i was ecstatic that the rain held off for saturday. spent the night out, enjoying the freezing cold air and death cab for cutie. funny moment of the night - ben gibbard trying to make small talk by making fun of irish people and red sox fan in boston = BAD IDEA ben.
what else could i wish for on mother's day?
not much.
that whole sleeping thing? i totally jinxed myself. and while tae is still spending the first, erm, several hours of the night in her bed, she's started waking up throughout the night, asking for smoothies. mostly, this happens when she doesn't nap during the day, and thus gets hungry after not really eating a proper dinner.
eh.
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my printer/scanner stopped printing after i moved. so then it was just a scanner. now it doesn't scan any more either... which makes it... a nothing.
which means i cannot scan some of tae's recent cool artwork.
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the other morning tae asked me how to draw a heart. i tried to show her how to draw a "V" and then two bumps on top. but then she kept drawing this thing that was more rounded and blobby. it turns out she was trying to draw a HUMAN heart as depicted on the latest book i have been pretending to read.
i drew her the outline of a human heart and she proceeded to color it blue and red, for the veins and arteries. [i wish my scanner worked right now.]
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the other picture i wanted to scan was tae's picture of two rhinos. one was alive. the other "had bleed." not even thinking, i bought tae a book about endangered animals. when we were talking about why different animals were endangered, we started talking about water pollution, over farming, de-forestation, and poaching. that was a fun conversation!
all of a sudden, tae has figured out to put herself to sleep. i thought that maybe she was sick or something when she napped twice at school last week. this hadn't happened since the last time she was sick, and before that, i don't think it ever happened.
but, it turns out, that after 3 1/2 years of life, my daughter has figured out how to put herself to sleep.
tonight, we were talking about our routines, what we would be doing tomorrow... and tae started to talk about all of the little things... she was going to take a bath, brush her teeth, put on her pajamas, and then i'd read her a story. she asked me if i was going to sleep with her, and i told her that i wasn't. that i needed to shower and clean up. and that when she woke up in the middle of the night, she could come into my room, and we'd snuggle in my bed. i think for tae, and all her ocd-ness, knowing what was going to happen helped her feel comfortable about going to sleep.
and then, after reading one bed time book, tae looked at me and said, "mommy, go shower." and i left. and she fell asleep by herself. in her room. for like the first time ever.
and i went and took a nice long hot shower. woo-hoo!!
"did you buy cookie dough? if you didn't buy any we can use tortillas. and we can put sprinkles on the tortillas."
"if you need to check the weather, we can use your ipod." (i mentioned to her that we could also look out the window.)
"RRRR. i'm a pirate!" (she had one foot stuck in a plastic cup.)
lately, a lot of things have been coming out of tae's mouth that begin with... "i wish..."
"i wish i could have ballet classes."
"i wish i could have tip tap shoes."
"i wish i could have purple crocs. " (i succumbed to this one.)
and lately, a lot of her requests have been very, well, traditionally feminine. my daughter is now in that stage where she loves pink and purple. she won't wear her brown leggings that she wore all winter because, in her words, she doesn't "look beautiful" in them.
she has a pair of play dress up shoes that i only let her wear in the backyard. and she wears them EVER SECOND that she is in the backyard. they are plastic open toe high heels that are silver with lacey purple flower on the front. i'm surprised that she doesn't trip in them - i would if i wore something like that. there are about 2 inches of shoe left on the back of the shoe.
when we were in california, her grandma bought her a pair of keds-ish shoes that are kind of ballet-style. the problem is that these shoes rub her ankle, and give her blisters. we were at gap kids, and she had her eyes on these jelly sandals... and i convinced her that the sneakers were better, that she could run and jump better in them. d'oh. i told her that the jelly sandals were not good every day shoes, that they were good for the beach only.
today, we were talking about money, and about allowances. tae had collected 13 cents from spare change she found around the house... and she told me that she was saving up for these jelly sandals from gap kids.
i don't want to get in the habit of making her every wish come true... and i'm not sure that ballet lessons are coming her way any time soon...
but i'm not sure what to do on the shoes issue. she pointed out to me a girl at her school who was wearing ballet flats. so i'm hard pressed to make it sound like she is way to young for them. (maybe when she turns 4?) i could help her save up for the shoes, but i think she's too young to help out with chores, and i think a little young to start an allowance.
