cat named pig

Say your daughter tells you (like, in March) that she wants her birthday (in July) to be a Fairy Princess party. If you’re smart, you won’t do anything with that information. But if you’re me, you’ll say, “Great idea, honey!” and start buying little fairy-related decorations and trinkets that you hide in random places all over the house. (Also smart? A centralized hiding place and/or a list of things you’ve bought so you don’t end up playing treasure hunt the week before the party, trying to remember where all the fairy stuff is.)

This will become problematic in about mid-May, when she changes her mind and decides she wants a Ballerina Party. You’ll have to navigate some dangerous waters as you attempt to convince her that what she really, truly wants is a Fairy Princess Ballerina Party (you have to make her think it was her idea). Otherwise, what are you going to do with all that fairy stuff? Not that there’s that much of it, but you hate to waste it. 

So by June, you’re feeling good. Fairy stuff won’t go to waste, she can wear a tutu and some wings, stick a crown on her head and it’ll be perfect. You’ve even found a downloadable image of a Fairy Princess wearing ballet shoes that you’ve used for the invitations. This is when she’ll announce that she actually wants a Fairy Princess Ballerina Cat Party.

Whatever.  

Fairy Princess Ballerina Cat it is. You’re only four once. Check back in about a week for pictures of Siena with cat whiskers, a crown, a tutu, and fairy wings. And also a swim suit, because we’ll be at the park with the wading pool. Got a theme? We’ll accommodate it. All themes welcome here.

You might also see pictures of me crying when she tells me that what she really wanted was a Fairy Princess Ballerina Cat Shrek party. Because I don’t even know what that would look like.

Anyone remember Siena’s imaginary friend, Anderson? Well, I have bad news. We recently learned that Anderson has passed away. Siena informed me very seriously the other night. 

“Mama, you remember my friend Anderson? She died.”

“Oh, no. That’s very sad news.”

“Yes, it is.”

“What happened?”

“She got older and her heart stopped working.” [This, interestingly, is very similar to the explanation Matt and I used when our grandfathers passed away.] “And she was my mother.” 

[Pause while I try to decide what to say next.]

“But don’t worry. I’m going to get a new mother soon.” 

“Oh. Ummm, that’s good. How will you get a new mother?”

“I don’t know. I just will. She’s coming in a few days.” 

So there you have it. Also, one of Siena’s puppies hates her. Her imagination is a dark place these days.  

Yesterday I posted about how Siena sometimes seems so much older than she is. I assumed I would be made to retract that statement (as always happens when I declare something about the kids — they immediately prove me wrong) after an epic tantrum over, say, the Shrek soundtrack. Or rice. Which almost happened, but she pulled herself back from the brink of collapse and decided to eat the beans and rice (mixed, touching each other) that I served for dinner and not whine the whole time for her leftover white rice from the Vietnamese deli where we had lunch. (I know, lots of rice in one day, but they did both have a bath before dinner time, which I consider a success on a night when Matt works late.)

Instead, she turned to me and said, “So, tell me about A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Matt and I had gone to the play on Friday night, and that afternoon I had YouTubed some clips and shown her pictures of the fairies in costume on the Guthrie’s website. She was intrigued by the fairies, of course, and amused that there was a guy with a donkey’s head, and mostly wanted to see what kind of dress Titania was wearing and then tell me that she, too, had a dress like that and wore it sometimes, for pretend.

So last night I told her more about the play, and she was really interested. “And then what?” Or, “What else happened?” We had a longer discussion than Matt and I did walking out of the theater. 

I explained how the fairies had a magic potion, and they would put it on someone’s eyes while the person was sleeping, and then that person would wake up and fall in love with the first creature they saw. She asked lots of questions about all the characters, and which ones were supposed to be in love, and how it all worked out. If you have a high school English test coming up, she’d be great at quizzing you.

Meanwhile, Elliot shoved peas into his mouth as fast as he could and occasionally injected his two cents: “BALL! BALL? Mah. MAAAAAAH.” (With that last sound being accompanied by frantic signing for more.)  

After dinner, we proceeded with our usual routine of Ring-Around-the-Rosie and wrestling. This usually starts with Elliot grabbing our arms and doing an elaborate pantomime of turning in a circle and falling down, indicating what he wants to play. After a few rounds, one kid usually tackles the other and the wrestling match begins. My job is to make sure no one goes to the hospital; other than that, there aren’t too many rules. I lift Elliot and keep his head from hitting the floor too hard when he gives Siena a steamroller. I remind Elliot, “No biting.” And I try not to end up covered in bruises. 

