Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Numbers and shapes workbook pages.

Between the Lions CD.

Baby Henry!

Played outside.

Learned a new rule called "keep your hands to yourself."

Watched Cars.

We built the coin bank kit she got for her birthday. I kind of messed it up (I'm going to blame a manufacturer's defect), but it doesn't seem to bother her.  She got to hammer! (with my help)

Watched Cars bonus features.

Wanted to go outside and build something, so we took her scrap wood and nails out there.  We decided to make a sign.  We hammered it together, then she told me what to write on it, and we put it in the ground.

["FREE NEWS! Lightning & Lucy married each other for free, because they don't have to pay to marry each other"]

Then she played outside by herself for a while.  At one point she asked me to get the plastic pitcher and help her fill it with water, so she could water the plants like Red the firetruck on Cars.

Spent some time with her new bank, sorting her coins into the different sections (labeled by coin name). Asked me for help a couple times, and then was doing it herself. 

I read her Maisy's Toys (Spanish/English), and then we looked up some Spanish on Google Translate.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Science kit first thing. We took out the penny that we left in the vinegar overnight. Overnight is too long, in case anyone is wondering. It was past shiny and on to... abrased.

Talk of how she wants to build a real tiny house with real kid-sized furniture in the backyard.

Also she wants a horse. After I cleared up why we can't keep one in our backyard, she started talking about us having our own farm. And cows. And milking cows. And taking the milk to Braums. LOL.

Between the Lions CD.

Grocery stores. Our checker at Target was named Jessie, so I asked Lucy if she could read her name tag. She could, and the three of us talked about it. Then the checker asked if Lucy her name and if she can spell it. Lucy proceeded to explain how she *writes* her name, including how she sometimes messes up the C by accidentally making another U instead.

Computer games: typing, coloring, animals, geography, etc, etc. 

"Helped" me make bread (mostly by playing with the dirty dishes I made).

Watched The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, plus the bonus feature about neighborhood heroes.

I was painting my nails, so of course she wanted the same. Black with gold glitter on top!

Got herself some water and played with her science kit.

Between the Lions CD again.

I read her another chapter from the Pooh book.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

When I woke up, she had taken the three glow stick bracelets that were in her room when she went to sleep last night, taken them apart, and put them back together in one big circle, and was using it as a steering wheel.

Drew with colored pencils. Really wanted to draw Guido from Cars, but got frustrated pretty quickly. I drew one for her (which was terrible), then another one while I looked at a picture of him on the internet (much better).

Sunday School. Mixed class with the older little kids (which I'm sure she loved). They talked about the Last Supper.

Church. She made lots of library story time type name tags for us.  She asked us our names, then rattled off some random letters to make sure she was spelling it right, scribbled, drew a picture, then put a sticker on it for tape and stuck them to our shirts.

Uncle Ben visited after and brought her two more presents: a semi truck Lego set and a copy of Brave!

She watched Cars.

We built a race car out of the Lego set together, following the instructions.

Then she built her own stuff -- Flo's drive-in, and Luigi and his tire shop from Cars.

She dressed up like a "science Jedi":

She listened to the Between the Lions CD (they have songs and stories on them).

We used her science kit to do the experiment where you shine a penny with vinegar.  While we were waiting for the penny to get shiny, she did lots of eye-dropping and pouring with some water.

I read her a chapter of A Hundred-Acre Wood Treasury. (That's stories about Winnie the Pooh, as conceived by AA Milne, but not actually written by AA Milne. Don't ask me; she picked it at the library.)

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Crazy day! (I'm writing this the next day, so I don't remember all the specifics -- these are the highlights!)

Touch a Truck!  Norman took her to this because I was still setting up for her party, but I wish I could have gone!  Looks like so much fun!

She got to sit in the trolley and "drive" it.

And get in the back of an ambulance and talk to the EMTs.

And drive the Braum's semi, and go in the back refrigerated part.

Then we had her birthday party!  People dressed up like superheroes. We had pool noodle sword fights.  We decorated capes and masks.  We ate cupcakes and pizza and hummus.

