Singing

Sunday after her shower I was combing out her hair and I started to sing:

In Dublin's Fair City
Where the girls are so pretty
I first laid my eyes on sweet Molly Malone


Jupiter started to sing with me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Very rarely will she consent to me singing to her. Usually I get shouted at and ordered to stop.
When she started to sing the tune and the words she knows, I was stunned. But I somehow managed to keep singing and combing, and she sang the whole song with me.

Unfortunately I don't have a recording of this Moment. But it was so cool!!! I didn't think that would EVER happen.

All in all, it's been a terrific month. At school Jupiter is working on not borrowing permanently things that do not belong to her. She is excellent at sounding out words phonetically. Oh, and she lost another tooth. That's number six, for those of you who may have lost count. Her two bottom front permant teeth are coming in fast and that beautiful gap between her teeth will soon be a thing of the past. She is now taking out early reader chapter books from the library and not mostly picture books. She let me lay down with her a few nights instead of rocking herself to sleep with loud blasting music.

Last Saturday we went through our very full day with Jupiter's MP3 (or 3D player, as she calls it) at hand. It kind of reminds me of when you put a cover over the bird cage, the stimuli all gets blocked, and the bird calms down. And the car is SO much quieter..and the people next to me at stoplights don't think I'm corrupting my kid by playing music loud enough to damage her hearing. (Santa got the fisher price earphones with the built in volume control). We went to youth basketball from 8-9. Then we drove to Portland and went to the library to check out a bunch of easy reader chapter books, two dvd's featuring horses. Then we went to dance. Jupiter had to be seperated from her friend Sam for not paying attention to Miss Juliette. Then we went to lunch. Then we went to the Back Cove Trail and took a walk, since it was above freezing. We walked all the way around the cove. Which incidentially, is 3 1/2 miles around. She was getting tired at the end, but she made it and I didn't have to carry her one time. We stopped at Whole *oods to get a snack because we were hungry from all that walking. Then we went to riding (the riding teacher looked at me and thought I might need some rest) and Jupiter did a beautiful posting trot. She tried to work on steering while trotting but that still needs some work. Then we got home at 5:30.

She still managed to stay up until 8:30 that night. I have no idea how. But Sunday morning she was quite calm and in church she sat in her chair quietly and drew a picture of the altar.

On Sunday morning, one of my little Sunday school buddies came right up to me and gave me a hug (it was very gentle and a little startling to someone accustomed to "Powerhugs") and proceeded to tell me a long story about getting to the next level on his Batman game. And we had another story in the desert box. The same Sunday school buddy commented that I always get to put the people in the desert box and play with the sand. I suggested that when he grows up, maybe he'll be the Sunday school teacher and he can put all the story pieces in the box. I now have an entire class who want to be Sunday School teachers when they grow up. :)

Then that night, Jupiter sang with me.

I couldn't ask for more.

Maybe Squanto had made a mistake

This is my favorite line from any Robert B Parker novel.

I read my first Spenser novel in college. More specificially, my freshman level English course in modern Lit that I took as a Junior because by the time I got all the bugs in my schedule worked out, it was the only class left that I could take.

I loved that Spenser book. I loved it in the first couple of chapters because I went to college in Iowa, and Boston is pretty close to Maine. When I read the part describing in detail the stores and restaurants that line Rte 1 in Saugus, MA, I got so excited because I HAD BEEN THERE AND SEEN THAT. Which is probably how I missed the last line of the paragraph.

"Maybe Squanto had made a mistake."

When the professor read that line out loud in class, I laughed out loud. Couldn't help it.

Nobody else laughed. Nobody else got it. I'm not sure if they didn't know who Squanto was, or they had no idea what Rte 1 in Saugus looks like. Probably both. I had to explain to my freshman classmates who Squanto was.

Probably I was also the only person in the class who had even been to Plimoth Plantation. We went as add on's on my brother's first grade field trip to Plimoth Plantation. The bus broke down, the bus drove over a curb trying to get around some teeny little street, a seagull pooped on my brother's head, and my cooler sandwich was next to the ice pack and froze before I got to eat it.

Jupiter wants to go to Plimoth Plantation this summer. We just read the Magic Tree House book
Thanksgiving on Thursday; where Jack and Annie go back in time to the first Thanksgiving. I told Jupiter that you could actually go see the place where that happened, and she got all excited about it.

Today I looked up the plimoth Plantation website. It's $28 per adult and $18 for children 6-12. Maybe we should have gone there last year. Actually those are the 2009 prices, come to think of it. Ah well, hopefully we will still go.

I will miss Robert B Parker.

Jupiter...six years old

greetings from a peaceful house

Yesterday I got a call from the school nurse. Jupiter has a fever of 102. I suspected she wasn't feeling all that well in the morning, but she insisted she wanted to go to school, so she went with Mimi, who was working that day.

I drove from home from work. It seemed a whole lot farther than it usually does. Especially considering that I had planned to buy gas during my lunch break, and had to take 90 seconds when I got off the turnpike to put $7 in gas in the car to go the rest of the way home. Therin was the lesson to keep my gas tank at least half full at all times. Especially if I'm going to work 40 minutes away from school.

Jupiter was lying on the couch in the nurse's office. I went in just as another sick child was leaving. The nurse was on a phone call. Jupiter was very groggy and sleepy. Then, just after I got there, she threw up.

