Limbo

This winter seemed to go on forever, we were aching for some colour, the first tiny green leaves, blossom even?  Instead the pond remained stubbornly frozen.

There was sickness too, hi preschool!, colds that seemed to run into each other, noses that never stopped dripping, coughs that hacked, and the first tummy bug. Totally unprepared for that one. It turned her into a sleepy, floppy mess, she fell asleep on the couch in the middle of drawing a picture.

We ate pancakes on Pancake Day, although not the sort of pancakes she'd ever had before, thin, with lemon and sugar, what's not to like...

We went to the Meijer Gardens to try to convince ourselves it was spring...

And eventually the first dabs of colour appeared...first in a pair of sparkly shoes

And now summer is really here, the wonderful Michigan summer and our last one.  We don't know how much of it we'll see before we are off to the seasonless land of perpetual sunshine. So we will make the most of every day we have here, whether it's three more weeks or three more months.  So, here's the plan, the list o' summer, I'll take pic and write about every one...maybe.

• Go to the beach
• Pick strawberries
• Build a magnificent sandcastle
• Walk on the trail
• Make perfect, homemade, vanilla ice cream
• Pick blueberries
• Go to Chicago
• Make a summer dress or two
• Make a peach cake
• Make a strawberry pie
• Have a picnic in the back garden
• Paint
• Get ice cream from the ice cream truck
• Have a goodbye party
• Zoo camp
• Nature Center camp
• Eat local fruit and veg from the farmers market
• Eat dinner on the deck
• Make a hat
• Read a chapter book
• Er, that's it...

Snowpocalypsemageddon 2011

We had a bit of snow here a couple of weeks ago.  Kept us housebound for a couple of days for the first time this winter.  The boy from Texas thought he could drive to work (those cornflakes aren't going to make themselves!) before the snow ploughs had been out and got stuck half way down the drive.

Preemptive nostalgia

Lyla (putting on a puppet show): OK, it's the interval now, time to go and get your chocolate ice cream.

Me: Is that what you had with Grandma and Papa when you went to the panto?

Lyla: Yes, and Grandma had vanilla ice cream in a dish and Papa had chocolate.

Such a small, natural, wonderful thing, but a moment I didn't know about, I wasn't there.  She is having more and more of these moments, she'll break into a song I've never heard before (What comes next, Mama?  Search me!), a random child will wave to her in the store (I play with her at Stay and Play).  The strands that bind us are being snipped, the hoops of steel loosened.

She'll have more and more of these joyful moments of play and discovery and friendship.  Real friendship, not play dates set up by her mum so she can chat to a grown up for an hour or two.  And I want to think that all of these moments away from me are joyful but of course they're not.  I'm sure there are (and will be) moments of sadness and struggle.  A scolding from a teacher, no one to offer a friendly hand with a coat, a best friend suddenly not a friend, the wrong kind of dress or words or accent.  My heart breaks thinking of those moments.  I want to be there with her every step of the way, holding her hand, avoiding the bumps.  If I'm constantly by her side then nothing bad can ever happen to her.  Right?  But what would she lose by missing out on those less than happy moments?  For every best friend turning away from her at lunch, there's shrugging it off and giggling with another friend in the playground.  For every struggle with a coat there's a moment of learning, an "aha" moment that's truly self-taught.  The good and the bad are part of life, part of learning and growing up.  I'm trying to raise a grown up, not a three year old. 

But here's what I can control...home.  Home as a sanctuary for all three of us from the days highs and lows.  A place of calm and enveloping love and acceptance.

Dance around the living room music

I'm not known for my impeccable taste in music.  The Spice Girl's 'Viva Forever' can still move me to tears. Um, yeah.  So, taking that into consideration, I LOVE these kids tunes, really love them, dance around the living room with Lyla love them.



Brobee like dem, BANANA!




I won't wear green, it's the colour of a bean...words to live by.

I love this too, but it won't let me embed it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veN2gyCEj8s

Bit sad that now I first hear of the Ting Tings from Yo Gabba Yo Gabba.

Big Adventures

I'm constantly amazed at how adaptable Lyla is during trying times.  I think most kids probably are. Not when you're late for school and trying to get coats and shoes and mittens and backpack and a million other things on, no, then she can be a real pain.  Or if you need a quick stop at the shops and it's getting near lunchtime, no, not then either. She'll whine and moan and kick up a fuss.  But drag her half way across the world in smelly, cramped metal box and she behaves better than most adults.  She smiles at the flight attendants, gets excited over her aeroplane food, spends ages reading the inflight magazine and examining the sick bag.  "But what's it FOR, mummy?"  When we first arrived, we took the train from the airport to mum and dad's and at one point, after staring out the window for a while she asked calmly, is this China? No love, but it used to be.

Look! Everything's tiny!!

We spent a couple of days down in London and got caught up in the bad weather and had to deal with delayed and canceled trains.  A 2 hour journey suddenly became a 5 hour journey involving coaches and rushing from platform to platform as the herd mentality kicked in, PLATFORM TWO NOW!!  And there literally wasn't a cross word spoken. 

This is her arriving in Chicago after an 8 hour flight, getting down with some Santana...

I suppose they might be able to teach us a thing or two about chilling out, going with the flow, being happy.

Seasons

I think a combination of Lyla's age (I'm realising how mind-numbing the baby years were), some gorgeous weather and just the loveliness of Michigan (yup, just wrote that) made this a really great year for us.  The seasons seemed so well-defined and each filled with its own lovely traditions.  The autumn was particularly lovely, warm days, amazing leaves, hay rides and pumpkins and apple cider...very American.  I think that after 10 years here, I'm actually starting to feel at home, hard to admit though that is.

amateurish foliage shots



at Verhage farms



We had about 23 opportunities to wear halloween stuff...

Zoo Boo

 And it just seemed that fall would never end, more and more perfect, warm days, the kids playing in the playground every day after school...but then, the first morning frost...

Then, yesterday, the first few inches of snow.  What a difference a year makes, last year she liked it, up to a point, this year, I can't get her to come inside (thank you large deck!).

There are snow angels...

And swimming (with a good amount of eating thrown in)...

And buckets and spades

And warm cuddles afterwards...

And the countdown to Christmas begins!

The Circle Game

It's a time of firsts for the kid - first trip to the dentist (oral surgery may be in her future...great! This dentist is so behind the times, doesn't he know that a diastema is THE look for fall.  Look at all the gap-toothed beauties around, Anna Paquin, Lauren Hutton, Vanessa Paradis, MADONNA for goodness sake!), first hair cut (made bearable by a dum-dum and a swag bag at the end).


what d'ya get??

And then, of course, the first day of school.  For a start, it's basically playgroup, she's going two days a week for two WHOLE hours at a time, secondly, this was just a meet the teacher, parents get to stay day, not even the real waving goodbye day and I was still a messy puddle on the floor.  The kids played for a bit then had their first circle time while we all looked on and snapped pictures.  I wasn't expecting the tears at all, but they just all looked so grown up and earnest.  The official end of babyhood.

I'm a walking cliche with lyrics from The Circle Game going through my head "we can't return, we can only look, behind from where we came and go round and round and round in the circle game".  Wonder if Joni has kids...



Update: You know what's fun for getting the heart rate going? Sit and watch your fearless three year old have her first solo swimming class supervised by two flirting teenagers, who instruct her to hold on to the side then turn around and don't notice for a couple of seconds that SURPRISE the child doesn't listen and lets go and sinks like a stone...oh hahahahahahah, awesome!