May 9, 2007 by Barbara.

One night last week, Reid was having me draw on the easel. This is a favourite pastime of Reid’s and I go along with it sometimes. I prefer to watch her draw as she brings such passion to the activity, often talking and even singing and dancing as she draws. Reid likes to be the art director as well as the artist, though, and boy can she direct!  So, as I started to say, I was drawing the people and things as Reid asked me to do. It was going well until I got to the Daddy stickperson. He was walking along in his yellow gloriousness and so I drew one eye in the centre of the circle and added a nose to the appropriate curve. And Reid started to cry and yell. She didn’t care for my explanation of how people, even stickpeople, need to look where they are walking. I added a bright red tongue waggling, to capture a favourite trick of Daddy’s. It made her even less happy, maybe because it looked like he was bleeding from the mouth. (I never claimed to be an artist.) Next time, I will draw both eyes, the nose and the mouth in their appropriate places in the oval. My grade eight art teacher will be disappointed that my art shows such little sophistication, but if it makes Reid happy, I’m good with that.

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May 9, 2007 by Barbara.

I’ve been meaning to tell you about Reid’s full-contact dancing experience ever since she came home from daycare a couple of weeks ago with bandaids on her elbow and even more scrapes on her legs than usual. Ken said that he didn’t have to sign an incident report - unlike the three, or is it four, times that Reid has been bitten at daycare but I’m digressing. When we asked what she’d been doing when the injury happened, Reid replied with a smile, “dancing with M”. Reid and M have been spending lots of time together lately and had been dancing on one of the paths in the outside play area when calamity struck. I don’t remember seeing any tear tracks on Reid’s cheeks, and usually she is dirty enough when playing oustide that a track would be evident, but I’m sure she wasn’t traumatized by the whole thing. Instead, Reid was very proud of and pleased with the two bandaids. She talked me into fresh bandaids after her bath. And no, the blood wasn’t still dripping to the floor at the time. The scrape was big enough and Reid gets so dirty outside that the protective covering seemed wise. Next time, though, I demand to see the blood to maintain my membership in the family hard-nose club.

Since that day, Reid has played often with M and has even danced with her again. Reid doesn’t understand why we ask about the dancing, though.

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May 9, 2007 by Barbara.

On the way to Kitchener last Thursdsay, I rode in the backseat with Reid. Now, I used to say snarky things about women who sat with their kids instead of their husbands but I have to fall back on my mantra “It works for our family” and deal with the forces of the universe laughing at my earlier unfair judgments. In any case, Reid and I generally get along except when she PUTS HER FOOT ON ME. That drives me crazy! Ken was having a good example of what it would be like to drive two kids around, except that I don’t mind it when Reid looks at me. It made me think of a conversation that Melissa and I had years ago when they were looking for a vehicle that could fit all three car seats side-by-side. They couldn’t and I think that’s a good thing - I don’t think it’d be a good idea for all three kids to be able to touch each other. I know Reid and I would get along better if she couldn’t put her foot on me. I don’t think she initially intended to torment me but once she got a reaction, she couldn’t resist.

In case you’re wondering if it would have been better for me to ride up front, we did sing songs, colour, stick stickers and read together quite happily. We also watched Toopy and Binoo videos on the computer and finally we had a nap. The six hours didn’t exactly fly by but it was far from horrible.

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