Tree climbing.

This amazing tree is across the street from Casa Manana (otherwise known as the Kimbell's parking lot). After seeing their performance of "The Alamo", for the duration of which Mia squirmed and complained, I let her climb it. Well, she didn't really climb it. I boosted her up and she squealed with delight for a few minutes, then started making plans for a treehouse. She thinks the glorified bunches of twigs in the backyard will turn into this if we wait a year or two. If only. As I type this, Mia is out there trying to ice skate on the frost-covered patio. The fact that it's in the twenties doesn't phase her a bit. A true nature's child...she was born to be wild.

My little one.

I'm not the kind of mom who constantly craves the baby days again, once they are gone. I love watching her grow...more than watching, I feel like I'm part of it. I'm reliving growing up! But I went back a few years in my photo library and found this picture. I must admit, I want those cheeks back! And this may seem petty, but I want jeans back! Mia won't wear them any more. They "bother" her, like many other articles of clothing. We're down to leggings and dresses, and smooth shirts with normal necklines. The mere mention of a turtleneck will send her screaming bloody murder down the hallway! Anyway, my three year old sure was a cutie.

We need a new car.

Our car has all kinds of problems which we have no desire to spend thousands to fix. So we've been getting used to the idea of getting a new one. We have to ease into these things, because Mia, especially, is not fond of change. Let's just say, she doesn't handle it well. Those around her pay the price! So, we had laid off the topic for a week, after going on multiple test drives a couple of weeks ago. Then this morning on the way to Starbucks, she said, "Here's the kind of car we should get: a convertible minivan with a big engine sticking out the back, so it goes fast." You see, she's a sports car lover like her Daddy, but she can't get over that third row of seats you get in a minivan. She has this idea that she'll fold it down (because you know the sales guys always show you how incredibly EASY it is to do that), and camp out with all her stuffed animals back there. Yes, while the car is in motion. Anyway, although it falls very short of Mia's specs, especially in the speed category, we are considering a Mazda 5. It is like a mini minivan. Weird. But it's cheap. And it has room for our dog. What more could we ask for? But first, Dave has to get over the fact that we aren't buying European. So no more doors that shut with a big "chonk". More like "clink". And no more quick response handling. But we get lots of cupholders! Again, what more could we ask for?!

Boats Afloat.

Today we played with boats. In the name of science, of course. I found a cool book at the library last week with things you can make and then experiment with. We used clay to make our boats and then counted how many paper clips and marbles they would hold before they sank. Then Mia hypothesized about what would happen if we added salt (a lot of salt!) to the water. She knew the answer; the boats would hold more. And where did she obtain this valuable information? From The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a Narnia book. See, I knew I wasn't slogging through those every night for nothin'. (Actually, I quite enjoy them. I'm not eager to return to Junie B. Jones.) Her other hypothesis (also correct!) was that the boats would not hold as much if we floated them in vegetable oil. I think that was just a good guess, because she added, "Oil is sucky. It will suck the boats down." Oh, and Mommy learned something! I love it when that happens. Did you know that cold water is more dense than hot water? So, ships traversing the North Atlantic are allowed more weight than they are in equatorial waters. Anyway, we had fun.

President Obama.

The first thing that brought me to tears today was a comment from someone on MSNBC, that when the Muslim world heard Barack Hussein Obama take the oath of office, how could that not speak to them in such a profound way? He bridges gaps before he even speaks a word, just by virtue of his name and skin color. And then he speaks...and well, he had us at hello, right? I want to call him Prince Obama! I loved this from his speech today, more than anything else:

"Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history."

So being a progressive doesn't mean you trash all tradition. This was so meaningful to me, as a person who tends to always look for something new, something better, on the horizon. But really, as a mom, I intuitively feel that all I need to thrive was already there from day one...my (and our) inborn desire to love and be loved, and all of the good qualities that stem from that. These things are old. And they can and will sustain us.

Another observation...when Obama speaks, he appears to be looking toward something beyond the audience, as if he is visualizing what he speaks of, on the horizon. Contrast that with Bush, who always seems to be looking inward, self-consciously, and sees nothing beyond his own skin.

It's a beautiful day!!

So long, but don't fare well.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/1/18/16484/3008/808/685677

I love this! I still can't believe that tomorrow Bush is gone. It's been a LONG eight years.

Nasher visit.

