Someone Is an Official Bicycle Rider

Today Amalia mastered cornering on the bicycle, meaning that she can ride for extended periods and more or less control her direction. Actually she did very well at turns. We were riding circuits around a park, and I realized, "uh-oh, we're only turning left here. She better not get any ideas." The next time we go out I will have to find a more varied course, else she come to the conclusion that she is destined for NASCAR.

Where Does She Come Up With This Stuff?

Today Amalia had a great schoolwork session. However, her room is not fit for human habitation, so I sent her up to do some picking up.

"You mean I have to clean the whole thing?"

"You just need to pick up the animals and dolls and toys"

"All of it?"

"Well, yes."

"I can't"

"Why not?"

"Because it's too hard."

"No it isn't."

"It is too difficult for some people!"

Some people. Yes, I suppose, some people, out there, might find picking up some clutter too difficult. Unfortunately for Amalia, I don't consider her one of them. Egads.

First Lost Tooth

Last night, only two days after her sixth birthday, Amalia lost her first tooth. She was quite proud of this, as it is even more proof that she is a big girl now.

Today she is working on thank you cards for birthday presents, and my bending of the rules of typography bugged her. Of course, my bending of the rules was to have helped her avoid violating another rule and was to have helped legibility. You see, she had to write a word that would not fit on the line. Her normal M.O. is to simply wrap the word, no matter what the syllable break, and omitting a hyphen. I convinced her that it would be OK to go into the gutter with her long word.

Resistance.

I even pulled out a couple of examples to show her words that crossed the gutter.

Oooh. That looks cool.

Now, we have long words so placed as to require crossing the gutter.

I have to remember to keep her out of my collection of avant-garde typesetting magazines.

Six Big Ones!

Today is Amalia's sixth birthday. We celebrated with a picnic in the park. A family party will probably follow in Sacramento in the next couple of weeks. Sacramento is good, because it is close enough to both sets of grandparents, and my parents have a lot of space in their backyard.

Now that we live closer to both, and have space, we might have to move some of these things to our house. However, we are still not completely moved in (don't ask what my studio looks like), so large scale entertaining will have to wait.

Anyway, it is hard to believe that it has been six years since Amalia was born. It seems like yesterday, and it probably always will.

Overheard at Chez Keilholtz (or Dr. S____________ would be proud)

Amalia: Why do I have to do chores?

Melanie: Because you want an allowance, don't you? If you get an allowance, you have to do chores for it. What do you think I am, the gov'ment?

Amalia: Who's the stinking gov'ment anyway?

Erik: Ah, she is becoming a Libertarian already. Dr. S____________ would be proud.

It Must Run in the Family

Amalia is a future food critic. When offered a piece of Angel's Food Cake, she replied, "no thank you. That cake smells like dog slobber."

Of course she is right. All Angel's Food Cakes smell like dog slobber, due to the albumen (egg white), which has a dog slobbery smell. The thing is, most people don't notice it because it is masked by the smell of cooked flour, vanilla, etc. The egg yolk that is in most other baked goods completely masks the smell (not even Amalia can detect the dog slobber smell).

I notice the trace of the dog slobber smell in many things that others don't, it just doesn't bother me when it is in such a small proportion to other things (I am one of those weirdos who is sensitive to a whole bunch of aromas and tastes, yet I like them. Most people who can detect bitterness as strongly as my tongue can't stand bitter food. Not me. Raddicchio. Coffee. Super dark, almost unsweetened chocolate. I revel in that almost-choking bitterness).

Now, I am waiting for her to complain that chocolate smells like rotten fish.

Sick Ward Chez Keilholtz

Amalia is home sick from school. Fever. Sneezing.

Ah-choo!
Ah-choo!
Ah-choo!

Coughing.

Cack! Cack!
Cack! Cack!

I have a burning felling in my nose, which is running. I also have burning eyes (since I have chronic dry-eye, this is not uncommon, but definitely hits in spring). I don't have fever, and no cough whatsoever. Do I have a cold? Do I have hayfever?

I don't know. I am taking precautionary measures just the same. Since I get hayfever every spring (I still love all the blossoms, even though they wreck havoc with my sinuses and eyes), it is probable that if there is no fever, I have something in parallel with Amalia, but not the same thing, as I don't get sick nearly as often as anyone else I know. We shall see. We shall see.

Anyway, this might be a record day of blogging if I have to stay in all day. Pull up a chair, fluff some cushions, and be prepared for way too much verbiage in this space. Or not. We'll see how the day goes.

Orders from the Leader

Well, not the Dear Beloved Leader, our Duce, our Emperor, the Protector of Daly City and King of the Islas Malvinas and Gibraltar, but the other one. The Leader who rules not with an iron fist in a velvet glove, but rather with big brown eyes and plaintive cries of "Babbo, pllllleeeeeeeeaaaaaaaase."

Anyway, she gave me my orders today:

"Babbo. I am going to go to bed in your bed (this was after first asking very politely if she could sleep in my bed), but you are going to stay up and work for a little bit, so I can get to sleep and your snoring won't bother me. Then, when you come to bed, I can snuggle with you and keep toasty warm."

How can I possibly disobey a command like that?

I will say this: Amalia has been quite a trooper this last week, with the disruption and the strict orders (very difficult for a big, active, pouncing little Portugee) that she is to be gentle with Mamma for a few weeks after Mamma gets back from the hospital (it is looking like Sunday, by the way). I have not had to as much as raise my voice with her once, at least not seriously (only one brief time to express urgency, not anger, as she was playfully tearing my finger off - did I mention that she is big, active and pouncing?).

No offence to my female readers, or their little girls, but right now, I think Amalia is the sweetest girl in the world (she gets it from her Mamma, no doubt. Folks call Italians and Germans lots of things, but sweet is rarely one of them).

Update

Melanie came through the surgery quite well. It took an hour and a half, and the tissue samples were benign. She was in good spirits when we got to see her, and should be home this weekend. Amalia is handling it pretty well, too, although there was one time she said, "what was all that art in the museum (the hospital has quite a good art gallery in it)?"

"You mean in the hospital?"

"Don't say that, Babbo. It makes me sad."

Awww. Right now she is snoring away in our bed, sleeping soundly after a hot dog at her favorite pub, a chapter of Charlotte's Web, and trading rounds of "the Sunshine Song" (known to the rest of the world as "You are my Sunshine"). If you want cute, have a five year old girl sing that to you.

So, all is well, and Deo Gratias prayers are definitely in order.

And speaking of songs...

A couple of days ago, Amalia picked up Melanie's choir music, a baroque mass setting, and sang it. Well, not really. She was improvising, the lyrics as well as the melody. For the most part it was a hilarious melange of lines from various hymns that we sing, and then it got to the end (think of this as being sung in an adorable five year old voice doing her best to improvise in a "churchy" style):

"Uh-oh! This is all wrong!
Quit pestering Jesus!"

I immediately could hear this last line in a Polish accent.

We have a great priest, from Poland, who is probably the best model of how a priest should care for his parish that I have ever encountered. He is holy, orthodox (and as a bi-ritual priest, he can sometimes be quite Orthodox as well), astoundingly devoted to the well-being of his parish (which includes a big, scary county hospital with a trauma unit, something that most priests would shudder at having to take care of, but not Fr. Z. His dedication to ministering to the sick is incredible, and he will sometimes be called to the hospital several times in a night, which he dutifully does) and completely unafraid to tell us when we are out of line. Imagine if Don Camillo were Don Camilsky and you get the picture.

So, when I heard that line "quit pestering Jesus" I could just imagine it coming at the end of one of Father's legendary scolds.