the girl | matching tracksuits

The Smallest Pets

Saturday 17 August 2013 | 1 Comment

The advertisement was on the back of every single issue of Boy's Life magazine, the offical publication of the Boy Scouts. I never really knew what they were, but Sea-Monkeys seemed like fascinating creatures. Of course it was obvious even to a ten-year-old that the ad was full of hyperbole. In reality, they're brine shrimp, incredibly small creatures with a short life span. I was fascinated but never enough even to broach the subject with my parents: I knew from the quality of the ad itself and its exaggerating tone that it had to be a scam. But how cool would it have been if they were only half of what they were advertised?

Had I really thought about it, I would have realized that there is a better alternative for small pets, a much more intelligent and interesting alternative: an ant farm. When K, L, and E returned home this afternoon with an ant farm, I wondered why I'd never thought of it as a kid.

But that's one of the many advantages of being a parent: one gets to re-live certain childhood by your daughter's side.

Looking for Parts

Wednesday 14 August 2013 | 0 Comments

L has become more and more interested in Legos of late.

Morning Memories

Monday 12 August 2013 | 1 Comment

Of our two children, the Boy, perhaps not surprisingly, is always the first to wake. His usual time, left to himself, is around 7:00. If we're lucky on the weekend, he might sleep until a little closer to eight, but he also likes to get up around five just for a change. Still, no matter what, he wakes earlier than L nine times out of ten. And so we do the logical thing: we change his diaper, dress him, Â and take him into the Girl's room and ploop him beside her.

His reaction is now always the same: he looks for L's nighttime sippy cup. He's begun using a sippy cup -- adorned with illustrations from Cars -- and he likes to help himself to L's princess sippy cup.

Eventually the Girl wakes up, usually quite glad to see the Boy. The giggles, tickling, and general silliness begin, and so everyone starts the day with a smile.

A perfect start to the day.

Corn!

Thursday 08 August 2013 | 0 Comments

L is such a picky eater. She's a first child: we really didn't know what we were doing. We followed this book's advice tempered with that person's wisdom and those mothers' experience. We're doing things a bit differently with E. He eats what we eat, and he has from the moment we could give him solid food. As a result, he's not a picky eater.

There are a few culinary preferences that the Boy and L have in common, though, and one of them is corn on the cob.

L hummed and purred as she ate, working it back and forth like a typewriter paper carriage. The Boy makes use of a variety of methods: the double-handed high hold, the single-handed nibble-from-the-end, the single-handed reverse grip flute position (the right hand would be gripping a flute from the top, not the bottom), and variants of them all.

Occasionally, something not-quite-right hits him, and he balls up his fist and his face into what looks like a mysterious sourness.

But he gets over it, takes a new grip, and continues.

Off-road

Monday 05 August 2013 | 0 Comments

The Girl has a new bike, with gears and hand-brakes. It's a lot to get used to. Today, she lost control, ran into a ditch, and like a champ, didn't panic but merely let the bike coast to a stop.

Lost Treasure

Monday 05 August 2013 | 0 Comments

"Daddy, we found this but we can't open it." I recognized it immediately: my mother's old jewelry box that had long ago become storage for toys. "We can't get in it, so we don't know what's there." And neither did I, but I was curious.

Nana and Papa had saved some of my old toys and books from my childhood, and now that K and I have children of our own, we've pulled some of the toys out and re-issued them. The Boy has gone simply crazy over my old Matchbox cars, and L has incorporated some of my old books into her favorites rotation, but this old box was a mystery. There was no use searching for a key, and the thought of picking a lock -- even a simple mechanism like this -- was laughable. A straight-slot screwdriver and a quick twist of the wrist did the trick, though.

"Oh, some of my old G.I. Joe toys!" And I was instantly transported back thirty years to the time when these simple bits of plastic were the world to me. I pulled the figures out, remembering how I'd discovered the fact that unscrewing the small screw in the figure's back opened a new world of creative possibilities: this figure's legs could be attached to that figure's torso.

Some of the figures exited the O.R. in worse repair than they entered. "What happened to that fellows arm?" I pondered before realize that it must have been a battle wound. The same with that fellow's melted-off hand.

My collection was always modest. I had a few figures, a few vehicles. Several in my collection were from mail-in offers, including two of my four bad guys. It was a long time before I realized how utterly laughable the idea of Cobra -- a secret army plotting to take over the world -- was, but at the time, it seemed a more realistic alternative to Star Wars figures.

And besides, G.I. Joe figures articulated at the elbows and knees, far more realistic than the Star Wars figures that had to look like they were eternally goose-steppingÂ imitatorsÂ of Frankenstein. Later figures even added a second plane of motion: the elbows rotated.

None in my collection sported that awesomeness, though: they were old-school, bend-at-the-elbow figures.

I took them out, lined them up, and explained to L who were the good guys and who the bad.

"Can we play with them tomorrow?" she asked.

"Sure," I replied, wondering what schemes and stories a girl used to playing with princesses and Barbies might come up with for a pile of old G.I. Joe figures.

Saturday at the Pool

Saturday 03 August 2013 | 0 Comments

Our first day at the pool this year as a family, but alas, the Boy, still recovering from some upper respitory infection, cannot get into the water.

Instead, he stays with Nana and Papa, forever pointing to the pool, forever needing distracting. It's so unfair, so inexplicable: everyone else takes turns in the water, and the poor Boy is stuck.

For the Girl, it's a continuation from last year: more development, more courage -- diving, diving, forever diving. With a new set of flippers, she's able to get deeper faster.

"But Tata, it hurts my ears to go that deep."