2013_09_30 Monday

OMG, I'm back from a great trip to Chicago, but somehow life continues on while I was away, and now I'm playing a hectic game of catch-up.

From Elise's school:

We had a great day today! Today and October are all about math fun. In Art, we made pigs using the shapes circle, oval, and triangle. X made a silly little piggy and X glued on the pieces for her piggy all by herself. We also played the game three for me to introduce the concept of three. X found three things that you wear when its cold and Elise found three things that you can ride in.  During circle time, X showed us his red shorts and jumped up and down with his classmates.   Our letter of the week is the letter F and we began working on our weekly letter packets today.   Today we colored things that start with the letter F. X colored her items and even wrote two F's today!  X colored his frog green while singing brown bear.  During music, X showed us all how to march with the dinosaurs. Thank you to everyone who attended the Fall pizza social. i had a great time and look forward to events int he future.

2013_09_27 Friday

Here's a note I received from Elise:

Elise wanted to send you a special email today!

My name iseeeeeeeeeeeeeelllllllllllllllllllllliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I am 333333333333333333333333333

And, then I also got:

We had a very exciting day today. Our class is very excited about the fall pizza social this afternoon at X Park from 4-7pm. I will be there along with my little stinky! Today we talked about the earth. In art, we painted our globe with blue and green paint.  X and X carefully colored in their paintings.  We also emailed our parents today as a special surprise. Elise spelled her name all by herself and X found the number 3 on the keyboard all by himself.  We also watched j'aime les voitures, a french song about colors. This is X's favorite video. X sang along with the song allouette today.  X had a great time in German class today and she chose a wonderful book about all of the homes we have around the  world to read to the class. X is already preparing for Halloween because he chose the book, the boogly for us to read today. Have a great weekend and I look forward to seeing you this afternoon at the park!

2013_09_24 Tuesday

From Elise's school:
We had to spend the day indoors today because of the rain. I hope we can go outside tomorrow. Today we talked about cities. In Art we finished our very hungry caterpillars. X and X made very handsome caterpillars. We also made sponge art. We used sponges to create tall and short buildings in the city. X lined up his buildings neatly in a row. X made lots of buildings everywhere.  We also practiced stacking and counting today. We each made a tower and then counted how many block we had in our tower. X tower had 18 blocks and X tower had 23 blocks. Elise had the longest tower with 28 blocks!  We then made one long tower of all of the blocks. In music, we practiced using rhythm sticks and sang our favorite song, 10 Sleepy Children.

2013_09_23 Monday

From Elise's school:

our theme of the week is My world. We talked about different houses around the world. Some of our friends live in houses and some of our friends live in apartments. We looked at many different houses around the world such as mud huts, tepees, and tree houses. Elise says that she has lived in many different types of houses and that her mommy has worked in different types of houses. X said that the big bad wolf was going to blow down the houses made of stick and straw. In art we used play doh to make houses and also continued work on our very hungry caterpillars. X and X made their caterpillars today and they turned out really cute. In music, we made a rainbow of colors and X danced with his green scarf. X clapped along happily to tick tock goes our little clock. We also learned our french colors and X showed us the vert (green) on her shirt and pants. 

What is Elise talking about!?

2013_09_21 Saturday

Elise recited my telephone number--all 10 digits!!! Holy moly!!

2013_09_20 Friday

I worked a lot today.

From Elise's school:
Today we talked about our heart. All of our friends pointed to where the heart is in the body. We decorated a heart today and placed it on our body. X told us that our real heart is not shaped like the heart we decorated.  X was eager to place his heart badge on and share it during show and tell. We also practiced following instructions today. We played freeze tag with rhythm sticks. Ms. Tiffany used the rhythm sticks to simulate a beating heart and whenever she stopped, her friends froze. X was very good at this game. especially when Ms. Tiffany Made the heart beat really fast. X enjoyed playing the game and loved showing off his dance moves.  We practiced tracing and drawing E's on the dry erase board. X traced her E's very well and X drew an E all by herself. Today was computer day and our friends requested which of their favorite french songs they wanted to hear. Elise selected avec un gros nez and  X selected j'aime les voitures.  We also had a fire drill today. We practiced walking out of our classroom and outside in case of a fire. X wanted to know when the fire truck was coming. 

Once Jonathan got home and we all relaxed for a bit, we jumped in the car to explore the Fernbank Science Center. There wasn't much to it (lots of stuffed animals and space exploration; a living bee hive; some live reptiles, a couple of fake dinos), although I'd love to go back to try out their planetarium. We've never done one before, so that could be fun but it's typically late.

