oh the places you'll go!

you might remember my little academic e from two years ago. she's come a long way, baby, and this momma is thrilled.

at the end of preschool last year, e began to read. she could tackle the basic three letter words like cat, pan, bin, fun, men etc. she also had a few sight words under her belt, but fluency was lacking because there were so many letter patterns that she just hadn't mastered yet. none the less, i was pretty excited.

when she started kindergarten, it was like it all came to a screeching halt. she knew what she knew, but she wasn't going forward in any way. until now. since january, my little e has been rockin' and rollin'.

for the dr's birthday, i broke out all of his books that had been buried in the garage since the big move. e was thrilled. every night she sits up in her bed going through each of the books before falling asleep. tonight, as i was making my way into her room to tuck her in, i caught her reading away.

and in addition to books, she is a sign reading nut. every where we go she is taking in all the text she can. she reads signs at the dry cleaners, magazine titles in the grocery store checkout, signs on the gas pump, product names in rite-aid...

and i can't help but think, oh the places you'll go!

wait for it...

yesterday i had e alone in the car for a few minutes. with three little chatterboxes under foot, i cherish the one on one time we get together.

momma: e, i picked up some books for you today at the library

e: what kind of books?

m: some stories and then a few books about earth day. do you remember earth day?

e: yeah, mom! i love earth day.

m: do you want to use the books to think of some new ideas on how you can work to help the environment this year?

e: yes! i do mom. i also want to go on a litter walk. i want to learn how to recycle like you do. i want to save water... (and she went on and on) and then, mom, i want to start a club and teach all of my friends how to save the earth.

m: wow, ellie, that's a big plan. i love it. do you really want to learn about recycling in our house?

e: yes!

m: i bet you grandy can help you when she comes next month. she's REALLY good at recycling. maybe she can teach you everything she knows about recycling and you guys can come up with a sorting system. then, you can be our household recycling manager! does that sound good?

e: yes, mom! i can't wait to be in charge of recycling.

when daddy arrived home from work, i told ellie to tell him our plan. she told him the story, but left out the part about her title. i prompted her to tell him that part.

m: tell daddy what you job title is going to be.

e: i don't remember

m: you know... household... recycling... (waiting for her to try and recall it) manager.

e: (throwing her head back and laughing) mom, that's not my title! it's household recycling girlager! i'm not a man!


introducing e, our future household recycling girlager.

book bucks

when i was growing up all the schools participated in the "book it" program sponsored by pizza hut. you read a book. you earned a star sticker and a button. you read some more books. you earned more stars. eventually, you earned enough stars to buy a personal pan pizza. it was motivating and fun for the pizza lovers out there.

but that was on the east coast. out here in cali they dance to a different reading drum. a cooler one, if i do say so myself. it's called "book bucks".

on monday the kids are sent home with a newspaper. each day they are tasked with reading the paper for 15 minutes and doing an age appropriate newspaper scavenger hunt. it was pretty fun to watch e read her paper. it was a new form of text for her and she liked exploring something different.

this doesn't really surprise me as her daddy and my daddy are big fans of newspapers. my father worked in print media and spends each morning perusing his local paper from cover to cover. e's daddy skims the on-line newspaper for each city where he has ever lived (yes, every day. and the number of cities is starting to add up.)

back to e- so she read her paper, she hunted for words, pictures, headlines etc.

at the end of the week she turned in her documentation and earned her "bucks". this is where the program rocks, in my opinion. local companies sponsor the "book bucks" by accepting them in exchange for certain goods. when the kids received their newspaper it came with an insert indicating who the sponsors were and the items they were selling in exchange for "bucks".

my e tends to be pretty thoughtful in decisions such as this. she scrutinized the choices, counted her bucks, and came up with a plan. her choices? why two goldfish... friends, meet sarah and sunny. here's to hoping our third set of goldfish make it!

and a happy meal complete with playtime on the "forbidden" germ (i mean, ah-hem, play) structure.

this mcdonald's avoiding momma was happy to oblige. she earned the "bucks" all by herself, so i thought it fitting to let her choose how she would spend them... even if it meant lunch at contamination station (joking- we used to eat here way too much so i am finally putting my foot down. it's not that bad in moderation but we were struggling with moderation). and e loved every bite.

olivia ice skating

for the past month d has been driving all of us a little nutty in one isolated area. anytime that it is her turn to select a television show she requests the same one. over and over and over and over and over again. e and i have begun to protest.

i have been thinking about it for the past few days and wondering what her motivation might be. she shows some interest in other shows, but really, she doesn't WATCH any shows. i'll press play on the dvr she'll say: momma, cozy up me! i'll snuggle her onto the couch with her bunny and blanket. she hangs all "cozied up" for about 2.3 minutes and then the girl is off. e covets her limited tv time each day, but d, not so much.

and so it had me perplexed (i realize that the answer to this problem won't end world hunger or anything, but none the less, i was thinking about it).

fast forward to yesterday. i was putting on my makeup in the bathroom with d and we were chatting. she said she wanted to watch "olivia ice skating". shocker. i explained to her that we weren't watching shows right now and that maybe she could try something new next time. she was pretty firm in her reply: no, momma. i love olivia ice skating. (at that moment i considered an "accidental" dvr erase).


i went on with makeup and d was just sort of bouncing, playing, watching me, and looking at herself in the mirror. after a few minutes, she sort of forgot that i was there and she went into her "play mode". she was dancing around, spinning, lifting up her leg etc. (this is all pretty typical behavior for our bouncy little d, so i went on with make-up application.) suddenly she remembered that i was there and she began to talk to me:

olivia good dancer, momma.

olivia wears ice skates.

i like dancing, momma.

daddy take me ice skating, momma.

i fall down. it was silly (and then she threw her head back and laughed with the biggest ear to ear grin).

