Night out with Grandma

Last week, Joshua's mother came out to Spokane for the night to hang out with the kids. Since she has such little time with us, we tried to make it a really fun night out on the town.

Josh was able to get home early, so we all went out to dinner downtown. After that we walked to Riverfront Park to do the touristy things.

We rode on the carousel,

We rode the gondola over the Spokane River,

And then we walked across the bridge to the YMCA, where we all went swimming.

We had a great time! The kids loved seeing Grandma Kay and it was a wonderful night.

More Recycling Ideas

Spokane does not recycle cereal boxes. I feel guilty about throwing so many recyclable materials in the garbage, that I have been saving some to bring to Seattle next week to recycle there. Because we love cereal, we have tons of empty boxes. I thought those would make perfect magazine or paper holders. Lesley was over this past weekend and suggested that I decoupage them with some of Levi's artwork.

Here are the results:

First Day of School

Today is Levi and Claire's first day of preschool. My neighbor has been doing home-preschool for her three children and asked me and two other mom's from her church if we wanted to do it with her. Basically, there are five kids and each mom will only teach one week a month. We are having school on Tuesday's and Thursday's from 9-11:30.

Fiddler on the Roof

Last night, Lesley and I went to the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof. In a word, it was, amazing. The songs, the costumes, the choreography, the acting, everything, was amazing. In fact, if this play is coming to your area, I highly recommend it. This tour featured Topol as Tevye, and he was magical. By far the best scene from the movie adapted for the stage was Tevye's dream. The ghost of Lazor Wolf's first wife was played by a person sitting on the shoulders of another, who's incredible vocal range dazzled the audience. Topol was a regular rock star at the end of the play. Of course, he got a standing ovation. I loved how after he thanked the audience, the orchestra, his fellow actors, he looked up to heaven and thanked God.

It had been so long since I had any sort of cultural outing. It was wonderful to see this play with Lesley, who could appreciate everything as much as I did.

Seeing this play brought me great happiness, but there was another feeling that cannot be described with positive words. You see, "Fiddler on the Roof" will always remind me of my father.

My dad died when I was nine years old, so my memory of him is cloudy at best. But there are a few things that will never leave me, and many of those memories are associated with this movie. I do not know if it was his favorite or not. I do not even know if we owned the movie when he was still alive. But I do know that he loved music. He loved God. He had an amazing voice. Maybe that is why he loved this musical so much.

Sitting through this play tears welled up in my eyes several times. At our church's Easter feast in 1984, my father preformed Tevye's song "If I were a Rich Man." I don't know if my memories of this performance are from his actual performance or from seeing the recording that somebody made, but I can still hear him changing the words "I see my wife, my Ann, looking like a rich man's wife" or "screaming at the children day and night: Naomi, Aaron, Benjamin, Cyprianna!" The picture at the beginning of this post is my father as he is singing this song.

My father used to tell me that he would sing "Sunrise, Sunset" at my wedding. It is a powerful song, sung by Tevye and Golde at their oldest daughters canopy wedding. "Is this the little girl I carried? Is this the little boy at play? I don't remember growing older, when did they?" It is the most appropriate song for a father to sing to his daughter. I did get this song sung at my wedding - by my maternal aunt and uncle. It was beautiful; it made me cry then, and it makes me cry now.

After my dad died I remember my two year old sister having problems at night. She would wake up crying for her papa. I can only imagine how hard this must have been for my mother; hearing her baby cry out late at night, them both wanting the same person. Singing to my sister worked, as she has always been a musical person. I can still hear my mother quietly singing "Sabbath Prayer" to Cyprianna: "May you be like Ruth and like Esther. May you be deserving of praise."

I was blessed with a remarkable father. He was talented and hard-working. He was a loving Christian who was not afraid of death, even when it was staring him in the face. It was difficult at times watching the play, but, it was peaceful too.

"Fiddler on the Roof" has had such an impact on my childhood. Perhaps, if my father had not died, it would have been just a movie, just a musical. A great one for sure, but not so powerful or meaningful. But since he passed when I was so young, I am grateful that I have such tangible imagery to remind me of him. I am sure this will be a sensitive and emotional subject for me until I die, as it is hard reconciling the facts of death at the age of nine.

I love you, Papa.

Why marry a Doctor, if he is not home when you need him?

Today I needed the services of Dr. Knight two times. Well, three if you count the alcoholic drink I will be sipping in twenty minutes that only he is good at making.

This morning Claire woke up puking. She puked up her water and Superfood. The only things that she put in her stomach. Then she had a serious case of the runs. She slept all morning long, only waking up to puke more, and had a slight fever. Where was Josh? At the hospital, most likely saving lives. What a bum.

Then, as strange as it started, it stopped. Around 1 in the afternoon, she seemed to miraculously get better, her stomach didn't hurt anymore, and she wanted to play. Crisis one averted.

A few hours later, Levi and his buddies where building a fort near our swamp. As Levi was holding up a piece of wood, something fell into his eye. He was in a lot of pain and crying. We got him into the house, but he could not open his eye or tell me what happened. I finally pried it open, and saw nothing. But he was still in a lot of pain, so I called Josh and told him to meet us at the Emergency Room.

There, Josh took a look at Levi's eye. He did not see anything either, but Levi still could not open it, it was watering up like crazy and it was really red. We decided to flush it out. Josh got a syringe with solution and then, in the ER parking lot, with me holding Levi's body down with my legs, and prying his eye open with my hands, we managed to get a few drops into his eye. He was screaming like a banshee.

