it's good to have a sister

a few crazy moves and the clouds are lifted.

hope you all enjoy your weekend. our first baby turns six on saturday. six.

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for the curious, eve's outfit up top: old navy boys blue oxford, american apparel floral leggings (she's been loving them since september), necklace made by us- huge shout-out to jenny who answered the "what do we do with these felt balls?" question that i've been asking myself for the past six years (not exaggerating), short brown boots from the winter sale at bu and the duck.

little girls' journals

for the past nine months the girls have (more or less) been keeping a journal and it has been awesome. long before i ever had children i planned how i would have "journal sundays" every sunday, i've even got it written down in a journal of my own somewhere.. we would come home from church and, after a healthy snack, we'd all sit down to reflect on our week and write in our journals. i would gently encourage the kids and we'd all smile.. that vision makes me laugh. the reality is much less serene but (mostly) much more fun. healthy sunday snacks have been replaced by desperate fistfuls of tortilla chips and doughnuts (it's true.. the deperate post-church hunger is satisfied by whatever chip sees first when he opens the cupboards), the journal writing is completely sporadic and sometimes totally enforced on reluctant little girls, but the records eve and ruth have of their own lives so far are pretty perfect in their sweetness, their craziness, and their awesome truthfulness.

eve. may 4, 2009. "no i don't like diurreah. i liked waching angelena ballrena"

ruth: april 21, 2009
mom: what did you want to say about your day?
ruth: i didn't want to say about my day
m: what is this picture?
r: jungle
m: what else?
r: i don't want to tell you.

eve: may 10, thursday. "i loved the little mermaid at times square."

ruth: may 10, 2009 "this is ariel and flounder. i goed to the little mermaid at the play. it was in Times Square. my favorite part was when ariel got the pink dress and when she got married. my daddy was named chip and i watched a play with dad. i wish i could see ariel again because i wish i could see the married part again."

to make "keeping a journal" something approachable i gave the girls a very simple formula to start with: draw or write about their favorite part of the day/week along with their least favorite. eve was totally in from the moment i introduced the idea and has stuck to the formula with few exceptions. ruth, on the other hand, heard the plan, made a bizarre face, rolled over and began complaining about not knowing any real princesses.. she has mostly stuck to her own formula of journal keeping, which at the beginning involved her drawing about whatever she wanted to while i pestered her to tell me about it. but now that she is starting to not only draw but write on her own (and realizing just how long it takes to make all those words) the formula is coming in handy, even for ruthie who likes to do everyhting her own way.

(two page spread) eve: june 3, 2009 "no i do l" [beginnings of "no i don't like"] june 4, 2009 "i poukt [puked] on charlies birthday. today i lovee ma-king the teve purojec [tv project]."

ruth: june 2, 2009

ruth: 10.9.09, "keira, tessa, eden, monet, malena, ruth, ms. jin. we're all starting a show on the stage."

eve: october 9, 2009. "i like gayb"

ruth: january 15, 2010. "planetarium. i did not like when it exploded i liked the gas of the sun."

there is so much i love about ruth's and eve's magical journals. i love that they don't think too much about what they record, they just do it. i love that they want me to look at everything they draw and write, because i know that won't last. and i love having this record of their drawing and writing progression. but most of all i love that it is their own marks that fill each page. it is all their own words, their own takes on their own lives, not my interpretation or perspective, but theirs. just as journals should be.

 

next up: the making of the journals.

the ghosts of '09

just moments after pulling off their bat costumes last year, the girls decided that for the next halloween they wanted to be ghosts.. or witches.. or mermaids. when october rolled around there were several rounds of deliberation, but they finally, officially, decided on being ghosts. because in addition to being the one and only day of the year that the girls like the color black, it is also the one day they like to be "just a liiiittle tiny bit scary." i love their choices- so traditional, so simple, and so reminiscent of my own childhood. 

old sheets were pulled from the give-away pile, the edges cut and ripped, a hood made from excess sheeting was attached and a slit cut for the head to pop through. layer the hooded sheet over white shoes, white tights, white leotard, some sticky paint on their faces and we were ready to go. charlie's ghost costume was even simpler, taking no more than three minutes to put together. white leggings, white hooded sweatshirt, black circles around the eyes and a squarish piece of fabric with a hole cut out to put over his head.

