Kite Chronicles

I guess if Dora the Explorer had been around when I was a youngster, I would have been fascinated with her, too. You know, the cool little tomboy girl who speaks English and Spanish and runs around with a little monkey friend named Boots. Her clothes don’t match and her shirt is too small, but she’s too cool to care. She uses her map and her backpack, and of course her star pocket, and always finds some way to save the day, singing and dancing before, during, and after. I can see why she’s such a cool cat to the kiddos.

First, my niece Carolyn was all about anything Dora, then Charla went through her own little Dora phase as well. Charla’s Dora phase, however, quickly gave way to the Disney princesses- a phase that she is still thriving in as we speak, though even that phase is quickly giving way to Barbie. I can only imagine that the Bratz dolls are next…and how am I supposed to stop that freight train? I didn’t even introduce her to Barbie! But, alas, this post is supposed to be about Julianne.

Julianne has never paid much attention to tv, which can cause a real issue when you’re trying to make dinner and the kid is pulling everything out of the cabinets or crying because she wants to be held. Just 5 minutes of Baby Einstein would allow me to put the casserole in the oven, but nothing doing. I was lucky back at 18 months to get Julianne to watch one solid minute of anything, much less five. Things are beginning to change, however, with Julianne’s interests and attention span. She has discovered Dora.

It’s so funny to watch your kids develop this complete adoration of a fictional character. I used to always think that parents were cultivating this obsession with the characters, but now I know that it’s really just something you can’t control once it starts. Sure, we used to point at the tv when Charla was watching Dora, and say, “Look, Julianne, it’s Doooorrrraaa!” but that was just a feeble attempt to get her interested in something on tv, so that we could wash dishes or do a load of laundry. By the way, we also pointed at Big Bird and Clifford, and other characters who shall remain nameless. It doesn’t matter. The point is, the only character that Julianne has any interest in at all, is Dora.

She has Dora bath toys, (thanks to Aunt Beth), a Dora sippy cup (thanks to the Easter bunny), a Dora beach towel (because Mom’s a sucker), several Dora dolls, Dora videos that were passed down from Charla, and a Dora nightgown. The nightgown cracks me up because Julianne refuses to sleep in anything but the nightgown. Even if she’s wearing footy pajamas, like last night because it’s so FREAKIN’ cold in APRIL, she wants to wear the Dora nightgown over them. Also, she points at Dora on her nightgown and says “Dora stuck.” I’m guessing she thinks Dora is “stuck” in the silkscreen on her nightgown, which of course she is, and come on now, that’s just funny.

At any rate, I’ve decided to go ahead and keep the snowball effect happening by having a Dora birthday party for Julianne’s 2^nd birthday. I mean, it’s not about what we think is cool, right? It’s about what the kid wants. I guarantee Julianne wouldn’t have her birthday any other way.

I finally played my first tennis match on Tuesday. I’ve been taking lessons once a week for about a month now, and well, having never played before I had nowhere to go but up. I think the hardest thing about tennis right now (for me) is trying to remember not to try to hit a homerun every time I swing. Our coach actually told me that I have a bit of “muscle memory” left over from softball that I need to unlearn. The forehand with its follow through is mind-boggling to me. I can’t understand how you can swing in this strange upward motion and make the ball go straight. I guess I will learn this eventually, but right now, I just have to hit the ball lightly so that it doesn’t go over the fence.

Our ALTA team has 19 people, so we don’t exactly get to play every week. This setup is fine for me right now since I really just need to practice. Anyway, my first scheduled match was rained out on Sunday, so we rescheduled for Tuesday night. I played Line 4 with my neighbor Tanya. We actually started out ok, keeping pretty much neck and neck with our opponents until they pulled away in the end of the set to beat us 6-4. What we didn’t account for was playing while tired. In practice, we’ve usually played about an hour of tennis at the most, then stopped. The match went on for a couple of hours, and by the time the second set rolled around, Tanya and I were beating ourselves more than the other team was beating us. We lost the second set 6-1.

I did enjoy playing in spite of the loss. It was nice to have the spirit of competition back in my life. It’s been absent for a long time now. It’ll be great to have something in which to take out my aggression every week. Also, as Joe’s friend Scott pointed out, tennis is a sport that you can play for the next 30 years. It’s true. So much of the game is strategy that you don’t need to be extremely agile to play fairly well. I have a lot to learn, but I know I’ll enjoy every minute of it.