International Sleepover

We have been back to school for a little over 2 weeks now. My daughters are in 3^rd and 1^st grade. We are entering the territory of separate playdates for separate daughters.  The older daughter is at the age where she is being invited for playdates without her sister. This is  completely appropriate and normal. However, my husband swears that he and his brother were best friends and never did anything without the other.

This week, Sophie, 3^rd grade, was invited to a Belgian friend’s house Friday after school for a playdate.  The exchange went something like this:

We are standing in the schoolyard after school. Parents are chatting while kids are having one last go on the playground equipment before being carted off home at the end of the day. My daughter and her friend approach me and the Belgian Mom (BM). 

Belgian Daughter (BD) to BM: Can Sofee come to ow-ah house for playdayt on frightee?

BM: Shrugs her shoulder and turns to me. “Is dat ohkee witchoo?”

I say sure, sounds great. But in my mind, I am thinking little sister has just been left out in the cold. We discuss it on the car ride home.  I really don’t even want to tell Vivi about this playdate because I know it is going to trigger an outburst.

Viv moans, squinting her eyes in pain, “Sophie’s going to Lois’s house? But not me? OH! I HATE it when Sophie gets invited to playdates. It’s NOT FAIR!”

“Well, what if we invite Leon (pronounced Lay-on) over to our house for a playdate?” I suggest.

Leon is the brother of BD. He is in Vivi’s class.

She immediately brightens. “OK Mommy.” Problem solved.

Two days later, I am chatting with BM again when BD and Sophie approach. This time they have another proposition.

BD to BM: something unintelligible in Belgian

BM to me: Lois is asking if Sofee can spent da nyte? Is dat okee?

I say sure, but I know Vivi will be crushed. Even the offer of sleeping in the bed with me can not fix the feeling of abandonment she has when her sister is invited somewhere to spend the night without her.  Suddenly, I remember about inviting the brother for  Vivi to play with. I ask BM and she says it’s OK.

Right now, all is well. Vivi barely acknowledged leaving school without Sophie. I brought her and Leon home and they are both happy. They are playing very nicely. I love the low drama factor when my daughter plays with a boy. I seem to remember having the same low drama, low fuss experience when playing with boys myself. 

They were out in the garden (this means yard in the US) and I heard them talking excitedly about pumpkins. Pumpkins grow all year here and are a main staple. We tried our hand at planting a few but so far, not so good.

I hear Vivi shout: “No Layon! Let’s show my Mom!! She been waiting FIVE WHOLE  YEARS for a PUMPKIN!”  They run inside to get me. I pretend to be surprised.

The small green pumpkin is the size of a large orange. It is hanging on a brown and withered vine. I don’t even know how it still looks so green and fresh.

“Can we carve it?” Vivi asks.

Soon Leon’s mom will come to pick him  up. I hope I can be enough for Vivi tonight. She was utterly shattered when Sophie had a Brownie sleepover at the end of last school year. I had never seen her heart so broken and it killed me.

Her moods can pass like clouds in the sky.  I never know how she is going to react. A strong reaction one day does not necessarily portend the same kind of reaction the next time. Does that mean they are growing up?

UPDATE: When BM came to pick up Leon, Vivi protested saying she would be bored. She quickly asked if Leon could spend the night with her!  Leon is VERY tiny. He is 6 but looks 4. He claims he is not scared to spend the night.

His mom said it was OK so now we have our very own sleepover guest.

UPDATE 2: All went great! Fed them dinner, there is no drama at all. Brush teeth, pj's and he climbs up into the top bunk. He is so low key. We read a story, say prayers and then he says, "I think I feel a bit scared."

Do you want me to call your mom?  He says yes.

Daddy came and picked him up. It was a stellar effort for such a little guy to try a sleepover. I told him I was proud of him and he could come back and try again anytime.

Vivi is now bathing herself so she can sleep in my bed tonight.

Three Scary Vegetables

This weekend, my daughter informed me that her band was messed up now that one of the members had moved back to Lebanon. The band was called The Three Scary Vegetables, and one of the songs went something like:

We're in the soup, we're in the soup,
HOT HOT HOT

She also explained that the members' names all rhymed with potato. One was potato, one is tomato and one was karado (carrot-o).

Stay tuned to find out what will become of the group that is now down to two members.

After homework today, Vivian began cutting out birds she learned to draw, and was determined to make a nest for them. She left a basket outside and the dogs chewed it up, so we fished it out of the trash and used it for the "nest". She has taped the bird pic's inside of it, complete with a picture of eggs as well.

She has made art exhibits of:
1) Cut-outs of fruit, that she glued onto black construction paper and cut out, hanging each one from a ribbon.

2.) A series of portraits of all the contestants and J. Lo from American Idol.

3.) Underwater creature series, one picture of each creature

4) Bird series, featuring artistic pic's of flamingos, ibis, crow, robin, etc.

I am listening as I type to them singing "How will I know if he really loves me?"

Dear Hearts

I am so in love with these little creatures God has given me. They are such loving girls. Vivi tells me several times a day how beautiful I am. She makes sure that I know there is no one more beautiful than me. Sophie came up to me and hugged me today and said, "Mommy, I just needed to tell you that I loved you today."

They began school last week, and Sophie is just the most excited child in the world. There is nothing more she loves than school. And the cherry on top is that she got into the class she wanted, with the teacher she wanted and her best friend is also in the class with her. She didn't want the weekend to come. School began on a Thursday, and then the weekend was here, so it was a short week, which disappointed her.

We had a delightful weekend. Daddy has been home which is a real treat. And we have not done much of anything. Haven't left the house except to go to the grocery store. The girls played lacrosse with Daddy and practiced their archery. We swam at the school pool today for the first time all summer. They did major renovations this summer.  I was thrilled the diving board was reinstalled. Sophie did a great job diving.

