First Grade, First Grade

Landslide

Oh, the video will never do it justice but here it is anyhow.

Stepping Up

Every so often you can sail above the 24 hour cycle of parenting - the snacks and meals, the negotiations, the constant cleaning up, many scrapes and near misses, etc, and have an indelible, crystal clear awareness of why parenting is really the best, best thing ever, totally worth all the endless bother. We had one of those moments yesterday when Rosemary's year end kindergarten celebration -- billed as graduation, but what on earth is kindergarten graduation? It was basically a concert, with 4 of the classes singing their own songs and then getting together to sing a couple as a big group. It was sweet beyond belief.

We heard about it first as Rosemary came home telling us that there was something exciting happening and she was going to sing into a microphone with 3 of her best buddies from class. She couldn't tell us WHAT they would sing, but then of course like most things we heard (almost instantly) that it was First Grade, First Grade, to be sung to the tune of (of course) New York, New York. Then later there were a few inklings that she and her class were working with Mr. C, their beloved music teacher, on a couple of other songs, one of which was Landslide.

What? Landslide?

Landslide, the old Fleetwood Mac songs, is just on it's own one of those songs, one of a tiny handful really, that makes me have to stop what I'm doing and just dwell for a minute or two at that weird place where melancholy meets happy. It's so beautiful and sad, and the way the notes fit together really gets me. And that's when I hear it on the radio. When 90 plus kindergartners sing it in unison? "Can I handle the seasons of my life?" Forget it. I'm a goner. Never mind all the other craziness of that particular moment, with Sylvia squirming in my lap and dumping her snack and asking for water and poking Maggie in the eye, and both girls saying "Hi Ro-Ro!" in the middle of the song, or the lady who stood up directly in front of us blocking pretty much everything except (happily) our view of Rosemary -- it was magical. The kids were up there doing their movements to the song (climbing a ladder).

And then there's Rosemary. She had a great time. I was so proud of her for totally enjoying her moment on the stage. I asked her today whether she felt nervous before going up there. She looked at me in confusion and said, "No, I was happy! When I was walking into the auditorium, I was smiling, I couldn't stop smiling. You know that feeling you get when you smile even if you don't want to, when you feel like your face is pushing up into a smile?"

It has been a great year for her indeed. After the long, lovely 3 year sojourn at her nursery school, it is such a wonderful thing for her to know that a roomful of strangers can become bosom buddies, and a big jostling place can become home. There are 10 girls in her class, and she loves them all. (She likes the boys all right, but she's not close with any of them, which is a shame, but not a surprising thing.) While, yes, there are a few things I would wish could be changed about her school (science more than once a week, more communication home, etc - it being a big public school after all), my big-little girl is happy and feels cared for and is interested in learning. What better kindergarten experience could you ask for?

Picture=1000 Words

Rosemary did me the favor of making this sign after Sylvia tore into the dust jackets of my favorite cookbook: No ripping books, thank you! Notice that paper though? Also ripped, subsequently. That pretty much says it all. Both girls are currently incorrigible in this regard, but Sylvia in particular is a boundary-tester, or really more of just-don't-give-a-dim-dammer. Consequences are of no consequence to her. We joke that this is her theme song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxxajLWwzqY

Sylvia just doesn't care. We love this about her but obviously it's a liability.

If you're not paying full attention to her and she is quiet, she's probably doing something naughty. The other day, the girls were trying on new yellow saltwater sandals. Sylvia had hers on and I let her walk around for a bit to try them out while I put on Maggie's. Sylvia dashed away, threw open the back door and went hurtling in the wading pool. She doesn't care.

Yesterday, Jason went down to get Sylvia out of the crib and discovered she had proudly ripped off her diaper.

A few things about Sylvia that are germaine to this story:
1) she loves to go on/in anything that moves: boats, subways, trains, planes, cars. Except after planes take off, when she feels bored and contained. (This is the opposite of Maggie, who is terrified and clutchy on plane take off, or on our short boat ride to Governors Island the other day. She doesn't like the feeling of unpredictable movement. "Up and down, up and down!" she said, freaking out.
2) Sylvia has no interest in potty training.
3) She likes a good time.

"Diaper off!" she said to him happily.

"Anne!" he called up the stairs. "She took off her diaper."

"Maybe it's time to potty train, then," I called back down.

"Sylvia, what do you think, is it time to potty train?"

"Party train? Party train!" Begins jumping up and down in her crib. "PARTY TRAIN! PARTY TRAIN! PARTY TRAIN!"

People all over the world, join hands,
Start a party train, party train.

Me Big

Maggie napped in Rosemary's bed today. She didn't tumble out, though when I peeked in on her she had turned herself sideways and had her head kind of hanging over the edge. She's been lobbying to get out of that crib for awhile - "Sleep O-ro's bed (more on the O-ro thing later) - and she was really satisfied to give it a try today. I heard her reading in bed for a bit, enjoying the taste of the big kid's life. (She reads like this: "Ya da da da da da da da DA." The big DA always marks the end of the page.)

I'm of two minds of this development. The cribs are the last vestige of control we have around here. Neither girl is a crib vaulter (yet), but I can't count on them both believing in what a good friend of ours wisely called the "mind crib" - as in, they don't get out of bed because they still think they can't or maybe shouldn't. 

