Recent Violin Recitals

I read recently in, "The Blessing of a Skinned Knee", about an old philosophy that good parenting requires 1/3 love, 1/3 discipline, and 1/3 sitting on your hands.  As I like concrete ideas, I immediately applied this to violin practice time.  I like efficiencies, and am someone who will often take little things for-granted.  I will often not notice the efforts my children make.  Now, when I sit with them to practice violin, I spend about 10 minutes of time marveling at what the child has accomplished, and pay a sincere compliment, allowing time to show me new songs they've learned or new ideas they want to try.  I spend about 10 minutes of time trying to learn something new, or improve technique.  For the 10 minutes of sitting on my hands, I will leave the room, while they finish practicing.

In an effort to remind myself to not take for-granted, I make a conscious effort every morning and every night to hug and kiss each child, and comment on my gratefulness for their existence.

Madeline playing "Happy Farmer" .  

Ella playing "Minuet 2"

The Last October Hurrahs Brought....

... a lot of clarity.  Looking back on photos, I see that we spent a lot of time outdoors. Each outing was prefaced with, "This is the last nice day we'll have for six months".  With such realization, we off-loaded any other responsibilities and headed outdoors.  We could double justify the many outings because Ella's birthday is in October, and we celebrated her birthday many times.

We headed to our favorite near-by state park.   This time, we walked a long the river, enjoyed the beautiful fall color (which we reputed to be the best in 10 years due to the alignment of many factors), and finished off with a picnic and s'mores.  

After the s'mores, we headed for our last family bike-ride of the season.  Regrettably, we have no pictures, because they would tell the story much better than I could.  I told Ella she could earn three cinnamon bears if she would ride Madeline's bike about 1/4 of a mile on a flat wide trail.  She grudgingly agreed, and started out fine, slow, but fine.  Then she realized what she was doing, and she turned her knees in, and she started wobbling a little.  She averted disaster by driving off the trail and crashing in the ditch, something I remember doing myself as a child. 

She was furious with everyone, insisting she would never ride a two wheel bike again. She would would stay on the tag along indefinitely.  A picture flashed through my mind of Ella leaving for college, not knowing  how to ride a two wheel bike, still peddling a long behind my bike on the tag along, and I wondered whether I had a greater responsibility to recognize her right to choose for herself, or to persist that she continue to practice riding a two wheel bike so that she could learn that she could do hard things, things which she thought might be impossible.

At one point, Max really wanted a turn on the tag along, so Ella rode his little 3 year old bike.  She was further humiliated by this, and by the time we got back to the car, she was barely saying a pleasant word to anyone.  I think we'll try again next year with her to ride a two wheel bike.  

October is also the month that reminds me the most of living in Croatia and Slovenia.  The colder weather, the harvesting of the last fruits and vegetables meant that the women started to cook.  Our last meal from our garden was a cherry apricot mint lassi, along with roasted swiss chard, and a roasted eggplant, red pepper sandwich with fresh mozzarella.  It was memorably delicious.

Halloween 2012 and recent conversations

A few notable conversations have caused me post reflection giggles, such as a conversation I had with Madeline and Ella Thursday morning.  We (I) woke up late, and as I woke the girls up, I told them they didn't have to worry about practicing violin in the morning, they could practice with their dad when he got home from work.
Madeline: "Oh, great, that's just what I need, Dad always gets mad when we practice violin together."  To which Ella replied with just as much vehemence, "Yeah, he does, but at least he apologizes when he's done being mad".

The other situation occurred after another violin practice with Ella, in which above dad became angry with Ella and then apologized.  This was a week after after Halloween.  Ella was so grateful to her dad for apologizing that she made both of us cards.  My card simply said, "Mom, Rest in Peace", as in the tombstones that decorate Halloween:  RIP.  I told her I hoped to be able to do that that very evening and that I appreciated her consideration.  Ryan's card was a little more difficult to decipher, and he asked me what I thought of the picture of the girl who appeared to be singing boisterously.  I replied that she appeared to be singing.  He then asked Ella about the girl, and Ella said, "Ooh that's me vomiting.  Because you got up and took care of me when I vomited."

our blue-eyed tiger

Halloween was downright balmy this year, contrary to previous years when the temperature was reminiscent of frigid food freezers, we were out with 40 degree weather and no breeze.  In the car for the previous month, there had been on-going negotiations about what everyone would be for Halloween.  This was initiated on my part to prevent last minute claims of negligence with overwhelming evidence of the need to spend 40.00 on a brand-new costume.  After several go rounds, Madeline and Ella decided to be dragons, Max followed suit, and gratefully this is one area where Sam is not opinionated,  so we were going to have a lair of dragons tromping out of the Swapp residence on Halloween.  

