Monkey Business

Sally and the disfigured Booloo

After the first few times my in-laws took Ellen to Perkins, this restaurant became Ellen’s first pick when dining with Grammy and Papa.  The lure is the kids’ menu item “Rainbow Pancakes.”  (The basic principle at work here is that if you add rainbow sprinkles to any food item, it becomes gourmet children’s cuisine, infinitely more pleasing to the young palate than the exact same food item sans sprinkles.  Incidentally, the General Store Café in Minnetonka latched on to this principle admirably with their “PB&J with Rainbow Sprinkles,” and they even took it up a notch by letting the kids add their own sprinkles). 

            Last night after church with Grammy, Papa, and Auntie Laura, we headed down the block to get those Rainbow Pancakes.  Ellen and Cecilia both took to their kids’ menus with crayons, triumphantly circling the picture of their colorful item of choice, and X-ing with red crayon the less enticing options, such as “Grilled Chicken Sandwich” and “Macaroni and Cheese” (though we were briefly distracted by the “Perky Bear Pancakes” – see principle above, substitute chocolate chips).     

            After we ordered, the fun really began, because approaching our table was a young woman wearing a belt full of colorful balloons and a button that said “I TWIST FOR TIPS.”

            “Do you girls like balloon animals?” she asked.  After taking in the enthusiastic nodding, she asked, “what sort of animal would you like me to make?”  Both girls settled on a monkey, pink for Cecilia and blue for Ellen.  These monkeys were adorable, complete with faces drawn with black Sharpie.  They were christened Sally and Booloo, respectively, and monkey games and monkey sound effects carried us straight through Rainbow Pancakes, the bringing of the check, and the ride home. 

            When we walked into the house, a sudden and violent cry came from Ellen.  “Look what happened!  Booloo’s ear!”  Indeed, Booloo had pulled a van Gogh – the ear was completely removed (probably untwisted and absorbed into his chest).  Hysterical tears and screaming were immediate, and after several minutes and several unsuccessful calming techniques, I said, “I have an idea.”  I went to my emergency stash of stickers and found some puffy Care Bears.  “Pick a sticker and we can give Booloo a makeshift ear.”  Since the stickers were new (and puffy), they proved more exciting than balloon monkeys.  Tears were halted and peace reigned.  Genius, I thought to myself smugly.  Nice work, Mom.

            Oh, but then another blood-curdling scream let from Ellen’s throat.  “NOW LOOK!”  I came running.  Dear lord, Booloo was three-quarters of the way to full-on Helen Keller.  While applying the Care Bear sticker ear patch, Ellen popped Booloo’s eyes, rendering him completely blind as well as half deaf.  “Now I KNOW he can NEVER be fixed!” she yelled. 

            There was nothing for it but to give hugs and explain that balloon animals don’t last forever, but the good news is that there will be plenty more balloon animals to cherish (and maim) in the future.  While delivering my lesson, I saw Ellen’s eyes shift and alight on Cecilia’s pink monkey, Sally.  Ellen said to me, “Maybe Celie would like to trade with me.”  Before I could launch into why taking her sister’s monkey is not the way to deal with her disappointment, Ellen ran over, took Sally into her arms, and cried lovingly, “Booloo!” My head hung down to my chest as I let out a giant sigh.

            The girls aren’t up yet, and so I’ve taken the opportunity to hide both monkeys.  Maybe they will have forgotten about them overnight.  I probably should hide the Care Bears stickers too, as they will serve as a bitter reminder of yesterday’s misfortune. 

              Next time Grammy and Papa take us to Perkins, we'll count on the Rainbow Pancakes providing all the excitement we need.  If we're really feeling saucy, maybe we'll try the Perky Bear Pancakes.

    

The Calm After the Storm

Hell hath no Fury like a child resisting a hair wash.  While attempting to just go ahead and “do the dump,” I reached the end of my already-frayed rope.  I snapped.  Then I yelled.  Then Dave sent me upstairs and I viciously deflated a Dora the Explorer helium balloon, which had freaked me out for the last time with its child-like size and height in relation to the floor (it was already somewhat deflated).   

Then I came downstairs for some tea, and Ellen asked me to read her bedtime story.  When we were done and the lights were turned off, her wet head (which Dave finally succeeded in washing) rested on her pillow, and she grabbed my finger while I sang the Number One hit on the Bedtime Chart (“Once upon a Dream” from Sleeping Beauty). 

Then I kissed her goodnight and tried to pry my finger away, but she just squeezed it tighter and pulled me closer.  So I lay my own head between hers and that of her stuffed bear, Melissa, and stroked her soft hand with my thumb. 

