2.8 or, A Kiddley Divey

Dear Miriam,

November was a fairly relaxed month for you.  Only you, though.  Everyone else had adjustments happening.  But your days seemed to roll along without many speed bumps.

The thing you said the most in November: I want a treat from my Trick-or-Treat bag!

The furniture and boxes from the Madison house arrived, about two weeks earlier than I had expected them.  So everything else was suddenly thrown back into frantic unpacking mode.  The garage went from almost organized to just full of boxes again.  It took the rest of the month to regain any kind of order to the place.  We finally have furniture in the living room.  You like that mainly because you have more places to line up your dinosaurs.  Grandma and I spent a lot of time unpacking kitchen things, and wishing we knew someone who needed kitchen things.  Corbin liked unpacking all of the toys.  You were happy to adopt all of the stuffed animals that we found, but most of the Madison toys are for older kids, and not that interesting to you.

You are still an outside child.  You love to walk to the playground, climb on the big rocks, and climb on the climbing wall.  You like to play Mama Bird and Baby Bird and find pretend worms to eat.  You like to take the dogs to the dog park.  You even like to run errands with us, which is quite a change from your brother.

You do a lot of singing lately.  You know a lot of songs that Grandpa sings to you.  Sometimes you sing the words, and sometimes you just sing nonsense to the tune.  One day I sang you the Little Bunny Fu-Fu song.  You thought it was funny, until I did the hand gestures, too.  Then you said, "I don't like the bopping on the head!"  So then I sang it with just the bunny ears.  Then you would get impatient, and not let Bunny Fu-Fu have three chances from the Good Fairy.  You wanted to skip ahead to the part where I said, "Poof!" and he turned into a goon.  Then there was the time when I paused, and you thought I was done.  You told me, "You forgot the moral of the story part!"  That made me laugh.

Your days got a new routine because of Corbin switching to the new school.  It seems to be good for you, since he's in class when you're getting ready for your nap.  There are still days when you don't nap, but they are growing fewer.  Your bedtime routine continues to be good, as well.  Now if we could just solve the riddle of when you decide to eat or not, it would all be clear sailing.  We tried out some restaurants around us on the weekends.  Sometimes you sit and eat and eat and eat.  Sometimes we have to take turns between eating and wrestling with you because you couldn't possibly sit still.  Some nights, I just went ahead and fed you your dinner for your bedtime snack.

The month ended with Thanksgiving, of course.  We were very relaxed this year.  Grandma and Grandpa drove down to San Diego to visit with Uncle Alex and Aunt Lena.  Corbin and Dad did the grocery shopping, as evidenced by the giant turkey balloon which came home with them.  Corbin named it the Perky Turkey Who Loves Humans, but you mainly called it the Turkey Balloon.  I don't know if that's because you thought the name was too long, of if you didn't actually realize that was its name.  We haven't had a balloon around in a long time, so you two had lots of fun with it.  And then we cooked a small turkey breast roast, which turned out quite well, and had sweet potatoes and pie and it was very nice.  Our first Thanksgiving in our new house.  I look forward to many more.

Love,
Mom

The living room taking shape:

The dining room totally out of shape:

Pig pile on Dad:

The Turkey Balloon:

Happy girl:

5.9 or, The Perky Turkey Who Loves Humans

Dear Corbin,

This month started off fairly relaxed, although with the occasional sugar high from the Halloween candy.  We continued to unpack and sort and clean and organize.  You love unpacking things, especially all of the toys, of course.  You don't love sorting through things to get rid of them.  Grandma and I would make a box of stuff to go to Goodwill or the Mission, and you would take things back out that you wanted to keep.  We would say, "Come look through this stuff and see which ones you want to keep."  You would say, without looking, "We have to keep it all!"

Grandpa arranged for the Madison furniture and things to come out on a moving truck.  I thought it would take four or five weeks, but instead it took about 10 days.  So that created a whole second wave of moving chaos.  Boxes that I had planned on unpacking were suddenly buried in the garage again.  The living room finally had furniture.  The dining room could suddenly seat 22 people.  We could open a store selling gently used small appliances.

It was chaotic, but also very satisfying.  Grandma is so happy to have her scrapbooks back.  Once we did find the kitchen boxes, we finally have the kitchen mostly done.  We had some fun going through the cedar chest from Madison, looking at all of my old school work.  You definitely love getting to play with our old Transformers and G.I. Joe toys.

You started at your new school this month.  It's a different schedule, since you are in the afternoon class, but you all seem to have adjusted well.  Grandma and Grandpa are glad not to have to drive all the way back over to Fern every day.  You seem to have integrated into Mrs. Hedley's class just fine.  So, once again, I seem to have worried about you for no reason.

Changing classes has not improved your outlook on homework, however.  You still crab about it all the time.  Out of our homework time each night, about 50% of the time is you complaining.  30% of the time is you actually doing work.  20% of the time is me making you do it over after you did it badly because you were too busy complaining to do it well the first time.  I don't love encouraging unthinking obedience, but there is a certain skill to learn about just getting the paperwork done.

There is some writing that you like to do: your question journal.  When we started it at the beginning of the year, you told me your answers and I wrote them down.  Now, most days you do your own writing, which is pretty cool.  You also draw a lot of pictures, so I think your next journal might have to be a sketch journal.  You once said to me while watching me write down your answer, "How do you do that so fast?"  I said, "Because I practiced, just like you practice when you do your homework."

And then it was Thanksgiving!  Grandma and Grandpa went down to Uncle Alex's house in San Diego.  We had thought about all going, but it worked out better for us to stay home.  You and Dad went out that did the grocery shopping.  You came back with a nice little turkey breast roast, some sweet potatoes, an apple pie, and a giant turkey balloon that was almost bigger than you.  You named it The Perky Turkey Who Loves Humans.  I thought you might just call it the Perky Turkey, but no, you called it by its whole name.  It made me laugh.  You did all of your usual helium balloon things with it: towed it all over the house, tied various things to it to see they would pull it down or be lifted up, and then showed us every day how much helium it had lost.  I don't know what it is about helium balloons, but you still love them.  We went to the dog park, and the playground, and dinner turned out pretty well, so it was a nice day and good beginning to the holiday season.

Love,
Mom


Volcano in mixed media:

Unpacking:

Pig pile on Dad:

The Perky Turkey Who Loves Humans: