Conversations Around a Pumpkin

We've been snacking on the yummy pumpkin seeds Wayne roasted. He had help gathering the seeds from his two little talkative helpers.

CA Trip 2011

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Kindergarten Done

Julia doesn't look that different from her first day of school. And I don't think that she is much different. Of course, she knows more now than before. She's learned to read (both words and musical notes) and to dribble a ball (both soccer and basketball). She knows about worksheets, homework and school socials (without parent accompaniment). But her temperament, personality and interests have not changed that much. She's still a combination of shy, serious and goofy, silly. She's still really into arts and crafts and not as interested in computer or video games. I think this could be her forever - it is amazing how formed we already are when we come into this world - but I know there are friends, teachers and events that come or happen and change you from time to time in your life. I'm curious what it will be when it happens and I hope I remember and find the time to consider who she is becoming and why.

Some of my favorite discussions with Julia this past kindergarten year have been about her Night Time School. Her made-up universe that often parallels her real daytime school. It explains why she's tired in the morning. It explains why I'm wrong (her night time school teacher is smarter than me). She's talked about this convincingly enough that a few parents have asked me whether Julia really goes to a night time school. She learns all about the planets and stars there. She learns baby language there as babies also attend night time school. She's been on the fake cell phone planning play dates and sleepovers and has even been heard gossiping about others! After the Japan tragedy earlier this year, she cried about one of her classmates who she said lives in Japan and has not been back to school. I'm really glad she goes to Night Time School. She already graduated from nighttime kindergarten a couple of weeks ago as she had finished all her worksheets without writing any numbers or letters backwards (unlike daytime kindergarten). So two kindergartens done, looking forward to first grade!

Two Punches Duck

Although Wes is not yet old enough to be part of the Little Ninja's program, he's learning on the side with Julia. They take turns holding the pillow for each other and no one gets hurt :)

Karate Princess

Julia's grandpa called her that when she got home from her first karate lesson and she liked it. She pointed out that it's different than Mulan, who is a warrior princess. We've been thinking about enrolling Julia at our town's karate center for awhile, but perhaps just a little reluctant to be "over schedulers." Several friends have strongly recommended the place and it just seems to offer so much of what we hope for Julia. Focus, confidence, strength, the ability to protect herself. And of top of that, they seem to try and teach them to be good citizens of the earth.

They have an ad in their window with a picture of a child and the statement, "I don't always listen to my parents, but I always listen to the DoJo." Luckily, they say the same thing. (Or something like that). Well, before Julia had her first lesson, they gave us a log and she was supposed to record 10 acts of respect performed. The log had an explanation of respect and where it said, "Showing someone respect is to treat them as you would want to be treated," her eyes widened and she said, "That's what you always say." And I closed my eyes and wished very hard that the ad will be true for us.

Here is some video of her first lesson. I believe this will be part of a great movie made later down the line that shows how much Julia improves :) Listen for Wes, thoroughly entertained, counting with Julia.

Wes at 2

A two-year old is so much fun. If for no other reason, but how they talk and pronounce words. Soup is boop, scarf is barf. (You have to picture Wes so pleased to be wearing a scarf, that he's laughing in a knee slapping way, saying over and over again, "Barf . . . ha ha ha Barf ha ah." He laughs a lot like this - often it seems to his own inside joke. Our neighbor says he seems a little drunk.) For some reason, open is pudding. On top of that, all the new connections they are so excited to make - nothing is boring yet. Wes enjoys pointing out trash and trash cans. I don't remember ever feeling glee when seeing a trash can but Wes does. He also just started noticing cars and is so pleased to tell me, "Mama's car" for any Honda Odyssey he sees and "Valky's car" for any CRV he sees. It's funny, Julia still doesn't really pay any attention to cars. Although, after trying to make a game of identifying different brands of cars on the road, Julia does now note now and again that there are a lot of Toyotas in this world.

