Late Mama Musing on Her First Turning Four

We did not forget to mention that Eleanor Kate turned four years old, but I am the Birthday blogger and I have been trying to relax in the evenings and not work on things on my To Do Lists. So, here I am talking about my kiddo's latest milestone, almost a month afterward. It's been a funny thing, these birthdays and how much they cause me to reflect. So much more than my own birthday. I can see all of the time since like a movie running in my head, and I get slightly emotional at how fast it is going. It is what everyone says: It goes fast, childhood is over in a blink, enjoy it now! Well, we do try.



Throughout are pictures of a happy Saturday birthday party. Nora invited her whole class and we had a nice turnout. The Dinosaur theme and pool backyard party was a hit! The slip 'n' slide was a huge hit, and everyone just had fun.



Here are the cupcakes!

So, what have I been musing about since Nora's 4th birthday? A bit of her present, future, and past. Right now, I think about how smart she is; how feisty and difficult she is; how very emotionally extreme she is from the happiest happy to the most negative and tortured sad; how creative and loving, thoughtful and amazing; how easily terrified she is of splinter removal while at the same time how easily she handles thunderstorms and scary episodes of Scooby Doo. How she makes me things at school and picks me weeds and flowers, tells jokes and sings like a kid, all loud and unashamed. Nearly every thought of her at 4 makes me smile.

Then, I find myself day dreaming about her future life: I wonder what she will become (I'm not a paleontologist yet! Maybe I'll be a zoologist!") and who she will love and how tall she will be (EK: "Mama, you're taller than Grandma." W: "Yep, and you'll probably be taller than me." EK: "Noooooooooo!!!!"). I wonder how well she will love herself (EK: "Nobody Loves me! Harumph" said just to get us protesting and hugging and kissing on her, usually ending in a fit of laughter); if she will struggle making friends or in school, and just how life will be with so much media. Who will her idols be? Her crushes? Her style definers? What will her master status be? How will she communicate with others?

And, well, then there are the looks back at her life up to now. Nora loves me telling stories about her in my tummy. Some of the facts she mixes up are pretty funny, but she loves the stories of kicking me when I would lay down and of being awaken by a pie pan and wooden spoon during a fetal heart monitor appointment. Oh, and I adore the pictures! Tiny itty bitty and then chubby baby girl, all smiles and heart melting hugs. Walking so easily, then loving a new baby brother, and trusting her Dad and I to "keep her safe, right mom?"

Well, here is where I get emotional. I try every day. To keep you and your brother safe and healthy. I worry about you every day, but we live life and have fun and we make mistakes and you cry and I cry and we are learning together. I get frustrated more now than I used to baby girl, because I know how smart you are and how lazy you can be, and how hard-headed and uncompromising. I also smile more than I used to, like when you hug your brother and watch out for him and still want me to hold you and fall asleep when we snuggle. When your eyes light up after school and you tell me jokes and are the first one to laugh.You are amazing and 4 is a big one. One more short little year before school is kindergarten instead of child care. This is the year you learn to swim and ride a bike and write your name. So, a little looking back, reflecting on the present, and contemplating the future is normal for your mama. I am having loads of fun at the zoo, too. Happy Birthday Baby Girl, we could not adore you more.

"Tractors"

We recently had some major plumbing work done (don't ask), but the one advantage is we had a "digger" parked in our yard for a couple of days. First thing is of course to put Gracie in the bucket.


Jack has been loving "tractors", what he calls any construction equipment, and points them out with glee when ever we pass one, which has been quite often as all of Columbus seems to be under construction. So being able to sit in one was pretty cool.






Here is a picture Nora took and me and Jack sitting in it.


This is a picture from the July birthdays at Aunt Pam's house. Nora got a pair of binoculars which was very fortunate as they were fighting over the pair Aunt Pam had. Here they are looking for something together. By the way, both kids agree that Aunt Pam's house has "the coolest toys."

Special Day

Eleanor Kate is 4! To celebrate her birthday I took a day off work on the 13^th because that day there was a “Dino Madness” workshop for preschool kids at COSI. We didn’t tell her about the plan until the day before because waiting a few days can seem like forever to a 4 year old. When I told her Tuesday morning her face lit up and she was very excited about her “special day with my daddy.” It was the first thing she mentioned to me at pickup Tuesday and she said she had been telling all of her friends. The only sad thing was Jack, saying “Me too, Daddy?” when I was explaining the day to Nora, but I promised him his own special day coming up.


After we dropped off Jack and Mama, we swung back by home to get her first surprise, matching “Never Forget” dinosaur t-shirts. Then we headed to DK Diner in Grandview. It’s a great homey place with good reasonably priced food . . .oh and they make their own donuts. Nora did a good job eating her breakfast and picked out a donut with sprinkles. She didn’t touch the actual doughnut, except to lick the icing and sprinkles off the top.

We got to COSI and headed to the workshop room which was filled with all sorts of dinosaur books, several of which we own or have borrowed from the library. Nora picked out some ones we hadn’t read and we looked at those until the class started. The young girl/volunteer running the workshop was good with kids and friendly, but when it came to dinosaur knowledge she couldn’t hold a candle to Nora. She asked some basic questions (how big, carnivore/herbivore, what killed the dinos, etc.) and Nora, seated right next to her was firing off answers quicker than other kids could respond. I actually tried to slow her down so other kids could (incorrectly) answer some questions. One kid confidently proclaimed that “a cannonball” is what killed off the dinosaurs.

A couple of examples of our girl outclassing the teacher include:

Teacher: Was the T Rex a herbivore or carnivore?

Half the class: Carnivore!

