Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Last Baby Henry day! Sad. He's just the cutest and clever as a whip.  He got out the pinwheel and tried to make it spin... by shaking it and spitting at it. Yeah. I said, "Sorry, it's not windy in here!"  Then Lucy suggested that we turn on the fan. Duh. He got down, figured out how to make it spin, and kept looking up and saying, "Cool!"  Adorable.

OK, back to bragging on my own kid. Henry brought this little bug car with him. Lucy picked it up and said, "It's missing a swirl" (on its antenna). To which Megan responded that sure enough it was and she'd never noticed. But then Lucy said, "Actually, I think maybe it came that way because I don't see a scratched broken part where it broke off, so I think it was made like that."  Whoa. Megan and I were both like whaaat? And when I told Norman he had the same reaction. Very perceptive.

 

Anyway... We watched Sesame Street, played instruments, colored ("cuh-der" as Henry says), etc. 

After Henry left, Lucy spent almost the entire afternoon highly engaged with her Duplos. It was so serious.  She barely said a word to me and didn't ask me for anything.  For a while in there she switched from Duplos to sticking stickers in a book she had made, but then after dinner it was right back to the Duplos.  I don't know what those zoo animals were doing, but it was very important. 

Norman read to her from the presidents book (Kennedy).

Monday, June 24, 2013

The day started bright and early with her throwing up. At least it went into the toilet.

She watched Cars.

I went to the grocery stores while she stayed home with Norman.

We watched The Price is Right.  Then The Muppets.

Then we walked down the street to see the progress on the house they're building.

Then she watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown.

I read to her from the book about Presidents. Reagan and Millard Fillmore. 

And that's pretty much it. Sad, sick, quiet day.

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Computer games off and on all day.  Mostly animal games, some typing, and some Spanish.

Played with her little dolls and furniture.  At some point she was finding storm shelters for all of them to hide in.

Helped me roll a couple peanut butter balls.

Played in the pool with Norman. And there was pool basketball.

Went with Norman to pick up some suit jackets (she really just needed to get out of the house).

Offered to help fold laundry. She folded a couple towels and some cloth napkins and put them away.  (It's taking all of my self-control not to refold the napkins.)

She learned how to play a Concentration-type game on the computer game website she uses.  She can't read the instructions, I'm pretty sure, but she clicked until she figured it out, and she's really good at it!

1960s Batman.

I read her The History of Figure Skating. Pretty interesting -- touched on canals, gender roles, physics, chemistry...

Friday, June 21, 2013

 

 Last night after we read Will It Float or Sink?, I told her we could play a game of it this morning in the kiddie pool.  So fun!  We both picked some stuff to check, then we wrote down all the things and her guesses about what would happen.  Then she got in the pool and tried one thing at a time, told me if they sank or floated, and I wrote down the results. 

Then she kept playing in the pool for a while.  She figured out that some things that float by themselves will sink if she puts a big rock on/in them.  Then we played a game (I was sitting in a lawn chair right next to the pool) where I had a pool noodle sword and two of her dolls, and I had to protect them from her, the evil sea serpent, by knocking her containers full of water to the side before she splashed us with them. It was awesome. 

She watched a bunch of Curious George episodes (skunks, hot air balloons, building construction, musical instruments, etc -- she was very excited to learn that tomato juice takes out skunk smell -- apparently Norman and I had inadvertently led her to believe it was permanent) and an episode of The Magic School Bus about baking. 

All the things we played Will It Float with were sitting on the dining table to dry, and she somehow made a game out of just those things.

We talked about Disney World and what all they have there (she's seen Sofia Grace and Rosie there on Ellen).  I found some YouTube videos about it, including a ride-through of Splash Mountain. Cheapskate that I am, I'm thinking of getting one of those free Disney vacation planning DVDs and putting it in her Christmas stocking. :-) She would love that! (We are planning to go sometime in the next couple years -- Orlando is a short day's drive from Charleston.) 

I started reading her this book about the presidents, but it was pretty dull, but she found the diagram of the inside of the White House interesting. She can read a bunch of the room names. We decided I should look up on Wikipedia to see why the China Room and the Vermeil Room are named thus.  

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Library. Story time (jungle animals), computer games.  She saw a poster with all the US presidents on it. She pointed to Obama and said "Look, this is the president of our country!" I told her that they were all the presidents of our country from before, so she wanted to get a book about all of them.

Took up dry erase drawing again. More party decor, I think.

She grabbed the ibuprofen bottle in the bathroom again. She hasn't ever managed to open it, but it's kind of scary! I think she's been absorbing Aleve commercials or something. Norman sat her down and read her pretty much all the words from the bottle and explained what it's for and why kids shouldn't play with it. And I will not be putting it back where it was.

Her friend Cora (and Cora's mom and baby brother) came over. They had quite a time! Mostly by running around and taking all the covers off the beds and eating things and drawing.

I read her Will It Float or Sink? before bed.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Duplos

Dress up

Musical instruments

Took a bunch of photos and videos with her camera.

Went to Grandmary's and played in the pool, etc.

Between the Lions CD. Also last year's Christmas pageant CD first thing in the morning. Bleh.

She wanted a snack and when I got up to get it for her, she immediately opened my laptop and started typing on it (after I had just closed it and told her not to touch it), so I refused to get her a snack.  (This should not be construed as parenting advice.)  So she said, "Fine! I'll make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!"  And she did.  She got a plastic knife from her playroom, got out the pb and j, cut the bread (homemade, so it was not already sliced).  I caved and opened the lids for her and got her a plate.  She was very proud of herself. 

Tiny dolls and furniture

Norman read her the Japanese legend "The Samurai Maiden" from Not One Damsel in Distress.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

The theme of the day seemed to be Mom Is Surprised.

I was surprised at how much like a bear this creature on her No Bears Allowed sign looks.

I was surprised when I looked up and discovered she had taped her socks to the wall to decorate the spot that used to have a big framed poster, except that today I took it down and packed it up. 

I was surprised when she put this stoplight together without any help, input, or supervision from me whatsoever.

I was surprised to look up from cooking dinner to find she had stuck little scrap bits of pink glitter foam stickers to her eyelids. 

I was surprised at how little supervision she needed and how nimble she was in our backyard kiddie pool today, compared to 10 months ago.

I, however, was not surprised that she watched a bunch of Curious George episodes 

built more grand Duplo structures

drew pictures and wrote water language

spelled her name with foam stickers

used her camera to take photos and videos of... nothing? everything?

read more words on the internet and in the Magic School Bus in the Haunted Museum book that I read to her before bed.

Today she was comfortable, calm, imaginative, and engaged, and I was continually surprised.  I love days like this.

Monday, June 17, 2013

Grocery stores. Picked out sweet potato chips. I'm very happy about this.

Oh those Duplos.

I took her to see the church where Norman and I got married (7 years ago today).

She watched Tangled.

We all went out to dinner at a pizza place.  She did a maze with her finger (so much patience and persistence!  Didn't know she had that in her, actually), and found and circled the word "rooms" in a word search (it was part of "mushrooms").  We talked about what table manners are and why they're important.

I read her Brave Margaret.  (Did you know the word "kine" is archaic plural for "cow". We do now!)

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Had some nice cooperative pretend play going on with two other girls in the church nursery today.

Stickers. Stickers everywhere. All day -- stickers. Foam stickers, flat stickers, glitter stickers.  She made long strings of letters (sometimes on Norman and me) with her letter stickers.  She held up one and wanted to know what it was -- well, one way it was an 'm', the other way it was a 'w'. Then she held it sideways and wanted to know what that was, so I told her it looked like a sigma, so then we talked about the Greek alphabet, and how some languages use different symbols than we do to write their words.

Splash pad with Norman.

Duplos.

Lots of dress up. She was dressed like a fairy princess to go to church, and she wore her cat ears with her swim suit to the splash pad.

I read her Fossils.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

She "helped" me pack a box in her playroom. (I wasn't going to pack up any of her stuff yet, but she insisted.) 

She spent a while cleaning things with a wet rag, including the dustpan. ::shrug::

She and I went roller skating. She must have had a growth spurt since the last time we went -- she was much more confident without having had much more practice.  We won the "star game" (called the dice game at some other rinks)!  I gave her $3 in quarters to spend on whatever she wanted.  She played some arcade games, bought some Nutty Bars, did the candy crane, sat in the driving game (but didn't play for real because she can't reach the pedals). She also had to deal with the inevitable decisions that come with having limited funds.

We came back, and she and I washed the car because she wanted to play in our kiddie pool, but we haven't set it up yet. 

Then she watched Hairspray.

Dress up.

1960s Batman.

I read her the Greek myth of Atalanta from Not One Damsel in Distress.

 

Friday, June 14, 2013

Pretty much first thing this morning she got out her science stuff and her finger paint so she could try some color mixing.  A lovely mess.  But we had to stop her when she took a drink of one of them. (Ew!) 

 

Duplos.

Aunt Dotty came over to watch her while Norman and I went to a movie.  They watched Cars, Magic School Bus goes to space, The Tigger Movie, and Sesame Sings Karaoke. (Man, we were gone for a long time!)  

Lucy also did lots of letter writing in water language, and drew several pictures of some people from Narnia.

I read her Dinosaurs (Usborne beginners) before bed (and we talked about book indexes again).

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Library: Story time, animal puppets, computer games. 

