the wonderful / wacky world of Nomi

*Blogger is not letting me put spaces between the lines or paragraphs, so please excuse the weird, hard-to-read formatting!

Since we've been looking at old pictures, I thought I'd post one of my favorites of Naomi at 2, along with a recent picture of her at a friend's birthday party. How quickly she's grown! And almost seven now... A few comments from my delightful, growing, almost-birthday girl before I forget them...

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Naomi is the indisputably the slowest eater in the family. She doesn't really enjoy this status, but accepts it and doesn't really try to speed up. I don't like to leave her completely alone for the last hour of her meals, but have trouble staying at the table for such a large percentage of the day, so I try to do things like sweep the kitchen or bake while she's eating so we can still talk.

Anyway, I was doing this the other day while she lounged in her chair, examining an apple she had been eating for over an hour... "You know," she said to me, "Astronauts are lucky. Since there is no oxygen in space they could eat as slowly as they wanted to, and their apples would never get brown." Sigh.

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While brushing her teeth in the bathroom, Naomi called me in to share her thoughts... "I just realized something, mom. When we learn other languages, we aren't really learning what those words mean in English, we are learning what they stand for. Like if we learn "agua" we aren't really learning "water" we are learning this wet thing- what stands for this actual thing. It doesn't have to go back to English. Words just happen to stand for something."

I was amazed at her perception and her non-ethnocentric (lingocentric?) perspective! I think half of my college level "Teaching English to Non-English Speakers" class never understood that. But it's funny that the thought occurred when it did. I think we need less "school time" and more time to just be lost in thought... Who knows what we'd discover?

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We get our milk delivered by Smith Brothers Dairy. It comes on Fridays, and we usually watch out for the big white truck with black Holstein spots- the kids like to be the first one's to notice it's arrival. So yesterday we were sitting at the kitchen table when Naomi looked out the window and hollered-

"Look! The champagne truck is here!"

"Champagne!?" I questioned in surprise... "Wha....?"

"Yeah!" she said. "It's backing up the driveway!"

"Since when do we get champagne delivered?!" I said. "What about MILK!?"

"No, No. Champagne- you know, to burn in the fireplace!"

"You mean propane?"

"Oh. Yeah- propane. So the propane truck is here."

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Yesterday we wanted some crackers with our cheese, and took some out of the pantry that someone (really I don't know who) had brought over for one of the holiday get-togethers. They were a whole wheat sort that we've often had, but after a few bites, it was obvious they were not right. I examined the box and saw that they were best by 2006. Oops. I explained to the kids why they were less than fresh tasting, and we tossed 'em.

Today, we tried some cookies from a tin that weren't so tasty. (I know, we're a little picky I guess.) We didn't throw them out or anything, just left the tin on the counter. (Daddy will eat them!) Later Naomi came running over to me with the tin, the insignia of the "Royal Dansk" cookie company aimed at my face"- "Mom Mom! Look! No wonder these cookies are no good! They are from 1966!!"

political preschool

I like to listen to NPR while I do kitchen tasks. Usually I turn off the radio once the kids get up, but sometimes I listen at other times throughout the day, or I accidentally leave it on while I'm in the shower, and the kids hear and interpret freely. When the election frenzy was at it's height, they were quite interested, and would always ask, "Is this voting again!?" They all had their own opinions on the candidates, based on random information. Josiah's favorites were chosen by the sounds of their names. He even renamed his stuffed horse "Dino Rossi" (since been changed to Rough-Tough) and a leopard "Baracka Bama." Anyway, so the political chatter has mostly died down, but Naomi had an NPR session yesterday, and was brimming with information that she just had to share...

Naomi: "Guess what I heard on the radio today? Barack Obama is going to create THREE TRILLION new jobs!" (I think she got the jobs number confused with the national debt.)

Josiah: "Whoa. That's a lot. How is he going to do that anyway?"

Eva: "Yeah, and what would they be? He'll say like, 'You- replace all the dead batteries.' "

Naomi: "Yeah, and 'You- change all the diapers....' (long pause) Wow. That's only two that we can thing of. He's gonna have a lotta sittin' and thinkin'! Can you believe- in just ten days Barack Obama is going to be president! And in just nine days, mom is going to be thirty-two!! And that means in eleven days, I'm going to be seven!!"

Josiah: "Wait, so did you hear ALL of that on the radio?"

"So Much Like a Two-Year Old," by Naomi

"This reminds me of you Addie. -Naomi"

first parade of the new year

What were you doing in the wee moments of 2009?

Whatever it was, I hope it was as exciting as this kid-produced parade- complete with a backwards leotard (in the snow) a tissue-paper-stuffed clown, a pink princess, some non-costumed little boys and various other colorful characters. They lined up at the front door and at the stroke of midnight headed out in the snow to bang their pot lids, yell, march, and somehow not get cold! Great memories. I won't be letting my kids stay up till 2am on a regular basis, but on this occasion it worked remarkably well. Fortunately they're finally old enough to have the good sense to sleep in the next day!