watching the girls float among the brownstones, shouting a giddy "boo" at many fellow trick-or-treaters, and smiling in wonder as their buckets filled was wonderful. and watching charlie walk the streets with them, in his little ghost costume, getting ready to play peek-a-boo each time the girls tried to surprise with their shouts was insanely adorable. barely taller than people's knees, the little ghost smiled and laughed as he toddled alongside the adults and big kids. candy in hand and a dribble of chocolate running down his chin, he was so happy and so awesome.

after a few exciting blocks we made our way home, past the plaza, past the library, through the few drops of rain and into our little apartment where we washed faces, chose two (more) candies to eat, cozied together to watch a show and called it a good halloween night. 

the girls have been having some discussions about next year's costumes. a witch is the top of eve's list, but ruth is pulling hard for gingerbread (not a gingerbread man, or girl, just gingerbread..). they've got a year to hash it out. either way, i think we're starting in a good place.

++photos will (hopefully) be added/changed later today. after downloading all our pictures halloween night. i checked them, looked through them with the girls and went to sleep. next day i went to the computer and, poof! most of the pictures were gone forever. only a few remain that i downloaded. and, of course, since it seemed the download was successful, i wiped my memory card clean. bummer. here's hoping image recovery from the memory card works!

i cried, they didn't

they did it. last wednesday both girls got up, got dressed, ate breakfast, posed for pictures and ran to school where they joined their classmates as members of the new york city public school system. eve is a big time kindergartener and ruthie is a big time pre-k-er. things didn't seem to go as smoothly as last year, which i suppose is natural now that there are two. especially when one of them is ruth, who is going through a real phase right now, the kind of phase that i would think was so crazy and entertaining and absolutely endearing (if slightly alarming) were i an observer.. but as her mother, my head explodes about fifteen times a day..  still, even though ruth is awesomely unpredictable and even though it was completely different than last year, this year's first day was a great day.

after our run to school chip took ruth to register and i jogged hand in hand with eve to kindergarten. the room was hot and crowded. eve was a little nervous, but amazing. no nail biting, no tearing up. a tighter grip on my hand and a shoulder pressed into my leg for a moment and she was off.. cautiously and quietly, but she was off. after all, she is in kindergarten now. "did you like how i listened to you right away and didn't scream when ruth drew all over my arm with marker? it's because i'm in kindergarten." "did you see how i didn't throw a fit when ruth pulled my hair even though it hurt super bad? it's because i'm in kindergarten now." 

 

ruthie got into eve's old class, which we were thrilled about. ecstatic about. especially after the months-long battle i've had with the nyc department of ed just to get her into our zoned school. on day two she got pulled out and put into another class. i wasn't happy (enter: break down in the principal's office) but have since gotten over and embraced the change. ruth was sold the second she got to dress up like a "super cool princess" with the new friend that has her exact same shoes.

midnight the night before school rolled around and i couldn't not make them something for this big day. the stripes were pulled out and i sewed into the wee hours of the morning. their response when i presented the shirts? "do i have to? really? i kind of don't want to." eve took pity on me and my blank stare and after some coercion, ruthie did too (although she will never ever wear the tunic with jeans again, only tights because [exaggerated sigh and attempted eyeroll] "this is a dress mom, not a shirt. look!").

and, off they go. one resolved, the other mostly oblivious, both happy and good and ready to take on the world. as long as you don't make ruthie eat pickles or make eve take more than three bites of chicken (even though she's five). 

a sprinkler suit

watching those sesame street kids play on their sad playgrounds always puzzled me. as a girl growing up on acres of land in northern california, it just didn't make sense. there had to be some kind of joke that i just wasn't getting, because i didn't believe it.. a couple lousy swings, a handball wall, maybe a sand pit, some sprinklers and a sad set of monkey bars and i was supposed to be convinced that it was real? that anyone would ever do that to a kid; build a playground on blacktop without any kind of grass anywhere? it wasn't real, but if it was, i felt sorry and confused for those kids. 