Lunch with my aunt and two of her sons.  Lucy had fun playing Poke Each Other Then Laugh Hysterically with the 6-year-old. Then we went to a horse farm my aunt used to live at.  Lucy got to pet some horses and a donkey, run around, and sit on this "tractor". She read that words "fast" and "slow" on its little lever.

Duplos.

Watched Mickey and the Beanstalk (except the version on Netflix has that Austrian duck narrating instead of Edgar Bergen, which is just terrible). 

Watched The Tigger Movie.
(She watched it while I packed and napped. Conversation between me and Norman just now:
Me: Hey, did he ever find more Tiggers, or did he learn that his family has been his friends all along?
Norman: That second one.
Me: Aw man! That's what I was afraid of.
Norman: Yeah, it was pretty vacuous. Pretty darn vacuous.)

I was laying down because of the dehydration headache I obtained from visiting the farm, and Lucy came in and kept pretending that I was her patient at the hospital. It was very cute. 

I read her Super Chicken and Babies, Babies! before bed.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

The Price Is Right. (They were giving away a trip to Tonga, and the moment I said, "Where the heck is Tonga??" a map popped up on the screen showing a little airplane flying from LA to Tonga. So helpful, The Price Is Right! Thank you!) 

She went to GrandMary's while I went skating.  She watched the Curious George movie, stuck her feet in a little wading pool, and pretended some sticks were a bow and arrow.  (Although she kept referring to the arrow as a "broken arrow" and the bow as "the weapon".) 

She did some sewing with this thing I whipped together that looks mostly like this. (I put a piece of the shelf liner in an embroidery hoop.) 

My 1960 Deluxe version of Hi-Ho Cherry-O came in the mail today!  We all played a round before dinner. 

Then we did burrito math during dinner. She called part of something that had been cut into three parts a half (reasonable), so I told her technically it was a third.  Then I drew fractions.  Pizza fractions! 

We both read this little touch-and-feel farm book that Baby Henry left here yesterday. (Oh, hey, Megan, Henry's book is here. :-) )

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Computer. She asked for it specifically so she could "see which animal starts with 'j'" (she knew that this game would tell her [caution: if you click on the link, it will start talking]). Then she played some other animal games.

Baby Henry. She was fairly pleasant and helpful today. We watched The Price Is Right, played with Duplos, played outside (and they talked to the neighbor-type kids through the fence), then watched the first few minutes of The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.

Then when Henry left, Lucy was overcome with feels of some sort and insisted we turn off the movie.

Then we turned on Curious George instead. That monkey is really starting to grow on me.

We took a walk down the street to watch the guys work on the house they're building. It's in the framing stage at the moment.  I kinda want to go down there every day to see how it's going.  Even if Lucy doesn't want to go with me!

More Duplos. She built a restaurant, completely with food and patrons.

Played candy counter (something she saw on Curious George).

We used her Learning Resources clock (thanks, Grandma Katie!) to talk about times and minutes and hours and AM and PM.

I read her Knuffle Bunny Too.

Norman continued to tell her the story of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (without the book).  This has been going on at bedtime in installments for about the last week or more.  She is very into it.  It seems she is experiencing the story on a more intense and cathartic level than anything she's ever seen on any screen.  Which is interesting.

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Church. She drew two skyscrapers and gave them to two ladies there.  She's been reluctant to write the "c" in her name due to some earlier difficulties with it, so we've been doing them for her. But Norman showed her that she could turn the paper 90 degrees and make another "u" and then when she turns it back it will be a "c".  So she started doing that and is super proud!

More serious Duplo play. She dumped all of them out. All of them. It's a big tub.

Went to the splash pad with Norman. She came home and told me about how she was pretending that the rainbow arch was the curtain for her talk show and that Lightning McQueen was on her show.

Spent some time reading Magic School Bus books silently to herself.  I'm guessing she's interested because she feels like she knows all the kids now that she's seen an episode of the TV show.

I read her Curious George and the Birthday Surprise.

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Lazy day.

TV: Alice in Wonderland, vintage Sesame Street, The Magic School Bus Gets Lost in Space (on Netflix, now!). (And captions, captions, captions. We love closed captioning! She asks for it now.)

Helped me and Norman clean the playroom. Sorta.

Tape/scissors/stickers/drawing. Made a really long string of glitter foam letters on a long piece of dot matrix printer paper. 

Duplos.

Washed dishes in her play kitchen sink.

She read several phrases today, including "How is Lucy?", "school stuff", and "honeymoon".

Norman brought out the bubble snake again for her bath. Excitement!

I read her Curious George and the Birthday Surprised.

Wednesday - Friday, June 5-7, 2013

Sickness! Lucy and Norman both have colds.  She still has near-boundless energy, though, of course.

Lots of Duplo play.  I think at the moment her Sesame Street camper RV is full of Duplo zoo animals.  Not sure what the story is there.

