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.

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]:

Monday, May 20, 2013

Lots of reading lately. I can't keep track of all the words.  This morning she kept finding words she knows all over my internet browser.

Grocery store. The two of us entertained a 15-month-old baby who was in line in front of us.  Lucy asked the baby's name (and the mom's name, and the baby's dad's name), and told the mom her name (and my name, and Norman's name, and our last name...).

The two of us put together a hand puppet kit.

She watched part of an educational video about California, but got bored about 10 minutes in (as did I), so we switched The Muppets.

But we had to stop that about 2/3 of the way through to check on the weather.

Then we spent way too much time 1.) hiding in our hall closet, and 2.) watching live television coverage of a giant tornado destroying a good portion of the town directly north of us.  So then we talked more about tornadoes, and also about "bug out" bags (because I mentioned them) and hurricanes.


We went out for dinner (and internet), and she spent some time making rhymes, and I spent some time writing down the words she asked for.  So much reading. When our home internet wasn't working, she said, "Click 'try again'!" 

I read her part of a kid's book on South Carolina.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Thrift Store. Found a Ramone (from Cars) McDonalds toy.

Library.  Spent quite a bit of time engage in playing with these cars, until she got fed up with the rowdiness of the boys at the next table. (She actually told me that's why she got up to do something else.)  Puppets. Computer. Trains. Etc.

Got out all her science kit stuff and various other receptacles, laid them all out on the bench, and started pouring water back and forth.  At one point she said, "Mom, this is serious science, NOT a water game."  Okay then.

Then she put some of the water in her play kitchen sink.  She was washing dishes, but then she started washing everything, including scrubbing every nook and cranny of the play kitchen. She said she didn't want Baby Henry to get dusty when he plays with it.  She asked me to help, some I grabbed a wet rag to help her.  I was done and she was still scrubbing!

Then she moved on to (unbeknownst to me, as I was in my craft room balancing the checkbook) clean the table where the cookbooks go:

Then she moved on to my alarm clock.  At that point I intervened to tell her not to use the wet rag on my antique wood dresser.  She asked me to get the dry duster for her, so I did, and she dusted my dresser and nightstand!

Then she got out the dominoes, and turned them into food:

She built a Lego ambulance!  (If you look at it sideways and squint.)  Dobby was in a fire, and the firefighter put out the fire, and then Dobby had to ride in the ambulance while his dad Harry Potter drove.

Cars 2 (finally got it from the library). And the short cartoons on the DVD (one Toy Story, one Mater tall tale).

In the middle of the movie, the guy came to replace the glass in our window (it cracked randomly one day -- the theory is that it was due to drought conditions).  He took the window out to his truck to replace the glass and Lucy wanted to watch him do it. So we went and watched him. While were out there, she spotted the water meter manhole cover thing and wanted to know why it said "Mater". :-)

We were looking at animated gifs, and we saw this one:

Lucy said, "That's... go... me..."  So close!  (I was actually looking for a "This!" gif -- turns out she can read that too.)

Listened to the read-along book This Is the House That Jack Built. 

After dinner she found her scrub brush again and scrubbed the outsides of my kitchen cabinets and refrigerator.

She had me write a bunch of names and a couple sentences down on her new mini-legal pad. She then read them out loud several times over the course of an hour.

I read her Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni, but she read about 1/10th of the words for me! That was fun.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Norman fixed her bank after she went to bed last night, so first thing this morning she sorted all her coins again.

Between the Lions CD. (The song about the sounds "g" makes seems to be her favorite.)

Got out her maps. (I think this had something to do with playing The Muppets, because she also got out the California magnet, and was singing some of the songs.)

"Read" her lighthouse calendar to herself.

Pretty long session of making up a story with her fairy tale dolls and Rapunzel and Eugene.

Spent about 1.5 hours at Grandmary's without me. Baked cookies, drew on the white board, used the Etch-a-Sketch, played with some Cars toys (!!!). Aunt Dotty showed up after a while.

Watched Brave.

Read Norman part of the "book" that Grandmary wrote for her (and about her) today. Then she got frustrated and let him read the rest. Then she told him a couple extra sentences for him to write at the end.

I read her the book again before bed.

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.

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. 

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.

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).