Thankful.

I'm thankful for these two. When I was a kid I always wanted to be a mom.

Awhile ago, Julia approached me with these questions: "Mommy, when you were a little girl, did you always want to have me and David? Are you happy you have us?" It caught me by surprise. I have no idea why she asked me that. But then again, she worries about death and has an obsession with the cemeteries. From that point on, I made sure I remember every night before they go to bed to tell them that I wanted them all my life in case me being upset at them earlier in a day caused them to doubt that.

What has been on my mind lately a lot is David. I don't write everything because he wouldn't want me to. I barely scrape the surface when I mention him, believe me. I used to think that he is so unlike me and I had a very hard time understanding him and sometimes I still do. I remember when I was pregnant with him, Seth jokingly sort of predicted what kind of child David would be based on his own personality. Most of it came true. David is a mirror reflection of Seth and whereas opposites attract when it comes to a marriage, having a child with an opposite personality as yours might not be easy.

Last summer I was worried who his kindergarten teacher will be. I knew that in order for him to be happy in school, she needed to appreciate his differences. And does she ever. I do believe she has a hard time with him every day, but she doesn't throw in a towel, but rather has long conversations with him. She tested his level of reading which is not done until a child enters first grade. She was concerned that he might be bored with a curricula and to keep him from misbehaving he needed more challenging work. She recognizes that he is a kind and bright kid and we, adults, need to work around his needs.

I had a chance to visit David's classroom with the other parents during their writer's workshop hour. They surprisingly do a lot of writing in kindergarten. The teacher told me David was mad at her. Then she placed a banana on each table asking the students to describe it. Some kids were jumping, yelling while at the same time working on the task. David sat motionless. I saw the teacher approach him and whisper something to him. Five minutes later she did the same. When everyone was done except for David, the teacher showed us the kids' works. Almost all of them drew a banana on a plate and scribbled a few misspelled words underneath the picture. I saw David's work a few minutes later. There was an elaborate picture of a boy sitting at the table and looking at an empty plate. Underneath, he perfectly and clearly spelled "I don't see no banana." After I told my friend this story, she was hilarious and asked me why I don't see a humor in it. Maybe I will years later when I revisit this post, but right now I am trying to find a way of helping David to deal with his feelings. He is a perfectionist and any mistake / misspelling/ misunderstanding sets him off and he shuts down.

So, this Thanksgiving I am thankful for my children who teach me to think outside of the box and that if you are to dress in the morning, you better do it with the style even if it's 5 am on Sunday morning.

Life In The New Home.

I haven't been updating my blog for some time because a few months ago, as I was writing a new (and long) entry about our summer, my computer crashed just as I was getting ready to publish it. For some reason, the posting hadn't been saving drafts and it all got erased. Since then, I really haven't been motivated to write another long entry. Still, I'm going to try again, this time writing another long recap of the past few months.

Last summer my friend and I participated in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5K race in Central Park.

Julia entered creative movement / ballet class which she loved so much at first, but her interest waned until, by the end of the classes, she refused to go.

Last summer David kept begging us to take the training wheels off Julia's bike. (The bicycle we had previously purchased was a bit too big for him and not suited for learning how to ride with two wheels.) Once we got to it, he jumped on the bike and rode it if he's been doing so forever. Soon afterwards, we purchased him his own bike - one that wasn't pink and decorated with princesses - at a garage sale, so Julia could have her bicycle back.

David was enrolled in soccer class this fall. He loved the class, and would get so excited about scoring a goal (even if it was for the other team!)

Since he likes soccer so much, and because of the space outside of our new home, he received an early Christmas present -- a soccer net.

Ever since moving to our new house, David's been asking every day to have his friends over.

With a bigger house comes bigger responsibilities. The kids learned quickly that they are expected to help out. They didn't mind it ... for about week or so.

Bigger house -- more rooms that don't get furnished right away and are used as either reading rooms, racing tracks or dancing floors. The kids make the best of it with their makeshift furniture.

Julia loves her school, mostly because they do a lot of art and crafts there.

At home, we still do a zillion of arts and crafts projects. David, however, usually isn't on the same page with me and Julia, and does his own arts and crafts projects.

Once I come up/look up a project, Julia will follow every single of my directions whereas David takes all the materials and creates something on his own ... every single time. Of course, this personality trait extends into other aspects of his life which needless to say makes it tough to parent him sometimes.

For example, here's Julia and me...

...and here's David.

One morning, I gave the kids printouts which had cutouts that could be combined to make a dinosaur. David took one look at it and set out to do it for himself.

This is Julia's dinosaur made with my print outs.

Julia's Native American hat.

And David's ... hat.

One of my activities that David doesn't actually mind doing, but rather expresses an enthusiasm in it is placing letter stickers next to the words I have written and then reading them. I have him do it while I'm cooking a dinner, so I can help him with a word if it's too difficult for him to read. Sure... I could have him just write the words, but he wouldn't be as enthusiastic about doing it every single evening. In addition, he practices his letter writing when he is not drawing. Julia does a similar activity with numbers where I put small stickers on one side and then after counting them, she places number stickers on the other side. It actually creates a quiet time at the end of the day which we all need (not to mention a good reading and counting exercise.)

