08.22.08
Posted in Livy at 9:42 pm by tina
Little girl’s preschool has a Teacher’s Workday, so we took shift spending quality time with her.
Joe had a date with her to the library in the morning. She got to do some serious reading all at her pace.
I took her to see The Wiggles with a few other preschool girls. She’s been saying “I go see Wiggles with mommy” since I told her about it yesterday. The pool girl doesn’t even know who the Wiggles are. After she became old enough to watch/understand TV, big girl has passed the age of watching Wiggles and other “Baby videos”. The child has not been watching age-appropriate shows for her. She just tags along, watching whatever Maddy watches: Curious George, Between the Lions, and of course all the Disney stories.
She was totally mesmerized by the Wiggles, and I tressured the moments we got to spend with each other, just the two of us. I would definitely like to do it more often.
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08.21.08
Posted in Maddy at 8:21 pm by tina
Back in preschool, I went through listening to the girl’s complaint once a week “I don’t like JumpBunch (An outside company who goes to the school once a week for their special class). All they do is talk about sports, AND you have to participate”
It’s no surprise to me that once a week in kindergarten, I also have to hear her whine on her PE day… such a punishment for her on PE day: not only she has to do sports for 40 minutes straight, she can not wear dresses/skirts on PE days. THE HORROR!!
When I got their rotation schedule last Friday, I rolled my eyes in my head. Lucky me, their class gets not only one, but TWO PE days for the next rotation. Why can’t they have two Music days, or two Art days, even two Spanish days. No.. it has to be two PE days, that would be two mornings each week that I have to hear the girl whine about how not wearing a dress is ruining her life.
But something about Kingerdergarten PE class is changing her. When I reminded her that Friday is also a PE day during bedtime, she happily went on to tell me about what they’ve been doing in PE classes “Skate boards, parachute, etc”.
“You mean you like PE class now?”
“Yea”
“Wow.. Kindergarten is so exciting!! Even Kindergarten PE class is fun?”
“Yep” and she closed her eyes w big smiles on her face.
I would never have guessed it.
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08.20.08
Posted in Livy at 11:37 pm by tina
Both girls have always been more of mommy girls than daddy’s girls from the beginning. With Maddy having my personality, it is entirely sad for daddy. Often the first thing the girl tells me in the morning would be some house rule her father had broken the night before: “Mommy, did you know that daddy ate popcorn on the couch last night?” (yes, sue me. I have a strict rule about food is to be eaten at the dining table. There will be no parents chasing their children to feed them as a lot of Chinese parents do and there will certainly be no such thing as eating while watching TV, at least for the girls anyway)
With Livy who really inherited most of Joe’s personalities, it is quiet funny. She makes this huge circular motion when daddy tries to get her out of crib in the morning. “NO…I WANT MOMMY!” She plops herself on the floor crying if we suggest “how about daddy pai-pai tonight?” all because the poor man does not know how to sing twinkle twinkle little star in Chinese (one of the songs we sing together at night). And recently, even daddy’s car is not good enough for her any more. “I go mommy car?” the little girl requests daily.
She is the type that makes a mommy want to have another little girl. Another little GIRL just like her.. until I heard her screaming from upstairs “WHERE IS MOMMY?” while daddy tried to get her ready. Then I sighed.. stopped everything I was doing, went upstairs to please that child because the world simply revolves around her.. then I said to myself, “One Olivia is plenty!”
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Posted in Life with my girls at 10:06 pm by tina
We had CA visitors here for two weekends in a row. Not so lucky for the Wee’s as the weather was the ‘typcial NC August’. Surprisingly the big girl, who is usually a slow-to-warm-up (in some cases she still wouldn’t give some people, kids included, the time of her day after she has known them for a while) bonded with B almost immediately. They chit chatted and played and the girl even asked to have ’sleepover’ w him. My favorite picture is them two goofying around by the breakfast table.
This past weekend the Cheng’s stayed over with us. They also have two girls so the four girls pretty much entertained themselves the whole time. It’s nice because they’re all quiet and sweet even when they played. Allison celebrated her 7th birthday the day before Maddy celebrated her 5th. We roamed around our usual family hang out spots and enjoyed the unusual cooler summer days!
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Posted in Maddy at 9:00 pm by tina
There was the first parent-teacher conference for Maddy to go over her initial kindergarten assessment yesterday morning. I was quite amused by pages and pages of results done by the teachers given that school only started one month earlier and after all, they have 23 kids in the class.
But Ms B and M are amazingly accurate down to the details of Maddy’s social and emotional development.
I am very thankful for Mrs B (the lead teacher). She is everything I dream about what an extraordinary teacher is like. Someone who loves and has great chemistry with kids and someone who is equipped and well experienced in her field. My only gripe about her is that she won’t be Maddy’s teacher next year.
