May I?

May I brag about my child for a moment?

Let's talk about Bela. She finally finished 2nd grade. Monday was her last day. Yes, Monday the 24th. Longest school year ever.

Mae finished a few days earlier for some reason, so she was home with me on Monday as we watched the clock and counted down the start of our summer vacation. Because it can't really start without Bela, right?

1 minute before the dismissal bell rang, Mae and Gill and I set out for school to meet her. 1 minute after it rang we walked up to the playground. Bela came bounding towards us, hands full of papers.

She had three awards. She was so excited. She shoved them in my hands and hugged her teacher and her friends.

We had been planning a cheeseburger-fries-and-ice-cream-dinner at our favorite restaurant, to celebrate the end of their school year, but Bela did not want to eat.

"We had a goodbye picnic today, and I ate two hot dogs, a bag of chips, two juice boxes, two doughnuts, and lots of cookies." It makes my stomach turn just thinking about it.

So we scrapped dinner plans and decided to head to the beach.

Anyway, I wander off topic. I glanced down at the awards in my hands.

She is on the honor roll.

She won the award for Most Growth in Reading on MAP test (uh, not that test scores matter, right?) "Wow!" I said. "Remember when you started the year and felt so behind because you weren't reading that much yet? This is great!! You must feel so proud of yourself."

She beamed.

I read the last award. Not only did Bela grow her reading scores the most, she got the highest reading score in all of 2nd grade (ooooh, wow, except scores aren't important, right? And we shouldn't judge our children based on some state test score. Right. but.....)

Woo hoo! Thatta girl!

I'm so proud of her! She sure does love a good story.

We arrived at Foster Beach, bought a tub of fruit and some chicharrones with salsa valentina, and walked down to the filthy water just in time to get caught in the mother of all storms. A beach trip to remember.

But hey! Let's get this summer rolling!!!

The girls

Just a page in our memory book here. The girls. At the cusp of Summer. 2013.

Bela paints faces at Mae's birthday party.

Mae - the birthday girl

Gillian - Six Flags

Gillian - Six Flags

Bela rides the Viper. Six Flags.

Rainbows on her face. Mae.

In summary...

My brother gets home from Mexico tomorrow, and Rico's time with us will come to an end.

How did it go?

Well, I think. Chris wants to keep him now, vomit and all, so things went well.

THE GOOD:

• He barks each and every time someone comes to the door or enters the house or even walks by the front windows. This works better than any Home Security System, I'm sure.  Our power went out in the middle of the night a few nights ago, for about an hour. Chris was not at home. Although Rico's barking woke the baby up, it made me feel a whole lot better to sit in absolute darkness with him by our side. 
• He runs with me. Enough said.
• He's very sweet. He follows me around everywhere. He waits outside the bathroom door while I'm peeing. He sits next to me on the couch. He sleeps next to me in my bed. 
• He does all his nasty business OUTSIDE of our house. The cats, guinea pigs, and hamster make our house smell like a farm. 

THE BAD:

• Sometimes the barking is annoying. He howls when we leave, and I'm sure our neighbors aren't happy. 
• He scares the cat. Cooper didn't make an appearance until he had been here for 7 days. Oh wait. I meant to put that in THE GOOD list.
• He doesn't eat nearly as much of the crud that falls on the floor as I thought he would. Who knew he would be so picky? I was hoping for a little more in this department.
• He's a little more demanding on the schedule than, say, the chickens. They don't care if we go to Six Flags for 8 hours. He, on the other hand, broke out of his crate, peed in the girls room, and scratched the hell out of their pretty, solid wood vintage door.

Earlier in the week, just after dinnertime, I laid down on my bed with a glass of wine to gather my wits and get ready for the last bit of the day. Rico jumped up. And so did Bronte (my 17 year old cat). Rico laid by my hip. Bronte by my shoulder. I tried to get a picture with the three of us in it, since this was surely a first. But each and every time I raised the camera my cat slapped me with her poopy paw.

 I think she's ready for him to go.