So what is David up to nowadays? Excercising his creativity, whether it's making drawings or simply making things out of anything he can get his hands on. I can't get him out of the house to take Julia to school because he is in the middle of "making steam" for the steamboat he's been putting together since 6:30 am, or we are late for his school because he's been making a rocket ship and the cone-shaped tip of a ship is not staying on. He makes me necklaces out of paper, clocks and masks out of paper plates, flowers and monster truck wheels out of towel paper holder and he draws non-stop.

Meanwhile Julia is happy to sit on a floor and "read" to us for up to an hour. In fact, the library is her second home. Additionally, she loves - absolutely loves - jigsaw puzzles! In fact, once she steps into the house, this is where she'll head, completing one puzzle after another and laying them side by side on the family room floor. She is up for anything as long as it's an indoor activity. She's not fond much of outdoors.

For Halloween, the kids were Minnie Mouse and Spiderman. Julia had been talking about dressing up as a bird for a year until her friend handed down this costume. David insisted on being Spiderman, even though we're not entirely sure how he knew about this character.

The kids participated with their friends at the Leonia Halloween parade.

Here was our second choice for a Halloween costume. (Not!) Seth just had this crazy idea of wrapping David up and he was happy to oblige.

And this leads us to Thanksgiving 2009!

We spent the holiday with good friends, thankful for everyone and everything in my life.

November Recap.

I wish I could say that I was training for a marathon and that's why there was a gap in my blog updates. Unfortunately, I haven't done much running in the last few months. Instead, here's what I've been preoccupying myself obsessively with every single day for the last month and I wish I were doing it now rather than blogging about it.

That's right, knitting. A month ago I came across a knitting blog which led me to dozen other knitting blogs. I kept bookmarking beautiful items people posted pictures of. I kept restraining myself from running to a craft store, but finally I gave in and purchased enough yarn to last me for ... 2 days. I wish Julia shared my passion, but since she ends up staying in a cart while I shop, it's no wonder she gets a bit cranky when we approach the same store for the fifth time in one week. Maybe if I make enough knits for her, one day she'll add up the two together.

So, what exactly have I made so far? Most of the projects ended up being rolled back into a ball of yarn since I either didn't like the design, the yarn didn't work for that specific item or the size wasn't right. I intended to make these socks for Julia, but they ended up big enough to fit me. So, that's one of the projects that isn't going to be worn, but that's ok because I enjoy the process not just the finished project.

What made it to our drawers? Julia's scarf (not shown here), fingerless mittens for myself, a set of mittens and scarf for a friend.

Now, back to a more fun topic -- the kids. There have been some pretty fun, busy, testing, will-it-ever-end days last month. So, onto the pictures. Of course they won't tell it all since I usually don't take the pictures of the kids hitting each other, screaming from the top of their lungs or potty talking for hours.
David loves drawing and he is getting pretty good at that. Here's one of his "masterpieces" of him and his sister holding balloons (I only drew a large purple balloon).

Here is one of him , rainbow , sun and the clouds.

Here's a picture of two snowmen holding broomsticks.

The cooler days keep us home especially since Julia has zero tolerance for even a slight breeze. David has no understanding of time yet, so our time outside is spent listening to one kid screaming "I am too cold, I want to go home" and the other "Five for minutes, please". It goes on like this for an hour and neither one of them enjoys playing. So, while the kids are asleep my mind plans the activities for when they wake up. Baking,

Non-stop singing from David's favorite "Free to Be You and Me" book,

Making a necklace (for Julia "b'cause big boys don't wear a necklace"),

Drumming (yes, call me crazy, but I do let him "play" drums),

Building Christmas tree out of playdough

And just old-fashioned playing. (Noticed a cape and a mask worn on both pictures on two different occasions? Once getting them as a favor at a birthday party, David wouldn't take them off for a week. What about the school? Playgrounds? Yes, he insisted on wearing them there too. We have to hide Julia's costume as she wants to wear it everywhere too. When I forget and call her "my princess" she literally yells back at me " I am not a princess, I am Tinkle Bell". It is too funny.)

Seth would always invent a game to teach David just about anything. So, to teach him higher numbers, Seth would draw a chart with David and Julia's names on it. He would draw a number and whoever would guess it right, would get a star in front of that child's name (of course, usually David would be the one getting more stars). At the end, whoever gets all four or five stars gets a spin from Seth. So, one time, out of nowhere David drew a chart, wrote "mama" and "J" for Julia and started playing this game with us. I let Julia guess the numbers, David would draw a circle next to her letter and at the end he gave her a hug. I had to turn the camera off for a hug and run to save Julia as hug turned into a strangle.

Every weekend we took the kids to play a miniature golf at an enclosed warehouse. I can't believe how concentrated both Julia and David get. Too bad we had to leave after two rounds.

David went bowling with Seth which our son is pretty good at this too.

I took both kids to the concert with some of their friends. They had a blast there.

Unfortunately, I missed David's Thanksgiving performance at his school, but Seth and Julia made it. Seth told me David did a great job singing two songs instead of running towards him.

Speaking of Thanksgiving. We were celebrating the holiday with Seth's cousins, uncle and aunt. As soon as we walked into the house (I had never been there before), I didn't know whether I should laugh or cry. Decide for yourself what I did especially since a dining room was located next to the instrument room. Oh, yes and they had 3 guitars (two of which they hid right away after seeing David's "performance") and a piano.

I don't know when I'll post next, but I'll be back.