fun in threes, sometimes fours
the girl
Thank God for loving Babcias who send entire boxes of educational materials from Poland so that little granddaughters around the world can work on their Polish language skills.
Thank God for loving Polish mamas who daily work with stubborn half-Polish little girls in an effort to keep them bilingual.
It's a yearly tradition now, the herald of autumn, and if we lived in a colder climate, it would serve as a bookend to the summer.
The selection is diminished at this time of year: the McIntoshes are long gone, if that's your apple. Honeycrisp tress are long bare, and Pink Ladies are still not ripe. Of course, there's always Red and Golden Delicious, as well as Granny Smiths, but those are at the very bottom of our list of favorites.
There are a few Cortlands on the tress, though, and if you look hard enough, you'll find a McIntosh or two still hanging around.
And of course there are loads of Fuji apples.
We can easily fill the baskets with Fuji, and the Girl adores that particular cultivar.
The apples, of course, are only a means to an end, which is spending time with close friends.
There's a great trail along the stream and up the side of a mountain that's just right for short legs.
There's a fun swimming hole. There are tadpoles squirting about, drawing undue attention to themselves from would-be harassers.
There's a cooling waterfall with which L becomes more and more courageous. (The corollaries to this is a new ability to put her face in the water and a develop preference of showering over bathing.)
There are smaller waterfalls nearby that are positively picturesque.
There are nature shows that allow kids to handle frogs, turtles, and multiple snakes, as well as learn about how helpful some snakes can truly be.
And there's an ice cream shop just down the road.
Perhaps these are some of the reasons we keep returning to Table Rock State Park whenever we can.
We’ve been getting the Girl used to no nap: she won’t have one when she goes back to preschool next week.
But some days, she falls asleep in the back of the car and we relent. “Half an hour,” I whisper to her as I put her on the bed and cover her up.
Read sixty books and you get a free meal at Chick-Fil-A.
At what point does “best friend” cease to mean “someone you argue with best”?
Probably never.
Birthdays are, obviously enough, the temporal equivalent of borders or landmarks. We pass them and in theory are not the same on the other side. At least that's what our culture tells us. Birthdays always bring to mind the now-odd notion that most people in the history of the world have had no idea just how old they are, so it's a boundary because we say as much.
But they can provide real metrics of comparison. For instance, there are firsts in a child's life that correlate to her age. Birthdays, then, can provide a dual marker: someone turns a year older; someone else experiences a first in relation to that.
Shortly after our arrival, K had her first birthday in the States. We were staying with my parents until we found jobs and settled into a city -- eventually Asheville, though only for two years. We went out to eat, had a cake -- the usual.
Now, six years later, we celebrated once again with my parents: a grilled London Broil (one of K's favorites) and all the summer accessories. Though the weather didn't cooperate, it was nothing to the head grill chef: there's no stopping a man on a grilling mission. It just can't be done.
There's also no stopping a four-year-old on a mission: as Papa was grilling in the rain, the Girl worked on perfecting her living room gymnastics and tumbling routine, taking occasional breaks to dance to the music coming from this or that program on Nick Jr.
But this birthday was different. Sure, there were Klondike Double Chocolate bars for desert -- a first for all of us, but a relatively insignificant first.
Sure, K turned 26. I suggested she might want to do 25 for another year (she's been in a holding pattern there, just as I, for a number of years now), but she decided to step out into a new age. Significant, but not earth-shattering.
What was most significant was, as always, how our daughter grew. It was the first year that L chose a present for K on her own.
It was a risky proposition.
She was insistent, though, on buying a new jewelry box for K. "The one she has is old," she advised me sagely. "Mama needs a new one."
So off went to find a jewelry box. What we bought was a candle holder, though. Pink, and shaped like a star, no less.
"I want this one!" L proclaimed when she saw it.
"You mean you want to buy this for Mama?" I clarified.
"Right."
I tried to explain it wasn't, in fact, a jewelry box. Yet the fact that it had a small door with a hing countered any argument I put forth. There's reasoning with a little girl on a mission to buy a jewelry box for her mother.
The Girl has fallen in love with Cheerios again. It’s been four years since she ate them regularly; suddenly, she craves them.
It’s one less worry, as it means she’s getting a decent breakfast for a change.