And This Would Be ...?

There is a long weed. XX thought it was amazing so plucked it to bring home.

There is a leaf. She often picks up leaves. Sometimes they are unusually colored or fantastically shaped, and sometimes they are regular leaves, with a special spark that only XX sees. She wondered how much this one would shrink, so we got another, and drew around it every day. (It shrunk for two days then remained at that size.)

There are two rocks. At the river, she was on the hunt for a sedimentary rock and found these.

There are a few tiny lemons. One is rotten.

There is a tiny orange.

There is a balloon. True, it is popped, but it is no less valuable in XX's eyes. She played with it on the walk, stretching it to look at the way the color changed and the way the light looked through it.

There is a ribbon. She tied it around Red's collar, even though he is "Red" and the ribbon is "Pink." She thought he wouldn't notice or mind too much. He didn't.

There is a dried magnolia cone. She painted it.

There is a "jewel" found in the middle of the street. It looks like a tiny pendant off a chandelier that has been run over, the wires are bent, the surfaces scratched. She said she'd look for another and then make me a pair of earrings.

Last, there are two pieces of concrete. Someone had used the side of the road to dump some construction waste. At least, that's what it looked like to me. XX said, however, "Oh! A pile of rocks! I wonder if someone put them there for me? Do you think I could have a piece?" I said yes and she spent quite a bit of time looking over the pile, examining the chunks until she found one she really liked. She took it home, painted it, and the next day, asked to get one more. What looked like roadside rubbish, was actually a treasure trove.

I now reside in a sometimes overlooked spot. Motherhood.

The world is ripe with possibility in this alternate universe where children lead and if you allow yourself, you'll find you have superpowers that allow you, too, to look beyond the obvious. An unfortunate opossum in the road is not sad or revolting, but an opportunity to look at fur colors, and discuss dehydration or spirituality. A wilted flower is the perfect addition to a glitter-glued collage. Sticks are doggie gifts, screws or wires are Daddy gifts.

There's nowhere else I'd rather be.

Family

Last Monday, XX had her final day of acting camp.

There was rehearsal onstage and then two performances.

The lineup of "headshots" was adorable. Every mother cooed.

It was surreal watching XX sit at home beforehand, looking over her script and running her lines. I will never stop being amazed that this child, who is most definitely our child, was born halfway around the world.

The kids had a great time. You could feel the excitement after rehearsal and they played so hard in the park before the first show, you wondered if there could be any energy left.

There was.

The kids were at once, horrible and wonderful. In the first show, XX was so excited, she ran up first. In the second, she was getting sleepy and had to be reminded. John came for the second show only, so saw his daughter forget she was on in the first segment and then in the last part, stage whisper directions to her fellow actors. "Get BACK on the line!"

A snippet of the performance, including a "commercial":

The older girls loved XX. I saw lots of this:

Someone was always taking care of her and she lapped it up. Being the baby has never been her favorite place in the family, she often tells me she is so happy she is not the youngest and smallest in our family now (because of Red), but she did seem to enjoy it in the theatre setting.

We had little time to recover from this before setting out on another adventure: a family reunion. XX had a great time.

There were plenty of kids and plenty of hay bales.

There were pigs. Not your usual run-of-the-mill farm animals. There were three wild pigs. Wild and pregnant. More than a little scary, but XX still was happy to see "piggies." We waited for piglets but went unrewarded.

There were horses, which meant rides with big girl cousin Lena.

And of course, lots of food, even homemade wine, and lots lots lots of talk.

XX was happy to meet Scarlet as she missed her dogs.

She wore a ribbon around her waist most of the time because she said it meant she was thinking of her three dogs.

So as much fun as she had, she was anxious to get back home. She and Red spent the next day as close together as possible.

I think they'll both be happy about the next family reunion as they won't have to be separated at all. We're hosting the next gathering, so my two little ones will get to stay together as they welcome the rest of the clan. What could be better?

The Week Between

Camps, that is. I thought it would be a restful week, but of course, I was wrong.

Because of yoga camp, XX missed her violin lesson and her session with her Chinese tutor, so she got doubles of both the next week.

This also meant she had two weeks between lessons to practice, so ... she got the violin piece she'd been hoping to get by the end of summer. She was thrilled. I was so happy watching how excited she was that I neglected to watch her teacher as well as I should have. And so on the second lesson, we did one note as the book said, not as Mrs. B said. As a result, a bit of the second lesson last week was for me, reading through the music note by note and hearing all the whys of which string, holding fingers down, and so on. I'll be sure to pay closer attention from now on.

Now XX has set her sights on the next piece before her birthday. She might just do it.

She also got to see Heng twice. On the second meeting, Heng brought her little brother.

He's as outgoing as XX; the two of them hit it off immediately.

Even so, XX did not let this new friend stop her from getting her time with Heng. She'd order Andy off so she could learn some reading. "Stop! It's my time to learn!" she yelled as he called out answers to the flash cards. "Let me learn this! Go!"

So off he'd go off to talk to random dog owners (we met at the dog park, so Red also had a lot of fun) while XX got her work done. Then the two kids would run around with the dogs for a while before she came back for another lesson. I think she learned more than she has in a long while with the added fun of a friend. It was hard to tear them apart, so I am sure there will be more playdates in the future.

XX got to meet my former ballet teacher, who asked her lots of questions, asked to see some positions and steps. She heard plenty about when I danced, so at her class, week 3 of being in the new level, XX apparently decided it was time. She was in the front line, first in line, first to raise her hand to answer every question. And of course, got in trouble for not being respectful to the class equipment. Back to normal. Ahhh.....

It got hot so we made ice cream, of course.

Our neighbor invited us out this weekend, so XX got to see her first baseball game. She was skeptical and uttered softly when we got to the stadium, "They better have milk here." She settled for frozen lemonade and was really pleased later with the Dippin' Dots and the fireworks after the game. She also enjoyed doing the Wave.

And on Monday, she started her second camp of the summer: Acting Camp.

She screamed with pleasure at seeing some friends and the teacher and ran in like it was home. Can't wait to see how the week turns out. More later ...