Maeve and Lilly

Lilly’s friend Savannah invited her to go the DeForest Norskies high school football game. After she  got picked up, Maeve and I went to the store to buy snacks (pizza, snack mix, popcorn, ice cream) and grabbed a video (Flushed Away). We watched the movie and ate our snacks on the couch. As I was putting her to bed, she said in a rather wistful voice, “that was a good night.” When Lilly got home an hour later, she regaled us with tales of crazy high-schoolers and a whole lot of junk food. Now she wants to go to a Badgers game. *sigh* Maybe with Grampy?

In an uncharacteristically spontaneous move, we booked a hotel in Appleton Saturday and hit the road within an hour. The original plan was to go to the Menasha Jazz Festival and Turtle Festival, but once we got up there, we realized there was a lot more going on. After checking into our hotel, we walked two blocks to a really great children’s museum. The visit ended in a long multimedia art session. Afterwards we walked about a mile to a recommended pizza restaurant and pigged out.

The next morning, we strolled around the Lawrence University campus. We couldn’t help but think that this might be a good place for the girls. Though Lilly keeps insisting that she wants to go to Journalism school in New York. Next up was a pretty awesome planetarium show in Menasha at the UW Fox River Center. It was geared towards kids and featured an animation of a roller coaster that made all of us dizzy. From there, we went to Oshkosh and spent some time at Menominee Park at the huge playground, tiny zoo, and miniature railroad. Then we hit the road and made it home from the whirlwind trip by 8pm.

First day of school: Lilly in grade four and Maeve in grade one! Lilly has been worried about her teacher because apparently the scuttlebutt is that she is very mean. We had a number of talks about giving her a chance and that maybe she’s just strict and her class last year was ill-behaved. Lilly tried to be optimistic but she had a lot of trepidation as she got on the bus. After the first day, Mrs. B was deemed nice, though she was still worried about day #2. After the second day, she was still deemed nice. After two weeks, Lilly decided that she was “strict but fair.”

Maeve’s teacher appears to be well-liked by everyone and Maeve is flourishing. She wrote “school is fun” on a piece of paper the other day and seems to quite enjoy doing her homework. In fact, after one week, Maeve got moved to the advanced-readers table. At the school open house, Mrs. S told us that Maeve has had none of the fooling-around behaviors that were sometimes a problem last year in kindergarten.

 Well this is embarrassing. I haven’t posted all summer long. The longer I put it off, the more daunting it became. Now there’s no possible way to catch up, so here goes…

• The girls went to Out And About Day Camp again this year. They had field trips every day: bowling, the library, karate in town, and trips further afield like the EAA in Oshkosh and Miller Park in Milwaukee.
• Lilly had a chance to reconnect with Sonja so that now they’re BFFs again. Some fences were also apparently mended between Lilly and former BFF Riley. They had a couple of invitations and play dates back and forth and there appears to be an uneasy truce.
• “Grandma” Betty (our next-door neighbor) took the girls to Rhythm and Booms in Madison and to quite a few Wednesday-night concerts at Firemans Park in DeForest. She also took them swimming at Penny’s pool on a weekly basis.
• Maeve lost several teeth amid lots of blood and drama.
• The first-sleepover milestone came and went for Maeve at her friend Nora’s house.
• The girls completed another round of swim lessons. Maeve is doing well but the instructors told Lilly she should think about joining a swim team.
• We continued to read Harry Potter for bedtime stories; we are now on year five (The Order of the Phoenix).
• Maeve is a trip. She just interjects statements like: “That’s how I roll.” “What were ya thinkin’?” “Come on people.” “Excuse me I’m going to toot — got some gas comin’ through.”
• Maeve’s reading skills border on amazing. She seems to be well beyond where Lilly was on the cusp of first grade. I’m constantly asking her if she’s read something before or whether someone told her what a sign was.
• Lilly kept up on her multiplication flash cards all summer and is now flawless up to the twelves. She also continues to read voraciously.

Finally got the video pulled off my new Flip camera and slapped together in iMovie.

School’s out. Here comes summer…

Maeve headed off to school with a box of cupcakes under her arm. She had opened a pile of presents before breakfast and was buzzing about all the clothes from Nanny and the new desk for her room. After work we went out to a birthday dinner at a restaurant of her choice. (Any guesses? Culvers. Surprise!)

Friday night, I put together Maeve’s new desk. At some point, I had to flip the leg assembly over and, with a sickening thud, connected with Maeve’s mouth as she bent forward putting her head in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time. The super-wiggly front tooth as knocked out and the blood gushed. Needless to say, I felt terrible. After we got her settled in bed with tissues and the boo-boo bunny, Maeve immediately directed me to get back to work on the desk. She recovered quickly and even began to wonder whether the Tooth Fairy might leave her more money since it was so painful. (She did.)

Saturday we had a birthday party for all her little friends (Riley, Morgan, Carolyn, Geri, Nora). It was a low-key affair with cake, ice cream, presents, and barely controlled chaos in the bouncy house in the back yard. After the dust settled, Maeve spent several hours registering her new Webkinz on-line.