WOWZA! and then it all came back to me and the mystery obsession with "olivia ice skating" became clear... i'll share.

right after christmas, my car needed an oil change. my husband (who takes incredibly good care of me) scheduled an appointment for a saturday morning. when the day came, he grabbed a kiddo and headed out the door. (i would like to insert that i objected and told him to leave the kiddos with me, but he's good like that and insisted). the kiddo under his arm was delaney.

after d inhaled 3 snacks and a beverage from the vending machine in 6 minutes, scott decided they needed a better plan. he knew that just next door were a few big box shops where he might be able to kill some time and so they took their show in the road. somehow between the door of the dealership and the door of the babies-r-us, scott discovered a temporary ice rink that had been put up for the holidays. and so without any further ado, he took d ice skating. and from what i hear, they had a pretty swell time.

scott didn't have a camera with him, so there are no snaps to commemorate d's first time on skates.

when they arrived home, i was a bit shocked. d told me the story with stars in her eyes for her daddy-love. it was like she had just come home from a first date. for her, this marked the first time that she had a special daddy-daughter bonding day. and this girl was in daddy-daughter heaven. but there was a wee little problem... e has been wanting to go skating for centuries (well, that might be a little exaggeration since she's only 5, but you get the idea). if e knew that d had been treated to skating she just might have gone through the roof. and so we just didn't talk about it. what she didn't know would certainly not kill her. in fact, it would go miles for our household. and so that was that. d mentioned it occasionally a few times in the first few days after the big skate and then never mentioned it again... until yesterday.

and to be honest, her mentioning it made me feel two things:

1.) it made me fall in love with my husband. i mean, i'm already in love with him every day, but occasionally little things will take place and i fall in love with him all over again but for new reasons. as i listened to d babble on and on about her daddy, i saw such a wonderful side of my husband. he was born to be the father of girls. from such an early age, each one of his daughters has "adored" written on their hearts. by design, girls need to feel it this from their daddy. (there is literally gobs of research that indicates this.) i can't explain it, but it is so important. and as i watched d revel in that adoration, my heart swelled for my husband. i feel so "rich"* to have that man as my husband, and i feel even more "rich" to have him as "my baby daddy".

2.) the second thing it made me feel was that we might have done a disservice to our girlies by keeping it a secret in our household. obviously, it was etched into little d's mind. it was special to her and she cherished that moment. we should have let her talk about it and celebrate her special time with daddy. sure, e would have had her feelings a little hurt, but the truth is that she has had many special daddy dates over the years. teaching our girls to share in each other's relationships is going to be so important. i want them to cuddle under the covers and talk about their dating life together (you know, when we let them date at 35). i want them to loan each other their favorite dress for a special event. i anticipate them being sisters that communicate. it such an important skill, but it is certainly learned. the only thing that i taught them by keeping delaney's date a secret is that in our family we hide things. but the truth is, that goes against ever fiber of my being. i believe in openness, even when it is hard. i believe in talking through things and working them out (even if it includes hurt feelings or other less desirable emotions). and so d showed me that in our house, we don't have secrets.

and so later in the afternoon, d asked to watch a show. you don't even have to guess what she picked. we sat together and watched "olivia ice skating" and then we told e about her special date. e was a little bit jealous at first, but i gently reminded her that right around the same time that d and daddy went ice skating e and daddy had gone to the movies together. after that little chat, e asked me for some paper plates... you know, so d could teach her some skating moves on the carpet. priceless.



* i'm using the word "rich" here instead of "blessed". i'm in the process of trying to figure out the place for "blessed" in my vocabulary. maybe when i figure out how i feel about that i'll share in another post. it is becoming so overused and is hard for me to wrap my brain around.

happy birthday, baby!

yesterday was a special day for our schoolgirl, e. her classroom had a big celebration to remember dr. seuss's birthday. they wore pj's to school (which attracted some interesting looks when we arrived at the library AFTER school. hee hee.) each kiddo brought their favorite dr. seuss book to share with the class. they had a guest reader. they painted their own version of the cat in the hat. they rhymed. they wrote stories. they ate special little dr. seuss cakes made for them by their teacher...

overall, it was a really fun day. i loved watching her select her story to bring. it allowed me glimpse into her thought process. her first instinct was to lean towards 1 fish, 2 fish, red fish blue fish (which is the popular choice in her classroom). but as she began to think it through, she went with horton hatches the egg because it is one of HER favorites.

it was so fun to be on the other side of this academic scenario. being the teacher was fun. but being the mom was wonderful. it's fun to see a room full of young minds open up and embrace learning, but it is fascinating to watch YOUR OWN young mind do this before your eyes. i must also say that on the teacher side of things, you didn't get to see the how they took what they learned at school and wove it into their lives. this week, e has really been "seeing" her life through the lens of dr. seuss. because we had to bring a book to school, we now have a huge pile of seuss books out from the garage- e has been reading all week. she has been rhyming and commenting on his illustrations. she has been naming her stuffed animals after characters in his book...

happy birthday, dr. seuss! and thank you mrs. k! this day was a hit.