We received two informational leaflets from the school in Sasha's mailbox today.
Flyer #1: School night at McDonald's! Bring your kids, a portion of the sale will be donated to the school PTA!
Flyer #2: Food for Thought... "Because of the increasing rates of obesity, unhealthy eating habits, and physical inactivity, we may see the first generation that will be less healthy and have a shorter life expectancy than their parents." U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmons (March 2004)
My kitchen is: So-so. Drippy with freshly-washed cutting boards and cutlery. I need to do some putting-away and wiping-up-of-the-counters, but I'll settle for clean knives and a shiny sink for tonight. So sue me.
Me: Sasha, are you tired?
Sasha: No, I have a lot of energy. I have more energy than you, pop quiz!
Yeah, so, funny thing, I've got these kids, right? And this job? And the time, well, not so much. I mean, I can shower regularly without too much anxiety and advance planning, which tells me I've grown better at this whole baby thing, but there's so much going on, and I'm so busy watching it, that I don't have time to write about it. So here is a random assortment of just a select few of the exciting developments in our lives right now:
* Yeah, so you know those old reels of Hitler giving a speech to his troops, where his hair comes unpasted and hangs down his forehead, revealing that while the sides of his head sport closely cropped hair, he actually has very long bangs and a receding hairline? Maya has that same exact hairstyle. I keep having to stomp down the urge to make a little moustache for her out of electrical tape and take photographs.
* Sasha knows how to read! For reals! It's so exciting to watch, and she gets better at it every day, but I think I can justifiably call what she does reading now. I'm not saying she's sitting down on her own with some Hemingway, mind, but she can work her way through one of those Level 1 readers with only a little help - and that mostly on words that don't make much sense to begin with, like "know" and "through." You forget how difficult and arbitrary reading English is when you're an adult. Man, is this one inconsistent written language we've got going for us. I keep thinking we should do something special for Sasha to celebrate, but I'm not sure what the right thing would be.
* Sasha took her sweet time getting around to doing stuff like, oh, growing teeth, and moving around on her own, and blah blah. Maya? not so much. She's already sprouted her bottom two, though no signs of top teeth, thank goodness. She's also developed the unfortunate habit of not staying where you left her. This isn't to say that she winds up where she would prefer to go, so the reign of destruction has not yet begun; nonetheless, she is no longer the kind of infant one might reasonably call stationary, either. The milestones are coming thick and fast with this one, and too, too early. The first time you're in a hurry, but the second time you know better.
* If Sasha had an Indian name it would be "Cheats at Cards." In recent months we've taught her a lot of the old classics: Go Fish, Old Maid, Memory, Uno. Her dedication to and creative regarding her methods of cheating are truly impressive, if unsophisticated. She doesn't know how to stack a deck yet, per se, but frankly, that level of sophistication is just around the corner. She will try to deal the cards before you sit down, making sure to look at all of your cards first (and in Uno, making sure she winds up with all of the Wild +4s.) Her games of Memory also have a suspicious pattern - she always goes first, and then all of the pairs have mysteriously wound up side by side, so she clears them all in one turn! And she just loves to come over to kiss the baby while we play. "I won't look at your cards," she promises, as bald a lie as ever there was.
Annnnnnd that's it for now. Stay tuned for the skinny on play dates, repaving projects, and more!
My kitchen is: Huh, you know... that's a good question, isn't it? Let's leave that a little mysterious, for now. Everyone needs a little mystery.