2013_09_19 Thursday

Elise and I went to the High Museum of Art today. They have a weekly toddler art program (which, BTW, was not worth the $20 entrance fee). I didn't realize how big the museum was, so I felt a little overwhelmed by it all, and art isn't generally my bag. But, we hung out -- bumped into our next door neighbor's nanny and child. And, I am feeling very cultured in that I showed Elise The Girl With The Pearl Earring by Vermeer. Apparently, it's quite unusual for this painting to travel, and it's only here another week, so it was a pretty special thing to do. The painting was at the end of a gallery, so we walked through and talked about the animals and colors and clouds in the ones we saw en route. She named The Girl Princess Celestia, which is a leading character in My Little Pony, and we talked about her blue 'bow' and ribbon and that she was looking at us and how beautiful she was. To me, that's a big success for exposure to cultural arts! Their museum store was blanketed with TGWTPE tschachkey stuff: coffee mugs, umbrellas, shirts, stationary, buttons, magnets, you name it.

Happy Birthday to Jonathan's teacher. He had a private lunch with her today because of his good behavior. extra special for him today.

2013_09_17 Tuesday

I gave my first briefing for work in ages today. It was a co-briefing with a colleague I had never even met before, but I think we worked very well together and that it was well received. I thoroughly enjoyed being out and about with professionals and being able to help them understand what we do. There were no real questions at the end which is either indicative of a comprehensive briefing or a really boring one. hmmm. We got back exactly at pick-up time for E, so he just dropped me off at school. no biggie.

From Elise's school:

We had a busy day today! We talked about our body parts today. In Art, we measured how tall we are. X is our shortest classmate and X is our tallest classmate. We also made a balance beam out of our chairs.  X walked across the balance beam with ease and Elise really enjoyed walking across the beam.  In circle time, we counted how many body parts we all have. X counted all her friends and said that we each have two arms and two legs. X helped us to count all of our fingers and toes. We also talked about the letter E. X and X carefully traced their e's. Ms. Tiffany reminded all her friends that it doesn't matter if you can't trace them perfectly the first time, all that matters is that you tried.

2013_09_16 Monday

Yikes; I have the jitters. Feeling a little overwhelmed. I'm giving my first presentation (jointly) in a long time tomorrow, and I'm feeling nervous. Part of it is that there are lots of moving parts involved.

Part is that I just got an email from Jonathan's teacher explaining various weekly tests (spelling, language arts, science/social studies, reading comprehension, math and that associated progress reports will come home weekly along with bi-monthly bulletins. Yikes. This is just 1st grade! What happens when you have two kids in school...or if you work...or if you want to just breathe for a bit...

From Elise's school:

We had an all girls day today! This week, we are talking about our bodies.  Today, we made masks of ourselves. X made her face and colored her eyes green and her hair curly and brown. X told me that she has blue eyes and brown hair. The masks are hanging up in the classroom. Try and guess which mask belongs to your child according to the hair and eye color!  We also discussed emotions today and played emotions charades. X made a sleepy face and X made an excited face.  For our daily activity, we talked about all of the ways we take care of ourselves. Elise told us that she takes a bath every day and X told us that we can take care of ourselves by eating our vegetables. 

2013_09_15 Sunday

Elise and I got up and off to the Cabbage Patch Doll Hospital this morning. It took much longer to get there than I had thought; we weren't too far from the boys' camping trip, actually! We had a blast, though, and the boys would have hated it.

This is where the CPK are born: Mother Cabbage!

We walked through a 'museum' and into the store. The first few rooms are CPK at $300! I nearly fainted; they were pretty ugly too. We were there for at least two births. A nurse stands behind the baby heads and helps deliver a new baby (by c-section -- cabbage section, of course) from the cabbage patch with the audience helping to breathe and push...and then naming it. They are all well fertilized, so they all have hair. And, they were planted too close to the corn, so they all have ears -- har har har. That's the gist of the birthing process.

On the way home, we passed a local zoo, so we stopped. It was nothing too special but a nice chance to get back outside. We saw some lions, tigers with cubs, snakes, monkeys, black/grizzly bears, a zedonk, lots of macaw-type birds, emus. They had zebras, a camel, and a few other exotics that seemed to be hiding today.

Elise passed out on the drive home. I was pretty beat too. It was a lot to take in today.

Once we got home, I painted her fingers (purple) and toes (sparkles). So, she has had a terrific day!!!

