After School
The back door opens and in comes Angelyne. The dogs are howling and begging for her attention, beside themselves with joy at her appearance. They jump up repeatedly, trying to lick her face, while she bends down to remove her shoes. She testily shoo's them away. Her grandfather walks through the door and the dogs turn their attention to him, joyfully greeting his return. They last saw him five minutes earlier, before he left to meet her school bus at the bottom of the street, as he does daily.Upon seeing me, she breezily greets "Hi Boobie". That's me, her Bubbe; I like "Boobie" just fine, it kind of describes me in any event. Then the sad news, she's unable to eat anything, because of her tooth ready to fall out and just hanging in there. Oh sure. Out comes the chocolate milk. She decides, after all, she could try to eat the Brownies I baked two days ago, since they're not about to present a challenge to her tooth (I took them out of the oven a tad prematurely and they're more runny than they should be). "Can I have some pizza?" she implores after devouring the Brownie-guck. Half, I tell her, she can have half of one of the small individual pizzas we bake for her when we make our own giant pizza on Saturday nights. I cut the pizza in half and she indicates which half she prefers and zaps it in the microwave, telling me she won't stand in front of the microwave oven. "Dad", she tells me, "and Ryan (her stepfather and his son) like to watch popcorn popping in the microwave." "But I don't" she assures me, virtuously.
No, she responds to my query, she doesn't want any of the fresh pineapple I just cut up. Her tooth, she reminds me. She does nibble at a few grapes after I assure her they're seedless. And agrees that she wouldn't mind some cheddar cheese. How restrained. Generally, after school she devours everything in sight.
She fusses about in her school bag and withdraws her recorder and her sheet music. The recorder she's using is one used either by her mother or her uncle, when they were young. It's made of apple, a good recorder. Angelyne has what appears to be a natural ability to produce good sound, and she enjoys playing the recorder. She's learned how to read music, and sits down to play a few simple tunes. She is pleased with herself, and I am pleased with her. I ask why she had done so poorly on her last spelling test two days ago, only 50% correct. Didn't you study? I ask, and she says, not enough which is obvious enough, but then she elucidates, saying she was certain she knew all the words and didn't think it was necessary to continued practising.
She tells me about her day at school, a good one. She enjoys music class, and her music teacher today made everyone laugh by emphatically singing words to a particular song, to demonstrate to the class that they weren't sufficiently enthusiastic about singing. The children burst out laughing, and, Angie said, one of the girls laughed so hard she wet herself. Although Angie doesn't particularly like this girl, she was, she said, 'sorry' for her. Angie mentions that there are two Erins in her class, a boy and a girl. First time I've heard of these two. She doesn't like the boy, she says; his name is spelled a-a-r-o-n. Oh, a biblical name, I tell her. Yes, she says, but the boy is not at all nice. The girl's name is spelled e-r-i-n, she tells me, and she is really nice.
Did I notice she has sparkles on her eyelids? she asks me. No, I hadn't noticed, but now that you mention it... Mom stopped on the way home yesterday, she said, at Shoppers Drug Mart, and got some new nail polish, and also this eye blush. I didn't know my daughter wore that stuff; like me I thought she eschewed all make-up. No, Angie said, Mom wears stuff on her eyes. This was supposed to be a pale blue, but you can't see any colour, only the sparkles, so Mom let her put some on.
It's gotten cool, after a very warm day, and the sky threatens thunderstorms, so she decides not to go out, and wants to go upstairs and fiddle about on the computer. Upstairs I give her a small newspaper article to read back to me, and she does with only a bit of help:
Dog saves tot from forest - Africa
A newborn baby abandoned in a Kenyan forest was saved by a stray dog that apparently carried her across a busy road and through a barbed wire fence to a shed where the infant was discovered nestled with a litter of puppies, witnesses said yesterday. The seven-pound, four-ounce girl, named Angel by hospital workers "is doing well, responding to treatment", a hospital spokeswoman said.
Cool, we agree, and turn our attention to the computer. We look at some of her web sites and she decides what she's interested in. Over to you, PBS Kids, and Arthur. I leave her as she is more than sufficiently competent on her own. Used to be I would sit with her coaching her but she is comfortable enough on her own.
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, May 11, 2005
<< Home