2013_12_18 Wednesday

Overnight, I got an email from a class parent that we have lice in the classroom. eewww. Even thinking about it makes my body itch. I didn't see anything on Jonathan this morning, and he hasn't complained of the itchies. But, I'm taking him to a pro today for a hair check. I talked to him ad nausium today about not sharing hats (which he wasn't wearing anyway) and keeping your head away from other people's heads. ugh. gross.

2013_12_17 Tuesday

From Elise's school:

We had a great day today! Today we continued our winter celebration. in Art we decorated corn, one of the symbols of Kwanzaa.  X  and X decorated their corn with glitter.  We also worked on our winter gift.  X decorated a heart and X decorated a star.   It is name tracing week. X and X traced their names very well.  X listened intently was we watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas .  All of our friends enjoyed Frosty the Snowman.  We had a mystery reader today!  My friends did really well listening to the story.

(hmmm, no sentence about Elise...wonder if that's because she was in an "I hate..." mood today?!)

I also came to school to watch her last day of ballet/tap. I have a couple of photos to share.

P.S. It's in the low 60s here!

We also went to the Botanical Gardens' Night Lights event. The kids got 3-D glasses to make all the lights have snowflakes and stars on them.

It was really beautiful. They even had some orbs/spheres that changed light (along with music), sort of like Jonathan's Ikea nightlight but bigger. They had a Brilliant Bug exhibit with mechanical dragonflies and a Santa Prantis Mantis, as Elise still calls it. They had a lovely orchid walk with poinsettias and a giant light tree where the spinning fish were before. We really walked everywhere; the kids sure were tired. We didn't get home until after 9:30. 

2013_12_16 Monday

From Elise's school:

We had a great day! Today we started our discussion about our holiday traditions. We began by making winter solstice lanterns. X glued strips of paper to her balloon and X chose which strips would go on her balloon.  We also worked on our wonderful winter gifts.  X colored her heart and Elise colored her star.  I hope you enjoy them! Our letters of the week are L and M but we will be focusing on our names.  X and X traced their names very well and identified the letters in their name.  We had a great time in music.  X stomped along to we are the dinosaurs.

2013_12_15 Sunday

We just had a lovely family night out. I had wanted to try out one restaurant that I found online, but we couldn't find it. It may have been tucked away, and it wasn't worth going down alleyways to track this place down. Instead, we went to The Family Dog, which is sort of a misnomer, in that it's not entirely family-friendly. But, we made do. The kids had grilled cheese and pretzels...and bits of my salad. They had a jazz band warming up, so I took the kids up to see the clarinet, bass, drums, and piano. Both kids thought that was pretty cool. Elise was into the clarinet (which she kept calling the trumpet) and piano, while Jonathan really liked the drums (oh boy)...and the sax that wasn't there (!?). The performers were really cool about letting the kids get close enough and making funny faces at them. Then, the clarinet player came off stage for the vocalist and sat right behind me! Both kids thought that was neat. Dave and I took turns taking the kids up to the stage to watch them play. It was neat to see both kids swinging and swaying and groovin' to the music. And, Jonathan and I talked about rhythm and melody (that's about the extent of my music education), both of which he has in music class...but not singing like this lady, he said!

As we were leaving, Santa Claus came in...in his casual overalls. Oh my goodness. When I pointed him out to the kids, their mouths hit the floor. They asked: Why would Santa come to The Family Dog?! and I said that even he needs some soulful jazz and a good beer sometimes...but, his elves were surely still working away, of course! they were sold. He slipped me a card that he actually does Santa appearances. too cool.

2013_12_13 Friday

It's Friday the 13th!!!
Now, I'm not sure this is a good lesson but here's how the morning played out:
Jonathan has gotten into the habit of watching some TV as he eats his breakfast; however, today he decided not to eat and only to watch. I went ballistic (probably b/c J2 snuck into my bed at 2am; I carried him back to his bed around 5:30 where I also "slept" -- or didn't -- until 6:40), and I turned off the TV. He started crying...loudly...which made me even more mad. But, I explained that if he could show me that he was eating and not crying, he might have time to watch the end of his show. He did. Nothing like a good downward spiral to start the day off. Then, as we are running out the door (and it's 40 degrees), his parka is nowhere to be seen. So, he has to wear his 'new,' lighter courd jacket, and we got to the stop as the bus was pulling up. He didn't even get to suffer in the cold. So, the whole morning really didn't teach him much of anything. You win some; I lose many.

From Elise's school:y

We had a great day! Today we made play doh!  X helped us to make playdoh and also told us which colors to mix to make purple. X voted to make blue playdoh.  We also made wallets with money in them to use for our class car wash. X colored her wallet and X helped to tape her wallet. Elise helped to collect money when we paid to have our car washed and X washed the cars.  We all took turns operating the car wash. We worked on the letter M and X traced his letter M words.  

2013_12_12 Thursday

Elise was invited to come to school today, even though it's not her typical day to attend, so we jumped on that:

Thank you for making our fruit salad a success! Today was very busy. First we got to work on our chef hats X colored his chef hat before Ms. Tiffany helped him to finish the hat.  We wore then during out cooking lesson. We also worked on the letter M today.  X and X traced their M's and listened to the letter M song.  In music, X sang along to jingle bells and sang us songs he listens to at home. We also learned about picking out something different from a group.  Elise circle everything that was different in each group on her worksheet. X pointed to each item that was different on the worksheet. X and X helped make the salad by pouring and mixing the ingredients together.

David and I went to his company holiday party tonight. It was nice to get out and be with other grown-ups. It was also really nice to see some familiar faces from the NYC office. I was home by 10pm; Dave sure was not (5am!?!)!

I also finished "I Am Malala." What an amazing, strong, young woman. She should have won the Nobel. Truly inspiring (or shaming, maybe?!).

2013_12_10 Tuesday

Gov't was closed due to weather, so I had a day off, more or less. Still working but far less to do that normal.

From Elise's school:

We had a wonderful day today Today we talked about the circus. In Art, we made elephant masks.  X colored his mask very well.  X and X stomped around like circus elephants.  We also made tangrams of animals. X really enjoyed coloring her tangram animals.  We also talked about the letter M today.  X said that man starts with M. X and Elise traced their M's.  We also practiced for the winter pageant. X got on stage with the rest of his friends and had a snowball fight!

2013_12_09 Monday

From Elise's school:

We had a quiet day. We learned about pretending today. In Art, we made stick puppets.  X colored her stick puppet a beautiful shade of red. We practiced saying hello and goodbye in other languages with our puppets.  In Music, we practiced our winter pageant song on stage. X sang loudly with her friends and is ready for her performance. Our letter of the week is M.  X traced his M's in the air while listening to the M song. X and Elise colored all of their M words.  X told us that her name and the word Momma start with the letter M.  We listened to the bonjopur song as well. During Mandarin, we learned about the rabbit in the moon and all of our friends enjoyed the lesson very much. 

2013_12_06 Friday

St. Nicholas came over night!

Jonathan got ein geld beutel, a chocolate Santa, and a Hex bug;
Elise got ein geld beutel, a chocolate Santa, and a purple detangler brush;
Dave got a gift certificate to a movie; and
I got a 2014 dayplanner.

I guess we were all good: no coal or switches for Familie Hardwick!

from Elise's school:

We had a fun day! Today we talked about the story, The Fisherman and his Wife and why its important not to be selfish. X and X listened intently to the story.  In Art, we colored a fish mural. X and X carefully painted their fish mural with watercolors.  We also worked on our letter L's X and Elise traced all of their L's.  We also practiced our winter pageant song. X was a good singer and sang along with his friends.  Today was show and tell. X brought in something cold, a penguin! 

2013_12_03 Tuesday

From Elise's school:

We had a great day today! Today we talked about size. We discussed that the small something is, the more of it can fit in to a space. We used, sand, pom poms, and bow tie pasta as examples. X said that more sand can fit into the bowl than pom poms because the pom poms are bigger. X said that less pasta can fit into the bowl than sand because it is bigger. We also used colorful sand to make rockin' snowflakes. X helped to pour the sand onto his snowflakes and X chose every color that she wanted her snowflake to be.  We also talked about letter L words today. X said that leaf and lion starts with L. She then roared like a lion.  During music, we practiced for the winter pageant X sang along with the song. Elise sang along with our 18 wheels song and counted all the wheels on the big rig.  X practiced her cutting skills today in the cutting center.

2013_12_02 Monday

What a welcome I got for my first full time working day at home: a near-revolution in the Ukraine. what joy. I've felt really good all day, though, balancing different requests and taskings. It's good.

From Elise's school:

We had a great day! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Today we talked about Native Americans and dream catchers. We then made our very own dream catchers. X picked out which beads he wanted to go on his dream catcher and X colored hers with crayons. Our letter of the week is L.  X told us that her dogs, L and L both start with the letter L. X colored her letter L words.  During music, we practiced our song for the Winter pageant.  Elise participated in the song and had lots of fun.  We also sang rainbow of colors. X danced with the black scarf and X danced with the green scarf.

2013_12_01 Sunday

What a phenomenal two weeks!!! First, I flew to DC for work, and the highlight was giving a briefing to 1,400 of my closest work friends. I felt like I did a good job, but even just the opportunity and exposure was truly wonderful. I am now working full time, temporarily while a woman is on maternity leave. I really enjoyed spending time with the staff and networking/schmooooozing. I also got to see a bunch of dear friends, including having a ladies' night out. I don't feel like I slept much, but it sure was nice to have a quiet hotel room. Great time, all around!!
Once the week ended, Dave flew up with the kids and picked me up. We spent four excellent days with PopPop and Grandma and that whole family. Then, we drove to Nanna and Grandpa for three days, including Thanksgiving. What a feast! Then, we spent one night at Uncle Steve/Aunt Vicky and family. We got to see Cat play basketball too. Then, we drove back to our old town to visit three great friends (two with kids in Jonathan's grade). I wish we could have stayed longer to see a few more folks, but we just didn't plan very well. Next year we may stay a night to see everybody. Finally, we flew out of Newark very late at night and got home close to midnight (not a wink of shuteye on the flight either). The kids were amazing through 99.9% of the entire trip, and I'm sure much of it was jarring, sleeping somewhere else every other night, etc. But, I really enjoyed all the time we had with such good friends and family.
Today has been all about recovery and getting back into our normal groove. I've done a ton of laundry, groceries, etc. Preparing to be a full time employee going forward.