Monday, August 31, 2015 (plus weekend)

Well, today we went grocery shopping and swimming. I didn't get in the pool today, so she made friends with the lifeguard, since she was pretty much the only person there.

Today she'd been quiet for a while, and when I found her, she was sitting in her rocking chair, reading (just reading) a time/money/fractions math workbook.

On Friday in the car, we were talking about carrier pigeons (because we had been laughing at a comic strip about how birds can't read), and she wanted to know how they know where to take their messages, because she knew about carrier pigeons from Curious George. I said that I didn't know, and maybe each bird only flew back and forth between two places. (Is that right? I never did look it up.) After several minutes of silence, she said, "Maybe each place you want to send a letter to could have a different colored pole outside, and you could put the color of the place you want to send it to on the envelope and you could teach the pigeons the color code!" I was very impressed.

She watched Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure, which I think must have something to do with a scepter? because she kept talking about making and delivering different kinds of scepters and then she drew the dress she was going to wear to do this, and it has symbols for every season on its train.



And also whatever this is... instructions for how to build a scepter?



This morning she planned a hike in the backyard because she wanted to show me what she thought was poison ivy (it wasn't), but then she planned out a whole thing with a map (which I suspect is modeled on something from Lumberjanes) and she packed snacks in her backpack and got a hat and everything.



And on Saturday we went and saw a replica Spanish galleon that was docked in town. We could go all over and see several decks below and they had a little thing where you could practice tying different kinds of knots (Lucy was already familiar with a few of them because of Lumberjanes) and we learned that the captain is a woman (which made Lucy very excited) and it was all around pretty cool.

Wednesday and Thursday, August 26 & 27, 2015

Wednesday:

Library, as usual. Norman put a hold on the Lumberjanes collection that had an issue she hadn't read in it, so she pretty much just plonked herself down in the children's section and read it. While she did that, I looked through all the juvenile graphic novels and picked some out that I thought she might like. She read two of them while we were there when she was done with Lumberjanes. Then she drew a picture. Then she made friends with a brother and sister (the sister's name was also Lucy) and they bonded over Lego books.

She made me a bracelet! Clever design, really. (A strip of newspaper and foam stickers)

Oh and she finished that fish lantern that we got in the Kiwi Crate.

And she wrote "LUCY MOM B-DAY" on her leg, reportedly because those are the words she can spell.

Thursday:

She's been all over her Girl Scout manual the last few days. She's been like doing some of the activities and reading the whole thing (again). Some stuff about money and who knows what all else.

Somehow we started talking about the Quints (some characters on Curious George) and we couldn't remember all of their names, so I looked it up, and then she pretty much just read the whole Wikipedia article of the list of Curious George characters.

Also watched some Curious George.

I found out about Amazon Underground (which deals in completely free apps with completely free in-app purchase so like heck yes sign me right up), and put a fun little cooking app on her tablet, so she played that some.

Read Lumberjanes some more, and there's something about 100 cookies and a Yeti or something? She started talking about how if she had 100 cookies she would trade them for 10 cookies because 100 is way too many. So then she was muttering something like, "...and 9 times 10 is 90, so I would give up 90 cookies!" Ummmm yes. Yes you would. o.O

Wednesday - Sunday, July 29 - August 2, 2015

On Wednesday, more swim lessons. (This will go on for 4 weeks.) She asked the guys who are teaching the class where they are from ("Europe" LOL I'm curious about a more specific answer, personally!), and dove for some rings (with help).

But before that, we went to the final library program of the summer, which was a magic show put on by a 16-year-old magician. He was great! Great sense of humor and good with the kids. Lucy got picked to help him with one of his tricks! It was long and complicated, and she was very patient and spoke up clearly. It ended with her getting a balloon dog. She was very impressed.

On Thursday she made this great joke:

[That's a rock and some scissors taped to some paper]

On Saturday we went to the local Pride parade:

And then had beignets at the adjacent farmers market:

(Which was a big deal to her since she's been watching Princess and the Frog so often lately.)

Oh and we also saw some break dancers! Oh and Lucy spotted a young person wearing a unicorn headband thing and she was entranced. She "called" her stuffed unicorn on the "phone" to tell her about it, then went up to the girl and told her that she liked it.

Today she was watching a Curious George episode about camping, so she brought her tent out of her bedroom, and took her pillow case off her pillow (for a sleeping bag), and set up this circle of rocks, and found something to be a marshmallow on a stick:

She and Norman also watched The Cat Returns today. Lucy picked it out at the library because she knows Norman likes Miyazaki movies.