The boys, on the other hand, came home filthy and happy. They went fishing today, and J caught something. They made s'mores and hotdogs last night. Boys were up until 10pm; dads were hungover today. Overall, sounds like they had fun too.

2013_09_14 Saturday

uuuh, what happened to my darling boy??

 

We had dinner at friends' house last night, and they mentioned casually that the father and son were going camping together today, so I totally shoehorned Dave and Jonathan in on them. GO ME! They left today around 4; I packed the food they'd need -- s'mores and popcorn fixins, trail mix, hotdogs, juice, water -- and Jonathan's clothes, etc. I think they're going fishing and maybe canoeing. Dave texted me to tell me the nearby town is Bavarian, and we should look into an overnight there again. sound like fun.

Elise and I had a lady's dinner at the local burger joint and frozen yogurt. Tomorrow, I'm painting her nails (pink and green??), taking her to the Cabbage Patch Kids Hospital, and then maybe to the water fountain again. I think there's an arts festival in that park, so I'd like to swing by there. We'll see.

2013_09_13 Friday

It's Friday, the 13th, and it sure feels like it.

The Js walked to school with the intention of hooking up with our friends. Somehow we missed them, so we walked a bit faster and alone. We did bump into them at school, but I'm still not sure what happened. I sort of felt like the outsider lady (Jessica Chastain's role) in The Help when the society women tolerate her but don't really want her around; surely, I'm being dramatic, but it felt that way today. ;o(

E and I met more neighbors down the street. They have a girl E's age, so that might be a good fit!

Elise's school report:

Thank you everyone for helping to make no shoes day a success. Everyone in the class really enjoyed it. We will have to do it again throughout the school year. Today we talked about manners and etiquette in other countries.  We made fans with dinosaur stamps and practiced using the fans.  X carefully chose which stamps he wanted use and made a beautiful fan.  X really enjoyed making the fan and said that he wants to give his to his mommy. X told us that fans are used to keep yourself cool and X said that they are for babies at night. In kinesthetics, we played red light green light and had a shoe relay.  Elise ran down the hall, took her shoes off and ran back the fastest. X was second to finish and everyone had fun playing the game. We also practiced using computers today.  X identified the letters in his name and carefully typed them.  

After school, we had an impromptu playdate at our new friends' across the street. Both kids started falling apart or antagonizing various people or ignoring me, so we left just before 5. Now, they are painting in the front room, still antagonizing but working it out.

Then, we had an impromptu dinner party at friends'. There were 6 grown-ups and 7 kids; somehow it felt like we were way outnumbered though. Fun, casual night.

2013_09_12 Thursday

Well, Jonathan nearly missed the bus this morning. He insisted on riding it and was up and dressed before I was, but he slowed down considerably, and we had to run and stop the bus mid-way. yikes. Today, he's having a special, private lunch with his teacher due to his good behavior last week. He insisted on making her a star (he's a class star!) this morning; that may have also slowed down the process. I hope it shook him up a little so that when I say we need to 'move it,' he does!

Once Ms E got herself moving, we visited a nearby park and found a water fountain to play in. She was in and out for 1.5 hrs. The wx was perfect for it. Countless fountains up her nose and in her suit, but she'll nap so well!

Best news all day: Oma's coming to visit!!!!!

2013_09_10 Tuesday

Jonathan and I walked to school again today. On the way, we saw a Florida State University flag of an Indian's profile with warpaint on his cheek; Jonathan turned to me curiously to ask why that man had bacon on his face!

Then, I spent from about 9-12:30 dealing with registering our cars with Georgia. Dave and I had to see a notary first thing this AM so I could get power of attorney for both cars. Mine was a headache (being first) because I registered after our 30-day grace period and our insurance wasn't "in the system." Our insurer was kind enough to fax over more paperwork than any sane person should need since our insurance card, which authorities consider sufficient, wasn't enough to prove coverage! Then. I had to get Dave's car inspected and get back to register it. The ad velorum (value) tax between the two cars was over $1,000! ouch. But, we are done. Dave still needs to get his driver's license; I can't do that for him.

From Elise's class:

We had a great day today!  We talked more about the letter D and what sound the letter D makes. We also made Ducks! X really enjoyed making his duck and Elise showed me that she knew it was a letter D before I even asked her.  In Art, we made masks of people covering their noses to sneeze. X drew a picture of his daddy and showed us all how to cover our noses with a tissue. X showed us all how to cover our cough with his mask. For kinesthetics , we played musical chairs. Everyone in the class had  fun and used their manners when passing friends and sitting in the chairs. X won our game. X had a lot of fun singing and dancing to the music.  As a math component, we sorted our blocks according to color.  X organized all of the yellow blocks and X organized all of the red blocks. 