The one dragon from the entire lair to show face on Halloween

We hit all the second hand stores a month ahead of time, and found great dragon costumes for everyone except Sam, for whom we remembered we had a bat costume that would fit him perfectly.  The day before Halloween, Ella had emphatically declared she was wearing the bat costume, regardless of the fact that is was size 12-18 months, Madeline decided she must be a vampire, regardless of the fact that we had no such costume, and Max decided to wear the Tiger costume. I just smiled and made sure my camera was charged so that I can be sure to show Ella the picture of the bat costume that came to right above her knees and elbows, and amazingly fit across her torso. 

Ella was very proud to be a bat, Max loved having a girl his age go with him, and Madeline created her own vampire costume.  

Ella off-set the size difference by wearing striped tights beneath her costume.

Trick or treating was most magical for Max and Sam, who had never imagined a circumstance when they would be handed more candy than they could carry or hold.  Sam learned the names of the important candy-bars, and reminded me when we went to Hobby Lobby two days ago, "OOH LOOK Mommy, IT'S A MILKYWAY, and there's a SNICKERS".  Why do store displays always come between me and my children?

Here's another look at the bat costume last year when Sam wore it on Halloween.

Have you gotten "The Karma"

Last night, I drove Ella to the toy story to choose a web kinz for a friends birthday party.  We aren't often by ourselves in the car, and since it was just the two of us, I brought along my cell phone thinking I would catch up on some  phone calls.  When Ella asked if I believed that crows brought "the karma", I put away my phone, turned off the radio, and settled in for an interesting conversation. I asked her if she was wondering whether I believed that crows brought bad or good karma. 

 "Ooh, I already know they bring bad Karma, I saw it on a movie", she responded.

Obligatory parental  warning followed, "Well, Ella, not everything they say on movies is true".

"Yes, it is", she was a little offended, "Besides, I know it's true  because I got the bad karma today.    Last night I was mean to Sam and Max (she told Max that he was disgusting when he vomited ), and today at recess we saw four crows, and my Karma was that I started itching all over, and am still itching.  And I know that Jack, Zach and Grant also got the Karma because there were four crows and they were being mean to me.  I just don't know how they got it."

 I can't be sure what I said to Ella afterwards, I was still trying to process her story.  She soon asked me to turn on the music, and we chatted about more mundane things.  I was still smiling about it when I told Ryan last night.  I was reminded again of what a surprise Ella has been and continues to be in our lives.  

She requested to go to the pumpkin patch/apple orchard for her birthday a couple of weeks ago, and we enjoyed spending the time with her.

"Can I choose a pumpkin I can't carry"

 

Max and Sam are looking off at the pumpkins

Conferring about which direction to head down the corn maze

She did indeed scour the entire pumpkin patch for the largest pumpkin she could find, and then asked me to carry it.

Gratefully, Max and Sam preferred the small pumpkins.  Not to sound like a scrooge, but the pumpkins at Aldi were much cheaper (I didn't once tell the kids that).

Sam shared his apple with the goats, then tried to take a few more bites.

"Momiya, I be carried"

Ella steered clear of the Llamas after one of them spit at her.

The Change of Tides

These are rather random photos, but do represent change for us.  After 10 years, and many parties, our ice cream maker only works with forcible action.

  Making ice cream was one of the few times we had sweets when I was growing up.  Sweets were hard to come by in a house that used only wheat flour, honey as a sweetener, and absolutely no store bought treats. Once a year, my parents would say that if we picked enough wild blueberries on the hills above our house (spanning several acres), then dad would make ice cream.  My brothers and sisters and I would spend several hours picking berries, with the taste of blueberry ice cream just hours away.   In my mind, the ice cream was as delicious as anything on earth, though now I wonder how dad did it with honey and powdered milk (maybe my parents splurged and bought cream and milk, but there was no sugar).  We also had a hand crank ice cream maker, so we older kids had to take turns cranking until the ice cream was hard.

Ryan and I bought an ice cream maker when we were married and several times a summer we would make ice cream and invite friends over.  Our kids loved this tradition.  However, when we tried making ice cream this year, we found that the only way the crank would turn was if we put heavy weight on it.  We sadly bid our ice cream maker adieu, and haven't bought a replacement yet.  The idea of moving it in two years with all our belongings makes me hesitate.

