{pretty, happy, funny, real} On School Clothing, Visits, Rocky, and Chopping Rabbits

{pretty, happy, funny, real} - "capturing the context of contentment of everyday life" is hosted over at Like Mother, Like Daughter. 

{pretty}

Maria started school at the nearby ecole maternelle last Tuesday.  For now, she's there during the mornings---Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, from 8:30 to 11:30. (In France, Wednesday is not a school day for young children.)

It's strange to be sending Maria to school at the tender age of three; especially when we are leaning towards homeschooling in the future. But we have a unique opportunity for Maria to be exposed to the French language and culture by going to nursery school.  More importantly, this seems the only way to provide Maria with playmates of her own age--they're all at school, so that's where you have to go to find them! 

L'Ecole Alain Fournier is a light-filled building.  Here and there,  rose vines wind up its concrete exterior.  Maria's classroom has wonderfully intriguing nooks--a book corner, a built in play-kitchen, a corner for cars and other wheeled vehicles, a padded enclave for story time.  There's a separate room for art and a restroom with toddler-sized toilets and sink. The smallness of everything is undeniably charming--everything so carefully fashioned to be used by children. Seeing the low-hung coat hook labeled with Maria's name made my heart go pitter-pat.  There was a clear feeling that Maria was entering society.

I expect I'll be writing more about Maria's school experience after a bit of time has passed.  All this was just a preamble to say that one of the nice things about school starting is the school wardrobe!  It has been fun to unearth the beautiful cool-weather garments that have been awaiting their Autumn debut.  Among them, a lovely, plum, patterned retro top from Bruni and the ever-adorable owl backpack.

Gotta love the owl backpack.  It reminds me of those caterpillars that have scary face-like markings on their bottoms to scare off predators.  I feel sure that Maria is safe from raptor attack while she's wearing it.  Hey, it may also keep rodents away, like those owl statues people put in their gardens!

And this wonderful blue dress from Muschi.  The patterning in the flowers reminds me of slavic art.

See also the color block dress in the pictures below!

{happy}

Maria has yet to talk about any of the other children at school, but her feelings about our little downstairs neighbor, Pauline, are the same.  They are still good friends!

Pauline is going to a different school on a whole day schedule, so the girls will now see eachother mostly on Wednesdays and weekends.

{another happy}

Taken just after Muschi's arrival.  We did not plan the coordinating outfits :)

As I write, Muschi is in the next room, sleeping off jetlag!  She'll be staying with us for ten days before Paschi arrives and then we'll all go for a week in Provence.  I'm excited to have my mum with me and have some extra help juggling munchkins! And then there's seeing Da and Provence--so much to look forward to!

{funny}

Maria's school schedules requires all of us to wake up earlier. This has its ups and downs.  One of the difficulties has been that Maria's and Louisa's naps are no longer in sync.  That has made some of my afternoons very long indeed.

After one such afternoon, Donnie came home to find me in a less than amiable mood.   After weathering dinner, Donnie, pater familias that he is, devised a way to energize his family though the difficult post-dinner, bed-prep hour.  His method: put on the Rocky soundtrack and perform a sort of dance-boxing training montage.  It was a little Rocky, a lot Napoleon Dynamite.

Now you know why our landlady heard peals of laughter through our window that evening, and why I'm fond of the man I married.

{real}

I cooked a rabbit on Tuesday night.  It was skinned and had the feet removed, but the head was still on when I bought it.  My exact thought when I put it in the cart was, "Well, it's about time I confronted something with a head."  After going through check out, I knew that rabbit had to be on the menu for that night because I couldn't live with it hanging around in the refrigerator.  It still had eyes, after all.

The idea of eating a rabbit doesn't upset me--as cute and fluffy as they are, they're pretty far down on the food chain.  Still,  I knew that carving the rabbit would take a good measure of my self control.  I found some Winnie the Pooh on Youtube and set the girls in front of it.  I didn't want Maria wandering in and asking "was dat?" while I was decapitating Coco Lapin. Once the girls were sufficiently engrossed, I prepped carefully, delaying the moment when I would pull the rabbit out of the refrigerator.  

I don't often confront the creature-liness of my food.  As I stripped the plastic off the package and got a full view of the rabbit's bloody form, a wave of squeamishness crashed over me.  It was much harder to look at than a chicken.

