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June 27, 2004
Pixie has such a special spirit.
This entry is meant to be a celebration of Pixie. Sometimes, in the hustle and bustle of every-day life, when there are one hundred and one things to-do and a drop-dead gorgeous little baby capturing the centre of my attention, I short-change Pixie. Sometimes I am brusque with her, sometimes impatient, some harried-days I forget about all her strong, beautiful qualities, and focus only on the fact that she is holding-me-up, demanding too much attention, or driving me nutty with her incessant chatter. Well, today I simply want to focus my attention on Pixie, and remind myself of all the things I love about her, all the special qualities she brings to my world. Today, I want to celebrate the spirit of Pixie…
Pixie is four-and-a-half-years old and is obsessed with dresses. I suspect this may be an influence from her four-year-old best friend, because I certainly have done nothing to encourage it. I think Pixie looks best in jeans. Funky bootlegs to be exact. I think of her as a boisterous, rough, very physical kinda girl, so it surprises me that she is suddenly obsessed with dresses. And no, it’s not just any kind of dresses she’s into. She’s into the full-blown ribbon-and-frills PARTY dresses with big flowing skirts that she can twirl around in. I am inclined to buy her slim-lined dresses in oriental fabrics or velvets. But what Pixie wants to wear all the time is the big billowy-skirted numbers with organza overlay and big sashes! Her favorite dress is a purple party-dress with a billowing skirt of floral organza that trails down to her ankles. She wants to wear it everyday. She wants to wear it outside in the sandpit, inside playing play-dough, at the dinner table eating pumpkin soup!! Yesterday she drew blue-crayon around her lips (blue is her favorite color!) for lipstick! She parades around the house with a bejeweled tiara on her head and red-sequined slippers on her feet. She says she wants to be a Queen, no second-rate Princess-play for my Pixie. The other day she realized if she wrapped her bath towel around her chest it would drape along the ground like a Queens’ robes. She then spent half an hour prancing naked around the house with her Queens’ robes (clean towel) dragging all along the dusty (who has time to vacuum I ask you?) floors.
But the bejeweled and frocked-up Queen is only one side of Pixie’s personality. The ‘other’ Pixie is obsessed with tying knots. Call up the Scouts; I have a little elf waiting to enroll!! Yes, any piece of rope she can find will be tied into a multitude of big fat knots before you can say, “Pixie, we will never be able to undo a knot that big!” I constantly find cupboard handles tied shut with knots, and the other day she managed to tie the handle of her wardrobe door to the bedroom door and lock us out!!! But it all culminated in a rather terrible incident one Saturday afternoon. Pixie noticed the neighbor’s Siamese cat prancing through the backyard and ran outside to investigate. This cat is very precious to our neighbors and more spoiled than a child. So five minutes later when Pixie comes in asking for some string so she can ‘play’ with the cat, we innocently gave her some, amused that this spoiled kitty was hanging around long enough to be played with. Jay and I were in the family room, enjoying a quiet cup of tea, but after 5-10 minutes we suddenly realized Pixie was AWFULLY quiet outside and we hadn’t noticed her playing from the window. Jay went out to investigate only to find Pixie busily TYING the cat to the clothesline with her string!!!! The poor cat had string tied around her neck (reasonably tight) which had then been looped and knotted again and again around the base of the clothesline. OMG!! We felt ill, despite how funny this story sounds now! How close that poor cat came to being strangled is NOT funny at all!! All Pixie intended to do was keep the cat tied up so she could play with it, but I tell you Jay and I freaked. Maybe I’d better ring the Scouts and see if they take 4-year-old girls on board! This kid needs a safe and healthy knot-tying outlet!!
I wonder if it’s the influence of her Waldorf Kindergarten, because they’re big on giving kids ‘real’ skills, and it wouldn’t surprise me if many a knot has been tied in that playground! At the moment Pixie is learning sewing at kinder – yes, with a real needle!! They let the older kinder children use hammer and nails to build things, and the other day Pixie came home and spent an hour happily (and messily I might add!) whittling away a wax crayon with her scissors and rabbiting on about how she was ‘carving’ and what an important job it was! It was really cute and it later came out that one of the boys at kinder had been doing some woodcarving that day. I can’t get over how much Pixie LOVES to be involved in these ‘real work’ activities. She loves to get sticks and pretend to build things in the yard. Yesterday she was crouched over a bit of dirt in the yard with a spoon, digging a tunnel because she was pretending to be a ‘bird’ looking for worms! Ha! I love it!! I adore children’s play, and am so happy to see Pixie’s play incorporate ‘real’ work and ‘real’ life. Since turning off the TV (Pixie hasn’t watched any TV for about 3-4 months), I am greatly relieved to see her ‘play’ blossom, and to no longer see her ‘acting’ out meaningless scenes from her favorite TV shows. It always used to irritate me when we had to play Dorothy the Dinosaur, as it was really so far removed from the ‘real’ world. Now she is a knot-tying Queen I am a MUCH happier Mumma!!!
