Dinner time pleasantries

Family dinners together are of course the stuff "happy childhood" legends are made of. Everyone sitting serenely around the table, forks/knives clinking along with gentle laugher and engaging stories.

We absolutely adhere to family dinners every night but have found it's really exhausting to have a pleasant relaxing dinner. After our "pleasant and relaxing" dinner I'm checking my watch for how soon I can reasonably start bedtime.

For one, Amelia has always been extremely tough to get specific information out of, so we built coping mechanisms a long time ago. For a while it was a deal where we each told each other the 3 most interesting or funny or odd things that happened that day. This is in fact how I discovered she had started reading - she told me she figured out how to read as her #3 one random day.

Now we (yes, this is incredibly cheesy) do what the Obama family does after reading it in an article about his family that I read to the kids around electon time - "Roses and Thorns." At dinner everyone shares their roses (good things) for the day and thorns (bad thing). This type of formulaic approach really suits Amelia as otherwise her mind goes in a million different directions and you get a sentence like this that makes you want to stab yourself in the thigh with your fork:

"Well, today I did - well actually it was like something from yesterday - or it could have been the day before yesterday because I think we had Show and Tell - and did I bring my mask back? - Oh yeah! Of course I did because I was telling Oliver - but my interesting thing - I think it was yesterday because we had ICT and when we do that some of the class goes to ICT like Lucy, Sophie, George, and Henry except this time not Henry because he was home sick today and ...."

Meanwhile the entire time she's talking in a normal tone and Oliver is, at the top of his ample lungs, while stuffing food in his mouth, going:

"Today I - Today I - Today I - TODAY I DID SOMETHING REALLY INTERESTING!!!! MAMA! LISTEN TO ME!! MISS AMELIA STOP TALKING! TODAY I - TODAY I - TODAY WAS THE DAY..."

And I am saying "Oliver, please don't interrupt your sister. OLIVER please give her a minute. Amelia, could you speed up a bit? I really want to hear what you're saying. OLIVER USE YOUR FORK. What was that Amelia? OLIVER YOUR FORK IS NOT A SPACESHIP. Amelia, honey, would you start over?"

So we use the Roses and Thorns thing, take turns, and it all goes smoothly.

The one downside being Oliver completely absolutely makes up his rose and thorn. "My thorn is that today while I was playing outside the big boy Harry saw what I was playing with and came down to the Nursery area and punched me in the stomach and then he stole my shovel and well!! So I shot him with my laser shooter....I BLASTED HIM ZEEEOO ZEEEOOZEEEOOO BAM BLOO BAM BLOOO BAM!!! and then he didn't bother me anymore but that was my thorn because I also didn't have as many marshmallows on my cupcake as sister did."

Amelia's art

The big one is improving by leaps and bounds in drawing. She started drawing at a completely average time but did so only in red for a full year (her favorite color) and with extremely ...um..."confident" strokes so everything looked really intense and unrecognizable. Things improved a bit after 4 when she grudgingly started using some other colors, but her stuff was always very easy to pick out in preschool because it was very dramatic. Very dark and scribbly. Very - loose from a reality standpoint.

So it's quite striking to see projects from her like these come home from school:




This one isn't so complex but she can describe the expression she drew on the face.

At home she has notebooks full of drawings - a train with doors and windows racing across a field, trees in the background, a sky full of hot air balloons each with one person vomiting over the edge (probably the favorite Amelia topic of all time), even cars that she draws only because she knows Oliver loves them. I'll share them when/if I remember to photograph them!

Balance bike Oliver

Oliver doesn't like his balance bike (found on sale a few weeks ago). He doesn't love his balance bike. He lives for his balance bike. If possible he would take it everywhere. We've been on 2-hour long walks with Amelia walking and Oliver riding. Luckily he's trained to patiently wait at the corners - he is very fast. He's experimenting with different techniques, like gliding with legs out or tucked in, spinning around to stop sideways, going down curbs, and attempting to go up curbs.

Here's a short 30 second video taken during a walk last weekend. We were out for 2 hours with a 10-minute break for a quick snack. For some annoying reason when I rotated this it skewed the image, so Oliver looks much shorter and fatter than he really is.

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Amelia's parent/teacher conference

I went to the PT conference last night - only 15 minutes, but I thought I'd share a little about it.

