Social Beautifulflies

I’m home from church again, this time with a sick little Kate. I’m actually not completely sure whether she is sick or just utterly exhausted (I would fall in the latter category). She is breathing like a Darth Vader and I heard the beginnings of a barking cough last night. Either way my mom instincts were telling me to let her be this morning. She, of course, would insist that she is “not sick and NOT TIRED!,” that is if she were not completely comatosed in her bed. I think we may have overdone it a little this week.

I began the week off by hosting a luncheon for my “Asian and Asian-looking friends.” Last year I became friends with a few Wharton spouses from Japan. For some reason our schedules haven’t been in line this year and I haven’t seen as much of them, but I really wanted to have them over again before we all go our separate ways in May. I also invited my dear friends Jinhee, from South Korea, and Asialene, who is as American as can be but she looks Asian. They are both from the Wharton LDSSA group. Aya, a first year spouse from LDSSA who is from Japan, also joined us. Thao, a young mom from Germany whose husband is doing a pediatric spinal surgery fellowship in Philadelphia, completed the group. Thao lives in Edgewater and became acquainted with Aya and some of the other LDS moms. She joined us at playgroup one week and was so excited to find other mothers getting together during the day. She is German, but looks Asian, so I figured she would fit right in as well. ☺ I made Nicoise Salad, spicy herbed breadsticks, and a citrus pound cake for dessert. We had a nice time. Chaos reigned upstairs with all the kids playing, but below them the mothers had a relaxing, fun time together. Sometimes it is nice to have an opportunity to associate as adults.

Tuesday was preschool in the morning and a trip to the dentist in the afternoon. I discovered since I broke my tooth a few weeks ago that pausing to get my tooth fixed does not fit into my schedule. We finally managed to find a dentist that would accept our insurance and I went. This place was the Great Clips of dentistry. Clean. No frills. Acceptable, but not luxury. That is just what I needed however, because I just wanted a dentist to glue my tooth back in as a temporary fix until we are in Dallas. As the dentist told me, “this is not a normal procedure.” He also added, “so I don’t know exactly how it will turn out.” Always comforting to hear before you lay back and open wide. It looks good enough that it won’t draw attention to itself. Now let’s just hope it lasts.

Wednesday was our long anticipated Snow Party. Most of Kate’s friends have already turned 5 and consequently had birthday parties. Kate’s little heart wanted to have a party too! She kept inviting her friends over, “Come to my house tomorrow for a party.” After overhearing this at least six times I decided we needed to have a little talk. I told her that we could have a party, but it needed to be something we planned together. Thus was born our “Snow Party.” On Wednesday we had seven little friends over. We had a snowball fight with white foam balls, we made snow globes with beautiful flies inside them, and drank hot chocolate and ate snowballs (vanilla ice cream rolled in coconut). The party was fun, but the best part by far was seeing the girls’ anticipation and excitement. Although it has been showing signs of Spring around here lately, we got four inches of snow the day before our party and Kate was delighted. We cut out snow flakes and hung them from our ceiling. Jane walked around with her arms outstretched saying, “It’s snowing inside. It’s so beautiful!” Kate climbed up on the counter and sat there looking out into the living room most of the morning because it was “a good view.” Both girls were giddy with excitement as they waited for their friends to arrive. Fun times.

We have recovered now from all of our social events, well somewhat. At least the house has been scrubbed. We are back to hanging out with friends rather than entertaining. There is a time and season for both, but low key is always nice.

We got Cowboy Sam and the Indians in the mail this week. Kate the Indian nearly went wild. She ran to the couch hugging the book and started turning the pages. “Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh boy!” she kept saying. It was one of the cutest Kate moments of all time.

Kate gave me a couple great compliments this week. One was Tuesday night as we were making an example snow globe for our party. As we were watching the glitter fall like snow she said, “Mom, you are so awesome!” Then yesterday she said, “Mom, I love you more than (pause) my soft green!”

Jane is in a really cute phase. I can’t believe how much she is growing. She’ll be lost in her pretend world for a chunk of time and then check in and ask you to read her a story. One moment she wants to be independent and run down the sidewalk without holding your hand or ride her scooter without any help and the next moment she wants you to “hold me”. I’m about to get out the clothes Kate was wearing when we moved here for Jane to use as the warm weather arrives. Craziness.

Cute kiddos. If it wasn’t so exhausting to take care of them they would be practically perfect. ☺

While we have been playing and entertaining Josh has been working hard. He has midterms approaching and has also been spending a lot of time working on his business idea. They made it to the semi-final round in the business plan competition at Wharton, have been making all sorts of presentations, are working with a PhD Stats class to develop the algorithm for their site, etc. He is looking forward to graduating and starting with BCG, but this is a fun experience in the meantime (i.e. Don’t worry, Mom and Dad, he is not going to give up BCG. His partner may give up on recruiting, but we are going to Dallas!).

