In addition to swimming this summer, I added a gymnastics class for Gracie. Um. Also for me- it is reeeally hard to fill the days with a toddler. DANG. She loves to climb and run around and be crazy, so I thought it was time. Of course, if you want to take gymnastics through the Chicago Park District (or any class, for that matter), you have to be glued to your computer the SECOND registration opens, with all your info already entered, index finger twitching on your mouse, ready to click submit. If not, you are outta luck. Of course, being the totally well-organized, detail-oriented person I am, I...didn't even remember to check when registration started. FAIL. So, we're paying non-resident fees to take the class in the burbs.
The class is tiny, about six kids? G is definitely the youngest. The age range to sign up for the class is 18 months-3 years, and since G hit 18 months a week before class started, that was kind of inevitable. I did hope there would be more wee ones in the clas, but the closest to her age is going to be 2 by the end of summer. I thought of it more in terms of gross-motor skills, and I thought, eh, who cares, we're just here to have fun!
I forgot about the maturity factor.
To be fair, there is only one girl who is a LOT older than the rest of the class. Most of the kids are at least near Gracie's age, so when we started with the different activities, there was a lot of ignoring and clinging to mom and stuff like that. Then it was time to sit in mom/nanny's lap while they set up the obstacle course for the kids.
Ohhhh, my. THAT was not part of Gracie's plan. She writhed and cried and then yowled and arched and it. was. not. cool.
All the other children were sitting quietly in their mom's laps, in case you're wondering.
My first thought is that I'm shocked all those kids sat so nicely with their moms while balance beams and mats and big rolling donuts were being strategically arranged around the room. My second thought was that it's her age. It's hard to imagine she'll be happier to sit and wait in just four short months, but maybe?
It's also just that patience isn't one of her assets and never has been. She has SO many wonderful characteristics. She's persistent and silly and so, so clever. She's funny and sweet. But patient? No. Grace isn't patient. I'm torn between thinking SHE'S the normal one, and all the other kids were behaving very strangely, and thinking, okay, how are we going to work on this?
I'm torn between thinking I'm asking too much of her and maybe she's not ready for gymnastics, and thinking she's got to learn how to do things like wait her turn on the jumping blocks, and it's better for her to start learning now, rather than when she's three years old. I'm torn between thinking it's a good way to kill the time and thinking it's a GREAT way to kill my back.
Mostly, I KNOW I'm overthinking it. We'll keep going. Maybe someone else will be crying next week. Also, she loves rolling like a hot dog down the angled mat.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
Also: the ground gets wet when it rains.
I was driving out to my parents' house tonight to pick up Grace, waiting in traffic and daydreaming. I started thinking about when she was born, because, well, I do that a lot.
I have absolutely no idea why this never dawned on me, but as I was thinking about her lying on my chest for the very first time, I thought, that is the same baby I'm going to see tonight. The one who rolls around in the mud and splashes in her water table. THAT baby! They're the same person. And the thought took my breath away.
THIS baby
is the same as THIS baby!!
no frigging way.
I have absolutely no idea why this never dawned on me, but as I was thinking about her lying on my chest for the very first time, I thought, that is the same baby I'm going to see tonight. The one who rolls around in the mud and splashes in her water table. THAT baby! They're the same person. And the thought took my breath away.
THIS baby
is the same as THIS baby!!
no frigging way.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Why, Hello There, Blog
It's not that we haven't had anything going on over the last month, exactly. Just that none of it is really fit to blog about, for one reason or another.
Gracie hit 18 months this week, though, I and I have a feeling I'll regret it if I don't record some of this on the internets. Unlike me, the internets remember things.
Today's doctor visit went exactly as I expected. She's a big girl- 34 inches tall and 27 pounds. She's curious and clever and hates shots, like all normal people. No, she is not remotely interested in potty training, Dr. Calmness, but thank you for asking. Check back with us when she's forty. Dr. Calmness (not his real name)(duh) asked if I have any concerns, and...I do. Gracie should have a minmum of 15-20 words right now, and she has somewhere between 8 and 10. This is not entirely surprising, as she also babbled late. She understands every word we say to her and follows complex commands without batting an eyelash, so I know it's not her hearing and it's not a cognitive issue, it's strictly expressive language. I've talked to speech-therapist friends, I've talked to other moms whose kids have gone through speech therapy, and tried doing the things they suggest, and it really hasn't made a difference. She's content to point and grunt. Dr. Calmness, calm person he is, asked that we give her three more months. He'd like her to have 25 words by 21 months old. If she doesn't, we'll call him back and he'll refer us for early intervention.
Although I am, to my very core, a neurotic mess, in this case, waiting seems like the right thing to do. I kind of feel like she'll talk when she talks. Gracie has strong opinions on everything and she likes to do things on her terms. Why should talking be any different?
On the list of things Gracie DOES like to do- dress up and get dirty. She loves to pull the winter stuff out and put it on. She is DYING to dress herself, and since she can't quite do it yet, she's settling for putting on a hat and a scarf. it's pretty freaking adorable.
