Highlights from Church

Madeleine had a lot to say both on the way to church and during the service itself.  As we drove along Route 2A, she pointed out various sights out her window. 

MADELEINE: Mommy?  What's "Passage to India?"  A bank?
ME: No, it's an Indian restaurant.
MADELEINE: Oh.  I thought it was a bank.
JULIA: Madeleine, why would there be a bank called "Passage to India?!?"
MADELEINE: Because.  It just sounds like SUCH a bank name.


Once we were in church, we all used the bathroom, then headed to the front pews, where the Sunday School children sit.  Since choir is still on hiatus, I got to sit with the girls and hear what really goes through Madeleine's brain during the service.

The Sunday school teacher handed out Liturgy books so that the children could follow along with the service.  Unlike the book I use to follow the service, this was a child-friendly version with explanations of various rites and formal titles for the various prayers being said by the Priest.  For instance, the Prayer of Thanksgiving.

MADELEINE: (nudging me and pointing to her book) Huh?!?  ThanksGIVING?!?

Yeah, come on, church officials.  Thanksgiving isn't until November.  It should be the Prayer of Halloween first, don't you think?

ME: It's not a prayer for the holiday of Thanksgiving.  It's a prayer for giving thanks.
MADELEINE: (disappointed) Oh.

At one point, Madeleine began audibly sniffing the air and making a disgruntled face.  She leaned over and sniffed me, and upon deciding that I was not the emitter of the offensive smell, started sniffing herself.  Upon sniffing her hands, she realized she'd found the culprit.

MADELEINE: Huh?!? (putting her hands up to my nose, after which I caught an anti-bacterial scent, as of soap) The DOCTOR'S office?!?
ME: ....
MADELEINE: Maybe it's from the BATHROOM.
ME: From the bathroom soap, I bet.


Later in the service, Madeleine became convinced that her best friend's Jewish father was in one of the pictures in her Liturgy book.

ME: I don't think that's him, honey.  First of all, he's Jewish.
MADELEINE: Yeah, but maybe he was just, like, doing it for the picture, not for real life.

Surely that must be it, and not the fact that there are likely a plethora of white men with gray hair that might resemble each other superficially. 

Madeleine's best friend's father

Apparently, also Madeleine's best friend's father (left)

The best part of the church experience today, however, was the ice cream social for the Sunday School kids after class.  Julia had gobbled her entire sundae up by the time I thought to take a picture, but here's Madeleine looking like a happy camper:

Mid-day ice cream treats are always welcome by the Rowe kids!

Homework Woes

Madeleine has been procrastinating on doing her homework lately, because she understandably wants time to play when she gets home from school.  However, Madeleine, just like her father, tends to lose all track of time when doing something she enjoys.  Hence, she frequently winds up having a panicked melt-down when it's time to go to swim or to bed because she hasn't done her required timed silent reading.

Ethan had a long talk with her about this on the walk to school this morning, and she came up with a great new plan.  She filled me in when I picked her up this afternoon.

MADELEINE: Mommy!  I came up with a GREAT idea for how to do my homework!  So, I'm gonna play American Girls, but my dolls will be doing their reading time!

Well now, what a great way to kill two birds with one stone.  She can do her reading but still play dolls at the same time!

At 3:30, we had this exchange.

ME: So do you want to do your reading before or after swim?
MADELEINE: Before!
ME: Okay, well we have to leave in about 45 minutes, so why don't you go do it now?
MADELEINE: Okay! (scampering off to her bedroom)

At 4:00, we had this exchange:

ME: Okay, we need to get ready for swim in 10 minutes!
MADELEINE: (hysterically) But I didn't do my reading yet!!
ME: Then what have you been doing?!?

This is what she had been doing:

So in setting up her brilliant plan to get her homework done without running out of time and having a panicked melt-down, she ran out of time and had a panicked melt-down.

We went late to swim.  Utter success.

