The Singing Elf

 Last night was Amelia's first school performance. Her school practiced songs and dances for several weeks. Amelia missed over one full week of school, but went back yesterday and came home very excited to go to the performance. It was held past her bedtime but we rallied through. I found a new dress on sale yesterday and decided to get it. She loved it. She said she was an elf  ("Are elfs red?"). She wanted to get dressed right away and added the blue party hat above (hard to see because of the blue pillow).

Half of the performance was songs and half was dancing. Above, Amelia as a worried-looking elf, and at the top, a video of some of the songs. Below, the snowflake dancers.

 Amelia told me she already sat on Santa's lap and didn't want to do it again. She watched.

In the second video, part of the snowflake dance. The music didn't work so they had to improvise. I am not sure these videos are working yet, but I will try to fix them. We had fun. It was sweet to see our little baby singing and dancing. Not so much our "baby" anymore.

Real snapshots, as promised

 She choose to wear her pajama shirt all day.

 She insisted on zipping up her own jacket, which she just learned to do, but asked for help with shoes, which she has been able to do by herself for a long time.

 Morning juice on the heat vent

thoughtful

 

our Christmas tree and its friends

Amelia's pirate ship

 

Sharing the warmth

Snapshots of a three-year-old

I just realized we've hardly taken any pictures of Amelia since she turned three! I am going to try to take some today.

We're very busy these days. Also, I have become better at living in the moment. This results in more peace overall but also a dirty house and an un-updated blog. I almost decided to shut this whole blog down, replacing it with a photo website of some kind. There are a few other writing projects I have been trying to focus on, and I felt bad about how little I write here.

But I decided not to. For one thing, as much as I admire people who record a sentence a day or a photo of their child a day,  this is the only place I have consistently recorded Amelia's life. It would be sad to end it.

Plus, in retrospect, I suppose the silence will be telling. There is a book I found in a used bookstore in DC (Amelia in her Ergo carrier) called "The Seven Stages of Motherhood." I like its personal stories and the way it presents motherhood as a knowable path. The chapter on mothering a preschooler (age 3-5) is called "Trying to Do It All."

That sums things up pretty well. Since Amelia started school, I have had more time to fill, and sometimes I try to fill it with EVERYTHING: cleaning, cooking, yoga, writing, shopping, errands. Yet Amelia is only in school a few days a week, and I also started a teaching job. (!) I haven't written about it here, but it started back in the fall. Officially, I am a "Young Writers Outreach Instructor" for Denver's Lighthouse Writers. It's an amazing job--basically I am a visiting writer going into schools to teach craft--and it fell into my lap with absolutely no work on my part (other than the fact that I joined Lighthouse Writers, the best writers' group ever). I took a session teaching 9th and 10th graders for 3 days a week in the fall, and then took another 7-week session of pretty much the same gig. I also taught a 6-week course back in the spring and worked for a week at their Summer Writing Camp. I love being a "writer in the schools"--it has been a dream of mine to teach writing as a visiting writer since I was a high school teacher. I love the job.

At the same time, the job has created some stress. For one thing, the teaching ends midday, around the time the half day program for Amelia's school ends. Amelia's teacher said I could pick her up late, but in the meantime, Amelia began--drumroll--NAPPING AT SCHOOL. So I usually pick her up around 2 or 3, after the kids wake up, have a snack, and go outside to play. It's cute to come pick her up and see "all the friends" in their coats and hats and sunglasses (required) playing. One day they were barking like puppies and I could hear them a block away. Still, it's more school than I had planned for Amelia this year.

Also, teaching always ends up taking time away from writing. During my first fall teaching session, I hardly wrote my own stuff at all. For this second session, I started out with a stricter schedule for myself, and I was doing well with it--for one week. The second week of the session, Amelia got the flu (EVEN THOUGH SHE GOT A FLU SHOT). So I stayed home to be with her. I am very thankful I have the kind of life that allows me to stop everything to be with my baby when she needs me, so this is not meant to be a complaint, but it does seem like every time I get on a roll with writing, something happens--we go on a trip, someone gets sick, etc.

On the other hand, after three years of motherhood, I've learned that "all things pass." So I will get back on the roll again soon. This week, I am just glad for a healthy child. And the fact that I don't have the flu.

Anyway, here are some "snaphots" of our three-year-old. Real snapshots to come later today!

Amelia visits Santa: She was annoyed that she had to wait in line. She was the only kid not dressed up in fancy Christmas clothes. Between kids, the elves furtively shielded Santa while he used hand sanitizer. When it was her turn, Amelia said she was "nervous" and I told her she didn't have to see Santa, but she bolstered her courage, sat in his lap, and asked for a robot. He kept prompting her "what else?," which I thought was unnecessary. Just a robot, Santa!

