Due to our exciting—and apparently exhausting—afternoon, Miriam fell asleep before Rachel's school bus arrived (at 4:30) and I didn't wake her up until shortly after 5:00 (Rachel was snatched up by Diego, who had a round of chemo today and was looking for a buddy to sit on the couch and play Wii with him). That's terrible timing for a nap.
We let her decide what to make for dinner. She knew she wanted breakfast for dinner but had trouble deciding between pancakes and waffles. In the end we convinced her to do waffles by telling her she could turn the waffle iron. She made a beautiful batch of blueberry waffles (with a little help from Daddy). We were just cleaning up from dinner and getting on our pyjamas and so forth when my cell phone rang.
It was the primary president wondering if I wanted her to swing by and pick me up for our meeting tonight. I had completely forgotten about this meeting and scrambled to get both me and Benjamin ready to go. I would've loved to leave Benjamin behind but the semester has started, which means homework is here again, and Benjamin wasn't nearly ready to go to bed so he got to tag along. The girls were a little distraught about story time being cut short ("No Narnia?!" Rachel wailed) but I left them in the very capable hands of their father, halfway through The Very Clumsy Click Beetle.
Unfortunately/Humorously I neglected to warn him that book was equipped with an electronic "clicker" and when that clumsy click beetle learns to "click and flip" there are sound effects that go along with it.
He said he nearly dropped the book with fright and that both girls jumped. Miriam and I have read through that book a time or two before, so either she forgot that it makes a clicking sound or she was reacting to Andrew.
When I came home Miriam was still awake. She ran out of her room to show me what she had been doing during "journal time."
Many of those words were copied out of a little Russian/English dictionary board book.
She loves journal time, a privilege which was only recently extended to her because she so much wants to go to school like her big sister (who gets journal time at night). I was a little apprehensive to give Miriam this privilege because she's always been my little graffiti artist, marking up this and that with her own personal flair (Rachel only ever drew on herself).
Lately, though, she's done pretty well with remembering that we only draw on paper (the last thing she did was colour a white plastic toy phone pink with a crayon, but that was months ago—and obviously she just wanted a pink phone). And she's been doing so well with writing that we felt it was something we should perhaps encourage rather than discourage. Still, I'm nervous about what writing utensils she has in her possession and confiscated the purple pen before sending her back to bed and settling in the rocking chair to nurse Benjamin.
As I sat rocking Benjamin to sleep I heard a little *scritch*scratch*scritch*scratch* so I went into the girls' room to check on them and found Miriam CARVING HER NAME INTO THE BED FRAME.
"I suggest you quit *that* activity immediately," I instructed before siccing Andrew on her. He gave her a little lecture.We let her decide what to make for dinner. She knew she wanted breakfast for dinner but had trouble deciding between pancakes and waffles. In the end we convinced her to do waffles by telling her she could turn the waffle iron. She made a beautiful batch of blueberry waffles (with a little help from Daddy). We were just cleaning up from dinner and getting on our pyjamas and so forth when my cell phone rang.
It was the primary president wondering if I wanted her to swing by and pick me up for our meeting tonight. I had completely forgotten about this meeting and scrambled to get both me and Benjamin ready to go. I would've loved to leave Benjamin behind but the semester has started, which means homework is here again, and Benjamin wasn't nearly ready to go to bed so he got to tag along. The girls were a little distraught about story time being cut short ("No Narnia?!" Rachel wailed) but I left them in the very capable hands of their father, halfway through The Very Clumsy Click Beetle.
Unfortunately/Humorously I neglected to warn him that book was equipped with an electronic "clicker" and when that clumsy click beetle learns to "click and flip" there are sound effects that go along with it.
He said he nearly dropped the book with fright and that both girls jumped. Miriam and I have read through that book a time or two before, so either she forgot that it makes a clicking sound or she was reacting to Andrew.
When I came home Miriam was still awake. She ran out of her room to show me what she had been doing during "journal time."
Many of those words were copied out of a little Russian/English dictionary board book.
She loves journal time, a privilege which was only recently extended to her because she so much wants to go to school like her big sister (who gets journal time at night). I was a little apprehensive to give Miriam this privilege because she's always been my little graffiti artist, marking up this and that with her own personal flair (Rachel only ever drew on herself).
Lately, though, she's done pretty well with remembering that we only draw on paper (the last thing she did was colour a white plastic toy phone pink with a crayon, but that was months ago—and obviously she just wanted a pink phone). And she's been doing so well with writing that we felt it was something we should perhaps encourage rather than discourage. Still, I'm nervous about what writing utensils she has in her possession and confiscated the purple pen before sending her back to bed and settling in the rocking chair to nurse Benjamin.
As I sat rocking Benjamin to sleep I heard a little *scritch*scratch*scritch*scratch* so I went into the girls' room to check on them and found Miriam CARVING HER NAME INTO THE BED FRAME.
After I had Benjamin asleep in his bed I went in to talk to Miriam, who had been silently crying in her bed. "I didn't mean to do it!" she told me (and I can totally see how this was an accident...uh-huh). We discussed the list of things we're allowed to write on (it's relatively short: paper and...that's it—just paper) and journaling privileges have been revoked for the time being (unless she'd like to write at the kitchen table).
Here's some of her "legal" art projects:
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| Rachel from Miriam |
She did math and writing and even a behaviour chart (the frowny face with an X and the happy face with a check). She was terribly upset that I told her that even all that work wasn't enough to convince me to put her on the bus the next morning. She loves doing spelling tests (we quiz her on how to spell two and three letter words and she'll sound them out) and is actually pretty good at it. The other day she wrote a letter to her friend RDN (Alden) and when she was trying to spell Edward she said, "How many Ds are in Edward? Two?"
"Just one," I said. "Edw..."
"No, Mom. There are two," she said. "Ed-Duh. Ward-Duh."
"You're right. There are two Ds in Edward. One in the beginning and one at the end."
Oh, and this is a bit of anachronism for you, but here we go anyway...
She takes naps so rarely now that when she wakes up she acts a little disoriented. Sometimes she thinks it's the next day already. Today, however, she remembered that it was still today. She went into the kitchen and started making dinner with Daddy while I dealt with Benjamin and tidied up the house a little. Around 6:00 I announced I was going to go pick Rachel up and asked Miriam if she wanted to come with me. She said she didn't because she was too busy cooking, so I left to get Rachel on my own.
I had just walked out the door when Miriam had a change of heart.
"I want to go to the bus stop!" she started repeating while she scrambled to get her shoes on.
She ran outside to find me and was terribly confused to see me at Diego's door.
"Rachel was at Diego's house!?" she asked. "But...when did the bus come?"
It's no wonder kids never want to nap when they have their heart set on the world standing still while they sleep.
I love your last sentence! So true!
ReplyDeleteAnd I kind of think you should leave the carving in the bed, because one day it will be a funny memory instead of an annoyance.
The bed I slept in as a child was painted metal, and had some carvings from people who went before, probably my older siblings. I liked to look at them.
Her cute little sad face made me want to cry! You could give her a block of wood and a pencil and tell her to go ahead and carve her name in it. Then give her some sandpaper and have her try to erase the carving. This could be a good object lesson on the damage you can leave and how sometimes the damage can never be erased.
ReplyDelete