Then I discovered that a rabbit is also much harder to cut than a chicken.  "Why didn't we put a cleaver on our wedding registry? They're so practical!" This thought strayed through my mind as I desperately sawed at a leg joint.  I wanted the rabbit to not look like a rabbit as quickly as possible.  I went through my arsenal of knives, and finally made some progress with the kitchen shears.

The end of the story is that I'm probably going to do this again.  Part way through the cutting, once the head had be removed to the trashcan, my discomfort subsided.  And the stew was tasty.  Using a whole rabbit provides a marvelous variety of flavors and textures, since many of the organs are included.  I'm  excited to try a version with mushrooms.

As for Maria, at dinner that night, she wasn't the least upset that we were digging into Peter Cottontail---a comfortable carnivore, that one!  She grinned at us and asked in her impish way, "who's going to eat the ears?"*

Loulou realizing she got the ears. Actually this is not a picture of Loulou eating rabbit---but it gives you the idea, because the rabbit stew also had spinach in it.

*The ears were not included, by the by."

A Heart for C

In the early spring, we pressed primroses that were growing in the garden.  Noe they've dried to delicate shades of indigo and yellow.   Maria glues them down onto a piece of paper.

Meanwhile, Louisa tries to instigate a game of peekaboo.

It works!

The fruit of our labor!  Not sure what it will be, but it's for C!

Donnie's sister Cristin was married last Saturday.  We are so happy for her and her wonderful husband, Steve! 

A numbers of factors converged to prevent us from attending the wedding.  In honor of their nuptials, I wanted to share a memory of one of my first interactions with Cristin. 

It was the summer of 2003.  Donnie and I had not yet begun to date, but were in Connecticut together because I was acting in one of his movies.  Though we were not dating, I had a huge and (in my mind) unrequited crush on him. 

We were at a barbeque, and Cristin and I were standing next to one another at the food table.  Something happened to draw our attention.  Cristin and I both found ourselves looking at Donnie, who was off on the other side of the lawn talking with some other guests.

Without preamble, Cristin said, "I love that boy.  I don't know anyone like him."

Faced with C's unfettered honesty, I responded in kind.  "Me neither."

The moment marked the beginning of a relationship, founded on a shared affection for a certain person, but it also crystallized in my mind what's so special about Cris: her honesty, her loyalty, her forthright, loving heart.  Now that I've come to know her a bit better, I can add her incredible work ethic and tenacity to the list.

Cristin has always made me feel welcome in the family.  As a friend and sister, she has been a great contributor to the happiness of our married life.  Now we wish her every joy and blessing as she commences her own married adventure!

Congratulations to you both!  Love from all of us!

Not a wedding photo, obviously.  We are so excited for those!

Wochenende bei Familie Schulz

On the weekend of August 25, we visited my German host family at their home in the Black Forest.  Traveling went smoothly.  Our journey took about six hours door to door, but involved being on five different trains.  We were happy to arrive with all children and bags accounted for and place ourselves into the capable hands of my host parents, Bruni and Dieter, and my host sister, Alina.

It was a great weekend, spending time with the Schulzes, and  Maria and I even got to visit my host grandmother, Oma Christa, at her retirement facility.   The weekend involved lots of reminiscing about my year with the family.   It was a comfort and pleasure to discover that lots of things are the same, even after twelve years of water under the bridge and numerous life-changing events.  The Schulzes are as friendly and fun-loving as they were.  The candy and chocolate are still stashed in the same living room cabinet,  despite being in a different house.  Oma Christa's bright, mirthful eyes.  Of course, some things are different.  I couldn't help but look at Alina with something approaching awe.  She was six when I lived in Germany.  Now she's a lovely, bright, good-humoured young woman of eighteen.  And Fussel, the cat, has been replaced by Denni, the dog---as noble and intelligent a beast as you could wish to meet.

The Schulzes are consummate hosts.  We felt completely taken care of during the stay. We were so well fed that on numerous occasions I had to sit back and laugh out of pure gustatory joy.  

After a meal of pork filet in cream sauce over homemade egg noodles with homegrown carrots and green beans on the side, followed by a beautiful German style cheese cake and lovely mugs of coffee.

Louisa, eating her first German cheesecake.  If she looks distressed, its merely because she has nearly finished her helping.

And they showed us the beautiful town center.