today i watch my children play on those playgrounds. i watch them run on the blacktop and swing on the swings and stomp their feet in frustration at not being able to get the monkey bars right. those kids i pitied are now my own and those sad playgrounds i didn't believe in are theirs. they are theirs and they are amazing. the girls will run and charlie will walk, so slowly and carefully, all over that black rubber matting and asphalt for hours. every season of the year we are there, never noticing or thinking about the missing grass. we run,we draw with chalk, we blow bubbles and swing, slide and chase. but during the summer, while charlie searches for the nearest ball, the girls are concerned with one thing on their lovely little playground; the water. no matter what they are wearing, eve and ruth drench themselves in the geysers that pop up when the weather turns hot. more often than not, on those summer days we spend in brooklyn, the girls walk home, leaving a trail of little puddles behind them.

for those days of sprinkler bliss, a sprinkler suit was made. now that the very last day of our summer vacation is here it seems a little late to be sharing this, something made back in june, but here it is anyway. eve and ruth both balked when i tried to present it as a swim suit. "but it's just a shirt and underwear!" they cried. they were right, and we have used each piece separately as such, but when the two pieces are put together it becomes eve's "sprinkler suit", a term they were both willing to fully embrace (ruth didn't want one for herself unless it had a big hole in the back of it and neither of us were fans of the prototypes i came up with.. next summer). with her sprinkler suit on eve can run and play in the water and dry off in record time and i can watch as she scootches and spins on the ground and throws her little body around without once thinking about how much damage she is doing to her suit or clothes. after all, it is a sprinkler suit, and sprinkler suits are made for summer and all that comes with it on these new york playgrounds we happily call our own. 

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also, this is my favorite sesame street song. ever. there are funnier and cleverer songs, which are awesome, but this was my favorite as a child and is even more so now that the girls request to watch it over and over and charlie rocks along to the beat. 

in flight

we came back from camping, then back from DC, and are now on our summer trip to oregon. the rugged coastline, redwoods and family called our names and so we came. the last three mornings before leaving, ruthie woke up asking if it was (finally) "oregon day". "no, but it will be soon, rufie" eve would quickly answer. "super duper soon?" "yes, super duper soon" "super duper malooper soon?" "yes, super duper malooper quadooper soon."

our annual trip to oregon usually involves me flying by myself with the kids, chip joining for the last week and then the five of us shuttling home together. this time we switched it up. chip is with us for the first two weeks, so our family of five all boarded and landed together. a big relief for all involved. especially me. nothing like trying to get yourself and all three of your children into an airplane bathroom before your (then) two-year-old actually does wet herself, as she has been announcing to/ threatening her fellow passengers with at the top of her lungs for three minutes while we wait for the "occupied" light to dim..  

but even with chip there to wrangle and distract, traveling across the country with these three takes a little planning. not my strong suit, but we made it here and did so without our neighbors cursing our names. charlie, being magical and in love with his thumb, was easy. and, with the help of their very own back packs bags full of a few simple treats and ways to pass our nine hours of travel, the girls were pretty great too. 

the goods inside the bags:

+ new coloring book and new crayons. heaven for my little girls. brand new pages waiting to be filled and sharp new crayons means fresh, intricate designs for the girls. a dolphin? no, no. a rainbow, diamond, snowflake dolphin with pink eyelashes. takes at least 40 minutes to get just right.

+random activity books from the pharmacy because we couldn't find any decent coloring books on our own (chip's sister saved the day and showed up at our place with the real goods).

+ stickers. with thousands of foam stickers floating through our apartment (and torturing me) years ago, i began taking them on flights with eve and i. we would stick them all over the tray table and seat back, we'd make scenes of dancing animals or designs with our shapes. i'd put two pair of each (animal, shape, whatever we had) up and eve would find the matches. we'd draw faces on them and find the sad horse or the happy lion. and after an hour or so of playing we'd we'd take them off the seat and tray and be done. i don't have the foam stickers anymore and don't ever want them in my house again, so we go for regular stickers. they don't entertain nearly as long but they are a special treat. and apparently ruth loves to put them in her hair (which works out really well..)

+ snacks. of their very own in their very own back pack. no sharing, no bargaining, no waiting their turn for a bite. preferably wrapped up in colorful paper. because unwrapping takes time too, and it makes everyone happy.

