knock, knock, who's there?

So I woke up this morning with my same resolve to be a better parent and the girls seemed to be cooperating so I was glad. I've mentioned before that Ruby isn't quite sure of any of the abc's or shapes or colors, etc and any effort to try and have her focus on them ends in a prompt search for something/anything else for her to focus on....After breakfast, Ruby brings this big preschool preparedness book over and says she wants to 'wite innit'. This happens about once a week that Ruby wants to feel like she has assignments like Dellah and I get to patiently sit with her while she just scribbles all over the book. There's a page for each letter to practice writing it and those are just a joke normally but today I was feeling full of the essence of good will toward all so I said, "would you like to learn about 'R's since your name starts with R?

She said yes so we started tracing R's and then it was time to freehand it and I braced myself......and then she drew a vertical line.....and then a fat belly to the mid line.......and then a diagonal line from the belly to the bottom line......by golly it was an R!

I had such a big cow of overjoyment that she felt compelled to learn u's as well.....and then b's and y's.....at the conclusion of this exercise in larynx weakening cheers and sighs over her motivation to excel at something/anything, i asked Dellah (who was making it clear the entire time how good she already is at writing these letters, needing me to say, 'you're right, you are such a big, smart girl and now you can help teach Ruby!') to go get a piece of white paper so I could see if it were possible to put this all together.

the child wrote RUBY.

she just wrote it. The girl who can't find the shirt she just took off and can't switch from house to car or car to other place or even living room to bedroom without an extreme show of inability to calm down and stop screaming. The girl who called her own sister Wooby for over 3 years and can't figure out the intricate mystery that is 'putting on your socks', learned to write and wrote her name 10 minutes.

the lights are on and someone's home!! these are the moments i have to savor because tomorrow, chances are, she'll act like it never happened.

there's this part in Mansfield Park where Fanny and Edmund are in the carriage after a long separation and Edmund says, "I should think you and I are beyond words when words so clearly are not enough......and then he puts his hand down on the seat and she puts her hand down beside his and then he inches his hand over hers and later he falls asleep and leans on her shoulder as she looks down at him....."
that's all.
I'm in love with that movie.

i used the crock pot today. We're having chicken toastadas and beans and I'm very domesticated. I've even done 3 loads of laundry
.....now who's going to fold them? I miss Josefina and how she used to come and clean our house. I used to think she wasn't very thorough and now I wonder what I was thinking....

did I mention we sold our Chrysler Pacifica a couple of weeks ago? I know! I'm so excited.....you know what this means, don't you? This means that an acura mdx is going to come and live with us and we can love it and pat it and squeeze it and call it George. the auction is in Vegas next friday.....hopefully Gabriel can find something good and bring it hither so I can stop driving his car and picking him up at the traxx every afternoon. can you really get a baby and an mdx in the same year? I wanted both of these things for years and now they're coming like magic.....belated, delicious magic....I feel like the dread pirate roberts with nothing to do now that i've had my revenge....
maybe I'll fold laundry......
or take a nap......or a shower.....or a break...