Pico DiPaolo

It all started with me wanting to get my hair done. When the girls started back to school and everyone asked what I would do with all my loads of spare time, I always said, “I want to get my hair cut.” Then, I finally got both girls to school and I was hit with bronchitis and an ear infection. I got well from that and Ike hit.

I know everyone has heard tons about the hurricane. I won’t write too much. It’s just that it’s so amazing that something out of the blue can come along and change so much. I feel like a week out of my life is gone. We were survivors and made it in our own home for 5 days, but eventually opted for refugee status and my parents’ house. Having a home with no power really affects children. Personally, I didn’t think it was too bad as long as a. we had water and b. the neighbors across the street didn’t have power. It was really difficult living in a home with no water (we went for about a day and a half without). That’s one thing I didn’t count on. Had the water not come on Sunday night, we would’ve left. The water did come on and we stayed, but on Wednesday night, when the street minus our last 4 houses received power and we did not, I couldn’t stand the heart wrenching display of lights across the street. I know they weren’t purposefully flaunting it, but every light in every window was ablaze!

Living with my parents was a blessing. The girls were much happier. Elise would routinely check in with everyone to make sure all her peeps were there. Coming home to check on our dead house every day was sad though and we’re so happy it’s back up. The girls were happy, too. Every day we would get excited about one thing “working again.” Now, we wait on Wilchester and Memorial Drive United Methodist Church. Neither have power yet, so the girls will continue to wait on school.

Poor Chris will never live down his comment to me, but on the day he went back to work (uh, Monday, most guys have been home all week), I was grumpy. He would have A/C, internet and be generally normal. He said, “it’s just like summer.” I know he was trying to cheer me up, but this was definitely not just like summer.

Thank you CenterPoint for getting our lights up! I just hope the girls transition back to school happily when the time finally comes. Should I take back to school pictures…. again?

Apparently my second baby is a little of a bully. I knew that she could be a bit pushy, but Ms. Iva already mentioned to me that Elise is a little pushy in the class, too. I have been working on it, but she learned from her sister that she can shove and kind of forcefully get her way. When I see her push another little kid, I usually say, “be nice” or “be gentle.” She knows what this means and usually backs off. With Lucy, she isn’t rough at all any longer because I’ve said it so many times to Elise with Lucy. It’s as if she knows Lucy if off limits, but to hell with the rest of them!

Anyway, she was recently at a Fundamentally Music with me. Most of the kids sat enthusiastically in their mommie’s lap, but Elise was frantically roaming the room. It looked like she was looking for an escape route; however, she would randomly mutter a “pink” or “blue” for the wall colors every now and again. Another little boy came over to investigate her exploration. Elise immediately pushed him out of her way. From the circle, I loudly whispered, “be nice.” She immediately started an intimidation tactic where she danced around the boy with a mean face. Almost like she was boxing around him. She kept her hands up as if to demonstrate to me that she wasn’t pushing. I laughed and pointed out her maneuvering to my friend, Susan. We agreed that she looked like a guard in basketball. It worked for Elise – the boy didn’t want any of that action and moved on.

“This type of mother love (is) teng ai. My son told me that in men’s writing it is composed of two characters. The first means pain; the second means love. That is a mother’s love.” After Lily’s mother slaps her, Lily says, “Although my face stung, inside I was happy. That slap was the first time Mama had shown me her mother love, and I had to bite my lips to keep from smiling.” Taken from Kate Hopper’s blog.

In our book club, where we read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by See, we questioned whether there was such a thing as pain evoked in the name of love by mother’s in our culture. Clearly, foot binding inflicted pain on children in China, but do we do anything like that today? Someone mentioned immunizations. I think that is a great modern example, but I also experienced another personal example this past week.

Joelle is killing me with dance. She loves it, but is so stubborn about everything and likes to test what she can and can’t get away with. I keep trying to tell her that she’ll be sorry if she quits something she likes just to prove that she can. When she finally conceded that she would try Miss Sharon’s dance at the end of the summer, I jumped at the opportunity to give her a chance to have one recreational activity she enjoys. I wish I could now get a refund, because she bitched the whole way there and acted like a complete fool in class. This class is a step down for her and I explained that to her, but she seemed to want something less structured and more fun. Last year, she took ballet, jazz and tap for an hour and 15 minutes. This is just a ballet and tap for 45 minutes. I murmured to my mom before Joelle came out how ridiculus she had behaved flopping her hands and arms around like a scarecrow, but I said, “I refuse to recognize how she behaved – I’m dropping it.”

Well, my hot temper sometimes gets the best of me. Once in the car, Joelle started chatting about how she had told the teacher she knew many more steps then this. I said, “oh really, and what did she say?” “She asked me to show her” “Did you?” Joelle said, “no.”

I lost it. I said, “You looked like a fool today, Joelle.” “If you want anyone to ever think you’re a good dancer then you should show them. Flopping your arms around and (here I wanted to say half-assing everything) acting like you’re bored is no way to impress.” She looked at me with two perfect saucer eyes. I think she was really shocked to hear someone say to her that she didn’t look great. I went on to then tell her a story that I actually had never told anyone (except maybe Chris, but he admitted he didn’t remember it either.) I told her that I had done the very same thing when I was almost her age. For the school play, I was picked to dance in the cemetary scene of Tom Sawyer as a skeleton. I was put in the first row, of course. During practices, I got a little bored. I was perfect, adorable – why did I need to practice? So, I started getting a little lax and half-assing everything…and was put in the back row. No one else had any idea that I had been moved or why, but I knew. It was the worst feeling and I still remember wishing above all else that I could take back what I had done.