2013_09_09 Monday

I was able to get my car's emissions' test done today, and I volunteered in the school library reshelving books, and I stopped by J's class to help with a station. But, then the mold guys called to come back to the house right away (the second time they've done this to me!) to retest the air quality. We passed with flying colors.

From Elise's school:

We had a great day today!! Our letter of the week is the letter D. Today we talked about words that start with the letter D. We traced the letter D as well. X and X traced their letters very carefully. We talked about good and bad manners. All of our friends gave very good examples of manners. X told us that a good manner is making healthy choices when we eat. X told us that brushing our teeth is a good manners. X told us that we are not using good manners when we don't share with our friends. Elise told us that not being nice to our friends is not good manners. We also learned how to say please and thank you in different languages today. X learned how to say please (tack) and thank you (tack) in Swedish. X learned how to say please (por favore) and thank you (grazie) in Italian. Have a great day and see you tomorrow!

Today is J's first after-school enrichment day: robotics. I may be even more excited than he is. He loved it. I watched him for a few minutes at the end, and he seemed to really enjoy himself. There are three other boys from his class in the program, and they are going to break it into K-2 and 3-5 grades next week. Sounds awesome. 

In reading "Stop Train Stop" to Elise tonight, I'm trying to encourage her to recognize basic words:
Mom: "The train stopped so people could get..."
Elise: "Married!"
The answer is "on."

2013_09_08 Sunday

Jonathan got up early, by himself and built that Lego game in near silence. What a cutie. And, boy was he proud of himself. It's a 8-10yr old game!! Then, I got up and made French toast and bacon for everyone. Nice morning!

I took the kids to the zoo today. It was Jonathan's first visit (that he remembers). We ran up to the reptile house to see a feeding, but we were too late. E picked up quickly that we don't mess with triangle headed snakes because they're poisonous (or the cobra either). I feel like we looped the whole place at least twice. I don't know how the kids are still awake. We also bumped into J's teacher and son there!! We heard the lion roar a few times. The gorillas and orangutans were hiding; it was too hot for them.

E and J and a Giant Panda's derierre

Jonathan was on his best behavior; I loved it. And, I really tried to explain how much more fun it is to do things when we all make good choices. Elise, I think, got tired out, so she had a little bit more difficulty making good choices. So, on the way home, we stopped at Wendy's for their first Frosty. Yuuuummmmm!

We have now created "Boa Constrictor Hugs" that are basically tight and tighter hugs. Pretty funny.

2013_09_07 Saturday

We have gotten into a routine of visiting a local restaurant for brunch on Saturdays. So much so that the waiter greeted me by name today! I guess I'm a local now!!

Dave took Jonathan to Legoland while I took Elise to her first birthday party in GA. It was her classmate. He had an actual fire truck come and give rides around the neighborhood. Elise wasn't quite as interested, although she did climb around on the truck for awhile. She much preferred the bounce house in the backyard. I was able to meet a couple of parents from her school, so that was nice. Boy, was it hot/humid, though...or so I thought.

Dave and Jonathan didn't get home until 10pm! They had a blast. Jonathan got a whole bag of goodies, including a Lego game that he wanted to build right away, that he gushed over.

2013_09_06 Friday

Happy National Read a Book Day!!!!

From Elise's school:

We had a great end of the week! Today was all about families. We made family trees. X told me all the names of his family members and told us the names of both of his brothers. X told us that she has one brother named X and one dog named X.  During music, we sang our days of the week and played choo choo choo. X loved playing the drums and Elise loved sing along to the music as we listened to the letter C phonics song.  We also played "auntie says" and everyone had fun jumping around and mimicking aunties motions. During computer time, we worked on recognizing the keyboard and mouse as well as letters and numbers while using the keyboard. We used the paint application to make a picture. X recognized the R in his name and X really enjoyed making a pretty picture for his mommy. We also traced the letter C today.  X did really well tracing her letter C's and X finished fast and traced every single C. As a reminder, Monday is show and tell, please bring in a picture of your family.

Jonathan did terrific this week. He got an All Star Sticker and 100% for class behavior and homework. So, to celebrate I had promised him frozen yogurt, but I was especially proud so we all went out for dinner of his choosing. What a great feeling.

