As she laid in bed last week, Noemie said with great sadness that her eighth year had come to an end. She was getting older, and there was no way back.
Noemie has turned nine.
We never stop in this house and last weekend was no exception. Our American Heritage Girls troop had an ice-skating event. We brought pizza and cupcakes and made a birthday party out of it. Noemie had a relatively fun day. She's not particularly close to any of the troop girls so it didn't feel like your run-of-the-mill party where the birthday girl is doted on like a princess. But back at home she did open presents. She didn't get any books for the first time in several years, which she found a little disconcerting, but was happy with crafting supplies, some clothes, and a photobook.
Sunday morning heralded Gigi's birthday. She woke up absolutely positively five years old and she made sure everyone knew it. Danny had to work that morning so we saved our festivities for the afternoon. I got everyone dressed for church and threw open the front door expecting to find spring as I had left it the day before with sunshine and cherry blossoms. But it was not spring today! It was cold and gray and now I had to make a mad dash to the coat closet. But my kids were clearly not on the same page as me: they made a mad dash out the door instead to find a woodpecker they could hear in the distance. By the time we were all back in order, in the car, we were now late.
Dominic had come back from his impromptu nature walk with a dirty piece of rope, which Noemie, little mother that she thinks she is, began to fuss over. Dominic argued that he could use his piece of rope to practice his knots. Noemie continued to intentionally fuss loudly, projecting her protests, expecting me to jump in and correct Dominic's behavior. (This nag-and-wait approach to getting me to enforce her sense of propriety and discipline is a daily exercise in our house. I generally try to ignore it so as not to encourage her, but half of the time Dominic is legitimately doing something unacceptable such as fishing pennies out of a monument or playing tag around a wine display at Whole Foods. Playing with a dirty rope in his church clothes would have gotten my attention except that Noemie nagged first and now I have to weigh the balance between correcting the nag or correcting the rope situation. The crisis in child psychology is constant!) When Noemie didn't get a reaction from me, she said to Dominic in dead seriousness, "That could have been used as a poop line." Dominic was now visibly a little nervous about his decision to play with this particular rope, and about his ignorance of "poop lines." He asks, then pleads, with Noemie to tell him what a poop line is. Personally, I'm impressed that Noemie's literary largess has intimidated Dominic enough that he assumes she has this special piece of information that has somehow eluded him in his 10 years of learning.
Once we arrive at church, everyone hugs and congratulates the new birthday girl, to Noemie's great annoyance. Gigi is practically a celebrity at our church as it is with her ridiculous antics. During their most recent children's choir performance, in the middle of the second verse, Gigi slowly shifted behind the pulpit. She popped out a few seconds later waving a small American flag. When the director expressed her disapproval by making signs and shaking her head, Gigi lowered the flag and finished the song by punctuating the remaining lines with a loud "Hallelujah!" solo. That evening, the church hosted its monthly birthday fellowship where Gigi began to wail dramatically because she was only permitted two desserts. Seeing that this was not effective, she dried her tears and spent the rest of the hang-out time chatting it up with her best friend at church, and persuading others to give her a little piece of this cookie or that fruit, wearing the headband from the Little Mermaid costume she got for her birthday.
This is the best friend with whom Gigi was caught in the adult bathroom a few weeks ago during choir practice. They were cleaning the bathroom mirror and other surfaces with hand soap. And gelling their hair with hand sanitizer. Gigi brings out the ruffian in all her friends. Danny has decided this behavior is not as cute in a five year old as it was in a four year old and we are undertaking a behavior retraining programme of our own invention (meaning, among other things, she's not allowed to sing in the children's choir until she will follow directions.)
This is Danny's last month at his office before he begins training for his new post. His schedule will become a traditional Monday through Friday gig and he won't be able to take time off at that point for my crazy adventures. Despite the weather forecast, we took advantage of this last chance for a family weekend get-away by going to Jamestown Settlement which the kids had just finished reading about in school. (Not to be confused with Jamestown National Park with the archaeological excavations.)
As usual, the kids had no idea what we were up to until we were on the way and the luggage in the trunk gave it away.
The weather forecast was absolutely accurate. It rained all day.
Which was awesome. Settling Jamestown was no walk in the park, you know.
The ever pragmatic natives were nowhere to be found in this foul weather. This was rather unfortunate for us because it was evident that there were a lot of interesting skills and village life experiences that were demonstrated in the typical park day.
Thankfully, the colonists and their many chickens were there to show us around their thatch-roofed buildings, to fire their matchlock muskets, and to chat about their armor and their chamber pots. We all gathered around a cannon to video record the Happy Birthday song for my mom which we sent via multimedia text in one of those non-chronistic moments that occasionally show up in 21st-century life.
That evening Danny and I enjoyed a romantic evening watching the Senate Intelligence Hearing on Russian interference in the 2016 election on C-SPAN while the kids vegged out on Ratatouille. The hearing was rather enlightening. Dr. Godson was a little verbose but if you closed your eyes he sounded like Winnie the Pooh. Danny's doppelgänger had a particularly powerful testimony. I don't think it will stop most people from forwarding incendiary news articles from dubious news outlets or posting memes of questionable veracity, as even major news outlets have been negligent in fact-checking for themselves, but I think it was rather poignant that the Russians are waging war against Americans by pitting us against ourselves. Divided we fall, and the Russians know it. Think about that next time you villainize your political opponents or entertain "news" media that does the same. Ahem.
Where were we? Ah yes! Another adventure! The next day we fast-forwarded about a hundred years and enjoyed a lovely day in Colonial Williamsburg.
Noemie fell in love with the idea of traditional weaving. She would like to take up the skill.
That may be beyond me.
At the print shop we saw a printing press in action. Ah. I love history.
We enjoyed a tour of the Governor's Palace and the adjacent gardens.
We also enjoyed a play that included sword fighting, slapstick, and 18th-century insults. The kids thought it was the best.
We were back home in time for church on Sunday, and to do laundry and sweeping and mopping and all that real life stuff that people have been doing for hundreds of years. But sadly, without the chickens.
Jamestown Booklist:
Pocahontas by Joseph Bruchac
Miracle: The True Story of the Wreck of the Sea Venture by Gail Karwoski
A Lion to Guard Us by Clyde Bulla
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