Preoccupations

In listing Alicisms, how could I forget Manus? As if on genetic cue as she heads toward her second birthday, Alice has begun developing a fascination with Manus the Tank Engine, whom she identifies everywhere. She also asks me to name all his friends and now can identify Puhsy, too.

Tonight Edith let Alice in on the secret that there exist animated Manus stories that can be seen on the television set. Alice was so excited she could hardly stand it: Squealing almost as if in pain, she stridently appealed to the screen to show Manus! Manus! Unfortunately, the one DVD we have in that series features the #1 Really Useful Engine in only one short bit; the rest of the stories showcase other engines. Alice was in agony waiting for him to appear. When I finally suggested a bath instead, she seemed relieved to wave goodbye to the television and depart the scene of so much excitement.

I wish my preoccupations were limited to Manus. This week is something of a doozy, and we're trying not to let the panic overtake us. On the list:

1. Move out of Princeton (including all attendant subcategories of to-do items: pack, pack separately for six intervening weeks--weeks that include a beach vacation for the girls, an Africa medical mission for me and Tom, and a wedding for all, with Edith as flower girl and Tom as presiding minister; load truck; resolve outstanding bureaucratic details; say farewells; get to plane on time).

2. Prepare for trip to Africa (including get vaccines, resolve outstanding bureaucratic details like an entrance visa and power of attorney for kids, shop and pack, and in Tom's case--resolve final financial and logistical details for the whole group).

3. Wean Alice. Necessary by next Tuesday, when I'm scheduled to get a yellow fever vaccine contraindicated for breastfeeding. A year ago I thought Alice would be easy-peasy to wean, based on her seemingly casual relationship to breastfeeding, but at this point she's become a devoted comfort nurser. Not as intense about it as Edith was, and her nursing follows a fairly predictable daily pattern, but she's still committed. And it's rough. I can discipline myself to privations of various types, but it wrenches me to ignore my small daughter sobbing, "Mook! Mook! Mommy! Mommy! Mook!" Especially in the dark of the night, or when other people are listening to her sob and looking at me expectantly, as at daycare pickup or at some of these evening farewell occasions with friends. I try to explain, and people nod, but it's clearly disconcerting (and loud) for those around us. And when I see her tears roll down her small cheeks and find that at the end of a day that we've spent apart I nevertheless have to separate her from me again and walk away, it's awful. We've managed the nightweaning for the most part (I had to sleep in the car one night so I couldn't hear her crying) and Tom thinks I need to buck up and plow through with the rest. He's right, of course--there's no choice--but when she's crying for milk, everything in me rebels against it.

4. Complete my first two coursebook lists for the fall, to submit book orders by July 1. That means putting together my first two syllabi sufficiently to know what I'm assigning, which means I need to know what the classes are going to be about. Unlike textbook-based classes, history classes involve some 5-10 monographs (single-subject books) and several dozen articles or book chapters, plus primary sources. So there's a lot to plan. One of the courses is team taught, so we need to coordinate our plans this week, too.

I'm trying to be present for my kids and live in the moment with them through this time of transition, but then the thoughts start swirling. I'm ending one of my courses with a reading on global warming--a subject on which Edith wanted to read a Magic Schoolbus book tonight, too. By the time I finished looking at both, there was part of me in the apocalyptic, to-hell-with-it-civilization is-about-to-perish-anyway frame of mind that can start to seem the only response to the to-do list.

Unfortunately, apocalypse won't get the boxes packed by next Tuesday. (Though abnormal spring flooding did do a good job of washing many of them away...)

An Alixicon

The fun thing about having an almost-kindergartner around when your second child starts talking is that there's someone taking even greater delight in all the cute mispronunciations than the child's doting parents do. The other day on the way to school, Edith and I had great fun tossing back and forth our favorite Alicisms.

Of course the audience for such things falls off pretty rapidly after parents and siblings, but for posterity's sake, and in case any grandparents and/or linguists out there have a modicum of interest, I present here a partial Alixicon. Her total words number somewhere in the several hundreds by now--we've stopped counting--and many of those are crystal clear. But others are still in that wonderful (if limiting) stage in which the pronunciation is unique to the speaker. And so, some of our favorites:

• Dee-Dee Edith. I've mentioned this one before, but at this point it's fast on its way to becoming our family's Beezus equivalent. Today the older toddler teacher at the girls' school told us that she is known as Bela Deedee to her younger sisters, because in Gujarati, Deedee is the appellation for "eldest sister." Perfect!
• up-a-dow up. Specifically, Help me get up on this [bed/chair/table/stone wall/etc.]!
  