It was pouring rain in Chicago Monday morning. We ran across the street to American Girl Place. The girls were giddy with excitement. We told them that since their birthdays were coming up, we wouldn’t be making any purchases. Instead we told them to grab the call tags for the things they wanted to ask for. Within a matter of minutes, they both had fistfuls and had their eyes on one of everything in the store. Finally, they decided to part with some of their own money in order to buy some accessories. Lilly picked up a sweat shirt and skirt for her doll and Maeve got some doll ice skates. Then it was home in the rain. After 2200 miles we pulled into our driveway at 1pm.

Up early and on the road we struck out for Chicago. The flatlands of Illinois lulled us for eight hours so that it was quite a shock as we tried to negotiate Michigan Avenue to our hotel. Lilly kept asking if something special was going on because of all the people, traffic, confusion, horns, and excitement. (Nope, just a big city.) The girls were amazed by our hotel room (a suite thanks to Hot Wire) and spent 15 minutes dancing around singing praises to the best and fanciest hotel ever. After a quick dip in the pool on the 30th floor, we bundled up and walked down Rush Street for dinner at Buca di Beppo’s. The girls got quite a kick out of the tour of the kitchen by a loquacious host.

First stop Sunday morning was the new American Girl Place. The girls’ giddy excitement was brought to a disappointing and dramatic halt when we discovered that AG was closed on Easter Sunday. In fact, we discovered that a great many shops on the Magnificent Mile were closed due to the holiday. Nonetheless, we had fun walking around. We had lunch at Big Bowl (sorely missed after it’s closing in Middleton) and then had a look at the Tribune building with the many foreign and historical building blocks sent into its wall. Next to a block from the Alamo, Maeve innocently asked about a nearby installation. I had to inform her that it was simply a hookup for a fire hose.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped in at the Hershey store, where Lilly professed over and over that her “absolute favorite” candy was the Hershey Bar. I overheard whispered plans about sneaking back in the middle of the night to eat everything in the store. The girls had an afternoon swim and then we ordered a Giordanno’s pizza and ate in the room.

We got up early Thursday morning to see Uncle Joe off to work. After some last-minute play time with the baby, we hit the road for Memphis. Eight hours later we checked in to our hotel. After some quick research for dinner we ended up at what turned out to be a rather sub-par restaurant on 2nd street. The chilly wind and raindrops sent us back to our hotel for the night to ride out the tornadoes and severe thunderstorms in the area.

The next day arrived chilly and windy, but without rain or severe weather. First stop was the Peabody Hotel to see the march of the ducks down from the rooftop elevator into the fountain in the lobby. After a quick look around the hotel, we had lunch in a true southern-style cafeteria across from Graceland. Though smaller than any of us had imagined, it was still a trip — a delightfully tacky and bizarre experience. (I took too many pictures of the shag walls, the ceramic panthers, and all those jumpsuits.) Lilly discovered a love for the music and I was reminded just how cool Elvis’ Sun Records sides and early major-label stuff was.

Back in town, we took a ride on the Main Street cable cars past the Civil Rights Museum. We briefly considered going there. I asked Maeve if she wanted to go and without skipping a beat, she answered yes. Then, with a comment that betrayed her lack of comprehension, she asked, “is there anything there I can climb on?” While I took the Gibson Factory tour, the girls shopped. We capped off our day with dinner at BB King’s club/restaurant where we heard some pretty awesome musicians playing soul standards.

After the girls assisted with dressing baby Adriana, we hit Panera for coffee and later met Uncle Joe for lunch. Then we walked around the Bricktown area of OKC and strolled along the canals. (Yeah, I know, but there really are canals in downtown Oklahoma City. They are of no historic significance whatsoever; they were built to revitalize the are and attract tourists.) Later in the afternoon when 15-year-old Alexis got home from school, we went to a nearby park. The girls roped Alexis into playing tag, hide and seek, and an obstacle course. Poor Alexis had nobly given up her suite: her bedroom for us and her lounge for the girls, so she headed to her grandparents’ house after dinner as the girls headed to bed.

Uncle Joe took the next day off so we all (minus Alexis) went to the Science Museum. Though not nearly as spectacular as the St. Louis City Museum, the girls enjoyed the hand-on exhibits especially the tornado chamber (wind speeds up to 78 mph), the Apollo module (they were inside and we saw their faces as the attendant tilted them up and down and told them they were switching to emergency oxygen), and the live science presentation (lots of stuff was blown up and set on fire, including the “dust’o'doom; and hand raising was severely discouraged in favor of shouting).

Aunt Yara went to pick up Alexis from school and we all regrouped at the zoo. After a quick lunch, Lilly spotted a rock climbing wall and wanted to have a go. She got stuck about half way up and when asked if she wanted to come down, she answered “yes” and then immediately, “no.” She lost her grip a minute later and had to start over. This time she persevered and made it to the top and rang the bell announcing her triumph.  As we strolled along, it was no surprise that Lilly liked the monkey (lots and lots of chimps), but Maeve was taken with the prairie dogs. Actually, I think the biggest attraction at the zoo was they one we bought with us. Both girls were mesmerized by their baby cousin Adriana and spent a lot of time watching her, pushing her stroller, and fussing over whether she was shaded from the hot hot sun.