| Sunday, May 31, 2009 |
| Teach the basics |
| Goose doesn't wipe her own butt but she does conserve water. This morning Ziggy told her to worry about the basics before she tried solving the environmental crisis our planet is in, and asked her to take the plug out of the sink (because she was going to use it to water the plants when she was done washing her hands). The whole thing really wouldn't be a problem if I won this wonderful Evolve showerhead over at Good Golly Miss Blondie. I hope we can get this and wory about the basics, as Ziggy says! |
posted by Lori @ 4:01 PM  |
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| Wednesday, May 27, 2009 |
| Wordy Wednesday |
We're not heading for the library as is the Wednesday custom, instead we'll be in marvelously cool weather at SFO.
So instead of picking up something there, I'll share our favorite "spooky" story in honor of Vincent Price's birthday and Goose's upcoming Halloween themed birthday in June.
 When I was in college, Ziggy watched me act. Not just watched, he was a big supporter, and would sit enthralled for long periods of time for vocal class pieces and children's theater homework. But now there's no school and I'm certainly not doing any Tennessee Williams around here, but when I read Frank was a Monster who Wanted to Dance, Ziggy became my college cheerleader again. He said I had the coolest voice and couldn't believe it was me. So there's my hidden agenda for liking this book.
But, vanity aside, it's full of action. Rhymes bounce along as Frank bounces apart. It's a book about following your dreams and it's not nearly as long as her "spooky" Scooby Doo books. (groan!) |
| posted by Lori @ 12:38 AM |
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| Memorial Day Weekend |
We headed west Sunday and went to the ocean. It was awesome. Monkey is fearless and charged the waves, all the while doing those laughs where it sounds like rapid hiccups.
Meanwhile Goose was screaming for me to come back and get away from the tsunami; as mentioned, this girl loves her volcanoes and tsunamis are mentioned in her volcano/earthquake factbook. After thirty minutes of talking her down she ventured to touch the water, provided I held her hand the whole time and promised to run really fast while holding her away from the tsunami when it came. It was wonderful and now Goose only talks about going back.
Luckily we have a San Fran quick trip tomorrow to pick up Ziggy's brother at the airport. I think we'll hit the park after the airport and watch some waves before we head back to Sac. |
| posted by Lori @ 12:29 AM |
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| Friday, May 22, 2009 |
| Gosselina Ballerina |
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| posted by Lori @ 3:19 PM |
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| Thoughtful Thursday |
It was Goose's last day of school today and I took it harder than I thought I would. No, I didn't cry like I do at the end of every Harry Potter movie, or Babe, or, any time I hear "Elanor Rigby", but I did want to grab Goose and hold her forever. When she told her friends that they could play on the playground next time, it was sad to think that there wasn't going to be a next time because they're all going to be at different schools next year and many of them are going out of the country.
So Monkey got extra Mommy love while Goose and Ziggy were out at their celebratory disc golf. We're talking big-slide-got-to-come-in-the-house fun.
I realized that I actually HATE three things.
1. Black widows--hitherto this was just an intense dislike, but after five kills this week and one swinging at me due to the dog's tail, congrats, black widows, you've made my list.
2. Centipedes--you think you can fool me into thinking you're not poisonous? Guess again! And while I can trap you when your inches from my napping place, you'd better leave Goose alone when she's going to the bathroom. It's hard enough to get her to wipe, now I hear shrieks about the centipede coming to get her!
3. Political Ads--your calls wake up the baby. Oh, he's a light sleeper you say? NOT WHEN YOU'VE CALLED THREE TIMES IN FIVE MINUTES BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE A MESSAGE ON OUR FREAKIN MACHINE! And I know this has to do with you, Mom, and your horrid donation to the RNC in my name. Mark my words, you'll get yours! |
| posted by Lori @ 1:29 AM |
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| Thursday, May 21, 2009 |
| Wordy Wednesday |
Ed Young is a wonderful illustrator and author. His Lon Po Po won a Caldecott, but more importantly (to me, anyway) his pictures are so compelling, I can remember the wolf's eye from the story time in my elementary school library. The story isn't lost on Goose either. She loves the panel work he does and the story itself, although we got into a bit of a tiff when I told her it was a Little Red Riding Hood story. To which she said, "No! She's not in that!" and screamed. What can I say, the girl needed nap!