• dock (sing. or pl.) the soft knitted garment that fits closely over a foot; they usually come in pairs.
• eush (pl.; vowel something of a German umlauty sort) They go over the dock.
  
• nage What she needs, and often requests, when her diaper is dirty.
• boppy Once she learns how to use this fixture, she will no longer need nages. As it is, Alice seems to think boppies are a class of (admittedly interesting) seats usually found in the bathroom. They include a small blue footstool used during baths and the bathroom scale, which Alice has designated her personal boppy. Boppies are not to be confused (definitely not) with nursing pillows of a homophonic brand name.
  
• wockee That stuff Mommy and Daddy seem to drink an awful lot of, steaming hot in a mug or iced in a plastic cup.
  
• puck I meant, ...iced in a plastic puck.
• lo-lo Unlike Edith, Alice enjoys climbing into the lo-lo for a walk around the block and frequently asks for such a treat...when she's not pushing her dolls in their own miniature lo-lo.
  
• lo-lo-lo The neighborhood's adults, by contrast, seem to prefer pushing a noisy lo-lo-lo methodically back and forth across the lawn, especially on dry Saturdays.
• plyplay Those enchanting insects seen in the June twilight.

***

Meanwhile, some more Edith talk. The maturity of Edith's conversational gambits has long struck us, but there's a whole new quality to it when a child in a carseat is casually discussing from the backseat what type of car she plans to buy when she gets to Colorado. "I would prefer a Jeep...forest green is what I was thinking." Since when did my preschooler develop opinions on, and hankerings for, particular automotive vehicles? What's more, she is receiving encouragement: Despite our having purchased a new Mazda in 2008 (with parental help), some members of the family seem to think it's already time to revisit the car question. The Mazda 5 was intended to haul a 110-pound dog who is no longer among us, and it does not have the 4-wheel drive that everyone keeps telling us we'll need. Tom has long yearned for a small Toyota pick-up truck or, apparently, a Jeep. Now father and daughter are colluding to build their castles in the air together.

"You know what I'm going to do," says Edith suddenly. "When I get home I'm going to empty out my piggybank and give away all my saved money." To whom? I ask. "For the Jeep," she says. Tom immediately promises to contribute his quarter collection to the fund. That will be a lot of money, Edith says. "But not enough to make us poor, I don't think." I suggest that if it were enough to make us poor, then buying a Jeep would be a bad choice. Edith quickly agrees, which I take as a reassuring sign that her material dreams haven't overrun her grip on reality.

Tonight one of the standing committees at church hosted us at a lovely farewell dinner. A committee member who used to work in the veterinary pharmaceuticals industry gave the girls each a smooshy foam dog, like a stress ball but shaped like a dalmatian. Then he gave me and Tom one as back-up in case Alice eats or otherwise mutilates hers. When we got home, Edith asked what Tom and I were going to do with "our" dog. I told her I didn't know and asked if she would like to take care of it for us.

She nodded. "I could probably handle two dogs," she said with casual confidence. "I have experience taking care of small animals. Small stuffed animals. Two people who used to have a real dog who died probably shouldn't take care of a rubber dog. [Ouch.] They might not know how to care for it. Like, you might give it real dog food, but a rubber dog doesn't eat real dog food. So that wouldn't be good."

I agreed to entrust Spotty to Edith's expert care. With all the rest of our responsibilities this week, that's a load off.

A prayer

"Watch therefore, for ye know not the day nor the hour..."

I have been thinking of that verse this week, in connection with friends of ours experiencing otherwise. As hard a truth it is that our lives will end--or our loved ones be taken from us--at an unknowable moment, yet how much worse to know the hour in advance. Today we are holding in the light friends who have been been facing this date with a courage that most of us, by God's grace, will never need to summon. We offer prayers for strength, comfort, and gentle mercy on C. and T. in saying farewell to their adopted baby daughter, as the court gives her into the custody of her biological father. And we pray for little E. she continues her life journey in a new home and family.

And we remember never, ever, to take our own children for granted.

Why I Love Five Year Olds

"Mom, I'm going to tell you something that happened at school today, okay?" A story of her day offered up voluntarily. Already a good start.

"Torrey was playing with his dragons that he brought from home, and Mr. Allan said it was time to put them away.* Torrey started crying because he wanted to play with his dragons. Then Mr. Allan said, 'You know, if you made wings for those dinosaur toys we have, they would be almost like dragons.' So Adam and I went and got the dinosaurs, and we got construction paper and scissors, and we figured out how to make wings. We didn't even need a pattern or directions. And then Adam and Torrey and I put the wings on the dinosaurs for dragons, and we played with them. It was so cool."

