Isabelle's New Job

By the way, Isabelle has a license that says she can go to work.

Dad: "What do you do at work?"

Isabelle: "Artisting. That's what artists do."

Isabelle Art

Snakes Rouillard
Isabelle H. Rouillard Wightman
pencil on paper cut-outs

Carrie and I, for reasons unknown, were both tickled by these. They are fat snakes, because they ate a lot. We particularly liked the various expressions. Snake "C" is growling because he's mad at someone. Snake "B" is very happy, Snake "D" is not sad but grumpy, Snake "A" is upset. Snake "G" is just a baby. (I created the letters just for reference).

The snakes are named "the same as me!" Isabelle? No, Rouillard.

Wedding Bells & Oedipal Moments

Well, Freud didn't make it all up.

As many of you are aware, Isabelle has a baby, who came out of her belly, named Aim. Sometimes "Ain." One day Isabelle proclaimed that she was Aim's mommy, so I asked her if Thomas (her bear) was Aim's daddy.

"No. You are!"

Moments later, she proclaimed that Aim was her brother. I pointed out that if she was the mommy, then Aim was her son.

"No. He's my brother!"

Well, I suppose, given Aim's parentage, he is her brother!

But a few days later I learned that I was safe. Isabelle was married. She had a husband, and his named was Janth.

"Janx?" I asked, suspecting a lisp.

"No, Janth. I have two husbands."

"What's your other husband's name?"

"Uh... Coff. I have all kinds of husbands."

Why not? Take two, they're small.

Isabelle Art

Ghost

by Isabelle H. R. Wightman

pencil

Taro and the Glopposite Islands

Isabelle's favorite bathtoy is "Taro," the dragon-boy, a little plastic person who resembles nothing so much as a character from Charles Schultz's Peanuts strip, if one of them wore a moustache and a pirate outfit. Unlike his namesake in the excellent Japanese animated movie (Taro the Dragon-Boy), who is a soft-spoken but determined little boy with the strength of 100 men, Taro rides a pirate ship and is mostly concerned with family matters and going swimming.

Taro is accompanied on his escapades by his mother, played by a pencil-thin fairy queen with a bare midriff, and his father, played by what appears to be, if he is her father, a cross-dressing teeny-bopper. I don't quite understand it, but Taro's dad wears a halter-top, mini-skirt, and lots of plastic jewelry, including an anklet on her bare feet. Of course, he does have a large, bushy ponytail, which might explain things, except that he has another, equally bushy ponytail on the other side of his head -- and of course his hair is red. It's a mystery to me, but I like it.

Truth in advertising: I don't know that Taro actually has ever gone to the Glopposite Islands, but I thought Isabelle's effort at "Galapogos" was so funny I had to get it in there somewhere.

The Sacrifices of Parenting

Now that it is summer Isabelle likes to play outside. Her favorite game is "chase," in which she runs and I roar and occassionally head her off to create the illusion I am running.

But I cannot resist the temptation to get her into the garden. So as the spring unfolded, I showed her the strawberry blossoms, the tiny green buds that would be fruit, the green fruit that would be ripe, and finally, the strawberries started ripening.

Just two. I ate one and she ate one.

Jump ahead one day. A lot more strawberries are getting ripe now. We noted this with excitement.

Now, one thing parents do is they are always looking for games their children can play while they work. The best games are games that help: "Hey! How fast can you get these bottles in the recycling?" But any game that keeps her busy is a help. For instance, I'm building a border to hold a gravel bed along the side of the house, she's playing "flip ball," which, near as I can tell, involves running around, sans ball, and falling over backwards. Good game.

But then she disappears.

Put down the tools. Go look. There she is, in the middle of the garden, a beautific smile, smeared red with strawberry juice.

Well, there'll be more tomorrow.

Flash forward to tomorrow.

DADDY: "Let's pick some strawberries for Mommy."
ISABELLE: "I want to pick strawberries for me!"
DADDY: "Okay, you pick strawberries for you, and I'll pick strawberries for Mommy."
ISABELLE: "I'm going to eat them all!"

Pick pick pick. Hers go in her mouth, mine go in the bucket. I eat a couple, fill a bucket with eight strawberries.

Usher little girl out of garden as she starts eating -- and liking -- even the white ones.

Dessert time. Can't eat strawberries in front of little girl and not give her any. I've had a few, so I put four in her bowl, four in Mommy's bowl. Then I have to leave to see my former students graduate from Elementary School. A moment later the phone rings.

Mommy talks briefly to Grandma Bev. Looks down. Both bowls are empty.

On the upside, strawberries are at least good for little girls!

Isabelle Art

So Isabelle drew a pair of pictures, and I looked down, and, to my surprise, I instantly recognized what she had drawn. This is Totoro, the tree-kami from My Neighbor Totoro, one of her favorite movies.

I thought she had drawn two:

But after I posted them, I showed them to her and just checked to be sure I was right. "This is Totoro, too, right?"

"No, Daddy, that's you!"

Lady Isabelle Rides to the Rescue

Okay, so she didn't take the horse to the rally, but she was there!

Too bad there isn't sound on this picture, because she is shouting "Initiate impeachment!"

Fashion sense

Isabelle says some day when she's all grown up she's going to get ear rings.

She says she's also going to get a nose ring.

And I thought I was radical getting my ear pierced when I was 18!

Garden girl

Spring has finally come to Vermont. Normally, Isabelle doesn't like to wear jackets. But we both had dark T-shirts with pictures (hers: Lightning McQueen, mine: Vermont Reggaefest), blue jeans, and white socks with gray on the soles, and I was going to wear my jean jacket. So...

She helped prune the roses, and dig up weeds. Here she is running across the yard and posing under a tree.

Isabelle Art

Isabelle's first stick figure. In the middle you can see "sunglasses" (the black sideways B, not the orange circles). Just had to share.

Isabelle Art

This picture was made with a special Montessori technique of dipping a marble in paint and then rolling it about the paper.

Isabelle told me it was called "A picture of my daddy"