Policy, Housekeeping, and Paperwork

I got a call this morning from a potential new family who wanted to look at the information website I keep- I gave her the address and then realized it's woefully old. Most of the things on there are still accurate, but I haven't updated it in a long time and rely on this blog for most of the current happenings. I probably need to just make this one the web address on the state site so people can see it. I'm going to be working on a series of info posts to link to in the sidebar so that new clients can check us out and get a better feel for some of our policies. If you're a regular reader, you likely know these things already, but a refresher is always nice. So. Look for new things to pop up about policies and hours and things like that. It's not that I'm making tons of changes; just that these things weren't listed on this site before and I'm trying to get everything in one place.

Friday Focus- Silvermist

I am just having so much fun these days with all the girls. (Not to say I'm not enjoying the boys, but when I think of the kids, it sort of breaks down into O'Malley, the Pink Ladies, and the Little Boys.) The Pink Ladies are cooking up fun and mischief daily though. Literally. I eat so much plastic food during the day! They spend a lot of their time in the kitchen area dreaming up meals. Silvermist and Aurora feed each other corn and donuts and giggle like hyenas.


Miss Silvermist is the most articulate of the bunch at this point and constantly tells us, bosses us, and otherwise lets us know the things she finds important. She's also quick to correct her friends when she sees they're not following a rule. Never mind that she'll be doing it herself in ten seconds. That's completely different.

At lunch, Aurora was asking for more food and yelling "MORE FOOD! MORE! MOOOORRRRRE!" Silvermist just looks at her with the scornful eyebrow and says, "You manners?" :) When she wants more she's likely to forget the please and thank you herself, but it's so much easier to remember that OTHER people ought to be polite.

And then today Roo learned how to open the fridge, which is a huge milestone. She'd had to resort to begging her friends to not step on her and please bring her milk over HERE!!! Silvermist decided that Roo really should close it. Again, never mind that she herself will stand there with the door open so long that it's "S, please close the door. S, we don't stand with the fridge open. Sweetie, shut the door now. SILVERMIST! FOR THE LOVE OF PETE SHUT THE FRIDGE AND BACK AWAY WITH YOUR HANDS IN YOUR POCKETS!" And she just laughs. Sometimes she closes it and sometimes we have to bodily scoot her away. So she definitely knows the rules, and so do we. But we were being a bit lenient with Roo since she was having such great success in finally getting the door open. When she finally was able to open it and scoot out of the way so it didn't shut on her, she just lay there marveling at the salad dressing and grinning. Silvermist found this to be unacceptable.

Commentary with this goes: "Roo! Move away. No, Roo! Shut da door! I shut da door now! YOU MOVE BACK!!!!" All in a very cheerful voice, but accompanied by dress tugging and the understanding that she is to be immediately obeyed. :)


I wear my caterpillar hat. I wear my caterpillar hat. I wear my caterpillar hat!!!

She's been very excited about painting every day with our new curriculum. Here's the barn to go with Big Red Barn, of course, which is our title for the month. I like the way this is set up- it asks you to do the paintings one on one with each kid, only use one color at a time, and work on directives like wearing a smock, holding the brush, talking about color, and staying in the lines. Set up other opportunities for creativity- this one is for following directions and improving. She's getting better every time about remembering to stay at least near the lines, and we're working on colors. Right now all of them are blue. :)

And then there's this, which may be my favorite picture that I've ever taken of Silvermist in all the months she's been here. The weather is finally gorgeous and we've been out in the yard a lot this week. The kids are all reacquainting themselves with toys they haven't seen in months and running around having a great time. Silvermist was sitting on the red scooter holding a toy- it's in her left hand in this picture so I can't see it and I don't remember what it was. She was totally minding her own business and out of nowhere Aurora comes running at her and snatches it away. Indignation ensues, along with some yelling on both sides and some mediation from Kanga about being sweet and Silvermist had it first and Aurora needs to give it back now and wait her turn etc.... Normal stuff. While this was going on, Silvermist had of course gotten off the scooter so she could chase Aurora down to get her stuff back. When the crisis had passed and she was once more in possession of the Very Important Item, she turned around to get back on her scooter..... only to find that Stitch had snuck in out of nowhere and occupied it. I LOVE THIS LOOK ON HER FACE. It's such a grown up, "you have GOT to be kidding me with this!" face. Totally cracks me up.