6th Grade Open House

Last night, Ethan and I, along with all the other parents of sixth graders in town, went to Julia's school for "Back to School" night.  This was no easy task, folks; parents were made to follow their child's daily schedule from classroom to classroom, wherein each teacher would give a presentation and slide show about him/herself and about the class's curriculum.  This whole event was two hours long, and involved walking around all four floors of the building finding our way to various classrooms. 

My favorite part of the evening was getting to see Julia's own "About Me" project:

Julia
Kind, athletic, musical, humorous
Older sister, daughter, cousin, niece, grandchild
Lover of family, music, and competitive swimming
Who feels creative, happy, and excited
Who needs to not be stressed, to be a nicer sister, and to not get frustrated
Who fears clowns, fire, and poisonous chemicals
Who gives hugs, love, and presents
Who would like to see peace on earth, Greece, and France
Resident of Massachusetts
Rowe


I vouch for all of her fears.  If she's not coming into our bedroom to tell us she's afraid of clowns, she's telling us she thinks she smells poisonous chemicals or that she's worrying that her air conditioner will explode and cause a fire.  But usually it's clowns.

Today was an early release day so both girls had play-dates, but I picked them up in time to go get our flu shots.  Fun!  The girls treated themselves to a lollipop and toy from the kiddie reward bin, and Julia even got herself this very accurate sticker:

Now, if only she could act like a big boy at night when she's scared of clowns.

Ginny and Emily

Madeleine is writing a book called "Ginny and Emily."  Wanna know what it's about?  The author herself describes it, all whilst failing to stand still for a nanosecond:




I hope you're as excited to read it as I am!!

The Return of Earl

Well, autumn is around the corner, and Earl has made an earlier than usual appearance in the Rowe household.  This grim reaper commences his third year of appearing in unexpected places around the house, like Madeleine's laundry basket, Ethan's exercise bike, and various clothing drawers.  Madeleine especially loves hiding Earl, but simply can't keep from blurting out obvious clues about where we might find him.  For example:

ME: (coming indoors from a run yesterday) Hi honey.
MADELEINE: Mommy.  You have to take your shower in the UPSTAIRS bathroom, okay?  Got it.  The UPSTAIRS one.
ME: I always take showers in the upstairs bathroom. 
MADELEINE: Okay.  So, go on!  Go take your shower.
ME: Well, I have to stretch and drink some water before I'm ready to shower.
MADELEINE: Okay.  But Mommy.  REMEMBER.  Use the UPSTAIRS shower.

Needless to say, I was utterly SHOCKED to open the shower curtain and discover this:

(It's probably good that she was so obvious, because my habit is to turn on the shower without getting in to give the water a minute to warm up.  So Earl would have gotten a good old soaking if I hadn't known to look behind the curtain first.)

Julia, on the other hand, has learned the satisfaction of delayed gratification.  She knows how to pull a prank without giving away her hand in the slightest.  This morning, I arrived at work and had just shut the driver's side door of my car when I decided I didn't need my fleece, since it was warming up. I opened up the door to throw my fleece back in the car, glimpsed towards the back seat, and discovered I had a hitch-hiker!:

This one literally took me by surprise and I found it so funny that I called my director, who had just then pulled into the parking lot, over to the car to see Earl and learn about our family tradition of hiding him.  Well played, Julia, well played.

I can't wait to discover where he's hiding next!

The Rollercoaster

There's no school today, due to Yom Kippur, so Madeleine seized her moment to make her roller coaster.  Here it is:

Now, doesn't that just look like the safest ride ever made?  I definitely would not have any qualms about riding in it.

And because Madeleine is Madeleine, she didn't stop at just a roller coaster.

There is a fortune teller stand:

The fortunes are inside the eggs.  My fortune was: "You will get $1000 dollars." Madeleine's was "You will get a dog." The fortune teller is clearly a liar.

There is an arcade game:

Amaze-o-Ball
(That looks like Julia's handwriting.  Did Madeleine manage to rope her sister in to this whole amusement park thing?)

And then there is this attraction:

I mean, it's obvious what this is, but just in case you're too thick-headed to understand, here's an explanation for dummies.

