Waking up in the wrong bed
Ada climbs into our bed somewhere between midnight and 3 a.m. on Tuesday night. When she wakes up she immediately begins crying, tears that escalate into rage and screaming, and insistence that she has in fact not slept in our bed. She wants me to carry her up to the top bunk in her room, so she can wake up there, again, but for the first time. I try to reason that this is impossible because she is too heavy to carry back up to her bed, though that is clearly the more negligible reason as to why this is impossible. Twenty minutes later, after much more screaming and tears, she shares that she is mad because the night before she’s left herself a “goodie bag” full of markers, stuffies, and notes to wake up to—a gift to herself full of her own things. Because she has not woken up in the right bed she can not have the goodie bag and that explains why I have ruined her day. “It makes perfect sense," she insists.
Not enough free pillowcases
I order a Moroccan rug off Etsy that turns out to be a lot thinner and rougher than I expect, but we decide to live with it nonetheless. It’s a deep shade of indigo, with a block print, and takes up a front room in our house that I call the leftover room; it’s where the moving boxes and the random packages and the A/C we just pulled out of the window are piled up in front of the bookshelf next to Jacob’s bike (and a wagon and some clothes we need to give away).
In the package with the rug the Etsy seller has thrown in a free pillowcase, elaborately embroidered and covered with gems, gold thread, and tiny plastic mirrors. Ada sees this and declares it the most beautiful thing in the world. I can’t fathom sleeping or resting on it because of all the gems and the mirrors—and also because of how it looks in general. Once she registers she can have it, she is mad there isn’t another. “It’s just so rude,” she says. After thinking a minute, she narrows her eyes and says, “Buy another rug, so I can get another pillowcase,” and storms off.
Socks as art
I order Julian a pack of rainbow socks in which there are six permutations of rainbows: thick stripes, thin stripes, black sock with rainbow stripes around the ankle, white stripes with rainbow stripes around the ankle, and so on. When we get the package he decides he doesn’t want to wear any of them because they are “too beautiful,” and it’d be better if we hung them on the wall like the art we’ve been hanging up in the house lately. So we hang the socks on a nail. A few days later he decides he only likes one of the six pairs—the thick stripes. He wears them to school all day then at night has a tantrum when he sees that the bag of socks that is hanging on the nail is missing the pair with the thick stripes. Alas, he has been wearing them.
Fake injury scheme
On Wednesday after school Ada explains that she’d gone to the school nurse. “My arm hurt and so I went there for maybe an hour or maybe even six.” I try to deduce how long she’s actually spent out of her classroom, but she’s already devised a scheme. “There’s a note in my folder that says I shouldn’t go to school tomorrow,” she insists, of which there is none. There is, however, a nurse’s report stating “Child reports mysterious arm pain, but claims no injury or incident. Treated with ice.”
Much to her dismay I explain she still needs to go to school tomorrow unless she has a fever. “But there’s a note and I went to the nurse and two other kids in my class didn’t have to come to school today,” she rages. “I’m not going.” We try to lure her out to dinner but she is unmoved. By request, I take her temperature twice that night. It registers between 98.1 and 98.9. I tell her she has no fever and she asks if she can still have dessert.
Recommendations for the kids:
Magnet Play: Clixo are cool, colorful, manipulable, magnetic toys you can use to make wearables, vehicles, or anything a kid can imagine. Crown? Car? Belt? Bag?
Fall Reading: Favorite fall/nature books include Children of the Forest, Little Witch Hazel, Leif and the Fall, Sophie’s Squash, and Julian’s personal favorite, Creepy Carrots. See more nature books in the Kids’ Book Recs Shop.
Playhouse: The playhouses at Children’s Haus are now back in stock! They’re flat-pack, washable, usable inside + out, and inspired by Bauhaus design (i.e. not eyesores). My kids have turned theirs into a restaurant, fort, and tent of late.
50 States App: Against all my expectations, Ada is obsessed with this Montessorium: Intro to US app about identifying and learning all 50 states. It’s fairly rote, but simple and intuitive for a kids. There’s also one about countries she’s excited to try next.
Cold weather: I have a deep fear about being a person who underdresses my child in winter, so I’ve started thinking about winter gear. The Swedish company Didriksons makes solid winter gloves for kids. For fall, I also love the rain pants from Reima.
Recommendations for the grown-ups:
Read: I assume you’ve read “Who is the Bad Art Friend?” but if you haven’t, try listening to the audio version for an enjoyably juicy 64 minutes.
Listen: This episode from April of Switched on Vox about The Mystery of Montero (Call me by your name) and the musical influences, production, and layers of influence is a delightful listen about Lil Nas X’s mastery over his craft.
Towel: All orange towels are on sale for the month of October at Peace Cloth (by Lena Corwin)
Eat: Pasta Louise is a gem of a lunch spot in Park Slope. 1 pasta shape a day + fresh sauces + great salads. Highly rec getting the roasted cannellini beans on anything.
That’s it for this week! Thanks for reading.
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As a mom reading this as I nurse a baby while my 3 year old tantrums with his pants around his ankles because he hates his potty step stool and demands I lock it in the basement behind the baby gate, this speaks to me deeply