Snow Day

Well, here we are, home for another snow day.  Julia has spent much of the day doing Gallop Time and thinking about the imaginary Mintz family.  I started to wonder if the Mintz children had also swam at New Englands, and how they did.  After all, they have a tendency to do all of the same things that the Rowe family does (with some extras, like going to Hawaii.)

ME: Julia, how did the Mintz do at New Englands?
JULIA: (smiling self-consciously) Goooood.
ME: Who did the best?
JULIA: (irritated at my ignorance) They're all in different AGE groups!
ME: Oh.  Well, did Lilly Mintz win any medals?
JULIA: She won EVERYTHING.  She ALWAYS wins everything.

To clarify, I wanted to understand if Lilly literally won everything, or just won every event she swam in.

ME: So what did Lilly Mintz swim?
JULIA: She swam: the 200 freestyle, the freestyle relay, she swam the butterfly in the medley relay, she swam the 50 butterfly, and the 100 butterfly.

For an imaginary scenario, Julia sure sticks to some real-life rules.  At the championship events, swimmers are allowed to swim a maximum of three individual events and two relays.  If Lilly Mintz is as good as she sounds like she is, she undoubtedly qualified in many more events than the above listed.  Julia made sure not to take any liberties with the championship rules of her imaginary swimmers.

So while Julia is busy galloping and constructing new narratives for the Mintz, Madeleine is finding surprising new ways to completely weird me out.


MADELEINE: Mommy?  I *know* how...well, I wouldn't ever really DO this...but I *know*...well, I wouldn't do it because it's DISGUSTING, and...a little creepy...but I *know* how to make a DISCONNECTED brain get connected again.
ME: Oh yeah?  You do?  How?
MADELEINE: You just make this little TUBE things, and you put them back together.


Maybe she's destined to be a brain surgeon.  Or a pathologist, performing autopsies to study disconnected brains.  Or the first ever human to bring a living being back from brain-death by simply making these little tube thingies and putting them back together.

New England Championships

This morning, to further celebrate Daylight Savings Time, three of the four Rowes got up at 6:30am (which felt like 5:30am) in order to go to the New England Swim Championships at MIT.  Madeleine got to sleep in, as she was staying home with Auntie Shannon.  We had prepped her several times last night so she'd know that we would be gone when she awoke, and that Auntie Shannon was in charge.  Furthermore, both Ethan and I went into her bedroom to say good-bye to her before we left.

ME: (sneaking quietly into Madeleine's room and giving her a kiss)
MADELEINE: (eyes fluttering open)
ME: We're gonna go to the swim meet now, honey.  Go back to sleep. I love you.
MADELEINE: Okay.  I'll miss you.  I even miss you right now!

Just in case Madeleine might not remember us saying good-bye, I even slipped this note under her door:

So, I'd say we pretty clearly covered our bases to make sure Madeleine knew where we all were.

At 9:12 am, Madeleine was not in the least concerned about where her parents were, but began wondering about Julia.  I got a text from Shannon informing me of Madeleine's sleuthing spy-like deductive reasoning: "Julia must be reading.  She would NEEEEEVER stay in bed this long!"

Yeah, because Ethan and I went to the swim meet by ourselves, just to watch some random other children swimming.

At any rate, Julia had a blast at New Englands, swam a best time in one event (100 butterfly) and a second best time in another event, (50 butterfly) and even got a 14th place ribbon in the 100 fly! (Top 20 get ribbons.)  Best of all, she got a brand new, comfy oversized sweatshirt to add to her burgeoning collection of Swim Team Sweatshirts.  Here she is, showered, cozy, and happy after her last swim:

And here is Madeleine, as she appeared upon our return home:

Fake glasses, pigtail braid buns, a dress with pants underneath, why not live it up on a fun morning home with your Auntie??  Glad that both my girls enjoyed their morning in very different ways!

Julia's Headband

This morning, Julia decided to wear her pink, purple and white patterned headband to school; however, since it's a reversible headband, she wanted to wear it on its reversed side, which is plain hot pink.  She and Madeleine were watching a show, and Julia excused herself to go put on her headband.