With our loss of control comes the beneficial trade off: their control.  They now manage stairs nicely, we don't have to hover around the side of the jungle gym, etc. Maggie in particular is all about taking care of things: "Me big!" she announces often. Yes, you are big, Maggie. Little but big. She wants to get herself dressed and sort of can, although she gets stuck on pulling her pants over her bottom and asks for help: "cover up butt." She was very motivated and earlier this winter learned the flip trick for getting her coat on. She wants to scoot everywhere ("Me 'coot") and pretty much can when given the opportunity, although Jason is better at trusting her to stop at intersections than I am. 

Sylvia is happier to be taken care of. She likes to ride in the stroller. She is a clingy little monkey, loves to be carried around, and does NOT want to put her coat on by herself yet, thanks very much. She occasionally wants to try to get her clothes on, but is less insistent on doing it on her own and doesn't fret when you rescue her from a tangled-up pajama top. She sings when she walks, pausing to wiggle her hips from side to side in a spry little dance. She loves to sing the alphabet and twinkle twinkle:

Both girls are getting tons of new words all the time. For us, it's a bit like learning two new languages at the same time, where you have to stop and think, ok, are we speaking Sylvie or Maggie right now? For example, pajamas are "jobbies" in Sylvia and "gegaws" in Maggie. Go figure. It's been especially fun to hear what they call each other and themselves. Sylvia says Maggie quite clearly and correctly, and has been calling Rosemary "Ro-Ro" for some time. She calls herself See-bee still. Then there's Maggie, who originally called Sylvia "Heyday," which has since changed to "Dee-bee." She calls herself Nommy (not sure why), but just today for the first time she called herself Maggie. Everyday something new and wonderful. 

After months of working on it, Maggie has finally mastered the doorknob. Not all doorknobs, but - of course - particularly the bathroom doors. She walked in on me the other day, although I had fair warning because I heard Jason trying valiantly to call her off. The door opened, Maggie looked in, stood for a beat, just looking, and then said, "Peekaboo."

Maggie notices when anything is amiss and works to fix it. I know I've mentioned this before but it continues to astonish me. The other day, Rosemary was in the bathroom and asked for more toilet paper. I went in to help and met Maggie on her way out. She had already gotten a new roll out and handed it to Rosemary. If someone cries, she starts looking around for something she knows will comfort them - a lovey, a tissue to wipe a nose, etc.  Don't get me wrong - she's a two year old, not a teeny saint, and she engages in plenty of hair pulling and pushing (usually accompanied by maniacal laughter). But there's an inherent sweetness and generosity in Maggie. 

And silliness too: Tonight neither Sylvia nor Maggie were in the mood to sleep, and Sylvia was still chatting and singing and generally rabble-rousing when I brought Rosemary into bed twenty minutes later. Maggie was quiet. But when we walked in, she was standing in her crib silently, wearing a pair of red sunglasses. 

I admit the little girls' bedtime has been a bit perfunctory previously - because it could be! - but now they are adding elements. First, they run around a lot avoiding things. Brushing teeth, putting on pajamas, bath time, the usual etc. Then they want us to read them an old Sesame Street book we have. Actually, they rarely have the patience for us to read them the whole book, since what they really want is to get to their money page, a page that has 5 or 6 different pictures of Cookie Monster eating cookies. They like to kiss the Cookie page. One of the things I'm finding fun about twins is how they pick up on and join in on each others interests, strange though they may be. Maggie is the real Cookie fan. Sylvie is an Elmo girl herself, but this book predates Elmo.

ccc

Looking back on Easter

I'm slowly sorting through our spring photos and enjoying some from our Easter weekend. It is such an endless luxury to have a beautiful backyard for an egg hunt. The Easter bunny brought a ton of eggs, thinking that it would give the littler girls a fighting chance. Sylvia and Maggie didn't get the memo. They both preferred to pick up one egg at a time and devour its contents, as Rosemary scurried about collecting the other 50 eggs. That's fine, although her Easter basket did overfloweth.

Another Easter indulgence: a special cake from one of our local old school Italian bakeries.

Okay, now here is the real indulgence: The Granddad Salon! I can guarantee my dad never painted MY fingernails when I was little.

Maggie's First Trim

Recently Maggie got her first hair cut. Baby mullet before:

 

Baby mullet going, going...

GONE! Maggie was pretty excited to hit this milestone. Sylvia, who has had one haircut previously (last year's Sinead O Connor 'do), declined to get her hair cut this time. By screaming. I used to have a book about a little lion who was scared to get his hair cut. He refused until he couldn't see where he was going. Finally, after bumping into a lot of things, he agreed to do it, and there was so much hair to cut off that they were able to make two brooms and a little toupee for his worm friend. 

I fear we may be able to make a few brooms and toupees by the time Sylvia finally agrees to get her hair cut. She is no fan of having her hair brushed, and usually rejects clips and ponytails. She's just not one for procedure. There was a lot of crying when she realized what we were doing, even while we were waiting to get the cuts. The whole episode took a protracted twist when I received a phone call from a stranger named Juan, saying that he was at the playground by our house, and did I know I had locked my husband out of the house, in our garden, and he was "trying to climb into the playground?" We raced home, set Jason free (yes, he was mad), then went back for haircuts, and OH BOY was Sylvia not happy when we returned to the scene of the haircut, which she thought she had escaped. She got a lolly but no hair cut.

Maggie now has a fetching, grown-up little bob: 

Sylvia, not so much: