baseball game

On Sunday when E's playdate had to cancel we went to a Grasshopper's baseball game (I got free tickets from work). There was a kids' carnival going on there too. She played with clay, bubbles, hula hoops, bean bags, paint, and on the playground. And we ate $5 ice cream in a styrofoam dish, which she promptly dropped on the pavement! I swooped it up, keeping most of it in the dish, and scraped off the top layer and flicked it into the bushes. This family has strong immune systems!

dance part 2

Blogger has a problem with that dance video - couldn't upload it no matter how I tried, from both computers. Here are the 2 still shots I took during the performance. Blurry I know.

dance recital May 2010

This video is their dance number, E's Creative Movement class. She's younger than most of the class, I think. It's for 4-5 year olds. I was so proud of E -- as were all the parents who have witnessed her ambivalent participation over the last year. One said he has noticed a difference in her since her surgery. Makes sense, because she's sleeping so much better. I was worried how she'd do not only because of history but also because she woke up extra early today and was acting tired all day - nonstop thumb sucking.

After the show she played outside with 2 girls we know from the class, and then I took her to Steak & Shake to celebrate her success (had to be a place with milkshakes). In-between we had to have loveys taken away during the car ride, because she wouldn't put down a big stick when I told her to do it. I know that doesn't sound like much of a punishment, but it's a big deal to her - especially if I put them in the trunk!

backfired lectures

I've hassled E so much to stop sucking her thumb, explaining honestly why, and now she says she WANTS braces and she's saving her money to pay for them!

new sound

Here's a little video of E practicing saying "thirty, forty". For a long time those 2 numbers, and 13 and 14, sounded exactly the same ("furteen"). Eventually E got frustrated at that - she knew they were supposed to sound different. So a day or two ago I showed her how to say a "th" finally and she's quite proud of herself.

my 4th mothers' day

E and I went to our favorite coffee shop for muffins and a game of "mommies & babies" chess. We just pretended the pieces were mommies, babies, and nurses. One of the pawns broke all her leg bones and all her arm bones and had to have her tonsils and adenoids out. There was live music, and I got to read the paper a little bit and enjoy 2 cups of good coffee with honey and cream.

We walked the long way home (her in the stroller which barely fits her anymore) and we stopped part-way to play in a grassy area on the college campus. I taught E how to play "Mother May I?" She enjoyed it and once she learned the rules well enough it quickly changed into a more exciting version where when you ask, "Mother, may I?" the mother answers, "No, you may not!" and then you say, "Well, I'm a bad girl, so I'm going to do it anyway!"

We planted a couple flowers that we hadn't planted Friday night. My mom brought E some petunias(?). We had to dig up dirt for them in the back yard. E insisted they be in containers, not planted in the ground.

I've now forgotten what else we did today, but I didn't really do anything other than hang out with E and relax. David took her out for a couple hours and then treated us all to pizza. He gave me a DVD I've been wanting, and E picked out a princess card for me, which came with stickers that she asked to use for her vegetable chart. She wrote out the whole message:




And because I haven't taken a picture of her in a while, here's one I took a few minutes ago:

library card!

This is one thing we did this weekend, got E her own library card. The first books she checked out were called I'm Bad, Daisy Jane the Best-Ever Flower Girl, and Flower Girl Butterflies.

E the photographer

This was taken Saturday, April 3rd, by E. She has taken several pictures now, seems to be pretty good at getting things in the frame, less good at holding the camera still.

David's aviation art

http://www.ai-aardvark.com/David_R/ART/DR_AV_ART.htm

The first painting will be in an art show at the San Diego Air & Space Museum later this summer. The middle one won first prize in the High Point Fine Art Guild show last week. The third one will be on a model box cover.