Her teacher is young, 4 years out of school. She's not as well-known by the other parents because she suffers from comparison to the Reception teacher the year before, who is apparently the kind of teacher people write books about. Oliver will have her some day! Anyway, we think she is great. There are ELEVEN kids in the class. I'm still shocked over how much individual attention each child gets. I gave her teacher a ton of positive feedback about that but even so I don't think she took much credit - she just doesn't understand why you would do anything else. She said "Well, they're all very different aren't they?" Exactly!

Some comments about Amelia:
- very confident speaking in class, absolutely loves show + tell. Really likes feeling like the 'boss' of the class during her 5 minutes (surprise, surprise)
- affectionate with friends, well-liked in the class
- has a strong sense of justice that really stands out. After hearing a story or two I took this as a euphemism for "can be overly sensitive when she feels she's been wronged." Her teacher said that Amelia recovers well when she takes the time to talk to her about what happened.
- becoming confident now in her writing. She said she was very reluctant at the beginning of the year compared to all the children who did writing last year, but now she seems to feel comfortable. She showed me examples of writing in her writing journal and I was quite amazed! Her spelling is still not a strong point but she was writing some pages full which I haven't seen at home. There was one report on a field trip they had that must have been 5 sentences
- here's a shocker: Has the best cursive handwriting in the class. Um, what?? We don't see any of this at home, where Amelia's messy print is gradually reducing in size but looks totally average. She showed me her handwriting workbook with rows and rows of beautiful script letters - b's, q's, r's, etc. Crazy.
- Reading is exceptional, her teacher is now after half-term starting up a Reading Journal for her in addition to my parent log. After each book Amelia will draw a picture and write a bit about the book. She will also continue to give her the Year 2-3 comprehension packets a few times a month. She doesn't assess Amelia's reading level since she's clearly past the Year 1-3 reading scheme, so she just lets her pick her books from the Year 3+ school library.
- Strong in math- teacher discovered how comfortable Amelia is with place value and will now be giving her the 3-digit work rather than the 1- and 2- digit work the other kids are doing. She also said "she seems to really love mental maths - I give the children questions while standing in line sometimes and Amelia seems to especially enjoy this."

She took me through her Social Studies workbook, Science, Maths, and Literacy. Each one has writing, projects, drawings, etc. Get this. EVERY SINGLE PAGE that Amelia has done has an invididual response from her teacher commenting on something she wrote, or a drawing, or engaging with her on a thought she shared. All positive. Even simple things like "Amelia, I can see that you really paid attention during the medial e lesson - your spelling is very well done. You've used 3 words with medial e." on a page where Amelia was describing her weekend.

When looking through her class work, I paid attention to the quality of the work and it's all good; in other words Amelia is taking her time and not being sloppy. She clearly loves doing it and she's getting positive feedback on an individual basis. Things like drawing 4 different kinds of houses, writing the names, and then a sentence about which she would like to live in.

Overall comment from her teacher was that she's a great kid to have in class who focuses well and only occasionally gets too excited (but always for a good reason she said). She said "the thing with Amelia is just making sure to keep her challenged." She's starting the book report journal, moving her up in maths, and giving her more reading comprehension work. Overall a good start to the second half term!

And....now I want my kids to always have 11-child classes!!!

The Dancing Queen

Amelia has never taken dance lessons and has never asked to, but she loves to move her body. For her it's not about rhythm or technique (you'll see!) but about ....yes.....interpretive dance. She really thinks she's expressing her feelings about the music while dancing.

First, some "classical" dance - to accordians in Venice!

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Then some pop music dance. Please note that Amelia has been asking me to get a few of her new favorite songs (yes, we listen to the radio sometimes now that listening to the BBC is too disturbing with her asking qusetions!). I happened to see a bunch of these favorite songs on a "Dance Party" CD at the grocery store and both kids are now in love with it.

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Coming home

I have now left England and returned from another country three times since we moved here - to Scotland, Italy, and Germany. Once with family, twice on business trips. Each time I felt like I was coming home, wearily standing at baggage claim thinking forward through the drive from the airport.

I think this is some measure of expat emotional development. Or it just confirms "Home is where the heart is."

Trip Report #2: Venice - the fun!

A little sightseeing must be done of course...

