Whatcha Been Up To?

Visit from Taylor




Attacked by Seagulls. Their leader.




Embarrassed Taylor




Fed some birds




Saw some cows


and goats



Picked Maine Dandelions


Adopted a cat, better make that 2 cats.


Played with our buddies



Went down a BIG slide



Tried to feed a donkey (I love Bella's face)


Rode a real pony



and a fake one


Took a train ride



Went up the Ferris Wheel. Mommy was just a little nervous.


Made cookies with Grandma


Waited patiently?!


then enjoyed them! YUM!


The End.

Mean Girls: Preschool Edition

Normally, a busy park means lots of new kids to play with. Usually the kids are nice, just looking for someone to play with too. Today was a different story. There was a play group at the park today. About 10 parents, each with about 2 kids about 30 individuals plus a few straggler parents and kids like us. Lily was doing her own thing, you know sliding, climbing, acting like a lion. Bella was doing her own separate thing, mainly trying to climb up ladders.

Lily's old enough that I don't have to watch her too closely, so I can guard Bella during her dangerous adventures. Lily had just mastered the chain ladder and proudly set off to the BIG slide to go down FAST. Bella wanted to try the chain ladder so I stayed behind. Next, I hear a girls screaming "You're mean, we hate you!" followed by Lily wailing "Mommy those girls yelled at me." Eventually, I convinced her to go down the slide so we could talk. The incident happened above my head, so I can't say for sure what happened. From several conversations over the day, I gather that Lily was headed to the slide and the girls were playing in front of the slide entrance. She tried to go by them (exactly how, I'm not sure) and they didn't like it so they yelled at her.

Lily was very upset. Honestly, I wasn't exactly sure how to handle the situation. I've never really dealt with "mean girls" before. I've only been verbally attached twice. Once in English class in 7th grade, the boy in front of me turned around, told me I was fat, then turned back around. The second was about 4 years ago, through an email and, though harsh, most of it was true. I told Lily she had to say sorry if she did something wrong like stepped on or pushed them. She wanted to say sorry to the girls, so I'm sure Lily wasn't an innocent bystander. But when she went to talk to them they kept running away, which made her more upset. I told her to find somewhere else to play.

I was shocked that the "mean girl" attitude started so young (all the girls involved were Lily's age or younger). I think the proper way to handle it would be all the parents intervening and talking the girls through the situation. But, in this case the other mom was busy talking with her friends. Actually I wasn't even sure who the mom was until I saw her come grab her daughter and leave. If I had seen the incident I'd probably would have approached the girls, but I felt a bit helpless with a toddler hanging from the chain ladder and a crying preschooler 5 feet above my head. I never thought I'd have to add this to my list of things to teach Lily this year, but apparently I do: 8. conflict resolution.

Changing the Focus

I thought I'd be a bit more proactive in my parenting this fall and write out some goals to focus my days. My list included:

1. No more "spoiled crying"
2. Reinstate Chores
3. Daily Bible time and prayer
4. Daily story time
5. Recognize half the alphabet
6. Recognize numbers 1-10
7. Review Colors and Shapes

I think I've finally, really, honestly, truly decided to just throw my hands up to the idea of Lily learning the alphabet and numbers this Fall. (Didn't I just write about this?) We started working on the "Ready for the Code" workbook and we'd done Ff awhile ago, she could remember it so I moved onto Bb. Today we came back to the book after a week off and I said "okay Lily what is this letter?" "B" "Right and do you know what sound it makes?" "ba." I almost fell out of my seat with joy...it's working!! So I go back to Ff, Lily what letter is this? "I don't know" "It starts the word, fffish" "I don't know" "ffffriend, fffffoot, ffffox" "I don't know" "It's an F" "oh" as if she'd never heard of that letter before. So next page, more f's. "Okay Lily what is this letter?"(we just went over it) "I don't know" "remember FFFFFish, FFFFFriend, FFFFFFoot?" "I just don't know" and she throws her crayon down. Okay that was enough workbook.

I confess I have spent many nights and nap times researching different books/techniques to use to teach her these 'basic' things. After this morning, I was fed up - forget it she's just not ready to learn anything. Now this is where God helped me to see that I need to change my focus. Lily has learned a lot in her 3 1/2 years. She can name almost any animal and she's pretty particular (i.e. humpback whale/gray whale/orca whale, "that's not a bird, its a macaw"), she is really interested in nature and loves learning about God.

I decided to ask Lily what she wanted to learn about...she said animals. I was so focused on the stuff 'she had to learn' that I've been ignoring all the stuff she wants to learn. We started nature books, which Lily really seems to love. I still have to find a resource that I can pull out and read about whatever it is we discovered while outside (i.e. grasshopper, mushrooms...). Who knew there was more to life than the alphabet and numbers?! What a silly lesson I had to learn.

