Our Last Day

Our last day of 2007, that is.  What a year!

Last night we had a snowfall of about 4 or 5 inches of fluffy snow.  We admired it from the windows when we woke, but I wasn’t ready to brave it before breakfast.  We read books, ate, and were just starting to play with a pile of construction paper when Gwyn called.  I chatted with her for half an hour before BabyGirl hunted me down.  She stalked up to me and pressed one of her boots into my hand.  When I didn’t respond, she tugged on my pants with both hands.  I turned to her and asked, “What should I do with this boot?” and she lifted one foot in the air and waggled it at me, accusatorily.  Okay, point taken.  Out in the snow we went.

JediBoy snowshoed, and BabyGirl tried both walking and crawling in the snow.  This is the biggest accumulation we’ve had since she learned to walk, so it was fun to watch her maneuver.  She crawled when she was tired of walking, and then thought she might like to eat the snow, since she is, after all, our bottomless pit.

But she didn’t like it.

We played outside for about forty-five minutes before she was tired and needing a nap.   The mail just came and JediBoy was excited - he got a puzzle from my friend Alia, the January Ranger Rick, a pair of Highlights Hidden Picture Playground magazines, and the dvd of Home Alone that I won from Phil’s site.  He doesn’t know what to do first!

I am a READER

I went to bed last night awash in the glow of… having no further goals for the rest of the school year.

Oh, come on, JediBoy’s only 5 1/2.  This year is “kindergarten” and we don’t have to report anyway.  I didn’t have a lot of well-thought-out goals or plans for the year, because I knew that traveling to Guatemala and bringing home BabyGirl would be both educational and disruptive, and it has been both to the extreme!  So I’m not here to boast about finishing a boxed curriculum early or checking everything off a massive to-do list.

But it seems that in the back of my head, I had some kind of evil little judge telling me whether or not I had done enough for JediBoy this year.  And last night, that little voice was silenced for at least six months!

JediBoy was curled up in a chair in the living room, perusing one of his Christmas gifts - the book What’s Inside a Castle.  He called me over and said, “On this page, Mom, I’m supposed to find the chapel and the school.”  Here, he points to a room with an altar in it.  “Now, this is the chapel, but I’m not sure which of these is the school.”  He points to a room with people sitting at a table looking at books and a room with three kids playacting as knights and horses.  I told him I guessed the room with the books was what the author probably meant to be the school.

I was walking away when the conversation caught up with me.  I turned back and asked him, “Wait a minute.  How did you know the word chapel ?”  To which he replied…

“Oh Mom.  I read everything.  I am a READER.”

Cue the glow of satisfaction.  Can you really ask for anything more out of the “kindergarten” year than to have a boy who is curious and active, loving and interesting, who adores getting books for Christmas and proclaims himself a READER?  I can’t think of anything better, and if he doesn’t “learn” anything else that’s documentable for the next six months, I’m still going to be satisfied and relaxed.  I love my little READER.

Quick Holiday Pics

I hope you all had a lovely holiday.  We had a delightful time, with our whole family - both sets of grandparents as well as my sister and PisecoDad’s brother, and their cousin, Uncle Jer.  We played games, read books, tested toys, and built Lego creations.  We even went out to see Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium at the second-run cinema.  Some of my favorite moments included BabyGirl giving her Tia some besos and JediBoy retelling and acting out Beowulf.  We were so wonderfully blessed with gifts and love.  Here are a few quick pictures from our holiday.

BabyGirl and JediBoy with Nita and Pappy

with Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Chris

Opening stockings

One of BabyGirl’s favorite presents - a ride-on ladybug.

Giving Tia Gwyn besos.

And finally, raising doubts that BabyGirl was placed in the right family… this was her reaction to ice cream!  She actually preferred the pickles…  oh well, Abeula doesn’t have a sweet tooth either.

Agent Orange Takes a Bath

 ”Agent Orange” taking a bath with BabyGirl

Yes, it all came off, and yes, he’s still proud of his “tooth-hole.”

Rock n Roll

JediBoy turned 5 1/2 this week, and was so proud!