And here's another change.  When Madeline left for school a couple of weeks ago, she asked if she could take some rubber bands because she and her friends like to do their hair at school.  I sent her with a little baggie, and the lovely lady came home with this hairdo.  I am realizing that Madeline is growing up.   The changes are fun but also representative of how stages come and go, and when they're gone, they don't come back.  I am really enjoying seeing her grow up.

One family activity in which Ryan and I invest, both financially and time wise is biking together.  We've learned lately we will need to invest emotionally as well.  5/6ths of our family also value and enjoy family bike rides.  It just so happens that the 1/6th can make those bikes rides so terribly unpleasant.  

Ella was determined two years ago that she would wait to learn to ride a bike until she was 5, and then 6.  Last year, we decided it was time to spend a little time with her on it, even if she wasn't appreciative.  We worked with her on it, and she learned to ride without training wheels, though admittedly she was wobbly.  I convinced her to go on a bike ride one day last fall, she on her bike with no training wheels, the boys in a trailer behind me.  As she was turning her bike around a few blocks away, she skidded on some gravel, and had her first bike wreck.  Ella was distraught, and that attracted some unwanted attention.  A neighbor came down the hill on his gator and insisted on lifting Ella in with her skinned knee, Ella didn't want to go without me, and the boys wanted to stay with me, so he took all four of us home on the Gator, with Ella's bike in the back.  Another lady walking by insisted on walking my bike home with the empty trailer.  This was the last time Ella rode her bike.  After that she said she would learn to ride when we was 7 or 8.  So we let it sit for a year.

Two weeks ago, the weather was beautiful, around this time of year, when it hits sixty you go outside because it might be the last time it hits 60 forever, but surely for 6 months or so.  5/6ths of our family love to ride our bikes behind our house down to the river where there is a lovely old bridge that we all enjoy throwing rocks off. Ella agreed to go on the condition that she be able to ride the tagalong, which is a bike that attaches to my bike, but it won't fall over unless I fall over.  So Ryan took the boys in the bike trailer, Ella rode with me, and we had a lovely ride, and an enjoyable time, though the vehemence with which Ella insisted on not riding her bike was exacting.

Madeline and Ella run across the old bridge over the Zumbro river

This is my primary concern when we go to the river-top heavy, insatiably curious Sammy (watching where the rocks go)

Ella not riding a bike brings up a difference in parenting philosophy that Ryan and I have discussed several times.  One possible take is that Ella will learn to ride a bike when she is ready and that we should encourage and provide opportunities for her, but never force her.  The other side is that the longer Ella thinks that she "can't" ride a bike, the more it will be instilled in her mind.  By overcoming her fear and learning to ride, Ella will realize that even though it was hard and frightening, she can do anything she wants to do.  This would then justify us "strongly encouraging" Ella to practice riding her bike.  We were presented with this quandary much sooner than we expected. 

 This summer, Madeline and I planted sunflower seeds outside the fence around our garden.  Madeline choose the tallest variety of sunflowers, and they were incredibly tall, as a picture below attests.  Watching the sunflowers grow from a small seed to a miraculous Jack and the beanstalk tall flower was rewarding for my young growers as well as myself, because I don't have much delay of gratification development.  

Several days it seemed they grew six inches a day.  There is some amount of faith required for a child to plant a seed.  In fact, our other children saw more purpose in playing on the play set, than in digging a small hole to deposit the little seeds and watering them in the hot summer weather.  

Madeline seems to have a natural ability to delay gratification.  I remember driving to visit my sister in Pittsburgh one summer, Madeline was 4 years old.  I gave both girls a pack of smarties.  Ella ate all within a couple of minutes.  Madeline ate two and saved the rest for later.  She will often save something so long she forgets that she has it. 

She enjoys work in the garden, almost intuiting the promise that lies several months down the road.  She told me when we started planting that she was more excited about planting the garden than she was about anything else (I think she included her birthday)

Ella enjoyed more of the garden this year, especially the mint-mango lassi's we made all summer.  I really enjoyed the time we spent outside together, inspecting the growth of the tomatoes, destroying the potato bugs, and watching everything grow.  The boys enjoyed dumping dirt from the beds onto the ground, pulling plants instead of weeds, and throwing tomatoes at each other (one of my most vivid memories of the garden as a child).

Mint-Mango Lassi:

mint leaves (about 1/2 cup)

1 cup ice

2 mangoes 

2 cups plain yogurt

1/4-1/2 cup sugar (or honey)

Blend well.