Category: Little moments

I was getting dressed for work, and my 5-year-old daughter came to me, holding a drawing. I asked her what it was of, and she said, “It’s me and Obama, takin’ a walk.”

I looked at the drawing, and those curved legs and big smiles and said, “Yes, I can see that now.  Of course.  You and Obama, taking a walk.”

Since the hubs and I have been watching more TV than usual in the last few weeks, I started explaining the election to my daughters.  I’m so glad I have done this because it’s been the source of some funny and memorable moments, not the least of which was the illustration above.

When we first told the girls about the election and informed them that Daddy and Mommy will be voting for Obama, Djuna kept making gagging sounds whenever she would see a McCain sign.  The sounds grew increasingly dramatic as the days passed and included wilder and wilder gesticulation.

So, we had a talk about how people believe different things and just because Mommy and Daddy want Obama to be president, that doesn’t mean that we have to make a big show of distaste when we see a McCain sign.  We talked about how the McCain signs belong to our neighbors and that we need to act neighborly, even if we don’t agree about who should be president.

The true test of this was when a McCain supporter across from my daughters’ school put out awesome Halloween decorations, including a giant purple and black blow up spider.

You could see their 5-year-old brains ticking, sort of like a robot in some sci-fi movie, when their eyes look like typewriter carriages going back and forth, necks ticking, just a little, from left to right as if they were reading something across the front of their robot cerebral cortexes: “This does not compute, this does not compute.  A McCain supporter with cool Halloween decorations.  Does not compute.”

Djuna really struggled with this.  And suddenly, the gagging sounds stopped.  Now, when we pass by that house, we merely comment wistfully on the McCain sign and then spend time really discussing the variety of decorations.

Another morning on the way to school, Dinah kept looking at all the Obama signs and saying that that house must be Kimmie’s house (not her real name).  I asked Dinah why she thought that, and she explained that Kimmie has an Obama sign in front of her house.  Knowing that my daughters have never been to Kimmie’s house, I was really confused.

“Dinah, how do you know that Kimmie’s house has an Obama sign in front of it?”

Dinah responded, “She told us.”

The idea that my daughters are hanging around the playground or maybe in the line for the water fountain, discussing the election with their Kindergarten compadres cracks me up completely.

Like everybody, we love to listen to music in the car. Two of our favorite story CDs are Seal Maiden and Gift of the Tortoise. Both are excellent CDs, very musical, with captivating stories full of powerful images that fire up Dinah’s and Djuna’s imaginations.

We listen to great music, too. We love Dan Zanes’ CD Catch That Train and we also love Jazz for Kids: Sing, Clap, Wiggle and Shake. And if you know anything at all about my husband, you won’t be surprised to hear that he has already started teaching our daughters about the Beatles. It’s obligatory.

The favorite song of the moment then shows up when the girls are swinging at the park. A few weeks ago, Dinah and Djuna were all about Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds — at top volume.

Lately, my husband has been playing the Carpenters in the car. Dinah, especially, is completely enchanted with them and is learning the lyrics to every song.

So now, Dinah’s swinging song of choice is Rainy Days and Mondays. Picture an adorable, blonde 4-year-old girl-child soaring on a swing, feet practically touching the sky, singing Rainy Days and Mondays. Every time she gets to the chorus, “Rainy days and Mondays al-ways get me-e down,” I crack up. It’s so funny to see a sweet, happy child singing about having the blues.

This morning, they were practicing the words to Let Me Be The One. They were having a great time singing LOUD in the car, and then continued singing even after we got out and started walking toward the day camp sign-in.

Djuna’s version of the chorus to Let Me Be The One is “Lemon be the one.”

So that’s what is running through my head this morning as I sit with Dwayne at Zephyr, an awesome local coffee shop: Lemon be the one.

With no warning, I got some bad news a couple of weeks ago. It certainly wasn’t earth-shattering or tragic news, mostly just yukky news that affects your ego. And maybe your stomach. For awhile. That kind of bad news.

I was upset, naturally. I had planned to meet up with a friend in downtown Los Angeles that night for a quick dinner before going to an event for online journalists at the LA Times building. It still sounded like fun even though I was feeling punky, so I went.

Amazingly, I didn’t hit any traffic at all and was driving through Chinatown when I realized that I was pretty early. I’ve always wanted to stroll through Chinatown and have literally never done it in the years that my husband and I have lived in the Los Angeles area.

Magically, a parking spot appeared and I knew the moment was meant to be. I took a couple of photos with my snappy new mobile phone camera and then went shopping.

The first store I went into had an array of the usual stuff you find in American Chinatowns, but I was so thrilled to be there that I perused everything carefully. Suddenly, along one wall, I saw an assortment of carved stone stamps.

When I walked over and looked closer, I saw that they were Chinese characters for people’s names and for special words. I started looking for my name but gave up because there were so many and they were arranged in no particular order (that I could determine).

Then I saw it. The stamp that made me feel better and more hopeful, all at once.

Here it is:

PASSION

Or, at least that’s what the label on the stamp says (if anyone sees that I have actually bought a stamp that says I LOVE FUDGE or KITTENS ARE MY LIFE or whatever, do, please, let me know.).

I bought the gooey red ink to go with my stamp and happily went on my way to pick up the rest of my life, post-bad news.

I wrote a little poem today about how, before I had kids, I used to turn up my nose at the thought of ever letting my future children ride the merry-go-round at the mall. I love carousels and favor vintage ones, like the carousel in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, and the mall one just doesn’t fit the bill.

Of course that was before the twins arrived.

You can read my ode to the mall carousel at my Family.com blog Mommy! Mommy!.

When I started BeTwinned, I wanted it to be an online magazine with feature articles. Once I got it up and running and my post-journalism school life turned out a lot different than I had imagined (and I had absolutely no time to feed this creation with feature articles), I realized that it would be better just to make BeTwinned a blog.

So, I’ve been wanting to write more “bloggy” and to create a blogroll of all the blogs I read and to do other things on the site that would be generally, well, bloggy.

But I haven’t really gotten around to it. Tho, I plan to do it this summer when I have two months off from my job. Yes, I have two months off in the summer. You can hate me, I can take it.

Anyway, something so funny happened this morning, and it’s something so random and it’s such a short story, I thought, “How could I possibly create a whole, meaningful entry about this one little thing?”

I decided that I couldn’t do all those perfect things and that this would be the day that I would start blogging at BeTwinned. Really blogging, like all the other Mommy Bloggers I read. Having fun and writing short, pithy posts if I damn well feel like it. And writing stuff that I probably couldn’t get away with on my Disney parenting blog, Mommy! Mommy!.

Here goes.

My husband’s twin sister sent my daughters a box of Disney videos, like Mulan, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, etc.

I asked them this morning if they’d like to watch a new video from their stack (they’ve been watching Peter Pan over and over), and they said yes. I offered up Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and they said yes.

Djuna said, “Is Snow White and the Seven Whores scary?”

I looked breathlessly at my husband, who looked like he was about ready to piss himself, so I knew I had heard her right.

I said, “I’m sorry sweetie, I didn’t hear you. Could you please say that again?”

Call me horribly cruel, but I had to hear her say it again.

And she did. I had to step out of the room, I was laughing so hard.

We watched the movie together in small pieces (that is one bitchy, freaky queen/witch, in case you have forgotten) throughout the day, and “whores” changed from “dwores” to “warses” to its current incarnation: “warves.”

I guess it is a pretty hard word to say for a three-year-old.