She waited for me to be there to do her throwing up. It was an odd kind of happiness...that she waited for me before allowing herself to display that vulnerability. ( The fact that they have janitors with mops there didn't hurt either.)

I carried her out of school and somehow got her in the car and home. She had a nap, then woke up and wanted lunch. I restricted her to crackers and 7up and popsicles. She had tylenol when we got home and it lasted until 7pm. She had tynelol early that morning because she told my mother that she had a headache. The headache was true. But the tylenols were purple so instead of taking them Jupiter hid them under the couch cushions. I felt better after she told me that because I was concerned when I heard she'd had tylenol that morning and her fever was still 102.

All afternoon we snuggled in the big round chair under blankets and watched the cat watch the birds in the bird feeder outside and whatever PBS was offering at the moment. Jupiter thought it was all wonderful....anytime she gets multiple popsicles she thinks it's a great thing. And she said I was the best taking care of Mom in the world.

Not that I enjoy that she's sick....but I have to enjoy when she lets me mother her without a fight.

We stayed home today and watched DVD's in bed all morning. Her fever is down (working on that 24 hours fever free without pain reducers so she can go back to school) and she ate soup for lunch (today she's excited because I let her have the actual noodles in the soup) and she's just gone outside for a half hour to disperse the germs in the crisp clean air.

I should probably go out too to disperse my germs, or I won't make it to Saturday without getting the germs myself. Pretending right now that I'm NOT getting a headache myself...it's totally my imagination.

Jupiter just came in and said she hopes she gets sick again so we can stay home more....

Jupiter's Happy 101 List

Things that make Jupiter happy:


1. Autumn Leaf (her cat)

2. Luke (her horse at therapeutic riding)

3. Madison & Kylie (friends at school)

4. Play on the playground

5. Feeding the horse at riding



Well, that's all she can think of. I can think of more...but this is her list. She asked why I had to do the typing...because my google toolbar won't translate phonetic kindergarten writing :).

Happy 101 Award

Thanks to http://http://ranchochico.blogspot.com/ ...more properly known as Dia!! I am awful with the techie side of the linking process. She awarded me with the Happy 101 award the other day and I am now getting to post my Happy Post. Also avoiding going out and shoveling snow in the wind. I don't mind the snow...it's the cold I can't take :).


Here are the Happy 101 Blog Award Rules:
List 10 things that make you happy, try to do at least one of them today, and tag 10 bloggers that brighten your day. For those 10 bloggers who get the award, you then link back to my blog and create your list of things that make you happy. Here is my list of 10:


1. when snowstorms happen on days I don't have to drive to work and back. Absolutely loving that today.


2. Browsing through seed catalogs planning next summer's garden while it's really cold and snowy outside.

3. Being able to see the carpet in the living room.


4. Reading a story to Jupiter at night before she goes to sleep.


5. When Jupiter chooses to lay down with me to go to sleep instead of rocking herself to sleep with loud blasting music.

6. 4pm Monday through Friday.

7. The salty ocean smell at the beach.

8. Massages.

9. Cooking a yummy meal..preferably one that uses multiple spice bottles. Having Jupiter actually eat the meal and not a can of chef boy ardee ravoli is a bonus.

10. Jupiter.


I was thinking about the last entry, and Jupiter asked what I was doing while I was absently tossing a bead back and forth while I was thinking. I told her I was making a list of things that made me happy and I asked if she could think of something that made me happy. And she said, "Me!"


I'm glad she knows that. That through all the challenges and battles, the love is there.


I'm supposed to send this on to ten people..most of my blog friends have already been awarded and have posted...I am a little behind..lol! If you're a reader and have not yet posted this..consider yourself awarded. I may ask Jupiter to make a list and post that as well..I am interested in her perspective.

Happy New Year!

PSA~Benderoos

Don't get me wrong. I love benderoos. I especially love that when my future graffiti artist puts them on the wall, they come off. Unlike Sharpie drawings. But there are a few places benderoos do not belong.

The other night Jupiter offered to "do my hair." I should have been suspicious immediately because in four years she has NEVER wanted to do my hair. She moved it around with very gentle fingers for about a minute and pronounced me beautiful.

Yup. She adorned my hair with a benderoo.

Benderoos do not come out of hair. They stick. Exceedingly well.

I was working on getting the benderoo out of my hair, making plans to wear a hat to work the next day until I could go to supercuts during my lunch and have them surgically remove the benderoo with sissors. But then Jupiter offered to help remove the benderoo. I didn't get a chance to stop her.


If you forcefully pull a benderoo out of your hair, it is excruciatingly painful.

I shrieked in pain. Loudly.

This prompted Jupiter to retreat to the couch with the hair covered benderoo and laugh her head off at me.

I understand the whole "innappropriate reaction" thing. I understand that nuerologically, my child's brain is wired differently. But it hurt and her laughing at me did not make me feel any better about it. Sometimes I just wish that she could understand how hurtful it is when she causes me physical pain and how even more hurtful it is when she laughs at it. Such a basic thing and it seems to be completely outside her realm of understanding sometimes.

Anyway, we work at it a little each day.

If there are benderoos in your household, keep them far far away from your hair :).