So that was our evening. Shakespeare and Wrestlemania, followed by an inevitable billionth performance of The Shrek Ballet. (A little piece of my brain dies every time I hear “someBODY once TOLD me. . .” because I have heard it a thousand times a day for the last thousand days. I do enjoy the dancing, though, especially now that Elliot is starting mimic his sister’s dramatic arm-raised twirls. He toddle-twirls until he gets completely dizzy or until Siena complains that he is hogging her stage. Welcome to sibling-hood.) 

I like their dramatic flair. I could see them both ending up in some kind of performance career, although at this point it’s a toss-up between the theater and the WWF.

Last night Matt and I jotted down a brief list of our favorite Siena-isms from the weekend:

1. [In the car] “When I grow up and Elliot and I get married, we’re going to have a really fancy wedding.” While I obviously don’t want them to actually get married, I kind of love it that she thinks of Elliot as her life partner. Like they’re just growing up here together, and when they’re both old enough, they’ll get married and have their own house.

2. [At the gas station, looking at a woman wearing black workout pants with a stripe down the side] “That woman must work at the Y.” Because the Y is where people wear pants like that. Makes perfect sense, really.

3. [On a windy day, looking out the window] “Mama, do you wish all the trees were cut down so we wouldn’t have wind?” 

I get into the habit of seeing her as a mini-adult, albeit one with an unpredictable tendency to whine and freak out over things that shouldn’t really freak out a reasonable adult. Since I’m pretty sure Matt would describe life with me as one long overreaction, and having worked in an office environment, I know adults freak out all the time over things that shouldn’t necessarily be a big deal. So that tendency doesn’t really get in the way of my thinking Siena is older than she is. Which is why I love it when she says something that reminds me exactly how young she is, how new to the world.

She’s trying to figure out all these things that I never even think about anymore. How do people choose partners? Where does wind come from? Why are women’s clothes so uncomfortable that most women end up just wearing track pants whenever they don’t have to be dressed up for work? All big questions, that don’t necessarily have easy answers. But I love the way she’s looking at everything, observing, and trying to find patterns or cause-and-effect relationships, trying to piece it all together. And I guess we’d better start saving for a big, fancy wedding down the road. Hopefully to someone not genetically related to us.  

My brother (known around here as Tio Matt) could totally hang out with Siena’s friend Avery. They share an affinity for cats named after grandmothers. My brother recently adopted a kitten and named her Agnes Mabel. Not one grandma name, but two. And Avery, who has been obsessed with cats since I can remember, habitually gives every stuffed animal, imaginary cat, cat-sister-daughter-ballerina-friend, and cat drawing the name Pearl. No one knows why. But it inspired Siena to rename her stuffed cat Polish Pearl (as in nail polish?) I guess because polish was the most beautiful, sparkly thing she could think of that had the right alliteration. 

Dear One-Year-Old,

If you took the amount of time and energy you currently dedicate to turning the TV on and off (while your sister is trying to watch “Super Why”) and applied it to something more productive, such as learning to speak in sentences? You’d be a Barack Obama-caliber public speaker by your next birthday.

Seriously. Just think about it.

Love,

Mama 

[Differs from a real encore in that no one actually asked for this, but whatevs. . . .] 

Father’s Day highlights this year:

1. Going to brunch at The Craftsman, the same place we went last year, with my dad.    

2. Not having a three-month-old. Instead having two kids who nap at the same time every day. Here’s a picture from Father’s Day last year, when they did not nap at the same time every day, and life was generally a little bit harder:

3. Continuing a fantastic Father’s Day tradition where my dad takes us to the garden store, buys as many flowers as he can fit in his small car, and then comes back to our house and plants them for us. This year we had a strict color scheme of pink, pink, more pink, and purple, since Siena came to the store with us. Our window boxes look beautiful. 

4. Going to Auntie Sara and Uncle Mike’s house for dinner with Matt’s family: 

5. Watching Siena literally paint her face with a chocolate cupcake. OK, maybe not a highlight, but pretty funny. Also, this:

We have some great dads in our family.

When we got home, Matt and Siena watched golf (yes, really!) together and she did not even die of boredom. Not once. I, on the other hand, usually die a thousand yawning deaths as soon as I hear the soporific sound of the announcer’s voice when Matt turns the golf on, so I spent some quality time with the laptop while they bonded. All in all, a great day.  