Local Color

I just finished a two day workshop on local color at Lillstreet Art Center. We prepared natural dye solutions and used extracts of madder root, pomegranate, weld, marigold, buckthorn berries, osage orange, black walnut, tansy, and sumac.

I was in charge of preparing the Weld dye solution. Day 1.

Day 2. Fabric dyeing in the weld.

It was inspiring and so so interesting. I hope I can fit some Indigo dyeing into my very near future. Would it be ridiculous to join the Handweavers Guild of America and spend the next several years working towards a certificate of excellence in natural dyeing???

Hmmm.

And I didn't know what to do with that basement stove and sink. Dye kitchen!

And that weedy side yard? Time to plant some goldenrod, weld, woad, and Chamomile!

Onward!

Day 2 - checking out our results.

Pretty!

Six

Mae turned 6 yesterday. We celebrated by heading to Six Flags Great America in honor of her six whole years on this planet.

We invited her best bud, Una, and our old pal Kit and his girlfriend joined us too.

Here are Una and Mae. Before Six Flags.

On the way to Six Flags.

Here are Una and Mae. After Six Flags.

On the way home from Six Flags

We spent 8 hours there. Mae's favorite part was "all of it. Except the Orbiter."

I agreed. We both had to squeeze our eyes shut and hold hands until it was over. It almost put us out of commission for the rest of the day.

She loved The Whizzer (I screamed like a little girl). She was too short for the American Eagle (I screamed like a little girl). And she said nay to the Demon (Una rode silent and stoic by my side. I screamed like a little girl).

Bela was the Six Flags champion. She hit all the roller coasters she was tall enough for, including two rides at the very front of the red car on the Eagle. She hit the viper. She ruled the Demon. She loved the Whizzer.  She did the CRAZY drop from the sky ride with Chris, and came out looking way better than her Dad, who was all pale and damp afterwards.

She was also a big hit on the Great America Idol stage. She rocked Kiddie land with her rendition of Michael Jackson's Dirty Diana, and Thriller.

Gill got to ride a few rides too, but in general had the best day of her life stealing licks off the girls' lollipops and eating waffle fries.

Happy, happy birthday to my beautiful, amazing, smart talking 6 year old. We love you so very much.

 

This Moment

A moment from our week. Have a great weekend, all!

Rico

My brother and his kids just left for Acapulco. They are visiting Wifey and Mama Ivonne, my sister-in-law, who has been in Mexico since early November awaiting the long slow arm of the government to do what needs to be done. She has been separated from her family for these last 7 months waiting for her turn to pick up her permanent visa and return home.

In the meantime, we are babysitting their dog, Rico - a little black and white whippet who follows us everywhere.

Rico and I have become good friends. He's a great running partner, too. Chris, on the other hand, is pretty sure he never wants a dog. Ever. It's not that he doesn't like Rico, it's hard not to. It's just that there are way too many animals in this house.

And the girls, although super tickled to have a dog to walk and a dog to run around with (another pet to show off), aren't much help in the poop department. Picking up after this dog is just one more chore they have managed to whine and complain their way out of.

Take this morning. I slipped away for an early yoga class before they were all awake, leaving Chris in charge of the torturous get up-get dressed-get fed-pack a lunch-brush your hair-brush-your teeth-pack your homework-let the chickens out-get the baby up a.m. routine.

I pulled up in front of our house as the school bell rang and started jogging in their direction, figuring there was no way they were on time and already at school.

I wasn't wrong. I spotted them halfway between our house and the school building. Chris, Bela, Mae, Gillian in her stroller and Rico were all tangled together and moving slowly, very slowly towards the school day.

Rico had just let some sloppy drippy stuff fall from his rear end and the ladies were NOT going to clean it up. Chris - the perpetual good guy - bent to handle the task.

What he failed to do was simple math. Alcohol consumed plus late night thai food minus time confounded by rotten sleep and missing wife in the early am multiplied by an already sissy gag reflex.

He threw up all over the parkway. Heave after heave after heave.

And I used to get embarrassed when my dad would drop me off at school in that loud little MGB. At least he never puked into the street in front of all of my friends.