Then she said to me (her maniacal, hair-washing mother, who ten minutes earlier became so upset that she attacked a Latina made of Mylar): “You’re the best mom in the whole world.” 

Then I was reminded that children teach us a great deal more than we teach them.  They need our guidance while learning how to function in this world, but more importantly, we need their wisdom about what it means to be human, and how to live with gratitude and simplicity.  If we can’t master those fundamentals, none of us will function very well in this world anyway. 

And then, I started crying.   

Lippy Red

Here’s a prototype of Ellen’s crayon face drawings. 

Her faces are not complete unless she uses a crayon that she calls “lippy red” to apply lipstick in thick layers, all around the mouth. 

Her artistry is not confined to drawing pads and crayons.

The Many Cecilias

Cecilia has reached the cute age.  Ellen’s cute too of course, but hers is the “you-are-hilarious-while-trying-to-figure-out-the-world” cute.  Cecilia’s is the “OMG-I-want-to-squeeze-your-face-like-silly-putty” cute.  When kids can’t completely express themselves on their own, you can just imagine a giant, empty, cartoon word balloon above their heads at all times, and you can fill it with whatever you want.  Nice words.  Adorable words.  Once they start filling in their own word balloons, you get stuff like “Mom, I love you as big as the TV, but I love Dad as big as the whole CITY.  I love Dad more than you,” and “wow, my heel looks like a penis. No, ack-shully it looks like that thing BEHIND the penis,” and “I would like spaghetti for dinner, but I HATE sauce.  I just want aLOOOOOT of Parma-john cheese.”  Those are bad examples, but the ones that don’t even have a hint of cuteness are the ones I leave out of my blog. 

Cecilia just wants to please her parents, and to be a big kid like her sister.  And although I still fill in most of her word balloons, she’s definitely stringing together two words at a time, and getting pretty good at asking for things by name.  Sometimes, though, she asks for things just by pointing and repeating over and over “I do, I do” (“ah-doo, ah-doo”), preemptively answering the question “who wants [whatever she’s pointing at]?”  She loves trains, blocks (mostly knocking them over), cheese, and babies, and she gives legitimately the best and most sincere toddler hugs of any kid I’ve ever known. 

I remember, when Ellen was about this age, noticing how very quickly she was growing and changing – so quickly, it seemed that every day a brand new, unique Ellen emerged.  And I so fiercely loved each of those Ellens that I actually felt a need to mourn the “passing” of every version of my daughter that I encountered.  And then I understood how the timeline of motherhood is a series of losses and gains, a pattern of alternating sorrow and celebration, neither of which holds much meaning without its counterpart. 

Now, I’m reminded again how quickly it goes, and how thin the line is between the sweet and the bitter.  A new Cecilia emerges every day.  Each one…irresistible.

Here We Go

2012.  It’s going to be an exciting year.  Item 1: Titanic is being re-released in 3D.  (Stop judging, you KNOW you’ll go, and you’ll like it).  Item 2: I will be running my second half-marathon in Duluth this June (Public Declaration of Intent – CHECK).  Item 3: Our house is either going on the market, or burning to the ground in a blaze which will be found to have been caused by excessive dryer lint, and which will occur at a time when our entire family and all our prized possessions (Dave – beer bottle collection; Cyndy – photo albums and journals; Ellen – Busytown action figures; Cecilia – Caillou doll; Addie – whichever toy has a functioning squeaker at time of incident) are miraculously (mysteriously?) on vacation. 

In fact, the excitement has already begun.  Dave received his BEST PRESENT EVER (if we’re judging by enthusiasm upon receipt) a few days after Christmas, when $75 worth of Prevacid samples were delivered to him.  “This is fantastic!” he exclaimed while I stared blankly.  “Do you realize that I won’t have to buy any omeprazole for six months?!”  (“Mm hmm, and do you realize that next year for Christmas I’ll just be wrapping up a giant box of Tums for you instead of trying to decide between a blue or white button-down?”) 

Other Dave-related excitement: he and one of his colleagues have succeeded in getting his clinic to purchase several “Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitors,” or ABPM’s, if you will.  (Basically, this is a device which patients wear for a 24-hour period, and which monitors blood pressure at 15-minute intervals, giving physicians a much more accurate reading).  I know this isn’t really blog-worthy excitement for my readers, but perhaps you’ll change your tune after you see THIS little gem:

After Dave handed me the camera and posed, I asked with a smirk, “Is this picture supposed to show how you can wear the ABPM and still go about your regular daily activities, such as staring at the microwave while stirring an empty pot with a wooden spoon, while wearing your slim-fit workout shirt tucked into your jeans?”  Yes.  So it took me about 15 tries to nail this “ABPM Instructional Photo” (Dave’s title, natch) – “Could you get more stove in there? Okay, good, but now less of my neck.  Yep, now make sure the device is in focus.  Okay, but we need more stove again.”  I think it turned out well though.  At least there’s no more worry about what the ABPM might prevent one from doing.  And I laugh whenever I think of it. 

