The other day, the Girl’s class had “Dress as Your Favorite Character” day.
There was only one option for L.
the girl
Barbie Bike
It took her a while to save up the money, and in the meantime, she had to learn how to wait patiently.
And for a little girl who is obsessed with all things Barbie, the effort and time involved in opening the package was almost too much.
But in the end, she got it open, and then I began clipping this and that anti-theft string and band.
And we sat for a while pondering why they put the drive train on the left side, and why bikes generally have them on the right to begin with.
Morning Play
We're almost in quarantine. With the Boy still a little iffy from a previous illness and K sick, we have stayed inside the whole weekend. Sometimes, though, that's just what we need: a lazy Sunday morning with everyone doing what we want. L reads; the Boy plays; I hang out with my children.
As the morning wears on, I turn my attention to the Boy's lunch: a soup made of pureed potatoes, carrots, squash, broccoli, and chicken. The Boy loves it, and I can see why: it's really not that bad, despite the fact that it's a bit bland due to the lack of seasoning.
The Girl helps with our lunch, which includes an eternal favorite for L: shrimp. This time, we set her to work cleaning them.
After lunch, a walk that reveals the irony of suburbia: nature and concrete.
With a short week in front of us, a relaxed Sunday is about perfect.
Sick
"'I cannot go to school today,' / Said little Peggy Ann McKay." So begins one of the Girl's favorite poems, the famous "Sick" by Shel Silverstein. Yet in our case, the sickness is real, and the truism shows itself to be more than mere cliche: When Mama is sick, everyone suffers. Mama is the glue that holds everything together, and when she's down with the flu, the rest of us start coming apart.
And priorities shift, like this silly blog.
Generosity
The Girl has always been a bit nervous about spiders. For a while, she thought ever spider she saw was a Black Widow. Her choice of books at the Book Fair reveals how much she’s grown. Her decision to spend her own money to buy a copy for a friend shows it even more distinctly.
Failed Experiment
The Girl tried an experimental paper boat as she'd seen in Curious George.
Sadly, it didn't work.
First Book Fair
There are few things, I think, as joyful for a lover of books to attend her first book fair at school.
Sunday Downtown
We never made it to Falls Park during our walk yesterday, so the family decided to start there today. I would have guessed, were someone to ask me, that we were too late to get much of an autumnal view, but I was happily mistaken.
This time, though, we took the whole family, including our one-and-a-half tooth Wonder Boy who seems willing to smile at just about anything.
The Boy's smile probably had something to do with my wiggling fingers and silly face, but with colors like this, though, who could resist a smile?
As we headed into the main downtown area of the park, the sun came out fully and consistently, making the Peace Center glow. We, though, were less glowing, especially the Girl, who had by then adopted an all-too-familiar refrain: "I'm hungry."
Nothing is quite as filling on a fall day as an ice cream cone,
and it never tastes as better than when outside. Or so someone told me.
Downtown
The Girl and I decided to go downtown this afternoon and explore. After a visit to the library, we wound up at Springwood Cemetery in downtown Greenville. It was there; we were there -- why not?
I couldn't remember if the Girl had ever been in a cemetery before. I recalled a visit to a cemetery in Rock Hill, but she stayed in the car.
"But I've been in a cemetery in Poland," she assured me.
We quickly learned this cemetery was different, really a cemetery worth visiting. It wasn't one of those modern graveyards with flat grave markers to make mowing easier. This cemetery had worn stones and wrought iron fences.
And a number of plots for unknown Confederate soldiers.
The past is truly never too far away when you're in the South. Those of us from the South face a lot of stereotypes as a result, not all of them completely unearned. I've never had much of an accent at all, let alone a southern accent, but I still felt somewhat out of place during my two years in Boston. As we walked around, words from that modern, proud redneck band, Drive-by Truckers, came to mind:
You think I'm dumb, maybe not too bright
You wonder how I sleep at night
Proud of the glory, stare down the shame
Duality of the southern thing
I can't say I've ever been proud of the glory, but I've done my share of staring down the shame.
Perhaps that's the modern southern thing?
Whatever the case, I didn't have long to settle on those thoughts: we were soon walking down Main Street (literally), weaving in and out of fellow Greenville-ites also out to enjoy the warm Saturday, snapping pictures here and there. The Girl has begun requesting pictures -- and posing -- so I willingly complied.
I wanted to walk all the way down to Falls Park, but with K and the Boy back home, we decided to head back.
With the Grandparents