This remarkable fountain explains the history of the town while providing lovely and humorous vignettes from everyday life.  Visible in the picture are a woman watering her window box and someone throwing out the nightsoil.  On the other side, there was a child peeing out of a window, and a woman washing her hair, among other scenes.

Villingen's Carnival Character,

Denni, stalking the town pigeons.  His focus was truly impressive.  A scene from the forest primeval.

 But our hosts' forethought and readiness went beyond food and entertainment.  I failed to ask Bruni about sleeping arrangements for the kids, but without my asking, she had borrowed a travel bed for Loulou.  When the weather turned cold and I discovered that I had failed to pack Louisa's sleep sack, Bruni went into her storage room and emerged with the sleep sack that Alina had used as a baby along with a bunch of toys to keep the girls happy. When we ran out of diapers after the shops closed, Alina called a family friend and rode on her bike to pick up more.

As if all this were not enough, on our first evening Bruni and Alina whisked Maria and me off on a shopping trip to round out Maria and Loulou's winter wardrobes.  The Schulzes also gave Maria a bicycle hat to keep her safe while she's using the balance bike they so generously gave her last spring.  Finally, before we set out on the return trip to France, Bruni and Dieter made sure we were stocked with plenty of food for the trip, and plenty of dark rye bread and German chocolate to enjoy once we returned home.

So thank you, Bruni, Dieter and Alina!  I hope someday we can repay your generosity!  If not directly, then in the karmic sense.  Donnie, what do you think about taking on an exchange student?  Maybe he/she could fit in the foyer.

Work of Our Hands: Angels Coloring Book

If you dip into the Catholic Mommy blogosphere, you don't have to read very far before you hear someone mention the problem of toddlers at Mass.  Not that toddlers at Mass is a bad thing--quite the contrary!  But an hour is a long time for a little person to remain quietly perched on a pew. And when a toddler starts to chatter, whine, dance up the aisle, or drop her books in the loudest way possible, an hour becomes quite a long time for her parents too! 

When Maria is in a restless mood, our best recourse is to give her a pen and some paper to scribble on.  During one service last winter, as I watched Maria scrawl away with a ballpoint, marking each page of the notebook I had given her, I began thinking it would be nice to provide a little structure and inspiration for her Mass-time artwork.  Why not find some coloring book pages specifically for Mass time?  It's never too early to start children interacting with beautiful images, correct?

There are some gorgeous coloring books out there, like this Angels Coloring Book in the iconographic style and these nice Dover Stained Glass coloring books.  I hope to pick them up some day--but we're not in an $8 coloring book stage of life.  We don't want to throw "pearls before swine wildly creative, age-appropriately wasteful, potential-artist piglets."  A better solution would be to find a pdf that can be printed and reprinted--on scrap paper if possible.

My search for free coloring book pages on bible or Church themes didn't turn up much.*  After seeing a tutorial on how to turn photographs into coloring book pages using photo editing software, I tried doing to same with photos of religious art.  After a few hours spent cleaning up images in Photoshop with dissappointing results, I decided it would be more rewarding and more personal to make my own drawings.  The result is a little book with five depictions of angels.

I had a lot of fun working on the coloring book.  This was in no small part because, as I was working on it, I was reading G.K Chesterton's A Short History of England.  It's impossible to read Chesterton without some of his enthusiasm for the Middle Ages rubbing off on you.  So I tried to give the angels some of the solemn gaiety of medieval art.  Now, I'm just a house wife with an itch to make things and this coloring book is just a little project---pages for three-year-olds to scribble on--but it's still exhilarating to place it in the sweeping landscape of Art and History, and to think that it was motivated by the same Faith that built cathedrals.

Speaking of Faith, the book is dedicated to Gracie and Sheldon Wright.  These two wonderful munchkins became our godchildren this past weekend.   We feel a profound joy that we're now bound in this way to the remarkable Wrights!  Perhaps these pages will be part of their happy memories of attending Mass during their youth--I sure hope so!

Here, in honor of Gracie's and Sheldon's entry into the Church,  is  My Little Mass Coloring Book: ANGELS.  (Please feel free to print, copy, distribute, etc.)






*It really wasn't much of a search.  I've since found this beautiful coloring book at an Orthodox educational site.  I'm sure there's a lot more great stuff out there!

A Second Tale from the Land of Potty Training: In which Brownie defeats the Merpeople

A second tale relating to our state in life. 

