would have to be sharing, and
because we clearly couldn't
leave her behind--not with the
smile on Elise's face, anyway.

"Daddy home?" Groggily, just waking up from her nap, Naomi remembers her question before her head has left the tummy of Pink Puppy. It's often the first thing she says when she wakes up. If it's a Friday in the summer and Daddy isn't running errands, I might be able to triumphantly answer, "Yes, he is!" but that is not usually the case. But she's usually happy enough to cuddle with me a few minutes before we head downstairs for the afternoon's activity.

"Daddy home?" The poor girl is frustrated: her sister is playing with a toy she'd like to be playing with. "Daddy home" is more of a demand this time: "Either I want the blue and pink car to ride on, or I want Daddy!" But we must all learn to take turns, whether we're sharing a car with a sister or Daddy with his job. Naomi usually figures out that when she asks nicely for a turn ("Turn please?") and waits until the sister hops off, she can at least secure the car; Daddy takes a little more patience, but at least doesn't require a "please."

"Daddy home?" We're heading home from the library, and Naomi is just wondering. Maybe she can sense that the glorious time is getting close. "Sorry, Sweetie, not quite yet." "Aw. Soon?" "Yes, soon! At supper time!"

Naomi has company
watching for Daddy.

"Daddy home?" We've walked in the door, and Naomi is hopeful. "No, but soon!" Unfortunately, Naomi takes "soon" to mean "his car is pulling in the driveway as we speak!" She dashes off to the door. I open it so she can look through the screen door, and she's content to stand there a bit and watch other cars drive past, knowing that soon one will turn into the driveway, and it'll be the right car.

"Daddy home?" Naomi has been watching for a full five minutes, it's been too long without Daddy, and she's bored. She can't handle another "no" answer, but she has to. Naomi starts to fall to pieces. We put her back together, and she wanders off to read library books on the recliner ("The end! Yay!") or cook dinner for Pink Puppy, momentarily distracted.

Until the moment when we hear the front door open...

"Daddy home!!!" And then there's the pitter patter of at least one pair of little feet, and sometimes an entire stampede, as Daddy is welcomed home probably more enthusiastically than is always enjoyable, but he takes it all in stride.

Mother's Day!

All is well in the house. Daddy is home, as is the rest of the family. And while you'd expect Naomi to glue herself to him the rest of the evening, she doesn't, actually. Sometimes, she's even a mommy's girl.

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.

Springtime of the Sisterly Soul

Don't tell Elise I'm borrowing
her hat! But how could I not
when it looks so cute on me?
Besides, the baby had one...

The first time you see your young children engaging each other in activities other than grabbing and fighting, it is like the first day that springtime's warm hope peeks in through your windows. The whole house looks cleaner, the air smells clearer and you no longer want to crawl into bed and stay there for months at a time. It's also quieter, without as much crying and for a moment you can hear a bird chirp.

This phenomenon is called play. It is often a social activity. And it is taking its first few breaths between my two youngest as they emerge from their cocoons of "I want what she has!" Deep breath.

Kalina, who calls the shots without knowing she calls the shots, has not minded ceding a healthy amount of her domain to the littlest one (besides, isn't she cute?), but Elise, who often has to resort to whining to get any attention (or so she'd like you to believe) has understandably dug in her heels at any request to share either Mommy or the family room rug ever since Naomi was big enough to scoot herself around and claim some of the territory.

One snowy weekend, we all made a
fairy mermaid placemat, thus anchoring
my spot as "The Best Mommy in
the World" (their words, not mine!)

But despite the shortcoming of being shorter and 1, Naomi, in her sisters' eyes, and especially the eyes of her littler big sister, is magically transitioning from being a near-constant threat to precious toys and a usurper of Mommy's arms and attention to an actual person who can play sea creatures and actually swim the fish around the same way she does.

This is huge, because of how far we've come and what it means. This little development has not come easy: it has taken minor bribery, constant vigilance, and a lot of outright flattery. "Wow, Naomi thinks you're just amazing, and she looks like she loves sea animals as much as you do! Look how she wants to copy everything you do because she thinks you're so great!"

At four, flattery is huge. It also helps when your little sister eases off her biting phase, and can say "purple" pretty well.

Kalina's Great Wall of China,
complete with Emperor
palace and throne. No
forced labor required. (In the
background, check out the
much-adored kids-around-the
world paper dolls she made.)

