Break in the Weather

It rained last week, and it's raining again today, but we had a lovely weekend and I got some really cute pictures of Shae with Marshmallow and Candy. Tomorrow I will reprint the story I wrote about the weekend, but I thought I would share some "out-takes" first. Just because.

On the one hand, she wanted me to take this picture of her outfit on Friday. On the other hand, I have no idea why. (Dig the sexxilous Christmas door mat / rug inside our front door. We're no longer behind the times, but ahead of them!)

For part of the time while we were at the playground, Candy was my photography assistant, which means I stuffed her in my bag while I was taking pictures of Shae on the teeter-totter with Marshmallow.

Accidental lucky pose. I wanted to try to encourage Shae to sit in the grass with the bears and pretend to have a little picnic, but preschoolers are like cats: you can't make them do anything they don't want to do, and sometimes they pee on the rug. Anyway, this picture is pretty and warm and a little sad, like a nice bright day at the tail end of summer, when you can feel the damp and the cold on the breeze. (Plus, teeny-tiny strawberries are cute.)

We had homework this weekend, too. I don't have much in the way of art supplies because Shae doesn't often want to get excited and make things, but I did have some chalk, glitter glue, and goo-goo eyes left over from the lobster Halloween costume from a few years ago (2005 or 2006, I think). It looked better when it was fully dry, of course, but it's not bad for a 3-year-old. She definitely strikes me as the chaotic-creative Jackson Pollock type, without the alcoholism and bipolar disorder.

Marshmallow World

We have house guests for the weekend, and fortunately they are not of the Mus musculus variety, but instead small specimens from the family Ursidae. Bears.

Specifically, Shae's classroom bears, Marshmallow and his sister Candy. Prizes that she gets to keep for the weekend because she was last week's classroom Star of the Week in Preschool 1. (Hello new bumper sticker!)

Everywhere we go until Monday, we'll be taking Marshmallow and Candy with us, taking pictures and documenting our travels in a composition book for the next child to explore. Who knows what kind of adventures we'll be able to cook up? I tried to make them comfortable in our home, tucking them in for bed with Little Nutbrown Hare under Shae's blankie. Hopefully they got plenty of rest last night.

Because it's supposed to be a nice weekend, and Hurricane Shae has gotten a hold of them, and who knows what might happen now.

Wish them luck. Wish us all luck. And buckle up: it's going to be a kee-RAY-zee ride.

Walk, Walk, Fashion Baby

Work it, move that thing, crazy!

This week I've started taking Shae to school in the morning, and sometimes she wants me to take pictures of her outfits. I don't know why, because I pick out most of her clothes and do her hair, but she's been very proud of how she dresses anyway, and she's been "posing" for me.

None of these clothes are new, by the way, but she says she feels "just like a princess." I don't get it either.

It's not really anything special -- she did wear a dress this week, yesterday, a really cute mod-style Children's Place number left over from last year, but she didn't want me to take a picture of that. Who knows why.

Apparently this Nashville Zoo shirt from when we went to Tennessee for a wedding in 2008 is her "very favorite." I don't know why. Maybe because it's yellow?

Today she was all excited about her outfit because it was raining and I had her wear her rain boots. Because what else are rain boots for?

I guess since this is going to be a daily thing now, I should start taking pictures with the good camera. Also, I should stop eating Triscuits, but that's a different problem. (And not a lot, so I'm not TOTALLY cheating on my diet, just "flirting" a little bit.)

Terms and Conditions

Shae will be 3½ this week, and recently we decided that it was time for her to start doing some chores so she could get an allowance.

I'm not really sure why we decided to give her an allowance -- it just seemed like a good idea at the time, a way to teach her responsibility and cause-and-effect. If she does X number of pre-determined things, she'd get $1. We made up a little chart and everything. Nothing too crazy on there, mostly stuff she should be doing anyway: putting her dirty dishes in the sink, putting her dirty clothes in the hamper, putting away her toys and books before bedtime, that kind of thing. Every time she does one of her "chores," she gets a sticker on the chart, and when she gets 15 stickers, she earns a dollar for her piggy bank.

This kid is robbing me blind.

She never really showed much of an interest in following directions before -- dinnertime and bedtime in particular have always been a struggle. After 6:00 PM she seems to lose focus, gets a touch rowdy and unruly, starts dithering around. Now she wants to do these things, all day, all the time. She cleans her plate at supper time almost without fail so she can drop her cup and plate in the sink. I think she wants to make sure we hear her doing what she's supposed to, so we have no excuse to keep from giving her that precious blue dot.

And she's started haggling over the terms and conditions.

We have some leeway to withhold stickers from her, of course, because we're the parents and all. If she puts her clothes in the laundry at the end of the day, but she fusses over brushing her teeth or saying her prayers, we threaten: Listen, or no sticker. That snaps her back to attention. But she doesn't really understand what we mean by "Put Dishes In The Sink After Every Meal." She wants a sticker after breakfast, lunch, AND dinner. She wants to change her clothes three times a day and drop her "dirty" things in the laundry.

She's being a stickler, a rules lawyer.

And we figured that we would only manage compliance two or maybe three times a day, but she is right on top of her chores now. It doesn't really help our wallets that we have a new schedule and we're taking her to school a little earlier in the morning, so now she's still asleep when her alarm goes off.

Still, even if it's going to end up costing me $3 a week instead of just the $1 I was expecting, I'm still glad we decided to do this. For one thing, we're practicing counting every day -- she goes into the kitchen and counts off the little blue dots on her chart. She's trying to count backwards from 15 to determine how many more stickers she needs to get her money. As we get closer to the holidays, and she gets into a more consistent routine of functioning in "polite society," we can add some more chores and change the payout table.

Hey, we're the parents, and we're allowed to change the rules if we want.

Some Kind of Metaphor, Maybe

I haven't had much to say in the past few days, and I apologize. Not that anyone thought I was, but I'm not going anywhere -- just trying to get used to our new schedule. My husband started his new job yesterday -- yippee! -- but after 16 months of him being unemployed, we had gotten ourselves into a routine, and right now I'm having trouble adjusting to a new one.

I'm also -- and this is going to sound weird -- feeling a little threatened right now. While he was out of work I was the breadwinner and also the "master scheduler," and now both of these positions are in flux. I don't entirely mind, but I never before realized (or at least never before admitted) how much of a control freak I am. And nothing rattles a "controlist" like wrangling a 3-year-old for school.

Nothing is changing, but at the same time everything is, and it's an adjustment. Exciting and promising, but also a little bit scary, and one that we need to work through. Not major -- dear Lord, my problems are nothing compared to some people's, and I know it -- but still unsettling. We'll get there in time; this, too, shall pass.

Also: I'm on my fourth consecutive day of this tummyache, and I burnt a pot of chili last night, for the first time ever. I've been making chili for 15 years, and this the first time I can recall ever burning it. I've changed the recipe for better and worse, made it without some ingredients and added others and shuffled things up, but I've never burned it. It's still edible -- I've actually gotten a lot of compliments on it, on the unexpected smoky flavor, that isn't really supposed to be there -- but its unwarranted success has me off-kilter.

Which is probably some kind of metaphor or something, maybe. I'm trying to work with mistakes that have been made, adjusting the game plan on the fly, spinning straw into gold as well as I am able, along with other ridiculous idioms that may or may not work in this particular context. Still me, but different, learning from what has happened and trying to prepare for what is yet to come. Feeling the burn, but not letting it ruin everything else.

Or something.