Yesterday, I put away half of our children's books.  They hadn't been read in weeks, and were instead being used as teetherd by the baby.   You see, Maria is in a phase where she prefers that we tell her stories rather than read them.  She enjoys giving us a prompt "tell a 'tory about ____" and hearing something tailor-made for her mood.   It's an enjoyable phase; a respite from Babar, Winnie the Pooh, and the other lovable, but eventually tiresome subjects of Maria's library.  But it requires more creative energy.  I'm not a practiced story teller and don't have much in the way of ready-made tales.  My stories are lumpy, Frankenstein affairs, often plagiarizing Maria's books or movies from my childhood.  Often,  I chose too complex a subject or go on for too long and find that I have lost my audience.  But now that we're several weeks into this phase, I do a bit better.  Let's see how I do here.

Our Story--the story of this post--is a tale about a tale.  It begins one evening about two weeks ago, during Maria's bath.   I had just acheived the rare tear-free hair washing, thanks to Maria being in an attentive mood.  She had requested and received two stories during her shampoo. The first had been an involved fable about a wealthy frog who was overly particular about the temperature of his bath water.  The second had been equally complex and had involved Mer-King Triton abducting Baby Louisa.  Now that the suds were out of Maria's hair, I was pleased with myself and rather tired. "Time to get out of the bath, Maria." 

Maria was unmoved by this announcement.  "I not want to get out of bath.  Tell a 'tory about Mommy in the bath."  She splashed happily.

Having learned from hard experience that Maria does not do well with sudden transitions (perhaps none of us do), I decided to give her one last story.

A story about "Mommy in the bath," I repeated as I rummaged my brain.  I couldn't remember having any exciting experiences in a bathtub, and I wasn't about to call on King Triton again.  Finally, I settled on a simple anecdote from my youth.

"Once, when Mommy was a little girl, she took a bath.  She was all clean.  Her face was clean, her elbows were clean, her legs were clean.  After she got out of the bath, she decided to go bump, bump, bump down the stair.  You see, at the time, Mommy lived in a house where the stairs were covered in carpent, and sliding bump, bump, bump, down the stairs was something that  she and Uncle Dan used to do all the time.  But what Mommy didn't know was that her little dog, Brownie, had left a poopoo on the middle of the stairs.  Now, doggies are supposed to put there poopoos and peepees outside, but sometimes, they forget and put them in the house.   Now Mommy didn't see the poopoo because it blended right in with the carpet.  So she went bump, bump, bump, right into the poopoo and got all messy.  So she got up and told Muschi what happened, and she went right back up the stairs and took another bath and got clean again.  That was it.  The end.  Time to get out of the bath."

At the conclusion of the story, Maria wore a blank, startled expression.  I read disappointment in it, and felt apologetic that I hadn't been a more exciting child so that I could tell her more exciting stories about myself.

"I'm sorry Sweetheart.  That wasn't a very good story.  What do you like better--stories about mermaids or stories about poop?"

There was a pause.

"Stories about poop."

"Well," I thought, as I toweled Maria off, "it just goes to show you that this kid always knows which answer will get the bigger reaction!"

But Maria soon demonstrated that her interest in the story was genuine.

"I think Bownie is a little black dog." 

I explained that Brownie had, in fact, been a little brown and white dog.  Maria continued to muse about "Bownie's" coloration, until I drew a picture of Brownie for her.   Maria proceeded to caper around the apartment, and saying things like "When Bownie comes, she can sleep on this blanket.  She can poop in the backyard."  Finally, the child was wrangled into bed. 

But her interest in the topic did not end with the evening.  She continued to talk about Brownie and about how doggies poop outside.  She also started playing at being a dog herself,  crawling around the apartment on all fours saying things like "I'm a doggie!  I poop outside!" and asking to be taken outside so that she could poop.


There are a number of lessons  to be learned from this incident.

1.)  children love hearing stories about their parents, especially about when their parents were young.  That mommy had a dog named Brownie and that Brownie was white and brown, is an Important Fact. 

b.) In the world of someone who is learning to use the toilet, a story about poop, especially a mis-placed poop, is indeed very interesting.

c.) More generally, simple stories about real, concrete things, can be more engaging than stories of the more fanciful variety.  (This is something I really need to keep in mind.)