As for getting dirty, this is the Summer of Filth. There is nothing more awesome than getting entirely soaked at the water table, then going and rolling around in the dirt, digging in the mud, pulling up weeds, trying to launch face-fist into the garden...you name it. Dirt is awesome. But only if you're good and wet first. Crocs and bathing suits are our best friends this summer.
Well, almost. Curious George will always trump all.
Gracie hit 18 months this week, though, I and I have a feeling I'll regret it if I don't record some of this on the internets. Unlike me, the internets remember things.
Today's doctor visit went exactly as I expected. She's a big girl- 34 inches tall and 27 pounds. She's curious and clever and hates shots, like all normal people. No, she is not remotely interested in potty training, Dr. Calmness, but thank you for asking. Check back with us when she's forty. Dr. Calmness (not his real name)(duh) asked if I have any concerns, and...I do. Gracie should have a minmum of 15-20 words right now, and she has somewhere between 8 and 10. This is not entirely surprising, as she also babbled late. She understands every word we say to her and follows complex commands without batting an eyelash, so I know it's not her hearing and it's not a cognitive issue, it's strictly expressive language. I've talked to speech-therapist friends, I've talked to other moms whose kids have gone through speech therapy, and tried doing the things they suggest, and it really hasn't made a difference. She's content to point and grunt. Dr. Calmness, calm person he is, asked that we give her three more months. He'd like her to have 25 words by 21 months old. If she doesn't, we'll call him back and he'll refer us for early intervention.
Although I am, to my very core, a neurotic mess, in this case, waiting seems like the right thing to do. I kind of feel like she'll talk when she talks. Gracie has strong opinions on everything and she likes to do things on her terms. Why should talking be any different?
On the list of things Gracie DOES like to do- dress up and get dirty. She loves to pull the winter stuff out and put it on. She is DYING to dress herself, and since she can't quite do it yet, she's settling for putting on a hat and a scarf. it's pretty freaking adorable.
As for getting dirty, this is the Summer of Filth. There is nothing more awesome than getting entirely soaked at the water table, then going and rolling around in the dirt, digging in the mud, pulling up weeds, trying to launch face-fist into the garden...you name it. Dirt is awesome. But only if you're good and wet first. Crocs and bathing suits are our best friends this summer.
Well, almost. Curious George will always trump all.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Mother of the Year!
Wanna hear about how I locked Grace in the car at Target and they had to call the fire department?!
Don't be jealous of my mothering skillz. Do NOT be jealous.
First of all, I have been fighting my crippling Target addiction, really I have. But see, I have this cat on Prozac. And since I am fully aware that this means I'm one step away from knitting kleenex cozies, I choose not to have this prescription filled at my regular pharmacy. Also Target has cheap generic prescriptions, and since I'm neither independently wealthy nor possessing pet insurance, the prescription is at Target. So, see, I HAD to go there.
I was totally distracted. I let Grace play with the keys. She locked the doors. She was in the car. I was not. But my purse and cell phone were! And, also? THE KEYS.
I promptly lost my shit. But did so internally, because Grace was actually finding the whole situation hilarious, and I wanted to keep it that way.
About five years after this happened (or maybe a minute, it's impossible to know), an SUV pulled into the garage and out hopped two Target employees. I frantically asked them to get help. One of them assured me he could get in the car, he just needed a screwdriver. In the meantime, the other guy went and got security, who called 311, who dispatched the fire department. Who showed up with lights and sirens. And an AXE. A big, shiny axe. Let me just say that you don't want the people who are supposed to rescue your baby walking up to your car with an AXE. By the time they showed up, the Target guy had the antenna snaked thru the window, while CFD worked on getting the slimjim thru the window. I'm not sure who got the door open, I thought it was the Target guy but who really knows. The only time Gracie ever cried thru the whole thing was when they got the doors unlocked and it made the car alarm go off, so I'd say she escaped pretty well unscathed.
Oh, and by the way? They didn't have the cat's prozac.
Don't be jealous of my mothering skillz. Do NOT be jealous.
First of all, I have been fighting my crippling Target addiction, really I have. But see, I have this cat on Prozac. And since I am fully aware that this means I'm one step away from knitting kleenex cozies, I choose not to have this prescription filled at my regular pharmacy. Also Target has cheap generic prescriptions, and since I'm neither independently wealthy nor possessing pet insurance, the prescription is at Target. So, see, I HAD to go there.
I was totally distracted. I let Grace play with the keys. She locked the doors. She was in the car. I was not. But my purse and cell phone were! And, also? THE KEYS.
I promptly lost my shit. But did so internally, because Grace was actually finding the whole situation hilarious, and I wanted to keep it that way.
About five years after this happened (or maybe a minute, it's impossible to know), an SUV pulled into the garage and out hopped two Target employees. I frantically asked them to get help. One of them assured me he could get in the car, he just needed a screwdriver. In the meantime, the other guy went and got security, who called 311, who dispatched the fire department. Who showed up with lights and sirens. And an AXE. A big, shiny axe. Let me just say that you don't want the people who are supposed to rescue your baby walking up to your car with an AXE. By the time they showed up, the Target guy had the antenna snaked thru the window, while CFD worked on getting the slimjim thru the window. I'm not sure who got the door open, I thought it was the Target guy but who really knows. The only time Gracie ever cried thru the whole thing was when they got the doors unlocked and it made the car alarm go off, so I'd say she escaped pretty well unscathed.