Nora: So was Allosaurus, and giganotosaurs and carnotaurus and Troodons were sometimes

Teacher: I guess those are dinosaurs?

Walking into the exhibit is a flying reptile and the teacher mentioned it going in and out.

On the way in:

Nora: Pteranodon!

Teacher (unsure of herself): Or a pterodactyl . . .

On the way out:

Nora: A Quetzalcoatlus!!

Teacher: < looks at me>

Me: Had the largest wing span of any of the flying reptiles.

Teacher: Oh . . .

Nora also told the teacher there were dinosaurs who swam in the ocean and named Pleisiosaurs and Ichthyosaur. Technically not dinosaurs, but I’m pretty sure they were new animals to our teacher.

Back in the room they had some semi dino themed crafts for the kids to do. We buried a fossil in plaster in a Dixie cup and some other crafty stuff, but we ended up reading some more of the dino books we had not seen before.

After playing at COSI a bit after the workshop we headed to Wendy’s for lunch. While there I told her about what we were doing 4 years ago at that time, basically they were torturing Wendy for 14 hours trying to get Nora out. She enjoyed that story and asked about other things so I recounted her 1^st birthday and some of her old friends. One of the fun things as Nora gets older is we can have real conversations and she asks really good questions.

About 4 times during the day while talking to people at various stops she told them, “This is my special day with my daddy!” Not that they understood, but it made my heart swell every time. After a good lunch we headed home and fell asleep on the couch with her laying on my chest for a 2 hour nap. All in all just about a perfect “special day”. Now, where to take Jackie?

Never Enough ComFest

Here are some more pictures from ComFest: Here is Nora putting Jackie to bed in the wagon (because he is a baby), under the watchful eye of a little girl close to us who was fascinated by Nora & Jack's toys.

Jack about to jump from said wagon.

And laughing really hard when he hit the ground. He did this about 35 times.

It's hard to tell from the picture below, but it shows Eleanor's brand new baby doll that we had only bought 5 hours earlier, in a "nest." Nora protected her baby in its nest by prowling around and growling at innocent Comfesters as they passed. After enough strange looks and fierce growling, we suggested that she move her baby to a less traveled area, which resulted in greatly reduced growls at, and strange looks from, strangers.

She has been loving the show Wild Kratts on PBS where the Kratt brothers use special suits to have the "creature powers" of the animal they are studying. So her imagination in being animals has been fun and challenging at the same time. There are only so many times I can respond to a grunt or growl when I ask, "What do you want to drink?"

And, isn't this a great picture? I believe most of you know that Eleanor was named at Comfest 2007, right? I think this picture shows how deep Comfest runs through her and it's probably because she was there only 2 weeks before her birth and at every one since (oh, and her parents try and live the Comfest principles in daily life).

Yeah, it's a good life hangin' out at Comfest.

ComFest

We of course hit ComFest again this year and had a great time. Wendy and I got a sitter on Friday and took it in adult style and on Saturday we took the kiddos. The weather was perfect Saturday and our shift was about 5 hours.


The kids loved seeing all the sights and were very well behaved included carrying ketchup through the crowds following Mama to get back to our home spot near the Gazebo Stage to have some fries. Later in the evening me and the kids wandered up to the stage, it was a little loud for Jack but Nora and I had a good time dancing along with the music. I relish any time she is willing to dance with her dad.





We also had big fun with bubbles. I have a decent bubble wand, but "Mr. Bubble Guy showed up with a wand that made bubbles bigger than your head. Between the two of us we got quite a crowd of kids running around and popping bubbles.


Here is Jackson trying on my official "festival hat".

First Time Camping

We spent the weekend camping in Hocking Hills, Ohio and weren't really sure how the kids would like it. But, we grew up on camping and camped a fair amount while dating and thought the kids were getting old enough to enjoy it. Well, we were right! Here they are looking at the stars, lanterns in hand, after a spirited game of firefly hunting.

And wet wood and rain deterred the actual campfire until the second night, so we tried S'mores on the camp stove. Not a terrible substitute, but definitely not the real thing. Jackie loved his!

And, Jack loved kickin' back in these big campfire chairs. So, we rented a boat for the lake, Nora fell between slats in the dock and bruised her leg pretty bad, but was a trooper. We spent an hour in the tent during a wicked thunderstorm, then went splashing in muddy puddles. Geoff told spooooky stories as Eleanor requested; Jack got scared, then into it. Wendy discovered that a "green campsite" is a good idea in theory, but a horrible sleeping situation when the ground cover is mulch and the air mattress has a hole.

It was a great success for a first go at camping as a family. We hope the kids grow up to love the outdoors and take advantage of the great national, state, and metro parks we have here in Ohio. And, something to look forward to....a woman stopped me in the bathroom and said, "We took our kids when they were their (Jack & Nora's) age. They don't remember it, so now we are back with them as teenagers doing it all again. It is even more fun!"
That is hard to imagine, but good to know.

So, what's in store next? It's ComFest Weekend!

Great Smiles

Would you look at these great smiles? Nora asked me to cut her hair, so I did. Then, when my conservative trim wasn't short enough, we cut it some more. The result is super cute-ness. While not the greatest picture for showing you her actual haircut, it is priceless for that smile.

And, speaking of genuine, sweet smiles, here is our Jack giving Nora, his sister the photographer, a great wide grin. No one can make him smile quite like his sister.
Happy June everyone! Especially want to wish my Mom a Happy Birthday coming up this weekend. As you can see, we are having fun at our house! More soon after a weekend in the Woods camping (we hope we make it the whole weekend, we hope they have fun. If setting up the tent tonight is any indication, it will be a blast!). Happy Father's Day to those men we love who are Dads.