 

She got some great presents!  A science kit for preschoolers. A picture frame with a photo of her and Baby Henry. Rapunzel and Eugene figurines and a boat. Glow sticks, summer clothes, colored dry erase markers, giant construction paper. Scrap wood, nails, goggles, a tiny hammer, and a tiny tool belt!  (Good job, party guests!)

The rest of the day?  I dunno. There were glow sticks turned on, science kit played with, Rapunzel and Eugene, dry erasing, etc, etc.

And then maybe I passed out. I don't remember after that. Whew!

Friday, April 26, 2013

Birthday!

Opened one present at breakfast. A book, and bath toys that look like little foam dishes with a dish rack that suctions onto the side of the bathtub.  The dishes have black splotches on them that disappear in warm water.  But she doesn't know that last part yet. :-)

Megan's house: They drew on the chalkboard and played outside, among other things.

She played shop and offered to sell me the set of dishes for my daughter.  She told me they were "10 for 2 dollars".  After she gave them to me, I counted, and sure enough, there are 10 dishes in the set.

Duplos.

Opened more presents when Norman came home:

Colored pencils (they drew pictures together).

Between the Lions CDs (she listened to them a bunch, especially the stories).  Then she said she wanted to dress up like the girl in the story, but she didn't know how she dressed!  So we gave her some easily-accomplished suggestions.

She also got some new (to us) ballet slippers that actually fit.

And then I read her a Mulan golden book.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

This morning first thing she dressed up like Wendy (blue dress) so that she could be "Wendy visiting Cars Land!"

Story time at the library. Coincidentally it was vehicle-themed.  Got her (among other things) a Cars easy reader book, the movie (again, because they didn't have a copy of the second one), and a copy of Fly Away Home.  She also played some alphabet and number computer games there.

Came home and played outside while Norman did yard work.  He put some dirt down inside her playhouse to make the floor more even, so she helped by evening it out with one of her little shovels.  She made a bird's nest. 

Then she wanted me to turn on the hose so she could wash the grass and dirt off the outside of her house.  We did that and also sprayed down the lawn chairs.  Then she jumped in the mud puddle she made.  (My internal mantra: "Children -- hand wash, towel dry. No big deal.")  Then I came inside, and I think she played in more mud and also rode her bike for a while.

She has decided that the realistic-drawing magnets that we have on the fridge of a frog and a pig are Kermit and Miss Piggy. 

We watched Fly Away Home together. She had lots of questions.

Read to herself in her play room.

Blocks after dinner.

 

Tomorrow is her birthday! 

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Girl was up for literally hours in the middle of the night last night, talking to her new friends from Cars. Or about them. It seemed to vary.  I was in and out of sleep in the next room.  So today wasn't the best day ever.

We saw of photo of some nuns, so I explained to her what a nun is.

Field trip to the post office. She pretended she worked there while we were standing in line next to the display of Priority Mail boxes and labels.  I guess it looked like a counter to her.  She was recommending things to me.

Then we went to WalMart. The purpose of the trip was to buy a chain lock for our front door so she can't unlock it and bolt out and over to neighbor's front yard anymore like she did this morning (again).  But she seemed to get a kick out of "booping" our purchases at the self check-out.

Cars plus bonus features.

Read the sticker on her tiny orange. "Cutieskids.com" or something. She got the "cuties" part wrong (I don't remember what she said instead.)

Nap to make up for the late night chatting.

I read her a book about birds and their eggs. It's pretty thorough. I also explained book indexes again. She was fascinated by imprinting. I might see if our library has a copy of Fly Away Home.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Baby Henry day!  Yet some more practice in not plowing down small people.

I read Lucy Luke Skywalker's Amazing Story (a DK early reader book), twice. It's actually amazing how simply they broke down the story. Choice passage: "The pilots are called Han Solo and Chewbacca. They have a fast spaceship. Obi-Wan asks Han Solo is he will fly them into space." 

Hmm... Turns out the book left out a very important part of the story, and Lucy jumped to the same conclusion that everyone else did -- She's pretending she's Princess Leia, and Luke is her boyfriend.

Watched Cars (plus bonus features).

Gained some unexpected imagination supplies when I got a giant box with foam and cardboard packaging in the mail.

