Eating the Good Stuff

Right now Russell and Pearl usually split a jar of food for breakfast.  Anna fed Pearl this morning but Russell fell asleep in his chair eating kix, so I didn't get to give him his official breakfast til he woke up.  I got his out of the fridge and started feeding it to him, carrying on my running conversation like I do.  "Look Russell!  Yum!  You're eating pineapple, pear, and avocado."

"WHAT?!? That is so weird," says Anna.  I ask her if she even read the name of it this morning, since she was the one who got it out to feed to Pearl.

"No, I just checked to see if it had acid and that's all."

"Wait.  Wow, that sounds awful.  Like we drug the babies!  Oh no!"  Silly things make us laugh, and it's yet another example of something that is totally normal in this job but would be extremely odd in another setting.  Pearl's been having a little trouble with citrus lately and so we check to see if there's added citric acid in the jars.  There wasn't, by the way.  

I'm having trouble getting pictures on here lately, which is part of why I haven't posted in so long- I like to put them up.  Too many posts with no pictures make me feel like it's just Too Long: Didn't Read.  Also I've been busy, and also lazy.  Let's just be honest.  Anyway, I'll try to be better with little anecdote stuff, even if I can't figure out the picture issue for a bit.

Stream of Consciousness

My little people chatter all day long.  Some of them never stop talking- not while they eat, while they play, or while they're in bed- right up until they fall asleep mid-sentence.  I like to talk too.  Most of the time this works out nicely.  They tell me things, I ask more questions, and life carries on.  Other times I'm in the middle of something and not paying 100% attention so they trail along behind me talking and talking.

Today I was trying to get dinner going.  It takes all day and I forgot to rinse the beans last night so I was setting them up for a quick soak.  I had help.

"Kelli?  Whatcha doing?  Those are beans?  What beans?  Pin- TOE beans?  Oh. You put water?  You cook them?  Is that a clock?  oh, a scale?  You get beans?  I have nipple!"

At that point I did a double take and stopped my bean patter.  Sure enough, she's standing there pointing at it.

"Actually, you have two of them."  I mean really, what else is there to say at that point?

"Oh!  Yes!  I have two nipples!  I cook beans with you?"

And we're off and running again.

Body Work

We're working on the Mother Goose Time's "My Amazing Body" this month. I have two weeks of curriculum left still because of all the sickness and nice weather. :) Either they're feeling bad, or it's too nice to stay in. But on days that we've been doing our MGT box, they're having a really good time. Tarzan is especially excited about it. He comes in every morning and asks me, "we do body work today? do circle time?"

The last few days have been about the senses. Yesterday we did smell, and we talked a lot about skunks. I really enjoyed the discussion. It's fun for me to try to explain things in a way that they really get. They wanted to know WHY the skunk smells so bad. And yeah, I could have used the phrase "defense mechanism" and left it at that. But I talk a lot. We looked at a photograph of a skunk and I asked them if he looked nice. "Yes! Like a kitty cat!" Tarzan tells me.

Okay, I say. So does he have sharp teeth? NO! Does he have sharp claws? NO! Does he have long legs for running fast? NO! So... what happens when another animal wants to fight him?

...crickets chirp while they ponder... and then O'Malley yells, "OH! He will get REALLY hurt!! And maybe DIE!!"

um, yes. Leave it to a four year old boy to make it about the murder death kill. So, I ask, "Do you think any fierce animals will want to come close to him if he smells REALLY bad?"

They were totally delighted. It made me laugh. OH! He can protect himself because he is so stinky! And he doesn't have to fight and die!

We're also working on the word "texture" this week, and talking about how different textures feel. Bumpy, sticky, stuff like that. Easy and fun to reinforce at home if you're so inclined. :)

Gems of Wisdom

"Aren't I sweet? I am sweet to everybody! Except people at the store, because they are just annoying."

"My mommy and my daddy are BEST friends!!" (made me all warm and fuzzy. so cute!)

"No, you can't hold my baby. She doesn't like monsters!"

I need a tape recorder to just carry around all day. Some of the really good ones have left my brain. Right now they're currently obsessed with "Baby Stephanie", who is a large rock living in my backyard. They're very gentle with her- rock and hold her and kiss her. It's one of the strangest games I've seen in awhile, but they all love it. They fight over who is going to hold her and whose turn it is to wheel her around in the carriage.

