Claymation, eat your heart out.

Today was a kind of a lovely day.  It felt like a well-earned reward for all of that patience and training. Especially with Ella, who has such a strong little personality that her moods really affect the temperature of the house.  Well, today she was all sunshine, entertaining Joey this morning so, as she told me, I could "enjoy that cup of coffee in peace."  She took Joey and led him outside, while I half watched them and half played cards with Alex. When the two of them had finished covering the walkway with pictures of flowers and mushrooms, Ella came inside and cast a speculative eye around the house.

"So, mom, I've noticed those windows are kind of filthy."  I noticed, too, and I'd also noticed that the fingerprints on them were all the way from Joey's height all the way up to Ella's.  I decided not to mention this; instead I asked her if she was offering to wash them.  "Really?" she said, feigning surprise, obviously believing that she'd successfully planted an idea. Well, she sort of did, I guess. "Well, I guess I could do that. Would you..." and here was the tricky part, "would you pay me?' She worked me up to ten cents a window, and she was off.

And when Cinder-Ella finished with the windows, I set her on the kitchen cupboards and sink, and then had her do the bathrooms.  In the end, I had to pay out a little under three dollars for Ella's mid-morning of industry and contentment.

And while Ella was scrubbing sinks and listening to Harry Potter, the boys and I went outside and practiced our goal shots.  If Joey's going to be playing with the big boys, I figure he's got some catching up to do. Fortunately, he has one of the best and most patient teachers in the world.  Oh, no no, not me.  It's Alex that I'm talking about, the one who fetched the ball for Joey after his "Big Kicks" time after time.

When Ella finished with her work, she was came to me with an odd little itch: "Mom? Do you remember those stop-action movies that I used to make? I was wondering if I could make one today?"

Do I remember them? I loved those movies.  Ella made a couple of them just before we left Seattle, while we were shut in during early winter. We'd rigged up a little camera on a tripod, and then, carefully, painstakingly, she took hundreds of pictures as she moved her characters around on the sets that she'd drawn.  Then I stitched the pictures together for her, and she added the dialogue. Most of them are just marvelously ridiculous: they make no sense, and jump from plot line to plot line, like a Muppet skit on a caffeine jag, and for that her brothers absolutely love them.

See for yourself...I suggest you watch this with someone from the 2- to 5-year-old set. They'll be able to explain the finer points of the humor and plot.

Anyway, Ella rebuilt her little movie studio, and that was just about the last that I saw of her for the day.
















I don't know if Joey was at all influenced by Ella's industry, or if he was just feeling quiet and contented, too, but several times today I caught him putting on little shows of his own.  I absolutely love the way that he creates dialogue for his toys, heavily laced with his own favorite expressions.

His current favorite, since he's two, is "But why?"  This one drives Dennis crazy.  Poor Dad, he's usually so patient with the kids, and he tries really hard to answer their questions, always, but after about five layers of Joey's "But whys," he takes a little maniacal glee in being able to finally shout "By definition, that's why! Ha ha!" leaving his little son somewhat nonplussed.

Anyway, I watched around corners as he made his cars and toys speak to each other, chattering away happily in his own wonderful little world.  And I even managed to catch a little of it on video, including the epic battle of Sir Dolly versus The Dinosaurs.

I had to leave off on all of this fun after lunch time, when Dennis came home to tag me out for my German class.  I've had a private lesson for the last five weeks: one of the four other students is home in Egypt for the summer, and the two other students seem to have decided to drop the class: they wrote an apologetic e-mail to the teacher, saying that they were holding the class up.

I found that sort of odd: with our other classmate gone, the rest of the class was, essentially, me.  I suspect that my classmates were just feeling like pace of the class was too challenging.  But goodness knows I wouldn't mind slowing down: I demoted myself a level because I felt like I was in over my head.  The thing of it is, I've only spoken with student taking Berlitz classes this year who hasn't felt completely overwhelmed and behind and, consequently, discouraged by the classes. Learning a language is hard!

So, who was the one person who hasn't yet been beaten down by Berlitz? Well, that would be Dennis. And he's definitely admitted that he's felt confused and challenged.  But I swear, my husband has the best attitude about it.  When I was wringing my hands about still not being able to remember my declensions, he just laughed at me softly and reminded me "well, you wouldn't be taking classes if you knew everything, would you?"

So, repeating Dennis's words like a mantra, I went to class with my chin up, and, as always, I had a really fun time making a hundred mistakes in a hundred different ways.

Unfortunately, my teacher had some bad news for me today. As much fun as he has correcting me, our private class can't continue: Google, apparently won't pay for such small classes.  He couldn't tell me for certain, but he was pretty certain that next week would be my last class.

I get a huge kick out of my instructor, a wacky German with a constant, booming laugh who, in today's class, spent at least five minutes rhapsodizing about the glories of the Power Puff Girls. But, all the same, I think I'll be glad to have a different class. For one thing, our one-on-one pace has been ridiculously fast: we're doing at least a chapter a week, and I was under the impression that our ten-chapter book was supposed to take all year.   And it'll be nice having classmates: after ninety solid minutes of being on the hot seat, my head always hurts a little on Tuesday afternoons.

Joey discovered some mad-crazy puzzle skills this afternoon

I didn't yet mention the heat of the day: wouldn't you know that Alex would get stitches right before the hottest days of the summer.  It's predicted that we have at least a week of days ahead of us with the temperature above 90 degrees. That pool looked mighty tempting as I passed it on my way home. But, for Alex's sake, we're doing our best to stay cool at home, with the windows closed and shuttered against the heat and the sun.

Luckily, the kids are probably still recovering a bit from our vacation: they're happy to be home, with their toys.

And if they're happy, I am too.