All of the efforts seem to be working, because Elise only protested a little last time the three of us (minus Kalina, who was off building the Great Wall of China for a raging emperor) played sea creatures a little, and the two littles even manged to continue playing a few minutes in a row after I crept away. Added bonus: it ended in neither happy nor sad screams.

In fact, Elise recently learned not only to skip, but that Naomi might possibly be a viable option as a playmate when Kalina is busy. In theory. It may be a while before she regularly turns to her little sister, although Elise's social nature might require it when she exhausts her other options. I'm working on grouping them together in subtle ways to speed this process along ("Kalina is going to do her math and can't play, but Elise, you have another sister you can play with! Wow, lucky you! Here she is now!"). I'm also contenting myself with peaceful ignoring.

Until a week or so ago, this idea was completely off the table, as Naomi was only good for tickling and being used as a plaything herself ("We can stack things on the baby!"). And I can't entirely blame Elise: Naomi is not innocent of mischief, including putting cherished toys into her mouth, objecting entirely to anyone reading a book that's not of her direct and immediate choosing and occasionally even snatching at toys. (Elise has been known to pull most of these stunts as well, as recently as today.) Bad behavior doesn't earn you friends, so all sisters have had to learn and re-learn the ancient art of Getting Along.

Elise is making a book of art.
If you think that's cool, you
should see her wall of art.

It's also a feat of branding: while Naomi still looks like a baby and often acts like a baby, I am attempting to remember, at least 20% of the time, not to refer to her as "the baby," so that the girls might realize she's a person, too (easier for Kalina, at the top of the pecking order, than Elise). I spend many minutes of every day trying to convince Elise, especially, that:
-She's not trying to get her sea creatures.
-Usually when she picks up her sisters' stuff, it's to bring it to them (true!).
-Even if she didn't, she wouldn't break the stuff because she's big now ("No she's not, she's little! I'm big!" retorts Elise in her biggest voice).
-Even if she did, we would fix it.

Elise is still mostly frantically unconvinced, despite my assurance that she used to be on the other end of the equation at a similar age and stage and came out of it just fine, to develop into the highly mature girl she is today.

Fortunately, Naomi plays her role, as the sweet little silly sister willing to go along with anything, very well. Eager to join in her sister's play, she'll happily mimic whatever goings on look fun and interesting, so long as she isn't super-absorbed in feeding her puppies, that is.

Sledding down the street.
Mush, Daddy!

Like her big sisters, Naomi runs circles on the rug to music (this is a triple favorite, and the bigs are even well-practiced in dodging the giddy gyrations of their toddler sister), flies animals around the house, practices gymnastics and parrots all the weird noises her sisters make, which is a lot. Naomi is quite adept at mimicry, and equally adept at getting smiles and laughter for her best efforts, despite a prejudiced reluctance on one or both sisters' parts. It really is cute, even though I know I'm in store for lots of mischief as they all get older.

Naomi also, by the way, happily mimics me as I sweep, clean, empty trash cans, cook and all the rest of my mommy work. As such, she is much more likely to pitch in and help out than her big sisters, although Kalina can often be convinced to do interesting kitchen work, and Elise will clean windows at a rate of 10 cents a piece (only the bottom half, but that takes us past the drool/handprint line so it works out) as she saves up for--you guessed it--more sea creatures.

And at this moment in time, Naomi is really good at all kinds of play, even toddleresque pretend play, or maybe it's just because she hasn't (yet) been tainted by all their sibling weirdness, the same that haunted my own siblings and I as we developed our own strange sense of humor, and that has forged sibling bonds since the beginning of time.

Sharing Grandpa's lap!

Either way, Naomi is a clean slate that I know will get drawn all over (literally if not figuratively), but that doesn't make too many dumb jokes yet, that doesn't think play = making loud noises and that doesn't invent all kinds of unfathomable and strange rules: "No, you can't move Elise's sea creatures because they have all just been born and are scared of you because you're big--look at how scared of you they are!" or "Mommy, be careful! You can't walk there or you'll fall into the hot lava and get eaten by a shark!" and even more stuff I get wrong all the time that's too weird to remember and changes anyway. The big girls will wreck all that soon enough, but for now, she's sweetly innocent of anything weirder than pretending to feed herself a dog bone.

