Strong kids

Each day when I drop off or pick up Parker, the kids all play on the playground at school. We usually hang out a few minutes after the bell in the morning to let the girls play for a few minutes. Elizabeth does the monkey bars and hangs upside and Miranda climbs this pole and sits on top feeling superior.

Today, the PE teacher, who we sort of met yesterday when he collected basket balls for him, came up to me today and said, "Is she (Elizabeth) yours?" Yes, I confirmed. He said, "She is amazingly strong. I've never seen a kid so little fly across the monkey bars like her. That is incredible." I agreed and he kept going about it.

I'm quite used to these comments about her, but somehow it seemed even more sincere coming from a PE teacher.

Elizabeth then came up to me and said, "That man who we saw yesterday said I was strong."

On a similar note, I was chatting with their gymnastics teacher the other day and he said that if the girls went to a real gym (like he used to coach at) they would have been tracked already into the competitive training program. I'm not sure if I was happy (that they are really that good) or sad (that we aren't at that gym) to hear that. When I asked him if I should do anything different with them now, he said, "Naw, you can wait until they are 5 if you want to go that route. Let them have fun now."

1st grader Parker?

This evening, via email, Parker's teacher asked what we thought about promoting Parker to 1st grade. She said he had the social skills to be in first grade (and obviously had the academic skills.)

We politely declined and said we were working on helping him become a well rounded little dude.

It is nice that she noticed, though.

Zingers!

When I picked up Parker from school on Monday, he had a zinger in his hand. I was helping tidy the classroom after class and he was going on and on about not losing his treat and when could he eat it. I looked at the teacher who told me that a parent brought them in for "snack". Now, don't get me wrong. I like zingers as much as the next guy, but for snack at a public school at 10am seems just wrong. Luckily the teacher agreed, fed them some left over pretzels and then passed them out at the end of the day so as not to disrespect the parent who brought them in.

We discussed that I would bring a back up snack in case this happened again. The next day, the parent brought cut up apples and carrots. Not much to it, but at least it wasn't a giant sugar/fat cube. I thought a back up snack the next day wouldn't be necessary, but I brought one just in case and good thing I did, because the parent brought "cutie pies" (basically apple pies like they sell at mcdonalds.) Another mom is on back up snack duty tomorrow.

And to think last year I was complaining that our preschool provided juice instead of water. Oh vey.

Chalk

We seem to have chalk all over the place. Since I haven't bought any of it, I'm guessing it came in party favors, from friends or other such places. Big sidewalk chalk is a good thing to have around, but lately the kids haven't really played with any of it.

Then today, Parker comes up with, guess what? Sidewalk chalk. A prize for doing some trivial math thing at school today. He got to pick from a big bucket of lame-o prizes and chose that one. He was drawing all over the deck tonight happy as a clam with his prize.

Bike Day

There was a bike day at Parker's school on Saturday. We stopped by to see what it was all about. They were teaching kids to ride bikes without training wheels, having "slow races" and generally having bike fun. They had a good time, but it wasn't too exciting.

Weekend with Lori

Aunt Lori came up to visit this weekend. The kids are always thrilled to see her and I'm guessing it is because she literally gives them all her attention. She had to play games, make books, look at homework, get climbed all over, take kids to the bathroom, and generally be a slave to the three kids.




In return, she got to spend 3 days at the Claremont Club. (I was the high bidder for a 3 day pass from last year's preschool fundraiser and decided to use it this weekend when the weather was hot, hot, hot.) The kids loved it. I got burned. And we now know where all the white people go to cool off. You too can join for only $16,000.

TPS: Parker's story of the week.

This is rainbow. He lives in a cage. He likes to run on his wheel.
This is zeke. He wants to eat rainbow. He likes to play in the rain.
The End.

Not included is lovely picture of zeke with no ears and rainbow who looks the size of a worm.

Bday at Preschool

The preschool celebrated the girl's bday on Friday with a low key song, muffin treat, and crown. The girls were happy.

Birthday Girls

The girls turned 4 on Sunday and the were so excited they all got up at the crack of dawn. Elizabeth said, "I'm 4 today! But I didn't grow anymore!"

Morning present opening happened immediately when they ripped into gifts from the grandmas, parents, aunt and Parker.










Then we prepped for the party which we had moved from the Park to Ebba's house since it was suppose to rain. Amy and I set up the food while Michael prepped the boxes. The "theme" of the party was "box city". I tried to copy an exhibit I saw at a local kids museum where cardboard boxes and tape were put out and the kids just put it all together. Michael's tape dispenser was excellent. The kids didn't actually do what we thought they would, but they had fun nonetheless.













