Family News

We started Annie with the kids while I was folding clothes last week.
I turned it off after the “We Got Annie!” song, because I was growing more and more convinced now isn’t the right age for that movie.   But it was a terrific up-beat ending for their introduction to the movie, and the girls [...]

Yesterday, despite the 40-below, Jay and I decided we needed to go grocery shopping.
It’s a conveluted story, but the end was that only Elisha came with me.  When we got back, Natasha asked why we’d taken so long.  I explained it’s because it’s been a long time since we went grocery shopping, and so had [...]

Ever since introducing the concept of homonym to my 3- and 4-year-olds last year, discovering new examples has been a source of delight for them.
Knowing a bit more now about the difference between homonym and homophone I’ve considered introducing the new word… but haven’t yet.
Natasha has been experimenting with the idea of heartsick (very sad) [...]

I went and auditioned last night for a play I know next to nothing about.
It felt a bit like an ethical quandary, truly:
Is showing up like an eBay bid, where if you “win” (are selected) you are bound to follow through and roll with whatever’s given you?
I resist being bound, but understand the thinking that [...]

Melody: I was playing with the cat!
Me: Was he enjoying it as much as you?
Melody [slowly]: NnnooooYeah!

I have this game I bought a couple years ago to use for the storytelling class I was developing at the time.
Looking for something new to do with the girls (I’m experimenting with letting Melody skip naps) I pulled it out and tried on the fly to see if I could adapt it to their [...]

Chocolate lab, already semi-trained, 3-years-old and loves to cuddle.
The girls adore her and we’re teaching Elisha that “long-suffering” does *not* equal asking for more suffering.
I am so thankful to have found her.
The short story: We’ve been looking at the shelter a couple times a week the last few months.  We’ve looked at a number of [...]

But we’re on the way better.
On top of the general yuckiness we all feel, Melody seems to be in that rough transitional stage between keeping naps and leaving them behind.
This morning Melody desolved over something and wouldn’t tell me what was wrong.  I found her bubbling in her room and scooped her up, pretending she [...]

I have a passel of pictures to upload once pictures are working again, but for now I wanted to say our approach to Kindergarten has morphed a few times now.
I’m glad I haven’t been saying each thing as we were doing it, but to recap, we began with the intent of hammering out the “3 [...]

School started today all across the district, so yesterday I told Natasha she’d be starting too.
This seemed to bother her quite a bit, and she said she wasn’t ready and didn’t really want to start Kindergarten.  She was so (quietly) intense about it, I was ready to say, You’re only 5, we can wait, before [...]