Cinema Francais

In 8th grade all of the middle school students in our town construct a building for a French or Spanish or Chinese village, depending on what language they're taking. They draw the building assignment randomly and it is with great seriousness and excitement that the assignments are made and buildings constructed. The towns sit proudly on display in our library for several weeks afterwards.

Sam came home with the assignment to build a French cinema. He knew right away he wanted it to be a corner building with little movie posters and iron balconies. I think it's pretty wonderful. I'd love to live in the top story.

Being the third child does have its advantages! By now we have learned all the little lessons about early planning and lightweight materials and adhesives. Most of all, we know that this is a BIG deal at the school--every year there's a poor kid who, unaware,  builds a lego building and calls it good.  Turns out the bar at our little over-achieving school is a little higher than that.

Lucky for me, G is the chief assistant on these projects and I think Lauren, Maddy and Sam will each have fond memories of the month of evenings spent together with him transforming their visions to reality.  I am so glad this is G's specialty. Give me the task of daily homework oversight and I'll gladly hand big, hives-inducing projects to patient, tool-savvy G.

Speaking of cinema and France, have you seen Hugo yet? We loved it. And Sam was happy to think of his cinema fitting right in.  I just want to know if his cinema serves chocolat viennois because that would make it just about perfect.

. . .

p.s. If you want to take a peek at what G and I will be talking about in one or two decades, here's your glimpse. No kidding.

Kidding myself: An awkward age

This weekend I had the delicious opportunity to hold some babies.  Is there a more lovely feeling than the warm trusting weight of a 3-month-old wee one, curled in toward your neck and sleeping on your shoulder? It blisses me out. Sigh.

Not once but twice (twice!) the following conversation happened with two different people:

Young, mid-20-something mom walks by and notices me holding baby: "Aww. Look at you! Practicing to be a grandma?"

Me: ...

Okay, so let me just say up front that I am absolutely looking forward to being a grandma. Someday. I think it will rank right up there with the most fantastic and wonderful of gigs--in the dim, rather distant future.  But just because I have an 18-year-old daughter doesn't mean I'm actively practicing to be a grandma or that it's even on my radar screen. (Hear that, Lauren*?)

On the other hand, I am newly 42 which is very much an awkward, generationally ambidextrous age. I get it. Some 42-year-olds are grandmas, after all. Biologically it's possible. Others (including several of my friends) are still having babies themselves. 

It wasn't out of line to say. They were being friendly. It just surprised me! Aren't I just a little past mid-20-something myself? 

No, for me it was an abrupt paradigm shifting moment, like those optical illusions where some people see the young lovely woman and others see the old hag**. Our ward, for example, is pretty brim full of young moms and pretty scarce on the ones at my stage. Suddenly, I realized how they must see me! I think of myself as their peer but they must think of me pretty much as their mothers' peer! OY. 

. . .

*of course, the irony here is that I made my own lovely, young mother into a grandmother when she was just shy of 48. So I'm one to a talk, huh?

**I'm definitely not implying that grandmothers look like old hags. Just using it as a vivid demonstration of the shift I experienced...

Madeleine, 16

Sixteen things about Maddy in honor of her 16th birthday:

When she was little she didn't really speak until she could do whole sentences. Until then, Lauren did the talking for her or she mmmm'ed. (Example. I'd ask: "Maddy, do you want to sit here or over there?" She would mmmm back the answer: mmm  mmm  mmmm [three syllables=over there].)  She had everyone worried: the pediatrician, the early intervention folks, the speech therapist. And then the word dam burst and she regaled us non-stop. When she was good and ready.

Instead of "yes," when she was very young she said "aye" like a Scottish lass.

She had an important imaginary friend named Wendy.

When she was three, she was obsessed with the Wizard of Oz and Charlotte's Web.

She desperately wanted Sam's name to be Wilbur.

The day after Sam came home from the hospital, she brought me her binkies and diapers and said "I'm a big girl now. I don't need these." Just like that.

When she was about 7, she was obsessed with the Underground Railroad and Harriet Tubman. She wanted to have an Underground Railroad birthday party. With her encouragement (insistence) we visited the Harriet Tubman homestead as part of our family vacation.

When she was about 10, she was obsessed with World War II and the holocaust. Sometimes I had to do some explaining after playdates when the friend would excitedly tell her parent at pickup time, "We played Holocaust!"

She's a picky eater. Most of her daily intake rotates with a food cast of bananas, potatoes, toast, caesar salad, carrots, cucumbers, pasta, butter, bacon, oatmeal, and cereal. I rejoice when she admits a new food choice to her reportoire, especially if it is colorful. (For her birthday dinner this year, she requested salad, twice-baked potatoes, and rolls. And a lemon meringue pie.)

She has a tender heart and loves a good cry. Whether she's talking about her school reading assignment in  Romeo and Juliet or watching a movie with any emotional element, the tears flow. (I think she finds it cathartic, which I totally understand. Let's just say she comes by it honestly.)

She has a long fuse but you know for certain when she's reached the end of it.

She's very observant and will always be the first to notice a new haircut, a tear-blotched face, or the fact you've had several doctors appointments lately.

She knows what she wants and goes after it with gusto and good, hard, incremental effort.

She hides struggles, hurts, disappointments and insecurities with a deceptive cheerfulness.

She has high hopes and aims accordingly, even if those high hopes every once in a while lead to disappointment (see above).