2013_09_06 Friday

Happy National Read a Book Day!!!!

2013_09_04 Wednesday

Jonathan and I walked to school again today. We cut it a little close b/c we had to go to the bank (and get a coffee to get small bills) so he could buy lunch: chicken nugget sandwich with corn on the cob!

What a mess of a day from there! Elise and I were going to the Chattahoochee Nature Center for the day to explore, and about half-way there, the water proofing guys call to tell me they can't get into the house to do the work that has been ongoing for nearly a month now. I was angry because they didn't notify me that they were coming, so we had to bag our plans to come home. When I got home, no one was to be found. They had moved on to another job and were planning on coming back in the afternoon! ugh, I was furious. E and I had just under two hours to explore. It has a great raptor recovery area; a beaver dam/lodge; a nice pond to stroll around and spy turtles; a great nature center (not sure why an empty canoe was the biggest hit); and some trails that we didn't get to see.

there's a Cooper's hawk above her

Then, they ended up an hour late, arriving just as I was leaving to pick up Jonathan. To make matters so much more pleasant, he had a terrible 30 minutes after arriving. I do have a small, cultural (?) dilemma: we've taught the kids to use the appropriate names for their body parts. Well, he said his to another boy and his nanny got very upset (he also lied to me about saying it). I'm not sure what the context was and if it was the preceding phrase (that I didn't hear), but she spelled out the word to me somewhat angrily. He refused to apologize and was disrespectful to me, so that made matters worse. He has to sit and think outside and then spent a good amount of time in his room, followed by a discussion with me. The rest of his evening was better. He goes out at 4:30 to feed his 5 fish; so far, we haven't seen any floaters. We haven't seen all 5 either, though. He's doing a nice job remembering to feed them. Homework came next; that was fine. Elise took nearly an hour to eat dinner (noodles, tuna, spinach).

2013_09_03 Tuesday

From Elise's school:

We had a great day after a long holiday! Our monthly theme is all about me and this week we will we be talking about our families. Today we talked about our brothers and sister. Ms. Tiffany has two brothers and one sister and she is the baby of the family! X told us that she has one brother and X told us that she has one sister. In Art, we made puppets of our family members and put on a puppet show!  X made a puppet with purple hair. Elise really enjoyed talking to her friends using her puppets.  X was very enthusiastic about the puppet show and he talked to all of his friends usign his puppet. During circle time. we sang a song to introduce ourselves and X had a lot of fun dancing all around. X really enjoyed singing the color me me song and showed off his white shirt.  X told us that she has two brothers and that she plays with them and is very nice to her brothers. We had a lot of fun today and we will continue to talk about family for the rest of the week.

2013_09_02 Monday

We had all sorts of plans for today: some made it, others sort of fell through. The biggest was that our friends from NJ stopped by on their way out of Atlanta. Jonathan got to see one of his old friends; they played around for about an hour before they had to get on the road again. It was so nice to see them.

Then I took the kids out to eat -- turned out it was 1/2 price Monday, so that was an awesome surprise.

Then, we messed up a playdate plan, but we ended up going to a play center that they had just left. What fun! They had scooters, a zip line, a ropes course, a rock wall, and a bunch of other fun centers to play in. Bumped into a bus stop family and one of Dave's buddies. Turns out that many of Dave's friends go there...and some were there earlier in the day. It's one of the few indoor play spaces around here, although it's designed for sensory therapy.

Elise took about an hour rest once we got home, but she really fell apart by dinner time. I put her down close to 7:30. She was definitely up at 8:30 when Jonathan went down.

2013_09_01 Sunday

We have fish!!! Today is a really big day. We were able to get five baby fish from a friend's neighbors (who also have chickens!). They caught five little coy for us: Charlotte, Piggy, Pink, Purple, and Toy. They also gave us some aquatic plants, and Dave figured out how to get our Manaquin Pis statue going. After we drove it all back home and deposited them in the pond, Jonathan and I went to PetsMart for food and one more plant. We fed them a pinch, so now we just wait to see if any go belly-up! Jonathan is so happy.

5 fish have a new home!

We've hung a bunch of pictures around the first floor. The house is looking more and more lived in. And, Dave is measuring out the kitchen to start thinking about how we'd renovate it. oh boy.

We went swimming at our friends' pool yesterday. It's pretty remarkable how much better Jonathan is swimming, and Elise is completely fearless (which has its pluses and minuses) in the water.