Birdie's Fall Conference

We met with one of Birdie's teachers for fall conferences before we went to Iowa and learned that Our Birdie is at school the way she is at home, which is to say a confident girl who loves to look at books, make up stories, sing, dance, do art, and help. Birdie's teachers find her very creative. She gravitates toward the books and the story cards (cards with pictures on them one can arrange into different sequences or stories) or the themed art area during free play at school. She also motors through her day singing made up songs along the way, just like she does at home.  Birdie doesn't mind the boys in the room, but she plays mostly with the pack of girls in the room who are about her age.  Apparently they like to have dance parties in the area by the room's radio. Birdie's teacher also noted that Birdie is very serious about her classroom job. She carefully chooses a new one nearly every week (instead of selecting the same one often or over and over) and then she "owns it."

Birdie is still working on using her big girl words instead of tears when she's upset by something, but she knows lots of other things: nearly all of the upper case letters by sight (I--often looks like a lower case L, and thus T--is it an I?, F, V, and W all aren't yet solid), as well as the numbers one through seven. She knows all her shapes except triangle, though she likes to call it a crescent a moon. So she is right on track to move on to pre-K in the spring or fall as space permits.

That brought Julie up a little short: Our Birdie is cruising toward four, and being a pre-kindergartener?!?! The day she dances off to kindergarten is really not so far away. It is easy to overlook three's charms in the midst of its frustrations, and look perhaps too forward to four, forgetting in the moment that we will blink and find ourselves with another grade schooler who is sure to have tacked down upper case Is and triangles, but who will hopefully keep signing and dancing to the beat of her own heart.

The Great State of Iowa | Color Commentary

As usual, we bring you a compendium of quotes from the bambini to provide color to the more factual commentary:

Joe: "Are there volcanos in Iowa?  I know there are volcanos in Japan."
Julie: "And Hawaii.  Mommy once stood on a volcano!"
Joe: "I know."
Julie: "You couldn't know that.  I've never told you that before."

Joe: "Can you spell my name out of order?"
Julie: "O-E-J."

Joe: "Daddy, I know how to spell yo-yo.  Y-O-Y. . .O!!!!!"

Clara: "Daddy, I picked 'High Cookies.'" [Fans of the Sandra Boynton Philadelphia Chicken album might recognize this as Clara's shorthand for Faraway Cookies.  The bambini passed a good portion of the the trip down to Des Moines passing the book that accompanies the CD back and forth selecting what song they wanted to hear.]

Clara: "HI MINNESOTA RIVER!!!!!  I love you Minnesota River!"

The Great State of Iowa

Fans, we are back from The Great State of Iowa. Many Midwestern states are vastly underrated, and Iowa is certainly among them. We stopped off at Iowa State University in Ames on our way to and form Des Moines  which has a truly beautiful campus that is worth a stop should you enjoy observing nature (or today's youth; skateboards seem to be big, at least in Ames). The ISU campus is park-like, with a 20-acre central lawn flanked on one side by a campanile. It was the perfect spot for Birdie to gather up fallen leaves and pine cones and the like to take to school where her class is studying autumn. It was also the perfect place for the boys (we were in Des Moines with our friends Anne and Brent who have two boys, Nathan, seven, and Andrew, five) to chase and tackle each other.

ISU is also home to the Reiman Gardens where, incidentally, the theme this year is More Than Meets Iowa. It is a 14-acre botanical garden and includes a butterfly wing that is particularly well done. When we were there, the butterflies were perhaps too active even; Birdie was rather frightened by their flitting about in such great numbers. But our brave girl agreed to go in if Julie held her.

We also had great barbecue, saw the Science Center, went trick-or-treating at this place called Living History Farms, and swam in our hotel's pool. It is worth mentioning that at the Science Center, there was an exhibit at which on could construct a rocket and then launch them into an area measuring 40 feet long. It is also worth mentioning that Clara and Joe's rocket flew 40 feet at first flight. Joe actually started to cry because his got stuck in the netting bounding the flight zone and he thought he wasn't going to get it back. Happily, many more missions were flown.

