Wordless Wednesday: Little Bookworm (Part Two)

Yesterday Grace (6 years old) spent a good deal of the day reading--

really reading--

the first book in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series, Little House in the Big Woods.

When bedtime came, she had read through page 100...and I had pry the book from her hands.  ;) 

I asked her at some point during the day if she was understanding most of what she was reading.  She paused, considered my question seriously, replied that she was...and immediately wondered aloud about why panthers were black, since there were so many other colors they could be.  She answered her own question and told me that being black would help panthers hide in the trees at night while they hunt. So, yes, she's understanding a good bit of the book! 

This post is linked to 5 Minutes for Mom  and Energizer Bunnies' Mommy Reports for Wordless Wednesday.

Wordless Wednesday: Little Bookworm

Grace (6 years old and our biggest little bookworm)

This post is linked to 5 Minutes for Mom  and Energizer Bunnies' Mommy Reports for Wordless Wednesday.

Wordless Wednesday: What a doll!

Or, "My, what big arms you have!"

Grace (6 years old) fell asleep holding her favorite baby doll Emma (formerly known as one of the Emilys) and ended up like this...with Emma's face.

This post is linked to 5 Minutes for Mom  and Energizer Bunnies' Mommy Reports for Wordless Wednesday.

Josiah the Builder

I've mentioned before that Josiah loves to build things, like his unusual (but functional) desk and his huge (non-functional) bird bath, as well as his idea of how to get leaves off the tree with a leaf swacker.  Well, he's been at it again.  He was very excited to tell me that he had built a new kind of skateboard--one where you can sit comfortably while you skate around. 

He calls it The Throne Chair.

When I saw the flimsy construction (nothing is actually attached to anything else), I was not as thrilled as he was.  But I tried to be a good momma and pretend while he demonstrated...

The motion (a.k.a., balancing so that nothing slides off the skateboard):

The braking system (a.k.a., lean to one side and the boards will slow you down): 

The victorious pose (a.k.a., be a goofball for the camera):

(I was a meanie and told him he couldn't ride his Throne Chair in the street.  Too many cars fly past our driveway all day long.)

Josiah could be dangerous if he could ever keep up with all his tools...  ;)

Small but mighty

Guess who learned how to ride her bike without training wheels today? 

Much like Josiah learned on his own, Grace (6 years old) came running inside to tell me that she could ride her bike without training wheels.  She showed me how she could ride on the flat parts

She's very careful to make sure everything is just right, and then she's ready to go.

and also on our (slight) hill.

She looks a little worried here!

Pretty soon, she was riding all over our backyard

and saying, "This is pretty fun!"

She's fearless, I tell you!

Overheard: The Facebook Edition

This post is composed entirely of conversations and other things I posted on Facebook.  We have had a week of illnesses throughout my family--each person being affected by either a stomach bug or a head cold--and I'm taking the easy way out for an "Overheard" post.    

 

January 2012...

 I think KOS (kindergartner over shoulder) may be even worse than TOS (teen over shoulder).

Grace [5 years old]: Mom, is her name Brenda?

Me: Yes. 

Grace: Brenda...who's Brenda? Do I know her? Oh, yeah. OK...Does Cindy know her?

Me: [Giving up looking at Facebook until Grace is completely occupied by something else, because this could, literally, take all day if I tried to answer ALL her questions about people on Facebook--how I know them, whether she knows them, and whether they know each other.]

When I posted the above conversation on Facebook, my KOS read most of that on her own. And wanted the full explanation.

~~~ 

Uh oh...my 5 year old just set the timer. She says I have 12 more minutes and then it's her turn on the computer. ;)

~~~

Grace:  It's really fascinating. Well, the way *I* look at it.

 

February 2012...

My 5 year old has spent much of the day playing with a plastic grocery store bag she has named Gerald. She's been running around the yard, throwing Gerald up into the air to let the wind catch him, and then getting him back so she can do it all over again. (He went over the fence a number of times, so I tied a kite string to him.) She spent a few minutes before bedtime letting him "fly" over the air purifier in our bedroom.

(How did this start? She first began pretending the plastic bag was a paper lantern that she sent into the sky to celebrate her daughter's [baby doll's] birthday, like in the movie "Tangled." I have no idea where she got the name Gerald from.)