We’ve been very busy with cleaning, wrapping, shopping, and just living our lives this week.  On Monday night we had a wonderful party with Leigh and Paula and their families.

Wednesday was JediBoy’s half birthday, and we talked all day about how big he’s getting, and how small he used to be. Yesterday afternoon a care package arrived from Aunt B. who had read here that many of our ornaments were destroyed a few years ago. She boxed up several duplicate ornaments from our years of family ornament exchanges and sent them up for us. We were so touched by her kindness!

Today we’re in a whirlwind of laundry and clothing. BabyGirl had been wearing a few 6-9 or 9-12 month clothes still, but has outgrown almost all of them now, especially since she wears cloth diapers when we’re home, so she needs extra big pants to cover those! So we spent the morning sorting and resorting, as BabyGirl likes to help, purposefully taking clothes off of one pile and wandering away to set them down on another pile.

Yesterday, JediBoy asked for a ponytail in the back - he barely has enough hair to do that, but I managed. He said he wanted to be “Ben Franklin, you know, who kept trying and trying and invented the light bulb.” A little more time, several long discussions about inventors later, we pulled out his Young Thomas Edison book - and there, little Thomas sports a small ponytail.

This morning, he wanted a ponytail again, and then checked himself out in the mirror. Suddenly, he yelled “ROCK N ROLL!” and ran to his box of markers. He frantically flipped through them, finally yanking out an orange one and turning to me. “See, Mom? This says -washable-.” He pulled the cap off and -zip-zip- drew two bold lines on each cheek!

He kept going, decorating his arms, hands, and belly. This is especially fun for me because he’s never liked having things on him, and it was only last month when he had his first facepainting encounter. (We went back this week and she remembered him, saying, “You’re the Beowulf guy, aren’t you?”) I’ve watched the other kids in my life color themselves with abandon for years, so it’s fun to see JediBoy finally finding the fun. It’s extra good, because I heard that Santa is putting a facepainting stick in his stocking this year.

Yes, She’s Walking!

BabyGirl saw her friend Jamie three times this week.  On Tuesday, we went to Chuck E. Cheese and BabyGirl watched Jamie walk all over.  BabyGirl would take two or three tentative steps between games or between people, but that was it.  On Friday, we met at the library, and again BabyGirl watched Jamie walk everywhere.  BabyGirl was brave enough to take five or six steps between objects or people.  On Saturday, we went to D.’s birthday party, and there ALL the kids were walking and racing around the house.  That’s when BabyGirl really took off and started walking across the room to try and follow Jamie.

Tonight she’s been a walking machine, going in circles around the office for about two hours!  She’s working on stopping, turning, and bending over to pick something up and then straightening up again.  You can tell both BabyGirl and JediBoy think this is very exciting!

Friends, Cake and Thrifting

Today we celebrated our friend’s first birthday with a warm, exuberant party at his family’s house.  There were plenty of people, and the kids had a blast playing indoors and outside in the snow.  There was delicious food, not only pizza and cake and ice cream, but wonderful home-cooked Malian food.  Great company too!

Our babies: BabyGirl, the birthday boy D. and their friend J.

 Sitting still only works for so long now that all three of them are officially walking toddlers!

Here, JediBoy-the-Masked-Avenger tries to hand his little sister off to friend N.

After we left the party, we stopped by a thrift store not far from their house.  We had several bags of things to donate, and I picked up a small bag of things to bring home.  I’ve been looking for more “living” math for JediBoy, who seems ready to grasp concepts but not to memorize facts.  I found two game sets - “At Home With Math,” published by an educational group out of Cambridge, MA, and Cubes which is published by Jax, the makers of “Sequence.”

JediBoy and I tried them both out while PisecoDad took BabyGirl to the store.  “Cubes” was fun, but he got frustrated when he saw that he was losing his chips in the second set.  I think he’ll handle the ups-and-downs of the game better when we play with a third person.  The “At Home With Math” set uses four d10s and two d20s for a variety of games and has plenty of good suggestions for helping your child become better at the skills in the game, including mental arithmetic, strategy, and estimation.  It also included a booklet with 10 “everyday” ways to play with and use math.

