Nov 5-9, 2014

Post-vacation time has brought a predictably cranky 5 year old, but also a 5 year old who is remarkably content to get back to her own stuff, her own backyard, and autonomy over her own time.

Lots of playing outside, including "cooking", possibly creating a restaurant or drive-thru place in her tiny playhouse, and dressing up in her swim suit and trying to find a high place to put her lawn chair so she can be a lifeguard.

Lots of watching Phineas and Ferb. And of course responding to Phineas and Ferb by incorporating their schemes into her schemes.

Bike race map:

Copying the names of the Phineas and Ferb songs from the liner notes of her CD (this may have happened before the vacation...):

(And this is on the back:)

Trying to pause an episode at just the right place so that she can copy some words from the closed captioning. She's been quite ingenious lately with different ways to figure out how to spell/write things. Lots of copying from other place where she knows it's already written down.

Girl scout manual:

"Mom, what's an amp hi theater?"

These are bidding paddles for an auction? I've been told?

We put together both the Lego sets she got in Florida. In both cases, she actually got a lot of it done by just following the instructions before she got frustrated and yelled for me to help her.

We went to the library and she found even more tricks to that story typing game (and had the computer pronounce more of her nonsense typing).

She went to her Girl Scout meeting, and they talked about lions, and ways we can take care of pets. She actually gave a really accurate and pithy summary of an anecdote from The Boxcar Children that was on topic!

First staking lesson at her new level. I think they did ice bowling or something.

In Sunday school they talked about this parable and made little paper suitcases and filled them with pictures of (according to her) "4 tips for making God happy." And then after church she played with one of her friends at the park. I heard the following choice snippets: "We can both be Elsa! Two Elsas!" and "We're both mermaids. All that is the water." and "You pretend to be a witch and you're trying to get me!" Good times...

Been reading some Phineas and Ferb books from the library before bed. Which I don't mind because I like doing the voices.

Disney World (Oct 30 - Nov 4, 2014)

Well, we went to Disney World! It's a short day of driving from our house, so it was great to finally get down there. This will be a Lucy-centric accounting of what went on.

[pit stop]

We met up with my mom, dad, and brother, so she got to spend some time with extended family.

[playing the dots and squares game with her uncle]

Grandma and Grandpa have been living/working in Trinidad recently, so they brought her a Trinidadian flag, a map, some currency, and a parrot feather!

She found a fountain/splash pad thing our first night there, and was way more interested in actually getting wet than any of the other kids there:

We had the opportunity to take several ferry rides and many bus rides. On one of the bus rides, it was standing room only, and we were standing in front of a boy her age and his mom. Lucy struck up a very pleasant conversation with him about their clothes and school and cousins and all sorts of things.

On the drives down and back, she worked on a road trip workbook I made for her (mazes, design your own license plates and road signs, finish the robot drawing, etc.), played some tablet apps (Word Girl design your own superheroes, Fruit Ninja, etc.), and somehow generally kept herself occupied and clear of any whining. It was great!

Our hotel's pool had a big slide, and after some encouragement from Norman (and some random ladies in the pool), and a polite request that the lifeguard let Norman and Lucy go down it together the first time, she was going down it by herself!

[That blur in the middle of the slide is the two of them.]

Speaking of our little daredevil, we took her on Splash Mountain (a glorified log ride), and she loved it. I mean, I'm pretty sure I didn't like it as much as she did. She said it was "stunning scary! But the good kind!" She also loved us spinning the tea cup ride as fast as it could go. Plus two different carousels and It's a Small World and the Dumbo ride. Pirates of the Caribbean, not so much, because we forgot her headphones. Loud noises -- no; steep fast drops -- yes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We rode Spaceship Earth and learned about history. We rode The Seas with Nemo and visited the aquarium and learned about fish and manatees and stuff.

She played Agent P's World Showcase Adventure and learned about Mexico:

She read the clues and multiple choice options herself, and it turns out her phonics must be okay, because she can also read "Adios Amigos".

We met Merida and she shot a bow and arrow. We met Tinkerbell (while Lucy was dressed as Tinkerbell), and Tinkerbell asked what kind of inventions *she'd* been working on, and I mentioned her lizard trap ideas, and Tinkerbell suggested maybe Lucy could help her with her ladybug spotter invention and they pinky promised and it was *adorable*. She met Sofia (big head -- can't talk) and insisted on showing her that Sofia was on her autograph notebook. (We met quite a few characters. Lucy did a great job, even if she was a little overwhelmed and didn't always know what to say or how to react.)

We went to the Lego store and she built her own minifigs (an astronaut who got beat up in space, a lady who is moving, and an economist), and spent her souvenir money on two Lego sets, one of which we put together the day after we got home (and she helped quite a bit with that -- she put together the little oven/stove by following the instructions before she even asked for my help).

We visited an Irish pub and they had some dancers who invited the kids to dance with them, and she definitely did!

[She's the one on the right in the purple dress]

Not that this is out of the ordinary, but she was very well-spoken and polite to all the servers at the sit-down restaurants we went to. She knew what she wanted, and she said it!

Oh, and she found a word in a word search on one of the kids menus! I don't think she's ever done that by herself before.

We played air hockey in the arcade!

And there was a candy shop where you fill out a form to pick which thing you want, covered in which chocolate and which topping, and she wrote her name on it (with the new creative spelling she's been trying out) and put an 'x' next to the things she wanted.

We saw a couple stage shows -- a Frozen one with live actors, and a Disney Junior one with puppets. She loved both of them (of course).

Hollywood Studios has this cool playground that looks like you're in Honey I Shrunk the Kids -- she really enjoyed that, I think. Especially with all the talk about lizards lately.

[see, it's a slide, but it's a roll of film. eh? eh??]

On our last day, she found a prop/photo op car, climbed in, and made Norman sit in it with her while she rattled off a long spiel that seemed to be a combination of the recorded announcements from the buses and the ferries. Very professional, apparently.

We saw several different types of lizards and birds around the property. The ferry driver said they had otters, but we never saw any!

She brought Magic School Bus books with her, so I read her at least one of those while we were gone. Volcanos, I think?

She drew this calculator on the last day while we packed up:

["In 'off', does the 'ff' come at the beginning or the end?"]

Week of October 27, 2014

Shape/nail/corkboard game. She turned it into a remote control panel for our house.

We played half a game of Monopoly Junior together. (Even the Junior version is kind of unreasonably long, considering how few choices you get to make.) The difference in her attention and understanding of and willingness to follow the rules between today and the last time we played it (about 6-8 months ago?) was stunning.

Lots of playing outside. I can't express enough how pleased I am that she enjoys just rambling around outside in her own little world, making ridiculous messes of things and using everything for exactly the things they aren't meant to be used for.

Thanks to Phineas and Ferb, she's been trying to tape the medal part of her summer reading medal to her keyboard to make a keytar that she can wear.

We got ready to go on our trip, and she was actually pretty helpful. Very keen to pick out what to bring and figure out how to pack it all.

And that's about it, pre-trip. The next post will be long.

Week of October 20, 2014

Play date with church friends.

Copying the titles of songs from the Phineas and Ferb soundtrack on paper and the chalkboard.

She spied a poster behind a counter at our grocery store above a fire extinguisher that said "P.A.S.S." and she wanted to know what that meant. Once I figured out what she was talking about, she got spelling, mnemonics, acronyms, and fire safety all at once! (It stands for pull the pin, aim, squeeze the trigger, and sweep it back and forth.) And we talked about when something can be solved with a fire extinguisher and when you need to just get out and call the fire department.

We read a book about time zones on Monday or Tuesday. Then on Sunday she heard one of our fellow parishioners talking about how she used to live in Hawaii and Lucy jumped right in with questions about which time zone Hawaii is in and how many hours difference it is and when exactly she changed her clocks when she moved here.

Made a conveyer belt (her words) for her cash register out of a whole bunch of colored tape.

Library. Dora game and that story typing game. She figured out how to color the backgrounds of the pages and draw shapes.

Turned our coat closet into an elevator with the addition of a piece of paper with two arrow buttons on it.

We read a book about keeping lizards as pets.

She's started making plans again for the hotel she's going to open in our house. This is a picture of all the amenities that room service can provide upon request:

[Bibles, soap, pads of paper, pens, bottles of water, candy, newspapers, iPods, .... and I kinda lost track of what was happening after that]

Lots of Phineas and Ferb (show and soundtrack).

We've been taking walks (well, she mostly rides in the wagon) around the neighborhood and to the post office some days.

Last skating lesson of the session and she passed her test! And we signed her up for the next session at her request. At this point she seems to be gunning for hockey player in a year or two.

Sunday school: talked about about the greatest commandment and another is like unto it. And she remembered what they talked about last week! "They were trying to trick Jesus by asking him a question about a coin with their leader on it." I'm just amazed that she was paying attention.

We took a walk in the forest-y part of a park today, and I started explaining about the Doctor Who episode last night (which she did not see), but it turned into a discussion about the oxygen/carbon dioxide cycle.

Then we walked to a trunk or treat at a church down the street from us (she dressed up as a fairy princess). Then we played at the park for a bit. Oh, and we saw some raccoons! Just hanging around a tree in a neighbor's front yard in the middle of the day just as cool as they could be. A different neighbor had some major tree work done a couple days ago -- I think maybe they were displaced. They were cool to see, though.

[She drew the plant on the piece of paper, see? (This is at a friend's house.)]

[House lizard flag]

Week of October 13, 2014

We read a book about Picasso. We talked about his art and what we liked.

It was 10/13, so we watched her first two X-Files episodes. (I solicited opinions from my fellow adults on the least scary episodes.) For one of them I had to explain the basic concept of World War II.

We've been reading a book about building fairy houses because house lizards.

More nail hammering.

Plenty of kicking around the backyard. She put her skateboard in her turtle pool to pretend to surf.

She found this emergency crank-powered radio/flashlight we have that does bare a striking resemblance to a video camera, so she was going around filming things for a news report:

And then she drew this on her chalkboard to turn it into a TV. (In her words, there's headlines at the bottom, a weather warning at the top, and the reporter is talking about house lizards, which is why she has a flower on her shirt, and you can't see her legs because she's on the TV.)

Library. Dora computer game (costumes and cooking and gardening).

We walked to the park (she rode her balance bike -- which is pretty much too small -- pedal bike time is coming!). Most of the walking to and from involved learning to be safe and follow instructions. She was very kind to a little boy (3yo?) there who followed her all around.

She brought me this, which is a felt finger puppet I made for her, and a pair of scissors, and asked me to cut the eyes off it. Of course I asked why. To turn it into a costume for house lizards. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to see out. I told her maybe we should wait until we've caught some and trained them not to be afraid of us.

Girl scout meeting: learning about animals. They made a bald eagle out of everyone's handprints and built a paper cup bird feeder.

She's been writing lots of numbers on things. Filling out a lot of fake checks. Trying to spell short words and actually doing a half-decent job.

Skating lessons, of course. That's chugging along.

She's been spending a lot of time watching Dotty play a Pokemon game on her DS. Dotty is a saint -- I would have been fed up with all the backseat driving long ago.

Sunday school and children's church -- they talked about giving to God and St. Francis. She wrestled with her friend. And she drew this after announcements:

["sign up" -- pretty sure that's a hand holding, a pen, writing on a piece of paper]

Someone was talking about signing up for hosting coffee hour, greeting (and passing out bulletins, prayer books, and hymnals), and bringing flowers for the altar. She apparently was listening, because she drew all three of those things!

We went to a corn maze farm with the Girl Scouts. Navigating a 2.8 mile corn maze with a map (and the obvious -- seeing corn growing!); corn box (like a sand box, but... with corn); petting zoo; giant tire/tube slide climbing structure; learning what the "buddy system" means; introducing her grownups to other grownups.

[See? Corn box.]

[On Daddy's shoulders]

And of course endless episodes of Phineas and Ferb, and talking about Phineas and Ferb, and Phineas and Ferb inside jokes, and I bought her a Phineas and Ferb soundtrack CD. And due to Candace's influence, we had to have a talk about not referring to someone as your "boyfriend" without at least talking to him about it first.