Amelia and the "scary room:" A couple of weeks ago, I woke up around 11 pm to Amelia calling me into her room. She said "something's scary!" and pointed vaguely to the corner of her room. I held her hand while she fell asleep again, but she woke up 3 more times that night. According to The Happiest Toddler on the Block, a book I cannot recommend enough, it's normal for kids develop fears around this age. Using the ideas in the book, I rallied the next day, and we rearranged Amelia's room. It did sort of look scary in the corner: the combination of the nightlight in the corner plus a bookshelf that has a tree branch on it made strange shadows, plus we had her humidifier over there, emitting a spooky mist. So I moved all that around and put her night light right beside her bed. Also, we gave her a flashlight and made some special spray (water and lavender oil) to spray at scary things. And, we remover her bed rail and told her she could get out of bed and turn on her light if she wanted to see her room.

This marks the major parenting victory of my life so far: all this worked! Amelia loved having her night light closer, being a "big girl" with no bed rail, and getting out of bed to turn on her light. The first night at bedtime, we heard her light turn on and off about 10 times. In the meantime, to tempt her back into her own bed after 4-5 days of sleeping with Mama while being sick, we put Christmas lights up beside her bed. The first night those were up, she played in her bed for over an hour and a half before finally dropping off to sleep.

What else? I can't think of the other stories I wanted to tell, so here are a few fun facts. Amelia can spell her name and I think she can spell "Daddy" (she and Dean play with foam bathtub letters in the bath a lot). She can count up to 30 or so sometimes--I have heard her do it, but other times she refuses or does it wrong as a joke. She knows the sounds for most of the letters (I made up a song with letter sounds one day in desperation, trying to lull her to sleep, and it took). She loves the "Jennifer stories" I tell her sometimes to distract her while brushing her hair or the like--Jennifer is a girl just Amelia's age, again made up by me in desperation one day--I was trying to use Jennifer as an example of something, like a little story with a moral--"Jennifer didn't want her Mama to brush her hair, but her hair got so tangled she had to cut it all off!" But it turns out Amelia LOVES stories where Jennifer is "naughty:" Jennifer squeezes all of toothpaste out of the tube, refuses to share with her baby brother, dumps her food on the floor, much to Amelia's delight. I am not sure what this means, but in any case, Amelia loves stories and songs. She sometimes even makes up her own stories and songs, something I should try harder to get on tape.

I am sure there is a lot I am missing, but that's a peek into life here lately. Check back later for some real "snapshots" of Amelia!

The Candy Fairy

Letter to my daughter

Dear Amelia,

For your first two birthdays, I wrote you a letter on your birthday. They began, "Today you are one," and the next year, "Today, you are two."

12 days ago, you turned three.

This year, you have taught me about time. Time is funny--as the saying goes, the days are long but the years are short. Sometimes, when you were two, the days did seem long. But now that your second year is over, it seems to have passed in a flash.

I already miss your two-year-old self, and you are already changing into a three-year-old. You say amazingly smart, knowledgeable things. You are, shall we say, a little bossy, and sometimes even outright defiant. Your brain seems to go a million miles a minute. You are changing into a wonderful, brilliant, hilarious little kid, almost before our eyes.

Looking back, though, I think I did my best to savor the time you were two. Here is what you taught me about time. You were so much fun that I finally learned to stop, really stop, everything else to play with you--as you learned to play pretend, and do crafts, and do puzzles, and make up your own games with dolls and "small things" and books and a million kitchen utensils. I (again, finally) learned that you can only get so much done in a day, and to let the rest (mainly the housework) go. (It's true! Our house is really pretty dirty. I am proud.) I learned that a good day does not and never will include marking everything off of my to-do list.

Still, I am a little sad about how few blog posts I wrote while you were two. I know some happy moments and some milestones and many, many funny things you said have slipped away unrecorded. But I also know that while they were happening, I was present for them. I'll never be perfect at living in the moment, but this year, with my funny, sweet, fun-loving, fascinating two year old, I think I got a lot better.

Looking back over the past year, I especially remember all the fun times we spent with friends and family. One day in particular stands out--on a lovely spring day, we were at the Botanic Gardens with our friends Sarah and Navi, and you and Navi were busy being two, making a huge mess of our lunch, bringing tiny rocks to the picnic blanket, talking and negotiating with each other, and alternately climbing on your Mamas like baby koalas and running so far from the picnic blanket that it made me and Sarah nervous. And I thought how much I loved having a toddler, and how insanely lucky I was to be able to spend the days with you doing such wonderful things. You have given me countless similarly beautiful days--thank you.

