Soccer

 

Yesterday was Beatrice's last soccer session until they start again in January, so I thought I'd use this opportunity to post some photos.

  

Watching Beatrice play soccer has been one of the highlights of the last year.  As I have joked before on Facebook and elsewhere, Beatrice is not exactly a natural at soccer.  In fact, she's not very coordinated, she doesn't understand (or care to understand) the rules and aims of the game, and she spends a lot of her time falling over, running in the wrong direction, or talking to the coach about random, unrelated things like chipmunk hibernation.  At one point, all the other kids were running across the field, each kicking a soccer ball forward as they ran, and she actually started running backwards.

But she's always enthusiastic, confident, and cooperative - whatever sport she's playing, she loves it.  She gets a ton of exercise (they basically run back and forth across the field for thirty minutes). And I get a chance to sit on a picnic blanket in the evening at sunset and relax. So everyone wins.

I should also add a few pictures here from Arthur's short soccer career.  Unlike Beatrice, Arthur is actually quite good at soccer - he can kick, stop the ball, and make goals.  But he's also unwilling to listen to the coach, he's very lazy about running (or walking), and frequently wanders off or just lies down in the grass to protest.

 

  


Stopping the ball



Taking yet another break

In fact, during his brief stint in soccer before I pulled him out, he actually requested that I carry him back and forth across the field, only setting him down on the grass so that he could kick goals.  Seriously.


Arthur's preferred position, watching the game while eating kettle corn

So we stopped taking Arthur to soccer, though we may try again in a year or so.  Until then, though, we've found that Arthur's true passion is his dance class, but I'll leave those photos for another time.

Halloween Costumes

Today we took the kids to the Burbank Adult School Boo Bash (the same one we went to last year).  It was their first opportunity to wear this year's costumes. 

Last spring Beatrice decided she wanted to be a "spiky plant" (by which she meant a rose bush, with thorns).

B's costume is just a green leotard, tights, tutu, and headband, decorated with fake leaves, roses, bees, ladybugs, butterflies, and yes, thorns (which I made by rolling tiny paper cones).  She was very insistent that the thorns be large, sharp, and gold, and these are actually relatively sharp for thorns made out of paper.  I also put green glitter in her hair.
 

 

 As soon as I put this on, Beatrice announced, "I'm pollinating!"

This was the first year Arthur could choose his own costume; he wanted to be a turtle.

Arthur's costume is a brown leotard with a brown knit cap and loose-fitting brown pants.  His shell was built around a plastic bowl from IKEA, covered in batting, polyfill stuffing, and felt.  And yes, the shell pattern is scientifically accurate - I copied it from a natural history illustration of turtle shell patterns.

(Dev accidentally put the leotard over the pants instead of under them, but oh well - we'll get it right for trick or treating.)

Arthur demonstrates turtle posture.

The Yellow Warbler

***Warning: This post contains pictures of a dead bird, though nothing bloody, gory, or graphic.***

Last May a tiny yellow bird (we think it was a yellow warbler) flew headlong into my friend Melissa's sliding glass doors and fell down dead.  Melissa contacted me immediately to ask if I wanted it and of course I said yes (and thank you, Melissa!)

Sitting in a box of borax

For very small animals like insects, mice, and tiny birds, you can desiccate the entire body, whole, in borax, without first cutting it open or stuffing it, so that's what I did.  I left this bird in borax for about two months, periodically changing the borax and checking to make sure there was no rotting or other problems.  The borax dries and deodorizes the bird while also killing any tiny mites or other things that might be in its feathers.

This week I took out the bird and carefully cleaned and brushed it off to remove any borax or dirt from its feathers.  The process of drying the bird also removes its eyes, so I replaced them with tiny glass eyes from a taxidermy supply store.  Then I had to very, very carefully spread open its toes so it could "grasp" the piece of wood I mounted it on.

New eyes

This was my first time preserving a whole animal (vs. just bones) but of course drying something is much, much easier than taxidermy.  I'm planning on signing up for a taxidermy class soon to learn how to stuff and mount larger animals.  In fact, the class is taught by a friend of a friend who is also the taxidermist for the Natural History Museum, so it should be very interesting.

