Not sure what this is but just stumbled upon it and assumed that it was some kind of forum for...Pre-children, Darin and I used to average going to the movie theaters once a week. Post-baby, I’ve probably seen 10 movies in the theater. (Darin’s seen more, because I encourage him to go to movies with his friends.) Going to a movie is a big deal these days. It’s becoming a smaller deal all the time though — of those 10 movies, I’ve seen 1 I can unqualifiedly recommend: About A Boy.
Today, however, we saw About Schmidt.
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This is Sophia.
Sophia is almost 3. I’m not quite sure how that happened. Well, yes, time passed and all. But still…how does a little bean smaller than a loaf of bread grow up to be someone like this? Walking, talking, ordering parents around, kissing baby brothers, and flinging paint onto paper to create art?
She’s going to be 3. Every day I think, “So this is what 3 is like,” and every day I have to revise. Because she still changing at a ridiculously fast rate. There are some afternoons I realize that she is speaking differently — better, more fluidly — than she was that morning. She laughs and smiles most of the time, and she can be very silly, which is good preparation for dealing with her parents. One running joke we’ve had for a while is: I make snacking noises, pretending I’m going to bite her, and she says, giggling, “Don’t eat me! I’m not very tasty! I’m not an apple!” Then we roll around on the floor some.
I don’t know how her development stacks up against that of other three-year-olds. I’m trying very hard not to compare her to others, even though most days that’s a losing battle. Some kids can do X, Y, or Z already! Why isn’t she? Of course, I’m not as good at picking out what Fia is doing that they’re not. And how none of it matters, because everyone is growing at his or her own pace. It’s tough not to measure.
She’s known her alphabet for about a year now. She likes to spell words. Once we were coming out of Storyopolis and Fia said, “Ess tee oh are why oh pee oh ell eye ess.” The letters rolled off her tongue a heck of a lot faster than I could have said them, believe me. Oftentimes from the backseat I’ll hear, “What’s this spell?” and she’ll rattle off the letters. She’s even getting good with lowercase letters, which are incredibly difficult (who thought up b, d, g, p, and q all having the same shape?).
Once we were driving down the street and she said, “Those letters say ‘dog.’” I was in the middle of asking, “Did you see a dog?” when I realized the banners on the streetlamps said, “Natural History Museum — Dogs.” She hasn’t done that again, so I don’t know if she actually read it or not. But it seems like she did.
I’m a little obsessed — too much so — about her reading development because both Darin and I could read by the time we were three and I’ve wondered, Is this sort of thing hereditary? Should I be encouraging it? As it is, I don’t think I’m pushing her beyond being receptive to her questions about letters and words. We read her books, we gave her foam letters and numbers to play with, we let her see us reading and writing all the time. She’s clearly interested in reading. But there are no flash cards, no enforced sessions of teaching her words or anything. When she wants to, she will. Believe me. When Sophia wants something, she’s extremely determined.
She knows her numbers. She can count to twenty and she can count objects, although she doesn’t always understand the concept of amount. She’ll say, “One, two, three, four Cheerios. That’s three Cheerios!”
She likes to sing to Simon. Often Fia singing will calm him down faster than anything. She sings the alphabet song a lot and often cajoles Mommy and Daddy to join in with her. Currently our playlist — or singlist, if you will — includes: the alphabet song; Ipsy Spider (her name for “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” because that’s the way she’s always said it); Ipsy Elmo, which has the same tune and almost the same words; Elmo’s Song; Sing A Song; and On Top of Spaghetti. She has begun asking for “new songs,” which means she wants to learn something new, and frankly, that’s a very exciting development, if you know what I mean.
I’m not entirely sure how Fia feels about Simon, and given that she’s 2 she probably doesn’t know either. She likes to laugh with him (the two of them can set one another off such that they’re just screaming laughter at one another), but she also likes to take toys away from him. She likes to console him, imitating Mommy: “It’s okay, Simon. It’s okay, little boy.” And then she’ll push him over so he cries, which makes Mommy very unhappy. The pediatrician said she should get her licks in now, because he’s going to be a big boy.
She likes dance class and has learned quite a few steps in it, but I think she mainly gets excited about going because her friends Lucy and Olivia are in the class. And because she gets to wear tap shoes. We used to go to gym class but two classes in a row Fia said she didn’t want to do it any more, so we’ve stopped. Swimming is on indefinite hiatus. So during weekday mornings her sole activity is dance. I’m learning how to keep us busy the other days.
She goes to preschool four afternoons a week. She was going three days a week but seemed to enjoy it so much I added a day. Four seems to be just the right amount. I don’t know if her preschool has a stated philosophy or not — I don’t think so — but it’s much more on the progressive end of the scale than the academic. They sing, they dance, they read books, they paint (a lot), they run around. At other preschools they have the letter of the day, not to mention actual structure in the learning. I’d much rather Fia have a good time and maybe learn a thing or two. She’s going to be in school at least for the next 15 years; I’ll cut her some slack on having a structured school day for now.
