Anna adores seeing her big sister off on the bus, and will wave and say “buh-buh!” after the bus pulls away.
But even more adorable is watching her reaction in the afternoon when she sees the bus coming down the street. Her little legs start kicking and she squeals with laughter. It makes my heart melt.
I took Carrie to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs today. It was surprisingly good – not at all true to the book (if it had been, it would have been all of fifteen minutes long!) but enjoyable nonetheless. There was plenty of material aimed over the kids’ heads at the parents, and it was really quite funny. Carrie leaned over at one point and said “Mommy, this is the *best* movie I’ve ever seen!” And although the last bit was tense and scary in parts, she really did like it and wants to see it again.
As per my usual, I’m still in sticker shock over the cost of two tickets and a small popcorn, so we’ll wait until it comes out on DVD to see it again.
Dear Carolyn,
Yesterday you turned 4 years and 11 months old. Just one more month until you turn 5! You have changed and grown so much in the past month it’s amazing. You’ve only been in school for less than three weeks, but you’re already a bit more confident, a bit more…grown up, I guess.
You went from a complete TV addict over the summer, to insisting on playing outside from the minute you step off the bus. I imagine you do a lot of sitting all day at school, even with daily recess and P.E. three out of six days, so it shouldn’t be surprising that you want to kick around the soccer ball and play with chalk for a bit. Then you have a snack (which usually involves you finishing whatever was left of your lunch and then eating another meals’ worth of food after) and play with Anna a bit. This is working out pretty well for me, because the playing with your sister bit happens right around when I need to start dinner, and the two of you miss each other so much that you play nicely long enough for me to cook!
Your writing and drawing skills have improved considerably this month as well – from even before school started. You wrote get well notes to both me and Anna when we were sick, and you have been drawing pictures of yourself playing on the playground and riding your tricycle that are quite good. I’m happy to hear you ask me how to spell words, and I love reading your own attempts at spelling things!
As far as I’m concerned, your transition into full-time schooling has gone incredibly smoothly. For the most part, you’ve been able to go right to sleep at a reasonable hour and get up and ready for the day without too much angst. You’re a little tired and crabby right after getting off the bus, but after a bit of outside time and a snack you happily tell me about things you did at school. I’m impressed with your ability to go with the flow. I hope someday I can learn how to do that from you!
Love, Mommy
Tonight we dropped Anna off to play with her friend Nikki and took Carrie to her open house night. I was a little preoccupied with signing up to help out with events at first (and making sure we got a good time slot for parent teacher conferences!) but when I looked around the room at everything the class has been doing for the past two weeks I was suitably impressed. They have a chart of jobs that are assigned weekly – last week, Carrie was line leader. This week she has been the pledge leader. And she has the entire pledge of allegience memorized! They also have a class bunny, Jumping Jack (J.J. for short). They were looking for volunteers to watch J.J. over a break week, but I think the dogs might eat him!
We walked around the school to visit all the “specials” rooms (art, music, P.E.) but none of the teachers for those classes were there tonight. And then we hit the book fair. Oh, how they get you hooked in the book fair. It all started when they sent Carrie home a couple of days ago with a free book (complements of the PTSA) and a laboriously hand-written list of the books that she wanted. I ask you, how can any parent resist the list? She had even tried to duplicate the font style for Knuffle Bunny Too, with little horizontal lines at the tops and bottoms of all the letters. So we came home with a few books…despite having just turned in a Scholastic order form two days ago. Sigh.
Anyway, I do like what I’ve seen so far of this multi-age environment, and Carrie seems to be settling in well. Her teacher made sure to tell us that she loves Carrie’s imagination. Apparently she was dancing around the playground with one arm sticking straight out, saying “Today, I am a telescope!” at recess this afternoon. That’s my Carrie!
Hot. Tired. Dusty.
Worth it.
The kids enjoyed the festival this year – Anna even manged to “baaa” at the sheep. It was a bit too hot for my liking (what good is a fiber festival if you can’t wear your handknits??) but I still managed to get in warm wooly zone long enough to do some serious shopping. Our booth was busy, but luckily nowhere near as busy as it was yesterday, so I had some time to hang out with Denis and the girls. And time to shop, of course! Pictures of the loot when I have a chance to take them in daylight. In the meantime, here are some adorable fibery faces:
Dance started today, at a new studio with the same teacher. I’ve realized that we’re going to have to figure out a quicker routine – 45 minutes from the time the bus drops Carrie off to the time we have to be at the studio seems like plenty, but it’s not really.
I’m also going to have to figure out a new strategy for keeping Anna occupied for that hour. Last year she was not so mobile, this year there’s no way she’ll consent to sitting in a stroller for an hour!