She has a pied piper quality and has friends of all types and ages. She's just honestly delighted by connecting with people, especially kids. One of my friends recently mentioned that when her young daughters play make-believe they take turns with their favorite roles: one pretends to be a princess and the other pretends to be Maddy. :)

Here's to our Maddy girl and a great year ahead. We're so lucky to have her in our family.

Elevenses

11.11.11 at 11:11

I think I established my date/number geekinees a few years ago.  Suffice it to say my number geekiness and love of symmetry is having a field day today (and it looks like I'm not the only one). Thank goodness I have some good sports here who are willing to humor me.  I think they're just counting their lucky stars that I don't get out my blue paint and paintbrush.

In honor of this most auspicious (and random) of days, I give you a list of 11 (auspicious, random, terrific) things I've starred in my reader lately because I loved them. Maybe you will, too:

1.   Conversation starters for married people's date night (The Chattering Crow)
2.   A murmuration of starlings (amazing video via Design Mom)
3.   Dad turns seventy (great, easy idea for honoring someone's milestone birthday via Inchmark)
4.   What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while (Happiness Project)
5.   Do you worry too much? (A Cup of Jo)
6.   Babies in the air (Flickr blog)
7.   We have a strategic plan (Swissmiss)
8.   Creating a stuffed animal from your child's drawing (Stephmodo)
9.   Maple Bars (Our Best Bites)
10. Every Little Speck (About a Girl)
11. Motherhood Bipolar Disorder (My Angle of Repose)

 

Miss Maddy is turning 16 on Sunday so we'll be celebrating her wonderful Maddyness this weekend.

I hope you have a lovely, random, + auspicious weekend

Time Travel Music

Tomorrow Maddy and I are going to the Boston Ballet's production of Prokoviev's Romeo & Juliet. Years ago (um...23 years? can that be right?) I was a sophomore at one universaity and G was a student at another university several hours away. We weren't the Montagues and Capulets but we were in the very beginnings of liking each other very very much, torn apart by miles and college mascots and student poverty.

(This is not us^)

Well. My mom also really liked G and took pity on our separated plight. She bought the family tickets to Romeo & Juliet, offered one to me and one to G, and we all met in the middle in Salt Lake City. I gussied myself up for an evening at the ballet in a black velvet skirt borrowed from my roommate and a high collared blouse (paging Laura Ashley...); G suited up and looked especially dashing. We were unabashedly thrilled to see each other, G and I, grinning and blushing and sending off all sorts of young love vibes, I'm sure.

Can music break your heart wide open? I think yes. Hat tip to Prokoviev. I can't listen to that music without time traveling to that perfect night.

. . .

Which made me think. What other songs take me directly to certain moments in my life? What songs would have to be on my life's soundtrack? Here are a few I came up with, listed chronologically. Keep in mind I didn't really have control over which songs would become important; some of them are pretty silly. The song chooses us, not the other way around! (Here's a link to the playlist if you happen to want to listen to any of these.)

1. Help (The Beatles): I vividly remember dancing in front of our sofa to this song, kicking up my legs with every "Help!" 
2. Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue (Crystal Gayle): This was on the radio when I went with my dad to pick up our babysitter and I suddenly realized it wasn't "doughnuts make my brown eyes blue."
3. Annie's Song (John Denver): I thought this was for me. True.
4. Copacabana (Barry Manilow): My friend Teri, my brother Matt and I would put together whole lip-synched, choreographed programs. Copacabana was featured often. I was a showgirl.
5. Adagio for Strings (Barber): This was the first classical piece I remember being floored by. My parents told me it was played at JFK's funeral and I played it over and over on our turntable. I liked how sad it made me feel. Sometimes I could even muster tears.
6. We Make a Beautiful Pair (Shenandoah): My mom played the harp in the HS musical productions and this was one of my favorites. We had the sheet music and Matt and I would sing it together. Years later I sang it with my mom and sister Nancy at my wedding brunch.
7. Don't You Want Me (The Human League): One summer my cousin Isaac and I sang this as a duet over and over. It reminds me of swimming pools and hot un-airconditioned cars and singing my heart out.
8. The Gap (Thompson Twins): I went to a girl's camp called Academy for Girls (kind of an EFY but just for girls). Our group did a dance to this song for the talent show.
9. Almost Paradise (Mike Reno/Ann Wilson): My mom would tell you I played this NONSTOP on a family trip to Mexico. She would be right. I was really in love with love.
10. Rhapsody on a Theme from Paganini (Rachmaninoff): The neighbor boy would play this at the end of his piano practicing, his signal that I should come over. Me and Pavlov's dogs, so easily trained and conditioned. 
11. O! Mio Babbino Caro from Gianni Schicchi (Puccini): My first date with G was after this opera; I was an usher and he played the bass in the orchestra. It was dreamy.
12. Romeo bids Juliet Farewell (Prokofiev): See above.
13. The Promise (When in Rome): To counterbalance all the gushing, I'll confess that this was playing on the stereo in the car during one of our worst dates ever. I was irritated, he was clueless and bewildered why I was irritated. We survived.
14. Bullet the Blue Sky (U2): I ran to this song every single day in London for six months. Whenever I hear "pelting the women and children" I can smell car exhaust and feel like running really hard around a park.
15. Could I Have This Dance (Anne Murray): The awesome and quirky big band at our wedding reception played this for our first dance. So kitchy, so corny. We laughed and went with it.

Okay, that's enough for now.

So, friends. What about you? What music makes you time travel to a specific moment, a certain memory?

. . .

Today I'm grateful for blue skies, pears on the early side of ripe, putting things in perspective, and this song (from the classic An Affair to Remember) that my mom always sang us as a lullaby