Hello Friends and Family,
It's this time of year when school starts and weather deterioration leads to more time indoors that motivate me to finally turn my attention to the forgotten stepchild that is this blog. Apologies. Also, I confess, I flirted briefly with Facebook as a method of sharing updates about the girls, but that affair is over. Oh blogspot, you are so faithful and so stalwart; I swear never to wander again.
The girls are wonderful, life is paradise and we are all healthy. These things are not to be underestimated. Something else that comes up for me this time of year is a grand sense of gratefulness for a warm and cozy house to hold my family and cozy beds with lots of blankets to keep us warm on the cold nights to come. Every cup of tea and hot meal just seems more meaningful when the weather turns. Maybe it goes back to the notion that the year is split into two halves: a fallow, frugal season and a prolific,frivolous season. Or maybe it's because Jason's work is seasonal and when the weather cools, so does his business, but whatever it is, it's certainly not all bad. In summer it's go, go, go; make hay while the sun shines, rise and shine and while this is highly enjoyable, I look forward to sleepy fall to recharge the ol' batteries. Among the other things for which I am grateful: that fall comes when fall comes and spring comes when spring comes. It's a very tidy little system we've got here. No matter how many times I tried and failed last winter, somehow now that fall has come again, it is attractive, the idea of knitting scarves for Ruthie, Lucy and Ida. No matter how many times I was overwhelmed with copious amounts of squash, kale and kohlrabi last fall, right now I am up the challenge again.
Speaking of Ruthie, Lucy and Ida, they are grand; they really are. I truly feel sorry that I haven't been better about updating things because there has been so much. They began their second year of preschool in mid-September - the "blue class." Their teacher is the incomparable Mrs. Hodge. She is inspired and inspirational. I have said it before and I will say it again: people who are dedicated to working with kids are saints. Mrs. Hodge greets each child at the door in the morning with a hug and a genuine expression of happiness that they are there. I could go on and on but it would all just sound gushy. The point is there are two kinds of people in this world: those who are really good with kids and those who are not. I group myself in the latter category, because even though I think I am pretty good mom, I am not great with Other People's Children. I am simultaneously fine with my lack of general kiddo skills as I am amazed with those who truly possess them.
Okay - here is the scoop on the triplings. The big news beyond the start of their second year of preschool is that we have just began violin lessons, thanks to our collective benefactor, Uncle Lou. This is very exciting for me because I have always wanted to learn to play the violin and was always sorry that I never picked up any instruments at all. I have found a fantastic teacher who is teaching the 4 of us gals together and have no doubt they will pick it up much more easily than I. We have only had one lesson but the girls are enthusiastic and really, really careful (for 4 year olds). And their violins are ridiculously cute (1/16th size!). I promise to post photos of this very, very soon.
The other activity the girls have been enjoying is ballet. I have enrolled them for a few sessions at the community center, and it's a really great low-key class. The building is this two tone mint/hunter green Tudor job in the middle of a sprawling park in SE Portland and from the outside it really looks like there should be elves living in it. There is a little balcony that you get to by climbing the elfin stairs where you can sit under the rafters and watch the girls prance around with tutus and scarves to tinkly music. It is very dreamy. They start a 6 week session of ballet in mid-October and are very excited about it. Ruthie is especially good at curtsies and arabesques and has fantastic mincing skills...she has been mincing almost as long as she has been walking. Ida is muscular and excels at her grand jetes (big leaps). Lucy has a flair for the dramatic, shall we say, and is very expressive in her pirouettes especially...she just grins and grins.
Okay, I am getting out of hand wordy now, so I am going to just give a little explanation of what everyone is into right now and so forth and then I am going to upload lots o' pics.