First Day of School

The day arrived. This year it was a little more bitter than sweet, for me that is. Lily was looking forward to school, excited to meet new friends and be in her "big girl 3's classroom." I really like Lily's school because it is play focused. I've been feeling a bit of a failure lately. I read an assessment that said Lily should be able to count to 50, write her name and identify the alphabet. None of which are true. I don't think her failure to do these things means she's not smart but that she's a 3 year old. Gosh before I had kids I thought 3 year olds were just learning to talk - clearly that isn't the case. It gives me peace of mind to know she's in a loving place that allows kids to be kids.

There were two crying episodes, though not ones you'd expect. The first was because we couldn't head to school for 30 more minutes. And the second one happened because she had to leave school without being able to go on the playground. Not too bad. Of course, today was visiting day, which means a shortened day and parents stay. So who knows what will happen next week.

Lily stuck to doing things by herself today. I always feel bad when we go into a situation where kids already know each other. In this case the school is run in a large church, most of the families are members of the church and the kids know each other from Sunday School. Lily seemed to get left out from the pack. She wasn't the only 'outsider' and frankly she could careless. This is an area I'm never sure how to navigate because I don't want to feed her shyness or tendency to isolate herself. But I know as they get to know one another, she'll be running around with the kids so I don't want to push it either.

Today Lily did a project, played with my little ponies, drew on a chalkboard, cut up play dough, dressed dolls and ate doughnut holes ("a lot of doughnuts" = 4). In an effort to not be shy myself, I signed up to be a room mother. I'm not sure what a room mother does and am regretting my gun-ho attitude a bit. But I'm sure it'll be fine, err, I mean fun.



Here are two pictures of the girls, ready for school.

Lily picked out her outfit...not too bad.

It Can't Be...

Has it really been a month since I last wrote? I can't believe that. It's been a jam packed month so I'm sad that I didn't share all that we've done. I'll have to put time aside to add some posts. For now, something different than updates and photos but a peak into the struggles of my parenting mind...

We just got back from "Parent's Night" at Lily's school. It's nice to see some old faces from last year, to meet Lily's teachers and to get a sneak peak at the year to come. But there's always this guy who stands up and lectures on some issue. Last year it was uninvolved dads (whom of course weren't there to hear the lecture), this year it was about halloween being evil.

I'm not sure where I stand on the halloween issue. I love Jesus and think I'm pretty conservative and old fashion on my views of life and faith. I do not like sending the mixed message of just for tonight it's okay to go up to strangers and take candy from them. While the whole rest of the year is spend undoing that exact message. I like letting them dress up and pretend play being a ladybug or a bumblebee but really that's a year round activity.

I don't disagree with the anti-halloween message. I'm just nervous that if I say we can't do all the halloween stuff then my girls will feel out casted. Our first halloween Lily wore a hat that said I'm A Pumpkin and next to Timmy's giraffe costume she looked foolish. So the next year we did all the regular activities with both girls. In Lily's art class last year there was a girl who's mom would not let her decorate a pumpkin picture because of these very issues. The other moms looked at this mom as if she was psycho. It takes a lot of guts to stand up like that-but I still wonder is it necessary? I think a lot of the objection is that these traditions (pumpkins, dress up...) all stem from pagan activities. But isn't that true of Christmas? Isn't that why it's in December and there are trees and lights and so on. And for that matter, Easter too? Should we not celebrate holidays because of the pagan influence? Probably we shouldn't. I mean I don't care for Harry Potter for that very reason. Christmas and Easter can and should be focused on Jesus and not Santa or Easter Bunny, but halloween points to well nothing redeeming.

I guess, I don't want to send mix messages, instill negative values or even just give them sugar highs at 8pm. My friend and I happened to talk about this very thing earlier today. She lets her kids go to the town sponsored trick or treat event downtown. Then they come home and hand out all the candy they collected to the trick or treaters on her block. I love that idea. Maybe we can have a holiday party at our house. There must be other parents who are feeling conflicted about this as well, who'd like to have an alternative. Maybe there already is an alternative? I'm a relatively new Christian, well relatively new at actually growing and living out in my faith. And I realize that it's very early to be talking about halloween. Except that the halloween stuff is already on sale and Lily wants to know what all that scary stuff is about? Eventually the issue will become an issue - probably not at 3 years old - what will I do?

I feel more anti-halloween after writing this, but is that being just a bit too psycho? And why does the spell check want me to capitalize halloween? Does it really deserve that honor?