Of course, Lon Po Po is a cautionary tale and teaches values of obedience, cleverness, and togetherness, but what struck me most when I picked this book up was Ed Young's inscription: "To all the wolves of all the world for lending their good name as a tangible symbol for our darkness". It plays to the theme of the Little Red stories, that the wolf is representative of the evil in people. I remember in one of my teaching classes we read several different versions from different countries and in one, rather than being eaten, Red was raped by the wolf. My professor thought that kids could handle reading that version, but I think I'll stick to this less violent version (the wolf, after all, breaks his heart to pieces as a cause of death) for this audience.
If your kids are into other fairy tales, Yeh-Shen is a very colorful version of Cinderella. Replace Bibbidy Bobbity Boo with a magic ghost fish and you have yourself a story! Goose loves the peacock feathers in the vibrant paintings. |
| posted by Lori @ 1:42 AM |
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| The World as They Know It |
Goose says she lives in her own sovereign country--well she leaves out the "sovereign" part, but she takes no credit for being a citizen of the USA. Fine, so my "bunny hugging" ways are being passed on, but I thought maybe I could widen her scope of countries beyond her bedroom a bit.
Which is why I've put up a world map and we're putting the "Made in..." stickers on it that come from various parts of the world. Thusfar, we've had three Chinas, so we're doing a bit of a China unit (yeah, yeah, I said India, but my heart screamed CHINA...heheh).
I started out by decorating and writing some Chinese characters for "hello" and "goodbye" on the easel, which is actually a lot easier for me so I can have the reminder up all the time. I did get pink crayon for the Cantonese portion, sorry, I'm still new to this blogging thing!
I really want her to have some idea of where China is and see/hear some of the characters.
After the easel intro, of course we had to talk about different characters. Kung Fu Panda, is perhaps the finest bit of cinema Goose has ever seen, and now that she knows it is set in China. I have her Total Attention. We talked about martial arts and tried out our "Kung Fu Fighting" her favorite song by the way. Then on went the face paint.
It all fell in line well with Ludo dressing up as Master Shifu (although, my pic of it was at the tail end and I didn't get this when he had the fabric perfectly balanced, plus I accidentally shot the pic through the screen!) Silly Me...I mean... Puppy!
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| posted by Lori @ 12:47 AM |
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| Monday, May 18, 2009 |
| Weird day |
Ludo doesn't usually bark unless we're playing in the front yard without him. Which is why it was so weird that he was barking this morning while I tried to get Monkey ready for the day.
After five minutes of me yelling at the poor dog, Ziggy went outside and discovered what it was.
It couldn't fly.
So, anticipating that Goose would want to keep it, I said we should keep it in the field across from our house and went and got a box. She was pretty happy to set it free and kept inviting it back home for lunch.
Personally, I think this guy is hawk food. |
| posted by Lori @ 4:08 PM |
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| Thursday, May 14, 2009 |
| Wordy Wednesday: Matilda |
Given Goose's love of tormenting her brother and our doling out the punishment, constantly taking away privileges like hot chocolate, I thought it might be good to show her the other side of the coin.
That's why we're reading Matilda by Roald Dahl. The parents in this book are mean and terrible and I think it does a pretty good job to demonize the television. So as we're reading it, I catch Goose covering her mouth because she worries so much about the little girl who starts out at age four (which she might as well be, the way she's ticking off days until her birthday--40 to be exact) and I think either it's scaring her, or she's understanding how much we love her. I'd like to think it's the latter, since when we stop reading she goes all crazy-eyed and jumps into my arms, or gives me a big kiss.
It has some great school scenes, too, even if Goose tells me she wants to eat the whole cake. Truchbull is an amazing bad guy and I like that there's no real physical violence--that might scare her. I can't wait for Goose to get to Matilda's powers in the book, she loves magic, and no offense to Ziggy, Matilda's powers blow his magic tricks out of the water.
I wish that I hadn't seen the movie, though, because I can't get that girl from Mrs. Doubtfire out of my head. Ironically, given the evils esposed by the book of the telly, I'd really like Goose to see it too, just to show her different interpretations of the book (because didn't they set it in America? My voices are definitely UK inspired, as sometimes we slip into Russian or Jamaican with the accent!)