Norman read her the Star Wars book again.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Had to drive Norman to work. Lucy was very intrigued by the "trolly" bus that makes the loop on campus. She thought it was a train at first.

Grocery stores.  We were buying several special things for her birthday, so we had some good conversations about what we need and what we don't need, what makes sense for the party and what doesn't, etc. And she got to pick out which color plates and cups she wanted.  And I got her a hoola hoop. 

We listened to Laurie Berkner in the car, which, in addition to just being good, fun music, is very educational. :-)  Spelling and counting and animals and all sorts of things.

I explained organ donation to her.  She's been talking about death a lot lately (normal), and we've also been reading that Charlie & Lola recycling book -- so she made a joke about recycling dead people.  So I just went for it.  Not sure yet if I'm going to regret that later or not...

Watched Cars.  ("If I was a race car on that show, I'd be Lightning The Queen!")  And also the bonus features about Route 66.

Learned about making hummus (because I made some and she was curious about how that is accomplished) (she was watching TV with her noise-cancelling headphones on [??] while I made it).

Watched Curious George. This was the third time she'd watched the one where he flies a kite.

So I found our cheapo kites and we went to the park real quick to try to fly one.  It was plenty windy enough, but I have no kite-flying skills.  Lucy got bored pretty quick, so we came home.

Norman read her We Are Extremely Very Good Recyclers (Charlie & Lola).

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Spent most of the time before church playing with and narrating for her figurines. (She has a big tub with a bunch of second-hand Barbie furniture, other dollhouse furniture, Disney action figures, Winnie the Pooh figurines, tiny Toy Story figurines, finger puppets, army men, and a Sesame Street RV camper set.)

Sunday School. They drew pictures and probably heard a story.

Had an artistic streak during church:

 

[Curious George] 

 

[red Tardis] 

Watched the Vitameatavegamin episode of I Love Lucy. She thought that was hysterical. 

Then we watched an episode of The Monkees.

She filled in between the lines on the front panel of a brochure I had sitting around with her "water writing" as she calls it (zigzag scribbles that approximate writing). Then she read me the whole thing, which was a bizarre mix of the words that were really printed on the paper and other stuff she made up to fill in the gaps.  A fascinating experience, linguistically speaking.

Went to the park with Norman. 

Cleaned her playroom with Norman.

I read her We Are Extremely Very Good Recyclers (Charlie & Lola). 

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Was going around wrapping some of her stuff up in tissue paper and scotch tape to give as presents. (It's Curious George's birthday, apparently.)

The 1,000 was still there from yesterday. I heard her saying "This is ten, this is a hundred, this is a thousand!"

Field trip to the airport! (to pick up Norman.) Got a new map of Oklahoma to add to her map collection.

Showed Norman her giant pop-up book and read him the title.

Computer games: colors, animals, coloring (with her own narration), games.

Trip to the grocery store and thrift store we don't usually go to in the shady part of town. We saw cactus for sale with the produce. 

Watched The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.

Half watched 60s Batman on broadcast TV while we ate dinner.

I read her We Are Extremely Very Good Recyclers (Charlie & Lola).

Friday, April 19, 2013

Went to hang out with Megan and Baby Henry. They watched a lot of Curious George, apparently.

Looked at her giant jungle pop-up book.

Listen to a Winnie the Pooh read-along book on the record player.

Turned on the TV, put in a DVD, and started it up without any input from me. Ha. It was The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.

Played camping with her little dolls and furniture and stuff, all the while narrating the whole thing.

Made 1,000 with number magnets from the fridge. (Had it as 0001 before I informed her that the 1 needed to go first.)

I read her I Am Going! (Elephant and Piggie).

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Library day.  We found a Braille book and talked about it.  She played puzzles and "chess" with one of her friends.

Looked at a Star Wars book we got from the library. We talked about book indexes again.

Had me show her how to write checks again, twice.

Computer games: ocean animals, "brick breaker", etc.

Grandmary's house. Grandmary read her a giant pop-up jungle animal book. When Lucy saw it, she said, "Whoa. Whoa, whoa. Whoa. This books is SO. GREAT. How is this book so magic??" [She sounded a little bit like a Valley Girl, actually.]