I’ve been packing Carrie’s lunch every day, for a few reasons. First, she’s a pretty slow eater, and would likely not have enough time to eat if she had to spend half her lunch period waiting in line. Second, she’s a somewhat picky eater – in that she doesn’t eat “normal” kid foods like pizza and fish sticks – so the “kid-friendly” lunch menu really only has PB&J as an option she’d regularly eat. Third, I’m not convinced that the school lunches are really all that healthy, or appetizing.
At one point I stumbled on a huge community of parents who post pictures of their kids’ bento lunches on flickr. At first I thought it was a very odd thing, putting food pictures on the internet. And then I became a bit intrigued, because they looked pretty tasty and fun. Plus I really liked the fact that using bento boxes avoids plastic baggies altogether – the only disposable thing I send in with Carrie is a single napkin a day.
So I’m trying to make bento lunches…though mine aren’t nearly as complex as a lot of the pictures I’ve seen. We have a few kid-friendly bento containers, and I’m learning how best to pack them so that they’re healthy, attractive and fun. So far they’ve gone over pretty well:
I have more pictures of pretty pink bento lunches on flickr… Yes, indeed, I’m now posting food pictures to the internet. Then again, I’ve always been a bit odd!
Carrie is going to have weekly homework assignments which come home on Friday and are due back on Tuesday. The first one was “Summer in a Shoebox”. She had to find 4-8 items that represented memories of things she did over the summer, and put them in a shoebox. They’re going to write or tell stories about those things over the next few weeks. This is Carrie’s summer, in a shoebox:
We put in a ticket from the Strong Museum butterfly garden, a bubble wand, a piece of chalk, a small vial of water from the pool, an acorn from Ithaca, a picture of her cousins and a drawing of her playing on the playground. The shoebox, with added soccer stickers, was from the sneakers we bought for her to play soccer in. That pretty much sums up our summer!
Dear Anna,
Yesterday you turned 14 months old. Somewhere in my feverish haze I vaguely realized it was the 12th, but then I had to take a nap. I feel slightly better today, so let’s see if I can make sense…
You are walking! Truly, truly walking, although you also still like to “bear walk” on your hands and feet and are happy to crawl sometimes depending on the situation. You especially love to walk around outside while we’re waiting for your sister’s bus in the mornings and afternoons. I won’t need to bother raking this fall, I’m just going to let you loose to pick up each leaf one at a time, it’s your very favorite outdoor activity. You only try to eat them sometimes…
You have two new verbal words, “ball” and “down” (which is really “dow-dow!”). At one point (in front of several witnesses) you said “button” as clear as day – a few times, even. But you haven’t repeated it since. You don’t really have any new signs (though you sort of sign “ball”, which I suppose is new) but you point a lot. You’re pretty good at communicating what you want, and I’m sure the word explosion is just a couple of months away – by Christmas you’ll probably be asking Santa for a pony!
You have a bedtime routine down: when it’s time to go upstairs, if you’re being carried, you say “dow-dow!!” and insist on crawling up the stairs yourself. Then you crawl into the bathroom, climb up (laboriously) onto the step stool (again, all by yourself) and grab the toothbrush that I’ve put toothpaste on for you (while you were climbing up). While you “brush” your teeth, I finger-comb your hair, and then sometimes you let me take a turn with your toothbrush. Then I put you on the floor and let you toddle off down the hall to your room. Your favorite book to hear is Goodnight Moon, and you’re starting to point out the things in the pictures as I read about them.
Your personality is just starting to blossom, and each day brings something new. I’m enjoying every bit of it!
Love, Mommy
So there have been enough little stories Carrie has volunteered about the past few days that I think she’s probably actually enjoying school, and just might be a little overwhelmed by trying to describe it. Her favorite parts are still recess and riding the bus, but really, who doesn’t like those things? I love the song they learned in music the other day, Elephants Have Wrinkles. She couldn’t quite remember all the words, so I googled it:
Elephants Have Wrinkles by April Kassirer
Elephants have wrinkles, wrinkles,wrinkles
Elephants have wrinkles, wrinkles everywhere
On their toes (on their toes)
No one knows (no one knows) why -y-y-y-Elephants have wrinkles, wrinkles, wrinkles
Elephants have wrinkles, wrinkles everywhere
On their knees (on their knees)
On their toes (on their toes)
No one knows (no one knows) why -y-y-y-Elephants have wrinkles, wrinkles,wrinkles
Elephants have wrinkles, wrinkles everywhere
On their hips (on their hips) ….. knees, toes(more verses:)
On their ears (on their ears) ….. hips, knees, toes
On their trunks (on their trunks) ….. ears, hips, knees, toes
On their teeth ….. Spoken: On their teeth? That’s ridiculous!
It’s really, really cute. It’s a movement song, so the kids touch each part they’re singing about while they’re singing. Very cute!
The kids are both healthy at this point, although I’m sitting her trying to figure out if I’m coming down with this illness now… Probably not, right? Just a scratchy throat, might just be allergies. (Yeah, I know, probably wishful thinking, but hey, whatever it takes.)