I learned exactly how well Darin and I had encouraged her independence the first day of preschool, when the parents are supposed to begin the week of separation, taking longer and longer periods away from the school. I showed Sophia the backyard of the school, which is filled with jungle gyms and play houses and all, and then I said, “Fia, I have to go do some errands, so I have to leave.”
She said, “Okay Mommy. I’m going to stay here.”
So much for separation anxiety.
She likes to use the computer, as you can see in the picture above. She likes using Mommy’s computer best of all (as you can see in the picture above). She can put the CD in, start her programs, play them, and then get out of the program. She couldn’t figure out how to eject the CD, because her Mac is older and doesn’t have the Eject button. So Darin wrote her a little program and now all she has to do is click on the “Eject” icon. One of her favorite games with the computer now is “writing.” We open Microsoft Word and she types. I figure a couple of sessions of this and she’ll have the Qwerty keyboard memorized.
Her favorite character right now is Clifford the Big Red Dog. She cracked me up recently by carrying her giant stuffed Clifford over to the couch and saying, “Clifford, we have to watch you now.” (Meaning, let’s watch an episode of Clifford.) Teletubbies are still good, as are any of the DVDs we have starring Thomas the Tank Engine. But Clifford currently rules the roost.
Her favorite toy seems to be anything Simon is currently playing with. But mostly it’s her kitchen set. The other day Darin went into her playarea and discovered she had set the table for four, complete with cutlery set up around the plates, forks on one side, knives and spoons on the other. She likes to cook food for me and to remind me that, “Simon is a baby. He can’t eat that.” I can’t wait until Simon can eat real food and he has Fia telling him he can’t have anything.
There are plenty of days when I am quite sure Fia isn’t going to make it to the weekend, let alone to her third birthday, let alone to adulthood. But most of the time I am very happy she’s my daughter. I think she’s absolutely wonderful. Well, except when she hogs my computer.
Ever wanted to know more about Alexander the Great? Well, evidently Hollywood thinks we should know a lot more.
Why are there all these competing Alexander projects? Who knows. Terry Rossio says Hollywood operates under the brain cloud, and I think he’s on to something.
When Darin and I were looking for a name for our first child, we finally decided upon Sophia, because it means “wisdom,” because it’s beautiful, and because it’s not that common.
Well, two out of three ain’t bad.
Uncommon names aren’t so very much so anymore. The name Sophia is part of a trend towards old-fashioned feminine names — just today in the park there was a Sophie (of course), a Gabriella, and an Arabella. My niece Madeline is unlikely to be the only Madeline in her class.
There are quite a few Sophias out there, and even more Sophies. Fia gets called “Soph” and “Sophie” all the time; she usually stares at whoever’s calling her that until they use “Sophia.” The nickname Fia suits her so much — to me it speaks of being “defiant” and “fiery,” and reminiscent of the French word for proud, “fier.”
Boys don’t seem to have as wide a range of name choices. In Sophia’s preschool class there are two Maxes, and there are only 12 kids in the class. Max is over, okay? Same thing with Jack. Go to a playground, yell out “Jack!” and count how many kids turn around.
So far we haven’t run across too many Simons. In fact, so far: none. Well, except in Britain. Everyone who works on Teletubbies is evidently named Simon.
Some friends of mine named their boy Atticus, which is wonderful and unusual. Surprisingly, I have discovered three or four other Attici.
Today in the park there was also a boy named Seneca. A few years ago I knew a woman whose son was named Demetrius.
Other unusual names: I’ve met one girl named Symphony, a boy named Neo (I didn’t ask his mother whether she took that name from The Matrix or not), and a girl named Brontë, as in Charlotte, Anne, and/or Emily.
I have a friend whose stepson was named Ocean (I have since run into a few other Oceans) and whose son is Horizon. I thought Horizon was an odd name at the time, but you know what? Now I think it’s kind of neat. Also, they live in Northern California, where he’s less likely to get teased for that sort of thing.
There are several girls named Emerson. Where that is coming from I have no idea.
I like really unusual names. I realize this may not be a popular position. And I guess if a kid has a really weird name, then they’re open to teasing. But who can judge what a really weird name is?
There seems to be this school of thought that kids need “normal” names, like Anne or Jim. Joanne Jacobs says that she chose her daughter’s name “to avoid teasing in first grade and make it easier for her to run for president of the United States.” My college roommate said she had to choose names not only for President of the US but for President of Ford or some other Fortune 500 company.
Maybe if there were a wider range of names available, we wouldn’t have to worry about the teasing aspect.
And you know, I doubt Condoleezza Rice has suffered from having an offbeat name. Although filling in those little circles on the name portion of the SATs probably sucked.
I’m not in the groove of writing the journal yet. I think about things I want to write, but when it comes to actually writing the entry I find I don’t know where to begin.
The past week has completely messed up everyone’s sleeping schedules, most especially (of course) Fia’s and Simon’s. Fia finally agreed to go to bed (after an hour or so of Mommy and Daddy just ignoring her other than to say, “It’s quiet time now, sweetie”) and in doing so woke Simon up. So I had to take him into the guest room and nurse him back to sleep, which I was hoping to get out of that routine. Then Fia wanted me to read two bedtime books to her…followed by Daddy reading her a third. We said no, she gets two…and the screaming started. It’s 9:30 and I’m not convinced that both of them are down for the night yet.
