Frances, The Budding Artist

The K1 (that's Boston for pre-K) teachers at Frances's new school took it upon themselves to divide the year into themes.  I love this.  It gives the kids a chance to really look at a subject that I don't remember the regular ed kids having when I was growing up (the gifted kids, yes; us regulars, no).  The year's first theme was something like, "Who am I?" so the kids did self-portraits and also talked about their neighborhoods and Boston.  The study was concluded with an art show displaying all the kids' work.

Frances was very excited to wear her own clothes to the show, not just her school "uniform."  You can see she's got style:

The kids wrapped yarn around cardboard cut-outs of the first initial of their names.  This is Frances's F.

This is one version of Frances's self-portrait.

It says, "I like playing 'ponies.'  My favorite part of me are 'my eyes because they are blue.'  My favorite color is 'purple.'  I am good at 'thinking about stuff and telling my mama because I like thinking a lot.'"  Isn't that sweet?

And this is her second version of a self-portrait:

The kids also gathered recyclables and turned them into a city.  That's Frances's (animal?) hospital with the windows across the top. 

And this is Frances with Ms. Cadet, her teacher and one of the masterminds behind this display.

A couple of gems, to be sure!

Painting with the girls

About three years ago, when I had one child who spent all day at Montessori, I did something really smart: I made a huge batch of salt clay ornaments.  Every Christmas since then, I've had ornaments ready for the girls to paint whenever the mood struck.  

Well, the mood struck.

"Yum, paint!" says Chandler.

Frances was a wee bit more precise.

And then Chandler smeared balm all over her cheeks.  Her skin dries out easily so we've been lathering her with all sorts of products.

The product of the day was called "Balm of Gilead."  Isn't that wonderful?  Chandler thought so.

Messy Winter Play Date

The kids discovered a great use for old herbs one Saturday.  I can't recall how they got started exactly, but I imagine Chandler was playing with the herbs and I was ignoring her because I didn't think she could open the containers.  And then she did.  We ended up letting the girls experiment with the older herbs.

Frances helped herself, too.  She was very keen.

They had a great time pouring, mixing, smelling and spilling.

Then Frances's great buddy Isaac came over.  They are great playmates, and Isaac comes with the added bonus of a little sister, Hannah.  She's a little older than Chandler and adores Frances, so she can play with them both. 

The bigs mostly went outside to play by themselves.  The littles made sugar cookies.

See how Hannah has an apron but no flour on her face?  See how Chandler Mess-omatic Upton fails on both counts?

Ain't she grand?

Sixty-One Months of Preschooler Frances

Frances, at least, has some sense about wearing warm clothes, as long as she's got her skirt.  In this picture, she's wearing tights, stretchy pants (aka leggings), a skirt, long-sleeved shirt, Beka-made scarf and hat, mittens and jacket.  The girl's got survival smarts.

Sixty-One Months Fun Facts

• A Frances Moment:  We were listening to a particularly bouncy song on our way to school one day.  Frances chirped up with "This song makes my heart shine."  She's a poet!
• Stats:  Frances finally was taken to her five year doctor's check-up.  Some not so big news:  She's a string bean.  Frances is 46.12 inches tall (95th percentile); she weighs 41.5 pounds (56th percentile).

Twenty-Two Months of Toddler Chandler

It was cold the day Chandler turned twenty-two months old.

Guess how long those mittens stayed on.

On the coldest days, she does alright without mittens for about ten minutes.  Then she holds up her hands and cries.  Then, but only then, she lets me cover up her hands.

Twenty-Two Month Fun Facts;

• Language: Last month's language explosion has slowed down this month, but she did add "key" and "gookey"/cookie to her vocabulary.  I don't feel like she's struggling to make herself understood.
• Favorite book: We checked out Goodnight, Moon from the library and she's quite fond of it.  She thinks the tiger rug is actually snakes (she points to it and hisses), which amuses me.
• Sleep:  Still bad.  I miss sleep.
• Mobility:  She's very excited to be hopping.  Very pleased with herself.
• Disposition:  There have been small hints of two-ness, but so far sailing has been relatively smooth, thank goodness.

Because this is a good idea...

Into the season...

Last Christmas, I "successfully" lobbied against getting a real tree, since we were going to Arkansas for the big day.  We got a potted pine houseplant instead.  It was not satisfactory.  This year, when Mark said he wanted a tree, I wised up and agreed.  So the day after Thanksgiving...

That's Frances eating a candy cane and Chandler smelling a salt clay ornament.  I had shown her that the cinnamon ornaments smelled good, so she was sniffing them all.  Equal opportunity sniffer.

Frances set out our little clay nativity.

Then the girls mauled each other for a bit. 

And we wrapped up the day with more candy canes, hot cocoa and grins.

Not a bad day.

First Snow of the Season

There was a wee snowfall the day after Thanksgiving.

Wee snowfalls are just what my kids had in mind.

Yep, those are pajamas.