What a Day This Has Been

A Day of Love

We are typically not known for our grand Valentine’s Day celebrations, but this year we made up for it. We had a Wharton Kids’ Club party in the morning where the girls ate way too much chocolate and made Valentine’s crafts to their hearts’ content. Then we took valentines around to our friends and neighbors. Josh came home in the evening with a bouquet of flowers for the girls. Jane was already in bed, but Kate was giddy with delight as she arranged the flowers in a vase. Once both girls were asleep, Josh and I snuck out of the house. We have a great little restaurant across the street from us and Josh had made a reservation. I checked on the girls between courses, but mostly we just had a really nice night out together. I ordered Seafood Risotto. Josh had Filet Mignon. And, we even had dessert!

A Day of Work

Tuesday was back to reality. I taught preschool. We cleaned the house. Josh went to school and we had a “To Do List Diminishing Party” in the evening.

A Day of Running Here and There

Wednesday was exhausting. We had a make-up gymnastics class in the morning, went to the grocery store and ran other errands, and then helped out some friends in the afternoon. We drove all around town in the evening picking up YM and YW, taking them to our activity and then returning them home. By the time we parked our car and started walking toward home both girls were in tears begging to go to bed. We may have done well on the productivity side of things, but were somewhat lacking in the parenting department.

A Day of Spring

We had one day of gorgeous Spring weather this week. Thursday was so pretty we didn’t even have to wear jackets. Fortunately, we planned an outing with our friends to the zoo. We couldn’t have asked for a prettier day. I think the animals were loving the break in the weather as much as we were. They were so active. The black panther and the jaguar were happily prowling around. The snakes were moving. The otters were playing. We saw a joey in the pouch of a mother Kangaroo. The gorillas were running around their outdoor play area. The orangoutangs were swinging. Even the tortoises were strolling around.

A Day of Recovery

Kate was the star of gymnastics on Friday. She was smiling from ear to ear and did a great job in her class. Jane still had a hangover from Wednesday, so after gymnastics we cam home and took it easy. Jane napped, Kate the Indian played, and Mom worked on taxes. Not too exciting, but nice to have some down time.

A Day to Remember

Saturday was nearly perfection. Josh and the girls let me sleep in. We had German Pancakes for breakfast. We went for a family run in the wind. Well, Josh ran. I was defeated by the fact that I had to turn backward to breathe and felt like I was on a treadmill because the wind was blowing so powerfully in my face that I was making dreadfully limited forward progress. We made up for the misery, however, by heading to Longwood Gardens after lunch. I have been wanting to go see the orchid festival and Josh was able to make time to join us. It was beautiful! I took picture after picture, filled my lungs with the sweet fragrance of the flowers, and enjoyed every moment of being in one of my favorite places on earth.

As if a taste of paradise wasn’t enough, we drove back into the city and went to a local cafe that specializes in chocolate! We ordered hot chocolate. This was not your ordinary hot chocolate, more like melted chocolate bars in a mug. It was too rich for Kate, but Jane was in heaven. She relished every bite with a look of complete satisfaction on her face. As we were driving home she said, “THAT was a good dinner!” A girl after my own heart.

Josh is still very busy at school this semester, but he usually makes it home before the girls go to bed. They are loving having some one-on-one play time with Dad in the evening. Kate and Josh ride around on stick horses and play elaborate Cowboy or Indian games. Then they practice numbers or play ball together. Jane gets her Dad to play Mulan or Winnie-the-Pooh or polly pockets. Then they usually end with some story time. I love watching the girls delight in time with their Dad. I don’t think they love anything more than having his undivided attention.

I’ll close with a couple good quotes from the girls. I had to pull Jane away from coloring one day so we could get out the door. As I buckled her into the car she said, “Next time we should buy a red car.” I, somewhat absentmindedly said, “Oh, yea, why is that Jane?” She matter-of-factly responded, “because white doesn’t show up!”

One evening during dinner the girls were planning a game of Mulan they wanted to play with Dad as soon as they were excused from the table. They were discussing who Josh should be. Jane wanted him to be Chen Po, the friendly fat soldier. Josh wasn’t so keen on that when I told him he was the fat one. So, Kate helpfully offered an alternative. She said, “Okay, you can be Ling. He’s REALLY skinny like you.” Josh convinced them both he should be Shang.

Change

The high point and low point of this week came seconds apart from each other on Friday night. We had a re-celebration of Josh’s birthday with some friends. Last week we weren’t feeling great and had a really busy day so I opted for a low key celebrations and a quick and easy cake. This week we had some of our best friends over for a simple, but tasty dinner and a german chocolate cake. Everything was going perfectly until I took my first bite of dinner and...my front tooth broke. There is nothing that can so quickly make you look ridiculous as loosing your front tooth. Lucky Josh gets to celebrate Valentine’s Day tomorrow with a toothless wonder wife.

We have been talking about some basic geography concepts in Kate’s preschool like how the world is round, learning to name the continents, and looking at maps. Kate drew a map of the world on her own this week. She even labeled it: Texas, Brazil (where Makenna will be moving), Roosevelt, and Philadelphia. As far as her world goes, those are all the places of importance.

