Atherton Family Notes

This past few weeks Celia’s class has been working on self portraits at school. Now you might think that a 3 year old would not have much ability to do that, after all eyes, mouth, nose, and hands can be tricky even for us adults. I think the kids did very well and the smile on my face stretched from ear to ear as I saw their creations hanging on the wall outside the room. I could not wait for the day I could bring it home to hang on MY wall!

The kids were asked to cut out eyes and mouths from magazines and bring them to school. The body and head were paper plates, the hair was out of yarn (any color the child’s heart desired. Mine chose pink, imagine that!), the hands were prints of their own, and the feet seemed to have taken a walk from CeCe’s picture. The funniest part of the picture is the nose. Now, CeCe had the most fun telling this amazing fact to the grandparents and us. Everytime the story was told she would say in the most excitement I have seen from her, “…AND A NUT FOR A NOSE!!”

Here is her lovely creation that may grace my wall for years to come:

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Carissa has started this annoying habit of constantly picking up anything and EVERYTHING she finds! I do not know why she feels the need to pick trash up off the ground and I CERTAINLY do not understand the need to keep it. I am not sure where if it is just a passing wonder and discovery to her and that all 5-year-olds go through this or if somewhere along the line I went terribly wrong. Did I throw away something of hers that she cherished? Some picture, some art project, some treasured find? And now she feels the need to keep everything? A few weeks ago I dropped and broke the glass on my watch. I needed a watch and fished into my jewelry box looking for another. All I found was a very cheap one with a band about to rip to pieces and no working battery. I started to throw it away but was caught by Carissa. She threw one huge fit at the thought of throwing away something “so beautiful”. I figured it would not hurt and gave it to her. I could always throw it away at a later date. Because she has her own watch to wear, she proceeded to give it to Celia who then wanted to wear it to school. Now, why Carissa begged so badly for that watch and then gave it away, I will never understand but I can live with.

What I find VERY HARD to live with however is this….

I took the time to empty Rissa’s coat pockets last night. Ken and I had the laugh of our lives pulling all the crap out of them. There were rocks, leaves, pinecones, broken pieces of toys, water bottle label, Styrofoam, some nuts picked up on the forest walk yesterday, and a dirty snot rag (to give her credit, I think it was her own). The load must have been weighing her down by at least a couple of pounds.

I fear I am raising a pack rat and by the time she is a teen it will get much, much worse. I would like to know if this is a learned behavior issue or if it is embedded in our genetics somewhere deep down. And if it is genetics… whom can I blame for this?

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We noticed several months ago that Sadie has started twirling her hair when she’s very tired and trying to go to sleep.  She does it so much that we call her “Twirly P” almost as often as we call her “Sadie P”.  It’s a strange habit of hers, but it does seem to help her go to sleep.

I don’t know, should we be worried about her cutting off the circulation in her finger?  I hope she grows out of this soon.

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One of the downfalls of not using the popular names for your kids, is that finding things with their names on them is near impossible. I can not count how many times we have search among bowls, cups, toys, stuffed animals, and jewelry in the hopes of finding all 3 names, only to come out unsuccessful. Carissa and Sadie are the hardest here in France. We have spotted some items with “Clarissa” or “Marissa”, but Sadie… well, the name is non existent here. People give me funny looks and have a very difficult time pronouncing it.

Celia on the other hand, we have found a few things but with accent marks over the “E”. (note to self: must buy at least ONE item with this spelling) But still none that are just the right way until one night when Ken walked in with cheese no less! There is a brand of cheese here called “Celia” and the minute CeCe saw her name on the cheese she bounced around with joy. You seriously would have thought we had told her she was going to Disneyland to meet Cinderella and have her all to herself. The cherry on top is that she LOVES this cheese! She ate the first package up quickly and has been begging for more since she ran out. When Ken came home with another package last night, she dug right in and has polished off almost half of it. It has a pretty strong bite to it and it is hard for me to imagine a 3 year old liking it so much. Is it the power of your name that does the trick? If so, I am considering creating a package with Carissa’s name on it so that she will eat more cheese. And maybe I should consider a package of brocolli called “Carissa, Celia, and Sadie”? Wouldn’t THAT be a find!!!

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Sadie turns two today and I thought I would share her birthday pictures with her. Ken says she is growing so fast and it does not feel like she should be two already. I am not so sure I feel the same!

While we had her all dressed and in the pictures taking mood, we took some pictures of all three girls together. I even got in on one and finally have a pictures with me and the girls.

I hope you all have a great new year!!

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