The sightseeing is of course just so that one can access the very best thing about Venice. Better than gelato? Yes of course. Better than shrimp eyes and baby octopus? Yes, better even than that. And what is this wonderous activity? PIGEONS!!

Mary is, I kid you not, The Pigeon Whisperer. Not only is the picture amusing, but the video (second part in particular) is worth a million dollars. Make sure to have sound turned on at the end.

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Poor Amelia could sit with a loaf of bread on her lap in the middle of the square and the pigeons skirted her with terror. So Mary tried to help her get closer to them. Amelia finally gave up and decided to give bread to toddlers instead. She loves toddlers.

Oliver is immortalized in the permanent digital records of approximately 65 Japanese tourists' Venice memories. They were absolutely insane for him chasing pigeons with his bear. Mary and I found it hard to get to him through all of the paparazzi.


And finally, one of our best days was spent at the Venice Biennale, which is a fantastic and massive modern art exhibition. We all fell in love with the main exhibition hall. Modern art is perfect for children - so many things to talk about and discuss. I think you can see how much they loved it.

First of all, as Mary says, Amelia's face is how everyone should look when seeing art. She was SO into this.

Another example of the exhibit - this one was fascinating and we all loved it.


Oliver and me in front of an enormous painting.

Trip Report #2: Venice - the food!

This is going to have to be a multiple-entry trip report because there is just tooo much to share. Can I take a moment to celebrate the amazing fact that we live in a place where we can pop over to Venice for a long weekend? Not to mention for an affordable long weekend?

The first trip report will focus on 1) our enthusiastic travelers and 2) our enthusiastic eaters. The kids were so happy to set off with their luggage - they played airport for the two days leading up to the trip. We kept finding Oliver's luggage in a corner somewhere filled with half of the food in the house. He explained that he needed a snack.

Here are the enthusiastic travelers ready to set off:





And returning from the trip, each proudly sporting a new Italy sticker on their luggage:





Now for the eating!

I'm not really sure how many times the little gluttons had gelato. Five? Six? Seven? It feels appropriate to not count. To their credit they tried a different flavor each time - pistachio, chocolate, strawberry, cherry, vanilla, panecotta, etc. I may have partaken a few times myself....

They were not impressed by the pizza. Mary and I ate our weight in good Italian pizza but the kids mostly abstained. They did, however, LOVE anything seafood-y that was offered to them. They ate clams, mussels, squid ink pasta, baby octopus in a million varieties, fried sardines, shrimp with heads....the list goes on.

First, the gelato-fest!









And the seafood monsters:

Amelia picked seafood soup for dinner one night (mussles, squid, fish chunks, etc):

Amelia having a delicate conversation in fish language with a fish she plans to eat later that day:

A huge pile of fried squid, sardines, and many other things:


Amelia showing off her love of eating fried shrimp eyes. Yes, that's fried shrimp EYES:

Their favorite dinner - a huge bowl of clams:








Amelia and her squid ink pasta. This is the 5 year old who scans quickly past the pizzas, spaghetti bolognese, pasta alfredo, and settles happily on squid ink tagliatelle.

Oliver eager to dive into a big plate of octopus and other seafood appetizer:



So...they may not be cheap dates, but they're fun to travel with!!

The class clown?!

Look at that sweet little face. The child who in this picture taken during a quick stop while shopping is singing an ode to her 'babycino' [foamed milk] and fluttering her eyelashes at it in faux lovesickness. She has always been very funny and bordering on insane around us, but for the first time I got a glimpse into the level of confidence and happiness she has at school now.

I picked her up just before lunch on Thursday as we were off on a short family vacation to Italy (more on that to come of course!!). First I peeked into her classroom door. The children are all quietly working on a writing activity. Except for one child. As the teacher makes notes at her desk, head down, Amelia is balancing two pencils between her mouth and nose and dancing her head around in front of nearby classmates for a laugh. The boy closest to her is giggling behind his hand and the very well-behaved girl near her is stealing appreciative glances at her. Amelia's writing page is sitting quietly unfinished. I glance nervously at the teacher. She hasn't noticed. I both want her to and don't want her to.

