An Evening of Percussion, matinee-style

Today we went to BYU's Evening of Percussion, only we went to the matinee show instead of the evening show so I suppose it was technically a Late Morning of Percussion for us. My mom had originally bought tickets for our little family of four and for my dad and Josie, but then Josie bailed out to go to a sleepover and my dad got sick and Andrew decided he was too busy to go. That left us with three extra tickets, so after calling around for a bit I finally convinced my friend Tracy to come along with two of her boys.

It ended up being a wonderful concert and just perfect for children. The various percussion groups showcased music from around the world. We first listened to a Vietnamese percussion group called the Go Group. They actually did a "table piece" by a French composer, which is played on...a table.

"This is incredible!" Rachel whispered to me. "They don't even have an instrument but they're still making music!"

And that's exactly what the percussion professor told us—that if you can strike it or scrape it or shake it then they can play it. That's percussion!

Next up we a xylophone piece with marimbas, a glockenspiel, and vibraphones that was originally written for piano. Something about a...doll. I can't remember the title and they didn't hand out programs. It was good, though.

Then they moved all the xylophones off stage to make room for Bintang Wahyu, the Gamelan group my mom is in at BYU. Dr. Grimshaw taught the audience what their Balinese names would be—there's a simple formula for figuring it out.

A new pair of mittens

The elastic on Miriam's mittens isn't very elasticky anymore and all the mittens in our "winter stuff" box are too big for her. And so I decided I'd try to make a pair of mittens for her by myself. I found a pattern online that looked easy enough and went to work. It took me two days to make them—one day for each mitten, though I certainly didn't dedicate my whole day to mitten-making—and I think they turned out nicely.

Parallel Play

When Rachel is sick she is much more mellow than when she's healthy. She's more content to cuddle—though she's never been much of a snuggler—and will even lie on her bed, by herself, listening to primary music, or whatever. She speaks softly and kindly and plays gently with her sister. I'd think it was wonderful if I didn't know it was because she was feeling so awful.

Late this morning/early in the afternoon (it was a lazy kind of day) Miriam and I were downstairs playing with the toys and Rachel was upstairs resting in her bed. She came down and joined our game. I relinquished my side of the house to Rachel and retired to my crocheting, happy to watch my girls actually getting along.

Miriam is at the height of parallel play right now so isn't very interactive, but she does set up her house and make her little people do things like go to bed or eat dinner or use the potty. Rachel's games are a little more involved—she needs a storyline and person-to-person connection—but she quietly played alongside Miriam for quite a long time.

And then her tylenol kicked in. I could tell the moment it had because she started to get a little feisty again and her play became less gentle and more commanding. 

"Miriam, let's close the house because it's nighttime—put your people to bed now and we'll close the house."

"Noooooooo!"

"Miriam, I'm going to ring the doorbell and then you answer the door. Ding-dong! Now open the door. Open the door, Meme! Open the door!"

"Noooooooo!"

Eventually she shouted, "If you can't play the game right then I don't want to play with you at all! You can't use the house! I was here first! It's mine!"

"Rachel," I interjected, "You weren't here first. Miriam was here first and she kindly gave up half the house for you when you came downstairs."

That only made Rachel angrier. So I got out the fire station and suggested that one of the girls set up house there, going so far as to mention that since Rachel had taken over Miriam's space that she should be the one to move out. When I said that, though, it got Miriam thinking that she wanted it—she couldn't stand to let Rachel have the new toy.

"No! Me wants a fire-tation! It's mine new house!" she squealed.

When she said that, Rachel's eyes flashed with envy but I told her to settle down and keep the old house that she had wanted badly enough that she threatened to evict her own sister. Then I made Rachel give Miriam all the furniture Miriam had been using on her side of the house. And then they proceeded to set up house on opposite ends of the room from each other. 

 

Rachel was happy to have the house so she could set things up properly—with a nursery and a kitchen and a living room. Miriam was perfectly happy with the fire station so she could set up house out of the box—with sleeping quarters on the roof, for example.

And then they played happily, in parallel fashion, for quite some time. Rachel's growing out of parallel play—as you can tell by the way she demands interaction—but I suppose if it frustrates her enough that Miriam won't interact that she enforces parallel play then I guess it keeps them both happy. Rachel thinks she's in control and is "punishing" her sister by banishing her to the other end of the room and yet Miriam thinks they're playing just the right way. Close, but not too close. Similar, and yet completely uninvolved.

It's perfect. For now.

Rachel's Smamish

Rachel's been asking me to put a video of her up on the blog because lately all the videos I have uploaded have been of Miriam. I suppose the reason for this is that I'm always frustrated with the videos I get of Rachel—she over performs and acts like a goof or is completely uncooperative. Like so:

An extra warm November day!

Today Rachel had school, and then Sunbeam Swap so she went over to Asher's house for the afternoon, making Miriam my only child all day long. It's nice to get a little one-on-one time with her because when Rachel's around she always has to share me, naturally. Neither of the girls like sharing me, though, so it's nice to get them on their own. 

Miriam kept dragging me off to her bedroom. 

"Come on, Mommy! Play me!" she'd say.

We played with blocks and trains and Mr. Potato Head and Pop-Ons and read stories and pushed decaying pumpkins around in the doll stroller before Miriam set off to play with Grandma. After a few minutes she wandered back to me saying, "Where's a cutters, Mommy? Where's a cutters?"

"Do you want to colour?" I asked. "They crayons are on your desk."