Thankful for Play Dates

School got out early the day before Thanksgiving, so we had Darby and Keala over for a play date.  The girls were out of their school clothes and into dress up clothes exactly seventeen seconds after crossing the threshold.  Even Chandler got a ballet costume, but it didn't last long.  Once everyone was in their finery, it was clearly time to start messing about with paint.  Darby, in particular, kept herself entertained for a long time.

And then sugar cookies, because nothing says "Winter Play Date at Frances's House" like sugar cookies.  (I believe there is yet another sugar cookie post still to come.)

Red dye yumminess.

Frances was more than a bit worn out by the end of the day.

Mark to the rescue.

Sugar cookies...

...bringing peace and harmony to the world.

Life Around Here

Ultimately, of course, all these posts are for me - me, in my old age when I can't remember a bit of it without help.  But this post is really for me, so I can remember where all my days went, and why I didn't earn that online master's in my free time.  Feel free to excuse yourself now.

This is how my day goes:

5:30 a.m. Wake up and check my email messages, in case there are any of vital importance.  There aren't.

5:45 Get out of bed, make breakfast, make Frances's lunch, gather snacks for Chandler, get myself dressed.

6:30 Get the kids out of bed and feed them, like so:

(I swear my kids sometimes wear clothes around the house.)

6:45 Get the kids dressed and groomed.  Some days this is more successful than others.

7:00 Leave for school.  Feed them snacks in the car because they've usually rejected breakfast.

7:15-7:30 Get Frances all squared away at school.  This should take three minutes.  It doesn't.

7:30-8:30(ish) Muck about with Chandler.  In good weather, this means visiting a playground.  We haven't done that in quite a while.  Sometimes we run an errand.  Sometimes we get coffee.  Usually, we're really early at the gym.

8:30-9:45 Exercise at the gym while Chandler goes to the gym's nursery.

9:45-10:30 Go back home with Chandler and put her down for a nap.

10:30-1:30 Do everything that needs to be done around the house that's harder to do with children present: clean up from breakfast, make dinner, clean up from making dinner, shower, do laundry, make phone calls, blog....I don't know where the three hours goes, but it goes quickly every day.

1:30 Wake up Chandler.

1:45-2:00 Pick up Frances from school.

2:00-4:30 Do something away from the house; the "away" aspect is vital.  We go to the zoo's gorilla house, the Museum of Science, or the library, but coming home too early leads to bickering, so I try to avoid that.  At the beginning of the school year, I was really worried about this part of the day, but I think it's going really well, which is nicely eating up my guilt for sending Frances to so much preschool while being a stay at home mom.  Never mind that she once wept and asked to be sent to after-school.  Ahem.

4:30 Dinner. Yup.  The children usually finish in three minutes or less (I wish I were kidding), but I try to savor it a bit longer.

5:00 Baths, if they're going to happen.  Frances got a bath every night when she was a baby.  Not any more.  Now they get a bath when I can't remember when they last bathed.  Or when they smell.

5:30 Start Chandler's bed time.

6:00(ish) Put Chandler to bed.  She always falls asleep immediately, poor thing.

6:00-7:00 Muck about with Frances - homework, reading, negotiating tomorrow's outfit.

7:00-? Check-ins with Frances every five minutes until she falls asleep.  Sometimes this lasts ten minutes, sometimes thirty.  Clean the post-dinner kitchen.  You'd think with all this kitchen-cleaning, the counters would be gleaming at all times.  They don't.

7:30-8:30  Waste time on the internet.  Read - this is rare but still happens.  I recently read at least half of a New Yorker article about the AIDS virus surviving in memory T cells and I'm currently enjoying Little House in the Big Woods, which I've never had the pleasure of reading before.  The pile of unread New Yorkers is embarrassing.  They just keep coming.  Every week.  Who has the time?

8:30 Sleep, if I know what's good for me.

Various times throughout the night:  Help Chandler back to sleep.  She has been sleep trained numerous times, but then she gets sick and things fall apart.  She's been sick since Thanksgiving, if not earlier, so we haven't slept through the night in quite awhile, at least for parents of a nearly two year old.

There's my day, more or less.  I'm not sure where all the time goes, but it does go.  What's that saying about the longest days, but the shortest years?  I guess that applies, but I also feel like the days fly by without warning.  Can't wait to get used to that feeling.  All in all, I'm very pleased with the schedule.  I worry about getting Chandler into some sort of part-time activity that I know she'll want sooner or later, but she's got to stop napping so early.  And I'm sorry Frances has such a problem spending two and a half hours of free time with me, but she'll have to get over it, because I actually enjoy our trips to the zoo and the library.  Last week, we went to the Museum of Science, at Frances's request, three times.  That was a bit much, but she knows much more about racoons and chipmunks and ostrich skeletons than I did at her age, so we'll call it a win.

Cooperation: It's a Solstice Miracle

Look at the fancy watercolor set you get when your daddy's an architect:

I can't remember if I told Mark this was a Michaelmas lantern or a Solstice lantern.  I'm guessing I said Michaelmas, because he just loves hearing about the Solstice.

Regardless, everyone got along for at least thirty seconds.