That would have been an amusing glimpse into Amelia's daily world, but I was totally unprepared for the performance to come. I walked into the classroom and another child saw me first: "Amelia! Your mum is here!" Amelia leapt out of her chair, clasped her hands to her chest, and said "Italy!" She then duck walked around the room making odd noises while I gaped in horror and the entire class erupted into laughter. Some of them started making the odd noises back to her. Others jumped up from their chairs to watch her display. She swooned around the room, saying things like "Goodbye my darling Sophie! Goodbye Lucy, I must leave!" and hugging each of her favorites dramatically, kissing on the cheek, etc. Other children piled in to join the hugs. I couldn't settle on either staring in shock at her teacher or at Amelia. She continued to duck walk around the room and cause big group hugs. Children were shouting out "Amelia! Amelia!" or making the noises back to her. I made eye contact with her teacher and mouthed "Sorry!" She said, in a marvel of British understatement, "She's been very excited about her trip." We finally left the classroom in a cloud of goodbyes and final hugs.

Walking back to the car Amelia was her usual self and completely excited to get in the car with her family. I was still in shock. Here I was thinking at 6 weeks in she's starting to come out of any early integration shyness and maybe even get to know some of the children who have been together for years. I had no idea she was playing the role of ringmaster to a circus of crazy 5 and 6 year old ducks.

She loves her school and can't wait to go back - too bad there is another week and a half of term break!

The swelling sun and a swelling brain

Amelia announced recently that when she grows up she would like to be a scientist who studies why the sun is expected to swell up. This came from a cool science book she found and devoured, after which she's been sharing interesting things with us. She's never been a 'facts' kid so it is very disarming to have her discussing the periodic table of the elements or DNA with me. Let's just say there may be a gap or two in my knowledge base.

Meanwhile, she's reading just as much as ever, and luckily has access to the full school library. I think they have her reading mostly 4th grade level books, which work perfectly as she finishes them off in a day or two and does comprehension questions which I note in her reading log. Her teacher reads/discusses with her every single day AND writes a personalized note to us. I still can't believe the one on one attention and consistent differentiation in reading.

Yesterday for a change of pace she sent home both a higher level reading book (something really intense about the military and a mission but somehow child-friendly) plus something new. A simpler book, more like 2nd grade level, but with a thick 'comprehension pack' that they usually use in the Year 3 class. There were 10 pages of questions, crosswords, fill-in-the-blanks, etc for her to do based on a single read of the book. Although writing isn't her favorite I was shocked by how perfectly she recollected everything, even when the comprehension packet tried to fool her like "True or false, there was not paint in the cans." She did 4 pages at night and then I sent her off to bed, only to find her coming out of her room at 6:30am begging to do more before getting dressed! Who is this? She polished it off, the packet her teacher had intended her to use for the week.

So that's all going on and meanwhile she started asking if she could do math games. I got a recommendation from a friend and signed her up for an online math club/site thing where she gets two math quizzes a week. She's just doing one year above her age but she loves it. There are only two a week so then I signed her up for yet another free program and she wants to do that one all the time too. It's not like she's blowing me away with her mathematical genius - but it's just really really weird how much she's wanting to do at one time. She's always been in the category of "gets the concepts really fast but doesn't seem to want to do math stuff." Now she's manipulating all sorts of concepts and numbers in her head and loving it. Insert shocked motherly face.

I call it the swelling brain. I think her brain is in the right place to go in any direction right now because she's very happy at school, loves where we live, and is really feeling confident and sure of herself in general. I drop her off at school and see her chatting with her friends, telling jokes, and that makes me happiest of all. Except of course for all of the British potty/toilet humor she has now added on to her already impressive American repertoire. And I quote:

Happy birthday to you!
You live in a loo!
You look like a pooooooo...
And you smell like one too!

She's as proud of that as any academic accomplishment as you can imagine.

Peace

Mary: What is peace?

Amelia: When life is quiet and just as you like it.

Oliver and the toilet

When, you ask, does Oliver most enjoy having a nice long conversation? While sitting on the toilet of course. I will try not to pigeonhole him by making any jokes about men and toilets. BUT I do have a few anecdotes to share from today.

He was sitting on the potty and I asked him if he was ready for me to wipe. He said "No, there are still a few drips." Then he looked up at the ceiling and got thoughtful and then said "Mama, did you know that there are some drips that aren't human but still have arms and legs?"