We brought home a spirograph, I showed her how it works, then she spent about 10 minutes getting frustrated at it.

I read her My Friend Is Sad (Elephant & Piggie).

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Played restaurant, store, etc. (Found an old checkbook I had left with her craft stuff -- was very excited.)

Got out the atlas to try to find Los Angeles on the map of California.  I showed her two other towns she had been wondering about lately.

Watched The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.

Reading more.  Yesterday and today both she's been reading a few small words in a row on things, and then guessing at the bigger words.

I showed her how to write a check (including the concept of decimals).

 

Watched several episodes of Curious George. Clocks, measuring things, kites, science, the postal service, etc, etc.

Spent the rest of the afternoon getting to know George as an imaginary friends. At one point she had a toy wrench and a firefighter helmet, and she said she was going to fix the clock at the library because the fire department didn't know how.  She also wanted to know our house number (because of the episode about delivering mail).

I read her a Magic School Bus book about volcanoes.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Henry day. Played outside. Rode her bike. Fought fake fires with the garden hose. 

 

 

We looked at a book with lots of drawings of all kinds of vehicles. 

Watched The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.

Made some sticker/marker art.

Did every not-allowed thing she could think of while I was talking on the phone to try to get my attention.

Took a short nap.

Watched The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything (again).

Then she played hopscotch on the kitchen tile floor. Unfortunately she drew circles all over the tile for it. Fortunately, it was in blue chalk and it came right up with a dry rag. 

Norman read her Pepo and Lolo.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Grocery stores. Endured a touch of misogyny in the checkout line (the grandma behind us assumed that Lucy does not have a Buzz Lightyear like her grandson was getting, but must, in fact, have a Barbie instead). I kindly set the lady straight, but had to endure 5 minutes of Lucy telling me how much she needs a Barbie. Thanks, lady.

We stuck more googly eyes on stuff.

Worked off and on all morning on a drawing of Larry the Cucumber as a pirate. It evolved from a drawing of a box with a face. (?)

Watched Charlie and Lola, vol. 8. There's a great episode about foreign languages and travel.

Made passports after I showed her our real ones.

She had been asking for several weeks if I would buy bird seed at the store, but I kept forgetting.  Today I remembered, bought some, and then this afternoon we made wood-davers!

 

(Does anyone else have a name for these? Seriously. I'm adopting "wood-davers" because "pine cone bird feeder" is super lame.)

Watched that Sesame Street dental hygiene DVD (once in English, once in Spanish). 

Brushed her own teeth without telling or asking me about it.


We watched the Mythbusters MacGyver episode (we would have been watching Ellen, but she wasn't on due to some disturbing breaking news).

Got frustrated trying to draw rainbows with all her markers. 

Made me some sort of birthday present? She insisted that I not look at it, but that Norman put it in a box, then put it in my craft room, and that I not look at it until my birthday (in late August, but she doesn't know that). What? I think it was a drawing or something.

Took some photos with her camera, including this one of one of our googly eye faces:

[The camera has a bunch of silly hats and faces and stuff that you can add to photos.]

I read her Where Have the Unicorns Gone?  (She expressed recognition of several of the words.)

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Got to watch Norman take apart the love seat to try to fix a spring and find some stuff we'd lost (including a library book).

Computer games: colors, animals (and keeping their environments healthy), US geography, coloring, alphabet, shapes.

Norman showed her game play from the old (OLD) Zelda game. (He recently hung this Christmas present of his on the wall, and she started asking questions about it.)  He was explaining as it went and off-handedly mentioned the princess at the end. "There's a PRINCESS???" LOL. Way to bury the lead, Norman.  Then at the end she was very surprised that the princess was not the hero.  I'll just go ahead and pat myself on the back for that one.

I buy packages of her crackers, then divvy them up into a bunch of tiny ziplocks and put them in her snack drawer.  She had previously eaten them all, so when I came into the kitchen, she was opening the drawer where we keep the ziplocks to get some tiny ones to divide up a new package of crackers for herself.  She needed help opening the new package and closing all the ziplocks, but that didn't seem to frustrate her. She knew she could just ask me for help. :-)

More computer games: Some actual games involving color matching/exploding. She can read "play again" and "start", apparently. Alphabet. Numbers.

