Vay-freakin-cation!

Things I especially like about this first day off:

1) Weather in the low 80s with low humidity allowing for children outside more than half of the day.  Two different playgrounds today!

2) This conversation with Clara over lunch:  Apparently she sees auras.

Clara: "You know the light around people, Mummy?"
Mummy: [???]
Clara: "You know.  People have light around them.  It's different colours.  Around me it's yellow."
Mummy: "What colour is it around me?"
Clara: "Mmm.  You are blue.  But I can't see blue very well."

(Today's migraine really bit though.)

Pee, Running while sleeping

Winton wet himself 4 times yesterday.  He's four and a half and technically well beyond such problems. 

Theories: bladder infection?  too lazy to go to the bathroom?  too distracted to go to the bathroom?

Last night I heard a sound like a panicked badger in his room.  On investigating, I discovered Winton, in his room, running in frantic circles and clutching the front of his tiki-mask undies all while fast asleep. 

Sleep running.  This is new, and scary.  I think I'll shut the baby gate at the top of the stairs tonight (good thing we've been too lazy to un-install the baby-gate).

Clara and Winton: Treats

Indulgences en route to summer camp (8.15 AM):  These reveal our palates are in different time zones.
Mummy: Iced latte (whole milk)
Winton: Blueberry Muffin
Clara: Large Ham and Cheese Panini

Horse Show & Mythical Beasts

After too many episodes of Horseland, we went real on the kids: off to a horse show in Westminster!  We saw the 7ish kids do some show jumping, the teenagers do an event that involved riding around the arena together showing off how well they could walk, canter, trot and change directions, and then the teenagers doing some show jumping.

I had two responses to American riding (having been an avid British Pony Club rider in Singapore and then Wales myself, waaaay back in the day):

1) It's far too soft on the kids.  Fell off at a jump?  Get back on!  At least ride your horse out of the arena! (Not what happened this morning when a young girl fell and then had help running her stirrups up so she and her horse could walk, separately, out of the arena).

2) It's far too hard on the kids.  The riding teachers heckle the kids as they are doing their trip round the jumps.  One girl caved under the pressure and started crying.  Another was told, harshly, to "Smile already."


Clara had this response to the outing: "Mummy I know for sure that I am half horse, and half cat."

It's not all murders at dawn, despite what you've heard about shootings in Rodger's Forge

5.17: Mummy gets up to practice yoga alone in a quiet house.
5.18: Winton gets up and demands to watch Mummy practice yoga.

5.25-5.55:
Mummy: [sun salutations]
Winton: "Mummy, Look!  Pepita's on your mat!  Look, she's eating the plant!  Look!  Pepita is breaking the blinds!  Mummy?  Are you finished yet?  How many more minutes?  Mummy.  I'm hungry [coda]"

5.55:
 Clara: [sneaking into living room] "Boo!"
Mummy: "Gah!"

6.00:
Husband wakes.  Mummy leaves on dogwalk, leaving children to hector Husband about the possibilities of watching Horseland on TV.

Quiet.  No traffic.  No people.
Sun: Fluorescent pink.

Across the street: two men, apparently making a direct approach on me.

Mummy's internal monologue: "Oh, crap!  This is the morning on which I finally get mugged!"

Men approach, say "good morning!" cheerfully, drunkenly and then pay me no mind in order to continue their loud, slurred conversation . . . which is about how fun it is to feed the seagulls at the inner harbor.

Horseland

We've moved on from My Little Pony to a cartoon called Horseland.  Full of improbably slender tweens with impossibly large eyes, it also features horses, and riding instructions.

It's excrutiating.

Yet it is the likely cause of my dream the other night about being in a riding lesson (I haven't been in a riding lesson in almost 30 years . . . Christ I'm getting old).

Today Clara and Winton were arguing about a character and her horse:

Clara: "Bailey's horse is named 'Aztec'."
Winton: [with the extreme insistence and inflexibility that is his everyday mode right now] "No. Bailey's horse is called 'ASS-TANK.'"

Good Dream: Winton

Winton's Good Dream

" I was in the basement bathroom, and the toilet was on the ceiling.  I pointed my penis up, and peed into the toilet and nothing fell down."

Inadvertent Poetry, Montage: Clara

Look at the sky!  Cloud Rainbows.
I'll keep them in my memory bag, forever.
Let the burnt dust fall.

How old?

How old does Winton need to be before he attains full urinary continence, even on hikes along Stony Run?

How old do I need to be before I think to check if his crotch is wet before picking him up to carry him?

Sprinkler Party

Where are Clara and Winton during the Birthday sprinkler party we were invited to on a hot summer's day?

Winton: in the basement, with a tumbler he's filled with potato chips in order to hoard them.

Clara: busy outside putting a bucket over the sprinkler so that the water makes a river, not rain, and no one can get wet.