I repeated this to Mary later and she told me that last week they saw a public service commercial for saving water with a walking water drip. They didn't discuss it but now it makes sense where he got it! I was interested that he knew the world "human" as a classification as opposed to saying "person" which he uses in other ways.

After he finished with the walking drips he said "Did you know that I have a birthday coming up? I'm going to be THREE [emphasises with three fingers]. For my birthday I want to have two balloons, okay Mama? One will be a pee pee balloon so it will be a yellow balloon and and the other will be a poo poo balloon so it will be a brown balloon with brown spots. [serious look] I really like pee pee balloons and poo poo balloons."

Ew. But I guess we have a 3rd birthday party theme now.

Then finally, as he was still insisting he needed to sit for a few more minutes ("It's going to be a really really long time Mama") I said I'd go take the garbage out. Oliver put up a cautionary hand and said "No, Mama. Mommy [that's Mary] is the EXPERT at pushing the garbage cans. She can push black ones and green ones and also brown ones. She's the expert."

To boost up my self esteem after that hard knock I went and read Amelia's card ("I love you Mama" with rainbows and butterflies). I'm lovable even if I'm not a garbage expert!!

Amelia poetry

Amelia called out to me again from a dark room tonight. Apparently lying in bed is the perfect time for poetry writing.

Butterflies
Amelia, age 5

Butterflies butterflies
Tiptoeing through the field
Find out those eyes are fox's eyes


She then said "See, the fox is hidden in the bushes - it's watching them!"

Fever-induced delirium

Oliver had a bad case of croup and was sick for FIVE long days, with fevers for four of those. I can now talk temperature in Celsius pretty well....his fever was up to 39.5. (for those Americans reading that's 103.5) and he was up allll night coughing, miserable, trying to breathe hot, etc. When he did sleep he had terrible nightmares about bad guys chasing him in a car or climbing into his bed to 'get him." Poor baby. Which means Mary and I got very little sleep last week either. Amelia was fresh as a flower.

He has said some really odd things at breakfast recently, which I link to the fever having scrambled his brain.

Episode 1
Oliver looks up from his cup of milk to say "I'm actually French when I'm speaking in a good way. This food will make me not French anymore so I'm not going to eat it."

Pretty creative excuse for not eating his breakfast. He's had a very low appetite!

Episode 2
Patting my cheeks, "Your cheeks are like two mushy eggs. I can even see the yolks."
I guess that's better than Amelia telling me today I have a very big bottom.


And a very sweet Oliver quote:
I was telling him how yummy he is and I jokingly said "I love to eat you." He said "No, you don't love eating me - you love loving me."

Quote at dinner

Oliver, looking at his peas:

"These are not peas; they're capers - we always call peas 'capers' in French."

Amelia:

"Then what do we call capers?"

Oliver:

"We don't call capers anything"

An emerging artist!

Oliver suddenly started drawing this week. After hearing the dreaded silence for quite a while, I went looking for him. He called out "I've just been drawing on my Tootle that I found for a few minutes!" By which he meant the Magnadoodle that emerged from under some pile. I happened to have the camera nearby and I snapped a few pictures as he quickly drew and erased and drew and erased. I was surprised that with no apparent background he's quickly getting across what he wants to.

"This is me lying on my bed"


"Captain Hook in his pirate ship"


"A robot - see his arms and legs?"


"This is a really fast racecar"


"This is a slug looking backward"


"This is a man who just saw a spider and he's saying 'Oooooo!'"


Some rocket ships he drew for Amelia's alien picture

Another Amelia poem

I was just called into Amelia's room 30 minutes after lights out. "I've made up a new poem, Mama - I really need you to write it down for me."

Make out of these leaves
Two shoes for me
And some gloves too
So I can do
Anything with you

Our little Brits

A few quotes I've heard from the kids this week:

Amelia
laughing, "Lucy was writing a list of kids who are coming to her house today and she started my name with M - I told her it starts with A so she had to go get a rubber and fix it!"

For the slow among us she did explain to me that 'rubber' means 'eraser' in England.

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"And then after that we had flapjack for pudding."

This here is a sentence that would have made me stare in confusion a mere month ago. But the combination of Amelia who loves "pudding" (all desserts) and my discovery of flapjacks (buttery blocks of soft chewy sweet granola-esque things) at the office cafe made this sentence quite clear to me when it was uttered.