Ellen excitement: her preschool class is taking turns bringing home the class teddy bear, and whoever has the bear gives it a name and writes a few things about what he or she did with the bear.  We took home the bear last Wednesday, and Ellen named it Elizabeth.  After some lunch and a few books, Ellen informed me that Elizabeth would be marrying her old teddy, Melissa.  We declare them fully legal.    

Celie excitement: she LOVES Kindermusik, dancing, and anything involving her big sister, but the MOST exciting thing so far was figuring out that Grandpa is fun and not scary.  Well, this was probably more exciting for Grandpa.  Now allow the choir nerd in me to come out for a minute – Celie is crazy good at matching pitch, and this afternoon I caught her with one of my scores in hand, looking at it and singing to herself.  Yes, I grabbed the camera. 

We’re overlooking the score being upside down. 

The Catch-Up: A Breath Away from a Pulitzer

In another life I am a brilliant novelist.  Every day I wake up at 5:00 to a fresh pot of coffee, and I sit at a beautiful white desk which is by a window that looks out on Lake Minnetonka, and while the sun comes up (and until it reaches its noon height) I pound out a flowing and elegant prose chock full of truths about human folly, the indomitable human spirit, society, love, the Arts, all cleverly interwoven into a story with a legitimate Hero who goes on a legitimate Quest and becomes a legitimate Christ-figure. 

Or at least I pen something about a vampire, or a werewolf, or a zombie, which can make me a billion dollars.  At this point I think all the undead creatures have been covered, which is unfortunate.

But the closest I get to “brilliant or mediocre novelist” is my recording of the lives of my children on this blog. 

One problem (of many, admittedly) is that I write too infrequently.  The rule “If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day” is fairly widely accepted, I think.  At least, I’m willing to bet it’s more widely accepted than the one about not consuming raw cookie dough, so it must have some merit.  I break the writing rule (and the cookie dough rule), so my blog posts are infrequent and I have to do a catch-up post with a lot of pictures.  Every time I do this, I state to myself that this is the LAST TIME, and I renew my promise to write every day.  I always believe myself.  (So there’s a little “indomitable human spirit” for you.  Or maybe “relentless power of human denial”).     

1)      We took a road trip to Kansas City to celebrate my Grandma Tholen’s 85^th birthday.  The entire extended fam was there (minus two cousins), which is actually extremely impressive, since we represent Minnesota, Kansas, Maine, Virginia, Oregon, and Hawaii. 




The Tholen side

2)      It snowed. 

3)      Cecilia really enjoys doing whatever her big sister is doing.  Right down to time-outs. 

4)      The Busytown Mysteries obsession continues.  Here is Ellen’s interpretation of Lowly Worm.  I’m not sure what else to say about it, but you can come up with your own caption. 

5)      Auntie Laura came from Florida for Thanksgiving, and we went to the Macy’s display for a visit with Santa.  Ellen’s request: “Busytown Dudes.”  Dudes is our name for little figurines.  Last year Cecilia was fascinated by Santa’s beard.  This year, not so much.

6)      Uncle Pat came (also from Florida, but not with Auntie Laura) for Thanksgiving, and he took us to the Mill City Museum.  If you haven’t gone, you should.  It is really cool. 

7)   Ellen’s “sticky cannonball” at swimming lessons.  I. Love. This. Picture.

 

Just Here to Help the Teacher

Ellen loves art.  If you ask her, she doesn’t just love art, she is “an artist.”  To nurture this budding interest, I enrolled her in an Abrakadoodle preschool art class through St. Louis Park Parks and Rec.  So far it’s great.  Parents and kids do messy art projects together, and get to explore mediums other than old favorites like crayons and markers. 

Our first class began with all the kids sitting in a circle in front of their teacher, Miss Michelle.  After singing “hello” to one another, then reading a story, Miss Michelle gave a word of advice:

“Okay, friends, let’s go make our first project!  Remember, if any of you ever have any questions about art, or about what we’re doing, you can just raise your hand and say ‘Miss Michelle, I have a question!’ Don’t be shy!”

At this point, Ellen raised her hand.  Miss Michelle looked her way and gave an expectant nod and smile.

Ellen lowered her hand and said:

“I don’t think I’ll have any questions, since I’m already an artist.” 

All the moms quietly laughed, and Miss Michelle (bless her) deadpanned:

“You are?  Well, I am VERY glad you are in this class.”  



Owl - with oil pastels, paper, glue, and feathers