Week of October 6, 2014

This week's theme was apparently "make stuff with my hands". She's been super into building outside -- this includes heaving heavy things like bricks up into her play fort, wrapping an old hose around all sorts of stuff up there, and hammering nails into scraps of wood (some of which we found in a curb pile on our way walking back from the post office one day this week). She's also been using her scissors a lot to cut out shapes to construct things. She made a house lizard shirt and tried to make a Vanessa costume for her teddy bear Jane (but the project was thwarted by the Scotch tape not sticking well enough to the piece of thick plastic sheeting she was using).  Also capes for Duplo animals:



And pathways and sidewalks made from all sorts of blocks, including, at times, dominos:

Speaking of house lizards, it turns out Jane is going to be the priest of their church. And Lucy is going to be their "Lord", so their church will mostly be "Lucy-themed". (These are her words, obviously.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

We went to a big book sale and bought a bunch of great stuff, including two books on lizards/reptiles. She spent a good portion of the trip sitting in her stroller reading a large easy reader volume about DC superheroes. Possibly she read the whole thing. When she was done with that, she spent some time looking at the map they gave us at the door.  She read that we should leave the map for other people to use when we were done, and suggested this to me. I told her we didn't need to, but then she pointed out that it said it on the map. And then when we got home she said if our reusable shopping bag broke, we could take it back to Harris Teeter and they'd give us a new one. I told her I didn't think that's how that worked, but she pointed to the bottom of the bag where it said exactly that!  Mommy needs to do more reading, apparently.

At the library she found this fire safety sheet that had a fire extinguisher, a smoke alarm, and exit signs on it. She decided since we have the first two things in our house, but no exit signs, she would make some. Which she did, with stickers and no help from me.

This Lego Friend went shopping for some "cool new outfits".

We're planning a trip to Disney World, so one afternoon this week we decorated out Magic Bands. Temporary tattoos and nail polish. (She made style and design decisions and I executed them.)

At church today they went through the first 5 of the Ten Commandments and she drew this. "God", "1 God", a smile ("for nice things, etcetera, etcetera"), a cross ("take a day of rest the day you go to church"), a heart and me and Norman ("love your mom and dad!"). Nailed it.

She's spent the last two days pouring over this really cool book we got at last year's book sale.

Bedtime reading matter has included Phineas and Ferb books and The Boxcar Children (again). 

And she's been using the tablet to watch Phineas and Ferb, of course. And to go to the local shopping mall's website. She just loves doing that for some reason. She also spends a lot of time looking at the mall maps that she picks up pretty much every time she's there so now she has like 3 of them.

And skating lessons are still going well.

And we went to the library and she played that story writing game again (her favorite). And she was writing all these stories just using the "stickers" (little icons) that they have. But then the game decided that she had used up her allotment of stickers, so she clicked on the sticker she wanted, and the name of the thing shows up beneath it, so she just typed the name of it instead!

Monday, September 22, 2014

Ack! This never got published last week! Okay, short version: she asked to make dinner. We figured out something she could make (sandwiches and salads), we picked the ingredients, we bought the ingredients, she cooked, I was her sous chef. It was totally cool!

And also she made some art.

Week of September 29, 2014

Okay, we're gonna try this summing up the week thing.

She spent a lot of time outside this week. The weather has been lovely! She's been digging and "cooking" and swinging and getting herself all disgustingly wet and muddy -- it's great!

Still watching some Phineas and Ferb, but not as much as a couple weeks ago. It's cooling.

She asked to make gelatin, so we did that this week with grape juice. She decided she didn't like it.

She asked to make an apple pie, so we did that this week. She mostly just helped with mixing the ingredients for the crusts. Then I did the rest of it. But she came back to help use the cookie cutters on the extra pie crust to make cookies. She decided she doesn't like the pie. (??? It is delicious if I do say so myself.)

She wrote this on the calendar with absolutely no input from me (meant to say "driving eve"):

Still talking about the house lizards all the time. Here we have a note written in lizard tongue sticking out language (obviously):

Grocery shopping. Library. She played with that story writing computer game again. It's a big hit.

She also used her tablet this week to have Google translate say things out loud again. And she finished a section of her geography game. And she and Norman worked some more on the Phineas and Ferb game.

Girl scout meeting. She got inducted or whatever they call it.

Skating lessons. She's doing awesome. 

She wanted to try climbing the trees in our front yard. She got up pretty high in this one!

Lots of Duplos and Legos, as always. 

