Friday we were early for Spanish class for once. In fact, we were the only ones there for the first ten minutes. The rest of the class came in over the next fifteen minutes, so I think I am not going to worry as much about being late. Have I mentioned that Being Late causes me disproportionate anxiety? I’m not sure yet what the little bee thinks about the whole Spanish class experience but I was happy that I remembered two words this week: perro means dog! and mariposa means butterfly! It would be nice to find a Spanish language DVD or a website for Fiona to hear more than two words of it during the week. That reminds me, I have a lot of disorganized thoughts on children’s media (movies, shows, websites) that I’d like to organize sometime and write up. I’ve tried a few times but it’s come out as gibberish so I’ll have to work at it again.
On Saturday, all three of us saw the Actor’s Gymnasium production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest in Evanston. It was pretty great with the gymnast actors spinning and swinging from ropes and swaths of cloth. Unfortunately, somehow I thought it would be abridged and rewritten a bit for speed but all of the original Shakespeare dialogue was there and–though it was expressively done–it was a little too much blah blah for the bee. We enjoyed it then left at the intermission and played in the park next door. We found some dinner and had a nice family afternoon.
Sunday, Papa had planned a barbeque for some of the people he had met at the T+G 25th anniversary show. I helped by going to Dinkel’s for donuts and to Trader Joe’s for charcoal. It was interesting to be out and about without Fiona; it really doesn’t happen much. Of course, I stopped at the toy store near Dinkel’s to look for something new for her. For a while I contemplated the marbles; there are three she has come across in the house and she is very fond of them. Unfortunately, she is fond of putting one in her mouth and walking around with it and I am not able to stop fretting about it. So, I had this brilliant idea: I will find a few larger marbles for her that she can’t swallow. In the toy store I had these marbles in hand and was looking at the colors when it occurred to me that these big, unswallowable marbles are deadly weapons and she would be sure to whip them around. Imagine the t.v. set with a gaping hole in it. So I put them back and instead, I found some little animal figures for her growing collection.
Later, at the barbeque, an 11-year-old girl (named after a mythical land) came with her mom. She played a bit with the little bee but she was really interested in our Angel and Buffy DVDs. I brought them all out for her and set her up in the living room and, naturally, Fiona’s satellite instinct had her wanting to be in the living room, too. Each time I left the room, though, Fiona would do something like turn off the DVD player by fooling with the remote so I watched me some Angel, too.
Monday, we went to a friend’s house for a visit. She brought out the paints and our girls had lots of fun. She also told us about the puppy ears and angel wings Target has for cheap and by that afternoon we had a few playtime costumes for the bee.
This week, Johnny has been on vacation from work and is knocking himself out working on the house. Yesterday, he trimmed the trees in the yard and burned some of the branches in our outdoor fireplace. Today, he used the power washer to clean up the exterior of the house. The front windows look shiny and great. In the meantime, I forgot to meet with my neighbor friend. I called her to reschedule for next week but I still feel like an ass. It’s really just as well, though, because Fiona is not quite feeling herself today. Last night she didn’t sleep very soundly. When I say ‘didn’t sleep very soundly’ I mean ‘whined a lot every few hours and kicked me in the kidneys’. I think it was because she was congested. So this afternoon I coaxed her into taking a nap; she was out for two hours. Now let’s see if she’ll go upstairs to bed. Good night, wish me luck.