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After a birthday party, she was listing all of the "sweeties" she ate and collected. I finally said "Did you have any real food at all?" She answered "Yes, of course - I had carrots and tomahhhtoes." She really said it like that! Without noticing!


Oliver
whining "No, I don't WANT to put on my jumper!" (that's a sweater!)

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"Could I have a biscuit for snack? One of the round ones?" (Ritz crackers to us Americans)

We love babysitters....

I may have mentioned this, but I snared a fantastic babysitter at a local shoe store. How you ask? I just asked an extremely pleasant, mature, friendly teenager shopping with her mother if she babysits. This may sound desperate. It just so happens that her mother is a parent at our kids' school - her younger brother is in Year 5. The girl is just starting up her babysitting career, but has had quite a bit of experience with cousins. We had her over for one 2-hour mid-morning session while we went to the nearby gym to test things out. The kids had a great time, so the other night we went out "for real" - first a drink outdoors at the pub on the river, then off to have some curry. YAY for babysitters!

Little things said

Oliver, holding my face tenderly in his hands, said "Mama, your eyes are all cracked."
Sigh - apparently a bit bloodshot?
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Amelia, after hearing that planes could move at the speed of sound, dreamily said "Wouldn't it be amazing if we could invent a giant flashlight and when you turned it on you could travel on the path of light as fast as the light, all the way to the other side of the world?"
Again she sounds like a science fiction novel.

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Amelia and I made what I've known as "toad in a hole" the other morning. See below:



She loved making it and loved eating it. As she sat down to eat it, she said "I really don't think this should be called toad in a hole. I think it should be called 'Earth in space.'" It is now thus named at our house!

Amelia makes a name for herself

The other day when I dropped Amelia off at school, her teacher stopped me from leaving with the statement "Amelia really made me laugh yesterday!" This is the sort of thing that can be very good or very bad. I hesitantly smiled and waited for her to continue.

"I brought the full skeleton in from the science room to show the children. I was telling them how we all have bones just like these inside our bodies, and that this skeleton had been a man at one time. Amelia was looking at the skeleton oddly, then raised her hand and said 'Excuse me, but where is his p**is?' I had to work so hard not to laugh! Then 5 other children raised their hands and said 'What is a p**is?'"

[commercial break: it appears to be quite uncommon to use or even to know the technical terms for private parts here. It appears the terms in use are "willy" and "front bits."]

Back to the teacher: "So I was still trying not to laugh. I just said 'Well, it's a man's private part and it's not on the skeleton because it doesn't have a bone in it.'"

Poor teacher. I'm hoping every single child went home and told them that Amelia, the new girl from America, taught them some new words.

Amelia's show and tell

We've all been delighted that Amelia's new school has show and tell...but less delighted that it's on Monday mornings. The first week we missed it entirely to Amelia's consternation and scathing reminders after school. Shriveling under her scorn, I vowed to remind her the following Sunday. She collected and took in an enormous hornet (as seen on this very blog). Others that I saw brought in a Dora doll and a picture. This week she put together an entire presentation based on a visit we took to the Lucy (humanoid fossil) exhibit at the Science Center in Seattle months ago. For context, one peer brought in her favorite sunglasses and another brought in a nice flower. The child is sticking out a bit but it was so fun watching her put it together and it's really good practice for her in speaking in front of a group. Here she is Monday morning practicing:

1. Showing off the tshirt she bought at the exhibit, explaining what "Lucy" is

2. Using her evolution book to show the class what Lucy probably looked like

3. Showing the small carved turtle she bought at the gift shop, made in the area of Ethiopia where the Lucy fossil was discovered.

She said it went well, but no one asked any questions. No matter! I can't wait to see what she comes up with next week....

Ice-cream inspired poetry

Amelia spooned out this delicious little poem while eating ice cream garnished with raspberries the other night. One must delight in her title, mustn't one? I secretly like how she doesn't feel the need to rhyme.

Raspberries Fresh in the Moonlight
by Amelia, age 5

Have some now
It's free free free
In a bowl
Scoop scoop scoop
My ice cream
Is always cool

In the middle
The biggest raspberry of them all.