JULIA:  (to Madeleine) I'm gonna wear it the OTHER way because it's reversible.  (going into the bathroom to put on her headband.)
MADELEINE: (after Julia's return) Wait!  Julia!  Where'd you get that HEADBAND?
JULIA: I got it at CVS.
MADELEINE: No you didn't!  You got the COLORFUL one at CVS!
JULIA: I just said I was switching it!
MADELEINE: Huh?  You're going FISHING?
JULIA: No.  Madeleine.  SWITCHING.  This IS the colorful one!
MADELEINE: No it's not.  The colorful one has WAY more colors.
JULIA: I said I was SWITCHING it!
MADELEINE: (after a moment's thought) Ohhhh!  It IS the colorful one!  You're just wearing it the WRONG WAY!


Lost in translation.  Seriously.

Authors

MADELEINE: Mommy?  When I grow up, I wanna be an author.  I wanna be a FAMOUS author.  I wanna be the MOST FAMOUS AUTHOR in the world.  So I came up with a couple of good story ideas.  So.  One is called "The Shrieking Shed."
ME: Ooh, that sounds good.
MADELEINE: Yeah.  It's about this shed, and INSIDE, there's this head that's just a head with a BLOODY NECK, and it's shrieking and making all this noise!
ME: Oh, wow.
MADELEINE: And at first, they thought it was the EGYPTIANS that made it, but then, they found out it was the JUNGLE PEOPLE that made it.


Of course Madeleine wants to write a book about a severed head with a bloody neck.  Of course she does.


It made me wonder about the many, many stories Julia has been writing in her blank journals and notebooks.  I asked her to tell me about a few of them.

JULIA: One of them is a girl, and her mom died, and she lives in this mansion, and her mom comes back to life as a ghost, but only the main character knows.  The ghost...she had, like, strawberry blonde hair, and she was wearing, like, pajamas or something.  Oh!  And another book I was writing recently: there's a girl, and she's in this tribe, and their enemy tribe, like, THREATENS something, and the enemy tribe burns down the camp place, and they have to find a new place to live.


Wait. Maybe we can tie this all together!  Maybe the tribe moves to the jungle and becomes the Jungle People, and they are responsible for the severed head with a bloody neck in the Shrieking Shed!!


With ideas like these, it is no doubt that the girls will BOTH become the most famous authors in the entire universe.

Knowledge

Madeleine has been showing off her knowledge today.

MADELEINE: Mommy!  I know the INTENDENT'S name!  It's Dan!
JULIA: The what's name, Madeleine?
MADELEINE: The INTENDENTS.
JULIA: The ATTENDANCE?  The attendance who??  Who does the attendance?
MADELEINE: The INTENDENTS.
JULIA: Madeleine.  There's no such thing as intendents.
MADELEINE: Yes there is!
JULIA: What's does "intendents" mean?
MADELEINE: It's like...the school person...like...the school...
ME: Julia, I think she means "Superintendent."
MADELEINE: (brightly) Oh!  Yeah!  That's what it's called!

And then, as we drove to a play-date in the rain:

MADELEINE: Mommy!  I just realized something.  (Speaking wisely and philosophically) Rain is nature's CAR WASH!

These astute statements comes from the same brainiac that made this observation today:

MADELEINE: Mommy?  Even with, like, a PEBBLE, when I try to throw a rock in the air and bounce it off my hand, it really HURTS.

I like the fact that she actually had to even try that to know it was going to hurt.  What a budding scientist!  No guessing around here; she follows through with her experiment to get accurate data.  Does a boulder hurt?  Yes.  Does a medium sized rock hurt?  Yes.  Does a small rock hurt?  Yes.  Does a pebble hurt?  Yes.  CONCLUSION: bouncing rocks off of one's hand is not a good idea.

