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Ana the other day was playing with a roll of sequined ribbon. (Ribbony sequins? Whatever.) It got tangled up, and she couldn't fix it, so in the true spirit of pragmatism she decided to hang it from the central hammock hook as a trap. For Justin Beaver. She's not sure who he is, but she's certain that he's got teeth. Cuz, you know... he's a beaver.
The nieces have learned two new poems lately. Ana learned "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening", because it was snowy and I didn't have to look it up. I wasn't going to teach one to Evangeline, but she insisted, so she learned Hope is the Thing with Feathers, because it's short and I was able to quickly memorize it myself.
When I started teaching Ana her poem of the moment, she went "I don't WANT to learn any more poems, I HATE it." I have no idea why she got that case of the grumpies right then, but I told her we don't memorize things because it's fun, we do it to exercise our brains in the same way that we don't eat carrots because they're yummy, we do it because they're healthy. It's great if we think it IS fun and that they ARE yummy, but that's not the point. And also, she never ever ever had to recite a poem to anybody ever if she didn't want to.
Surprisingly, this argument - and I thought it was a little bad myself - worked. That really *was* surprising. Ana is a wonderful child, but she can hold real grudges and keep bad moods for a very long time. Famously, she once held a grudge against another person for an entire *year*. She was three when it started. In kindergarten she had a friend Jessica. Halfway through the year they stopped talking, and they didn't start up again until a month ago. I finally found out why - apparently, they had argued over whether "momm" was read "mom" or "mommy". When Ana told me this my jaw literally dropped and I said, without considering my words, that that was actually the one of the stupidest things I'd ever heard. And they'd been good friends until that point! I would not have said it if I hadn't been so taken aback by this story, but Ana agreed with me. It took her a few more weeks to so much as say "hi" to the girl anyway.
So for Ana to drop her argument on a specious argument like "Yeah, well, whatever, it's good for you" was nothing short of miraculous. She really is going to grow up to be a lawyer one day... if she can get over her stubborn belief that becoming a lawyer would be proving me right. She only has another decade and a half of school to decide. It might not be enough time!
So anyway, that's Ana. Her sister was immensely annoyed that she didn't have her own special poem to work on, and after she butted in one too many times (shown up by your younger sister! The horror!) I gave her her own, as I said. I should've picked another one, in retrospect. Evangeline, I'm coming to realize, can be an astonishingly literal child. Her very first line she stopped and said "Hope is a bird. It's just a bird!" At the end of the poem she said "And it doesn't ask a crumb? Well, you don't give it crumbs, you give it lots of bread. So it isn't hungry!"
This, of course, is nothing. Ana had a heavy bookbag on the other day, and she actually almost fell because of it. (Whoops.) She got up laughing and said "The bag made me fall!" to which her sister replied, deeply concerned at this irrational statement... "No, Ana. The bag didn't make you fall. It's just the weight. The books in the bag are heavy."
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. (And Evangeline, before you ask - not literally an iceberg. No, there aren't any icebergs in NYC, you're right. I mean that this is just a small example of the many conversations in this vein we've had recently.)
The nieces have learned two new poems lately. Ana learned "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening", because it was snowy and I didn't have to look it up. I wasn't going to teach one to Evangeline, but she insisted, so she learned Hope is the Thing with Feathers, because it's short and I was able to quickly memorize it myself.
When I started teaching Ana her poem of the moment, she went "I don't WANT to learn any more poems, I HATE it." I have no idea why she got that case of the grumpies right then, but I told her we don't memorize things because it's fun, we do it to exercise our brains in the same way that we don't eat carrots because they're yummy, we do it because they're healthy. It's great if we think it IS fun and that they ARE yummy, but that's not the point. And also, she never ever ever had to recite a poem to anybody ever if she didn't want to.
Surprisingly, this argument - and I thought it was a little bad myself - worked. That really *was* surprising. Ana is a wonderful child, but she can hold real grudges and keep bad moods for a very long time. Famously, she once held a grudge against another person for an entire *year*. She was three when it started. In kindergarten she had a friend Jessica. Halfway through the year they stopped talking, and they didn't start up again until a month ago. I finally found out why - apparently, they had argued over whether "momm" was read "mom" or "mommy". When Ana told me this my jaw literally dropped and I said, without considering my words, that that was actually the one of the stupidest things I'd ever heard. And they'd been good friends until that point! I would not have said it if I hadn't been so taken aback by this story, but Ana agreed with me. It took her a few more weeks to so much as say "hi" to the girl anyway.
So for Ana to drop her argument on a specious argument like "Yeah, well, whatever, it's good for you" was nothing short of miraculous. She really is going to grow up to be a lawyer one day... if she can get over her stubborn belief that becoming a lawyer would be proving me right. She only has another decade and a half of school to decide. It might not be enough time!
So anyway, that's Ana. Her sister was immensely annoyed that she didn't have her own special poem to work on, and after she butted in one too many times (shown up by your younger sister! The horror!) I gave her her own, as I said. I should've picked another one, in retrospect. Evangeline, I'm coming to realize, can be an astonishingly literal child. Her very first line she stopped and said "Hope is a bird. It's just a bird!" At the end of the poem she said "And it doesn't ask a crumb? Well, you don't give it crumbs, you give it lots of bread. So it isn't hungry!"
This, of course, is nothing. Ana had a heavy bookbag on the other day, and she actually almost fell because of it. (Whoops.) She got up laughing and said "The bag made me fall!" to which her sister replied, deeply concerned at this irrational statement... "No, Ana. The bag didn't make you fall. It's just the weight. The books in the bag are heavy."
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. (And Evangeline, before you ask - not literally an iceberg. No, there aren't any icebergs in NYC, you're right. I mean that this is just a small example of the many conversations in this vein we've had recently.)