MADELEINE: So those are for the treasure chest.  There's pencils, and if you find the treasure chest, you bang your pencil on it.

I'm sure you already knew that, though.  Seriously, who wouldn't see a shark and pencils without automatically thinking "Treasure Hunt?"

Madeleine's Roller Coaster Idea

Ever since we went on vacation this summer, Madeleine has been determined to build her own roller coaster for use at our own home.  Today she offered up some ideas she had brain-stormed for engineering such a roller coaster:

MADELEINE: Mommy!  I think I thought of how we can make a roller coaster for our backyard!  So, we can get a cardboard box, and put someone INSIDE it, and then push it down the hill so it rolls over and over on its way down and it will feel like going UPSIDE DOWN on the roller coaster.
ME: Uh...
MADELEINE: What?
ME: Not such a good idea.
MADELEINE: Why not?  Not safe?
ME: Definitely not safe.
MADELEINE: Well...we can roll it GENTLY.
ME: Uh...
MADELEINE: Still not safe?
ME: Still not safe.
MADELEINE: Why?  Cause the person could fall out?
ME: Among other things.
MADELEINE: I know!  We can DUCT TAPE the box closed!

Yes, that makes this whole idea safer.  What person *wouldn't* want to be duct taped inside a cardboard box and then hurled down a hill??

Madeleine, like the true engineer that she is, took the problems in her design to heart and re-thought the logistics.  Tonight she presented me with option #2.

MADELEINE: Oh!  Mommy!  I think I figured out how to make the roller coaster work!
ME: Okay well tell me in the morning.  It's time to do your bedtime reading.
MADELEINE: So.  Mommy.   We'd use a cardboard box, and then DUCT TAPE the person inside it, and-
ME: Okay, time to do your reading.  Tell me later.
MADELEINE: Okay.  Hold on.  And then, like Daddy and another person would CARRY the box while walking down the hill-
ME: Time to read, honey.
MADELEINE: Mmm-hmm.  Okay.  Hold on.  So Daddy and another person would be CARRYING the box, while SLOWLY turning it upside down while walking down the hill and-
ME:  Good-night.  Do your reading. (shutting the door on her mid-sentence)

See, I foolishly think that if I just don't respond to her brainstorm on building a roller coaster, she'll forget about it.  I can't wait to hear iteration #3 tomorrow or whenever she comes up with the newest design tweak.  No matter what that tweak is, IT IS NOT GOING TO MAKE THE IDEA OF DUCT-TAPING A PERSON INSIDE A BOX AND ROLLING THEM DOWN A HILL any less of a liability.

Birthday Excitement

Madeleine has been anxiously counting down the days until her birthday.  Earlier this week, she shared her optimism with me about the wait for the big day.

MADELEINE: Mommy?  I looked at my calendar, and I saw it was September 12, and I was like, "oh, good!" because at first I thought it was the 11th, and for some reason, the 11th always feels like the BEGINNING of the month, but then when it gets to be the 12th, I feel like the month is almost OVER.

Me, I kind of think of the month as being in its latter half after the 15th of each month, but what do I know besides basic math?

Alternatively, at other points in the week, Madeleine lamented the wait until her birthday.

MADELEINE: Mommy?  You wanna know what the HARDEST day is?
ME: Uh...what?
MADELEINE: October first.
ME: Because you have to wait for the day to end so it can be your birthday?
MADELEINE: Yeah.  It's kind of like Christmas Eve...or the day before Thanksgiving.

See, I found myself to have the opposite reaction this past birthday of mine.  I wanted the day before my birthday to last forever so I could stay in my 30s...ah, to be 8 again...

At any rate, Madeleine is taking this upcoming birthday seriously.  She planned out her entire appearance for the day of her birthday, making this helpful guide at school and delivering it to me when she got home yesterday:

She planned this to a T.  Not only will her hair be "straitened," but she must also have a middle part and a headband.  She intends to wear her witch hat earrings, seen to the upper left of her perfectly planned face.  And we can't forget the Lip Smacker chapstick/lip balm she'll put on her lips.  And then there's the outfit.

