Wednesday - Friday, August 28-30, 2013

 

Wednesday was my birthday. She made me this card unbidden. It's very special -- the first year she's been able to make me a present herself. (She asked me to tell her which letters came after the H to spell "happy". Then she got tired and had me write the "birthday". But she did the exclamation points!)

She watched Between the Lions on Wednesday before we took it back to the library.

We went to a different library than we usually do because it's near the store where we had to pick up my birthday cake. It's nice! I might try to find a way to get over to that branch more often. Its children's area is better laid out than the branch we have been going to. They have a lot more puzzles, a road map rug with cars, and the kids computer is easier to use (and she did use it to go through that Green Eggs and Ham thing again).

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday she watched Bear in the Big Blue House non-stop until I couldn't take it anymore and told her we were turning it off. Each day this happened. Between the fact that there are only 3 episodes on the DVD we got, and the fact that the show is BORING, I just couldn't take it anymore. But she seems to love it. It's about using your senses and stuff. 

In fact, because I always turn on the captions when she watches something, she wrote this ("Ojo", one of the character's names) all by herself. Cool!

Oh and at some point in the last three days she switched to her Mo Willems Scholastic DVD.

Today we broke out the paint ice cubes I made earlier this week. I mixed some of our paint powder with water in an ice cube tray to make a bunch of different colored cubes. First we tried writing/painting with them on paper in the Turtle. Then we put them over by the water table so she could "make perfume" (something one of characters was doing on Bear in the Big Blue House). Then we rinsed out the Turtle and turned it into a swimming pool. She spent a good long while outside. I'm so happy to finally have a backyard that can truly function as a second playroom for her!

 

 

 

 

 In books, we've been reading her Alexander Who's Not (Do You Hear Me? I Mean It!) Going to Move, Harry the Dirty Dog, and Have You Seen My Dinosaur? She's been looking at a lot of her books by herself. She found a Little Golden Book about Brave that she has, and read the inside front cover: "This book belongs to" and decided to add her name to it. LOL. Makes sense!

And, ya know, Dulpo-ing. Always Duplo-ing.

Oh and Thursday afternoon she handed me a Jasmine action figure and had me act out how Norman and I got married (she was Norman/Eugene). It was very... simplified. And there was a Dulpo guy pastor. But she made sure I had flowers.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Well, yesterday was pretty great because we went to the grocery stores and bought a garden hose and sprinkler. I cleaned out the crappy old turtle sandbox that was lurking in the back corner of our yard, so we can use it as a tiny pool or sandbox or giant bubble solution receptacle or whatever. And Lucy had a fabulous time using the hose sprayer to pretend to be a firefighter. 

Today she watched Blue's Clues. Watched The Price is Right. Pretended she was going to get married to Curious George but she didn't have any flowers! Crisis! So I told her I knew how to make some out of paper and we could do that after our errands.

Had to go to the DMV to get my SC driver's license. Before we left, she made her own driver's license with a little drawing of her head, her first name, and her license number (which just happened to be 10000, because ones and zeros are the only numbers she will write).  While we were there, she did a really great job of sitting in her seat while I was up at the counter. She also got to see the process of dealing with a motor vehicle accident, as I hit a parked car pulling into my parking space at the DMV. Yep. Again, she did surprisingly well sitting in the car while her mom freaked out.

We got home and we made those flowers.

We watched some Kid Snippets.

She played with her Duplos and made a restaurant. Tigger is the chef. There's a very long line at the front desk, where you have to get a ticket to get into the restaurant. (This all looks suspiciously like the set up at the DMV.)

 

Dotty read her Alexander Who's Not (Do You Hear Me? I Mean It!) Going to Move. (A really great book to read after moving; might have been emotionally disastrous before moving.)

Monday, August 19, 2013

Grocery day. She picked out her own toothbrush at Target. In a surprising twist, she picked a two-pack of Ariel and Tiana over Hello Kitty, Toy Story, and ones that lit up and blinked!

Watched Blue's Clues (playing store, measuring with charts, mixing colors).  Watched Sesame Street (families).

Created a hat store in her playroom.  I was the customer.  I came in and she showed me all the different kinds of hats that she had laid out all over.  I bought two hats for my daughter (a winter hat and a summer hat). She swiped my debit card and had me enter my PIN. Then she wanted to know what it was. I told her it was a secret so nobody steals my money. She said she wasn't going to steal it because she's not a bank robber.  She said no one else was there to hear what I said. She said I could whisper it to her after she got me a bag for the hats. I whispered some numbers to her (not my actual debit card PIN -- I'm not crazy!).  Then she gave me change (?) and a receipt, and I wandered off. Three seconds later I hollered "Lucy! I bought you some hats!" And she said, "Oh good, I need those for my hat store!  Would you like to come in and be my customer?"

Not much else happened today. Or I'm forgetting what happened. My memory has been giving out lately.

Dotty read her Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel before bed.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Well it's the next day. I don't remember what we did. Went to the playground. Went to the library.  

She watched a bunch of Blue's Clues. I think? Also Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.

She wanted me to get out my typewriter for her to type on.   

She typed her name and she wanted to type what I said, so I said "Lucy is cool," then I spelled it for her. 

Then a couple minutes later she did this: 

She wrote "Lucy" and then the 'I' before she asked how exactly we do an 'S'. Then I spelled "cool" for her and she wrote the letters. Very cool!

She also spent a lot of time drawing plates of spaghetti and meat sauce (that's the thing above the "Lucy is cool"). And maybe that's a spoon. I dunno.

I read her Green Eggs and Ham.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Blue's Clues -- the one about the snack chart, and the one about the restaurant.

She drew another snack chart, but this time on a dry erase sheet.

She watched Sesame Sings Karaoke.  She watched Cars.

She played with her Duplos until she accidentally broke the midwives' house and then she freaked out.

She got her own breakfast this morning. By the time I realized what she was doing, she was standing in the doorway to the living room holding a plastic knife, her stool, and a slice of zucchini bread. (I had to get her a plate and some butter, but she put the butter on herself.)

She got out the colored crafting feathers. I think we were supposed to be tickling each other, but then it just turned into her dumping them all over the floor. Of course.

She's been really into serving us water lately (probably the Blue's Clues episode). Like, she'll put water in a bunch of her plastic cups, then bring them all out on some sort of improvised tray. 

Oh and then there was the part where she put on boots, a cowboy hat, and cat ears on top of it and galloped around singing, "I'm a cat cowgirl! I'm a cat cowgirl!"

Busy day for a day where nothing happened, now that I think of it.

I read her an early reader book, Pal and Sal. It was about horses and it was really boring.

Monday, August 12, 2013

File under: The kinds of questions I answer on any given day:
"Where was Kermit born again?"
::think really fast -- to what is she referring exactly??::
"Swamp?"
"Oh right, yes. The swamp."

Grocery day. We had to wait in chairs at the bank, and we spent the time talking about the plot of Monsters Inc and looking at all the cool photos in the National Geographic they had there.

But before we left for the stores, she made up this rather elaborate story with her Duplos where they was a Duplo lady named Sally and her husband Joe, and Sally was going to have a baby any minute! So Lucy built a midwives' house for her. Also a cafe, and a parking garage, which is where everyone lived, because houses and castles hadn't been invented yet.

She insisted on making a charm bracelet. She kind of worked on it on and off all day. She got the idea from an episode of Max and Ruby that she watched a LONG time ago. She found a large blue cardboard star in her craft supplies, and a golf club charm in her bucket of tiny things from GrandMary. I provided her with a pipe cleaner and three more charms from my plastic bead stash.

One of the things in the National Geographic was an article on the Mars rover. We talked about it while we were at the bank, but later she wanted me to draw Mars. "And all the rocks! And the robot!" Well I agreed to Mars and the rocks, but not the robot. So she drew the robot herself. She said the big circle is the camera part where it takes the pictures!

Then she wanted me to tape it together with other pieces of paper to make a newspaper. Then she wanted me to add the headline that she dictated:

 

She also drew a Help Wanted section, which just looks like a bunch of big oblong ovals. She had me write "Jessie needs helping making spaghetti" in one of them.

She did some letter tracing in one of her dry erase workbooks. She did a really good job, actually.

I read to her about Purim from that book about Jewish holidays. Now she wants to make hamantashen because the book has a recipe. One of these days, I'm sure.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Blue's Clues. She found the one that tells the mythology of how Blue came to live with Joe and Steve and she was obsessed. I think she watched it four times, and then she wouldn't stop talking about it. She just can't get enough of that backstory. I know that feel.

Then we did the experiment I'd put off yesterday -- baking soda and vinegar in ziplocks so that they explode!  I told Lucy about it, but I guess she though it sounded too loud, so she wasn't going to watch. But Dotty wanted to watch, and Norman wanted to watch, so I told her the grownups were going to do it anyway, and she could wait inside if she wanted, or she could come outside with her noise-cancelling headphones. She kept saying she was going to stay inside, but, as I assumed she would, she eventually decided to come out with us. With the headphones and safety goggles.