Oliver looked dramatically around for inspiration and followed up with this remarkably original number:

Fork
by Oliver, age 2.75

Fork
Is the biggest fork of them all!

Oliver's private swim lessons!

We are indeed grooming Oliver for international stardom in the swimming arena, which explains why our 2 year old has private swim lessons. The other possible explanation is that he wants SOME activity, ANY activity like all of his sister's (she's done skiing, horse riding, swimming, gymnastics). So until he turns 3 shortly we agreed to let him do a few lessons just after Amelia's swim class - then he can go into group lessons. He is having a great time and surprising us with his 30 minutes of focus since he's not exactly the most compliant young man.

Here we have a few choice pictures and moments of video. I was outside the pool area trying to take a video through glass and far away, so it's hard to see the portion at the end of the pool where he's actually swimming. His enthusiasm and love of the water are quite high, his form a bit low!

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The Hallowed Climber

Once upon a time we were planning to purchase a climber/play equipment/swing set for the lovely large yard (a.k.a. "garden" in England) that we have in our rental house here. My wonderful company gave us a little move-in budget to account for the fact that we couldn't bring any of our household appliances due to the difference in voltage and pluggage (I made up that last one), and we had reserved a smidgen to get a nice hefty piece of play equipment for the backyard. Then came the Weekend of Immaturity, when the children both acted like absolute heathens. We recoiled in horror from their misbehavio(u)r and decided no such expensive toy would be purchased for such terrible children.

Instead I, the artistic genius, created a sticker chart modelled after the much-desired climber. Each child has a goal to achieve. Amelia has 8 boxes, Oliver 4. Each box is to be filled with 5 stickers. Those of you who can mentally multiply will know that is a lot of stickers in total. Each of Amelia's boxes represents a piece of the climber, and each time she gets a box full of stickers another piece is added onto the climber. Theoretically they will earn it eventually, and be extra proud of their accomplishment and treat the climber like a precious jewel, buffing it with wood polish and chamois cloths every night.

Truth be told Amelia has 100% bought on. It's been at least 5 days now, and every morning when I come downstairs she is dressed in her school uniform, pajamas neatly put away, waiting for me. She bustles about the house seeing what she can do to be helpful. See this video as evidentiary proof point:

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Amelia has already completed two boxes, so the climber has a platform and slide. She has been a delight in general, with only a few lapses into caveman-like behavio(u)r. Oliver has been slightly more lukewarm to the concept, but it has helped his positivity towards getting dressed in the morning, and it's really nice to have a way to spot reward him for being a wonderful boy when he is. Rarely. ;)

Moment of the recently transplanted

Me, picking Amelia up from a birthday party: "So, did you eat any REAL food without sugar in it?"

Amelia: "Yes, I had carrots and tomaahhhtoes."

She said it the British way! And in a non-ironic tone of voice. And so it starts...

Fun with my new phone

Just a couple of cute pictures. Apparently I enjoy fiddling around with my new mobile....

Mary the Super Mom

Would you like to know what Mary is doing in this picture? Hmm? SEWING! Sewing little tiny name tags onto little tiny British school uniforms. Did I guess when I met her at age 22 on the streets of New York City that she would be doing this a decade later? I would have fallen in love with her even faster of course. Like, in 5 minutes instead of 10.

Two bits of Amelia's writing

First, note the addition I found on the bottom of the grocery list I'd been working on and left on the table:


Second, her teacher sent home the first set of spelling words on Friday, with a really nice long letter about how completely optional it was, including suggestions for games to play to practice spellings plus a Challenge at the bottom (after writing each word 4x) of trying to write a sentence. I have no idea how many kids are doing this but Amelia got going Friday night, trying to use as many spelling words as she could. The words are almost entirely simple CVC words, with a few sight words (was, the, and). Here's the Challenge Amelia put together:



She was disappointed last night when she had no homework left to do, so she prepared her show & tell dead enormous wasp to take in today. About 10 feet from school she became concerned that the kids might find her contribution odd. We'll see....Here is Miss (horrifying) Wasp:

In the category of perplexing...

This is from my trip to the grocery store yesterday. Yes, I was the weirdo trying to hide behind my children's bodies as I took pictures of soup cans.

"Cock-a-leekie?!" I didn't browse long enough to figure out what it could possibly be. It was stacked innocently near the chicken broth I was selecting.