Not that I don't have a special place in my heart for every single work of my kids' imagination, because I really do. Except for the non-sensical knock-knock jokes; those are awful but I can't find any grounds to put a stop to them, so my best resort is to sic them on each other. "Kalina, aren't you going to answer the door, Elise is knocking!" Then they can both laugh hysterically at terrible jokes and I can pretend I don't hear. (If you think I'm being too hard on the jokes, I'll have one of the girls give you a call...)

Kalina practicing one last
time before her amazing
piano performance at the
annual recital.

At any rate, I can safely say that at least 3 out of 4 of us would vote to keep Naomi, and while the last would prefer to keep her in a closet and pull her out on a whim, I am encouraged by the rays of hope I see that the relationship will thaw over the next season or year or decade or so.

And with real spring around the corner--and its flowers to maim together and puddles to get covered in, the sisterly relationships are sure to only blossom.

Check out that grip! Naomi could craft
all day, and asks for supplies like tape
and glue by name.

Homeschool PE. Lisa (the
cherished stuffed lamb) is
wearing her "snowsuit," and
in the background by the tree
you can see the little snow
slide Kalina made for her.

Elise likes to invent recipes,
such as spaghetti dipped in
honey, and then share them!
This one, called Coral Reefs,
consists of crackers, peanut
butter, marshmallows and, of
course, Goldfish. She is
writing a recipe book.

Elise dressed herself. Also,
she's starting to draw people!
(See the fridge)

Learning at home

The Eiffel Tower in our
basement! After this, Elise
saw Eiffel Towers all over
town, especially when any
radio towers were in the
vicinity. Also, one of the
good things about
homeschooling is that you can do
it in your swimsuit or your
nightgown.

Although not so much around here, a lot of people out there think that homeschooling is a strange concept. What? Learn at home? I thought that was where you watch television! You know, like Dora! It's educational! They're learning! At home! Oh, I get it.

This is not us.

Others think they would spend the entire day trying to force spelling and subtraction on their kids and generally making the whole house miserable.

This is also not us (most of the time).

Still others can't imagine spending that much time with their kiddos, and their kids spending that much time with their siblings, and believe that everyone in the house would suffer if such a thing occurred.

This is definitely not us.

Homeschooling, for us, is a grand combination of spending lots of time together, doing cool projects and activities, studying what we want (sometimes) and, oh yes, worksheets. We also enjoy sleeping in when we need to (those of us who are allowed to, anyway), participating in extra extra-curriculers since we're not too overbooked, and visiting the library several times a week, it seems.

Many people ask how its going, so here goes:

Kalina's first day of
Kindergarten, which soon
became Kindergarten/1st
grade.

August
We began the day the neighbor kids went back to school, because the kids were officially bored and squirrely from summer break. It was clearly time to do something. On our first day, I had all kinds of wonderful systems in place: systems for helping the girls keep track of the schoolwork and house work (even for Elise--we didn't want her to feel left out when it came to cleaning the sink!), systems for helping me keep track of assignments, systems for storing the stacks of books. I spent a lot of time managing the systems, a lot of time explaining to Kalina why we were doing what we were doing, and the rest of the time leading Kalina and sometimes Elise through various activities. We'd started with fun stuff: studying the book Madeline with help from a simple curriculum perfect for the girls' ages.

We learned about France, health, number pairs, art and much more. We read a lot of fun books while the baby napped. Yay, homeschooling! Look, I'm doing it! By the second week, we introduced some regular math activities, and began Language Arts. It got less fun.

Elise's first day of actual
preschool (not homeschool).

September
My nicely set up systems started to fall into "occasional" use, as they were hard to stick to (babies tend to throw a wrench in well-laid plans) and were not always convenient enough. I was disappointed, but not surprised: I am less organized than I look. I was glad I had purchased the system supplies from a dollar bin.

We took our first field trip to the St. Louis Arch and its pioneer museum after constructing a covered wagon out of a baby gate and loading it with supplies we would bring. Having forgotten to pack medical supplies and any food other than brownies and ice cream, the girls wouldn't have made it past the neighborhood.

Look, I'm homeschooling! And we're going to learn! I became a bit overzealous, and tried to teach a million things at once. I began to discover that there's a limit to the learning even a bright 6-year-old can do, and tried my best to back off. But it's all so exciting! We covered weather this month, and managed to track daily weather patterns for almost two weeks, including during a tornado warning. We tried to add plenty of activities to our worksheets, as although Kalina learns well from books, she is only 6, and her sister is newly 4. The girls therefore twirled around the family room like tornadoes to music that sounded like rain and thunder.