Went to the park with Norman, rode her balance bike, and played at the playground.

Watched a Ninth Doctor episode with me.

Ran around pretending to be a shark, eating ocean animals. She's really been on a kick lately thinking about animals, and eating animals, and animals eating other animals. 

During dinner she told the story of the Legend of Zelda, pretending to type it out on her adding machine.  I told her that if she ever wants to tell a story and have me write it down, I'll do that. So she decided to have me do it for this one. 

 

[Word for word.]

More computer games: animals, shapes.

I read her Who Likes Rain. 

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Rough morning learning Remedial Hitting-and-Biting-Aren't-Okay (for Preschoolers) 001. (Taught jointly by Profs. Maynard and Maynard.) (Co-requisite: Golden Rule 101.) ($15 class fee to cover cost of band-aids and baby gate repair.)

Watched Josh and the Big Wall (VeggieTales).

Played outside while Norman did yard work. Rode her bike, played school inside her playhouse and school bus on the concrete slab.

Stuck googly eyes on rocks.

[Outside the bathroom window]

Watched The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.

I read her The Magic School Bus: In the Haunted Museum. (I found a whole mess of Magic School Bus books when we went curb shopping last night.)

Used the scrapbooking stickers and paper I found curb shopping to make some crafts.

Did some playing grabbing things with tongs...

I read her This is Actually My Party (Charlie & Lola).

Friday, April 12, 2013

Megan's house in the morning, as usual. They watched The Emperor's New Groove and ate pancakes!

Played in the backyard by herself for a few minutes. We're both working up to letting her play out there by herself more.

I then recommended that she lie down in her bed for a little while because she was acting super grumpy. Didn't take much convincing for her to take me up on that, and then she slept for like 2 hours.

While she was asleep I got an order of awesomeness from DiscountSchoolSupply.com, which included stick-on googly eyes!  So I put some googly eyes on some stuff around the house for her to find when she woke up.  She found one, and then insisted that I show her the other ones instead of letting her find them randomly.  I giggled putting them up, and she giggled when she saw them.  Awesome.

The order also contained 168 colored wooden dominoes, so we played with those for a while.

Then she wanted to blow bubbles outside. And by her blow bubbles, of course she actually meant me blow bubbles while she chases them.

Spent some time drawing Larry the Cucumber.

She rode along as we went curb shopping after dinner. Her job is to yell "COMMODE!" if she sees a toilet.  (See, this is why people have kids, right? To be able to do some delegating. :-D )

Then we came home, and Norman read her a book about Eggs and Chickens.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Up, dressed, and trying to shove the plug of her USB mouse into the wrong slot on Norman's old laptop before I was even out of bed.

Computer games: colors, animals, US geography, coloring, alphabet.

Played a game with her alphabet flashcards (upper & lowercase letter on one side, photo and name of a noun that starts with that letter on the other). 

Library: Story time. Puppets. Cars. Looking at the live animal pets. Running (ahem -- walking) around with her friend. Computer games.

Listened to Bailey Goes Camping read-along book.

Dressed up and played fairy godmother.

Drew on her chalkboard.

Watched The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.

Drew me a picture of Mr. Lunt.

I read her the Brave golden book.

I read her Mama's Kiss before bed.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

I woke up to the dulcet tones of "I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo". (Norman was already up and about.) I was confused because I knew it had to be a record, but I thought if I had that song, it had to be on a 45, and I figured Lucy would not be able to put in the converter and switch it to 45rpm by herself.  WRONG. I had showed her how to do it once, and now she can do it.

Found a detail-rich map of Sesame Street in our Old School Sesame Street DVD set. Spent a while looking at it and talking with me about all the details.

Read Edwina the Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct to herself several times.

Read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day to herself.

