Eva reminisced to me this morning, “I’m sure glad I wore green on St. Patrick’s Day so I didn’t get stabbed.”
I know I’m certainly relieved she wasn’t stabbed.
So! On St. Patrick’s Day this year did you help prepare a community garden for Spring planting?
Did you wear funny hats and glasses while eating green grilled cheese sandwiches and green beans?
Did you drink green milk?
Well, why not?
That’s what we did.
We went to a Christmas concert at the high school in December and they had a ballerina dancing to the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” song. Eva was mesmerized. From that moment, she incessantly talked about ballet, did twirls and jumps all around the house, and told anyone who would listen that she was going to be a Sugar Plum Fairy performer when she grew up.
So now she’s in ballet. A woman in our ward has a studio so I signed Eva up and she loves it. With a big, fat, capital “L”.
I never thought I’d be a dance mom. I feel very out of place.
I was apprehensive about dance class but seeing her joy makes me love taking her. Just look at how cute my Sugar Plum Fairy is:
Her first recital is coming up in May and I’m pretty excited about it. Their group is going to be tightrope walkers. Eva would tell me every day that she was nervous about the recital. I would assure her it would be fine and then we would go on with our day. Finally after about a week I said, “You know, Eva, having stage fright is completely normal. It’s ok if you feel nervous.”
To which she responded, “Mama, I don’t have stage fright. I’m afraid of falling off the tightrope! What if I get hurt?!”
Poor thing. She thought she was going to be walking on an actual tightrope, high above the audience. I’m impressed she was willing to do it despite her nervousness about plunging to her death.
Now that’s a real ballerina.
I’ve been feeling lately like being a housewife is the pits. It’s mundane. It’s monotonous. I’ve lost all competency at adult conversations. Sigh.
Myke and I watch one TV show together in the evening and I look forward to this hour with the same excitement I feel about chocolate – it’s a big deal. However, for the past couple of weeks Eva has been interrupting our TV time with ridiculous claims like she isn’t tired and doesn't need to go to bed. Given the staleness of housewife-ness recently, I have had exactly zero patience for these intrusions. I mean, zero. I’m not very nice when she comes into our room at night.
Last night I was settling in with my chocolate and enjoying my escape from real-life when I heard the pitter-patter of Eva’s feet running down the hall towards our bedroom. I paused the TV, and with an exasperated sigh muttered, “Here we go again.” How dare she interrupt chocolate time?! Every night she does this! I irritatingly waited for the door to open.
But the door didn’t open.
I was relieved and shoved more chocolate into my gob.
When our show was over I asked Myke to check on Eva and make sure she was indeed in bed with the lights off. He opened our bedroom door and found this on the floor:
I was humbled and embarrassed. It’s so easy to get absorbed in the humdrum of life and miss the beauty that is all around. I’ve been missing the beauty. It’s beautiful that my little girl adores me despite my imperfections and complete incompetency at child-rearing. It’s beautiful that I have been able to spend everyday with my baby, who is growing up too fast. It’s beautiful that I don’t have to set an alarm clock.
So…I’m changing my grouchy ways.
Here’s to overlooking the boring parts of life and soaking in the beauty. Like this girl:
Eva has started doing chores around the house and earning money for her work. She has a bit of a warped view of her responsibilities though because she told our dinner guests last night that she does all of the chores around the house. Just to be clear, I don’t make her do EVERYTHING; I still do my part around here. Come on, I stir the Nesquik powder into my own milk for-crying-out-loud.
We have a brilliant chore system that I came up with all on my own because I’m naturally brilliant. (Ok, so I don’t actually remember how we came up with it. Maybe Myke had some input. But that’s irrelevant to this story). Eva has chore sticks in a jar marked “chores to do” and another jar marked “finished.” She moves the sticks as she completes tasks and gets paid every Saturday. It’s been working like a charm.
And what kind of chores does Kitty do? This kind:
Kitty worked hard and earned her toy. She couldn’t be happier.
We haven’t instituted the principle of saving yet. Right now we’re teaching her to spend the money as fast as she can earn it.
That philosophy has always worked for me.
According to Eva’s calendar – which she reads every night – Chinese New Year began on February 16th. Of course we couldn’t let an opportunity to celebrate a holiday pass us by!
So we made lanterns. Well…I made lanterns. Eva sat on the floor cutting an entire piece of paper into tiny pieces, all the while exclaiming, “I sure love cutting paper!” And I sure love picking up a million tiny shards of paper!
We also made a dragon out of Eva’s handprints.
I free-handed those legs. (In case you were wondering what kind of dragon has frog legs. The kind I draw).
We got really authentic and even had stir-fry for dinner. People were really excited about this.
So excited in fact that the other side of the table had chicken nuggets.
The most exciting part of Chinese New Year was that Eva had her first sleepover. My friend had to leave town for a funeral so we took Allie in for the night. It was a load of fun until about 10:15 at night when the girls burst into our bedroom and Allie wailed, “I don’t want to have a sleepover anymore! I wanna go home!”
It’s tough being 4 and away from home.
I’m sure you’re dying to know our Zodiac signs. Eva and Myke are dragons – the most revered sign. Aika is a dog, which seems fitting since he is an actual dog. And I am a goat, which seems fitting since I have an actual beard. And I eat everything in my vicinity.
Happy Chinese New Year! Next year we’ll have fireworks!
