Crocs and Socks, Ella Style

I ran 11.5 miles today.  I wouldn't say it was by choice -- it's a necessary evil to running a half marathon.  Sign up for one, gotta train for it.  Look for a blog post on that topic -- the actual race -- in a couple of weeks.

Anyway, I had maybe taken 11 steps into the house after I finished running when I was bombarded with questions.

"Mommy, can I have a treat?"

"Mommy, can I watch an episode?"

"Mommy, can we go for a walk?"

I was able to fend off the first two with an "I just walked in the door... I just walked in the door... NO."  It was that last one that got me.  I had promised Ella a walk last weekend and failed to deliver; so we ended that week with me apologizing and telling her that I now owe her two walks to be used whenever she wanted (with some judgment).

I was hurting but not more than I knew than I would be later, so I told Ella to get her shoes on and that we'd go now.  The words had barely left my mouth when I saw she had her new, sparkly shoes on (no socks, of course -- at this point, I didn't care).

My shoes and socks were feeling pretty uncomfortable on my feet at this point, so I asked Ella to go upstairs and get me my Crocs and a pair of socks for our walk.  For whatever reason, there was no discussion about where she'd find my Crocs -- I was certain they were beside my bed and that she couldn't miss them.  I tried a similar tactic with a pair of socks.

"My socks are in the top, left drawer of my dresser," I started.  Ella kind of knows right from left, at least when I instruct her to turn.  I clarified, "it's the top drawer closest to the window."  Yeah, that should do it.

"So Daddy's dresser is..." she started, and I cut her off with, "Daddy's dresser is the tall one; mine is the short one.  Just grab a pair of socks from the top drawer closest to the window."  I didn't care which pair -- in this drawer, they are all athletic socks.

Crocs and black socks in action

Off she went.  She returned a couple of minutes later with my Crocs and, yes, a pair of socks from the middle drawer, not closest to the window.  "Here, Mommy," she said, handing me my Crocs and a black, argyle pair of dress socks.  Then she added, "I didn't grab the fluffy ones, just these."  She was so proud of herself, certain she had delivered per my request.

"Thank you, Ellie," I told her and put them on my feet.  I looked like my dad, maybe worse.  A real fashion conspiracy when combined with my teal running shorts.  It would be a short walk around the neighborhood, so wearing this get-up was a small price to pay for an altogether happy Ella.

Ella's and My Harvest

The joy of gardening is completely lost on Cal -- he has zero interest in caring for plants and flowers in our yard and zero patience to watch them grow over time.  Sure, he talks a good game, wanting to plant the few seeds from his apple and grow a tree in our backyard; but one day after planting the seed in my brain to actually attempt this, he's no longer interested.  Meanwhile, I have 8 seeds drying in a wadded up paper towel and shoved into a shot glass waiting for me to mix them in some peat moss, put them in a ziplock bag and shove them in the back of the pantry for six weeks... at least, that's what I think I read as the next step.  I'll have to check because while Cal has lost interest in the project, I have not.

But Ella... Ella loves to garden... or maybe loves to help me garden... or maybe a little of both, I'm not sure, and, really, I don't care.  Whatever it is that gets her out there with me, I'll take and hope it sticks when she's on her own and I'm no longer there.  I think gardening is fantastic.

This past Sunday, it was a beautiful, sunny, slightly chilly afternoon.  I made my way to the cherry tomato plants still growing in the garden beds on the side of our deck.  These things are monsters and have been producing cherry tomatoes for many weeks now.  I had just started picking the red and orange ones when Ella joined me asking if she could help.  I hadn't really planned on picking, so I didn't have a bowl with me and asked her to run inside and ask Daddy for a bowl.  She did so and quickly returned with a good-sized one.  I threw the handfuls that I had already picked into the bowl and instructed her to look for red and orange -- not green -- tomatoes to pick and to go ahead and pick them.  We did.  Ella talked the entire time, of course; and as usual, I really don't remember what it was she said.  I just remember genuinely enjoying the time -- she listened really well to my instructions, and I just let her judge for herself if a tomato was ready to be picked.

We filled the bowl and didn't see any more red or orange tomatoes on the plants, so we moved to the "other" garden where I knew we had some kale to pick.  I grabbed a bag and some scissors, and we headed to the back corner of our yard.  The kale looked great; and next to it I saw the leaves of the carrots that Ella had seeded at school earlier in the summer.

"Ella, your carrots!!!  Let's pick your carrots!!!" I exclaimed, genuinely excited about the opportunity in front of us.  She was all in, of course.  Now, I've never grown carrots and know that that part of our yard still has a lot of clay despite it being my garden area for a few years now.  I figured these things were either completely shrivelled or just locked into the ground, never to emerge... never.  I gave the leaves a little tug; and when they didn't budge, I decided to run to the garage to get a shovel.

This turned out to be a good call.  With one scoop, I was able to dig up Ella's carrots -- a whole bunch of them -- which were small but still in tact and, from what I could tell, edible.

"Ellie!" I shouted.  "You grew these!  These are fantastic!"

She was smiling and talking (of course, I'm sure something about the carrots, but you never know).  I asked her if she wanted to carry them inside to show Daddy; and she asked me to carry the bunch still attached to the leaves and she'd carry the others that had fallen off.  So we shook the dirt off of the carrots we were each carrying and went inside to show Dan.  We were both smiling.  While inside, we threw them in a bowl; and then we returned to finish up our gardening "chores."

So I'm not sure the right way to get the kale leaves off of the plant, but my way is to cut the leaves off with scissors.  When Ella realized that I had scissors and she didn't, she ran inside to get her green, plastic, safe-for-kids scissors -- so sweet... she was being just like Mommy.

There were two rows of kale in a really tight garden bed, so I assigned us each a row -- she'd cut the leaves off of her row of kale, and I'd do the same with mine.  I showed her where to cut each leaf (as if I really knew) and instructed her to not cut the yellowed or "holey" leaves.  "They're icky," I said.  And away we went with our cutting.

Ella and our tomatoes, kale and carrots

So Ella is a rule stater -- once she hears one, it's stuck in her head and coming out her mouth as if she is the master of whatever it is that she's talking about.  Once she heard the rules for cutting these kale leaves off of the plants, she was tell me how to do it.  "Don't cut the yellow ones, Mommy" and "That one's icky so don't cut that one, Mommy."  Of course I pretended that I didn't know those rules, asked her for clarification (as in, "you mean don't cut THIS one?" as I held up the deadest leaf imaginable).

We were a great kale-cutting team and cut until our reusable shopping bag was full of kale leaves.  There were still some good leaves left on the kale plants, but the full bag seemed like enough for me to call it quits for the day.  We walked the bag back to the house where we showed Daddy and then laid our pickin's out on the table on the deck to take a picture of what I'd like to call our accomplishments.  These were all started from seeds mid-spring -- I enjoyed watching them grow and produce edible veggies and enjoyed even more that I could share it with my daughter.

Whatevs

I fell asleep on the couch this past Friday night.  I got through enough of Bill Maher that I remember the special guest coming out, not that I remember who it was.  This was maybe around 9:30pm, give or take a few minutes.

I woke up at around midnight (12:03am, to be exact).  The TV was still on, and I remember changing the channel to ESPN -- I wanted to see who had won the Royals-Blue Jays AL championship game 2, not that I really care much about that series other than finding myself quietly rooting for the Blue Jays because Cal likes them.  This post-season, I am a Cubs fan.  Yep, I said it -- I'm rooting for the Cubs.  That feels a little weird. Anyway, I figure I was awake for 33 seconds before I was asleep again.  I never did find out who won, at least, not until Saturday.

The next thing I knew, it was after 3am.  I popped up off the couch, immediately turned off the TV, grabbed a glass of water and headed upstairs.  When I got to my room, Dan was out cold and snoring, and a little person was lying in my spot next to him.  It was Ella.  For a moment, I considered moving her back to her bed, except that she had her arm curled around Zoe, our cat, who was snuggled up tightly along the line of Ella's armpit.  I didn't have the heart to break up this adorable couple, so I quickly decided I'd continue my sleep in Ella's bed.