We played waiter. She has a restaurant order pad. She had me take her order (PB&J and kombucha, which it turns out I was actually supposed to get for her).  I played along and made the food for her and acted like a waiter.  Then she wanted to play again after she finished eating, so I had her take my order -- fake sushi and fake chocolate milkshake. It was delicious. :-)

Watched a Charlie & Lola compilation. One episode was about getting a haircut, and another was about loose baby teeth.  (We've been trying to prepare her for the reality of this bizarre phenomenon, so that's good.)

Painting with watercolors.

Read herself a Sesame Street book.

Played with her voice recorder.

Jumped on the exercise trampoline I got for her. (It lives outside unless the weather is bad.)

Really big lately on singing this one particular song with some manner of shaky instrument and her old broken microphone. At the top of her lungs, naturally.  Sometimes she enlists me as a mic stand.

Norman read her I am Extremely Absolutely Boiling (Charlie & Lola).

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Read her Charlie & Lola I am Extremely Absolutely Boiling.

She got out her dry erase workbooks and traced some of the letters. Then she wanted to write Norman a Valentine on the blank part.  She wrote an "I", then she had me write a heart. (I drew a dotted heart for her to trace twice, but she got frustrated and had me do it instead.) I added "To: Norman" as requested.  Then she filled in "YOU" and "LUCY".  She figured out how to write "you" by looking at the generic plastic grocery bag she saw across the room. :-)

She read herself Mouse Paint.

Baby Henry came over. Lots of practice sharing and not grabbing and protecting people who are younger/smaller than we are.  Watched The Muppets.

Listened to Bailey Goes Camping read-along book.

Listened to our Charlie Brown Christmas read-along record.

Spent quite a bit of time playing with Legos after I built one of the fireman set things for her. (She only has two small sets and a couple of extra minifigs.)

More Legos after dinner.  Then she moved on to the Duplos.

I read her Edwina the Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct.

Givens: April 2013

I thought I'd write a post every now and then about the givens in Lucy's life -- things that I don't bother mentioning in the posts because they happen every day, frequently, or regularly.  These are constantly changing -- having a kid is a continuing exercise in adapting to the New Normal.

So here are some things that are so normal they don't even warrant a mention in my daily posts (so they may or may not get one).

Once a week:
*We go to the grocery stores (usually Target and a natural foods store in town). 
*We babysit Baby Henry at our house.
*We go to the library to borrow a stack of children's books (mostly picture books), one children's DVD, one read-along book/CD, and to attend story time and play with the toys.
*Lucy goes to be babysat at Baby Henry's house.
*I leave Lucy with Norman for several hours to go ice skating.
*We go to church (and Lucy usually goes to Sunday School).

Every day:
*Lucy wakes up before we do, gets herself a banana (which I usually open for her while half-asleep), and usually dresses herself.
*Lucy eats when she is hungry, and often gets her own snacks (crackers, cheese sticks, fruit, nuts, etc).
*Lucy spends time talking to or about her imaginary friends, who are all characters from TV shows, movies, or books.  There are A LOT of them.
*Lucy watches TV. Unless we are just out of the house all day long. She gets to pick something to watch after lunch. The kind of stuff she watches: Sesame Street, Blue's Clues, The Muppets (2011), Tangled, Despicable Me, Charlie & Lola, Between the Lions, VeggieTales. Some of this is on DVD (some we own, some we get from the library), some is on Netflix on our Wii, and every now and then she wants to watch something that I converted from VHS to our external hard drive, which means she has to borrow my laptop to watch.  Sometimes she watches stuff all afternoon until around 4pm, sometimes she only wants to watch one half-hour show.
*Lucy draws, sticks stickers, and/or cuts paper.  She has free access to a whole bunch of paper, stickers, writing implements, and some safety scissors.  She usually takes advantage of this fact at least once a day.
*Lucy changes her clothes.  A lot.  She's free to take things out of her dresser, she can climb up some storage tubs and take dresses out of her closet, and she has a bunch of dress-up stuff in her playroom.  She probably changes clothes 5 times a day.
*Lucy entertains herself.  She is fairly free to roam the house.  She's allowed to climb on top of the coffee table, climb over the back of the couch and take the cushions off of it.  There are some things we don't let her play with, and she's not allowed in my craft room (mostly for safety reasons).  But she's really good at finding something to do if I need to do some work.
*Lucy takes care of her bodily functions.  She's pretty well potty-trained at this point and usually makes it to the toilet before her bladder gives out.  She never has #2 accidents, she never wets the bed, and she never has an accident in public.

