"Do you want to be in gymnastics? Because gymnastics costs MONEY. And I won't have any MONEY to spend on GYMNASTICS, if I have to use it all to buy TOILETPAPER!!!"
Absurd, the things I catch myself yelling when I'm tired. Sopping wet toilet paper is not play-doh. Noemie.
I'm happy to report that things are finally normalizing. Giannina is doing her part by maturing at an alarming rate. Alarming, I tell you! By 10 weeks she was sleeping through the night. By week 12, she was flipping over onto her backside when we'd lay her down for tummy time. In fact, now we can't keep her on her tummy at all.
She's so stinkin cute. She sucks her thumb...always seems surprised when she finds it, but she loves that thing. And already growing out of her 3-6 month sized onesies, not yet 4 months old. At church, she's known as Gia, Nina, and "little girl Dominic." She does look a lot like her brother!
Dominic and Noemie finished their three month trial of Kung Fu. They liked it at first, but only a few weeks in, Noemie was hiding in the bathroom during practice. Making little toilet paper villages no doubt. By the end of the third month, it took all our creative parenting powers to get her to the class without a breakdown. The instructors never did take kindly to her charms. The class would be doing high kicks and she was chasing imaginary butterflies. I guess she's just not the kung-fu type. But she can count in Chinese now. And that's gotta be worth something. Dominic did much better.
I organized the playgroups for our church this summer. God has been protecting me with that for sure! I set a date at a local bowling alley at 10 am, and when the group showed up, we were told that they would have no free lanes till 3 pm. We spent the next 5 minutes debating our options. Then the manager showed up and told us there were a couple of lanes they could give us at the far end. Free of charge. And just enough lanes for our group, but we could only use them for an hour and a half. After an hour and a half our kids were crazy-loopy, celebrating every throw with a dog pile of preschoolers.... Perfect timing! On the day we planned an afternoon shaving cream fight, the storms clouds rolled away right before go-time. When we planned a morning at the YMCA pool, the storm clouds held off till lunch. That particular day was a lot of fun for the kids who've really improved on their swimming. Unfortunately, Toby spied an unattended pizza box nearby. I caught him walking around with half a pizza pie, chewing on one end, the other end touching his toes, oil dripping down his face and chest. Yikes! The owner of the pizza returned shortly and was not nearly as amused as I'd hoped she'd be. Toby! Before bedtime that night (a mere 4 hours later) Toby had also emptied his bedroom bookcase (complete with shelves), broken my only hair comb, pantsed Dominic, smacked Noemie square in the face, and finger-painted on my dining room chairs with chocolate milk. Toby keeps me very busy.
Here comes trouble... and it's wearing a speedo!
What else have I missed? Ho dee hum hum. Oh yes. I turned... well... I had a big birthday. A really big one. I'm on top of the hill and I'm scared to look down. However, I had a fabulous birthday party and my fabulous husband recruited my dear friends and family to pitch in on a most fabulous gift. I have my first, very own portable, internet-accessing device. And it's big. And the screen resolution is incredible. And I can draw on it using my finger. It's so COOL! Danny bought it one of those military-grade looking cases because children can and will break anything. (They're like those little bombs with feet on the Super Mario 3 death ships.) So how have I put this technological marvel to work in my life? Playing lots of "Draw Something" with my sister-in-law. But more importantly, I used it to show the kids Whitney Houston's performance of the Star Spangled Banner when we learned about the national anthem in preparation for Independence Day. And I showed them digital brochures of our national parks when we covered America's major geological features: the Rocky Mountains, Appalachian mountains, Mississippi River, and southwestern deserts. These days we are preparing for the Olympics, studying a different sport every day. We've spent the last two days reading elementary-level biographies of track and field medal winners like Alice Coachman, Jesse Owens, and Wilma Rudolph. I downloaded the London 2012 App (LOCOG) that sends me results as they happen; and NBC Olympics Live Extra (NBC) that allows me to see all the events...live if I want to... and not just the edited versions of NBC's preference. (Sailing, for instance, is never broadcast. And if I want to watch the table tennis recap, I'd have to wait till midnight.) I also downloaded an application called Flags and Capitals (Xcentric) which shows flags from all the world's countries, as well as Canadian territories, U.S. States, and the Olympic flag. It also gives the capital of each and the geographic coordinates that correspond. It will even locate the country on a world map. So when Jamaica or Russia or whoever wins a medal, we can find that country instantly and look at its flag. (This last app is not very clean-cut. Their Florida flag, for instance, looks like they stole the image at a very tiny resolution and blew it up, then shrunk it again, then blew it up again, so that the State Seal is a big blob rather than a discernible image. I think it may be the worst flag sample, though.) All those apps were free! So was The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. This is a fabulous, incredibly encouraging and inspiring magazine for moms who like to teach their kids cool stuff. (Which is essentially what homeschooling is, according to some educational philosophies.) Being able to comb issues past and present, free of charge and on command is just... brilliant. This incredible new toy of mine... just brilliant.
So that's what we've been up to these days. Sometime next week we'll be heading out to some abandoned public school P.E. track to time ourselves on 100 and 400 meter dashes. We'll be keeping track of the medal winners for our top 50 favorite events. (Gotta get my hands on some butcher paper to make the chart. Add that to my list.)
For the record, Noemie does not like shaving cream.
Quote of the week: "Save me, George Washington!"
I love that 18th century patriots have joined the ranks of imaginary characters in Noemie's head
No comments:
Post a Comment