Buddy didn't care that this was "Girl Twister." It was noisy plastic, slippery, exciting, and his big cousins were on it! What's not to love?

So tired- but still up for play! What a guy.

Happy New Year, all.

the Christmas picture- behind the scenes

Do you ever imagine the reality behind all those sweet photo cards you get over the holidays? You might think that the children look so pleasant- so cooperative. That may be true, but I bet if the kids are under 10, especially if there is more than one, the "cute card" involved more than meets the eye! So now that the Christmas cards have all been sent, I thought it would be fun to share a peek at what it really takes to get the traditional "nice picture" with three children.

When it was sunny in December, I decided to get the kids over to the lake for the annual photo shoot. They were very disappointed, of course, but the girls know better to protest, and grudgingly put on their sweaters and combed their hair. Josiah, on the other hand, has a long standing tradition of crying bitterly when it's time to take the Christmas picture. It has happened every year, and this year was no exception. It's as if somehow my voice saying "Let's change clothes and go outside to get a Christmas picture!" somehow morphs as it travels to his ear, and when it gets there, says to him, "Let's put you in a scratchy straitjacket and force-feed you egg yolks while we pull out all your toenails." That has just got to be what happens, because nothing else would logically explain his reaction. Anyway, this year was no different, but things calmed down a bit when I let him wear his monkey shirt under his jacket, and comb his own hair. (Note: being cross-eyed is very cool in four-year-old circles.)

So we got in a few clicks....

before Josiah was distracted by a snail, and just had to pick it up, and just had to show it to his "gills" (girls). One diversion led to another, and before you know it, I was distracted and he tried a daring photo-session escape.

After running around wildly and laughing hysterically, he came back on the condition that they could do some "free" posing, of their own ideas...

This was what they came up with.

But here is the best one of all. And this was even taken before the break-away- this is my pose, a "let's make it nice" pose. This shows the true feelings about picture posing in our family. It looks like a poster for disturbed children, no? Please send money, they need help? Eva informed me afterwards that here she was trying to make her face very, very red- something she does by blowing out hard while also holding her breath. Very effective. Very Christmas. The others? I have no idea.

So there you have it. My kids are wonderful, but nothing is ever simple with them. "Nice" Christmas pictures with nice-but-squirrely kids can be achieved, but not without some determination. If a nice picture is all you seek, and you want to capture it in peace, I suggest you shoot something less fidgety, such as the silent and immobile Mount Rainer. Ah... beauty AND tranquility. But without those charming smiles.

snow, sweets, and the countdown

When you have snow in Seattle, everything changes! We have been mostly house bound for about a week and a half (go ahead and laugh, all you folks in Colorado). Thus, I have a spotless and completely organized house, and we are a semester ahead with school. Oh wait, no, actually our house is in its normal busy disarray, and we have done little "school" as the kids have been playing with snow every day all day, and, because I stocked up at Costco and have a lot of sugar, flour, and chocolate, we have an abundance of sweets! Just felt the need to bake my little heart out- warmed the house a little, too. Anyway... Kids and I had fun doing these cookies for days, whenever they weren't outside... Then I realized that after 8 days in the kitchen I was becoming a little grouchy... Do you see? Anyway, I went for a beautiful night-walk by myself, and the next day got outside and made some snowmen with the kids. Great times!The kids made these two by themselves.

Isn't this guy great? He's like the Grinch of snowmen. As Naomi likes to sing, "I wouldn't touch him with a- 36 and a half inch pole!" (Eva- "39 and a half foot- Naomi! Foot pole!")

Our little family on the deck. If you're sitting on the couch inside, you can see them standing cheerily behind the Christmas tree- I love it!

Dad's old hat, "Ski Cap." Love that too.

Little Rasta baby.

The Mama.

The Vanimal, sporting a cool flat-top
As if there wasn't enough snow in our yard... we had to move on.

Feeling better! Christmas? Bring it on. We can't wait! As the girls say, "Merry Christmas Eve Eve!"

endangered species, please- with butter and honey

Monday morning- Josiah was thinking as he was stirring eggs and milk together for waffles...

Josiah: "Mom, what if waffles became extinct? Oh wait, waffles couldn't be extinct, because they couldn't be all dead.... Oh wait, they could, because they have eggs, and eggs are chickens, and chickens could be all dead..."

Me: "So what's your conclusion?"

Josiah: "What's a conclusion?"

Me: "A conclusion is the decision you make after thinking about something, and considering all the information- like a final thought."

Josiah: "Oh. My conclusion is... I'm hungry for some waffles."