Jane has discovered coloring this week. If she isn’t playing with polly pockets you will find her hunched over a coloring book intently coloring. She is surprisingly close to staying in the lines, but she hasn’t figured out that you can use more than one color on a page. You can see her concentration as she works on her pictures and there is no distracting her while she is at work (I wonder where she got that?). As soon as she finishes a picture she brings it over and asks me to rip it out so we can hang it on the wall.

We are doing all we can to encourage the arrival of Spring. We even dashed out for a couple of runs this week. The first day of running we were loving the sunshine and bubbling over with energy. The next day, although the temperature was higher, we just about froze to death with the wind gusting along the river. I couldn’t tell whether my legs weren’t working because they were sore or just because they were frozen. Oh well, at least we got out. I also made a brilliant discovery. They say that chocolate milk is the perfect recovery drink, well I came up with a better formula--a slice of german chocolate cake and a glass of milk! Doesn’t get much better than that.

We are just about over all the bugs that have been plaguing us. Kate typed a note to Grandpa Larry one day in the midst of the battle:

GRAMPA MA YOU TAK MI COF A OWA FOR ME LOVE KATE

Translation: Grandpa, May you take my cough away for me? Love, Kate.

I finished reading another book about the American Revolution. It has also been interesting to hear about the events in Egypt unfolding over the last couple of weeks. I can’t help but think that if there had been live, moment by moment news coverage of the American Revolution we never would have won. For starters, the British would have known how weak the Continental Army was and destroyed us after the battle of New York, at Valley Forge, or any of the other opportunities they had to do so. But even things like replacing the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution. That process began in a rather backhanded manner. What if “the people” had know exactly what was going on in Philadelphia at the time? Kind of interesting to think about at least. For better AND for worse the world is a changin’.

I Believe Phil

The “seer of seers, prognosticator of prognosticators” has predicted an early Spring. Much to my dismay we had to scrap our plans to drive to Punxsutawney to see our famous neighbor because of ice storms and snow. Nonetheless, we are firm believers in his prediction, if for no other reason than we are ready to see the sun. Jane resorted to riding her scooter around in our dungeon of all places, and I find that we all crowd together into the little patch of sunshine anytime it comes through the kitchen window just to feel a little warmth. We still haven’t braved the elements to start running, but the urge is getting stronger every day.

Josh finally caught up to me in wisdom and maturity this week, oh....wait a second, I guess it was just AGE. We celebrated his birthday this Friday by going about our usual routine with him in tow. He got to see Kate at gymnastics, run some errands in the suburbs, and hang out with the girls. We had big plans but the girls have been sick and we ended up having to downsize our adventures for a pretty low key afternoon. We topped off the day with a game night with some friends and a citrus pound cake. Maybe not the most exciting birthday ever, but we love our Daddy just the same.

Last night we invited the Wharton LDSSA crowd over for an appetizer extravaganza. Our house was bursting at the seams. No one was in a hurry to leave and we had a great time talking the night away. While the adults were downstairs socializing, the gaggle of girls was upstairs deep in an imaginary game. They were up there for more than four hours but when I went to clean up I was amazed at how few toys were out. Three cheers for active imaginations!

Jane is still loving her polly pockets. She plays with them right when she wakes up in the morning, right after breakfast, right before lunch, right after lunch, right after her nap, right before dinner, right after dinner, and right before bed. She will occasionally take a break to play an “amazing game” with Kate, dress up as a princess, read a story, watch Spirit, or help cook and then it is back to polly pockets again. She got an ear infection this week. It was pretty nice to have a two-year-old that can tell you why she is crying, which ear is hurting, and what it feels like as you try to soothe her in the middle of the night. The pediatrician was pretty amazed by her speech when we went in the next day.

Kate is as eager to learn as ever. She reads books every day, loves to practice numbers with her Dad, and is trying to master writing the little letters. She learned about authors and illustrators this week in our preschool and then wrote and illustrated her own book about...Indians, of course. She is “Kate the Indian” about 90% of the time and prefers to be addressed as such. She says, “Mom, this is how Indians ___.” You name it: run, swim, sing, wash hands, dance, eat, color, etc. She does it all like an Indian and teaches me the proper technique. Until a week ago, every time she was “Kate the Indian” she used to put on a gold cape from the dress-ups backward with nothing but her unders in the back and play her games for hours on end. Since it looked a little drafty to me, I made her an Indian dress. She wears it every day. I remember wanting to be an Indian when I was little, so I love to see her playing her “amazing Indian game.”

There are certain words we have adopted into our family lexicon that I want to record before Kate learns to read them and write them and pronounce them the correct way. It’s funny how there are certain things you are loathe to correct in your children.

closh woth - wash cloth

wirld - world, as in “what in the wirld?”

gwabage - garbage

blessed - sneezed, as in “I just blessed three times!”

E - Kate writes her E with as many horizontal lines as she can fit.