It is also fun to see a personality revealed. Wes is already a little man taking care of us. When saying good-byes in the morning, he makes us all give one another a kiss. It's not enough that he gets one, he directs who should kiss whom. When I borrowed Wayne's wallet to pay for dinner at Moe's Southwest Grill, I came back and set the wallet down in the middle of the table. Wes pointed to the wallet, telling me Dada several times until I returned it to Wayne's hands. When leaving him at daycare, he told me to zip up my jacket before heading out. When leaving a Music Together class, he reminded me to take my purse. He has also reminded Julia to bring her lunchbox to school. Part of me thinks this is so sweet. But I know that in time, although he may take care of us, it will probably be with a lot of eye rolling, sighing and impatience. How many of us our with our own parents I guess. Yikes!

Wes didn't use many words until the last few months. Now he's a regular parrot, albeit one that often only Wayne, Julia and I understand. In this video (shaky because I was trying to hold the camera off to the side so that he wouldn't want to try and grab it) you see if you can understand him.



Wes turned 2 a few weeks ago and for once, we had a very, very low key birthday party for one of our kids. As parents with no goody bags to prepare and invites or evites to make, it was delightful. We did make the effort to decorate his cake with characters from his favorite TV show, Boots and Dodo (known to the rest of the world as Dora the Explorer). And Wes was more than happy to just have a few presents to open and for everyone to sing Happy Birthday to him.

Snowballs

We have had an incredible amount of snow these last few weeks. It has also been very cold and I am very sad to report that our latest gas and electric bill is in the amount of $631. Yes, we must insulate. And yes, the kids should wear gloves or mittens outside. Julia is very good about it. Wes refuses. He loves putting on his jacket, boots, hat and "barf" (scarf), but will not wear any of the 6 different pairs of mittens he owns. Luckily, there were a couple of warm snow days around the new year, so he did get to play with the snow with his hands. Here he is throwing snowballs and asking for me to make more at the end.

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Reading!

It has been incredibly interesting and fun for us to watch Julia learn to read. All of the sudden, she's seeing words everywhere. Billboards, the signage on trucks, our kitchen spice rack. She blurts out, "Old Bay," and I'm like what? Oh, you're just reading random things because you can now.

Pre-school did a good job teaching her the different sounds that letters make. In kindergarten, they have reinforced that while introducing "high frequency words" to memorize. In some ways, it's a bit tedious. They practice these high frequency words in little "books" made up of four sentences. "We like to play. He likes to play. The dog likes the ball. We like the dog." It was probably a tedious process when I learned to read to, but it's not how I remember it. I remember the very book, "Farm ABCs," which I still have (my mom may be considered a hoarder by some), when I feel like I figured it out and started reading. It seemed like an epiphany - I probably just forgot all those 4-sentence books that got me there.

In the fall, Julia was starting to sound out words here and there and made us realize that there are so many many exceptions to the reading rules she was learning. Why is the word "post" not pronounced "pahst," but "poste"? Why is "have" not pronounced like "save?" How do know if a word starts with "c" or "k"? So many things we just accept, but Julia is at a stage of actually thinking about reading. It's amazing to think how her brain is changing. We were at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia over the winter break and saw a cool presentation about the brain. They invited us to read words that were different color names, like black, blue, orange, etc. Only the words were printed in colors that did not match the word. For example, the word black might have been printed in orange ink. We were supposed to name the color of the word that they pointed to, but there was always a lag time because our brains our hardwired to read, so that we might have started, "Bla. . . I mean orange." Then they asked for a 5 or 6 year-old who was just starting to learn how to read to do the exercise and there was no lag time at all. These past few weeks, Julia has really gained steam in reading, so I think a month ago, she would have seen the colors first, the word second, but in a few weeks, I think she'll be like the rest of us readers and see the word first, the color second. I know that there are babies who can read from the infomercial, "Babies can Read!", but in the normal world, quite a milestone.

Anyway, here's a little clip of her reading one of her more advanced homework books.