+ a book. i can't take my kids anywhere without a book. i used to bring several, but we've streamlined. one for each girl and a couple for charlie. old favorites are the best, because i know they will be hits and the girls can "read" them to each other when i'm finished.

+ woodkins. i may need to devote a post to this toy. all i can say is that they, a gift to the girls from chip's parents, are so much better than i thought they'd be.  

+ home videos. pulled out when all else has failed, these are always the answer. the girls love watching themselves, so the dvd with an hour's worth of footage sampling their entire lives is devoured happily. they stare and laugh and pretend to be embarassed by themselves while i try to take a nap.

all carried on their own little backs from plane to plane, these items weren't anything new or groundbreaking, but they did the trick.  

in four and a half weeks i'll be flying across the country to get home. a mom alone with her three very young kids, i'll be every other passenger's worst nightmare. but hopefully the treats, and crayons and home videos will, once again, charm the littles. and maybe the people who watched me with big eyes and thought to themselves "please don't be sitting next to me. please don't be next to me" will watch me leave thinking that it wasn't so bad afterall..

 ..

backpacks are a shrunken version of the backpack pattern in lotta jansdotter's simple sewing. easy and fast.

i have a lot to post, but being on vacation with family in paradise is distracting and too much fun. i'll try to get back to at least once a week. but if i don't, take it as a good sign. summer!

sharing!

they love the shoes! and they're mad at me. hoping to get the most use out of them, i ordered on the big side.. the way too big side.. we'll be waiting until the fall to wear them without tripping. sorry girls. 

several people asked if anjie would be willing to share her design so that you and yours can share in in the rainbow/unicorn/flower heaven too. good news! anjie has made the design available for all to use right here. so go, order the shoes, wait patiently for a few weeks and then revel in the happy gasping and jumping. just don't order too big. they don't like that. 

thank you, again, anjie! 

...

totally unrelated: right now the 14-year-old watching ruth and charlie in the other room (while i hide away in my bedroom trying to get some work done) is trying to play MONOPOLY with ruth. ruth is three years old. my eyes are watering from the laughter i am holding in. 

they will freak out

these shoes should arrive anyday and when they do, the girls are going to go nuts. a unicorn, golden-haired mermaids, a rainbow, crowns, a jaguar, their most favorite colors, fancy flowers, along with their own made-up princess names: "lady eve" and "cinderuthie".. all on one pair of shoes in just the right sizes for their little feet.  

i've seen some examples of customizable shoes in the past; choose which color you want where, a stripe or not there.. but i had no idea that you could go this custom- design your own fabric that the shoes will be made from custom- until chip came home from work one evening raving about the keds his co-worker, anjelika, was designing for herself and a friend in honor of their upcoming trip to disneyworld (awesome). the next day he sent images, i went berzerk and anjie was gracious enough to not only design two pair for the girls using all her perfect illustrations, but she also added princess names on the tongues and little blonde mermaids on the back.  

oh, i cannot wait for them to arrive. after laying on my back, staring at the ceiling for two days and hobbling around the following five (warning about stretching your back in the morning: sometimes it doesn't work out and you finally get the chance to understand what "threw my back out"means..) i will take any bit of excitement i can get. and the excitement and squeals these beauties are going to elicit has me giddy. 

american summer

if there is an american flag anywhere nearby ruthie will find it, point, and give a gleeful shout: "MERIYAN FLAG!" on the bus, flying above the playground, stuck to accelerating cars, painted on the fire house, waving in little passerby's hands, way beyond in the distance flying above buildings.. she sees them all and lets us know so that we, too, can share in the delight. an exasperated eve will complain, "she always says that." but then she will smile (we all do) with wide-eyed ruthie as she points and exclaims, holding her breath and spreading the excitement.  

as the heat increases each year and the sewing really gets going, i find myself continually (but somewhat unconciously) drawn to that flag's classic american color palette of red, white and blue. old pieces of fabric are pulled out, new pieces brought in and they wait in their pile until i figure out exactly what it is they will become.

as always, but particularly in the summer, they become simple shapes that remind me a little of my own childhood days.. days that looked nothing like eve, ruth and charlie's; rolling hills in the place of brick and cement buildings, one neighbor down the hill in place of hundreds on one block, five acres instead of 600 (maybe 650) square feet.. but days that i still, somehow, see glimpses of everyday as i watch these kids laugh and fight and play.