We happen to have a
large, famous structure
near us: the Arch! We
visited it instead of the
actual Eiffel Tower.

Also, Elise soon became super-annoyed that I was monopolizing the time of her favorite playmate. She spent our school time languishing in the recliner, counting the minutes until Kalina could play again, or snacktime, whichever came first. We all looked forward to preschool days.

October.
By October, we had found some homeschool friends to meet up with somewhat regularly, plus Kalina had joined American Heritage Girls. Preschool activities were in full swing, and Naomi was still perfectly happy taking two naps a day. We learned about Carnival of the Animals (even Naomi pretended to be a lion!) and then attended a Symphony performance, and did a mini-unit on instruments and sound. We learned about maps, and studied trees for a week (who doesn't study trees in October?) before getting a jump start American history to correspond with the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, because there's a lot of American history before the pilgrims even at the kindergarten/first grade level. We also made it to several homeschool library programs that were enjoyed by all.

Kalina learning with a number balance.
She learns differently than many people.

November.
We all loved studying pilgrims (and Native Americans, and Christopher Columbus), thanks especially to the help of a couple books Kalina latched onto, plus a certain "pocket" book of folded construction paper that simply made everything more fun. Add to it the Magic Treehouse book about the era, the corresponding children's museum exhibit, and the national holiday, and we enjoyed the month quite a bit

I also realized that some tweaking was in order. The comprehensive Language Arts curriculum that I was so excited about ("I won't even have to think about it, I'll just open the book!") was a bit too comprehensive, such that Kalina was ahead in reading and comprehension, but needed a better introduction to spelling and handwriting (it's a second-grade-feels-like-first-grade course). And our math program, which I was trying to do cheaply without the teacher's guide, was boring and repetitive (probably more my fault than anything else--but we clearly needed something different). We tweaked, and things improved until we got to double-digit subtraction, which is a different story.

A cold, windy, fun trip to Cahokia
Mounds to learn about a really
fascinating Native American culture.

December.
I asked Kalina what she wanted to study leading up to Christmas, thinking we'd keep it simple. She chose Jesus, which I altered a bit into an over-arching study of the Bible, because I can't actually keep anything simple. Plus, if you type in "homeschool" and "Bible," you can find thousands of really cool crafts and activities to teach even about even the minor prophets, and it's all free out of the goodness of peoples' hearts. A song sung by chipmunks helped the girls memorize the books of the New Testament, and they had fun stumbling over the minor prophets in the Old Testament. A little too much fun--Habbakuk became Huckabadoxin, for example. We also visited the nature center to learn about winter animals and about woodpeckers, both of which we really enjoyed.

It was a mostly lovely month, but got a bit busy toward the end, as it did for the entire Christian world. Even the fact that another homeschool family had admitted, "We basically take the month of December off" barely kept me from dragging Kalina to the bus stop a couple days before our Christmas break was planned to start. Instead, we saved the rest of our Jesus materials for Easter and limped through math and language arts.

Our Russia work, including an original
Kandinsky imitation by Kalina, and
some Faberge imitation originals, too.
And a snowman Elise made.

January.
By now, we have curriculum and routines that work for us (although no magical systems), good friends we see regularly, a homeschool gymnastics class that doesn't mess too much with Naomi's nap to look forward to, and enough other programs and activities and such that I can't picture us getting bored anytime soon. Because two weeks off over Christmas were hard to come back from, we spent the first two weeks in January studying Russia and playing with my Russian souvenirs. Next, we'll be embarking on a study of the human body, complete with tons of activities, hardly any worksheets and some life-size human body cutouts--perfect.

Our current system of learning is to practice math, handwriting and language arts daily, and study one other subject for anywhere from a week to a month at a time. It works really well, as we all love diving into a "fun" subject, which is usually motivation enough for Kalina to stay on task with her drudge work (that isn't always drudgery, but often seems like it compared to determining how much oxygen one's lungs can hold). We make regular attempts at art, music (piano lessons help), character development and PE, and make chores, socialization, crafts and playtime priorities as well. And it works!