I need to get the movie on our queue quick because we'll probably be done tomorrow. Does anyone know, were there any other movies of Matilda made? |
| posted by Lori @ 5:43 AM |
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| Tuesday, May 12, 2009 |
| Pussycat, Pussycat, Where Have You Been? |
I wish I'd could say we've been doing fun stuff around here, but alas, I've been having to break out the devil horns all too often. I also find myself gritting my teeth so much I freak and think I will have to go to the dentist. By the way, this post is going to be pretty boring, I'm not editing myself, so I'm droning on like two hours of Celebrity Apprentice.
Goose has discovered wrestling. I'm talking Mickey Rourke style, though without the drugs. Last week she grabbed Monkey by the shoulders pushed him to the ground and jumped on him. Time out. Doing her hair that night she hit him with a lotion bottle. NO STORY. The next day she grabs his wrist and starts squeezing and twisting it. THAT'S IT! YOU LOST YOUR BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!
I'm not totally crazy. She gets to earn it back. For every portion of the day that she doesn't hurt him and she listens to me, we mark a square with a sticker.
So I've been keeping them as busy as possible. I think she has made a thousand watercolor paintings and we have hit the playground or gone for a long bike ride everyday. Which keeps me fried and then makes me sit like a vegetable in front of movies with the laptop whilst entering millions of giveaways.
Ziggy's been wonderful though. He took the kids out to play at the mall (and pick out a candle that Goose was excited about because it smells like my Grandpa--which all have agreed smells like him, aka cigarettes and strong cologne, classy Sears) and give me some alone time. Alone time is funny because it makes me feel guilty and I end up cleaning the house and wishing they were back so I wouldn't have to be scrubbing toilets. But he gave me the best gift of all over the weekend--
uninterrupted ipod control!
He and I are very different. We don't make any sense and that's why we work. He loves Britney Spears and boy bands. He had an "Achy Breaky Heart" and country line danced as a kid. I, on the otherhand, like music that has words I don't hear all the time, like "trajectory" or "kerosene", or songs with allegories and other stories. So I listened to all my favorite indie music and the Beatles and funny stuff without him begging for Rhianna or Kanye West. It was better than a gift--seriously.
So now I need to get back in the swing of things and work on learning up my kids. So it's back to planned activities, and no longer ignoring things here. |
| posted by Lori @ 12:54 AM |
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| Friday, May 1, 2009 |
| Fruitful Friday |
While We're still working to get India lessons together, here's why Goose is great for Mendhi--we face paint! She loves to sit still for the face paint; especially when she gets to be Pinkalicious! We do have picking problems, though. |
| posted by Lori @ 1:39 AM |
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| Looks Like Our Next Subject Will Be.. |
A friend from school Mendhied our hands today... and now, that's it, we're back to a strict lesson plan. Gone are the days of "let's find stuff around the house, rip it up and glue it to other things". Nope, Goose's hand is pretty like Grandpa's turtle tattoo and now, we're talking India.
And while I'm all for learning about other cultures (and she couldn't have picked a country with better cuisine) I'm dreading our language portion. A few weeks ago we watched YouTube and how to say "what's up" in Hindi to her friends in class. Well after watching it ten times, I thought I had it. Ten minutes later? Gone.
Poof.
Out of my head. Just like that. It's a hard language! And it made me way more aweful of the TRIlingual mom who mendhied our hands (she speaks Hindi and Punjabi and English).
SO, in light of that, my personal goal is to be able to have a few words I can pull out by the time we're done with this. I'd love for Goose to have some vocab, an understanding of where India is, and some aspects of culture, like celebrations and maybe some of the Bhagavad Gita (just some of the less violent aspects, since she's still talking about eating people's dead dogs--my little serial killer).
And Monkey? Well, he is really in to helping, so I'll just make sure he's always getting to pick out books, put things away, and maybe we can get some music and dance. Heck, maybe he'll actually recognize Ganesh, who I have on my car keys which he always puts in his mouth! |
| posted by Lori @ 1:14 AM |
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| About Me |
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Name: Lori
Home: Sacramento-ish, California, United States
About Me: I want to make things better.
See my complete profile
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