And since cutting out the TV, books have taken on even great prominence in Pixie’s life. Pixie has always loved books, and we have religiously read a story to her at bedtime since she was about 2 years old. Jay and I love to read to her, we actually find it really nourishing when we find a good book that we can enjoy too. Pixie has a wonderful collection of books on her shelf, and being a book-addict myself I have spent many an hour (and many a dollar) scouring the online shelves of Amazon looking for the best and most beautiful story-books the world has to offer!!
Well, the other day she asked me to tell her the story of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which she remembered seeing on TV a year or two ago. I remembered reading the book as a girl, so I promised to take Pixie to the library later that afternoon and see if we couldn’t loan a copy. Well, she was very excited all afternoon about the prospect of being able to ‘read’ the story. When we got to the library she was full of self-importance, and when she found the book on the shelf she was simply awe-struck. She grabbed that book and held it to her chest like it was a rare treasure, she was so excited and thrilled and proud and couldn’t WAIT to get home and start reading it. On the way home she sat in the backseat flipping through the book looking at all the ink drawings in it, trying to work out what they meant (in story-terms). Once home she rushed inside to announce to Daddy that the book had been waiting for her, and how lucky she was. Now isn’t this what childhood should be like?? A time of magic and excitement and discovering the amazing adventures hidden between the covers of magical storybooks. We are having so much fun reading the story to her (it’s beautifully written, just for the telling), and as we only read two chapters a night it’s lasting us weeks and weeks.
Now, I must say, that this wonderful experience together would never have happened if we hadn’t turned off the TV! I simply would have pulled out the video, whacked it in, she would’ve watched it on her own, and in 2 hours the whole event would have been over. We would’ve completely missed out on the wonder of this story ‘together’. But I have promised Pixie that she can watch the movie next easter-time, as a special treat (easter being chocolate time and all!), and she is happy and excited about that.
This is how I want to approach movies – not as something she can have and experience all the time, but as a very rare and special ‘treat’ when we will all sit down as a family, turn the lights down low, pull out some popcorn, and watch a ‘classic’ movie together. My kids will only ever see a handful of ‘classic’ kid’s movies – Willy Wonka, The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music – rather than all the Disney hyped-up cartoon movies. Some people in our family circle have insinuated that we are ‘depriving’ Pixie by not letting her watch all the latest movies and TV shows. But in our hearts we know it’s the exact opposite. By limiting our kids movie consumption, and making it a very rare and special family event, I think we are HEIGHTENING their enjoyment and appreciation of movies, while not depriving them of the great joy and wonder of books (our TV substitute!). Kids who are constantly plugged-in to the TV are more likely to be deprived, simply because they won’t read as many books, and will be far more likely to ‘watch the movie’ than sit down quietly and ‘read the book’. And watching movies all the time lessens the impact of a truly great movie experience; instead the whole thing becomes a humdrum everyday affair that they ‘expect’ rather than ‘cherish’. I have an inkling that the few movies my daughter will watch on special occasions will be something she will remember throughout her life, as there is no doubt the movie-medium is very impactful, and I have no intention of depriving my daughters of the power and joy of films. Truly great films are a wonder to behold. I simply don’t want my kids to be blasé about it all through over-exposure. Anyway, that’s just a few of my thoughts on the dreaded topic of kids and TV consumption…
But speaking of the influence of books, I was interested to find Pixie playing ‘Willy Wonka’ this morning. She declared she was “going to Wonka’s” and got all dressed up for the occasion; the usual purple billowy dress, a pair of red and yellow stripy tights underneath (he-he), and a Queens crown on her tangle (literally, her hair hasn’t been brushed for days!!) of wild curls. Then she found an old Freddo Frog chocolate wrapper which she announced to be her ‘Golden Ticket’. She happened to be chewing on stems of parsley at the time (yes, she runs around the house chewing on parsley leaves and stems – more on that in a minute!) which she decided was ‘real’ chewing gum and then she was off to Wonkas! Whilst at Wonkas it happened that she married Charlie Bucket, which to Pixie involves wearing a long brides veil and dancing around the slippery kitchen floor for half an hour! OH, don’t you just LOVE the age of fantasy play!!!