She tried to pour herself some juice. That was an adventure, but she got the juice out of the fridge and got herself a cup and everything all by herself without asking. Which I actually consider a step in the right direction.

Sunday school, we talked about St Francis and made bird feeders out of pipe cleaners and Cheerios.

Then we went to our church's Blessing of the Animals this afternoon. She got her teddy bear blessed and played on the playground for awhile. :-)

Bedtime reading has been books about Lego Friends and Disney Fairies and assorted other advertainment, but ::shrug::  

Oh yeah, and when Norman and I were cleaning her playroom, we found a strip of paper where she'd written all the numbers up to 20 or so out in a row, mostly correctly. This is a big deal! She didn't want to write most numbers for the longest time. And she's also been writing random letter and number combos on some old checks I gave her to play with.

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Skating lessons. She's definitely improving, and she seems to be more confident. She played her Phineas and Ferb game while they waited for me to be done, and also she watched some hockey practice.

Played outside.

Went to the mall with Dotty. They played at the play area. She brought her mall map with her (one of her favorite possessions at the moment), and was explaining it all to another kid there.

Watched some Phineas and Ferb.

She got some good scissor practice in cutting out the tiny pictures of checks from the specialized check advertisement. For house lizards, of course.

More Disney World DVD. And talking about it. And looking at the Disney World maps we have.

I read her I am Abraham Lincoln before bed.

Friday, September 26, 2014

Let's see, let's see... Some plumbers came today; she found that rather exciting and went around with her tools "fixing" things for a while.

She watched the Disney World DVD.

She watched some Phineas and Ferb.

She spent a good long while building with her Legos.

We watched some Kurt Browning figure skating performances on YouTube.

She played a geography game on her tablet. This was while she was hanging out with me in my craft room, which she pretty much never gets to do, so she was very excited about that. She was watching me paint a shirt with fabric markers and water.

So then she decided to make some similar designs with marker on paper and go over them with water and a paintbrush like I was doing.

She can draw a pretty impressive peace sign.

Spent some time playing outside off and on.

Asked to help make the pizzas for dinner, so I had her put on the toppings.

We read And Tango Makes Three before bed (in honor of Banned Book Week).

And then when he was tucking her in, she and Norman talked about who makes the laws, and legislative bodies, and Mexico, Canada, Hawaii, and lava.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

We recently found the Disney vacation planning DVD (which Mommy may or may not have placed on top of a tall bookshelf and then forgotten about), so she watched that this morning.

Also some Phineas and Ferb.

Also watched Norman play Mario Galaxy.

And then they figured out that if you lay the Wii-mote down on the couch and then bounce on the couch cushion, Mario will move. There was some hypothesizing and experimentation with this, apparently.

She got out an old rubber stamp I had given her and asked if she could use her stamp pads (which I had put up high after she used them on the walls quite a while ago). I told her she could use them at the kitchen table and gave them to her, but then she told me to leave. So of course I had to ask what she was planning on doing with them, and she eventually told me she wanted to stamp her books like she was a librarian (and she clearly thought I wouldn't let her). We compromised: I told her she could, if she promised to only stamp the front inside covers, of only her books, and to put them back on the shelves when she was done. She agreed and followed through! See, daughter? Truth! Compromise! These are the great virtues!

She spent literally hours outdoors today. Doing who knows what. Taking the old hose and winding it in some sort of weird obstacle course path all around her play fort, for one. And more house lizard catching schemes, of course. Hanging out on the swings, singing and talking.

Oh and she used the phrase "brave of" as the opposite of "scared of". Like, "the house lizards are brave of cats, so why aren't they brave of us?" :-)

She told me she wants to make an apple pie, so that will be next week.

I remember that she wanted to light the candle during dinner (something they'd talked about in Sunday School), and when Dotty asked why we were lighting it, Lucy said, "It means the spirit of the Lord," and then she said a lovely prayer to bless our food and pray for those who don't have enough food.

She watched a Phineas and Ferb episode where they went to England, and Candace was channeling Sherlock Holmes for his superior busting abilities, so Lucy got a hat and her magnifying glass and went around the house noticing clues, and I had to wear a different hat and follow her around taking notes and telling her how awesome she is.