We had the best day a couple of weekends ago. We woke up and everyone looked to Mommy for plans, as is usual on a Saturday morning. I remembered that the Nasher Sculpture Center is free on the first Saturday of the month, so we headed out. We hadn't been there since Mia was two. Pathetic, I know! Anyway, we headed to Northpark afterwards to watch a Science demonstration that the Dallas library was presenting. It was not so much science, but entertaining. I didn't get any good pictures from that. But I like the one with her standing against the giant orange sculpture. Mia took the one of Dave inside the room with the opening at the top. Future photographer, maybe?

Pipe Cleaner Hat.

We have been SO unschooly lately. For two reasons: 1) I'm having a hard time getting back into the groove of things after the holidays, and 2) Mia's got some serious inner turmoil going on right now. (Maybe the two are causally related?!) Anyway, she has been needing a lot of quiet play time, and I've been letting her have it. She doesn't even complain that she's got no one to play with, which is unbelievable. She wants to be alone. So I'm calling it "restorative time" and hoping that she gets out of her funk. The last couple of weeks have not been fun at all. But as it always happens during these "dark" periods, her vocabulary has spiked, her imagination is at full throttle, and she's suddenly building things all over the place. The other night I was finishing up dinner and she came into the kitchen hungry. So I gave her a pack of pipe cleaners and told her to amuse herself, thinking she'd ignore them and proceed with her nightly pantry raid. Three minutes later, she had fashioned a hat for herself. This probably seems so minor and unblogworthy to most parents out there, but my daughter doesn't just do things like this! So I'm thinking that our unschooly approach has done her some good. I tend to think everything worth doing is in a book somewhere. But sometimes we do have original ideas. Oh, and if you're wondering what that stuff she's eating is, it was a first-time recipe that won't be tried again in our house. Mia named it "blub". Blech! I got it out of a book.

Poop.

The theme of the day, now that I think about it, was poop. (Aren't you relieved there aren't any pictures with this post?!) This morning it was expressed with two "poopy" attitudes, mine and my daughter's. I broke my no-yelling resolution six days into the new year. We actually made it to girl scouts, though. Then the cold day became bearable and we decided to join our friends on the playground. Apparently a dog had been there shortly before us. Mia found the present he left under the play equipment and wondered "what it was", so she stuck her boot in it. (Mind you, we own a dog. A very big dog who leaves plenty of specimens in our back yard. But there must have been something particularly irresistible about this one.) A little while later, Mia's friend runs over and says, "Your daughter smells stinky." I think nothing of it! I mean, what else is new? By the time I'd discovered her stink for myself, it had been mysteriously transferred to her hands, shirt, and pants, as well as to her friend's sleeve. I don't even wanna know. After much boot scraping, wet paper toweling, and mommy sighing (but not yelling!), we got into the car thinking we'd taken care of the situation. Five minutes later, we were pulling into Target to buy new clothes and shoes. A little poop goes a long way when you're trapped in a car, and we were an hour from home. On the way out of there, Mia goes, "So when I want new shiny silver shoes, I should step in dog poop, right?" No! Apparently six year olds like to test their already exasperated mamas. The day turned up from there, until I get a text from my husband...."don't forget the two poops". Nuh-uh! You see, he runs the dog (MY dog, he would specify) every morning, and he doesn't like carrying the poop bags all around the neighborhood, so he scoops it and then dumps it behind various community shrubberies. Take that, HOA! So it's then my job to hunt them down and dispose of them. Because, really, the HOA would not like that at all and we aren't bad people...however poopy our days may turn out to be.

Resolutions Revisited.

Yeah, I'm one of those annoying people who makes resolutions every year. And I usually forget about them within...hours. We had a family discussion about this topic today, and Mia tried to guess what ours would be. Right off the bat, she said, "Daddy's will be to sleep more." HA! That was hilarious because anyone who knows Dave has heard him complain about not getting enough sleep. Then she thought about me for a minute, and said, "Mommy's will be to spend less money." Man, just when you think nobody's paying attention. I'm always talking about getting bargains and cutting costs. But resolutions shouldn't come so naturally. This year I'm going to stop yelling. There are situations that bring out the worst in everybody, and for me, this means screaming my head off. So until I achieve an inner peace that will allow me to float like a butterfly through those toxic situations, I will avoid them like the plague. Sure, sometimes I am blindsided. But there are certainly situations that I dive right into, in full denial, out of some bizarre need to prove to the world that I can handle it. It hardly ever works. 2009 will be a year of peace for the Davidson Three. (Hmmm...these posts can be deleted, right?) Oh, and what do you think Mia came up with for herself? "I need to play more this year." Yeah, because 362 days of play in 2008 (she was sick a couple of times) just didn't cut it!