A Coqui in Winterfell

Proud of my fearless GRRL!

Today I had the opportunity to give kids from A.'s class a ride to RCRC so they could practice for their Winter Concert tonight.  The teacher apologetically handed me a list full of boys and A, saying that one of the boy drivers had backed out and they were sending them with me. I did mind at all, after all A. plays well with boys and has always counted boys among her best friends. Now I know several of these boys, some are quite friendly with A., while two of them are self-described hater of all things girly.

While we waited in the car for the other groups to be ready, I heard the boys teasing her about her Rainbow Magic books...asking if there was a Fairy of Loserdom...and such. A. never once blinked, she just dished it right back at them, never wavering or shying away from her love of the books, instead opening up the book and giving them a dramatic reading of the first page.

Eventually one of the boys told her..."You are so weird, you are like part boy and part girl and have crazy love for these fairies."  That is about right, A. is not about to be fit anyones box. She is going to play spies and secret agents...she is going to run and play baseball, she is going to wear a pink frilly dress and carry her panda bear with pride...and I am incredibly proud of her.

Zee's party!

Where the rubber meets the road.

Next week I start putting in hours on my fall internship. I will be working with a great librarian in interesting school.  I will be keeping her schedule, clocking at the same time she does and doing the full day. I am really excited about this as I found during my fieldwork that it really allows me to get to know the rhythm of the school and develop a real sense of the job I hope to be doing next year and beyond.

The only problem is that school for the girls doesn't start till the second week of September. So I arranged for them to attend two full weeks at the YMCA daycamp, near our house.  Additionally they have been going to Gymnastics camp (half-day) all week.  Aay, has been enjoying it, she fought hard to be back in Gymnastics and loves everything about it, except the fact that she needs to cover her earrings with tape and her ears are really sensitive...

Zee on the otherhand... Well she has been enjoying some of it, she is very proud to show us what she is learning, but apparently has melted down several times. At nearly 6 years of age...that just not going to fly.  We had a long chat about it yesterday...where I laid down some consequences for unacceptable behavior, how she would lose all sorts of home priveldges (tv time, wii time, computer time...etc) if she kept melting down at Gymnastics. 

Part of me want to keep her home today...but I know starting  next weeek that won't be a option. So while I will arm her with lots of extra hugs this morning, I do need to send her, since she needs to be able to behave appropirately in this kind of setting for the next two weeks and in her classroom after that.  So pray for her, for me and her coach and classmates.

sigh.

Party time: Scenes from a wedding.

Reading Joy!

 Zee got her Scholastic Books order today, which included a 2 book-packs, one a four book collection of SkippyJon Jones books and a 5 book  collection of David Shannon books.  The David Shannon pack proved very popular this afternoon. Aay read to Zee, No, David! and David gets in trouble! and I read them How I became a Pirate.  How I became a Pirate will I believe become a family favorite. It has great pirate arrghs and natural call and response rhythm. I am sure soon, the girls will be doing all the crew responses, and talking like pirates.

They also really liked the David books. Amusingly enough they almost received one of them about 3 years ago, when Chris's mom Marianne used to send them books she ordered from Scholastic at the daycare she works at, monthly. I think cross-border postage has sunk that tradition, so they get books now whenever they visit. The David book they almost got, had sent it a replacement book for something that was out of stock and she hated it and sent it right back to them with complaint letter.  I understand her reaction. At first glance the book can be off-putting.

The David books like Shannon's Alice the Fairy are drawn in a very rough kid-like style.  In the Author's notes, Shannon mentions that the first David book was inspired by a book he drew as kid, that his mom had recently found and sent to him. The book, No, David! chronicles David's misadventures as his mother call out No! in a variety of ways. And in David gets in trouble!, David is resisting taking responsibilities for many more misadventures till in the end he finally say sorry. They are wonderful books. I have yet to read a book illustrated or written by David Shannon that is anything but funny, charming and just plain fun to read out loud.

Star Wars Lego Wii

I bought this game for Chris to play with the girls after reading my friend Nate talk about playing it with his daughter Ella. Our girls love Star Wars and Lego, and had invested a lot of hours watching Chris play his computer Star Wars game.   The game has been a real hit. Now Ella is younger than Zee and obviously more adept at video games. From Nate's description she is way better than me, since I am still struggling to "executing a simple platform-jump", and fall off precipices with alarming regularlity. I have been awarded the  "True Jedi" heading only a few times, and sometimes I just bull thru a level for the sake of finishing it with 10% True Jedi ranking.

Zee and Aay don't do much story-level playing in the game so far, because the complexity of and coordination required is still a little too much. They do enjoy playing the droids (They love R2D2) because no one shoots at the droids (except when I accidently send friendly fire their way).  They occasionally team up with us during Free play and exploring the area outside the Cantina. Zee especially enjoys driving the various vehicles, but what they like the most is watching us play and try to complete and open new levels.