It was fun! We exploded four ziplocks (two exploded themselves, and two we had to poke).  Here's a video of the last one -- that thing was super strong!



And then we got her science flask and made a little volcano.

 

  

Then Lucy hung around with Norman while Dotty and I went to a movie. (I feel like a normal person!)  They played hide and seek (apparently including a version where they give out clues about where they are). :-)

More hanging out in Dotty's room. Her current favorite past time, I think.

I read her that Tigger picture book again.  And then she read the summary on the back and needed help with about 6 of the words. What.

Oh yeah, and a couple weeks ago we bought her foam bath letters and numbers to replace her ducks that got moldy. Fun!

 

[Remains of the bath] 

Friday, August 9, 2013

Today we went to the moped shop to buy Norman a moped. Lucy recommended that he buy the one with rear view mirrors, so he could see people behind him. Good advice. She also insisted on asking the salesman why there were packing peanuts on the floor. :-)

Later she went with Norman downtown to do something at his office and then get the frozen yogurt she earned through the summer reading program at the library. And then they went to the playspace at the mall, I think.

[Photo courtesy of Norman]

I don't know what else she did. Had a tea party with Dotty, I think? Oh, she made a book with water language and her name and had Norman write the question mark at the end. And she attempted to draw an R in a circle after her website URL (which she named after herself), "so that no one else can name their website the same as my website." (Yes, we've already started teaching her about intellectual property laws.)

I read to her about Hanukkah from a book about Jewish Holidays. She's excited to hear about Purim tomorrow because I told her it's the story about Esther (which she knows and loves from VeggieTales).

Thursday, August 8, 2013

I left some Larry Boy stencils and a notebook on the coffee table last night. The stencils are detailed and kinda crappy, but she's been working at using them successfully today.

Watched several episodes of Blue's Clues.

I asked if she wanted to help me scrub the bathtub, and she did. She also helped scrub the outside of the toilet.

Spent a while hanging out in Dotty's room. Not sure what happened there, but I did hear her stomping on bubble wrap while singing We Are the Dinosaurs.

We played with some cool shaped bubble blowers. Then she played outside by herself for a while.

She watched the Blue's Clues with charts, so she drew several charts, including this one that shows "how many years tall" she is:

[See, she used to be three (on the right), but now she's four (on the left).]

And another one that was a snack chart for the people in our family. I had to do most of the drawing on that one, but she made the columns.

I read her That Is Not a Good Idea.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Before I went to bed last night, I strew her one of her workbooks and some writing utensils on the coffee table.  Later in the day, I noticed that she had worked on it!  The tracings are from before, but the ones that she drew herself are new! Major progress -- she's been reticent to write letters and numbers herself, except for the letters in her first name, and ones and zeros.  

 

It was library day. She got her summer reading medal. She's quite proud of it. (It's actually metal! So much so that she hit herself in the face with it on accident at least once.)

When we got home, she pretty much read this book to herself. (New Mo Willems book!! Yay!) She asked for my help with some of the longer words, but she mostly got it. [Several Amazon reviewers were right -- the ending, although funny because of the twist -- is a little disturbing! It didn't seem to bother Lucy too much though.]

We did that art project where you draw on a white piece of paper with white crayon, and then you paint watercolors over it, so what you drew shows up.  Lucy, Norman, and I all did some. It was fun!

  

She watched a bunch of Blue's Clues, including one about art, so she had us make an art gallery. And also one about Thanksgiving, so she had us make a list of things we're thankful for. 

She did some water science, served us fake food, dressed up, etc, etc.  

I read her Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs.

I'm currently trying to decide whether or not to join a family-type gym in town that has an indoor pool and fun physical activity classes for kids year round (same time as the "gentle yoga" for me!). It's close to our house and seems really nice -- just not sure if the expense is justified. Maybe if I call it an "educational expense" it might seem more justified. :-)

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

I got her a Laurie Berkner Band DVD on Saturday, so she's been on a bit of a kick with that. Watched it again this morning. Twice, I think.

Played outside by herself for a while.  This backyard is far more conducive to it than any of our previous backyards.

Almost first thing this morning she present Norman and me with water language menus (she's also been on a play restaurant kick thanks to Blue's Clues). We told her what we wanted, and she drew us pictures of it!  My cheese danish and decaf iced coffee was quite abstract, but I could definitely see it.  :-)

She wrote some letters that aren't in her name!  This is actually a big deal. She hasn't really been willing to try before.  But today she wrote a string of letters and water language scribbles, including a D and a T!

I read her a picture book about Tigger before bed.

And other stuff?  My days are running together.  I'm going to try to keep track and get back to writing these posts each day.