Tomorrow is the first day of a miniature summer camp for A-chan. A pottery studio is doing weekly themed camps for kids her age. It's not exactly what I'd wanted for a summer camp for her, but I waited too long to look into all of it and the ones I'd really wanted were already full. I had no clue that summer camps started before summer did! Seriously, they start in May. Anyway...when I found this one I jumped on it. I think that she will enjoy it, but I still feel very guilty and like a bad parent for not having gotten her into others.
I think we're both a little nervous about it. This will be the first time that she's been away from me for more than a couple of hours. And the very first time she's been 'babysat' by someone other than very close friends. While I know that she'll be fine, I've still got the butterflies going wild in my stomach. I think overall that I'm nervous that she won't like it for some reason.
We did the first part of the summer reading program at the library today - A-chan got to write her name on a tag and staple it on the 10 books wall. Then we gathered a huge stack of books to bring home and promptly read 5 of them. My mom was amazed that A-chan read her a Charlie and Lola book with an English accent. I have to admit that the accent is incredibly cute!!
One other note from todays' adventures: My girl is just like me and doesn't really care about shoes. Getting her to pick a pair of shoes at the store was almost impossible, she just didn't care. However, never underestimate her love of Moe's burritos.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
To Be a Knight
A-chan wants to be a knight. That's her costuming choice for DragonCon this year. So when I mentioned that we would be going to see knights swordfighting today, she was just ecstatic. Got a little upset when I told her that she was too young to join in though. We went to the Regional Fighter Practice for the local SCA groups today. It was fun! She loved it and wants to know when we can do it again. Youth combat starts at age 7 and she still seemed excited about it even though she has to wait 2.5 years. But after seeing all the people in garb today she decided that she wouldn't mind dressing up "like a princess" sometimes too.
I had a great time. We met lots of new and wonderful people who were very nice! And it was awesome just to sit under a pavilion and watch everything. Although I got pretty badly sunburned, A-chan just got a tiny bit pink. I took sunscreen with us. I always do take sunscreen. It's just that I've never gotten good at actually using the stuff. Luckily it doesn't seem to matter for her, just for me.
On the drive home she sang along to "Here come the ABC's" by They Might Be Giants. It was soooo cute. And then she asked if we could play checkers when we got home. It was a tough game, but I won by two pieces. We tied on tic tac toe.
I had a great time. We met lots of new and wonderful people who were very nice! And it was awesome just to sit under a pavilion and watch everything. Although I got pretty badly sunburned, A-chan just got a tiny bit pink. I took sunscreen with us. I always do take sunscreen. It's just that I've never gotten good at actually using the stuff. Luckily it doesn't seem to matter for her, just for me.
On the drive home she sang along to "Here come the ABC's" by They Might Be Giants. It was soooo cute. And then she asked if we could play checkers when we got home. It was a tough game, but I won by two pieces. We tied on tic tac toe.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Watercolored people
A-chan loves my watercolor pencils. Originally purchased to help when designing temporary henna tatooes, the watercolor pencils are now entertainment for a whole evening. The fact that she can draw/paint on each of us is fun. The fact that it easily washes off in seconds with just water is my fav part :) She's been enjoying doing henna on me for a while, but her henna is very...let's say abstract. And it stays for a couple of weeks. Lovely watercolor pencils, I shall make an ode to thee. Anyway, she spent about an hour and a half painting flowers and hearts and fruit all over our arms and feet tonight while we watched Kodocha.
Yesterday we went to Stone Mountian to visit with friends and relax a little. A family of tourists happened to see a tortoise on the side of the hill next to the road and stopped to take a closer look. When they saw that the tortoise was laying eggs, one of the boys ran down the hill to tell us so we could come and watch too. It was pretty awesome. Definately not something you get to see often. A-chan seemed fascinated.
Today was Friday. Fridays are currently significant because they are the days when A-chan can play online computer games at pbskids.org. I've limited the weekly time she can spend on these games to just the one day because she was liking them way too much and ignoring the essential things in life like...popsicles! It's working out pretty well, I think. She knows exactly when she can play the games and doesn't pester me about it during the week unless she occassionally wants to know how many more days til friday. And it's also a powerful deterent to bad behaviour cause she knows she might not get her game time on friday if the rest of the week she was a cranky ogre.