A New Madeleine Drawing

I just found this drawing of Madeleine's:

All I have to say is: that is one big-ass bird flying over the tree.
Actually, I guess I have more to say than that.  What is that gray goblin-like giant doing to to the poor kid in the chair?  Enacting a mini-torture chamber experience?  Preparing to carry out a human sacrifice to please the gargantuan Bird-God of the sky?  And also, why is there a flying gray cat with a kangaroo pouch and no face flapping around in the air?

I'm scared.

I decided to find out what story Madeleine was creating with this picture.

ME: Madeleine, can you tell me about this drawing?
MADELEINE: Umm...so, that's a toad servant (pointing to the gray goblin), and that's the King of Nature (pointing to the person in the chair).
ME: And what is the toad servant doing to the King?
MADELEINE: Oh.  He's holding his CHAIR.
ME: But why does the King look so scared?
MADELEINE: Oh.  He's angry.  Well, he's angry a LOT. Because he complains about his chair.  His chair is tiny, and he doesn't have a crown.
ME: Oh, okay.  Tell me more about this picture.
MADELEINE: (pointing to the big blue bird to the right of the tree) That is the kind of bird that's blue and black, and that's her cousin the robin (pointing to the ginormous Bird-God), just flying in for a visit.  And that's a tree.  The King's chair sits in mud, so he complains about that too.  There's only a tiny amount of grass, and (pointing to what I thought was a blue mailbox) that's the treasure chest he found in the woods, and that (flying gray cat) is the squirrel and he's like, "I've lost it!  I can't live with this!"
ME: Why can't he live like this?
MADELEINE: Because the king is always complaining.


Okay.  Now that my perception on the picture has shifted, I have a few more things to say.
First of all: that is the most COLOSSAL robin ever to fly the skies of Earth.
Secondly: now that I know the King is kind of a pain in the ass, not a torture victim, I feel kind of bad for the toad servant.  I mean, poor guy is almost as tall as a tree, and all he gets to do with his height is hold the back of the King's chair?
Thirdly: I should have known that was a squirrel, not a cat.  How could I forget Madeleine's newest obsession??  And while I admire that the squirrel is out of patience with the King, I'm a little worried that he's about to get pierced by the mammoth beak of the mammoth robin flying straight at him.

I guess I'm still a little bit scared.

Squirrels

For some reason, Madeleine has decided that she wants to beguile the backyard squirrels into thinking she, herself, is a squirrel, so that she can get to be friends with them.  Her plan to carry out this deception is to dress in all brown and make herself a tail so that she will look like the SPITTING IMAGE of a squirrel.

When Madeleine found out that she was having a play-date with one of her best friends this week, she was ecstatic.

MADELEINE: I wonder what color she's gonna wear!  I hope it's brownie-brown-brown!

ME: Why?

MADELEINE: Because!

ME: Is she gonna be a squirrel too?

MADELEINE: Yeah!  We're gonna build our animal clubhouse outside and we're gonna be squirrels so we can attract squirrels to the clubhouse!  Wait!  I have a GREAT idea!  This time, we'll be squirrels, but when it's spring, we'll be BIRDS!

When the day of the play-date finally arrived, Madeleine began stage one of her plan: dressing in all brown.  She had a long-sleeved brown shirt, but no brown pants.  This prompted her to don her brown capri pants, despite the fact that it was about 40 degrees for the walk to school.

ME: Honey, why don't you wear pants to school and you can change into capris when you get home and start your play-date?

MADELEINE: Well, Mommy...it's just a lot EASIER to wear my brown capris now, because after school we're just gonna wanna get PLAYING outside, so it would take too long to change into capris.

Yes, God forbid the play-date be delayed a minute or two while Madeleine changes from one pair of pants to another.

True to her word, Madeleine got straight to squirrel work with her friend the minute they walked through the door.  They made their tails:

and headed outside.  Then they literally spent the next hour traipsing around our back woods, hauling large fallen tree limbs up the hill and arranging them into collections all around the yard.  Thankfully, we now have all sorts of piles of wood animal clubhouses all over the place:

I can't wait to see what new and useful things come into our yard once Madeleine is a bird.