Oh she's been so busy with so many schemes... I can't keep track. Today she was rather taken with a particular drag queen that she saw on the roller derby program and at the Pride parade. She got out all the fancy jewelry she could find and had me put blue eyeshadow on her and made a flyer where she changed the drag queen's name to put "Lu" in the middle of it.

She had me put some nuts in an ice cube tray with water and freeze them so she could play hockey with squirrels. (???)

Did I already say that she's obsessed with calling out when the time on the clock is a palindrome? She still is.

She's been big on reading and watching the same thing at the same time. Like, she checked the DVD of Cinderella out of the library so she could watch it while reading her cinestory graphic novel of it that she has. And she checked out both a graphic novel version and a DVD version of a Disney Fairies movie.

Also every now and then she'll just clean the bathroom. Not well, of course. Today it was the mirror.

And I don't remember if I mentioned this a couple weeks ago, but at one of the library programs the presenter did Miss Mary Mack with a volunteer, and this was Lucy's attempt at writing it down. I'm so impressed! So much important spelling and transcribing groundwork is here:

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Phineas and Ferb

She found a giant dead bug this morning, and Norman took it outside and made some comment about how the circle of life continues. Lucy wanted to know what this means, so we talked about nutrients and fertilizer and post-mortem decay and stuff. Not real in depth, but yeah.

During church she drew pictures of lizards doing the things we were doing. There was a lizard taking lizard communion getting ready to dip a bug in wine, a lizard sitting on a pew drawing pictures... It was very meta.

After church we played at the park, then had a picnic where she did a bunch of excited kite-flying.

Also someone was passing around little paper dove cutouts with the fruits of the Spirit and Bible verses on them. Lucy found a pile of them and wanted to look through and see what all of them were. She noticed that many of them are also part of the Girl Scout Law. I told her there's a patch she can earn for making a presentation about how the Girl Scout Law is similar to the things we believe God wants us to do, which of course she already knew about because she's read her entire Girl Scout handbook front to back. I'm gonna see about having her do that in the fall. The subject comes up with her pretty often, actually.

Norman and Lucy went to the children's museum. Golf ball runs, giant water table, pretend supermarket (which is super cool and everything really works), made a crown out of construction paper and pipe cleaners...

Friday, May 22, 2015

Watched Phineas and Ferb.

Went to the post office and grocery store with me. We had to have a talk about not just knowing that you're going to veer away from running into someone at the last minute, but letting the person know you're not going to run into them by moving before it's the last minute. Oy.

She watched Dotty play her Pokemon game.

She's been reading her Lego ideas book kind of a lot. I think she just pores over it in the playroom whenever I'm not looking.

We made some SWAPS! Well, ya know, I ended up making the majority of them, but still. She helped make two different kinds and also made herself a bracelet. And she helped sort the beads.

And she also had her Colorform-type stickers out again.

She and I wrapped presents for Dotty's birthday, and Lucy wrote her a card (with a pun!).

Played Pokemon Crystal.

Started building a Pokemon day care?

Friday, May 15, 2015

Last theater class -- they weren't preparing for a show, so they just played the movement, self-control, and direction-following games they've been playing. Lucy got a certificate which she is very proud of, and struggled not to cry because she will miss it. They kept saying there will be another class "next fall", and all this time she thought they meant the fall of 2016, so she was very glad to learn about calendar years vs. school years in the car on the way home. :-)

Oh and she played basketball before theater class because that's what they do because it's held in a gym.

She's been working on a Lego hotel, so at the moment she's working on the water slide for the pool.

Amazon shipment day! We got a new container for her Legos, a set of 64 (SIXTY-FOUR) different colors of markers (which I want to keep for myself but I'm resisting), and a bluetooth keyboard for her tablet. I need to find a good typing game for her... Oh, and the box it all came in is huge and if I get my way it will be turned into a TARDIS, but at the moment she's just using it as an awesome fort.

The keyboard set her off on playing several of her tablet apps, and she eventually wound up on the PBS kids website, playing Peg + Cat and Dinosaur Train games.

Watched Kiki's Delivery Service.

Then decided that we need to start our own delivery service.

I installed a (pirate themed!) learn-to-count-money app on her tablet, and she immediately took it and started playing it.

Drew a picture of an "alicorn" because we looked it up because one of the girls in one of the plays last night was playing one.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Bible study (watched Frozen, read her Pokemon guidebook, drew a Lu World poster, played Fruit Ninja)

Watched Pokemon

She and I watched Disneynature Bears together.

Also she's started making her own toast some mornings.

We played a few rounds of Jenga.

She played Pokemon Crystal on Norman's computer (a new thing she's been doing).

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 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.