We had cake (two kinds made by Amy) and the kids continued to play with boxes, the jumpy house and with the air hockey table.








The girls were exhausted and complete wrecks after the party, but the guests seem to have fun and much of the food was gone which is always a good sign. Thank goodness for our friend Ebba who has a house big enough not only all the kids, adults and boxes, but the jumpy house too.

4 year check up

Took the girls in this morning for check up.

Miranda is 39 3/4 inches and 33.4 pounds.
Elizabeth is 39 1/2 inches (which I think is wrong since she was taller last time) and 37.3 pounds.

All is well.

:)

Special Trip with Eli

Since Miranda got a special trip with me a while back, I did one with Elizabeth this weekend. She wanted to do "the same as Miranda". I knew she wouldn't like it as much as Miranda did since she isn't as much into animals, but I honored her request. We took off Saturday morning and started at Sacramento Zoo. She pretty much didn't care about any of it, but we did sit in front of the chimpanzees for a long time. After the obligatory zoo corn dog and cotton candy, we went to find out fabulous hotel that I got on priceline the night before for only $40. I was so damn proud of myself for trying to save money and thrilled that we found a great place complete with the only required part of the trip...a pool.

Unfortunately, the pool was broken. I was pissed. I called Michael to figure out what to do and we both agreed we had to go to a hotel with a pool (it was 90 degrees out and we had all day to do nothing.) So I drove the 5 minutes to the hotel Miranda and I stayed at and paid another fee to stay there. I was very annoyed, but tried to get over it to enjoy the rest of the time.

Elizabeth, thank god, had a blast in the pool and hot tub and she freaked many people out by swimming under water for long periods of time in both.

Then we met up with Val and family for dinner. Sushi in mall. Gotta love Sacramento.

I was thinking we would go swimming again after dinner, but Eli was trashed and fell asleep quickly in her own bed. I read for a while and tried to sleep, but our lovely neighbors were having a little party and didn't stop until midnight.

The next day, we had breakfast, went swimming again and then met Val and Elijah at Fairytale Town. Eli reminded me that she needed a face painting like Miranda had (she remembered this on her own from when we returned from that trip.) After a couple hours we were done with that and were going to do some rides, but convinced her that a stop at the Jelly Belly factory 45 minutes west was a better idea. So we took off and had lunch and candy at the factory. Elizabeth was very happy.

In fact, she was very happy with the whole trip. And with the exception of the hotel nonsense, so was I.

Note: Eli dropped the camera at the zoo and it broke so there are no pictures except for what Val took which we will hopefully see soon.

Mazes

Parker continues to love making mazes.

Crafts

Rachel and Elizabeth went on a mini trip this weekend, leaving Parker and Miranda home with Dad. We had an ambitious agenda which began with Parker building the bird feeder that Grandma Judy gave him on her last visit. He assembled it with a little help, and then painted it. He was very pleased with it, and it's now hanging from a branch in the backyard, filled with hamster food.




Miranda was happy to do a beading project, and completed a couple of them in a row.



Much of the day was spent assembling and then optimizing Parker's newest, most elaborate marble run. With the Chaos Tower, I think we've reached the highest level of marble run sophistication, with a fulle flexible, modular system enabling quite elaborate and complex runs. The set features a range of tracks, as well as different cool things, like pendulum splitters, multi-ball traps, trampolines, as well as the inevitable loopty loop. Parker was in heaven as we assembled one of the model layouts which uses the whole set.




We also went to Kasper's Hotdogs for lunch, and had chocolate chip waffles for dessert. A good day all around.

TPS: Fairies

Parker: Do all fairies have wings?

Me: How could they fly without wings.

Parker: with their arms.

Me: That wouldn't work.

Parker: What if they climbed a tree and jumped off.

Me: They would go splat on the ground without wings.

Parker: Are they super?

Me: Nope.

Parker: Are they like magicians?

Me: Do you know any magicians that can fly?

Parker: Well...no. But there are some bad ones.

TPS: We did Math today.

After school, I ask Parker what he did that day. So far, he has answered with a complete play by play of every little thing they did. "Well...First we drew pictures, then we had circle, then we walked past the office, stopped at the cafeteria, turned around, came back, played, had quiet time, etc, etc, etc." Considering his answer in PreK was "I don't know" or "I don't want to talk about it", this is quite a change.

So yesterday I asked him the same question and he says, "Well...We did some drawing and then we did math and then we had circle and then..."

I stop him and say, "You did math? Really? What kind of math?"

Parker: "We did addition with the school days."

Me: "Huh?"

Parker: "We added the school days like this. (He held us his hand and shows a 6 with his fingers.) Ms. Heather says that we were on day 6 of school and to figure out what the next day is we just lift one figure up like this (and now he shows a 7.)"