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We went over to Tamar’s today for a journaller brunch — Mopie was there, as were Kymm and Steve. It was fun, as going over to Tamar’s always is — if nothing else, watching Sophia and Damian tear around after one another is always great. (They manage to set one another off, they really do. It’s hilarious.)
Anyhow, this being a group of journallers and all, we started gossiping — and if you’re wondering, yes, we were talking about you. The topic of infidelity came up. More specifically, who was practicing it. I probably sounded like a reactionary conservative with my attitude toward the subject, which surprised me even as I was saying it.
It’s been interesting to note the difference in my attitude toward two of the people we talked about. One I already didn’t like for a variety of reasons (some of which we also discussed at the brunch) and one I absolutely adore. With the first revelations of infidelity made me say, “Oh brother, why am I so not surprised?” (Even though, somewhere, deep down, I was surprised to find out that I had been right about suspecting hanky-panky.)
And with the second…finding out that this person is less than completely admirable has really hit me harder than I would have expected. I liked this person an awful lot given that all I had to go on is their writing, and now that I’ve found out some more about who they really are I find I’m reevaluating the writing.
Never find out about people. It’s not worth it. Better to keep the illusions.
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Ooo. I hear quiet emanating from the other rooms. Time to put Simon back in his crib and put me in my bed. I’ll try to do more tomorrow.
Or, There And Back Again.
We’ve just gotten back from our annual Christmas pilgrimage to the wilds of Northern California. We had planned to be back by 5; we didn’t get on the road until 1, which meant we couldn’t get back until 6:30 at the earliest; and due to circumstances such as a 10 mile backup on Highway 5 (”Say…isn’t this supposed to be the fast way?”) and Simon screaming at the top of his lungs (which required a long comforting session in the parking lot of a Carl’s Jr. that had the filthiest bathroom I’ve ever had the, uh, pleasure of using), we didn’t get back until 9.
And due to extended car napping, no one of the child persuasion wants to go to sleep, and it’s 10. People of the parent persuasion desperately want to go to sleep.
Because I’m so fuzzy-brained at the moment, all the posts I want to make–such as introducing you to Simon or telling you what’s going on with Darin or what not–will just have to wait one more day.
(The 999 Miles, by the way, refers to the trip odometer. Just as we pulled into the garage it ticked from 999.9 to 0.0, which we thought was mightily cool. And Darin added, “Or, There And Back Again,” just because he has Tolkien on the brain.)
Jason saying that my journal’s return is a cool Christmas present for the entire world has just completely fucking made my week.
In case you were still under the impression that the Brits are way, way more staid than are we, check out The Guardian’s end of the year quiz. Mind you, The Guardian ain’t The Sun, you know what I’m saying? They’re not the kind of paper that sets everything in 36-point type and has a Page Three Girl. But boy — you sure can get racier things into a serious British paper than you can into any paper over here (right on down to The Enquirer).
Check out, say, Question 9. It’s about Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears and an aspect of their relationship I didn’t need to know about. Learning the term “bumjob” was interesting though.
Or Question 10. You can say that in the papers? (Over here you can say “fuck” in Vanity Fair, but not in the “family” newspapers.
The Guardian quiz is difficult but a great deal more fun than the King William’s General Knowledge Paper, which is also an end of the year tradition. The KWGKP is just difficult.
Another quiz you might enjoy is Jon Carroll’s Christmas quiz. The answers can be found in the next day’s column, so you won’t go crazy looking for them.
Hey there.
Yes, I’ve decided to start doing this again. For one thing, I’ve discovered that I just don’t keep a journal on paper any more.
In case you’re wondering what I’ve been up to:
The one on the left (the small one on the left, at any rate) is Sophia, Queen Of All She Surveys. What she surveys most of the time is her number one fan, the small one on the right and the newest addition to our family: Simon. He’s seven months old now (so this picture is a little old), but we are all doing very, very well. Sophia really likes having a “baby bruddah.” Of course, just wait until he starts taking her toys.
The reason I decided to start keeping a web journal again is that I discovered a solution to most of my objections to keeping one — you know, figuring out a design, maintaining the archives, doing neat little tricks here and there.
I went to Journalcon in San Francisco last October. It was pretty much a whirlwind trip, bordered on one side by a preschool picnic (yes, I have a life that includes “preschool picnics” now) and family stuff on the other. I tucked Simon under my arm, kissed Fia and Daddy farewell, got on a plane, and stayed in SF less than 24 hours. I came to my panel (”Life After Journaling” — irony, thou art harsh), I spoke, I dashed off again. But while I was there, I looked at the schedule and asked someone, “What’s this Movable Type?”
Oooo. Shiny.
And there it was. I had no further excuses. Here was a system that was going to make my life a lot easier. So if I wanted to do it, I should do it.
And now here I am. Somewhere to post those silly links I find, somewhere to post those rants that keep going through my mind, and maybe once in a while post something about what’s going on with me. Whee.
Oh yes. Merry Happy Whatever!