a rugs life

Last weekend, I was invited to a roof-top dinner party. The hosts encouraged me — several times — to bring my 6 year old daughter and, hesitatingly, I complied. My daughter usually handles adult situations for about 20 minutes, and then lapses into a half whine/half groan state, where I am compelled to give her 100% of my attention or she’ll disrupt the gathering.

But this time it was different. She seemed to warm up to the other people, and she held her own in several conversations which did not even focus on horses or lions. Furthermore, in order to accommodate the differing points of view, the other guests generously alternated between discussing real-estate pricing and playing ‘telephone’ around the table. So everyone got a little of what they wanted, and no one felt unduly left out. My daughter listened quietly while condo fees were discussed, and the other guests sportingly played ‘telephone’ with the same enthusiasm as if they’d just played it yesterday, instead of 20 years ago.

At one point, the host disappeared with my daughter to the other side of the roof-top deck, behind a wall, where the dining table was. In her absence, I enjoyed being able to give the other guests my full attention. The minutes ticked by and there was still no sign of my daughter or the host. Finally, about a half an hour later, Rada re-appeared and announced that dinner was ready. She and the host had brought up food, plates, and other tableware to the roof, set it up, and served the meal.

I was amazed. How can I get her to do this for me every night… at home?

She’s got it. By George, I think she’s got it.

After what seemed like years of frowing fings on fursdays, she just started throwing things on thursdays. She was so excited she had to show me. ‘Look mom, look!”

And I watched as she put her tongue just under her upper teeth and blew out, and there it was, a faltering ‘th’ sound, but it was, nonetheless.

We danced around the kitchen celebrating that she’d got it.

I would have burst into The Rain in Spain, but the risk of getting one of those ‘oh mom you are too crazy’ looks constrained me.

Rada got to try out the controls on Poul’s plane.

When I pick up my daughter from camp at the end of the day she barely resembles the child I said goodbye to in the morning. The morning child has its hair combed, face and hands washed and is wearing clean, albeit it stained, clothes. The afternoon child has tangled, matted hair, and a face covered with dirt, paint, and food. The clothes of the afternoon child are smothered with dirt, wood chips, and grass, and splattered with paint and clay.

These are the excellent clothes of a six-year old at mid-summer.

The condition of what she’s wearing offers me concrete indicators of how she spent her day. I get clues about what she did, where she went, etc. and I learn more from what her clothes than from what she remembers to tell me.

One day, a few weeks ago, she came home with sparkles all over her. Earlier that afternoon she had decorated her clay sculpture and she’d gotten sparkles on her clothes, face, and hair. I noticed, after a few days, that the sparkles were still in her hair. An extra vigorous shampoo succeeded in getting out most of them but a few were still there. A few days later I did another vigorous shampoo, with more scrubbing, but several sparkles still remained. They appeared to be glued to her skull. It is now 4 weeks later and the sparkles are still there. About 10 of them are on her head; you can see them if you look from the top down.

Should I scrub harder? Is there a special shampoo for getting out sparkles? Am I a bad mother for not being more worried about this?

Last weekend Rada and I attended the wedding of dear friends. It was her first one and it left a strong impression. I don’t think she was expecting it to be so theatrical. The ceremony took place on the lawn of a quaint farm north of Boston, with flower girls, ring boys, and pinkish-orangey rose petals scattered on a white carpet walkway.

The reception was in an airy barn overlooking blueberry and raspberry fields. When young guests grew weary of the wedding protocol, or got hungry before the meal was served, they wandered out to the berries and snacked.

All this past week, my daughter has been systematically marrying off her stuffed animals. Her dragons have taken vows, several plastic cows have walked up the aisle, and this morning two hobby horses stood up in front of an officiating minister (who simultaneously ate cereal while dispensing the vows). Later the same minister swept floors while exhorting the wedding couple to “have and to hold” (its amazing how far the reaches of multitasking can extend).

For the curious among you, this morning’s horse bride looked lovely in a white tulle veil (formerly used as a ballet outfit) and the groom wore a golden crown decorated with Elmo stickers.

Ben showed me how to do this. Isn’t it cool? (thanks, Ben!)

What would I call it?? Well, its an individually annotated map of rugslife’s locations of interest.

You can do it, too, for your own neighborhood. Make sure you’ve got a google account (which is easy, just sign up, its free). Then go to google maps, go to ‘my maps’, sign in, and start experimenting. Its not hard to do. Took me a half hour. (OK, maybe 45 min).