Amelia, you are a joyful girl, especially when there is "something new." The year you were two was the year you learned about Halloween, about balloons, about birthday parties, about amusement park rides, about packages in the mail. "I'm exciting!" you said when you were excited, and you were excited about so much, including your first day of preschool. As I picked you up the first day, the phone rang in the school, and I could hear you exclaiming with delight, "All the kids said, THAT SCARED ME!" You are delighted in the world, and I hope that never changes. And you have given me more joy than I ever could have imagined. I love you, whatever age you are, and I always will.

Love,

Your Mama

For the fan club

Birthday cards, presents, and Halloween costumes! 

And for the true fans, 40 seconds of a sleeping baby at the end.

The Big Three

 On October 5, we woke up to snow.

Dean told Amelia the sky gave her snow for her birthday.

The Small Snowman

Snow on tomatoes

I was very proud of my cupcakes.

The land animals have green icing, and the sea animals have blue.

We had planned to have Amelia's party on Saturday, the day after her birthday, but because of the weather we changed it to Sunday. Sunday morning was chilly but by the time of the party, it was warmer and sunny. It was nice to be outside after the two days of cold. It was a small, last minute and simple party--no presents, no favors (other than the animals on the cupcakes)--just coffee, bagels, cupcakes and a few friends from the neighborhood. I had worried about Amelia asking about presents but she did not notice the lack of presents at all, and I think it made the party more fun. She was not worried about when she could open presents, and the kids had a great time playing with the basket of sand toys we brought.

The big three

Blowing out candles

The last time we all had our picture taken together was Amelia's second birthday party.

Our sweet 3-year-old.

First Face Painting

The Urban Farm

When I was growing up, summer meant gardens. I have lots of memories of playing in gardens, and of picking beans, canning beans, picking corn, putting up corn, picking tomatoes, canning tomatoes, etc. I liked most of the vegetables my parents and grandparents grew--beans, tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, okra, squash--but by the end of the summer, everyone would be sick of vegetables. You couldn't visit anyone without having them press a bag of produce into your hands as you said good-bye, and you didn't let anyone who came to your house leave without a bag from your own garden. 

I have lots of memories of driving down from the mountain from my grandparents house with my mom saying, "What are we going to do with all this corn!" (Or all these tomatoes, or all this okra..)

Now, in the city and many miles away, we are in the same situation here in Denver.

 

This is a very small portion of the produce we are dealing with around here these days. Mainly, we have too many tomatoes. We planted 19 plants, which you see in baby form at the bottom of this post. 

Here they are in early August. I was trying to take a picture of the sunflower; the tomatoes are the large mass of bushes in the center of the picture. They are as messy and matted as they look. 

This is from a little earlier in the summer, when you could still walk between the plants. Now, trying to pick tomatoes is like trekking into the jungle. We currently have 4 large bowl of tomatoes on our counter, and I use tomatoes as part of every single meal. I am also a tomato hawker. I have stopped short of asking strangers who pass our house if they want to pick some tomatoes, but I have seriously considered putting up a sign that says "Free tomatoes--pick your own."

They are delicious. We planted several kinds: some larger orange and red plums that are good for fresh tomato sauce, and lots of cherries, red, orange, and two types of what Amelia calls "little yellow tomatoes." Last summer she ate them by the pound. She likes them this year too.

 

Speaking of the sunflower, here is is. The baby sunflower is also in the linked post above.

 It's very tall now.

And below are some shots of the garden, produce, and Amelia from July.

Discussing the crops.

We tried potatoes for the first time this year, in the bowl at the back of the line of veggies. We got enough for 4 or 5 batches of hash browns.

Large zucchini

 

I don't know what you see here, but Dean and I snickered when he brought this in. Amelia, whose mind is more innocent, pointed out that this is two squash growing together.

The garden has been a lot of work. We are busy all evening on the urban homestead--I forgot to even mention the community garden, half a block down the street, where we have corn and squash growing, and where we grew basil (already harvested and made into pesto) and edemame (a kind of soybean you can boil and eat from the shell, which is fun for Amelia). And the backyard, where we had early radishes, sugar snap peas,  and arugula, and where we've planted another round of peas, radishes, and spinach for the fall. Whew. But it's really cool what we've (mostly Dean) managed to do with a small amount of space. And most of all, I am glad to have the summer garden part of my childhood back in my life.