I played very little in terms of video games as a kid.  Tons of Duckhunt on the old Nintendo, some Zelda and Mario Brothers but eventually my interest just faded. It was certainly not something I did socially. So it is very amusing to me that Zee's favorite activity with us right now (right after playing a pretend game of Teen Titans) is to have us play Star Wars for her, especially if we are doing a new level, and then later coerce the other parent do to that same level, and she can then critique your performance and share nuggets of knowledge like Daddy got across that by jumping on that platform, or you need Padme to shoot that.... Our own in house cheat-cheat and Star Wars consulatant.

Now while I some time half-hate the experience...grrr I dang it, I just fell again, grr my thumb is getting sore from all the jumping on this level... I am actually enjoying the problem solving aspects, figuring out the tasks, how to best sequence your progressing through a level, and laughing when you are cruising right along only to fall off an edge when you least expect it and of course enjoying the moment when you find out you are good at a particular skill.

I didn't think I would be playing this game when I bought it, and but here I am invested in a game when I least expect to be.

Playing with Sculpey

  Zee loved playing with Sculpey. I loved it too because it helped her do something next to me that was interactive but still allowed me to finish my homework.  She was so systematic about how she chose to combine the colors and she felt so mature when I let her poke the holes for the pendants.

Taste Test

Late yesterday afternoon, Aay, Zee and I were enjoying a pre-dinner snack of Laughing Cow original swiss cheese wedges, which Arwen proclaimed to be TASTY! and finished off three wedges in quick succession. I grew up having the Laughing Cow bites, tiny foil wrapped squares that were shelf stable and a staple of my pack lunches as a child. Sadly Laughing Cow no longer offers the original version of in the bites here in the states (they were availble in Canada last year), only offering the very plasticky light version, which my girls rightly rejected.

Aay's evident enjoyment of the cheeses prompted her to ask if we could go and buy and taste a bunch of different cheeses. I told her we could, in fact if Daddy was game we could even make a dinner of it. So this morning after I took out my new bike for a quick ride to pick out of first delivery of fresh veggies from our CSA, Porter Farms's delivery point, less than 2 miles away, we headed out for our saturday family day. We played a round of putt-putt at Wickham Farms, we crossed the parking lot to our YMCA and went for a swim. They had a giant dragon play slide in the exercise pool, and then both girls practices many of their new swimming skills, like underwater diving and glides. After our pool time we drove down the road to the supermarket and wine store. Chris went off to replenish us and I set out with the girls to select the cheeses we wanted for our taste test. We ended up taking home 11 different kind of cheeses, Piave, Muenster, Brie, Campo de Montalban, Feta, Wensleydate with Cranberries, Fontina, Humboldt Fog, Beemster, Havarti,  and Emmenthaler Swiss. Once at home we set out several kinds of crackers, sliced meats, olives and bruschetta topping. Everyone got 11 little cards with the name of a cheese and a pen. As we tasted we were asked to jot down our impressions, and whether we judged the cheese good, okay or bad. Chris and Zee were juding on the same pace and Aay and I did them in the opposite order. 

We had a blast. The girls tried everything, even the Humboldt fog, which took some courage even to get Chris to try it. (I thought it was marvelous).   Zee marked hers with circles (good), checks (okay) and Xs (bad). We had a ton of fun. Talking about how each flavor and texture was, what we liked or didn't like about them and then experimenting by combining the cheese and with the fruit and meats we had on the table and seeing what  combinations work. The  girls  really got into that, and we  talked about  on of the scenes in Ratatouille where Remy is trying to explain to his brother about tasting things not just gobbling it up. Great time!  For the record. Aay's favorite was Piave, Zee: the Feta, Chris: The Havarti and Me: The Humboldt Fog.

Update:

I just read a really nice email from the nice folk at www.cypressgrovechevre.com makers of Humboldt Fog, who really enjoying reading about our taste test. Since it was my favorite of all the chesses we tasted I want to make sure I shared their website with you.  (July 11, 2008) Buen Provecho!

1, 2, 3, Buckle My Shoe, Poetry Night for RCS 1st graders

Aay's second poem of the night. I failed to press record for her first. She did really well considering she would never practice at home with me.

Videos from earlier in the month.

Zanneke belts out a song for the pre-school set at the GrandBuddies day program
Zanneke belts out her song once again. She wanted everyone to hear it
Zanneke wants her sojourn up and down the driveway documented
Zanneke takes video of Daddy and Arwen playing Basketball
Arwen's video of Mami missing a lot of shots on the driveway basketball court