We celebrated Thanksgiving up north. The six little cousins were reunited and we sprung Nana from the home. The food was tasty (you should've seen Rowan devour the fruit platter), the company was charming, and the kids napped on the traffic-free car ride home. Pretty much perfect. Lately Fiona has hit some milestones that we didn't know were milestones. Examples: opening the car door by herself. Buckling herself into her harness. The ability to open a granola bar wrapper. Putting on tights. She eats her dinner (granted, we're on a rotation of chicken, tacos, noodles, pizza, chili, so there's not a lot to complain about). These sound kind of silly, but they make life more pleasant for all, and give her a bit more independence that she enjoys. Rowan has overcome his different floor surfaces fear and has been coming down the stairs either backward on hands and knees or upright, as a human should. His favorite phrases of late: "No want to!" "Awwight." "Shake your booty." He pulls down his pants sometimes when he says the latter. He got this from his sister, who in turn got it from a certain cousin of hers. Ahem. Andrew. Another Rowan-ism of late is the zerbit. He narrates pretty much everything he does, so before he assaults you with a sloppy, noisy kiss, he'll announce "zerbit!" Much giggling ensues. Fiona borrowed a condensed illustrated version of "The Wizard of Oz" from this little library box that's installed in her school's garden. Brian and I read it to her over the past several nights and found it really illuminating, as previously our only exposure to it had been the Judy Garland movie. The bad witches gave Fiona a bit of anxiety before bed, but last night we topped off our read with a rendition of "Fancy Nancy: Wedding of the Century," and all memory of the menacing witches was replaced by dreams of being a flower girl. I'm tempted to show Fiona the Oz movie now; I wonder if knowing the story will make the scary parts less scary, as seemed to be the case when we read the book "Jumanji" before watching the movie. Of course "Jumanji" doesn't have any witches. When Fiona was 2 or 3, I showed her the beautiful BBC "Peter Rabbit" shows and scared the bejesus out of her when Mr. MacGregor chased Peter shouting "Stop, thief!" We'd read the story and it doesn't get much more sweet and tame than "Peter Rabbit," but that girl felt nothing but empathy for poor Peter. I, on the other hand, have grown to relate to Mr. MacGregor. Now what does that tell you. Brian and I had a conference with Fiona's teacher this month. Mrs. R. admired Fiona's attention to detail on her artwork and said that sometimes Fiona gets teary when she makes a mistake. Mrs. R. suggested that perhaps we need to model less perfect behavior at home. We laughed. She laughed. I fear Fiona has my perfection genes: she doesn't like to try new things for fear of failure, and she gets upset when she makes a mistake. Drat. Otherwise, the report was very good. Socially and academically, she is doing well. Teacher seems to like Fiona; Fiona likes her teacher and her school. Christmas countdown has begun! Saturday, we drove 45 minutes to our favorite Christmas tree farm, rode the hayride, roasted marshmallows, drank hot chocolate, and then returned home -- without a tree. They didn't have any for us to cut! We ended up going to the lot 5 minutes from our house. Ta da! Fiona got her tooth filling. Brian took her so I don't know the details, except that she sat in Brian's lap during the procedure, there was no novocaine, and Fiona cooperated like a champ. AND she got five stickers for her effort. (Five stickers that are still sitting on the dining room table. I mean what is the point of coveting stickers if you're not going to do anything with them??) Anyway. I was very proud of her. Now that Rowan's seen all the stickers, he wants to visit the dentist, too. We'll wait until August for that.
4 Comments
me
12/1/2014 11:40:33 pm
Very informative...beautiful close up of Fiona-your tree looks lovely.
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Kate
12/2/2014 01:41:47 am
You should read the book Mindset by Carol Dweck. I read it through a teacher inservice. Very enlightening and sobering for adults- parents, teachers, coaches, etc.- and how fear of failure can keep you from being your best. It has changed the way I approach new things, and changed some of the comments I make to my children and students.
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Kristen Cheli
12/8/2014 01:46:19 am
Everyone looks very happy and cute :)
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Brian
12/8/2014 02:40:39 am
I thought our kitchen looked great in that picture of Rowan in the Spiderman outfit, until I realized that wasn't our kitchen. Well, at least he looked good to. Thanks for keeping up this wonderful blog.
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