She helped prepare the corn on the cob for our dinner tonight. It's amazing how much she loves the stuff. I seriously think that she would have eaten two whole ones by herself if I'd let her. After cleaning off all the corn silk and singing a song about it, she read some of "Cinderella" to me while I cooked. A few of the words gave her trouble like 'widowed' and 'step-mother'. The way she pronounced Anastasia was priceless.
Yesterday we went to Stone Mountian to visit with friends and relax a little. A family of tourists happened to see a tortoise on the side of the hill next to the road and stopped to take a closer look. When they saw that the tortoise was laying eggs, one of the boys ran down the hill to tell us so we could come and watch too. It was pretty awesome. Definately not something you get to see often. A-chan seemed fascinated.
Today was Friday. Fridays are currently significant because they are the days when A-chan can play online computer games at pbskids.org. I've limited the weekly time she can spend on these games to just the one day because she was liking them way too much and ignoring the essential things in life like...popsicles! It's working out pretty well, I think. She knows exactly when she can play the games and doesn't pester me about it during the week unless she occassionally wants to know how many more days til friday. And it's also a powerful deterent to bad behaviour cause she knows she might not get her game time on friday if the rest of the week she was a cranky ogre.
She helped prepare the corn on the cob for our dinner tonight. It's amazing how much she loves the stuff. I seriously think that she would have eaten two whole ones by herself if I'd let her. After cleaning off all the corn silk and singing a song about it, she read some of "Cinderella" to me while I cooked. A few of the words gave her trouble like 'widowed' and 'step-mother'. The way she pronounced Anastasia was priceless.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
A Full Day
Today we went hiking at the Botanical Gardens. We did the Orange trail because A-chan wanted to see the river. It was a lot of fun. We saw dragonflies, a beautiful lizard, two turtles, some tiny frogs, butterflies, faeries and some birds. Her stamina has definately improved, she didn't ask me to carry her at all. We both loved being in the forest. Afterwards we went and got smoothies for lunch!
Next there was the matter of her allowance to sort through. She used the Coinstar machine to count some of the change from her Totoro coin bank and got almost $10! When we went to the toy store to buy replacement sand (her sandbox had gotten flooded last month and just recently got cleaned out thanks to some wonderful friends) she chose some princess mega blocks to purchase with her allowance. We also replaced her doctor kit which has been missing for a very long time. This time she chose the pink one instead of the blue one.
We also went to the library and signed her up for the Summer Reading Program. She has her very own library card to check out her books with. Today we left with 14. I think she might have been more excited about the reading program than about the new toys.
She's been having trouble going to sleep lately. Typical childhood nightime fears, but I'm not sure how best to counter them. I'm trying but I don't think I'm doing a good enough job. For a while she's been doing the stalling method of coming up with ways to go to bed later and later. But tonight was the first time she actually tried to take books to bed with her and read instead of going to sleep. I feel a little guilty stopping her from it. I mean, reading is great! And I used to read in bed all the time when I was a kid. But I also know that she'll be incredibly grumpy tomorrow if she doesn't go to sleep in time cause no matter how late she falls asleep, she gets up at the same time every morning.
Next there was the matter of her allowance to sort through. She used the Coinstar machine to count some of the change from her Totoro coin bank and got almost $10! When we went to the toy store to buy replacement sand (her sandbox had gotten flooded last month and just recently got cleaned out thanks to some wonderful friends) she chose some princess mega blocks to purchase with her allowance. We also replaced her doctor kit which has been missing for a very long time. This time she chose the pink one instead of the blue one.
We also went to the library and signed her up for the Summer Reading Program. She has her very own library card to check out her books with. Today we left with 14. I think she might have been more excited about the reading program than about the new toys.
She's been having trouble going to sleep lately. Typical childhood nightime fears, but I'm not sure how best to counter them. I'm trying but I don't think I'm doing a good enough job. For a while she's been doing the stalling method of coming up with ways to go to bed later and later. But tonight was the first time she actually tried to take books to bed with her and read instead of going to sleep. I feel a little guilty stopping her from it. I mean, reading is great! And I used to read in bed all the time when I was a kid. But I also know that she'll be incredibly grumpy tomorrow if she doesn't go to sleep in time cause no matter how late she falls asleep, she gets up at the same time every morning.
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