My little yogurt-covered urchin

...decided to put her Kashi Heart 2 Heart (like Honey Nut Cheerios, but made with organic ingredients) in my steel water bottle, which was empty. I dumped it out before refilling it, but it must have had just enough water to have about a half dozen pieces stick. After gym time, I took a big gulp of my very cold water that had been sitting in the car as I pulled out of the parking lot to find the super hydrated gelatinous hunks in my mouth. With nothing to spit it into, I had no choice but to swallow the bloated cereal.

Eww.

As I put her down for her nap, I realized she was singing something. As with all of Lindsay's songs, only about a third of the words were actually words, but I kept hearing "amigos something something friends" and realized she was singing:

Amigos amigos we friends of a hole
Amigos amigos we friends of a hole
We been [unintelligible]
We been [unintelligible] (banging together her fists}
Amigos amigos we friends of a hole

This was the song that the children's choir sang in church last week - "Amigos de Christo". We are actually friends of the Lord. The gesture in the second to last line is to "we've been restored". Oh...my.

What's new chez nous

Alec took the picture of Lauren on their trip to visit Tutu in Hawaii. Isn't it gorgeous?

If you're at all curious where Lauren sees herself at age 100, go check out my last post on Worst Mama. I have to say, I remember discussing the possibility of living to age 100 when I was about 6 and I truly thought I would. Are our children more realistic than we were? More accepting of the idea that we all die? Considering Lauren has five living great-grandparents, it certainly is a possibility she could live to see the triple digits.

I retrieved Shannon the cat who had been missing just shy of 2 weeks. Alec saw her come out from under our next door neighbor's porch (which is incidentally where Seamus was when he went missing), and tried to lure her out with some kibble. She's not an affectionate pet, which is to say she won't come when we call her and doesn't allow us to pick her up. Alec eventually gave up, and we ran some errands. When we got back, I laid on my stomach in front of the porch calling her until she came out. She let me pet her, and then as quickly and smoothly as I could, I snatched her up and brought her inside. She's looking a little haggard and thin, but otherwise she's her normal whiny self. Seamus, on the other hand, was less than thrilled to see her back and spent most of the night growling and spitting. Charming little beasties.

Self portrait

Happy Friday

With Lauren away, things are quiet Chez Stoll. Lindsay asked this morning where Lauren is, and I told her "Lauren is visiting Tutu".

She asked, "She comin'?"

"She'll be back on Monday."

"Oh," she replied. "Ok."

At peace

Polly Williams
Photo credit: Lauren Greenfield

When someone you love is sick, it's as though there are mysterious air pockets of grief. You're walking down the street thinking about gloves (on or off) or shoelaces (untied?) and then you suddenly realize you're crying. You assure yourself that nothing has changed between this minute and the last and things are okay. And they are until you stumble.

I learned today that Polly Williams, one of the women featured in Lauren Greenfield's documentary Thin, died on Friday. She was 33 years old. My condolences go out to her family and friends.

One of the realities of this terrible disease is that young people die because of it. I have watched the documentary more times than I can count, trying so desperately to understand. As though understanding would somehow cushion the blow or make it better. I thought Polly was tremendously brave to have opened this window into what must have been some of the darker days of her life. I pray that there is peace for you in the next life that eluded you in this one, Polly.

A funny snippet from Lauren's report card

Does not consistently meet expectation in cutting accurately with scissors.

Strange little person

I had to show yesterday's morning outfit in more detail. Lindsay is wearing pink and white striped footie pajamas under her favorite knit hooded jumper, and the skirt belonging to Lauren's Snow White costume. Usually Dolly sits in the stroller, a cloth doll with very long yarn hair, but she was busy lying on the floor "eating" a wooden tomato.

More political processes

"Did you vote for the very best person?"

"Yes. That's my job as a citizen to vote for who I think is the very best person. Every votes for whomever they think is the very best person. Then the person with the most votes wins the primary. See, right now they are trying to narrow the voting to one candidate per party."

"And does the best person win?"

"Hopefully."

"Sometimes not?"

"Well see, everyone probably has a different idea about who the best person might be."

"Oh. I see."

"Daddy and I, for instance, didn't vote for the same person."

"Really?"

"Nope."

"Huh. How interesting."

Putting her vote in

No, not me. Not yet. I received strict instructions from Lauren, "Don't vote without me today!"

Lindsay slept in this morning, which was nice. I brought her downstairs still in her pajamas - a rare treat - to enjoy her breakfast of cereal, waffles, and graham crackers.

She's asked a few times, "Where's Daddy?"

I replied each time, "Daddy's at work."

About the fifth or so time after this exchange, she repeated. "Don't want Daddy work. Want Daddy huggle peace."

"Me too, Lindsay. Can Mommy give you a huggle?"

"Yes. Mommy huggles OK, san queue."

Lindsay at 20 months, February 2008

Bet you didn't know that came after K

A couple weeks ago, Lindsay started singing the alphabet. This is to say she started singing random letters, never in the same order. She always ends with "P". I have no insight as to why.

I noticed this morning that she's singing entire strings of letters in the correct order now. You undoubtedly have heard little kids slur together the string elemeno, as though it is its own letter. Lindsay sings that as "Elmo pee". She concludes the alphabet song "dubba ax why pee."

Big holes, revisited

Those of you who follow me over at Worst. Mama. Ever. will remember back in September there was a local construction site with a very large hole that Lauren thought would be a good place to bury people. Partly this is Lauren's belief that Alec and I made up that we bury dead people - she truly thinks that is absurd (though not as laugh out loud ridiculous as she thinks taking your shoes off at the airport is). Often she will ask if we can visit someone's grave and dig them up. She says it with such earnest, and almost looks hurt when I say it's not considered acceptable to disturb the grave of a dead person.

Today we passed the construction site where now the structure of a house stands. I pointed it out and said, "Hey, look - a house! Do you remember when it was just a hole back in the fall?"

"Yes." She looked thoughtful. "I was hoping they might put Shamu there."

Nice revisionist history, I thought. I replied, "Well, it was a big hole, but not big enough for a killer whale."

"Having Shamu here would be a whole lot cooler than just another house."

"I can't argue with that." I said.