espacio

Special day today. E got her hair done, had the best milkshake ever (cookies & cream from Sonic), and lost her second tooth. She had been telling everyone about her "espacio" (Spanish for space) and now it's bigger.

insight

E and I were battling tonight over her eating 1 bite of chicken. It was taking forever and escalating. She explained why she just wouldn't take that bite: "I have a bad feeling in my mind and I can't get it out." I said, "I wish I could help you, sweetie, but I'm out of ideas. I don't know how to help you - I've tried everything I can think of, and apparently I can't help you do what you need to do."

E insisted, "Yes you can! You can help." I demanded, "How??" She had her back turned to me and mumbled. When I asked her to repeat it I understood how I could help her: "...by getting Daddy to take over."

We were surprised because she often complains about David's unyielding ways, but I guess she knew what she needed, and it was her idea. And it worked out great! She even asked for him to do the whole bedtime routine.

:(

We've been planning all week for E to visit her old preschool this afternoon, and she was so excited. But when we got a block away, she started to feel way too shy and nervous, and decided to stay in the car while I dropped off my last load of the cot sheets I've spent all year mending. The teachers' faces were so sad when they realized it was only me.

We'll try again.

Sept. 11th

E and I went to an event commemorating the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001. I decided to tell her (partially) what Sept. 11th was, in the car on the way. I said that a very scary thing happened in America 10 years ago - airplanes flew into big buildings, the buildings burned down, and lots of people died. And this "festival" we were going was for 2 things: to celebrate that we got through the scary time, and to be sad and respectful to remember all the people who died.

The first thing we did was check out the volunteer service projects that were going on. E found this one interesting enough to watch for a while. I think they were building parts for a wall for a Habitat house.


We walked around in the hot, hot sun and got discouraged that the $3 of quarters in my pocket wouldn't buy any of the concessions. Other service projects were to write notes to the troops that were stuck onto copies of Our State magazine, assemble "welcome home" baskets for people who've just obtained housing after being homeless, and assemble care packages for troops. We missed the last two - they'd used up all their supplies before we got there.

homework

E doing her first homework!

The assignment was to trace the dotted lines (gets them ready for handwriting, I assume). Instructions were typed in English and Spanish.


There were 2 other pages as well. One was cutting and pasting and helps them recognize the Spanish word for "red" and the other was to "put an X on the things that are circles". E decorated the page by poking holes with the pencil at each of the 4 ends of all the X's. She said that made the X's easier to see.

Oh, and she's writing her name with lower case letters now too, with little loops in the m's.

teeth

Surprised tonight to see a new tooth in E's mouth - her 6 year molars are coming in!

reading??

Yesterday out of the blue, E tried to read the "word" CVS. She said "suh-vuh-suh" I think. She is trying to read and got the sounds right! Any day now.

On another note, even though every morning she says she hates kindergarten, she is loving learning Spanish. She has been teaching me some of the colors this weekend, and making up entire songs in Spanish -- the lyrics are nonsense words, but they have a kind of Spanish sound to them! And sometimes when we play that I'm her kitten, she wants me to pretend that she knows Spanish and I don't, and for me to be jealous (envious) about that.