The letter D

Cybele is by far the funniest baby I have ever pro-created. She talks incessantly as long as the word starts with "d'. Dog'n, duck, dad, down, and done. Technically down and done are parts of the phrases "get down" and "all done" which I swear I have heard her say. Nana recently heard her say "owia" and believes that she was trying to say Sophia, but that was a one time thing. I am surprised that Elias has not been one of her words because she is quite fond of him. Elias makes her squeal with delight and scream with excitement. You may not think these noises are too different, but the squeal is easier to listen to as the scream tends to get the big kids excited.

Cybele is also amazingly capable. She walks, runs, crawls, climbs and manipulates toys. She has an hilarious determination with toys that has finally convinced Tristan that toys do indeed teach the kids something and therefore deserve a place in our home. Cybele's favorite toy right now is a baby ipod that plays 20 second long children's songs. She carries it around with the same fascination that she used to reserve for non-baby toys, i.e. the remote control, cell phones, keys and wallets. Fortunately, the baby ipod, unlike Tristan's cellphone, still works after being immersed in baby spit.

While we are discussing toys I should probably mention that Cybele's current favorite non-baby toy is our treadmill. Recently we had to enlarge Cybele's play area because she was able to climb the wall and escape our smaller area with such speed that it didn't even make sense having it there. Also, I started worrying that she might be hitting her head everytime she escaped which I have heard is not a good thing for kids. So now the treadmill is part of her playground and she is on it constantly. It goes like this: stand near the treadmill and hit it with something; the baby ipod, drumsticks, a sippy cup, whatever, drop the item used for hitting and climb onto the treadmill via the smallest entry, get onto the treadmil belt and beam around at all of the admirers, dance, stop dancing and start running as quickly as possible to the end of the treadmill and finally climb/fall off the back of the treadmill and start over. It provides minutes of entertainment.

Pudding

elias starts the american soccer today. he looks right spiffy in his practice costume. i hope he learns that the keys to soccer are to runrunrunrunrunrunrun and to control space and the arrangement of players on the field. or at least to runrunrunrunrunrun. he hasnt learned to love running for its own sake yet, for the shear thrill of remembering that you have functioning lungs and legs. it's ok, i was slow in learning that too. thus, i never excelled at soccer. my older brother learned the thrill of running for its own sake early, and so he did excel at soccer. elias' first practice will be in 93 degree heat. that's abt as sensible as swimming in pudding. mmmm, pudding. the important thing is that he looks spiffy, though.

My Boy-O

I fancy myself a cool mom, mostly because I am on the younger side and therefore more likely to be hip. This does not necessarily translate well to children and I have noticed that very often my coolness is entirely overlooked. For example. Last year at my birthday Sophia asked how old I was and then quickly guessed that I was turning 45 years old. She also stated that I am older than her ballet teacher who is well past fifty. Elias has always been kinder about my age but I am sure does not think I am the hip young mom that I picture myself to be.

The first school that Elias went to was the Richmond Friends' School. It was a nice little quaker school in the capital of heaven and Elias was there for three hours every morning of the week. At noon, Tristan and I would come to pick him up and if it was my turn to walk in and get him I would call in a sing-songy voice "Time to go Boy-O". This was definitely not cool. It wasn't too long before the whole class would say "Boy-O" with me and I worried that I was possibly setting Elias up for some unnecessary teasing. The Friends' school did not have much teasing (It did have a bully, though) so it ended up not being a problem. Elias' friends called him Boy-O and they called him Elias, whichever they decided to use at that moment. Luckily for me, Elias is still my Boy-O and I can still find people (not my kids) who think I am cool.

She kills her dinner with Kara-te.

Sophia, who, as i have previously mentioned, has what could be regarded as an indominabale spirit, has decided to take tae-kwon do. i think this is a very fortuitous decision, since, a), she already does random imitations of martial arts moves she has learned from tv with aplomb, and b) one of the 5 tenets of tae-kwon do is "indominable spirit". ( the others include integrity, which we will take to mean being in oneness and at peace with one's own naughtiness, rather than the more rigid definition with the strictly virtuous connotation.) her indominable spirit didnt preclude her from having a little nap on the way back from the field trip yesterday and getting left on and then locked on the bus. she woke up promptly however, and that spirit figured out how to get her off the bus. most kids woulda screamed their way off, wasting oxygen and energy. not sophia: just pull all the levers and push all the buttons till you either get off the bus or drive yourself home. for this is the way of the Sophia-murai.