We read a book about the founding of the Girl Scouts and practiced saying the Girl Scout Promise (which she's supposed to memorize).

Thursday and Friday, September 18 & 19, 2014

It's not really an exaggeration to say that she spent all of yesterday watching Phineas and Ferb. She stopped to eat lunch and dinner. And then we went to the Girl Scout meeting. There she colored and drew and practiced the Girl Scout Promise and learned about how we're all different but the same. Also these:

Today, more Phineas and Ferb. (She watched her first episode on Wednesday, and was immediately smitten, as I guessed she would be.) She watches it on her tablet, which is actually pretty great. It's quieter for me, and she can move around and change positions more. Every now and then, she'll pause it and emerge to very excitedly and animatedly tell me something about the show, or expand on it by guessing about how the world is based on what she just saw.

Today she also:

used Google translate to type things and have the computer say them.

wrote out a supposed ingredient list for the unknown dessert she's supposedly making next week. (She asked if she could cook dinner, and I told her sure, it'd just need to be next week because we haven't bought ingredients for it, so she should figure out what she wants to make and we'll buy the stuff. I don't think she was expecting this answer because it quickly deescalated to dessert, and then to an imaginary dessert...) She also gave definitions for some of these made up words. The first one is like a half peach, half apple, with a bunch of tomato leaves on the top, and "broccoli fluff" on the bottom.

did some more Disney World planning. It's kind of consuming all of our brains at the moment.

put together an Agent P costume and wore it all day. (Part of the Disney World talk has been about costumes [for her] and DisneyBounding [for the grownups].)

went on a walk with me in the red wagon. I'm training for Disney World, see.

And we read/browsed/chatted about a book about how to dress up like a fairy.

She's also been asking a lot of weirdly deep questions today, like about how we can tell that this is real life right now, like maybe we're in a story, or do things happen in real life the way they happen to us?  She's blowin' my mind, man.

Saturday, September 13, 2014

We watched this video (hilarious), and then this, this, and this (ASL music videos).

Super Mario Galaxy.

Skating lessons. She did eventually figure out how to stand back up on her own. After I had to use every ounce of my self control to not go across the rink and help her.

Played her drawing game on her tablet (both at the rink and at home).

More Super Mario Galaxy, with Norman this time.

Spent some time outside, doing goodness knows what. Although at one point she was doing house lizard traps because I gave her a giant box for it.

There was some sign language. Mostly me trying to remember terms for family members. This website is very helpful.

I read her this book about Rosa Parks before bed. Highly recommended -- easy to read, interesting, straightforward, inspirational. Apparently it's in a series, so I'll be looking for the other ones!

Wednesday and Thursday, September 10 & 11, 2014

Ehhhh it's Thursday. Oops.

Well, today she played outside a lot. Lots of fake food cooking and mixing. Crazy swinging. House lizard traps.

She spent a long time playing with her action figures. I heard a song she made up, some of the lyrics of which were, "Give thanks to Elsa!"

She played a geography game on her tablet.

She played Super Mario Galaxy, both by herself and with Norman. Both today and yesterday she spent kind of really long periods just reading the storybook that's contained within the game. And also the user manual.

I read her a book about Australia before bed. She was very interested in the info on the Great Barrier Reef, I think because they mention it in the game she was playing on the tablet.


Yesterday we went to the library. She played that story typing game again, except this time she figured out how to get the computer to pronounce the things she typed. Mostly nonsense, and also some very long numbers. She was delighted!  And then she was doing a coloring page, but instead she turned it over and copied the words "Weekly Events" from the dry erase board that they have up in the children's section.

She has been VERY into puns lately. On Sunday some kid said something about how flies bug you, and she's been laughing about that all week.  When she was copying the thing at the library, she pointed out that a "k" looks like a see-saw sideways, "but an underwater one. Sea-saw. Get it?" Ugh.

She's been typing messages on the Wii again. All the time. She spends a lot of time typing numbers in order. Like, up to 19. And sometimes the alphabet too. Or sometimes she wants me to spell long sentences for her.

After dinner last night we spent some time typing things into Google translate and then having the computer read them. Sometimes in different languages so it would have an accent. Good times.

We did a little bit of a sign language book before bed yesterday.