Me: "Seriously? You learned how to add? Don't you already know how to add?"

Parker: "Well...yeah, I can add, but she taught us how to do it on our fingers!!! Isn't that super cool?"

Me: "Totally cool, Parker. Totally cool."

It's been so long since Parker added anything on his fingers that he literally had no idea this was a way to do it. He was probably doing that when he was two, if he ever really did it that way at all. The very same day just two hours later, he came to me and said, "Mom, does 10 40's equal 200?" I said, Nope. He looked up for a minute, smiled and said, "Oh, right, it's 400." And walked away.

Walking School Bus

Walking to school has got to be one of the greatest aspects of kindergarten. We are about 2 blocks away and even with the girls (I mean, Miranda) straggling behind, we can do the walk in about 8 minutes. A few parents that I met in the pre-kindergarten play dates this past year told me about a walking school bus that goes right by our house. The concept is that parents walk their kids a certain route to school, picking up more kids and families as they go. We are the last house on the pick up since we are so close so there are about 7 kids and 2-4 parents walking when they get to us. I thought this would be a great way for Parker to meet the neighborhood kids (since most of them are not in his class), but it also has the added benefit of allowing me to not actually go with him everyday.

Like today. It was the first day I worked at the new preschool and I wanted to get there early so as to not get a job* that required me on my feet all morning (something that is hard on my back on a good day.) So when the school bus passed us, I asked the moms there, "Can I just send him with you today?" and they said sure and get kept walking. This would save a good 15-20 minutes off our morning routine so I was happy. We prepped Parker to just get in his line at school rather then playing so he would notice when the line went into class (the other day some kid didn't notice and was just standing there a long after I dropped Parker off and I had to walk him in. It was heartbreaking.)

According to one of the moms who I saw at pick up, he did great. I told him he was very brave and should be proud of himself that he did that. He said, "ok."


*I selected art table #1 where I got to help kids roll golf balls in paint and set out/monitor the very clean, simply laid out playdough. The teacher who explained it to me, stressed again, it's process over product and I shouldn't say anything like, "Wow, I really like it." Rather should say things like, "Boy you sure did use a lot of green!" It's amusing hearing my mother's recommendations coming out all over the place in this new preschool. Did I mention I love this place????

Love, love, love new preschool

I'm SOOOOOOOO happy I changed the girls' preschool. The new school, coincidentally named the same as Parker's (which causes some confusion on the family calendar), is wonderful. The facility is huge, the teachers are great, the parents are outstanding, the curriculum is excellent, and the girls are immediately happy there. Today was there first day without me and second overall. They had no issues and even played apart for a good part of the day, coming together for snacks and circle time. Elizabeth spent most of her day outside impressing parents while Miranda stayed inside with the animals and art.

It's everything a preschool should be. And more.

TPS: Spelling

Parker's reading has really taken off. Sure, he stumbles on some longer words, but in general he is figuring out all the bizarre things the English language has like silent "e's"

He got his first homework assignment today. He has to draw pictures and write stories that go with it. The parent is suppose to write the words that are dictated by the kid, but since Parker can read and write, I said he had to do it. They gave him ideas about topics, but also said he could write about anything he wanted. He chose to follow the suggestions line by line. So he wrote about his first day of school.

He wrote:

My first day of school.

This is Room #6 passing the office.
Then Room #6 got to the cafeteria. Then Room #6 ate lunch.
The end.

A damn fine story I think. The only words he couldn't do were cafeteria and ate (which he thought was eat.) He got office by thinking about the word "off" and realizing a silent e was involved somewhere.

"camping"

For our last hurrah of the summer, we took the kids to another KOA. This one was close by in Petaluma. According to the website they had everything for kids. And they were not kidding.

We stayed in a kabin again which turned out to be a good thing as my poor back which gave out again a few days was going to have a tough time on an air mattress. The kids were in heaven as soon as we arrived. This place was designed for kids. It was not the state park camping ground I grew up with, but the kids didn't seem to mind. They immediately hopped on their bikes and rode loops around the kabin. There was a playground, petting zoo, bounce pillow, arcade, rock climbing wall, hay ride, bike parade, snow cones, very large pool, very hot jacuzzi, water slide, craft table, face painting, and even a poolside movie. The kids stayed up late, had smores, played with Susan and her kids, took long naps, and were generally very, very happy. Sure, it wasn't really camping, but we didn't mind.


On the bounce pillow.






The wall. Miranda was initially to scared to do it, but they did it better than the other two.






Crafts




The fabulous Nunes Family


The Nunes Boys watching the Long kids on the rock climbing wall.


Never a dull moment with 5 kids.





The bike parade.