October Links

As usual, I am not doing very much writing in the month of October, I'm too busy working on Halloween projects, but I did publish two pieces this month:

*  "Artificial Consciousness," a fake Wikipedia entry about the Singularity for The Bygone Bureau (in which a computer achieves consciousness and then, moments later, self-consciousness)

*  "Danse Macabre," an essay on my deep love of Halloween, and the weird, creepy cartoon short that may have started it all, in the all-Halloween, all-horror special issue of the film magazine Bright Wall/Dark Room.

I also have something coming soon in Trop.

We also had another excellent Hot Dish last Sunday and we're already hard at work on the next one, November 14, at The Last Bookstore downtown.  More to come!

More Beatrice and Arthur Quotes, Plus Some Musing on Arthur

 

Dressed for their trip to Alaska

Arthur has given Beatrice quite the run for her money lately in terms of funny quotes. 

Moreover, this new batch of Arthur quotes goes a long way to capturing Arthur's personality, which can be a little hard to pin down. (Setting aside the inherent problems with trying to pin down the core personality traits of someone as changeable as a two-year-old.)  He's a funny kid and full of contradictions (but what toddler isn't?)

On one hand, Arthur is extraordinarily affectionate, physically and verbally. Though friendly with strangers, he is slightly more guarded around new people than Beatrice is. But with his family he is incredibly cuddly, especially with me.  Several times a day, out of the blue, he will fling his arms around my neck, hug and kiss me, and exclaim, "Mommy, I love you so much!"

Arthur loves to sit and look at Pinterest with me.

And he loves Beatrice, even if they have a very fraught relationship full of both extreme love and total fury. In fact, they plan on being roommates as adults, because neither can really imagine living without the other one around.

If B could go to the moon, she would bring Arthur with her.

On the other hand, he hasn't shown much interest yet in playing with children other than Beatrice.  My friend described him as "aloof" with her son of the same age and he can be. I worry a bit because he doesn't seem to play with any of the other kids at school, preferring to play alone or with teachers. Every day I pick him up from school and amidst the chaos of a dozen two-year-olds running and playing and fighting, he is usually sitting alone in the corner in an armchair looking at books.

So far (fingers crossed) Arthur has never been physically aggressive with anyone - no pushing, no hitting - but he is quite verbally aggressive, even mean.  When he's mad, he exclaims, "I hate this!" "This is stupid!" "I quit!" He calls Beatrice "dumb" and "a bad guy."  He also loves saying bad words, just to push the boundaries - every time he drops something now he says, "Damn it!"

He is cute, smart, and good at basically everything, from art to athletics, and the teachers all say he is their favorite.  He's also the youngest (for now) and a boy and I admit I dote on him, too, but the result is that he's pretty full of himself, he's used to always getting his way, and he is hilariously condescending for a two-year-old.

At the same time that he can be impossibly stubborn, demanding, and rude, he is all smiles most of the time.  And he is always labeling his feelings, saying, "I am so happy today!" or "I am feeling sad" or "You are making me disappointed." 

He still loves Boo as much as ever. His second favorite toy is Foxy, the stuffed fox Nani gave him - he calls Boo and Foxy his "kids" and treats them like babies. (He also says he wants to be a stay-at-home dad when he grows up - either that or a turtle.)

Arthur and his "kids" (and a swollen nose from falling down the side door steps)

So in conclusion, he is wonderfully happy, loving, and kind, but also stubborn, vain, and patronizing. And very funny.

But enough pontificating. Some quotes from them both:

ARTHUR

Every morning when I first open the door, Beatrice says something random and crazy, and Arthur says something melodramatic and usually complaining. Some of his recent proclamations have been, "Beatrice broke my bones," "Everything is ruined," and "Boo is dead."

The other day when he was mad at me for denying him something, he also told me, "Mommy, you broke my whole life." 

Other melodrama included him crying over some small disappointment and then say, "Look, Mommy, my eyes look like raining."

He also told me in anger, "Someday when I have a hotel, you can never go in my hotel again!"

And after I moved his blankets trying to wake him up after nap, "Don't ever move this blanket again."

 

Arthur's first knock-knock joke:
Arthur: Knock, knock!
Summer: Who's there?
Arthur: Here's some grass. [Hands me a handful of grass he tore out of Sam and Lilli's front yard.]

Arthur is obsessed with money lately*.  The other day he stole 65 cents from Dev, gave it to me and said, "Here, Mommy, you can go on vacation."