MADELEINE: So, for my outfit, I was thinking of wearing this red and white plaid DRESS, like, I don't HAVE it, but I was thinking of this dress I saw once when I was using my computer, and I don't know where it's from, but I thought that you could get it for me as a birthday present?  Because, like, that dress and a book are the only things I want for my birthday present.

Ah, so I was supposed to make a dress Madeleine glimpsed once materialize, despite the fact that she couldn't remember anything about where it was from.

MADELEINE: Well, maybe you could like, just look up "red and white plaid dress" and see if you can find any?

Instead, I went to gap.com and looked at girls' dresses.  I found something that fit the bill:

ME: Madeleine, how about this?
MADELEINE: Uh...okay.  Well, it's not EXACTLY like the style of the dress in my drawing, but...it's still good!

I guess I was somehow supposed to find the exact cut and style of Madeleine's own hand-drawn design.  Lucky for me, she agreed to the above dress despite it not being a carbon copy of what she'd sketched out.

Perhaps Madeleine should consider a future career in fashion design so that she never has to settle for anything less than what she's imagined in her artistic brain!

The New Galloping?

Just when I thought my kids couldn't get any weirder:

I was in the kitchen preparing my breakfast when I heard a continuous sound of some sort of fabric being dragged along the hardwood floors. 

ME: Is someone, like, sliding around on the ground?

I walked into the living room to see Julia, on all fours, look up at me, caught red-handed.

JULIA: I'm crawling!
ME: Why?!?
JULIA: 'Cause I want to!

Julia then spent a minute crawling around in circles on the living room floor.

JULIA: (standing up triumphantly) That was FUN!  I should crawl more OFTEN!


I just...I have no words.

Professor Rowe Gives a Presentation

Julia came home from school with an I-Pad today; all 6th graders are loaned one for the school year and submit their homework electronically.  Of course, this I-Pad came with a homework sheet for parents, requiring us to sit down with our children to help them connect to our home Wi-Fi and download the required apps.  Overwhelmed by the sheer amount of parental homework I have had to do this week, from filling out mounds of paperwork to writing a paper to Julia's teachers on my child as a learner to selecting and ordering important print photos that reflect Madeleine's life and interests as inspiration for her Writer's Workshop, I completely shut down over this latest I-Pad homework.  I expressed my sense of helplessness to Ethan over the phone, hoping he'd offer to do this piece of homework with Julia.

Instead, Ethan came to the conclusion that all of the girls in the Rowe household are cognitively deficient in the technology department.  (I mean, he's not WRONG, but...)

So when Ethan got home from work, he sat us all down for an important presentation.  He had his white board going and everything:

This is literally how the presentation began:

ETHAN: Okay.  I need everybody to sit on the couch and pay attention.
JULIA, MADELEINE, AND I: (getting situated on the couch)
ETHAN: (uncapping his dry erase marker and writing the word INTERNET on his white board)  INTER-net.  What does that mean?
JULIA: Computers!!
ETHAN: Inter-net.  What does "inter" mean?
JULIA: (silence)
ETHAN: The word "inter."  Like an "Interfaith gathering."  Have you ever heard of that?
JULIA: Uh, yeah.
ETHAN: So what would an interfaith gathering be?
JULIA: Uh...
ETHAN: A gathering of people, each with a different faith.  So, you would have Catholics, and Orthodox, and Jews, and Muslims, and they'd all get together and have an Interfaith meeting and talk about their faith.
JULIA: Wait, so they'd say,  like, "My face is very LARGE?"
ME: InterFAITH, Julia, not interFACE.
JULIA: Oh! (cracking up)
ME: (rushing out of the room to start this blog)
ETHAN: (irritated) Courtney.
ME: What?  Oh, I have to be watching the presentation?

Yeah, he definitely wanted me there.  He counts me among the cognitively deficient tech people.