Another favorite game of Pixie’s is to pretend to be pregnant! She will stuff one of her toys up the front of her dress and wander through the house moaning, “Uh, my baby is kicking me.” Then she will announce that her baby wants to be born and she’ll lie down on the floor and start making pushing noises. She’ll ask for one of us to ‘catch’ her baby, then she’ll reach up her dress and fling her toy at us. Ha! Pretty Funny.
Sometimes she pretends to breastfed. The other night she walked around the house with her top pulled up around her chin, whilst holding a small stone to one boob and a red ball over the other. She declared the ‘stone’ boob wasn’t working but the red-ball boob was full of milk for her babies. She is always asking if she’ll have ‘real’ boobs when she’s a big Mumma like me. It seems to be one of her childhood ambitions! She told Jay the other day that she wants two children, which she’ll call Rosie and Jessie. She has told us many times that she wants to marry either me or Jay, and that she wants to live in “Chisholm” (Our suburb) so she can see me everyday! What a delightful girl!
Anyway, back to the parsley. I must take a moment to brag about my girl’s eating habits. I’m really not sure how it’s happened, but Pixie has become a really healthy eater!!!! I know, I know, kid’s are usually appalling fussy and unhealthy eater and you’re all drop-dead green with jealousy that I’m bragging about this but what can I say? ;^) I don’t consider myself to be particularly strict when it comes to healthy eating, I am (as you may know already) a self-confessed chocoholic and am rather privy to the odd hamburger and fries. But I do usually offer Pixie healthy foods, particularly at snack-time, and both Jay and I are adventurous eaters who never turn our nose up at anything just because it is supposedly ‘healthy’.
The other morning Pixie was hungry so Jay automatically reached into the biscuit jar to offer her a biscuit. Felling rather experimental, I piped up, “Pixie, do you want that biscuit or a healthy snack?” And guess what she replied to the astonishment of her Daddy and without batting an eyelid. “Healthy snack please!” Jay set out a tray of dried apricots, unsalted cashew nuts, and sliced apple pieces, which she happily devoured without a second thought for the biscuit. How cool is that?
Pixie did go through a fussy eating phase though. I remember reading her Dr Suess’s ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ at the time, and when she refused something at dinner-time I’d make a game of it by saying, “You don’t like it, so you say, but try it, try it and you may. Try it and you may I say.” This never failed to elicit a giggle and she’d then have a little taste of the rejected food. If she still didn’t like it, I wasn’t phased in the least and she didn’t have to eat it. But sometimes she’d surprise herself by actually discovering that she liked the previously rejected food, and we’d exclaim with great joy, “Say! I like green eggs and Ham. I do! I like them Sam I am! I do so like green eggs and ham, thank-you, thank-you Sam-I-am!”
Anyway, these days Pixie will try almost anything (Suess is not a Dr for nothing!!), and her current all-time favorite food is Butter Chicken and Naan bread from our favorite Indian curry shop. She adores soups and will eat great bowlfuls of almost any soup I concoct: potato and spinach, Moroccan red lentil, chickpea and leek, and her favorite, Roast pumpkin soup. The other day she even ate Pilaf for dinner, which even surprised me, because it was made with brown rice, chickpeas, pumpkin, currants, pine nuts, parsley, coriander and tofu. She declared the cubes of tofu to be ‘chewing gum’ (which, I might add, she’s only ever had once in her life but seems obsessed with!) and gobbled them all down.
When I need to keep Pixie happy and occupied in the supermarket guess what I give her to munch on? Go on, guess??? No, not chocolate. No, not a lollypop. Not even colored sugar meringues like my mother used to give me. Ugh! Nope, Pixie munches on raw green beans! Yes, she truly wanders through the produce section with a handful of raw green beans to munch on, I kid you not! One day she even asked for some fresh basil leaves and ate half my bunch of basil before I made it to the check-out. It was hilarious, because her lips were stained and she had a green moustache by the time we left the supermarket!
Oh thank heaven for my little girls!!
To see recent pics of my Princesses (big and little) go to: ‘photos.yahoo.com/pixstersplace’ and open an album called “Scarlet Poppy and Pixie Bella.” And for those who have already been and seen, I’ll be posting new 8 week photos of the little one within the next day or so and boy has she CHANGED!!! Blossoming into a full-faced beautiful little girl right before our eyes. I’ll post a link on my message board once done.
Love to all, Eloise.
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