At dinner, "Mommy, I have a hypothesis."
[Dips his fork into his milk glass, tries to drink milk that way.]
"That was my hypothesis. It didn't work, I tested."

After I told him ten times I wouldn't take him to the aquarium that day.
Arthur: Mommy, I have a question.
Summer: Yes?
Arthur: Do you have the red car?
Summer: Yes.
Arthur: Then you can take me to the aquarium.

And the best example of Arthur's constant condescension:
Beatrice asked Dev, "What are theropods?"
Before Dev could answer, Arthur said smugly, "Theropods are dinosaurs! Okay, Daddy, now you try."

BEATRICE

Summer: Would you like some [food, I forget what]?
Beatrice: I adore anything that's light brown!

Beatrice asked me who the Pope was and I told her. After a moment's consideration she said, "I will be a vet, not the Pope. I want a good job."

(She wants to own a 24-hour veterinary ER, but until recently she didn't understand the concept of working in shifts, so she thought she would personally be working there 24 hours a day. Once I explained it, she concluded that instead she would scuba dive all day and be a vet all night.)

Beatrice is always telling Dev to keep his hands on the wheel when driving. The other day she said to him, "Would you only be happy if you are in a crash?!"

"My brain tells me to do art," and later, "I am a great artist! Part of being a great artist is cleaning up after yourself."

And again, after becoming frustrated with something she was trying to draw, "The eyes don't look right! This is a difficult day for me!"

A puppet show

"Why is my heart beating? Is it because my brain is a good boss?"

Dev explained identity theft to Beatrice and she became panic-stricken and demanded, "Why did you tell me that?!"

Recently she said to me, "When I say, 'Do you like my outfit?' you say, 'Absolutely!' Okay, let's practice."

While trying to wake her up after naptime (and note, Beatrice doesn't know how to tell time), "I'm a tired girl. Let me get up at six of the clock."

She also recently wrote a love song, the first line of which is "I am content to you! I will never quit to you!"

And my all-time favorite from this morning, ARTHUR AND BEATRICE:

Arthur, with a big grin on his face: My smoothie is cold, like a polar bear!
Beatrice, flat affect: Computers look like dead gorillas.

At the library playing reading games

* Which is funny because at almost 4.5, Beatrice still has no idea what money is and no interest in learning about it.

Before and After #12: The Nursery

 

 

 

 

This Before and After is more bittersweet than most, because instead of replacing something ugly with something nice, we're just replacing one nice thing with another.  But we converted our guest room into a room for the new baby. 

We were sorry to see the guest room go; we got a lot of use out of it in the last two and a half years.  At first I was unhappy, but eventually excitement about decorating a new nursery won out.  (Plus we still have the back room for guests.)

And I must say, it's great to have more storage space for toys and kid's things. The nursery is like a second playroom for Beatrice and Arthur, too.  In fact, lately it's the only room they want to play in.

We kept all the big changes we made the first time around - things like replastering the walls, removing the popcorn ceiling, painting, and adding trim.  I even kept the old rug and curtains.

I took cues from the gray rug and the gray walls and made the colors in this room navy, gray, and white, with touches of yellow.  We brought back in the old crib, thoroughly cleaned and with a new mattress and new bedding.

New toy bins, awaiting new baby toys

I moved all of the infant toys out of Beatrice and Arthur's room and into this one.  I also set up a dress-up station and an art table - of course right now both of these are for the older kids, not the newborn, but with all this new space we could afford to spread out the kids' things over both bedrooms.

(I might add that I got the new toy chest, the new art table, and the new green storage bins all from Craiglist. I love Craigslist so much.)

The dress-up station, by far the most popular destination in the house these days

The art table

Art table storage

I hung up this little mini-quilt I sewed and added some framed art (drawings of ships and castles, and the Aubrey Beardsley King Arthur prints that we had in the dining room of our old house).

And I sewed this blue, yellow, and gray fabric bunting.

I also made this rain mobile with twigs and tiny crystals. It's basically impossible to photograph properly (for me, anyway) but it looks nice in real life.

 

For the next few years, the baby will sleep here while Arthur and B stay in their room together.  Someday when B is older we'll give her this room while Arthur shares with the new baby, and then I guess we'll have to refurnish the bedrooms one more time.

 

Baby clothes

 

Quite a nice collection of shoes inherited from Arthur