Joelle isn’t one to stay on a sore subject and the conversation quickly turned to the fact that Daddy had also been in a school play. He was one of the two front teeth (For the Christmas tune, “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth…”) We had a laugh on Daddy because I said, “eh, he just got picked because he was actually missing one of his front teeth. When I told Chris the conversation we had had, he perked up and explained how he had worked so hard to learn that tap dance. The other “front tooth” already knew how to tap dance, but Chris had to work really hard to keep up and did. Instead of following one of our two leads, I think she’ll opt out of the play experience!

A couple of recent Joelleisms:

* We were asking Joelle about someone, I guess it was about someone who might have been unhappy.  She said, “No she was fine, she was just happy as a clown.” (clam)

* She saw Petie looking at the front of a book and said, “Mommy, why are you looking at the Table of Constants?”

In other Joelle news she has a new kid in her class, Maria Gabriella, who only speaks Spanish.  Apparently another girl in her class, Valentina, knows both Spanish and English and helps Maria.  In her words, “She (Maria Gabriella) doesn’t understand anything I say and I don’t understand anything she says.”  Joelle thinks it’s so neat that Valentina knows both English and Spanish.

We found out today that they have too many students in Kindergarten (not allowed to have more than 22 per class) so they are creating a new class.  Joelle put two and two together, “it’s because of the Spanish speaking girl!”.  We asked her if she wanted to be in the new class (you can volunteer) but she didn’t seem to care either way.  We’ll see what happens.

Elise and I had two bug experiences this week. First, she found some love bugs flying around at the park. She spotted it in the air, pointed and said, “bug.” When it landed on her, she said, “eeeeeek,” but wasn’t scared at all. She just knew that was supposed to be her reaction. Instead of screaming to me for help, she poked at it until she ultimately crushed it. Annoyed, she tried to shake off the bug goo.

Second, we were walking outside the house and I found a doodle bug for her. I pointed it out and she followed it with her finger. He eventually curled up. She tapped it one more time and moved on. Ah, my little scientist.

There are some weeks, periods when you have little kids and it’s hard. I’ve noted that most people that have had little kids quickly forget how challenging it can be. This week was one of those harder weeks for me and Chris. I was out for a lot of the team challenges, leaving Chris, well, without a team. I listened as he herded little Elise through the daily chores of life: bathing, eating and playing. Elise is absolutely adorable. She’s also hilarious. And she’s almost two. So, you take the good with the bad. I’ll also say that where Joelle was tenacious in her temper tantrums, with a 30 minute scream and pound fest the norm, Elise has quick little fits with a fast turn around time.

It’s with this background in mind that I share what I overheard someone say at a birthday party. The mommie of the birthday girl had an adorable birthday cupcake cake where cupcakes were placed in the shape of a pig and a thick layer of icing was placed on top to make it look like a cake. Brilliant, right? No knives needed. I heard a lady say to her husband, “boy, I wish they had those when we were doing this.” I started crying a little through a strange laugh that only Chris was around to witness. I was thinking, “Yes, the cupcake cake. Life is SO much easier with little kids now.”

…and yet I have not utilized this tidy invention meant to save mother’s insanity. Perhaps that is why we feel crazy at the end of some days? We do adore our babies and all our blessings and wouldn’t trade any of it in a heartbeart. (and are so lucky to have family to help – that’s a shout out, if you can’t tell.) Here’s an example of why they earn their cupcakes around here: Elise calls cupcakes, “cup creams.” I think it’s because she adores ice cream so much and learned that word early!

I’ve been really sick or I would’ve posted this in a more timely fashion, with facts more concrete in mind. With the fever haze, Elise’s story might take on a little fictionalized glory.

Elise started her first day of “MDO”. We’re officially calling it school so that she kind of grasps that it’s like what Joelle does. I think we successfully made that link in her little head. If she could talk well, she would have told me, “enough already, momma,” because the day I did take her to school we first dropped Joelle off school. I think I said over 25 times, “Elise gets to go to school today.” She just kept looking at me and blinking.

So, we load up the car. It truly felt like we were going off for a weekend trip: nap mat, back pack, lunch bag (the lunch bag won’t fit in the backpack because lovey, extra sippy cup and extra outfit take up all the room) and the grocery bag filled with diapers and wipes. Elise wanted to wear her “pack pack” inside (on her belly vs. her back). She marched in and was greeted by Ms. Dee Dee, Joelle’s teacher from last year. Elise immediately turned right down the first hall, exactly the way to go to Joelle’s old class room. I gently took her hand and lead her down the right corridor.

We went in the class, no tears. Nana had to pick her up because I came home to crash with a 102.9 fever (I had been better, but ended up with secondary infections about the time I was dropping off Elise.) According to Nana, Elise was precious. She was curled up on her nap mat, blankie cuddled close. She and one other kid were the only 2 still asleep! Our baby can sleep on a nap mat and do it with 10 other kids playing around her? Crazy.

Like Joelle’s first day, I didn’t really have much time to reflect on being sad. I was too darn sick. I guess that’s a positive?? Today at dropoff (second day), she literally started running once we were on the right hallway. I guess mommie was getting a little boring?