Saving for the Piggy Bank Song
Daily Calendar Math
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08.18.08
Posted in Maddy at 11:26 pm by tina
We had a busy weekend. Besides having out of town old friends from CA visiting, the big girl turned 5 on Monday. We had auntie Betty, auntie Chad, Tanner and their newest baby Peanut drove down from Baltimore as well as uncle Andy who flew in from chicago just for the girl, and a cute water splash party at the club house where Maddy will spend her Track Out Camps.
Then on her birthday, she was made a star in her class following their Mrs B’s Busy Bee Tradition: She got to wear a special Busy Bee crown Mrs B made; she got to be the ‘weather girl’ during their daily calendar math time (going to the window and report back if it’s sunny/raining, wet/dry); she got to have a special ‘lunch date’ with me in the cafeteria; we brought in a poster board of her pictures and presented to her kindergarten class of why she is special; and each kid (and teachers) made a page of why they thought Maddy is special and they made it into a book for her.
It was a perfect start for a brand new five year old!!
Happy 5th Birthday to Madison
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08.13.08
Posted in Maddy at 10:05 pm by tina
The girl has her “I have to wear a dress” obsession for quite some time now. She did not touch any of the new jeans/pants I had purchased a year earlier (at the end of the season sale, of course, who knew) and I am hoping the little one will not follow suit.
One month into kindergarten, she has a new obsession: Monkey Bars. Whenever I suggest that we check out a new playground or park, her first question is always “Is there a monkey bar there? Because if there isn’t one, I’m just going to stand there”
The child has so many blisters on both of her hands, and I’m constantly remind her about “if your hands start to hurt, that is how your body is telling you that you need a littl break from monkey bars”.
It appears that it is now the only thing she does during recess.
A month earlier, she would not even try unless one of us is holding her up from the bottom. Now she flies between the bars that I secretly wonder if some alian had taken over her little body.
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I know it is still her, because she does them in her dresses!
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08.07.08
Posted in Misc at 10:01 pm by tina
I was in the bathroom with the girls helping them with their bath and dealing with Livy’s usual demands. Daddy opened a binder and sat on the floor right outside of the bathroom:
Daddy: Oh look. You want to hear something you wrote to me on Aug 4th 1994? That’s 14 years ago.
Daddy: Oh hey.. here. This one you wrote it the day after we started to go out. (started reading).. blah blah blah.. I hope I will always live dangerously even after I get married, and I hope my future husband will join me in ..
Me: Honey, your sitting there reading emails from 10 years back and leaving me with the girls in the bathroom is not helping me achieve living dangerously at all…
Note: To daddy’s sad defense, the reason he was not doing ‘anything’ was that both girls had rejected his help.
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08.04.08
Posted in Maddy at 10:02 pm by tina
It’s been lovely helping out in Maddy’s kindergarnten class. The kids have been super sweet and it’s a treat watching them work through different projects and learning to resolve the conflicts (few meltdowns were there, but they’re getting better)
My ‘job’ today was taking small groups of children to the school library and check-in/check-out books. I was so clueless, but thankfully the kids knew exactly what to do. While I puzzled at why they had to take a bright color bookmark with them, a boy finally explained to me that “You put this where you pick out the book. If you don’t like the book you pick out, then you know where to put it back”
They picked their book, took out the speical library card (posted in the library by class), did the whole computer checkout procedure all on their own, put the library name tag back. You wouldn’t believe that these kids just started kindergarten less than a month ago and this is only their third time going to the library.
Then they wouldn’t walk slowly in the hall way. “We have to be very quiet, kids?” I tried to keep calm. “I want to be first in line” “I want to be first in line”.. then they started to run (btw, totally against the rule) One boy actually stayed with me and walked quietly “I always try to be a good boy. We’re not supposed to run.” I was a bit worried that I might lose one of them, but thankfully they just ran back to the classroom.
..Sigh.. then I remember that beneath all that maturity, they are simply giggly 5-year-olds!
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Posted in Livy at 9:38 pm by tina
Little girl is doing well with her potty training. For a few days she had kept her underwear/pull-up dry all day in school and even kept her diapers dry at night for a few times. She still has trouble going to #2 at the toilet though. Somehow she can only find a ‘good position’ by standing in the corner and holding on to tables/chairs.
But she’s as cute as ever and she knows it.
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While I stayed by the toilet to help her with going to the bathroom:
Livy: mommy, I need pricy
Mommy: You need privacy?
Livy: yea. You go out.
Livy: I go school bus?
Mommy: No. Mei-mei is too small. You have to be 5 to go on school bus. How old are you?
Livy: I am two FIVE. I go on school bus
Mommy: No you silly. You are two.
Livy: I am two I go mommy car.
Mommy: yes. You’re a little girl and mommy take you to school.
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