So, Ella is really good at getting up and getting herself dressed in the morning.  She generally does so very quickly and without much, if any, noise.  She pops out of bed in her jammies and emerges from her room fully dressed (well, minus the socks that we struggle to get her to wear) in no time at all.  And since we've added a low-hanging pole to her closet to hold her dresses, we haven't needed to help her at all -- she does it all herself.

That I was half asleep in her bed when she came into her room first thing (i.e. before 7am) Saturday put me in a prime position to witness Ella get dressed in the morning.  I don't know why for sure, but Ella didn't acknowledge my presence in her bed when she came in to get dressed for the day, nor did she do so at any point before she left her room fully dressed.  She came in, went right to work and left without saying a word to me.

And here's what I witnessed:  Ella took her nightgown off first, and then her undies. She was mumbling something, I don't think I ever knew what.  Still mumbling, she threw both in the hamper in the corner by her dresser and proceeded to grab a pair of clean undies from her underwear drawer.  When she slammed that drawer shut, her Chris Sale stretchy guy (the giveaway for that White Sox game we went to at the end of the regular season), which was propped up against something because stretchy guys don't stand on their own, fell on her dresser.  Ella, still mumbling, noticed this, stopped for a moment and said aloud, "Whatevs," and then picked up where she left off with mumbling and continued to go about her business of getting dressed for the day.

I found this to be so amusing.  "Whatevs."  What 4-year-old kid says that, matter of factly, alone in her room when something tumbles on her dresser with the closing of a dresser drawer?  "Whatevs!"  Clearly, Ella does.

My Hurt Heart

We had an unplanned play date at our house for a good chunk of the afternoon today. A couple of Dan's co-workers came to our house to make a Plinko board for an upcoming golf-themed function at work (they did a great job - it looks good!), and one of them brought her two daughters (4-1/2 and 3 years old).

This was the first time the Leatherkids had met these new friends, and they got along really well right from the start.  There was no activity not done by this crew -- they played on the playset in our backyard, they dressed up in princess gowns (well, except for Cal), they rode bikes and scooters outside, they ate yogurt and grapes, they made tents with every blanket imaginable and they colored mermaid fins and tops and pinned them to their clothes (again, except for Cal).

I think it was when they were making tents that there were instances of laughter turning into tears... familiar tears... Ella's tears.  And each time, I learned from Ella that Cal was somehow behind hurting her.  The little scratch on her finger -- yep, he did it.  Her "red legs" -- yep, Cal did it.  Her sore mouth (when clarified, actually inside her mouth) -- Cal did it.

It's a fine line that we walk when dealing with this -- we don't want to encourage tattle-telling and we don't want Ella to be a pansy; yet we don't want Cal to beat his sister up. I heard the sounds of the kids playing this afternoon -- it wasn't tea-with-stuffed-animals play, it was pretty active.  It wasn't necessarily surprising that someone got kicked or bumped unexpectedly.  I didn't doubt Cal wasn't careful with his sister, so one time when Ella came down to tell on him, I called him down, too.  Instead of telling both of them to just keep their feet and hands to themselves as I had done the previous times, this time I just wanted to ask him his side of the story.

I forget which incident this was, if it was after he supposedly kicked her or after he supposedly pushed her down.  What I do recall is his reaction to my asking him about it. The kid is super-sensitive and doesn't like to disappoint us.  I had barely started my sentence (I was using the "tell-me-what-happened" angle) and he was already denying Ella's version of the story.  He told me, frustrated, that they had tried to block him from getting into her room.  He was clearly upset, crying; and he told me, "I hate you."

This wasn't the first time I've had to hear those words directed at me.  My first response was, "Cal, don't say that, I know you don't mean it."  When he said it again, I used a tactic that a friend of mine at work told me that he and his wife have used on their kids when they've said this and that I have used with Ella a handful of times.

"Cal, that hurts me.  That hurts me right here," I said sadly and very seriously, and I pointed to his heart.  I continued, "when you say that, it hurts me in my heart," and I pointed at my own heart.  I probably said this a couple more times, pointing at our hearts each time; and then I turned to the girls to tell them that they needed to let Cal play with them, that there should be no blocking of the door.  I reminded Ella how she felt when Cal and his friend did the same thing to her the previous week (which, when I said it, I didn't know that that it was necessarily true -- I think the boys were actually great with her!)

A few minutes later, Cal was still sitting next to me.  The girls had just decided to head back upstairs to continue playing and building their tent.  I asked Cal if he wanted to go upstairs with them and play, and he told me, "in a little bit."

He then turned to me, gave me a hug and said, "I love you, Mommy." And then he asked in his sweetest voice, "Did that put your heart back together?  When I said I love you?"

"It did, Cal.  My heart feels better." I told him, smiling inside that my kid had actually heard and understood me and that this tactic had actually worked.  And my heart actually did feel better.

Red-Tinged Autumn Leaf

I went for a walk around the block tonight, completely unplanned.  It was just after 8pm. The Leatherkids and Leatherdaddy (who's been battling a nasty cold for awhile now) were already in bed, and I had just taken the garbage out.  The pavement was still damp from the brief, gentle rain that had fallen shortly before.  The sky was dark yet many of its clouds still visible.  I don't remember if I heard crickets or not -- seems like I did, but that could just be because I always expect to hear them at night.  It was still fairly warm, probably in the high 60's at the time.  I marvelled in how peaceful it was, smiled and just started walking.  Without giving it much thought, it just seemed like the perfect thing to do at the time.

I didn't do anything special on my walk -- did a little thinking, took some deep breaths and just enjoyed the peacefulness of the autumn night.  I walked down our block, turned the corner and then turned onto the next block and kept walking, having naturally fallen into a (non-)plan to just walk around the block.  About halfway down that street, I glanced at a tree on my left and noticed one of its leaves was tinged with red around the outside of it.  I'm sure the contrast against the green was a big factor, but I found the red color to be so striking and beautiful that I couldn't help but smile looking at it.

Carrie Newcomer, a folk singer whose music I really enjoy, sings a song called "I Believe." I think the song is fantastic -- very poetic and simple, acknowledging that we are not without our faults and recognizing the little, difference-making things that happen so naturally and effortlessly, things that just are.

I believe there are some debts that we can never repay... I believe there are some words that you can never unsay... and I don't know a single soul who didn't get lost along the way...

That's how it starts.  And somewhere in between is this chorus:

I believe there's healing in the sound of your voice... and that a summer tomato is a cause to rejoice... and that following a song was never a choice... never really...

My Autumn Leaf

And this is how I get back to the leaf -- instead of a summer tomato, I think she could have sung about this perfect, red-tinged autumn leaf that, without the red, would have gone unnoticed and just blended in with all of the other leaves.

I picked the leaf off of the tree and continued my walk, smiling and singing these lyrics in my head, so grateful that the night had invited me for a walk.

Ella's Selfies

So we went to the White Sox game this past Saturday, Dan, Grandpa, Cal, Ella and I.  It was a cold one -- I think it dipped below 50 degrees, which didn't factor in the windchill. This might deter the occasional Sox-game attendee from going to the game, but not these occasional Sox-game attendees.  No way.  Afterall, we have a son crazy interested in MLB baseball right now, and it was Chris Sale Stretchy-Guy Day -- we had to go.

While we were there, Ella took some selfies; and that's the point of this post -- I just wanted to share Ella's selfies.  She's not a fan of baseball just yet, but the selfy?  She loves it.  And I love it because it keeps her entertained for a decent chunk of time better than anything else does.  Here are a few gems, all actually taken by Ella:

Ella's first selfie -- it was a good one... I only helped frame us

Ella took control

Not sure what's going on with her face here!

"Make a face, Mommy!"

Her expression cracks me up!

Here comes the tongue! 

Look at me sneaking back in!

"Do this with your tongue, Mommy!"

How fun is that?  Very.  And we made it through 7 innings (after having gotten there an hour and a half before gametime), and the White Sox won.

Good times.  Good times, indeed.

(No) Thanks, Costco Guy

To the guy at the exit of Costco checking cart contents against receipts before letting people -- me and my kids included -- leave the building thanks, but no thanks on the drawing of the smiling flower and the stick figure holding it on the back of my receipt. Did you not see my kids not paying attention to you and kicking each other instead?  A simple, quick swipe of your orange highlighter down the front of my receipt would have sufficed and gotten me and my nutcase kids out the door and heading to my car so much faster.  I needed to be at my car -- couldn't you sense that through my fake smile and my eyes burning a hole in that receipt as you drew that picture that my kids never saw?

It was already annoying enough that I had to stop for you to glance at the contents of my full cart and confirm that I had paid for each and every thing in that cart.  By the way, did you see the 6-pack of socks between the frozen Tilapia and box of Go-Gurts?  Yes, I paid for those, too.

To be fair, you were just doing your job.  To be fair, you didn't know what I had been through for the past hour leading up to our encounter, if you even noticed me.  I saw that as you drew that smiling flower and stick figure holding it on the back of my receipt you were talking with someone else.  I guess you didn't see my kids ignoring you and kicking each other.

My hour in your store wasn't as pleasant as you may have expected.  It started with my daughter announcing that she had to go potty the second we stepped into your store. This required that we navigate the cart through a sea of people and down a completely inconvenient path.  And by "we," I mean my son, ineptly pushing my daughter in your monster-sized cart with me nervously walking alongside it, correcting the path of the cart anytime I saw it headed toward an unsuspecting victim of my son's lack of control.

Our time in your bathroom was no picnic, either.  My daughter and I shared a stall (anytime she uses the bathroom, I do, too, for efficiency purposes), and this necessitated that I repeatedly insist, "don't open the door until I'm done," because, well, she would open the stall door with me, bare-bunned, plopped on the toilet.  Meanwhile, my son was crawling on your bathroom floor, peeking under the stall.  I was just grateful that it was my stall, forget that he was crawling on the nasty floor of a public bathroom... not that it was really "nasty" (thank you for that).

I have mixed feelings about the samples you offer throughout your store.  On the one hand, it's a distraction for the kids, something to entertain them for a short while.  On the other hand, it solicits insensitive responses like, "THAT'S DISGUSTING" or invites uncouthe behavior like coughing on the samples or touching one and then grabbing another.  One of your sample people scolded my son for this, "You touch it, you take it," she said.  It went in one ear and out the other... but I heard it.

At least this time my kids didn't run down the aisle and away from me entirely.  They were always in my line of sight.  So I had that going for me.  Instead, I had to deal with the navigation of that cart the whole damn time I spent in your store.  It didn't help that it was crowded -- good for you.  That just created more obstacles... well, obstacles in my eyes; I don't think my son and daughter actually saw the people in their way.  And, yes, I did say "son and daughter."  If one pushes the cart, the other has to share in the pushing fun, too.  This leads to fights and constant cart misdirection requiring constant redirection at my hand and repeated, "pay attention to what you're doing" from my mouth.

I had to deal with repeated, "can we buy this?" to which i responded coldly, "NO."  And the one time I wanted my daughter to actually cooperate and try on a winter coat for this year, she wouldn't.  She was more interested in that Sophia (non-) book.  It took your associate to encourage her to do so and some miracle to get her to try it on.  At least she picked the color quickly, "Purple."

And the kicking.  The kicking wasn't isolated to our departure.  It happened throughout your store.  Aisle after aisle.  Where did this behavior come from?  They usually use their hands.  I scolded each of them loudly on more than one occasion in a train-wreck kind of way -- you know, you can't help but watch the disaster happening in front of your eyes.  I didn't care.  I noticed no one else was scolding kids.  Just me... lucky me.  I was THAT mom.  I don't even know what I said.  The kids probably didn't even know what I said.

The right thing to do was to leave your store earlier, early in the misbehavior.  But I really needed those groceries and I just don't have the time or energy to leave your store and come back at a later, more appropriate time.  There is no other appropriate time.  I have things to do on my Sunday.  There's laundry and cleaning and a play date; and that just gets us to dinner.

So next time, Costco guy at the door, pay attention to me at the exit door.  My kids clearly don't care about the smiling flower being held by the stick figure, and neither do I. Just give us the straight-line swipe of your orange highlighter on my receipt and let us get out of your store and to our car quickly.  With my two kids in tow, assume I need that more than the cutsie drawing.