An old movie was on Turner Classic Movies called Light on the Piazza. It was about a beautiful girl with a brain injury who acted like she was 10 years old. The girls were very interested in it. Those old movies are great because they have good story lines that are interesting and not inappropriate. I was shocked they wanted to watch an old movie.

I love and adore them so much.

Uganda for one year

I can't believe we have now lived in Africa for a whole year!

The school the girls attend is amazing in many ways. Swimming is part of the regular curriculum,but both girls shy away from any kind of swim team training or practice, much to my dismay. They love to swim for fun, but even though they have wonderful potential, they do not want to do any type of swim competition or training.

Sophie loves school. She has many friends and is very popular. Lots of her schoolmates vie for her attention. She said she loved dogs, and some little boys in her class started crawling around and barking. She's becoming a bit preoccupied with "crushes" and who likes who, but I think it's all normal developmental stuff. She professes to love math best, although she is not very quick at it. She started playing violin this year but loves recorder better.

Vivian claims to hate school. She has a hard time getting along with people. She is a very loving child and it seems that her issues come from being over sensitive. Many times she claims that "no one wants to play with her" and she doesn't have "any friends". If she perceives two girls ganging up on her, she says that "no one" likes her. Her teacher has only good things to say about her. She is a natural born leader and very very bright when it comes to her school work.

She's been having issues wetting her pants. This only happens at school. It doesn't happen at all at home so of course it is situational. She hasn't even wet her pull up at night. She claims that the bathrooms at school are dirty. Or that boys are trying to look at her. She likes her privacy so we will continue to work on the pant wetting issue. She is holding and holding it so long that by the end of the day, she just lets it go. It happened before break when she was getting ready for swim class, and the teacher said she was mortified and really embarrassed. They have given her permission to use the bathroom for the 3rd graders since it is cleaner. These problems never happen at home so that tells me there is a lot of stress going on at school.

We are just coming off of a long break - 3 weeks for Christmas holiday. I am sure it will not be easy for her to go back to school, but she is doing very well.

She tells me she loves me all the time, tells me she is sorry to have to say it, but she loves me a bit more than she loves Daddy. She wants to be with me all the time, never wants to be away from me. She loves to play the "Love Game" where we profess our love to each other. "I love you more than the stars love the sky" and "I love you more than the God loves the whole world!"
She always wants someone to play with, but no matter who we invite over for a playdate, she ends up unhappy.

If we invite a friend of Sophie's, she claims they leave her out.

If we invite a friend of hers, the friend inevitably ends up playing with Sophie because she is so easy to get along with. Vivian likes to dominate and tell everyone what they must play and gets very upset if everyone doesn't go along with what she wants to do.

She also loves to eat and peeled 6 bananas yesterday morning without asking permission and wanted to eat them all. She did eat them all, plus 2 hotdogs for lunch, plus 2 chicken burgers for dinner. She asks for candy constantly, as does Sophie.

Vivian does very well with her reading. Both girls lost a tooth on the same day, Tues Jan 3. Viv lost her first front tooth and Sophie lost an eye tooth on the bottom. Tooth fairy has been taking one extra night to get here while we are in Africa.

first sleepover

We hosted our friend Maya for our first sleepover. It has taken me this long to feel equipped to deal with anymore than my own 2 children. I am fragile, I admit.

It was very easy really, besides Vivian getting a bit high maintenance when she got tired.

Vivian also informed us that the reason people put Christmas lights on their houses for the holidays is to make us remember to buy things for Christmas. I think she got this from me explaining why they decorate stores for the holidays.

boy pants

We are hitting some milestones around here, and some I'd rather not acknowledge. Last week, Sophie wore "playclothes" to school. She is beginning to care more about being comfortable than looking "darling". She wore a pair of nylon workout pants, boy pants, that I got from a free bag of Freecycle clothes. . .to SCHOOL! Gone are the days where I could dress her in anything and she never complained. She never really was into her ego either though. She is not one to dote on the material world and spend hours looking in the mirror. She is happy just being who she is.

I asked her if anyone said anything about her "boy pants" and she said no. She was very surprised - she had thought it would be a big deal, but nobody cared.

Also, they have stopped coming into my bedroom each and every morning. That's something they do when they are very little. They are like homing pigeons - something inside tells them that as soon as they wake up, they must locate the mommy. But now they engage with each other, reading books, getting dressed, playing in the sink, or the latest - eating a pile of candy for breakfast, up in the top bunk.

As far as her tooth, the one she lost is almost completely grown in, and the one next to it is slowly loosening. I think she'll lose teeth the way she grew them - nice and slow.

This week, she wore the same outfit two days in a row. I don't have the heart to tell her that people might tease her. She is so innocent and practical. Her clothes weren't dirty. They are comfortable. It's a matching outfit and so it makes sense to wear it again.

1st Loose Tooth

Tonight is a milestone. I did not have a sitter so I took the girls to my meeting with me. They behaved beautifully. Put them in a room next door with a movie and food and pretty much didn't hear from them.

Sophie told me that there was something sharp in her tooth. Her tooth was somehow bothering her. I noticed while brushing her teeth tonite that a space had really opened up between her bottom middle teeth. That sucker was loose!!! SO EXCITING.

Also, her little sis has been falling asleep very quickly, leaving Sophie still awake in the top bunk. Last night was the first night that I gave her a book lite and Junie B. Jones, 1st Grader, Toothless Wonder chapter book to read herself to sleep. Is it any coincidence she is reading this book and her tooth gets loose?

In Sophie's words, "It's a miracle!"