Zoo of course

When faced with a stretch of time to kill, Ted is quick to suggest a trip to the zoo. Mostly this is because it is free with our membership, but also because you always see something new at the zoo and the kids love it.  Clara reminded Ted of the last time the two of them visited and happened upon a zookeeper in the hallway with a porcupine on a leash.  They learned the little guy snuck out the door when it was opened and was being escorted back. Considering Julie would be working all day on a Saturday, Ted planned a trip to the zoo of course!  What was so new about this trip you ask?  Well, the kids were all about finding the docents to ask questions and learn about the animal they had. They got the aquarium guy to identify about ten different fish for them, Clara asked the bird lady why the "bird talked gross", and both twirled demonstration horse hair in the air while asking about the Asian Wild Horses. With fun like that we are already for another trip soon, or until the next time Ted needs to fill a morning away from the house. 

What's Up?

The Monday after fall break was a late start day at Joe's school.  Julie stayed home with Joe and dropped him off at school around 11am for the 11:20am start.  He walked in to the building and Julie saw him make for Mrs. Dvorak's room on the third floor rather than his current room on the second floor.  She hesitated, but then followed him in and met him coming back down the hall with a friend, headed toward the staircase.  They each looked at each other like, "Umm, what are you doing?"  But since he seemed to be headed in the right direction, Julie headed off as well.  Come to find out, Fans, that Joe stops by Mrs. Dvorak's room every morning to wave or say hello to her.  What a kid.  What a kid!

Halloween 2014

Of course, now it's November and it would be unreasonable to expect sixty-anything degree days.  By Halloween, it was chilly so the bambini kicked it like any kid raised in the North would: with costumes over long pants and long-sleeved shirts and fleeces, and in hats and mittens.  They were an undaunted super hero duo: Batman and Supergirl.  Batman managed to lose his cape at school at Thursday's "fall festival" party, but also to recover it the following day at fall conferences.  The Supergirl costume--which we bought a month ago, Brigade--came with stick-on fingernails.  When Julie was taking the costume out of its packaging Thursday night, she thought, "We'll just set these sure-to-be-super-annoying-to-affix-on-tiny-fingernails-especially-in-the-morning-melee stick-on nails aside.  She probably won't remember them."  Julie had clearly--clearly--forgotten how much she loved Lee press-on nails back in the day, because the first thing--the first thing--Clara said the next morning when she saw her costume laid out was, "Oh!  And we can put on the nail polish!"  Brigade, the stick-on nails were, indeed, super annoying to affix on Birdie's wisps of fingernails.  They were hard to separate from their backing.  They had to be cut down.  Birdie felt super in them.  They did not make it through the day, but Birdie seemed nonplussed by this circumstance.

The bambini's friends Eli and Emma, and Austin and Avrey, and their respective handlers came over for macaroni and cheese and chili, again respectively, before heading in a pack to trick-or-treat.  The bambini were ever more confident this year.  They marched right up to front doors without prompting and said all the magic words: trick or treat and thank you.  They'd been told to take only one piece of candy unless they were told they might take more.  Clara would always announce if she'd been told to take more.  At one house, she turned back from the bowl of treats with her arms upraised and her fists full of Smarties and hollered, "They said take a bunch so I took a bunch!"  Last year, Clara hung back and hit in front of houses with inflatables and other more spooky decorations.  This year, she walked up to them and said things like, "You don't scare me you silly, stupid thing!"  (Later Julie told Clara how proud she was of her bravery and Clara said that she doesn't say stupid because it's not a nice word but she had to say it then.)

We stayed out about and hour and hit four blocks by the end of which we had two completely full pumpkins.  When we got home, the bambini again this year handed out the candy to anyone who came to the door which they think is as much fun as trick-or-treating.

We're already planning for Halloween 2015.  The next morning, Clara announced that she was going to dress up as a pumpkin for it.

Indian Summer

Fans, this was a us just a week ago yesterday!  In Minnesota!  At the farm stand where we usually get our pumpkins.  Look at us!  Those are short sleeves you see.  And arms!  Hands!  What you go not see are fleeces and hats and such.  It was so warm last weekend that the bambini painted on the driveway on a length of butcher block paper.

Ready, Set. . .Kindergarten

 

A week ago Friday, Julie took Clara off for her state-mandated kindergarten readiness testing.  We are pleased to tell you that the state of Minnesota thinks Birdie is ready for kindergarten.  But Birdie herself is not so sure.  The night before the readiness testing, after reading to the bambini, Julie told Clara that they would be visiting with some people the next day who would be playing some games with her to make sure she was ready for kindergarten not this fall, but next fall.  And Birdie burst into tears and said she didn't want to go to kindergarten.  Ruh roh Raggy.

Julie asked why, and Clara tearily informed her and Joe that she wouldn't know anyone, and wouldn't have a best friend.  Well.  Put like that, who would want to go to kindergarten?  Julie told Clara that actually, we didn't yet know if Clara wouldn't know anyone, but that if she didn't, there was no doubt about it, that was tough stuff.  Julie has done the new kid in school bit plenty of times and so she knows first hand that while good things like a capacity for resiliency are born of it, it's not very much fun at the time.  So we acknowledged that if Clara did not know anyone come kindergarten, it was going to be a little rough.  But, the next thing we acknowledged was that there are people we love know that we once didn't know at all.  Julie told Clara about when she met Graham and Connor's Mommy Ms. Sara, who she didn't know, but has now known for almost fifteen years!  Joe reminded Clara that he didn't know Karlis until he went to kindergarten.  That was when Julie told Clara that if a year or so from now we needed to practice what to say to new friends, well, we'd do it.  That's when Joe piped in and reminded Clara about how he practiced what to say when Aaron said that he didn't want to play at recess on the first day of kindergarten.  True.  And the second day of kindergarten was the scene of on of Our Hero's greatest acts of bravery to date.  And what a little man and big brother sharing that experience with Birdie!

Well, Fans, it was like something out of a Bearenstain Bears book.  Birdie had been laying with her head on Julie's chest while she and Joe talked through all of the reasons why it might be true that starting kindergarten might be tough, but also all of the reasons why we knew it was going to be o-kay. And Birdie popped up, sat back, and said, "Thank you, Mommy.  You make me feel better."