The presentation went on for awhile, and that white board kept displaying one diagram or collection of symbols after another:

This is a social network.  Ethan had to draw if out for us after we failed to sufficiently explain what a social network is.  We said Facebook.  We were wrong.

Then we got to learn about WiFi.

Then about WiFi versus Mobile (which can also be called Cellular.)


Long story short: not only have I been setting up my own classroom at work, hosting my incoming students for an Open House, taking a CPR refresher class and attending staff meetings, I've also been doing homework from my kid's teachers.  And if that isn't getting me in the academic mood enough, I got to attend a Technology Class this evening, put on by my very Tech-Savvy Husband.  I don't think I could be feeling the Back-to-School vibe more if I tried!!

Birthday Book

One of my birthday presents from Madeleine was a book called "I Love You" by none other than Madeleine Rowe.  Written in rhyming verse, this book entails all of the ways in which she loves me.

MADELEINE: But...Mommy?  I discovered that I'm *not* very good at coming up with rhyming words!

I think she did A-okay on the rhyme scheme, at least to start.  As the book goes on, the rhymes are a bit of a stretch, but I'd take imagination and creativity over a perfect rhyme any day!

Here's the text of the book:

I love you like the fall breeze.  You work harder than busy bees!
I love you more than anything.  You're greater than a champion archer aiming!
I love you more than horses love hay.  I'm so glad you're my Mommy - I just want to say yay!
I love you like the sound of music.  Haven't you noticed that when I'm mad at you I never kick?
You're like a beautiful sparkle.  You're way more intelligent than Jack and Jill!
If you were an eclair I'd eat half of you.  I'd save the other half for loving you like a gnu!
If you were a movie I'd watch you every day.  From now on I promise every morning I'll tell you 'hey!'
I'd love you even if you were a beast.  On Thanksgiving let's sit next to each other and have a feast!


Okay, I changed my mind, the rhymes are pretty out there from about the second sentence.  But I applaud the creative imagery!  And I have to admit that I've never had the honor of being loved like a gnu before.  What did I do to receive such a lucky privilege??

First Day of School

Well, the new school year has begun, and the girls were off to 6th and 3rd grade!:

We have entered new territory with Julia, as she has begun a different school after 6 years at the same elementary school.  Rather than walking both girls 1/4 mile down the street to school at 8:05, I walked Julia to the bus stop to catch a 7am bus to middle school.  There was one other mom at the bus stop so I at least wasn't THAT mom walking her daughter to the bus while every other kid was solo.  (I mean, I *almost* was, but...) I did manage to wait until Julia was on the bus to take a picture (and I made sure not to wave to her or make eye contact) so that I didn't cause too much embarrassment:

The bus, taking my BABY off to middle school!  I'm not crying.


I then had some down time at home before taking Madeleine to school.  She was delighted to see one of her best friends as soon as we approached the playground.  Before this nicely posed photo, Madeleine was ecstatically picking her friend up while giving her a hug so tight it was practially squeezing the breath out of the poor kid:

Even though they're not in the same class this year, they got to play at recess, so all is well.


Both girls were chipper after school, and Julia especially had a lot to share about her day.  Madeleine shared her highlight, which was unfortunately misheard by her sister:

JULIA: Madeleine, how was 3rd grade?
MADELEINE: Great!
JULIA: What did you do?
MADELEINE: We learned the basic steps for cursive.
JULIA: You learned the basic steps for curses?!?

I mean, to be fair, either one would be equally exciting for Madeleine.

Hoping the second day of school goes as smoothly as the first!

Greek Market

Driving along the highway, past a place labeled "GREEK MARKET."

JULIA: Mommy!  There's a Greek Market over there.
ME: I know, I saw.

Three seconds of silence.

MADELEINE: (in innocent earnest) Julia? What's a farket?
JULIA: (scathingly) I said "market" Madeleine, not farket.

Three seconds of silence.

The entire carload burst into laughter.  "What's a farket?" has become our new household catchphrase.