A changing Marie

Today we had a playdate and 3 girls came over.  We have a bouncy teeter totter that goes around and around as well as up and down. There was a lot of teetor totter action. 5 kids five years old and under in one living room is noisy.  Marie stayed there most of the whole time playing,  I did notice she took some breaks going out to the porch and started painting.  But, when she did one of her friends followed and they painted quietly together.

I remember last year at busy playdates she would just vanish,  and if it was at someone else's house I would go find her upstairs in the kid's room or over in the kitchen looking at fridge art or somewhere like that.

As she gets better at handling noise and lots of kids I've noticed she has become a noisier kid herself.  The super sweet quiet blondy is gone.  No more. But I like the new, often rude, always silly and very often loud Marie because I know its how she should be acting.

Tonight she was announcing she was a princess witch.  In their game Junie was an innocent bystander who would see the bad witch and go EEK and jump in surprise then Marie would squirt yucky stuff at her from her witch's wand.

This merging of princess and witch is new..  the persona tonight was supposed to be beautiful, fast and bad. !

  She was racing through the house with a balloon tied to the end of a ribbon tied to her wand.  Something about Marie even when she is naughty or pretending to be bad there is such a sweet core. When she does bad things she usually breaks down with emotion over the results and reasons why she was doing the wrong thing surface.



poem from yesterday dinner:

Mint song
minty minty I love some minty
cook it right inside my special pot

Dollhouse Dollhouse
"hi" said a big doll in the dollhouse moving all about

I love you
I know you
You are my friend Tuba.
Numa, Numa how do you dooba.

thanks to a friend who posted this on her blog

I think I have read this poem before. I admire the friend who posted it who is going through great personal pain and journeying.  I, who am not, was inspired also by this poem. The truth of it. the childish wisdom and old wisdom of it. and it made me thing of my mom as well. As in she would like this poem. (so to my dear darling main reader ;)  Let's read, shall we?)

THE WAY IT IS

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

—William Stafford

Thankfullness

more on the same topic. I think this will be the thread that ties up this year for me.  I think it needs to be a daily practice and integral part of my life.  I have been a whiner way too long. You know internally... and in funny ways just to gripe and vent.  But I want to just not even feel frustration.  I want to have a whole different head guiding me.  Working harder, feeling thankfulness for what I have, for that work itself even feels like the earth shifting underneath me and rock rising up that I need.

I have a lot going on, and I need to be doing a lot but I also need grace to ease my busyness and stress and fears as I keep on trying to keep up my classes and preparation for teaching- all the tests I have to register for and the stuff I have to get ready for adviser interviews before student teaching.  All these things should be simple, but they are not.  I have lack of good calendar skills and lack of memory once things are filed leading to clutter.  So I kind of flit around wasting my time but always busy. My family just way takes over, I used to balance the two but I just joyfully chuck work now to go be with the kids and do little random things.

So, I need to remind myself. Hey, its a blessing I am at this point. It's great that I have this mass of paperwork and different interviews and requirements that need to get met in December and November.  These are important steps. I am not special, there is no way I can duck them. So shoulder it with grace.

I am seriously going to try to look at everything I can in the light of thankfullness.  I want a massive change. I like who I am but its like I'm running windows 97....

children of the table

 

Of the many toys we have ...The big cardboard blocks and their table won.  Marie built a precarious throne behind the table.  I let her ascend her throne. ( the table was dragged over for foot support).  June wanted to be as high as her sister and by herself created a second throne. Once ensconced a willing mom brought them toys. An afternoon of gobbling plastic food and making ornate queenly demands commenced. However, just like many a cautionary tale for children begins- after a while their height bored them and they desired to be higher and then even higher.  Close to the ceiling they perched. Clinging to one of my hands each.  No pictures taken because I dared not move.  After while as my hands grew tired I tried to cajole them down.  But it was just too great to be on a homemade narrow tippy chair where you could touch the ceiling.  And, I totally understood.  

However.......

All good things must end, I scarily pulled them down ( toppling their throne on purpose as I took them down so they would think twice before doing it without me again. just a little precautionary sneakiness....)

In awe they stared the blocks scattered all over.  Then Marie rushed over to rebuild it.   she built it tall over her head ( but not as tall since I didn't help) and then carefully placed her doll Angelina on the throne. Where she stayed for  a day or so. Queen of the living room.