And I have to put this picture up even though it has nothing to do with anything- it brightens my day. Hercules for some reason woke up extra sweaty the other day and all I did was smooth his hair up instead of down. Definitely did not expect it to stay like that on its own. :) He's a good sport!

One Liners...

Okay, so Lilo is completely killing me these days with the crazy things she says. I don't know where she comes up with this stuff, but it's awesome.

• The other day she and Boo were playing and all of a sudden out of nowhere, Lilo turns to Boo and says, "Welcome to the jungle!"
• She has decided she is Princess Daisy. I don't know why, but it's become even more specific than general princess discussion. And when she is being PD, she refers to herself in the third person. Princess Daisy doesn't want to eat that. Princess Daisy does not clean.
• She's got this little shaky dance thing she does, and every time she says, "You want to see my booty shake? My daddy taught me how!" (which by the way is not the case. he looked very surprised to hear that he was supposedly responsible. )
• 
  

Half Of What You Hear

I heard a fellow teacher once say "I promise to only believe half of what your child tells me about your homelife, if you promise to only believe half the things you hear about the school day!" I think it's a fairly common saying and it definitely holds true for anybody who works with kids. I'm pretty sure that when parents ask what they did today at school, they get whichever movie the kids watched while I made lunch, and maybe what they ate for lunch if it was something they liked. Of course, we do far more than that in the span of a day, and we hear all kinds of interesting things here too. :)

• I'm on the verge of asking one family if there's an announcement I don't know about due to multiple references to "baby my house".
• One tells me, "I'm broke. That means I have no money. Like my daddy."
• "Can you show my mommy how to make this food? She doesn't cook for me."
  
• In the mammal questioning I'm told a cheetah is a "girl", which leads to a muttered discussion between me and Kanga regarding whether it could possibly mean this or even this, and if those things could have been have overheard from tv. We have to amuse ourselves with grownup conversation somehow. :)
• "I can't clean up today. My head hurts..."
  
• During orca work this morning the orca was compared to someone's grandmother.
  

If you want to ask a few more leading questions of your toddler/preschooler and see if they remember what we're actually doing lately:

• Letter focus on Q and W. Q is "circle with a tail, for Queen and Quack" and we've been practicing reading, recognizing, writing, and sounding it out.
• Mammal discussion continues all month. Major concepts we're learning that characterize a mammal: They have a backbone. They have to breathe air. Baby mammals drink milk with their mommies. They have hair or fur. We're doing a lot of questioning about whether or not something is a mammal. Is Thomas the Train a mammal? Does he drink milk? etc...
• So far we've studied chimp, human, opossum, cheetah, seal, and orca.
  

Vegetable Gardens Galore

The first day with a new big kid always makes me conscious of wanting to take pictures to document the Big First Day. Cute New Boy's first day here coincides with the beginning of the vegetable unit we're doing, so there's lots of good stuff to show. We're about a week behind on May curriculum (as usual), but I really just love doing what they're interested in, and if they want to play outside ALL morning and collect bugs and dig in rocks, I'm good with that. We're finally done with the rock unit I think, although I didn't get through all the material. I'm guessing they won't be asked any time soon to take a pop quiz on sedimentary or metamorphic rocks though, and we DID talk about igneous, and fossils, and limestone and granite, and arrowheads.....

So. On to vegetable gardens.

We played outside for about an hour and a half this morning. I'm growing lettuce and strawberries in pots and they've been helping me water them and watch them, so we did a bit of that, and then they ran around like banshees with Kanga while I got some art ready in the house. I went out periodically to see what they were doing and Cute New Boy (who of course needs a Disney name- who does he look like to you?) was SO excited that we were out there for so long. We're routined in terms of we do this, then that, in a predictable pattern, but I rarely watch the clock. Every time I went out he ran over and grinned at me and said, "WE'RE STILL OUTSIDE! STILL!" It made him very happy.


So then when we came in I read them The Surprise Garden by Zoe Hall and we talked about seeds and gardens, and then we made a mural of our own garden to hang on the wall.


