A Tale of Two Grahams

Violet was amazed and delighted to find there is at least one other person in the world sharing her brother's name. To keep things clear she has renamed them "Our Graeme" and "Tiny Graham." Tiny Graham is also 3, bigger than her, and in the same small preschool class. Our attempts to find an alternate title for the younger Graham have fallen on no shits given 3 year old ears. Sorry, Tiny Graham, we'll keep trying.

Mean Mom, Halloween Edition

"No Violet, you cannot nap with the pumpkin carving tools book."
HYS-TER-I-A.
Mom takes book and puts it away, out of sight, where she would need a stool + climbing to reach it, and then goes to work out on the other side of the house.
A good hour later, Violet is screaming bloody murder.
Mom finds her obviously just awoken from a very deep, drooly sleep, with a pumpkin carving knife slashing her cheek and all the tools piled on her pillow, book ripped into a million pieces in order to extract said tools.
Yup, that's pretty much Violet.

Three Amigos

Last summer Callum's girlfriend (cutie in the necklace) moved into our neighborhood. Yay! Now their partner is crime's family is attempting to do the same. If these three all end of at the same school next year for kinder...WATCH OUT.

Callum the Artist

At Callum's parent teacher conference a few months ago we heard, again, how his flair for the fancy keeps him from completing projects in the time allotted.

Example: A simple, stay in the lines coloring page. Use a color or two to complete the picture. You've got 5 minutes.

Callum: Use all the colors available. Make meticulous alternating patterns of zig zags, stripes, polka dots, and unique intricacies. Are there letters or numbers involved? Bubble that shit.

Jason and I are like...uh...yeah...he kinda gets that from us, BOTH of us. So does at least one other kid. Then there's another other kid who, like, couldn't be any farther from this problem. Who knows about the fourth.

So we are supposed to be working on rushing, which, eye roll, preschool. Yes, we get it, or maybe we don't, because if the 4 year old wants to go above and beyond and is willing to finish it at home, well kinda seems like a #Problemnotproblem.

So, voilà, Callum's (sloppy) rush job, limit two colors. (Because nobody tells baby he can't make bubble letters at home.)



(Also, please note teacher's fancy letters top left.)

Callum On Growing Up

Callum would like to fly, so when grows up he's going to be a blackbird, living in a tree outside Target. He is not going to eat bugs, just popcorn.

Callum's Dream

Star Wars + That Bass = Awesome

Callum on Style

I call this look "Star Wars Threw Up on Me."



Many mornings I still have to talk him into being warm and covering the shirt. "But if you cover your Star Wars tee with a Star Wars hoodie you will have EVEN MORE STAR WARS! Dude, think about it. Count it out!"



Buying guide:
Hoodie via Costco Wholesale, kicks by Vans, t-shirts by Old Navy/Gap/Target/mother-in-law, backpack by Pottery Barn Kids, SW-free sweet baby Jesus miracle pants that survived big brother by Gap

Photo credit:
He was nearly frozen for a whole minute because his bro gave him a mostly dead cricket.

Hip Hop Hooray

Naughty By Nature was on right before going into Target. As we made our way through a very long list, Callum serenaded the adults with, "HEY, HO! HEY, HO! HEY, HO! HEY, HO!"

He is so mine.

So You Want to Be a Snowman?

I had started making a Vader costume because we were many months deep into I won't leave the house without Darth on my body.

But no, he had his heart very much set on something else.



I do love a man in tights.

Callum's Evolution of Music

It started with "What Does the Fox Say?" He wore his Ewok fox costume every day for like six months straight until it got too hot and I had to pull rank. Then we took it to chilly California this summer and wore the shit out of it some more.



Next came Katy Perry's "Roar" on a loop from late 2013 through early September 2014. Yes, that was waaaaay too much Katy Perry, even for Olive. It was cold out when Darth Vader and The Imperial March became a parallel obsession, which began the "If I can't wear my fox costume then I must wear Star Wars clothing six days a week" phase. For some unknown reason, there's also some serious Pavolv's Dogs shit going on: any time Callum hears the word "hat" he still busts out singing The Imperial March. NO CLUE.

Now it's "All About That Base."

I See Four Year Olds

Second year of band, October 2014


Second year of preschool, October 2007


I have a smilier one, but the sax player/ninja's face is blocked by nose picking.

Callum on Cleaning Up

Momma singing: "Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere..."
Callum singing: "No no, no no, no no no no no no no..."

A favorite oldie I keep forgetting to write down, luckily there was yet another encore presentation this weekend.

Labor Day Memories

Callum getting really, truly, hopelessly stuck in an empty tomato cage, and not for the first time this summer.

At least it appears she's given up on my debit card. For now.

Tap tap tap tap! Tap tap tap tap! Tap tap tap tap!

Grandpa: What are you doing with your mom's iPad? Are you supposed to have that?
Olive: It's okay, I'm just trying to figure out her password.
Grandpa: Give me that!
Olive: No thank you, I can do it by myself.

My Very Own Four Year Old Art Critic

I am drawing a rainbow with all 3 available colors of sidewalk chalk: red, yellow, and green. I am Blend Master.
"Um, Mom?"
"Yeah?"
"You forgot indigo and violet."

1-2-3 Not It

I love the way she always holds her own, and fits right in with the boys.

They don't know her, and yet they never question her presence, or give her a hard time, because she is...

Olive.

Go Ahead and Stroke My Ego

Presenting us with charts of developmental milestones for 3, 4, and 5 year olds, Olive's teachers place her solidly into the 5 year old category page after page. She is only 4 years and 22 days old.

"Honestly, both her peers and the preschool curriculum are really holding her back. She is one smart little cookie!"

(Again, NAEYC accredited school, not someone's grandma running daycare out of her living room blowing smoke up our asses.)

Which is good, because we can continue to devote all of our energy to her...ahem...behavior at home. At school she is a perfect little angel.

Comedienne

Teacher: Olive told us a wonderful joke over lunch.
Me: She did?

Of course the punch line involves urine.

Olive, 3, and the Overturn of Prop 8

"Boys can marry boys, but you can't marry chocolate cake. Or noodles."

Thank you, Betty Bunny.

Lessons in Olive

At Olive's glowing parent teacher conference last week we were told, "She can read," and we were all, "Yeah, she has a lot of sight words," and they were like, "That's not what we mean." Apparently she has also already reached many end-of-the-year goals for the pre-kindergarten program she will attend next school year. (They are NAEYC accredited.) This, they emphasized, is especially mind-blowing since she only goes two mornings a week and has missed more than two months of school due to illness and her mother being a mysophobe. They asked us for goals, and we were like, "Can you make her scream at us less? Be a little more reasonable about, say, everything?" And, of course, they were like, "Whaaa? She's a delight! We've never seen her cry! Or have a tantrum!" She also doesn't swear, or yell "Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining!" Oh, I see, she's not comfortable there yet. No problem, we'll stick our apologies back into our pockets and save them for next time.


Tonight Jason pulled out a book she'd never seen before, buried deep from her brother's learning to read days. She read the first 4-word sentence with 100% accuracy, and then the 5-word sentence that followed, and so on, until she realized Jason and I were making holy shitballs our 3 year old can read faces at each other.

She immediately threw the book aside and bellowed, "I don't know how to read!"

It sure was fun while it lasted.