Walk so good

Sophia starts school next week. I can't believe it, she is growing up. Sophia is going to love lots of things about school. Buying a backpack, having her own one school and playing with friends. I am not so sure that she is going to love the academic part of school, but she may still surprise me. This week Elias was signed up for camp and I was a little bit worried that Sophia would be sad and miss Elias while he was away. I need not have worried though because Sophia signed her self up for camp. We got to the school to drop Elias off and Sophia was off and running. She was not scared to be left alone or upset about leaving me for the day, she just ran off into the playroom to make friends. I warned the teachers that they have not seen the likes of Sophia pass through their doors. I was reassured (slightly) that Sophia would be fine and that children often behave different for teachers and parents. Since I was not prepared for Sophia to go to camp, I had to run home and get a lunch, bathing suit, towel and a second pair of shoes because Sophia is often very far from her first pair of shoes. I returned in less than 30 minutes and told the teachers what all I had brought. I got around to the part about the shoes and learned that Sophia had already come inside barefoot after leaving her first shoes in the sandbox. This time they told me that they like "spunky" girls. The first day went well and Sophia and Elias agreed that they would both really like to go back to camp again. It was great having the leverage of camp to use against them, i.e. "if you don't eat your breakfast, you can't go to camp" or "if you don't stop fighting, you can't go to camp", etc. etc... After the second day I was talking to the teachers about the kiddos and I learned that on the day's field trip, Sophia became so very tired that she was unable to walk. This is an old trick to which Tristan and I are well accustomed but, the teachers had not, as a said ealier, met a child quite like Sophia yet. As we were getting ready to leave I noticed that Sophia had not cleaned up after herself. I asked one of the teachers if Sophia needed to clean up her mess or if they didn't have the preschoolers do that and she told me normally they are expected to clean up, but Sophia was so tired after her trip that she couldn't possibly clean up that mess too. I smiled to myself and bit my tounge, Sophia is good at what she does.

as blueberries are to 'B', 'bele is to me.

Cybele is really the most well-tempered infant i have ever seen. went golfing this morning with her maternal grandfather in the 99 degree indiana heat. that means i didn't see here for abt 7 hrs. this is unacceptable. not that golf wasn't fun, it was, but she seems to have been made anew when i don't see her for that long, it drives me crazy. i just adore her and can't take my hands off her. and the amazing thing is, she tolerates this. she has added 'uh-oh' to bird and dog'n in her vocabulary. she is mad at me right now cus i'm not actively doting on her, and i must rectify that. i think i detected that she missed me, but as i said, she's so delightful so consistently that it is hard to be certain. i will now go eat her up.

Baby and Me

This weekend was Jamboree. Tristan's extensive extended family in all their glory and merriment came to Indianapolis to spend the weekend drinking, eating, laughing and sweating in the Indiana humidity. They also came to admire my children and there was, in my opinion, sufficient admiration and adoration of all three kiddos. Cybele was a hit. Especially in this outfit.

I don't think it hurts that she is incredibly friendly and will happily spend time with any and all of her 8 million relatives. The first night of Jamboree I was busy with preparations and last minute details and I finally realized that hours had gone by and I had no idea where my Smelly Belly was. She was happily being passed from Great Aunt to Great Uncle to Cousin and then finally back to Nana. Doesn't she look pleased.

Well sadly after three nights of celebrations, slides, countless hamburgers, and games of cornhole, the Mitchell family and friends departed. This is how I felt after it was all said and done.

I can't wait until next year!

lindsay lohan could relate

I think Elias has been a bit moody lately. sometimes he is too wild, sometimes he seems glum. he is struggling to get enough attention. when a boy gets to be six, he's expected to be rambunctious and invulnerable. that's not fair. elias supresses a lot of his own desires and needs bcs he's the oldest and needs to help us with the littler ones a lot. he grasps the imprtance of doing this and does it without being asked a lot of the time. but it is not easy. his emotions lie close to the surface, and it seems like he's getting his feelings hurt a lot lately by the strains and obligations of being the oldest one. mostly he needs more one on one attention. it's not easy when the other two make it so patently obvious that they demand HIS attention and companionship for most of their daily walking around time. the high price of popularity.

Cornholio

Recently Elias had a sleepover with his sisters at his Nana's house. Sleepovers with Nana mean late nights of stories of Nana's design, something I have never been able to do. The characters of the stories are near and dear to Tristan's heart as they are the very same from when he was Elias' age. I don't dare speak their names and involve myself in a messy copyright infringement battle. While Elias was listening to homemade stories, I was with Tristan in southeast Indiana learning about Cornhole. How I have managed to be in Indiana for 11 years and not learn about Cornhole is beyond me.

Jamboree is this weekend. Now that I am aware of this game called Cornhole I am trying to make up for lost time and so I bought our family a board and I am currently busy customizing it for this weekend's celebration. Elias was immediately intrigued. First he asked me if I was really crowned Queen Cornholio. I nodded solemnly as all queens do. How he wondered did someone get this crown. After explaining that all four bags need to go in the hole in one round to earn your crown, Elias set off to earn his crown. Cornhole is, as they say, in Elias' genes.

After practicing for a while I decided that Elias was worthy of being on my team. The competition does not stand a chance. I've found my prince.