The finished product-apple trees, watermelons, carrots, strawberries, sunflowers, peas, green beans, cauliflower, and some "big ones" and "long ones" that I couldn't get a clear ID on, but that pleased the artists immensely. :)

And then of course we had to have salad bar for lunch. Most of them did pretty well and ate at least one thing. I had hit the farmers' market earlier in the week so we had lots of colorful choices.

Everybody got to pick their own veggies and add meat and cheese. Good stuff.

It Sounds Normal To Us

Transitioning from the corporate world to the daycare life has been fun for Kanga. (We decided to call her Kanga, and her little girl Roo. So cute! I had originally called her Mulan but it doesn't fit her as well and this way they match. Now we just need to think of something to call me.) Anyway, Kanga was talking about how there are so many things we say at work every day that are perfectly normal, appropriate, teachable moments... and if you heard them at work anywhere else you'd be really alarmed or at least do a double take. We thought we'd make a list.

• Please put your pants back on.
• No, wait, your underwear is inside out. Take it off and fix it first.
• Panties are private.
• Did you just LICK him? Really?
  
• Nobody needs to see your belly.
• What is that wet spot on your clothes?
• What is that smell? is that you?
• Stop sitting on his head.
• Quit licking your snot. You need a kleenex.
• Don't put your hands in other people's pockets!
• It makes your ear feel wet when you put celery in it.
• How did you get meat between your toes?
  

We'll keep a running list- I know there are tons of things that happen every day that make us laugh. :) What else have you heard from kids lately? Or what has come out of your mouth that surprised you?

Quick Sebastian-isms

"Oh! A new car! That makes me a lot of happy!"

"Peaches for snack? Peaches are NOT for boys."

"Can I have some more peaches?"

"Can I have some MORE peaches?"

"Peaches are for boys....."

Supers In the Family

A random funny conversation I heard today between Ariel and Snow White:

Ariel: Do you know about Batman?
SW: Yes!
Ariel: Why? Batman is for boys.
me: Well, you know about him because you have a brother- SW has a brother too, so she knows about it also.
SW: Yeah! My brother does Batman!

Ariel: Your brother is Batman? Whoa.....

Thanksgiving Niceties

We're starting to get ready for our second annual Thanksgiving dinner. We do it on Tuesday before Thanksgiving and we invite all the families who can get their lunch hour off to come over. Last year it was really fun. This year they're already excited about it again. We have just over a week to plan and we're going to make some practice recipes this week, since I'm not sure about some of the gluten free adjustments I'll have to make.

They also are very serious about the decorating. Duchess wants a "koopia". Badly. And what is that? You know! That horn thing that HAS to go on the table for Thanksgiving. Buy one please. Go to Walmart. Can we go tonight?

I've never bought a cornucopia before, and I'm not sure why she's decided it's a necessity this year. As long as they don't cost the earth though, it looks like we may be the proud owners of one before too long. I suppose we could use a lesson in centerpieces and dressing the table nicely.

This Does Not Bode Well

Snow White: I smell poop.
Duchess: That's not poop. It's our lunch.
Snow White. NO! What is she cooking? It's poop! Not lunch!
Duchess: (coming over to see in the pan) It's not poop, right Mom? It's lunch?
Me: Yes. I'm making quesadillas. You're smelling tortillas and butter. NOT poop.
Duchess: Well, it smells like poop if you BURN it.
Me: Shut up. I did not burn lunch.
Duchess: You shouldn't tell me to shut up.
Me: You're right. But I'm not burning lunch. And you like quesadillas.

Sharing: Toddler Style

Scene: Breakfast

Me: hey Sebastian, you want some more nectarine?
S: NO!
Me: What happened to yours? Did you eat it?
S: NO! Yucky. I give to Dooce. (that's his stab at saying O'Malley's name, which is not really close to the real thing, but is cute.)

I look over and sure enough, O'Malley has a double-sized portion of nectarine and is snacking away happily.

Me: Sebastian, if you don't want to eat it, just leave it on your plate. Don't give your food to your friends, okay?

As I go to the sink, I hear:

Ariel: O'Malley, you want my nectarine too? I give to you.

Why can't they share toys this nicely?