"No! Not crayons! Cutters! Up dere!" she pointed to the scissors on my desk.

I let her practice cutting for a while. Oddly enough, while she cut she sang, "Rock. Paper. Scissors! Scissors cut paper! Rock! Paper! Scissors!" so I'm not quite sure why she was calling them cutters.

 

Alphabet Loop

If you ask Miriam to sing the alphabet she will obligingly croon out, "Alphabet!" for you in her sweetest voice. If you ask her to sing her ABCs, however, she will immediately start belting out the alphabet. There's a bit of disconnect for her there; she's not quite sure what an alphabet is and yet she most definitely knows her ABCs, which also happen to be the alphabet. She just doesn't know that.

Her ABCs are also a little distorted and she ends up singing them in a continuous loop until she either gets the ending right or until she gets tired of singing, whichever comes first. Usually it goes something like this, only a little longer, and with a few more mistakes:

A B C D E F G
I'm a J!
Emily P!
Q R S T U V
W X Y and Z!
Now wow-wow-wow
A B C D E F G H I J 
Q R S T U V W X Y and Z! 
Now wow-wow-wow A B C! 
Nesk time! Sing a me!

Before bed today she was singing it into a football microphone. And while we were in Idaho we got a cute clip of her singing in the car.

Drumroll...

Well, here it is 10:59 PM, and Andrew finally got his PMF notice. Hello, DC! It's like one o'clock in the morning for you! You shouldn't be sending out notices! You should be going to bed.

That said, thanks for not making us wait until tomorrow.

And in case you, my dear readers, are wondering...

Andrew's a semi-finalist! He'll be interviewing in Colorado this month—sometime between taking the GRE, being a guest lecturer at Weber State, Thanksgiving, and everything else. Busy month.

Too bad we have no idea what to do with our future selves.

But for right now, at this moment, we're just excited. So excited, in fact, that after I wrote "Andrew's a semi-finalist!" I took a break from typing to clap my hands. Twice. *clap* *clap*

Don't worry if you think that's weird. I did, too.

But I'm just a little happy for him.

NaBloPoMo and More Potty Training

With November comes many things:

• Thanksgiving. 
• Cold weather.
• Seasonal Affective Disorder.
• And NaBloPoMo!

Among other things.

I'll be participating in NaBloPoMo again this year (I think this is my 5th year) even though I'll probably be too lazy to go grab a button or anything. Consider this my announcement. How much more bah-humbug could I get? Oh, well.

Anyway, I know I already did a post for today but I still have more to say. Are you surprised?

Last night I went into the girls' room to get Miriam up to go potty before I went to bed. I got her out of bed and walked her to the bathroom and laid her down in the hallway and started to help her out of her jammies. She started fussing, which is unusual because normally I just plop her on the potty and then put her back to bed and we're done in less than two minutes.

"Too tired-a-go potty!" she complained in a sleepy, feverish stupor. "Put me back-a-bed!"

And so I did.

I figured that if she slept through the night without wetting the bed it would be awesome. But if she didn't, then her bedding is due for a wash anyway.

She woke up dry this morning!

I've been debating all evening whether I should let her try sleeping through the night again or whether I should wake her up to go potty. Taking her potty is much easier than washing the sheets, but she has to learn to hold her bladder the whole night through at some point.

Dilemmas, dilemmas...

Like everybody else we've got a dream

It's November already. I knew it was coming, but it still doesn't seem possible that the year is almost over and winter is knocking, even pounding, at our door. I'm so not ready for winter. And I'm so not ready for next year.

I suppose if we had a plan in place I'd feel better about next year. Half of me is excited for next year...at least, half of me was excited for next year. Graduation! No more school! A job...

But then Andrew came home from school last week and said, "What if I said I still wanted to try for a PhD?"

And I squealed, "I say go for it!" even as I was trying to stop those words from tumbling out of my mouth. I was like, Oh, no! Words are coming out! Then one half of my brain (the sane half?) screamed at the other, "What are you saying?!"

Truthfully, though, I think I said those words because I was supposed to say those words. I surprised myself by how quickly I jumped on the PhD train—I've been bugging Andrew about getting a job for months now. And we've been looking, trust me. We made a spreadsheet where we compile information about jobs he needs to apply for. I felt productive doing this, like I was taking charge of the future. If there was an opportunity out there, we'd know about it because I was combing through USA Jobs and PublicServiceCareers.org every day, among other sites. Lots of other sites.

But then that crafty PhD dream that we'd so unceremoniously shoved into the closet fell out and hit us on the head. I guess with so many dead and broken dreams hiding in our closet there just wasn't room for that one. We've dusted it off and fixed it up a bit and now that dream is looking rather alluring once more.

Hallowe'en 2011

"Guess what?!" an excited little someone shook me awake half an hour before my alarm was set to go off said. "It's Halloween!"

Wonderful, I thought. And November's sure creeping up. Can't stop that month. 

"Oh! And I woke Miriam up to tell her, too!"

Even better. Because we might as well all be up early.

And then for the next half hour my children fought with each other until I growled at them to cut it out and find some cereal bowls. Happy Halloween, right?

Miriam had a doctor's appointment today. Aren't I a genius? Her appointment went well enough but it ended with three shots and by mid-afternoon she was completely miserable and feverish. She's on the small side—at 23 lbs. she's in the 7th percentile—but the doctor just chuckled and said, "I wouldn't worry about it—she looks happy and healthy. Besides, somebody's gotta make up the bottom percentile!"