there are more reds, whites and blues to be put to use, and soon. but here we have a start. 

round one: american summer

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this many pictures for one post would certainly be unnecessary if i wasn't so entertained by eve's modeling lately. here's to summer and the extended days i'll be able to spend with this moody little girl again.

kids zone

sunday morning i woke up with painfully sore legs. strange, considering i haven't worked out in over ten months.. unless, of course, you count my daily crazy run pushing charlie and ruthie in the stroller down eight blocks to get to eve's school in time for pick up.. (which, i'll admit, i kind of do count). after a few foggy minutes of stretching and trying to remember if i had any violent dreams, it came to me: the giant bubble. 

..

from 12-3pm on saturday eve's school held a fundraiser for a future science lab. in addition to the main event, i partnered with another mom and organized the "kids zone." in honor of the end goal, we put on a little exploratory science-y fair for the kids. it was so messy, and a little crazy but hilarious and so much fun. 

snail discovery. a ton of snails, hasta leaves, magnifying glasses and spray bottles (snails come out of their shells and move around a lot when sprayed with water, which actually makes them fun). the kids were fascinated. at three different points a group of kids ran up to me and, with arms about one inch from my eyeball, showed me the snails sliming their way up their arms. eve was not very interested. but ruthie, although she won't admit it, must have liked them; i have it on good authority that she gave one snail a good lick while holding it.. (no salmonella poisoning yet).. 

smell identification. jam jars, painted on the inside (to hide contents), small holes punched in the lid, and filled with common foods for the kids to smell and try to identify.  banana, orange, lemon, garlic, peanut butter and chocolate sauce. garlic was definitely tricky (although a lot of kids were pretty close- with guesses of "pepper" or "some kind of onion") but the chocolate syrup was particularly challenging.  "oh, i know this! what is it? what is it??" eve: "i can't believe i didn't know that because i love it sooo much."

the messy table.

mounds and mounds of homemade playdough for the kids to sculpt and mix to their hearts content.

big tub of GAK (glue, borax and water). at one point i heard "chicken fat! we need more chicken fat!" as the kids broke it apart and moved it all around. placing it on the edge of the table and leaving it alone, they would watch it slowly, slowly ooze and stretch to the ground without breaking, then scoop it up and start again. fake sneezes and hours of laughter were also involved. 

big tub of oobleck (2 parts cornstarch to 1 part water). playing with this mixture is one of six clear memories from my own pre-school experience. i loved it then and still do. roll it, squeeze it, hit it hard, try to move your hand quickly through it and it acts like a solid, but release the pressure or slowly let your hand sit and it acts like a liquid. "quicksand!" "ahh! my hand is stuck! really!" regardless of the smocks and rinsing bucket we provided, every kid was covered in white. admittedly, so was i.

the giant bubble. surrounding each child bubble after bubble was so entertaining that i didn't notice the 5000 squats i was doing. until the next morning. the bubble solution was amazing and got better and better by the minute. joy liquid soap, corn syrup and water.  hula hoop wrapped in cotton string to soak up more solution and trough made out of a dryer vent. stiff little kids watching the bubble surround them through squinted eyes, preparing for the burst. 

geysers. every 20 minutes i set off the diet coke/mentos geysers. the kids would count down, we'd guess how high it would go with three mentos, with five, with ten. then, pipe in hand to help get the mentos in all at once and to get it going higher, i set it off. the kids would scream, i would laugh as i watched their faces and tried to avoid the spray. i never did, and a few times i got soaked (it's what i get for looking down or at the kids instead of the geyser). luckily, diet coke is barely stickier than water.

after the fair i came home to try to clean up the three days of playdough, GAK and oobleck making.. i'm still finding bits and pieces throughout the apartment..  but mess, sore legs, diet coke hair and all, i am already making plans for next year. i am not satisfied with a tub of oobleck, i have visions of an entire kiddie pool of it, so kids can run across (or sink). i see secret messages, rainbow prisms, making silly putty with the kids, more geysers, more bubbles..  what else could we do? .. it could be seriously incredible. in fact, i may not be able to wait until next may/june. our own science party might be coming again soon.. i'm dying to try running across that pool of cornstarch and water..