Monday, September 8, 2014

Spent a good two hours this morning just... coloring. Coloring in Sofia the First pages quite diligently, then she made a scribble in black and started filling in the shapes with colors. Seriously. Two hours. She hardly ever just colors.

We went to the grocery stores. She tried some new foods at Costco, and then tried to get me to buy Bagel Bites by repeating the sample lady's sales pitch word for word. Also while we were out, she asked if my brother (who is a single parent) adopted his son (her cousin), since, according to her reasoning, the mother of your cousin is your aunt, but Lucy only has one aunt (Norman's sister). So we talked about that. 

Back at home she spent a good long while in the backyard (it was less hot today). She was planning a party a la Sofia the First. Then she drew/wrote some party invitations after I told her I wasn't going to send real texts about a pretend party. She also figured out how to open her hula hoop up and then put it back together, and how to swing hard enough to make the swing kind of jump violently with her on it. She was quite proud of herself for that one. 

She played the Phineas and Ferb game on the tablet.

She and Norman watched some Mario game play videos, including one where Princess Peach gets to run around fighting things, which Lucy was very happy to see.

I read her a book about Days and Times in sign language.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Church. Learned about the eucharist in Sunday School and drew some pretty cool pictures of it. She also apparently learned that all Christians are our brothers and sisters, a concept that this only child latched onto and talked about ALL DAY.

The friend of her Church Friend showed up today, and both she and the new-to-church friend got pretty possessive over Church Friend. We had to have a talk about how it's normal to feel jealous, but we still have to be nice and share because other people don't belong to us. (Seriously -- the words "HE'S MINE!" escaped her lips. It was hilarious, adorable, and heartbreaking.)

During children's chapel, they talked about the plagues of Egypt, and apparently Lucy suggested that if we had a time machine, we could just go back in time and give the slaves some flashlights for when it was so dark.

Then she played at the park with Church Friend, so that seemed to be better.

She and Norman went to Target and she spent several months' worth of her allowance on a new Lego set, which they then assembled. She took the instruction manual and her tablet and got to the Lego Friends website all by herself.

Oh yeah, and at some point today in the car she had me fingerspelling the abbreviations for months of the year. Like, "OK! Fingerspelling for.... May!" (I spell in ASL.) "Fingerspelling for.... aug! For.... sep!"

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Super Mario Galaxy.

Interrupted by needing to leave for skating lessons!! OK, probably I was more excited than she was (excited to get to skate, not excited for her to skate). But she did really well! She didn't have any emotional breakdowns, which seems pretty huge. And she even wanted to keep practicing a little during the practice time after her lesson (and usually they expect that the littlest kids [of which she is one] won't keep practicing). And then she hung out with Norman and played the Phineas and Ferb game on her tablet while they waited for me to be done with my lesson.

Apparently while Norman and I were out on our date, she and Dotty watched a bunch of YouTube videos of Disney songs in foreign languages.

More Super Mario Galaxy.

Watched some Word Girl.

Played with her dolls.

I read her another book about lizards (and told her the correct pronunciation for "anole", which I had to look up last night after I read her the other book about lizards).

And then she and Norman had a chat about what tattoo parlors are like (because Norman and I were in one today).

Friday, September 5, 2014

She woke me up about to fill out the Girl Scout form for herself. I convinced her to wait and let me do most of it. Later this made her want to make her own form. She spelled "no" by herself for it. She said, "I saw it in my head!"

I gave her two little cork boats I'd made, and some toothpicks, and she made sails and put Lego people on them and floated them in her turtle pool in the backyard. Then she got into the turtle pool herself. Then she was playing with the hose sprayer. While it was raining.

There was some angst off and on during the day about her self-predicted ability to abide by the Girl Scout Law. We had a nice talk about how those are things we try to do anyway, and everyone messes up sometimes, and the important thing is to say sorry and try again. (I feel her, BTW. I put off saying the Sinner's Prayer to "officially" become a Christian for about 2 years past the point that my evangelical upbringing had me convinced that I needed to do it to be saved, because I just wasn't so sure that I really wanted to officially decide to always obey my parents and do the right thing. True story. I like having options.)

But then again, later she was trying to copy the ice breaker Bingo card we took home from the scout meeting last night. She made the grid and copied about 4 words before it was bedtime.