*Toys from home aren't allowed at school--jealousy and squabbles surrounding private property, teachers' headache in keeping track of them, etc. But E. and others often ease the transition into the school day by arriving with a toy or book in hand and clutching it for a bit before 9am, when it has to go into their cubby until pickup.

***

10pm. I'm soaking in the tub with a book after a day of packing boxes. Edith comes into the bathroom. She wants to play her blue Disney compilation CD, having finished a previous bedtime CD, but she doesn't know where to find it. I suggest she seek help from her father.

"Okay. You know, I bet you think I'm kind of like a college kid. I mean, I do some crazy things like a college kid. Like listening to that loud music alone in my room. I don't know why I do that. I mean, like when Simba just can't wait to be king? Yeah, that's loud music. I'm like a college kid."

Starts to back out of the bathroom and pauses to look at me. "You know, that looks relaxing. Good night."

***

Why I Love 1.5 Year Olds

...or at least, this 1.5 year old. Alice has started tantruming, in her own special way. When you deny her something she wants, she knows she's supposed to prostrate herself on the floor in protest. (Must have gotten the 18-month memo.) But there's no need to be reckless about it. Staring you down with a poker face, she carefully lowers herself to the floor, turning her head once to glance and make sure she's not putting it down on something awkward. Having assumed a supine position, she spreads her limbs and adopts the relaxed attitude of a yoga class participant post-workout. It might be a posture of total release...except for those eyes still boring into you.

Cue Handel...

Edith has spent five years at her preschool, longer than she'll spend in middle school, high school, or college, for all of which she'll probably have graduation ceremonies. So it felt right that she should officially graduate from this first chapter in her scholastic career, too. All the same, I'm glad there were only seven kids in the class, because if the processional had gone on much longer I would have been a bawling mess.

Standing as the class sang her name in the opening song

Her first diploma

"What We've Learned" (sung to the Addams Family theme song), involved the use of rhythm sticks--likely to be Edith's only graduation ceremony featuring that instrument. From the graduation program I learned that Edith learned about whales in pre-K, that she wants to be an astronaut, and that in kindergarten she hopes to learn which planets have the most gravity. Her class has spent the last month building a spaceship, complete with space potty, and last week blasted off to Mercury for the afternoon. Edith was Co-Commander; some of her best friends were Chief Medical Officer, conducting routine exams of all crew members before lift-off, and Chief Scientific Officer, planning the group's zero-gravity experiments.

Have you met our fourteen year old? This picture made me gasp. Were it not for Sarah's cherubic baby chin, I'd fear we had fast-forwarded a decade.

The happy graduates

All about Alice

Quiz: Which member of the family is not utterly spent at this point in the schoolyear?


Right. In honor of Alice's being the family member who is still going strong--and also because she is such a delightful little creature these days--the first post in weeks is dedicated to her. Just don't expect too many words: I'm out of them.

Such a good photo shoot of our goldfish-loving toddler--and one of the only recent photo sessions that captures some of her typical expressions, her sunny mood, and her sparkling sense of humor--that I couldn't choose the best shot. Feel free to tell me which you think is the keeper.



It wouldn't be summertime if we weren't on the softball field, ice water in hand


At our last Princeton reunions. Alice enjoyed the puddles...


...but several hours in started to question the endless parade of self-admiration.


She adores biking and daily toddles toward the storage shed making her winsome appeal, "Bike? Bike?" On occasions when I say no, she doesn't pitch a fit but instead attempts a new tack. "Hat [helmet]. Hat? Mommy hat. Alice hat. Hat! Bike?"

Yesterday, when she was up and raring to start the day at 4:45am, she and I wound up biking up to campus, where we watched an army of workers towel off every rain-soaked seat at Nassau Hall in preparation for graduation a few hours later.


Because when you're one, sledding (in a bike helmet wielding a garden trowel) seems like a perfectly logical Memorial Day activity


We couldn't leave Princeton without getting Alice out for some tractor riding and animal sighting at Terhune Orchards


She is an attentive mother to her dolls and if she can't bike, would most like to be walking her babies around the neighborhood (by herself if we're not quick enough to join the party!)


Finally, from our bike rides and strolls around town, I offer some words in lieu of those I'm lacking.

A notable stone from the local cemetery


And rather too much information for staid Palmer Square, don't you think?