Fall is coming to a close and the Christmas season is creeping up way too fast! Soon Mythili will have her pajama-themed fourth birthday party, we’ll be having our annual Christmas photo taken, and snow will be swirling at the windshield. For now, we all have been enjoying the global-warming-induced warm weather. Last week I couldn’t have guessed that it was the last week of October, with seventy-degree temperatures that inspired me to ride my bike to work three times!
Isabella and I each had our fall breaks in a row, and we had Isabella’s first parent/teacher conference. Despite her sometimes “I’m-really-15-and-have-the-attitude-to-prove-it” behavior at home, her teacher informed us that she is a model student, always on task, and great at setting her own pace! She scored very high on her MAP tests–yes, they already do computerized tests of reading and writing in kindergarten–and is plugging away at learning how to write and say, in English and Spanish, all her numbers and letters. We’re very proud of her progress!
Mythili has abandoned gymnastics to make a weekly, frantic trip to two grocery stores with Riona and I, as I am now picky about the meat we eat and will only buy it at King Soopers, but then need to save a buck so head to Wal-Mart for the rest, while Isabella is in class. Mythili has really come out of her shell since beginning preschool, and has actually played with her little friend Ayden during the last two play dates.
For Halloween this year, Mythili dressed as an angel, Isabella as a witch, and Riona as a unicorn. We went trick-or-treating for a brief stint in our neighborhood and went to a Halloween party at a co-workers the following night, where I dressed in a half-man, half-woman costume.
I took a couple of recent field trips with the girls: one to see president-elect Obama before he became president. I rode downtown on the light rail with Isabella and Mythili and hundreds of other supporters. We streamed into Civic Center Park, and I was thinking, as we inched our way through the crowd in an attempt to catch sight of the podium, there must be about 10,000 people here! We heard the governor, the mayor, Senator Salazar, and senator-elect Udall speak before Obama came on. The thrill of the crowd, the enthusiasm, the HOPE, was so enthralling that even my young girls, who couldn’t possibly understand the magnitude of the event, were chanting, “Obama!” along with everyone else.
The second trip, less than a week later, was to the art museum, which has free days on the first Saturday of each month. We had to cross through Civic Center Park on the way to the museum, and, enjoying the warm day on the first of November, had our picnic there before going in. “Isn’t this where we saw Obama?” Isabella astutely questioned. I nodded. The park had a few straggling tourists and homeless people, nothing like the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd we had experienced earlier that week. “There’s the steps by the fountain where some people sat and watched Obama,” Mythili pointed out. I showed them the Civic Center Courthouse and told them what it was. “That’s where you go if you’re naughty. Grandma already told me that when we saw the courthouse in Boulder.” “And that’s where the police stood when Obama was here!” Mythili added. They ate their peanut-butter and homemade jam-on-homemade-bread sandwiches and ran circles around the benches, chasing after Riona. “It’s hard to believe this is the same place,” Isabella thoughtfully commented, “but I remember crossing over this dirt pile (where they plant flowers in the summer) to get a better view.”
I listened to how much my little girls already knew, how keenly they were aware of the world, and pride filled me as I wrapped myself in their interpretation, their humble view of our experience the day that we witnessed history.
Now, alas, though Obama was elected, the bond issues didn’t pass in Douglas County, and I have no idea what my job prospects will be for next year. Only the future will tell…
