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Jeffrey is just becoming aware that there are other belief systems in the world besides ours. Which is great, even if it leaves me rubbing my white liberal Mormon hands together in nervousness.
“Mom, my friend’s mom says that she believes in God even though they don’t go to church,” he told me one evening. Whoa. Had Jeffrey been asking questions at his friend’s house? What did he say?!? Are our neighbors thinking that we are friendly solely on the potential of converting them?!?
Such are the ways that religion complicates social relations in Utah.
Then, just a few days ago, the kids saw a color photo in the newspaper that accompanied a story about the Swine Flu outbreak. It showed a picture of nuns in Mexico wearing surgical masks.
“Mom, who are they? What are they doing?” Jeffrey and Eleanor were both curious to know.
I explained: they were nuns, they were Catholic, they served God, etc.
“But where do they live?” asked Jeffrey — who kept forgetting what I had said and referred to them as “nins.”
“Tell me more about the nins!”
“Well, some of them live right here in Salt Lake City,” I said.
“Are they very scary?” Eleanor asked, and made a show of cowering.
“No, the nins like Jesus,” said Jeffrey.
“The nuns are nice people,” I corrected.
“Are there boy nuns?”
I explained about monks.
“Why are they wearing masks?” asked Ella, pointing to the picture. “Do the nuns wear them so they don’t talk so loud?”
“No no no no no,” Jeffrey interrupted. “They are called nins.“
And so on. I didn’t bother explaining about the masks; religion is complicated enough without bringing microbiology into the mix.
Spring Break is OVER!
(Hurrah! I survived!)
While I understand the need for teachers to have a much-needed break, does it have to be at the time of year when the weather is the most unpredictable and the incidence for ear infections and flu is the highest?
Spring Break came just after I had finished up a four-days-in-bed Eleanor flu, ear infections for both her and Wimmy, and then four-days-in-bed Jeffrey flu. Having him home with the flu for four straight days was a trial; he is the most high-maintenance (whiny) of all my kids. We finally figured out how to keep him entertained on Day Four: putting the “Making of Lord of the Rings documentary in my laptop and letting him watch it all he wanted without driving the rest of us crazy. I don’t know why my six year old has such a high tolerance for the endless natterings of Peter Jackson, but he does.
So, needless to say, after two weeks of feeling isolated and lonely due to sickness, it was difficult to take on three bored kids snowed in with cabin fever. Arrrgh.
At least on Monday the weather was good. We got to go to Red Butte Gardens and see the pretty flowers. I made an attempt at taking portraits of the kids, like we used to do at the Phipps Conservatory every spring in Pittsburgh. Here are the results:
Eleanor is learning how to “look cute” for the camera (i.e. mugging):
I actually got Jeffrey to look at the camera AND smile. Kinda:
William found a seat just his size under a willow tree in the children’s garden:
This picture is just darn springy:
Monday was the only day of the week that we had sunshine. By Wednesday, the ground was once again blanketed in snow and I threw myself onto a pile of mittens and boots and did some screaming and kicking for a while.
But now school is back in session, and the sun has returned. Happy days.
Brian gave me grief the other day about how I hadn’t posted any pictures of the children in a long, long while. He keeps wanting to send his colleagues at work to this blog in order to show off the kinder, but there aren’t any pictures! Horrors!
Well, that’s something easily amended. Here, everyone — enjoy some kid pics in cute Easter clothes.
This first picture was technically taken the day before Easter, just before we went to a wedding lunch. But this is Ella’s special Easter dress. I think it’s kind of funny, the way each child happens to be holding his or her favorite toy: a Lego car, a doll, a bear.
The dress came with a little matching one for her Jenny doll. I nearly swooned from the girliness of it all. The next picture was taken on Easter proper. Love that hat. Note the chocolate gripped in Wimmy’s little fists.
Jeffrey insisted on turning sideways for his picture. Yes, that’s a bike helmet on his head. This is de rigeur for Jeffrey’s portraits.
According to my daughter, being four means that she is no longer cute.
“I’m big now,” she told me. “‘Cute’ is for babies.”
Don’t tell anyone, though — I personally considered her birthday party very cute indeed.
I usually like to have cute themes for my children’s birthday parties — pirates, ladybugs, whatever. This year I was a little busy and uninspired, so I decided Ella’s party would be “birthday” themed.
It was also an attempt to recapture the kind of birthdays I had when I was little — the guests arrived, had a snack, we played Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Musical Chairs, a game in which you try to drop clothespins into a jar (does it have a name?). Then we opened presents, sang “Happy Birthday,” and ate cake and ice cream.
Voila! Very laid-back, although it helped that the child-to-adult ratio was pretty even (both grandmas and my sister attended). It also helped that the girls (two of whom were also named Ellie, v. v. confusing) were the calm sort.
Was it a success? Well, when Eleanor climbed into her chair and saw her birthday cake, she declared it to be “the best birthday party ever.” Awwww!
Here she is helping set the table:
She was as polite as can be opening presents, even to her big brother:
Eleanor was over the moon that both of her grandmas could be there:
And may I just say how proud I am of this cake? It was a chocolate-chip cake with almond flavoring. Someone later asked Eleanor what kind of cake it was, and you know what she said? “It was Princess flavored!” Yes . . . I always add Extract of Princess when baking:
Mmm . . . Excuse me, but there are a few cakey leftovers that I need to consume just now!
For the past two weeks, our evening storytime has taken a departure from the usual picture books and headed deep into the Big Woods — Little House in the Big Woods, to be exact. The first in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s famous “Little House” series.
It’s the first real “chapter book” I’ve read out loud to the kids, and they are for the most part following along very well. I felt that we were going out on a limb with it; the Little House books have been unfortunately marginalized as “girl books,” and I’ll admit that the first chapter, with its long descriptions of smoking meat and making butter, made both Jeffrey and Eleanor a bit restless.
BUT — then comes the moment when Pa picks up his gun. And goes hunting for BEARS. And THEN he comes home and cleans the gun and makes BULLETS in the FIREPLACE. Can’t get more boy-appeal-oriented than that.
There’s also the great moments when Ma slaps a bear, Pa hacks apart a tree full of bees, various characters are chased by panthers, and many, many meals in which everybody has either maple candy or honey and not much else.
Ah, the 19th century! Motto: “Teetha Rottenum Est.”
The secret motive, of course, is that I wanted to get Jeffrey ready for the Intermountain Living History Conference that we attended last week at This is the Place Heritage Park (aka “the Pioneer Village”)– a conference for people interested in historical reenactment. They had inexpensive children’s classes taught concurrently with the adults’ workshops, so while I was off learning about tinsmithing or millenery, Jeffrey got to learn how to wash with a washboard, write with a quill, and how to take a bow like a gentleman. He enjoyed the classes and bowed all the way home, carefully holding his feather quill in one hand. (His “pioneer schoolteacher” later told me that, when she was encouraging all the kids to write in cursive with their quills, Jeffrey huffed, rolled his eyes, and said “Geez, I’m only in kindergarten!”)
Did reading the book help? Well, his first class was held in the Gardiner cabin, a little log house decorated with all the accoutrements of 19th century frontier life. As Jeffrey waited on a bench with the other kids for the class to begin, he looked all around him, wide-eyed.
“Mom!” he cried. “This is just like the Little House in the Big Woods!”
I smiled at the cuteness, but his period-dress-clad teacher was simply touched.
“Why, yes,” she cried, choking up a bit. “You’re absolutely right!”