My guess now is that the name "Gerald" came as a variation of what was on the plastic bags she used as her several Geralds she ended up with.  They were all yellow Dollar General bags.

~~~

Grace:  Mom, were you the youngest in your family?

Me: No.

Grace:   Who was?

Me:  Jonathan.

Grace:   How many kids were in your family? 

Me:  Four. I had three brothers.

Grace:  Wow!! You were more crowded with brothers than I am!!

(She already knows this. I'm not sure why she was questioning me--it's probably because I was working on taxes and she thought I needed more to think about.)

 

March 2012... 

Wind advisory, high pollen count, and freeze warning for tonight. Yay.

March 5th in Georgia.  It wasn't even spring yet, and the pollen count was already outrageous.

~~~

Josiah [9 years old]:  I don't like black-soled shoes. They leave marks all over the floor. I mean, you can't even tap dance in them!

He said this with a straight face, as though he knows how to tap dance and enjoys practicing on our kitchen floor in his sneakers.

~~~

Overheard in the car yesterday when there were some pretty dramatic clouds...

Grace: [gasp]  Look! It's Mt. Everest! 

Josiah: Mt. Everest is in Asia. That's a cloud.

Grace: Nope. It's Mt. Everest. I can see the pointy mountain parts.

Josiah: Well, show it to me tomorrow. It won't be there.

He reminded her a few more times that Mt. Everest is in Asia, then dropped it because we had arrived home. This afternoon when we were once again in the car, he asked her if she could still see Mt. Everest. Because Grace loves to exasperate her brother, she said yes. ;)

~~~

14 year old Robert's Haiku :)

Flowers run over
Destroyed by lawnmower
Still lots of pollen

~~~ 

While sitting on my lap this morning, Grace began an odd conversation...

Grace [6 years old]:  Mom, what's the biggest lie you could tell someone?

Me [wondering where she was going with this, and pausing to consider the question]:  Well, I think the biggest lie you could say is that there is no God.

Grace nods, expectantly, and waits.

Me:   Another really big lie would be that Jesus didn't really die on the cross and come back to life. What do you think?

Grace [nodding again at my response]:  I would have said that the biggest lie was that God doesn't love you.

WOW.

~~~ 

After getting lots and lots of candy at an Easter egg hunt:

Grace + candy - her big brother Josiah = a whole lot of chatter.

Josiah is home now, and not a minute too soon...

They are kind of lost without each other.  This is a consideration when thinking about sending Josiah to a week long sleep-away camp this summer.

~~~

I checked out an "Adventures in Odyssey" story from the library and Grace is listening to it now.  It's on cassette tape, and as I was flipping the tape over from side 1 to side 2, you would have thought my 6 year old's eyes would pop out of her head--"It's on BOTH SIDES?"  Yes, and I feel old now.  Thank you.

~~~

I made liquid soap yesterday using a Pinterest recipe. I let it cool, and then had Jason help me pour the goopy soap into a gallon jug. At some point, he looked at me and asked, "So, is it tomorrow that we make our own butter?"

Just as soon as that cow I ordered comes in...

I have to add that my friend Kathleen has made both butter and cheese.  I think I'll live vicariously through her.

~~~

My Dove chocolate wrapper said "Indulge your sense of enjoyment."  So I ate another chocolate.

‎"Feel free to be you."  Hmmm...I like to eat chocolate. I think I'll have another one.  (And, really, who else am I free to be?  Anyone else...well, that's identity theft, folks.)

I was in a strange mood that day.  My friends put up with me, though.  :) 

 

April 2012...

Grace:  I bet there's only one song in the entire universe that I don't like!

Me: Really? What song is that?

Grace: I don't know. I haven't been all over the the universe.

Silly me.

Puppies!

(No, they are not our puppies...)

Last month we went to visit a soft-coated Wheaten terrier breeder to kick off our search of "a puppy I'm not allergic to."  Alas, I am allergic to these cute little puppies.  Just because a particular dog breed is on the list of hypoallergenic breeds does not mean I won't be allergic to them.

Josiah (9 years old)

Which is a shame, because it was definitely love at first sight!

Grace (6 years old)

Grace holding a pup and sitting with the momma.

Josiah's favorite of the puppies

This was a very sweet momma who didn't mind all of us holding her babies--she would make the rounds every once in a while to sniff her babies to make sure each one was OK.  She didn't even mind Grace going into the puppy pen.  

Grace in the pen, helping a puppy find a place to nurse.

So...the search continues!

This post is linked to 5 Minutes for Mom  and Energizer Bunnies' Mommy Reports for Wordless Wednesday.