Ted planned the whole trip and drove both ways. Iowa is great, and so is Ted.

The pack runs across the ISU campus. (Joe was mostly running with Nathan and Andrew all weekend so get used to not seeing much of him in these pictures.)

Birdie steering clear of the boys.

Birdie with her daddy walking toward the campanile. 

Birdie with her leaf bouquet.

Birds.

Oh there he is again!  Joe being surprised by a butterfly.

The Bambini Chat It Up

On our way to FFN, the bambini were chattering away in the back seat.  Julie typed the exchange below into her phone before she decided to try recording it.  That's usually when they decided to fall silent, or say "cheeeeese!" for the camera.  But they kept going last night, so here, you can hear what Birdie, in particular, sounds like these days.  The clip is about three minutes long, and is really one of these videos we shot for the audio.  Birdie and Tinks will appear at about two and a half minutes, but admittedly Fans, this is not our best camera work.

Clara: "I don't like rocket ships." [This prompted by spying some contrails in the sky which Joe calls rocket ships.]
Joe: "Well, you have a lot more in your life Clara."
Clara: "I only like princesses and ballerinas."
Joe: "Do you like flying to vacation?"
Clara: "Yes!"
Joe: "Well, there's another thing you like."

Family Fun Night

Joe's Pumpkin, Apple Which Clara Found at the Orchard to Which She Is Very Attached, Clara's Pumpkin

Tinks and Ariel have already been on a field trip.  (And they thought the Magic Kingdom was where it's at.)  They accompanied us in the car last night on the way to Family Fun Night.  This weekend is "MEA weekend" when all the Minnesota educators get together and talk about education in the state, and many elementary school parents split with their children for hotel pools and water parks in Midwestern destination locations like Duluth, Brainard, the Dells, and Door County.  (We are going to Des Moines.)  In the Park, it all begins with a few pandaemonium-filled hours at the middle school known as Family Fun Night.  Kids dash all around the middle school through stations adult volunteers have set up with things like temporary tattoos (the bambini are both sporting SLP temporary tats on their forearms) while parents trail after them.

"Mrs. D," as we understand she is sometimes called, was there.  (Kindergartner celebrity sighting!)  Joe greeted her by running up to her with no words and wildly flapping arms which he eventually calmed down enough to throw around her.  That was nothing compared to the reception Joe apparently received.  Julie wasn't there to see it because she was helping Clara decorate a miniature pumpkin, but understands that a small mass of screaming girls ran up to Joe like he was a Beatle arriving at Shea Stadium.  Joe Invasion!!!!!  Joe Mania!!!!!  After finishing his ration of two slices of pizza, three grapes, a cookie, a cup of water, and some popcorn*, Our Hero spent much of the evening tearing around the cafeteria after one of those girls: Nora.

We met Nora's mom and as she said, "They are IN LOVE."  We knew Nora was a special friend because Joe's take home-folder has come home with artwork from Nora in it.  But whereas we are left to dope out the stories from clues like this, Nora has, apparently, been more forthcoming with her mother.  Nora's mom reports that while she was hoping to meet Joe, she felt like he must be good people after Nora told her that Joe had said his favorite thing to do was snuggle with his mom and dad.  Oh Fans.  If these are the lines Joe is feeding he ladies, look out.  Julie and Nora's mom exchanged phone numbers as Joe and Nora swirled around chanting "Play date!  Play date!  Play date!"  Probably the only reason that Joe isn't insisting that play date happen TODAY is that we are going to Des Moines.  (Des-Moines!  Des-Moines!  Des-Moines!)

We were at FFN less than an hour, Fans, but what an hour.  Running. . .screaming (in a school!!!!!), a celebrity sighting, NORA!!!!!, pizza and grapes. . .and to think we said Tinks and Ariel had to stay in the car.

*Worst volunteer position at the Family Fun Fair: working the popcorn cart.  Never-ending line.  Smelly.  Hot in room filled with wildly running and screaming bodies.