I think that about covers it.  Expect another update when the Givens change!

Monday, April 8, 2013

Wrote her name again.

Grocery Day. Friendly with the cashiers, as always. Lucy said something about "all the grocery days in the universe!" and I told her she sounded like the Doctor. The cashier said she did indeed, but she needed a bow tie and a fez. Good times...  She decided before we even left the house that she would choose juice for her thing to pick out at the stores, and she stuck to it!  This is great, because I've been trying to get her to think ahead and follow through by talking about her "plan", even for very little things.  I was inspired by a chapter in the book NurtureShock.

Ski boat on The Price Is Right. I found a YouTube video of someone water-skiing for her to watch.

Watched Despicable Me.

Had been bugging me all day to read her a book we got from the library, R2-D2 and Friends (a DK early reader book), so I finally did.  Got to explain what an index is in the back of a book.  She found a page where she could read some of the words, and she lingered on it for quite a bit, asking me what some of the words were.  I could sense her frustration, but it never boiled over.  Then she wanted to see a Donk droid in action.  YouTube obliged with some fan costumes.  And we talked about how Darth Vader used to be a little boy, but he made some bad decisions, then he got hurt, then he got his suit, then he kept making bad decisions.

Walked to the park. We were at the playground for about 3 minutes before she decided she had to pee, so we walked back home. On the way back she was talking about chickens and how "they lay eggs and then their baby pops out! And it's a chick!"

I'm working on finding the right ways to approach the cleaning of her playroom.  Today I tried offering to help her clean up one thing.  We picked up all her Duplos together.  And then she spent half an hour playing with them. Yup.

Then she got out my new mop and my spray bottle of dish soap and water that I was using to kill ants and "played mop". Well she did part of the kitchen, then she moved on to the bathroom (and sprayed just about everything, including the toilet paper), then moved on to our bedroom, where I had to stop her from spraying the rug and my (antique) dresser.  But she did do the mirror.  Then she moved on to the dining table before she got bored and moved on to roller skating.

Asked the word for "OK" in Spanish.

Wanted to listen to a certain song on iTunes.  Saw the name of another song and read it "Three For Me". Was actually "There For Me", and we talked about how it was the same letters, but in a different order, so the words sound different.

Wanted to look at pictures of animals on Google. Gorillas and monkeys before we told her it was time for pajamas. 

After dinner she was saying that Norman was sounding like Vector (from Despicable Me) and that he was "creeping her out". He started to tell her that Vector is Jason Segel (who she knows from The Muppets), but I tried to stop him. But it was too late -- she wanted to know what he was going to tell her.  So he started by explaining that Despicable Me was a cartoon and what that means.  Then moved on to the fact that an actor has to do the voice and pretend to be Vector.  Then she said, "Who is that actor?" So he said, "Jason Segel. You've seen him in another movie, so you know what his face looks like!"  She said, "Yeah! He looks like Walter's brother!"  So it was not as traumatizing as I was afraid it would be.  Of course.  Then I showed her a little flip book I had made in high school to show how cartoons work.

Norman read her Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Church: Sunday school. Teacher told a story. It had people in it, but that's all Lucy could remember. :-) Drawing. Hanging out with the one other boy who was in the class today.  Fascinated by the clicky ball point pen she found during the service -- it unclicks when you push the clip down, not by unclicking the top part.

Straight to the annual Medieval Fair.  We told her lots of people wear costumes there, so she chose to dress up as Abby Cadabby (Dress, fairy wings, wand, pigtails.) She loved everything about the fair. So many dogs, so many people. So many people in costumes. So many dogs in costumes! She rode on a llama. Saw some real camels. Ate some shortbread and some turkey leg. Met my friend Krista. Hung out with Uncle Ben. Found some other guys dressed up like some Doctors. (Was sad when we parted ways with them -- she wanted to follow them on their adventures.) Talked to some firefighters and got to go inside their fire engine for a bit. (Was in awe.)  Wanted to know why "Mother Nature" (tree lady on stilts) was dressed up like a tree. So I said she should ask her. So she did! She also asked the firefighters "Why did you park your fire truck here?"  First time in a port-a-potty.  She had tried to use her magic wand to turn them into clean port-a-potties before we went in one, and when we got in there she said disappointedly, "My wand isn't really magic."  She decided she really wanted a sword.  Norman and I elected to go with a foam one because we are not crazy.