Ruthie Ellen. She is such a trouper. The first few weeks of school have surely been a big adjustment for all the girls but you wouldn't know it to look at Ruth. She has been doing a great job sleeping through the night, which she wasn't doing so well at a month ago. She is all smiles when she gets up in the morning and she has really been lovely about making space for her sisters. I have had more than one evening recently where we get to bedtime and I feel I have hardly seen Ruth all day because she has been so self sufficient. At school Ruthie is friendly and forward. It impresses me endlessly to watch her walk up to someone she doesn't know so well and ask to play with them or introduce herself and often her sisters too. Just today it was, "Hi Amanda, did you see Lucy is wearing a pajama shirt? Isn't that funny?" (poor Lucy) Ruthie learned to skip day before yesterday and then yesterday she was practicing winking, so it's anyone's guess what she will do next. And there are many cute anecdotes to draw from but one that has had us laughing for weeks was when I taught them the jump rope rhyme that goes, "Cinderella, dressed in "yella," went upstairs to kiss her fella, made a mistake and kissed a snake. How many doctors did it take? 1..2..3..etc." Well, Ruthie has pronounced the word "yellow" as "ye-no" as long as I can remember even though she has been able to make the "L" sound for some time. So, when she was singing the rhyme she said, "Cinderella, dressed in "ye-no" went upstairs to kiss her fella..." Okay, well maybe that one doesn't translate to print, but it was really very funny. Also, she and her sisters still call coat hangers "hoat kangers" without fail.
Lucille Grace. Lucy is a firecracker. She does not do things halfway. When she is mad, it's "bad mommy! you don't love me! i'm not your sweetheart!" Then, with a change in the wind, she is all smiles, "I love you mommy, you're the sweetest." When she is in a good mood she is generous with her sisters, but when she is feeling down or grumpy, look out. She has been working on whistling and humming and she loves to make up little songs about how happy she is, or how much she loves Roosevelt (our dog - I can't remember if I have mentioned him or not yet). Lucy has been having some trouble sleeping for the last month or so. Most nights she will wake up once or twice and want to be tucked back in. She doesn't care so much for the dark. She has made big improvements, though, especially on what she expects when she wakes up in the middle of the night. She used to cry if I didn't rub her back or put her back to sleep or sing a song, but she has lowered her expectations dramatically and I expect that it will soon be more appealing to just stay in bed entirely (crossing my fingers). Lucy is the only one who will declare that she is shy when we are headed somewhere new like violin lessons, or the first day back at school but she is usually one of the first to make herself at home at these places too.
Ida Mae. Ida is easily mistaken for being low maintenance. She is not dramatic like Lucy or as outwardly sensitive as Ruthie and she cruises along for days and sometimes weeks with hardly a wrinkle. But when Ida gets to a difficult patch - if she gets sick, or when something big changes like school starts - she melts. She clings, she cries, she yells. Mind you, I don’t blame her, it’s just interesting to see the change. It’s similar to her sleeping pattern. Ida has been sleeping through the night with hardly a hitch for a year or more. In that year, though, on the occasions when she did need some coddling she was absolutely the most stubborn and pitiful little person. She really won’t settle for anything less than sleeping with me. My bed or hers, it makes no difference, but if I try to lie down in her bed and slip out once she begins to snore, o the wrath. She wakes up immediately and is both wounded and indignant so much so that I generally find it more restful to just bring her to bed with me. Ruthie and Lucy may frequently have sleep trouble, but they are far more easily pacified. Ida is the one who doesn’t like to say goodbye when I bring them to preschool; she often wants to show me “one more thing...” before she’ll let me kiss her goodbye. Something about Ida comes across as especially self assured: her posture, her “devil may care” sense of style (not joking - Jason often refers to her outfits as “volcanic”), and when you talk with her she is candid and unguarded but she also has some difficulty jumping right in with the other kids. I don’t really worry about it, she does just fine, she just seems to feel extra self assured at home and a little less so out in the world. I can relate.
Okay, I started working on this post a week ago and now I am going to wrap it up because otherwise I will never get it posted.
I hope everyone is enjoying fall as it settles around us. This time of year is a welcome excuse for me to stay home more and cook and bake start projects ( I haven't found a time of year for finishing them yet). I am wishing everyone a happy fall and abundant blessings of health and happiness to each of you.
