Bikes!

In a big, exciting wrap-up to our weekend, we Rowes all took a trip to Target to buy the girls new bikes!  Madeleine has graduated from a tricycle to a 2-wheeler with training wheels, and Julia has her first ever 2-wheeler (no training wheels!)

Ethan and I put in some work with Julia yesterday, getting her comfortable with the feel of the bike and practicing her balance.  I was a total and utter failure as a coach; Julia basically voluntarily hopped/tipped off the bike the moment I let go, out of sheer terror, but Ethan was much more successful in helping her feel confident, and by the end of the day Julia was able to pedal a few times on her own after he let go of the bicycle seat. 

Julia is obviously thrilled with her new bike; she announced to me, after school today, that she had written about her new bike in her writing journal assignment on a special summer memory.

JULIA: Even though...well, it's STILL summer, right?

True point.  And it's pretty telling of how excited she is about the bike, seeing as its purchase has eclipsed ALL ELSE that happened over the summer: passing the Deep Water test, our trips to Vermont, Connecticut and the Cape, various summer camps, barbeques with friends, etc, were not mentioned in her journal.  Just the bike.  That we bought after school actually started.  Yes, that is her summer memory, even though it's not really much of a memory yet since it JUST HAPPENED YESTERDAY.

Anyway, naturally, after school, the kids were desperate to get on their bikes.

Madeleine enjoyed riding around the driveway on her brand new Hello, Kitty! bicycle:

Julia preferred practicing on the lawn, so that her inevitable falls would be softened by the grass:

Hooray, bike-riders!!

Okay, now that the "accomplishments" section of this blog post is complete, let me move on ahead to the "my kids are weird" portion.  First of all, Madeleine and I had a lengthy conversation, during our car ride home from the Y, about the mild cold she seems to have.  I love the fact that even if Madeleine isn't 100% sure of the correct terminology, she's not afraid to just go on ahead and substitute an alternative word - or even MAKE UP a word if she needs to.  Hence her self-diagnosis of a "centatiss" on her lip, among other things:


MADELEINE: Mama?  There's a BUMP on my lip, but you can't TOUCH it, you can just KISS it, because...you might GET it.
ME: Oh, okay.
MADELEINE: Yeah.  And it's called...a CENTATISS, and...it's from all the MUCUS that is coming out of my nose.
ME: Yeah, you do have a stuffy nose, huh?
MADELEINE: Yeah!  See Mama?  Can't you hear it HUSTLING?
ME: Yeah, I can.
MADELEINE: But why does Harry Potter hear the BASKALISK hustling?
ME: You mean hissing?
MADELEINE: Yeah.  Why does he hear the baskalisk HISSING?
ME: Well, because a basilisk is a snake, and snakes make a hissing sound like that.
MADELEINE: Well, Mama, really the baskalisk talks like this: haaaashaaaaaasaaaaaa! (making various demonic serptentine whispering sounds the way the snake does when he's speaking "Parseltongue" in the third Harry Potter movie.)

Oh, Madeleine.  Always such a crystal clear understanding of how everything in the world truly works.

Meanwhile, on another topic, Julia dashed off to the bathroom in the middle of afternoon snack today, announcing her urgent need to poop.  Once the door was closed, she then shouted to me, "Don't worry, Mommy, I brought something to REALLY entertain myself in here!"

Apparently she had brought her Ethan-drawn model figurine photocopies in there with her so that she could color while she sat on the pot.  A few moments later, there was more shouted conversation between the closed bathroom door.

JULIA: Mama?  So, should I write what it says on your "Elle" magazine so that it looks like this girl is, like, REALLY a REAL fashion model?
ME: Sure!  Great idea!

So I thought.  After Julia emerged from the bathroom, I saw that it wasn't "Elle" that she had written atop her drawing, but instead this:

I mean, to be fair, it was ONE of the things written on my magazine cover:

So.  Yeah.  That was awesome. 

Role Model mother of the year, right here, folks!  Hoo-boy.

I'm now off to cook dinner, so I must end this post.  Good-bye, Sexy!