An Ari story

You might have noticed that I don't talk much about what Ari does at school.  That's not out of any sense of ignoring the middle child, but purely because Ari is more into active play and practical skills, not things with pieces of paper of which I can take pictures.  E.g. while Xander decides to do art or sewing or math, all with material take-homes, Ari loves to garden, to sing, to learn his letters and numbers, and to build towers and do puzzles.

His communication is getting much better, and as such, his behavior is too - I think lots of his "being two years old" anger was because he was frustrated that we weren't understanding him.  

Sometimes, however, his moods come out of nowhere...

Xander was running and tripped over his own feet.  Ari was running right behind and fell on top of him.

"I'm sowwy, Xander," Ari said.

"It's okay, it wasn't your fault," Xander replied, brushing himself off. "No worries, honey.  But thank you," I added.

"NOO!!!" he yelled, surprising us all.  "It IS my fault!!"  He then left the room, huffing and puffing.

J and I looked at each other and laughed.  His vehemence was just too cute.  Xander just looked baffled.

A moment later Ari came running back, scowling and indignant.  "IS NOT FUNNY!"  Then he ran away again.  Jonathan and I lost it.

You woulda laughed too had you been there, I guarantee it.

Interesting things of note this weekend

1) When did children's songs get whitewashed?  Listening to "Three Blind Mice" on one of our CD's, the lyrics said "they all ran after the farmer's wife/who cut them some cheese with a carving knife."  Isn't the original, "who cut off their tails with a carving knife"?  At least that's what I remember from my own childhood.

2) I've been in jeans and sweatshirts, my natural state, for too long.  Between bedrest and maternity leave, it's been five months since I've dressed up professionally for work.  My first day back is tomorrow, and when I did a "trial run" today and put on my jewelry, one of my earring holes had half-closed up!

3) Connor won't take a bottle.  It's freaking us out.  Any suggestions?

4) Rain, rain, come down.  It's great for California's drought, but bad for our backyard because we were going to sweep up all the sand from the sandbox this weekend.  Now we just have mud.

5) Robin can put anyone to sleep.  See below for proof!

Making mathematical pizza

At the kids' school different learning activities are called "jobs."  There's a "map job" in geography, a "leaf job" in biology, a "carrot job" teaching them how to use a knife to cut up carrots, etc.  The one below is the "circle job" introducing fractions - or, as one of Xander's friends call it, the "pizza job."

Hard at work.  You can see the red pizza circle on the lower right. 

The first page of his packet: a full circle and a creatively-spelled name.  

Halves.  Bad shadow, sorry.

Thirds.

Quarters.  I don't know where he picked up the European four notation.  Or, as he calls it, "fancy fours."

And voila.  Fifths.  A nicely cut-up pizza pie.

And in another entry in the "where did this child COME from?!" files, Xander's teacher has now resorted to making deals with him: she'll only teach him more numbers if he reads a book or does sight words with her.  Otherwise he'd do math all day, every day, and ignore literacy completely!

Chocolate power smoothie

Tonight Xander requested a chocolate smoothie for dessert, so I did my best to be up to the challenge.  I browsed quickly online (cookbooks are so passe!), and decided to go the healthy route versus the chocolate ice cream route.  I adapted this one from something I found on a spirulina website, and it worked - everyone had seconds!

2 bananas

2 cups strawberries

1 cup spinach

3 cups milk

a dash of cinnamon

lots of honey

3 tablespoons Nesquik powder (maybe next time I'll go for chocolate syrup)

And here's a big moment: Xander found out the identity of my secret ingredient!  He asked if I was going to put in "the green stuff," and I said, "Sure, you mean the spinach?"  Then I waited for his reaction.  Instead of acting grossed out, he just said, "OH!  That's spinach?!  I thought I didn't like spinach."  To which I replied, "Nope, you love it. You just asked for it."  And he smiled happily, and we went merrily on our way.  :)

We need our fix!!!

Written last night....

Connor hung out with Jonathan a large part of the day today, "practicing" what it will be like for me going back to work on Sunday.  And Jonathan made a concerning discovery.

The baby is a total mama's boy.

He cried and cried with Jonathan (and Robin) - they rocked him, bounced him, gave him a bottle.

He stopped complaining the moment he saw me.  Then he gave me the biggest, most heart-wrenchingly beautiful smile in all of baby smile history.  He cooed, and fell right asleep.  It melted my heart... and made me feel really sorry for my husband.

--------

All afternoon his brothers were challenging, to say the least.

-------

By the end of the day, Jonathan and I were wiped.

But, aside from the occasional glass of wine, we do not drink.

Neither do we shoot anything into our arms.  Or snort anything up our noses.  Or take any prescription drugs to excess.

So what did we do?

.
.
.
.
.
.
(Spoiler alert)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Jonathan made an emergency supermarket run.

Oh pint of Banana Split Ice Cream, how I love thee!

Weekend in repose

Jonathan and the cub.

Blackie's cage, complete with camel and tree from Savta. Notice the snakeskin hanging off the tree - he was having a lot of trouble shedding until we put it in there, and then kept rubbing against it, enabling an easy shed.  So thank you, Savta, on behalf of Blackie!

Ari's smoothie face.   He kept drinking from the glass at different angles, hence his horns and forehead dabs.  Finally he gave up and went with the spoon. 

Pictures you won't see? Me huffing and puffing.  For the past few weeks I've been going on daily power walks with Connor in the carrier, and on Thursday I bought hand weights.  Oy those make a difference!  Owww...

How are they growing up so fast?

It's amazing how much a difference five years make.  How did Xander get to be his own person, with his own personality and preferences and attitudes?

We were at a friend's house yesterday, and Ari (turning 3 next month), went to play with Ava, also 2.  They played near us, coming to check in often and asking for help with things in their non-enunciated language.

Xander and Ava's brother Mateo, also 5, went right to the backyard and didn't come back in for two hours.  When various parents went to check on them, they were playing merrily and obviously had their own in-jokes.  At one point Mateo said, "let's show your mom how this works!" and it took me aback because 1) I was the mom, 2) they're old enough to say "mom," not "mommy," and 3) they were showing me something that I didn't know.

I know that children grow up. But still.  Xander has been calling me "Mom" sometimes, to test it out, I think.  And it's weird.  He seems so old, especially as he's been taking on the role of helper for Ari and the baby.

-----

Then today, at the park, my viewpoint shifted again, as he seemed so childish compared to the teenage girls on the swings.  One called him "Hot Stuff 101" and he was completely baffled as to what that meant.  It was adorable.

Amazing how one's perspective can take a 180 depending on context.