I read her a Charlie & Lola book before bed.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Miss Megan's in the morning.  They walked to the bank and the grocery store, pretended to fly to Europe, and Megan read to the at least a little.  Other than that, they did whatever they do.  ::shrug::

Looked through Norman's photo album of his childhood.

Watched The Muppets.

Listened to read-along book Bailey Goes Camping.

We all went curb shopping.

Norman read her Mouse Paint.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Thrift Store: She picked out two books (out of the 5 that she wanted to get). Blue's Clues and Between the Lions something.

Library: Quick stop; we didn't stay for storytime.  She saw the lady who usually does storytime and told her that she won't be at storytime today because she has to go to the zoo. The lady understood.

Spent quite a bit of time peeling papers off her crayons, then she was sticking one of Norman's pens into the backs to make little holes. She said that would make them make music.

Quality time with imaginary friends.

Zoo!  Went to the OKC Zoo with Norman and his sister Dotty.  Running, jumping in puddles (she had the foresight to wear her galoshes), petting goats, watching gorillas brawl, learning that baby elephants have birthdays, too, because they have a day that they came out of their mom ("Baby animals come out of their moms too??"), playing Rescue and Fight the Dragon (me) among the forts, having another little girl in the cafeteria randomly try to tell her something (probably made her day), talking to Aunt Dotty, walking to Paris "by map" (like in The Muppets) on the giant world map on the ground, second playground and more puddles.

Talked to Norman about his colorblindness after Norman vischecked something we saw at the zoo.  Started asking him if each of her crayon colors were "bright or dark".

Listened to read-along book Bailey Goes Camping.

I read her Knuffle Bunny Free (until the last part, when I had to pass it off to Norman so I wouldn't cry).

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

The Price is Right: surprisingly educational. Numbers, dices, and counting by 5s.

Pretended to read from some EB White books.

Watched that Sesame Street teeth thing again -- twice in Spanish, once in English.

Dressed up as Batman.

Watched a Sesame Street episode about Big Bird wishing all the grownups were kids so they would play with him.  Elmo's World was about firefighters.  Got out her stuff and dressed up like a firefighter.

Watched part of another Sesame Street ep about Baby Bear writing a story about bears in space.

On the laptop: Spanish vocab, forest animals, farm animals, alphabet (beginning letters of animal names), typing, United States names, coloring, etc... (We use this website.)

Back to dressing up like a firefighter.  Then a fairy ballerina.

Back to the computer.

Duplo train during dinner.

Norman read her Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes by Beatrix Potter. Twice.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Dry erase letter and number pads. She drew pictures and scribbled and had me write some words for her.

I babysat Baby Henry in the morning.  Lots of cooperation and helping and pretend play and dressing up.


  [Decided the mouse magnet should go on the skyride.]

Watched VeggieTales Josh and the Big Wall.

Watched The Muppet Movie (1979).

Watched this free Sesame Street DVD we have about dental hygiene.  First in English, then in Spanish (twice, the second time with subtitles for me).

Back to the dry erase pads. She wanted me to explain the addition and subtraction exercises on them.

Got out the English-Russian dictionary and had me look up some words and tell her what they are in Russian.

 

[Played Duplos.]

Norman read her We Are In a Book! (Gerald & Piggie).

 

Monday, April 1, 2013

Grocery stores.  Told one cashier her birthday. Definitely knows it.

Legos.

Sesame Street animal songs.

Old School Sesame Street (2 episodes).

Computer (colors, Spanish vocab, forest and ocean animals, coloring pages, and typing). (This site.)

I read her Snowball Fight by Jimmy Fallon (amazing the random stuff we find at the library).