Oh, and by the way? They didn't have the cat's prozac.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
My madeleines
For those who aren't familiar with it, the author Marcel Proust wrote a whole big-ass book about taking a bite out of a cookie (a madeleine) and experiencing a flood of instant, intense memories, just from the taste and texture of the cookie.
I have a million, bajillion little things like that, and they always take me by surprise. Sometimes I purposely avoid them, so they keep giving me those big rushes of memory (I mean, if you smell something every day, it weakens any associations you have with that smell, until it all goes away). And, I mean, some are the same for everyone- dry fall leaves go with the start of the school year and Halloween, pine needles and Christmas, spring mud and the end of the school year, stuff like that. But some are ours alone. These are my favorites:
Carambars!
Proust has his madeleine and I have my carambars. When I was in fifth grade, a whole class of French 5th graders came and stayed in Park Ridge for a month. We hosted one of the girls in the class, her name was Isabelle. She brought us a whole bag of Carambars, and I loved them. The following summer, I spent a month with her family, in a suburb of Paris. We lost touch in high school, although recent google-stalking has me convinced I've found her. She worked for Louis Vuitton before she opened her own boutique in Paris. I think. I'm pretty sure. Anyway, Carambars are one of those random candies you really can't find around here. I ordered some off the internet a few years ago. They taste just the same.
Sun-Ripened Raspberry
I brought sun-ripened raspberry shower gel to England when I studied abroad in college. A few months after I came home, I sniffed it, and WHOA. I'm not even sure they sell it anymore, but I stopped using it so that it would always remind me of staying at the Y and in dirty hostels on the weekends;) Good times, good times...
Leapfrog Spin and Sing
G and I played with this outside all summer long. All of the songs make me think of warm sunny days, outside with my happy baby. It was one of her favorite toys, and she just recently outgrew it. But while she liked this toy, we had SO much fun.
What are your madeleines?
I have a million, bajillion little things like that, and they always take me by surprise. Sometimes I purposely avoid them, so they keep giving me those big rushes of memory (I mean, if you smell something every day, it weakens any associations you have with that smell, until it all goes away). And, I mean, some are the same for everyone- dry fall leaves go with the start of the school year and Halloween, pine needles and Christmas, spring mud and the end of the school year, stuff like that. But some are ours alone. These are my favorites:
Carambars!
Proust has his madeleine and I have my carambars. When I was in fifth grade, a whole class of French 5th graders came and stayed in Park Ridge for a month. We hosted one of the girls in the class, her name was Isabelle. She brought us a whole bag of Carambars, and I loved them. The following summer, I spent a month with her family, in a suburb of Paris. We lost touch in high school, although recent google-stalking has me convinced I've found her. She worked for Louis Vuitton before she opened her own boutique in Paris. I think. I'm pretty sure. Anyway, Carambars are one of those random candies you really can't find around here. I ordered some off the internet a few years ago. They taste just the same.
Sun-Ripened Raspberry
I brought sun-ripened raspberry shower gel to England when I studied abroad in college. A few months after I came home, I sniffed it, and WHOA. I'm not even sure they sell it anymore, but I stopped using it so that it would always remind me of staying at the Y and in dirty hostels on the weekends;) Good times, good times...
Leapfrog Spin and Sing
G and I played with this outside all summer long. All of the songs make me think of warm sunny days, outside with my happy baby. It was one of her favorite toys, and she just recently outgrew it. But while she liked this toy, we had SO much fun.
What are your madeleines?
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Ha, April Fools!
Hey there, Gracie here.
ZOMG. I played the BEST April Fools joke on my mom. It took some serious time and planning, but oh man, it was worth it.
All last week? I pretended I was going to start sleeping! I slept past six am every single day and took super long naps. It was rough, yo. The joke wouldn't have worked without it, though. I had her CONVINCED.
Then? This weekend? I started inching my waking time back. And today? I woke up at 4:50! I am teh awesome. Oh man, you should have seen my mom's face. She is so gullible. Hey mama! Did you know gullible's not in the dictionary? Yeah, that's right, go look it up....
Time to start planning for next year. I'm never gonna top this one....
Gracie out.
ZOMG. I played the BEST April Fools joke on my mom. It took some serious time and planning, but oh man, it was worth it.
All last week? I pretended I was going to start sleeping! I slept past six am every single day and took super long naps. It was rough, yo. The joke wouldn't have worked without it, though. I had her CONVINCED.
Then? This weekend? I started inching my waking time back. And today? I woke up at 4:50! I am teh awesome. Oh man, you should have seen my mom's face. She is so gullible. Hey mama! Did you know gullible's not in the dictionary? Yeah, that's right, go look it up....
Time to start planning for next year. I'm never gonna top this one....
Gracie out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