She also played Super Mario Galaxy with Norman. And she was fiddling with the Miis again earlier. This is practically a daily occurrence.

She spent a significant amount of time playing with her dolls and Lego people, including making them have a loud, long, and incredibly unproductive argument about nothing.

Before bed I read her Miniature Reptiles, and we learned the proper name for our house lizards! Green anoles, apparently. Then she was telling Norman about it (he was in the other room while we were reading), and he asked her if she meant green "gecko", and she very quickly got upset and lost confidence. So we had a nice chat about how if you're the person who read the book, then you're the person who knows, so you're the person who gets to explain it, and other people can be wrong, even if they're older than you.

Thursday, September 4, 2014

OK. Today. Let's see. Phineas & Ferb game on the tablet. (FYI, this game is all about cause-and-effect physics stuff and the different states of water.) She also used it to watch some Word Girl. 

She watched this Mickey Mouse Clubhouse DVD she got from the library. It's awful, but they're big on making choices to solve problems.

Either today or yesterday she was typing out numbers in order and the alphabet in Wii messages, with the intent of teaching little kid house lizards at her little kid house lizard kindergarten.

She spent a long time today coming up with superhero titles for each of us and what our powers are. She also got out her number dry erase workbook in order to use it as a list. Beside each number is a plan for defeating bad guys. These are the kind of hieroglyphics she draws (very influenced by her Blue's Clues days, I think). For instance, she told me that plan #3 is "lie to the bad guy about where our hideout is" (house, speech bubble, person, sound waves, bad guy person).

I think she also drew some sort of newspaper.  

Oh and she had me help her make a pattern with her beads.

And then we went to a Girl Scout meeting! She seemed to really enjoy it. We mostly played ice breaker / getting to know you type games. It got a little loud for her at one point, but other than that it was good. We played a game that resulted in her writing down some names I helped her spell, and writing her own name about 10 times. She also wrote down "me" while I wasn't looking! She spoke up nice and loud when it was her turn to introduce herself, and she made sure to ask exactly what it was she was getting into when she read the Girl Scout promise with the rest of the girls. :-)  Pretty sure she's in, so I've got some shopping to do and some paperwork to fill out!

And we didn't read a book before bed, because she wanted me to read the Girl Scout Law and the Girl Scout Promise and go over the calendar with her instead.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

This morning she brought up Girl Scouts. I had looked into this a little but hadn't said anything to her about it. So I think we're going to a meeting on Thursday to see what's up. I am so not a joiner, but I will do pretty much anything for Lucy. If she wants to be a joiner, then we'll be joiners. We'll see.

She was working on a multi-chapter story. This consisted of writing a bunch of squiggly lines on one corner of a giant piece of construction paper and drawing a picture of what was happening in the chapter. Then she'd come show it to me, then she'd run off and write/draw the next chapter. There's a giant friendly female giant with short legs, among other things. And a dead person. She's really into drawing dead people with little x's for eyes.

She kept trying to get me to join the adult September reading program at her Lucy Library.

She found a teeny little train ornament of hers that's missing a wheel, so she drew a plan diagram of how to fix it.

For a couple minutes she was intense curious about how many days are in a year, how many hours in a day, etc, etc. And some discussion of seasons and lengths of days.

Played Super Mario Galaxy.

Said this:

She played with her dolls/Duplos/beads for a while.

I got out a new toy that I've had stashed away for a while. It's a thick cork board, wooden shapes with holes in them, long thumbtacks, and a tiny hammer. (Like this.) It comes with a paper of ideas of pictures you can make with the shapes. It's fun! She did this first:

And decided halfway through that it was definitely a train conductor panel, since everything turns, I guess. Then I did a pattern; then she did one of the pictures from the paper (she called it a diagram -- thanks, Peg + Cat!), but she added her own stuff. Then she made Luigi. 

More Super Mario Galaxy, this time with Norman.

After dinner she decided she should put a picture of something on a popsicle stick so it would look like she has something flying around following her (like Rosalina does, I guess?). She finally settled on flying house lizard. She drew it, and I helped her cut it out, and she taped it on a popsicle stick. 

We practiced some ASL from our library book before bed. (We've already renewed that thing once... I should probably buy her a copy!)