Dress up.

Lots of dictation.  Norman and I have written many long, rambling notes and signs for her the last three days.

Spent a large chunk of time this morning using her dry erase workbooks.  She did some letter tracing, but mostly spent a lot of time doing very detailed work on a party (balloons, streamers, cakes, and bowls of candy) to make me feel better (Norman and I were having an emotional conversation).

Then she decided (I think) to organize her closet?  She had some grand scheme that involved the dresses in her closet, the hangers, and making signs. And switching the hangers.  She recruited me to help, and I'm still not sure what was going on.  It was very serious, though.

Spent a little time at GrandMary's before I got to the ice rink on Wednesday and realized it was hockey camp week and I couldn't skate.

She's been making up lots of rhyming couplets.  Here's one I put on Facebook:

TV: Curious George, Brave. She also watched part of a documentary on the history of NYC with me, though not nearly as intently as I, of course.

Books: Doctor Meow, Jessica's X-Ray, the Chinese restaurant menu that came in the mail (she insisted on that one before quiet time today).  Then after I read her that, she "read" me a bunch of very detailed science from her biology workbook.  She was reading percent signs as "degrees". That was fun.

No library, no Megan's, because of the sickness.

But tonight after dinner I put together a bubble snake maker!  So fun!  All three of us thought it was great!  And it's super easy.

LUCYOLPUYY 
[Lucy typed that. She saw me typing up this blog post and wanted to type too.] 

And then I read her a book from the 1960s about signs that she picked out of her library. Whew.

Pic dump ['cause I'm past caring right now]:

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

After making breakfast, I walked in on her playing with the miniature Christmas gift wrapping set and the Girl of Today American Girl doll it goes with (which were being stored in a box in her closet).  Couldn't even be mad.  I mean, come on -- the set is adorable.  There's a teeny tiny little roll of real Scotch tape, for crying out loud.  So then she kind of spent all day carrying the doll around and/or wrapping tiny things with the tiny wrapping set.  And we changed the doll's outfit once.

Baby Henry came over. We played Duplos, watched Sesame Street, played outside, ate waffles.

She also spent some time reading Of Colors and Things out loud, story time style.

Watched some Curious George.

Played school. And by that I mean, she gathered some writing utensils and some notebooks and put them on one of our now-empty bookshelves and called it a locker.  There was also a backpack involved.

She also at one point said she was going to start a giraffe museum.  She had a Duplo giraffe and a letter flashcard with a photo of a giraffe on one side and the letter G on the other.

I read her Raise the Roof.

Monday, June 3, 2013

Grocery stores. I bought her a lollipop (all natural, of course) at the health food store. She was delighted. We're both pretty sure she'd never had one before. It's the little things. (And she didn't even finish it. Just needed to know, I guess!)

Watched The Price is Right.

Duplos.

Pretended that it's Lionel's birthday and taped long strips of receipt paper up all over the walls to decorate. 

Put a temporary tattoo on herself with no help whatsoever.

Worked for a while coloring and writing in an old upper-elementary-middle-school biology workbook we have lying around. (Grade levels? What are those?)

Lots of Curious George.

Really morbid math: "If all my grandparents died, I would have ZERO grandparents! Hahahaha! And if only one died, I would have three left! And if two died, then I would still have two left!"

Norman read her Meet My Neighbor, the Paramedic.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Got up way too early because her nightlight/timer wasn't working because of our lack of electricity.

Went with me to WalMart to get ice.  The second we walked back through the door with 10 pounds of ice, the power came back on. 

Hung out with Papa Frank, GrandMary, and Aunt Dotty some more before they left. 

She went with Norman to buy some food.

Played waiter and sold me $10 eggs (because 10, 100, and 1000 are the only numbers she writes right now).

Did some voluntary dusting around the TV after pretending her fingers were skating in the dust. (Much appreciated.)

So much Scotch tape and so much cutting of paper. Seriously. Like it's going out of style.

I read her Our Immune System before quiet time.

Walked to the park with Norman.

Watched 1960s Batman.

I read her Meet My Neighbor, the Paramedic. Talked about what a glossary is.

Friday, May 31, 2013

Studied Doctor Meow again this morning.

Went to Megan's. At the very least, she played outside, got a temporary tattoo, and made pretend soup with popsicle sticks.

Came home and played bookstore (by tearing 2/3 of her books off her bookshelf). 

Drew a great picture of a talking race car. Then decided that she should cut the corners off the paper to make it look nice enough to hang on someone's wall.

Shape puzzle.

Watched Hairspray.

Spent the rest of the evening very shaken up by more tornadoes and storms. She spent some time drawing some nice pictures in the hall closet.  Then the power went out and she got a glowstick. Papa Frank, GrandMary, and Aunt Dotty were here all night, too.

I read her Our Immune System before bed.