To a Tea

I yearn for the days of yesteryear – in this sense, much like political conservatives (but for different reasons, as you’ll read) – when the term “tea party” still meant either a social gathering at which tea and light refreshments are served or its analogue that young children re-create when playing, and not some disillusioned band of malcontents who are trying to mainstream uncivil engagement and hateful speech under the guise of populism. How I wish we could trade these partygoers' tri-cornered hats for thinking caps, and their bouts of paranoia for periods of rationality.

Here today, Olivia and her friend Lizzie participated in a tea party that featured graham crackers with peanut butter, not posters with drawn-in Hitler mustaches. I’ll raise my cup of tea to that.

Like an Open Book

This afternoon I volunteered to help out with Olivia’s class in any way that her teachers deemed useful. Her lead teacher suggested that I come for Writers’ Workshop, an activity period when all the kids could practice reading to me a select story from their portfolio. I made it around three tables' worth of delightful stories before approaching the last table, the one where Olivia and four of her classmates were awaiting my arrival. As I walked over, I heard Olivia loudly rehearsing the story she was going to share with me.

Now imagine our daughter airing our dirty laundry in her booming voice. I’m laughing as much in recollection as I was in the moment.

Here’s the opening page:

(Editor’s note: In our defense, you too would “allwas” be “grampie” if you hadn’t had one uninterrupted night of sleep in five-plus years.)

And the text from pages two and three:

They say go back to sleep.

Then I go back to sleep.

For He's a Jolly Good Fellow

There are happy babies, and then there are happy babies. Reed seems to be the latter. I’ve witnessed him disarm those of sour disposition with his cheerful manner and hair-trigger chuckle. His smile seems to brighten up any room he enters, even those whose walls give the sun a run for its money in the radiance department.

And a happy baby means a happy mama, especially when she’s holding her cheery child while waiting on her bubble tea.

Spinning Image

DJ Olivia tore it up on the ones and the twos. (Well, just the ones. She couldn’t find a satisfactory facsimile of the twos.) She had me bring home some blank CDs that I keep in my desk at work, threw them on her “record player” (a spinning art wheel), grabbed the headphones from her portable Dora CD player, and madly scratched away as if she were a dog with fleas.

Armlessness Day

The below conversation was, in a manner of speaking, our speaking of manners. Sort of. Eventually.

Olivia: "Can people have no arms?"

Me: "Some people are born without arms. And some people lose an arm or two in accidents."

Olivia: "How do they eat?"

Me: "Some people reach for food with their mouth. I’ve seen video of someone using his feet."

Olivia: "You can’t eat with your feet – it’s bad manners."

Me: "Not if you don’t have arms, Olivia."

Heir Care

She’s inquired about her mother’s jewelry before, but never in this way.

Olivia: "Can I borrow your necklace, Mommy?"

Beni: "No."

Olivia: "When you die, can I have your necklace?"

Beni: "Umm. Okay."

Baby Sit

Reed has taken to parking his bottom on the car that converts to a walker. His big sister enjoys pushing him around the basement, often at speeds that challenge his ability to stay within the vehicle.

Wiscon-Son?

We’re not Green Bay Packers fans nor hail from the Badger State, but it appears as though we have a cheesehead among us.

Cheesehead from chris k on Vimeo.

Cat Nap Fever

These two cats napped – at least pretended to – so as to have plenty of energy to cheer on our women’s basketball team in their game this afternoon against a conference rival.

Playing It Close to the Chess

Reed reigned over his dominion with a ferocity so rarely seen in young rulers. He easily broke through a wall of pawns before making a royal mess of those the pawns were protecting.

Lord, I Was Born of Ramblin’ Mind

I love the meandering and tangential nature of a child’s mind. One minute you’re discussing her favorite TV show, the next you’re being asked to explain why people believe in God. Kids say the darnedest things, and say them so often, that you could probably compile them for a television program, hosted perhaps by an Art Linkletter or Billy Cosby type. Bon appétit!

"Can we go to Bolivia someday? But I’ll never go where there are alligators because I don’t like alligators. I like lions with their big manes and giraffes with their kids."

Aught Not

Our five-year-old – and her homemade 2010 glasses and hat – lasted longer than her thirtysomething mother did in ushering in the new decade.