Elise, by the way, has learned how to either just rest patiently, join in a bit, or do her own thing while we homeschool. These are all important lessons, plus the amount of actual instruction is probably less than 45 minutes throughout the day (the rest is activities that Elise enjoys, or crafts and worksheets that need about 1 minute of explanation). She has become, of her own acclaim, "Supergirl," and "Crafter girl," and in this way has discovered superpowers in self-entertainment and gluing things onto paper. I am also learning to incorporate preschool learning, which Kalina also enjoys.

Amazingly (to me, but probably not to anyone else), Elise is actually getting excited about learning, and has been practicing writing all the letters of the alphabet, plus she practices reading whenever I ask her to and even sometimes requests more reading practice. She's quite good at reading, and was the only one in her preschool class who could read the words I spelled out using alphabet Cheez-Its the other day.

Babies love sunglasses!

Naomi is a different story--literally. By now napping only once a day, and for only a little more than an hour, she is often awake and participating in her own way in the learning. Good thing she loves books! The problem being that the big girls already know that a cow says moo (although they sometimes try to convince Naomi otherwise...), and that the bunny feels soft. So while the big girls are learning that Lake Baikal, in Russia, is the deepest in the world and also home to the world's only freshwater seals, which happen to also be the world's smallest seals, Naomi can usually be found attempting to claim my lap and my reading voice with one of her sweet little stories. Although the toddler and her books are adorable, they don't get to usurp every book I read to her big sisters--the knowledge of which usually leads to great distress, which gives rise to shout-reading, and then often the crumbling of the idyllic story time we'd all been looking forward to as I race toward a good stopping point. Occasionally Naomi does consent to sit on my lap and join in--as long as we stay on any page with a dog on it. Forever. Maybe we should just do a unit on dogs?

I didn't want to get too close
lest I spoil the moment, but
Naomi, wearing a toy chef's
 hat, is learning how to
slice wooden food.

She makes up for it, though. And especially in the cute little way she asks, "Where?" "Naomi, where is your puppy?" we ask her. And she looks around, puts her palms up and squeaks "Beah?" I will probably never be able to capture it on video, but I can't imagine forgetting it.

Naomi also continues to learn words, especially from her big sisters. "Who wants graham crackers for a snack?" I ask. "Me!" says Elise. "Me!" says Kalina. "Me!" says Naomi. She can also say, in baby language, things like raisin, bird, water, bubble, balloon and bath, including sometimes putting two thoughts together, such as when she says "rai," which means raisin, and points to her tray: "Raisin here, now." She meows, woofs and roars very well now. As I mentioned before, Naomi adores books and being read to, even consenting to listen to the entirety of some of her board books in one sitting. She loves finding the animals and making their corresponding noises. I think we could do that all day long, if it weren't for the pesky big sisters getting in the way (Naomi's thoughts, not mine! :) ).

For the sake of posterity, I should also note that Naomi recently had to relearn how to sleep through the night, preferring instead to wake up in the middle, call Matt or I in, and slowly, slowly fall back to sleep with us beside her, preferably standing. Now, she only requires us once, in the 5:00 hour to tell her it's not yet morning. She also likes the door left open, and possibly a nightlight. Whatever it takes, right? I guess Mommy and Daddy still have a lot of learning to do, too.

This Christmas!

We celebrated Christmas!

Naomi not happy that she has
to be in the kid picture without
Mommy, and Elise helping.

In a way, that's all there is to say. It happened! We were there! Yay! But none of our typical Christmas festivities can happen without a North Pole's worth of Christmas effort--and that's what we had this year. Here's the rundown:

Not sure why we dwarf the
poor Christmas tree. It was
small-ish, but so are all of
us.

Matt: Managed to track down the very last non-weird/yellow/busy white pine tree on the lot. It was an easy decision once the tree had been discovered. We like white pines. He also hung the lights (which the girls, for the first time, were a bit disappointed in as they surveyed the huge displays on other houses), made gingerbread with the girls and put up with all of my Christmas music.

Me: Decorated the house, helped the girls sing a few Christmas carols, sent cards, found the "perfect" gifts and pieced together a homeschool unit on Jesus at Kalina's request (if you type in "Bible" and "homeschool" you get enough results to open your own mini-university). I also headed up the frosted Christmas cookie project (I frosted, Elise sprinkled and then ate sprinkles, and Kalina sprinkled the rest), took the bigs to the Nutcracker, read a Christmas story almost every night, headed up a few family charity projects, and adeptly changed the subject when too many questions about Santa were being asked.