But the lesson that I'm holding onto (nay, gripping) is the lesson of the story itself.  The story of me landing on the dog pile was remarkably appropriate for the state of a family in potty training.  Between Maria's mishaps and successes (we have one of those one-piece potties that requires sanitizing after each use) and the consequences of Loulou's newly hearty, fiber-filled meals (she's newly mastered getting food into her mouth), I feel like I'm dealing with a lot of poo lately.  I know that with only two young ones, my situation is in no way extreme. but for me it's new, different, and a bit tiring. 

I must remind my 29-year-old self what my seven-year-old self knew:  Poo happens; when it belongs to someone you love, it's not a big deal.   Or, more succinctly: Chin up and clean up!

A Tale from the Land of Potty Trainng

I want to tell you about a recent incident relating to our state in life---that is to say, the state of  potty training.

Now, I apologize if this post is indelicate (I see my mother cringing at the mere title), but bodily functions (and cleaning up after bodily functions) are very much at the forefront of my mind. And since potty training turns out to be something of a Big Project, it earns a bit of space on this blog.

{Now switching to the the present tense in the interest of drama.}

It is early evening. I am working on dinner. 

Maria asks to sit on her potty. (Good)

I help her get situated on her little blue potty chair and leave her to do her business. While I am out of the room, she successfully makes a #1 and a #2 in the potty. (Very good!)

(Here's where I use some imagination.) 

Flushed with success, moved by a spirit of independence and self-sufficiency, Maria decides to empty the potty all by herself, without notifying her mother.   (Maybe good?)

Alas, the potty is not in the bathroom with the working toilet! A full potty is an awkward load for a three year old.  Maria knows that mum will not be pleased with a spill.  She hatches a plan. Rather than carry it through the hall and into the neighboring bathroom, Maria opts (perhaps sensibly) to tip it into the nearest thing resembling a toilet. 

What is that thing? 

 Our non-functioning bidet, of course!

Here is Louisa, using the bidet for musical purposes.  Have no fear.  It is clean in this picture.

Seeing the story in black and white, I realize it's probably not funny for most people. For me, the humor rests largely on two point. First, we have a bidet--teehee! Second, on Bad Days, this bidet is a kind of metaphor for those aspects of life in France that confound us. Dealing with the French bureaucratic social state comes to mind.* The bidet is also a metaphor for the vague, inflated expectations that people have about what it's like to live abroad in a beautiful country; expectations that through some kind of movie magic, the country will make you happier, thinner, more stylish, and provide you with a store of anecdotes involving colorful characters who have "joie de vivre" or  a certain "je ne sais quoi."**

Like the social system and the feel-good travel movie narrative, the bidet promises much. It will wash away your accumulated effluvium in an exhilarating, hygenic whirl, leaving you cleansed and ready for the next Big Thing.

But in reality...the bidet goes unused. We're told that if we turn it on, it will flood the bathroom. It stands, gathering dust and catching drips from the wash clothes that hang from the rack above--the wash clothes that actually do, with a bit of elbow grease, get things clean.

So, to me, Maria dumping her potty into this bidet is not only funny, but rather gratifying. After all, in the clean, unfettered eye of youth, it just looks like a toilet.

_________
*
Sorry, I'm sure the French government is, in many respects, much more functional than our non-functioning bidet. It's just that we haven't yet seen those 300 Euro a month family aid payments and are beginning to lose hope....

**
Actually, to be honest, Donnie has lost weight, and I'm back down to pre-pregnancy weight. And truely, we do have friends with "joie de vivre" and/or a certain "je ne sais quoi" These are the Bad Days I'm talking about...

Quotable Maria

Doesn't Maria's determined, yet far-off expression remind you of a romantic poet?

   Check this out. 

 

A few memorable lines:

While using the creamer from her tea set to pour imaginary water over Louisa's head:
  "I am bath-tizing Weeza!"

During our afternoon snack, Maria sums up the perks of being older:
"Loulou eats paper and I eat cake"

After seeing that the toilet still looks rather dirty despite my efforts:
"Mommy, you need to try cleaning the toilet again."

Donnie's beard is a little on the long side:
"Daddy, your face needs a haircut."

Upon going into the bathroom:
 "Oh-my-gosh, it is tinksy in here!"

Though Maria's rearrangement of s diphthongs probably won't be with us much longer, "Tinksy" is on its way to being a permanent part of the family vocabulary.