The other night we had one of those rare family moments where we were all on the same page at the same time. And that page was Side A of a cassette tape (I know! Right?) of Don McLean’s American Pie that my dad gave me when I was ten or eleven. I will always be able to thank my dad for the fact that I know every single word of all twelve minutes of American Pie. Since I also inherited my dad’s complete inability to carry a tune, this has been of absolutely zero use to me so far in life.

The song came up in conversation at dinner the other night because I had been singing it to Elliot during a diaper change. (I’ll try anything in hopes of distracting him from his mission of rolling over mid-change and charging across the room with chunks of peas and whatnot still attached to his butt. [I know, I know — you wish you could erase that image from your brain, but seriously. It’s an ordeal. You should come over and change him sometime. You’d have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when it was over.]).

Anyway, I mentioned at dinner that I’d been singing it and he had starting trying to sing along (”BAH, BA-Ah” sounds kind of like “Bye, bye. . . “). Siena asked how the rest of the song went, I made some noises with my voice that vaguely resembled singing, and Matt saved me by singing the chorus.

After dinner and a brief search (Matt, voice dripping with sarcasm: “So where were you hoping to play this tape, assuming we actually find it?”), we dug out the old tape, located an actual tape-playing device, and had a full-family dance party, complete with air guitars and wrestling. (No party is complete without wrestling around here. No afternoon is complete without wrestling, for that matter.) It was awesome. When the song ended, Siena wanted to hear it again. 

When my brother and I were growing up, my dad would randomly give us tapes, and later CDs, of music he thought we needed to know about. The Don McLean tape was one; also Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Simon and Garfunkel. Sometimes I thought this was cool; sometimes I was all, “Dad, no one listens to this. I’d rather have a Tiffany tape.” But now, with those same artists on our iPod, I have my dad to thank for introducing me to the music of the 60’s.

I can also thank him for the fact that, when Norah Jones Fish dies, our next fish will be named Bob Dylan Fish. Siena decided this about a month before we brought Norah Jones home from the Fishy Store. She’s a planner, that one. The first fish we had was Bob Marley Fish; all the names are artists she recognizes when she hears them.

I think it’s pretty cool that, even as a two-year-old, she would hear two words in Bob Dylan’s gravelly voice and shout “BOB DYLAN!” I also think it’s pretty cool that my tone-deaf dad introduced me to such great music, and that now I get to share it with my kids.  

Matt’s dad played a big role in Matt’s musical education, too. I love the stories about Matt standing on a chair in the front of the church singing duets with his dad. And I love that Matt was taking voice lessons when I first met him, and was proud to tell me that his “dad’ got a great voice. He sings in church and in a barbershop quartet. You should hear him sometime.” 

Thank you, Grandpa Tom and Grandpa Larry, for all the music you’ve brought into our lives. It’s just one of many, many ways you helped shape who we are today, which is now influencing who our kids will be. Thank you for being such great dads.

Happy Father’s Day. 

The other day, I opened a new roll of toilet paper just as Siena was coming in to use the bathroom. She took one look at it and exclaimed, “Mama! This new toilet paper is almost too pretty to wipe with!”

No, no. Don’t let that stop you. It may be pretty, with its little pattern of dots and hearts or whatever, but you go right ahead and wipe as much as you need to. It’s not that pretty.

Not much posting this week because I almost died of a migraine Monday night (and by “almost died,” I mean “lay on the bed in agony which was punctuated only by copious vomiting into a wastebasket really not sturdy enough for the job”). Frankly, I would’ve taken death if it had been an option. 

I would just like to point out that this migraine lasted for more than six hours. Six hours. Which is approximately the amount of time I was in labor with Siena. And longer than the time it took for Elliot to be born. A headache, even a migraine headache, should not be more painful and longer-lasting than childbirth.

But this one was, and I didn’t even get a new baby at the end of it. Just a really gross wastebasket that somehow got neglected when the rest of the trash was taken out this morning. I guess that means I should go deal with it. When I’m done complaining to the internet about my hard life.

We’ve been noticing a bit of a competitive streak in Siena lately, demonstrated yesterday when she said, “My ear infection hurts worse than your headache did.” Which could be true. Matt brought her home from the Kids’ Gym at the Y, where she had stopped playing to lie down on one of the mats. Since the Kids’ Gym is one of her favorite places in the world, this probably means she was really hurting. She also informed me that her two “mosquito pokes” were the worst pokes ever, and that they itched so much she couldn’t walk. I was about to say I wonder where she gets this dramatic flair, but then I re-read the first sentence of this post. Hmm.