A note for Santa ("is rodowf Ledne
the slaey?"), cookies for him and the
Mrs., and carrots for the reindeer.

The true story of Christmas Eve.

Kalina: Wrapped a significant number of presents, wrote her own letter to Santa, set up the nativity scene several different ways (at one point the wise men were visiting a gingerbread house) and read a few Christmas stories as well. Kalina filled our house with the sounds of Jingle Bells and O Come, All Ye Faithful as she memorized them on the piano, and aided in decorating the heck out of our Christmas tree, which was about ready to fall over by the end.

Crafting with Grandma! Elise always has
to stand when she makes any kind of
announcement.

Elise: Queried, "Since Santa is so big and our chimney is so small, how will he fit?" She helped decorate by making a paper chain with me and bringing home some crafts from preschool. Elise was also often "tape girl" as I wrapped, and enjoyed choosing labels and stamping the occasional Christmas card. She sang loud and proud--and occasionally a beat or two ahead of everyone else--in the preschool singalong, a favorite tradition this time of year. And she managed to secure at least one tiny taste-test of every treat that came near our house--often, I imagine, without my knowledge.

Naomi: Didn't pull the tree over or unwrap any early Christmas presents, and woofed or roared at most of the animals in any nativity scene she walked by. She also sat nicely through Christmas Eve service, having succumbed to her Christmas dress and tights (but not the nice shoes). Naomi was happy to offer help unwrapping presents on Christmas Day, and played cutely with everything she opened.

Naomi imagines the
possibilities, made greater by
the fact that she also
received Christmas
goldfish in her stocking.

Christmas day was filled with fun--even a little too full, if you ask Elise (toys are getting cuter and cheaper/freer). She found a Rudolph in her stocking from Santa, and Kalina unwrapped a stuffed bear from the same jolly old elf--amazingly, they had written to Santa asking for these very items! Naomi found no less joy in her two new snack cups and small puppy, which were, from the looks of things, exactly what she would've asked for if she'd been able to verbalize her demands. 

Grandpa Tom constructed a pretty big hit!

The tree held lots of delights as well. As evidenced by all her new accessories, Elise's favorite gift was pop beads, and demonstrated by the fact that despite all the activity, Kalina had all her new sets completed by the time she'd been awake for an hour on the 26th, Legos were a favorite of Kalina. Naomi loved anything that woofed. We video-chatted with Aunt Nancy, during which time  Naomi was delighted to spot Poky once or twice on the screen, and enjoyed a meal with Uncle Tom and Grandpa.

And for the next week, all the girls played happily and nicely and nonstop. It was paradise. And they still are--which is probably the only reason I've been able to complete this blog.

Possibly the best part of Christmas was seeing lots of friends and family. This year, Kalina was extra excited about the aunts and uncles, geocaching with Uncle Tom and trekking through all kinds of rough terrain to find the caches, and hoarding Uncle Chris, Aunt Laura and Uncle Brian in her room as she regaled them with tales of her Lego animals, and a few actual books as well. This left room on Grandma's lap for Elise, who pretty much never left it, basking in the glow that is Grandma. Naomi was certainly not left out, however. Having decided that anyone named "Grandpa" is pretty great, she warmed up to Grandpa Les within a few hours and was soon pulling him all around the house and even allowing him to pick her up. 

Any grandpa will do, as long
as they read me stories.

Staying up till "midnight" New Year's
Eve!

Although we were all pretty tired out after our Christmas, we managed to stay up a little bit late for New Year's Eve with the help of some friends. The kids, who hadn't seen other kids in a week and a half, dressed in pajamas, spread out sleeping bags, microwaved smores and played their hearts out while the grownups tried to whittle down some of the desserts. At 8:30 the living-room clock magically read midnight (how does it do that???), and we loudly cheered in 2015. 

And with everyone's help, it's sure to be another memorable year!

Three very favorite gifts from Matt's
side of the family!

A lovely family dinner and all I can think
about is how darn cute Elise's hair is. :)

Naomi had a lot of fun
and Grandpa Les had a
sore back!

Three generations very intently
enjoying marbles.

The fireplace was so warm that we
wisely decided to bring the presents
to it. Nevertheless, Elise kept her snow
pants on. Naomi doesn't stray far from
Grandpa Les.

The Odegaard/Stoutenborough family
2014!

Forging a path to a geocache!