BUT, i also feel bad that we have these shoes that she won't even wear. i could try to exchange them... but really, i want her to wear closed toe shoes. and if i buy her shoes that she has been coveting, she probably won't wear her brand new crocs any more. BUT, the flip side is that if i can get her to wear something other than these dress up shoes in the backyard... well, that would be a plus.
what would you do?
i wish she was lusting after converse all stars... but i supposed i can't complain too much. my favorite shoes for the spring are... a pair of black ballet flats.
except for the first two pictures, which i took at an awesome park in chinatown, the rest are tae's photos of our saturday together in boston common.
yesterday, we made it out to the backyard to play in the sandbox for the first time... probably since last october. i am SO happy that spring is here.
so tae is sometimes a little OCD about things. so she squats in the sand box, instead of plopping herself in the sand like some kids might.
yesterday, after squating in the sand for maybe 15 o 20 minutes, she says, "my feets are tickley!" i thought she meant that the sand was tickling her toes. but then she asked me if i heard it. she stood up in the sand, and was standing kind of awkwardly... and then it hit me - her foot was asleep.
i don't know what it is about kids' physiology, but this must be something that just kicked in her tae. i mean, looking at the way she sleeps, or some times how she sits, i'm surprised that her foot has never fallen asleep earlier.
and then began the "why?" questions. why did her fall asleep? what made it go away? why couldn't i hear it? well, quite honestly, i was stumped. i told her about how her foot needed blood to circulate through it to do normal foot things... but the rest... i have no idea how to explain it to her. i think she got even more confused when i said that her food had "fallen asleep." because then she started talking about her foot being tired, and then needing to wake up....
tae has started calling me "mom." mostly, it's in the context of phrases like, "thanks mom!" or "come mom!"
I don't know if I mentioned it, but tae and I are in socal this weekend.
and it is hot. like 90s hot.
and yesterday I spent about two and a half hours on the 10 and the 60 getting out to the g'parents' house.
and it's hot.
but, I did realize that I miss the smell of orange blossoms in the air. and the fact that people of color are everywhere.
i've been struggling to keep up with this blog... mainly because i think i've been struggling to keep up with... myself. and then with my 3 and a half year old.
tae turned three and a half last monday. i've been trying to use that to get her to do new big kid things... like sleep in her own bed. i have a feeling this is going to be a long, uphill, sleepless battle.
i got her some curtains from ikea to make her bedroom fancy and special. the upshot of this was that we spent what felt like 10 hours playing in her room today. i think she "slept" in her room alone for about 3 hours last night. 3 hours, which included her waking up, i think 5 times. first she was just asking for me, then she says, "mommy, i can't see you!" and finally she says, "mommy, i want to sleep in your bed." by the time she had escalated to crying out that she wanted to be in my bed, it was 2am, and i just wanted to sleep too. and from 2am to 7am, i slept like a log. and she did too. sigh.
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tonight as i was putting tae to bed, she says to me, "i don't want you to leave. ever ever. i want you to sleep here with me."
i should add that her bed is a toddler bed - and one reason that she ended up back in my bed was that i kept falling asleep in her bed when i went in to try to back to sleep. and if my choice is sleeping with tae in her 4 foot long bed, or sleeping with tae in my queen size bed... well, the choice seems fairly obvious. i'll choose not waking up with my knees cramped up to my chin.
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i discovered over the weekend that there's a video of tae dancing at my school's lunar new year celebration from february. she wasn't even performing, just dancing off to the side of the stage. it's on my school's youtube channel. and while it's cute, i was kind of put off by the idea that there were videos of my kid on youtube, and i had no idea. at least here, i'm in control of the flow of information.
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my school also had a big culture show last night. tae had a blast watching rehearsals, running around the auditorium, and being in the fashion show. the look on her face when she walked out with a student of mine was priceless. she was her usual ham-it-up self - she did a little kick of her leg as she turned when she got front and center on the stage. (if anyone sees youtube videos of this, please let me know!)
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i am very tired. daylight savings isn't helping me anymore - today was a no-nap day... i was ready for a nap at 4pm, but guess who was running around the house like a tazmanian devil? and guess who decided that she couldn't go to sleep while the sun was up? oh, there's a part of me that wishes that sunset was still at 6pm.
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tae's been talking up a storm, and saying all of these really funny things... except i can't remember any of them now. what a let down, right? ok, clearly, it's bedtime for me.
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