I also picked up a pile of used books, including The Salamander Room (FIAR), The Snowman by Raymond Briggs (we’d seen it before but thanks to Sara I realized we didn’t own a copy!), Franklin’s New Friend, Strega Nona Meets Her Match, Dora: Dance to the Rescue, Moonbear’s Pet (Frank Asch), three leveled readers that I think are just about right for JediBoy (early 2nd grade) - Commander Toad and the Big Black Hole by Jane Yolen and Poppleton and Poppleton Forever by Cynthia Rylant.  I also picked up a “Pick a Path to Adventure” book called The Ring, the Sword and the Unicorn for JediBoy to read with PisecoDad.

It was such a nice day all around, and we’re getting ready to tuck in and stay warm at home during the storm that’s heading our way tomorrow.  I think we’ll be well-prepared with books and games!

Snow Day

Today we’re enjoying the big storm that’s pushing through.  The snow started falling about 8 am and has been falling steadily at about an inch per hour.  We didn’t go out to measure it until 11 am when we had 3 inches, and JediBoy went out alone at noon and found 4 inches.  It’s predicted to continue for 2-4 more hours, possibly heavier at times, giving us up to 9 inches possible.

JediBoy is thrilled!  We have been reading snow books - he read Snow by Roy McKie / PD Eastman aloud to BabyGirl.  After she went down for her morning nap, JediBoy and I curled up on the couch to read some more - we fit in most of our winter favorites:

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
Snow Music by Lynne Rae Perkins
Prize in the Snow by Bill Easterling
When It Starts to Snow by Phillis Gershator
The Missing Mitten Mystery by Steven Kellogg
A Silly Snowy Day by Michael Coleman
Thomas’ Snowsuit by Robert Munsch
The Mitten by Jan Brett
The Big Snow by Berta and Elmer Hader

We still have Bright Snow, White Snow, Stranger in the Woods and Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening left on our pile. Did we miss any of your winter favorites? 

Right now, she’s still sleeping and he’s “hibernating” in a fort made from the office couch cushions.  He just asked me to mail him a fish…  Hmm…

Tonight’s Giggles

We’re all tired tonight.  The day went well, JediBoy waking early and excited about his new History Dudes: Ancient Egyptians book from the Tooth Fairy.  I read to him, and then he read to me for a while.  His reading is getting better every day, and I see my only part in it right now is to gently suggest titles he hasn’t read before, to help both his confidence and his reading vocabulary grow.  We’re working our way through the Dr. Seuss collection and naturally today I encouraged him to read The Tooth Book.  There were three or four words I had to help him with, as well as several names, which are particularly tricky in Dr. Seuss!  These books are not very challenging for him, but right now he enjoys having the ability to read, and books that are too hard are just frustrating.  Books that he can whiz through are FUN!

The kids and I made a shopping trip today, getting the major presents for everyone we didn’t get finished at the game store yesterday.  The trip went well, and it’s certainly easier to shop during the week than on the weekends, but we did come home exhausted.

I was heading up to bed when I found my giggles for tonight.  Go check out the Cavalcade of Bad Nativities at Going Jesus… and then check out this year’s entries.  I was cracking up by the end of page two…  Enjoy!

JediBoy’s New Smile

Yep!  My little boy’s first loose tooth fell out today, with none of the trauma or extended wiggling I remember from my loose-tooth-days.  We were riding in the van up to a bigger mall (with a real game store) about an hour away.  Somewhere along the highway, he called out, “Hey!  My tooth!” and I turned around to see a gap in his smile and a tooth in his hand.  He was SO EXCITED about this - he clearly sees it as an important rite of passage, making him a Big Boy.  He called my dad right away from my cell phone, and told him all about it, including, “And I’m going to get a really great present from the Tooth Fairy!”  Gulp.  Well, in Franklin and the Tooth Fairy they get books, so I found a great new book for him at Border’s.  I’d also always planned on giving each child one of my grandparents’ stash of silver dollars for each tooth, so that will be there too.