After that, it didn't seem to really solve the problem. We decided to wait a few minutes to let him rest. A couple minutes later, he fell asleep in my arms (ah, bliss!) When he was asleep, I lifted up his eyelid and right there on the top, was a big piece of dirt. Well, not too big, this is his eyelid we are talking about!

So then, Josh went back into the hospital and got a sterile q-tip. Once again, we lifted the eyelid of the sleeping Levi, and Josh was able to get the dirt in one quick sweep. Levi woke up about 30 seconds later and immediately said "hey, my eye feels better!" He was relieved when we showed him the dirt that was in his eye.

That saved us a $75 co-pay for an ER visit!

Stupid Rule

Today Claire was kicked out of the pool at the YMCA.

We had gotten into a nice routine here in Spokane: I would take the kids to the Y, drop them off at the playroom while I ran on a treadmill. Then I would take them to either swimming lessons and then open swim, or just straight to open swim.

At our Y in Spokane, they have a separate pool that is for kids. It is only 1 foot deep. There is a play structure with a water slide in the middle of the kids pool. Again, for those in the know, know that Claire is addicted to the water. She feels so comfortable there. She loves pushing her body around the play structure, but never going on it. For some reason, she has no desire to go down the water slide!

Also, Claire has taken two swimming classes. Her first one, for ages 18 months-3 and with a parent, was WAY too easy for her. Her teacher told me to enroll her in the next level up: 3-5 years, without a parent in the water with them. She has taken one class at that level and we are signed up for another one. Her last instructor gave her a 10 in water confidence!

On to today. There they were, Levi and Claire, playing in the shallow kids area, perhaps 5 feet away from me, when a lifeguard came up and asked me how old Claire was. I responded, two and a half. That is when he told me that kids under four are not allowed in the shallow kids pool without an adult being in there with them. I was shocked. I was right there, there are three lifeguards watching the kids. There were five kids in the entire pool.

I asked the guard if he was serious. He was. I told him this was the first time I had heard this, and that we had been coming here for almost three months. He said he knew; that this was something they recently decided to crack down on. I explained that she has been through two levels of swimming classes, she is more comfortable in the water than a fish, that I am sitting RIGHT HERE, that I really did not want to put on a swimming suit just to sit in 5 inches of cold water. No luck. He would not budge. So I asked if I could just let her finish playing for today. Nope. He told me I had to take her out, or I had to get in.

So I took her out. She was mad, of course. They had only been playing for about 15 minutes. After I got the kids dressed, I filed a complaint with the front desk. The guy who took down my complaint was really understanding.

I told him, here are the rules as I understand them: it is okay for a two year old to take a swimming class on her own, without a parent, in water that is 6 feet deep. But it is not okay for that same two-year old to be in water less than 1 foot in depth with their parent sitting and watching. Totally lame.

I don't know what I will do now. Swimming was my bribe for Levi to go into the playroom. I cannot have Claire sit and watch Levi swim. I really don't want to don a suit everyday just to sit 5 inches closer to them then I previously was sitting. Seriously, do the lifeguards not think that if something was happening to my child, I would not rush in, no matter what I was wearing?Okay, maybe not in my new patent-red leather shoes. I would just let the lifeguards to their jobs if I happened to be wearing those one day. But any other time, I swear, I would wade up to my ankles to rescue Claire from the kid's pool.

Funny thing is, Claire is more comfortable in the water than I am. I still have to plug my nose and shut my eyes if I want to put my head under; which is something I rarely want to do!

The front-desk person told me that he would call me after he talked to the appropriate people. I am not getting my hopes up that things will change though. Stupid rule.

Claire Turned Fourteen Yesterday

Okay, so really she did not just turn fourteen. But, yesterday I did let her do something that I had previously told her she had to wait till she was fourteen to do. Now she is convinced that she is a teenager.

About four weeks ago, Claire woke Josh and I up with this question: "when can I have purple hair?"

What? I was groggy, sleepy, and confused. Not really thinking things through, I replied, "when you are fourteen."

Fourteen is not an age to Claire; it is merely a number. And it does not necessarily follow thirteen or precede fifteen, for that matter. Fourteen is simply sometime in the future.

Now, I may have already damaged her understanding of age, since I recently had her convinced that she was three, just to get her into the Ikea playroom. I suppose she thinks that her age can be changed to fit whichever circumstances we are put into.

Naturally Claire bugged us daily, no, hourly, about her purple hair. I must have hear the following questions/statements a zillion times in the past four weeks.

When am I going to be fourteen Mom?

When can I have purple hair Mom?

At Christmas I am going to be fourteen!

I get purple hair at Christmas!

I want purple hair Mom!

(looking in the mirror with a disappointed tone in her voice) Oh! My hair is not purple yet!

Mom, when can I get purple hair?

Perfect strangers and friends heard them too, as she told everybody she came in contact with about her purple hair desires. She even told Fr. Michael when she was venerating the cross on Sunday. Get the point? She was obsessed.

I gave in. Big time. I could not take the purple hair obsession for another 12 years! So, I ordered her purple hair spray. Levi, at this time, decided he wanted blue hair. Of course, I was too cheap to spend the extra money on faster shipping, so we waited, and waited, and waited for the delivery. You can only imagine the questions she came up with during those days.

Monday afternoon, when we came home from playgroup, there were two packages on our stairs. One from Grandma Ann, and the other contained, as Claire said, purple hair.

In my defense, I tried to make them eat lunch before we sprayed their hair, but they were just too excited and the excessive talking was getting to me again. So, once again, I gave in.

The results are quite good I have to say. And the color washes out with shampoo, so we can have purple hair anytime we want!

**Special note to Grandma Ann**

Right after we did Claire's hair, she took off her dress and demanded that I put on her "purple dress Grandma Ann made me."