Country Dance

There was a hoe down at school a couple of weeks ago. The 3rd graders (I think) have a big pioneer/Lewis and Clark unit, and starting last year they will have this as an annual event for the whole school community.

I had scheduled long before we knew about it, a mom's night out with the playgroup moms; so I was unable to attend. Pablo said he'd take the girls. After careful review of their wardrobe, it was clear that we did NOT have anything remotely appropriate. Luckily, I ran into Krystyna at Costco that morning, and she came in with some clothes later on.

Lorena, decided, by just glancing at the clothes, that there was nothing girlish enough for her to even consider wearing. Luckily, she had come home with a HUGE stash of clothes, hand me downs from our neighbors (her teacher's kids). I guess I have to go into those. Terri had set aside some clothes on Thursday for the families to look at. By the time Pablo picked her from school, Lorena had already picked a ton of outfits (some went straight to Arantxa's drawers). Thanks again Terri. Lorena then settled on a dress.

Arantxa, as usual, gets into everything, and she goes full speed ahead. She asked me if she could wear the flannel shirt, from Nicolas (2.5). It did fit her, and she was even able to close the buttons, the sleeves, naturally, come 3/4. She also got Agnes's dress on.

here go the pictures. Arantxa, all ready to go.



Pablo, looking super handsome and even wearing boots.


I just love this picture and I am not sure why. I think it reminds me of Patricia (my sister) as a little kid, wearing a green cowgirl costume, with a similar hat. We had so much fun when we got a big trunk of costumes from Tía Laurita (sibling fact checker???). anyway, outside of the party place.


and her, the girls in action. Pablo says they could barely follow the instructions, but both of them have shown me some of the moves, and explained the name of the dances.




Mostly, he says, they had a good time running around, and they got to have a good dessert.

Stuck in the bathroom

Pablo was on a trip. Lorena had had a bad night; she'd kept waking up so I finally let her come to our bed. Arantxa had had nightmares so I had to go to her room to soothe her (but she never woke up). I was unable to fall sleep again, so I was awake from 2 to almost 6, and then fell asleep. I woke up again, later than when I usually start. I had to get going fast since it was a school day. In fact, we had to leave a bit earlier than usual as I had to drop off Lorena at her friend's house (close by) since I had to take the other kids to school and had to stay for a class.

She wanted to take a shower with me but I did not let her. She resigned herself to being with me in the bathroom. As I was getting in the shower, she started kicking the bathroom door (it is one of those pocket or sliding doors, it slides into the wall when open). I asked her to stop, she said, "OK, mom" and did with no complain. A little while later she tried to get out but she couldn't. I instructed her to unlock the door (a bit tricky, twisty lock). She still was unable, so she had to wait for me.

As I got out of the shower and tried to open I realize that her kicking had stuck the door, moving it off its rail. Getting on my serious mommy voice I told her that we were stuck in the bathroom since her kicking had stuck the door. Well, I did not expect that to be totally true, but it was. I tried pulling the door, but of course I had little leverage. I tried pushing it back in place, but after 5 or so minutes I realized that I couldn't.

I called Arantxa who was sleeping (I was not sleeping mom, I was playing in my room and making a story). She came running into the room (I was expecting to get my big morning hug) but was surprised to find nobody ("hey, where is everybody" I thought, why did my mom call me if she was not here).

She came to the bathroom door and I explained what had happened and what she had to do. Now, Lorena is naturally strong while Arantxa is more like Bruce Banner and can only be super strong when angry, so just in Hulk mode. She kept trying though, but unable to get it.

I was naturally, ready to go to plan B, have Arantxa call the neighbors, get her to unlock the door, and embarrassingly wait for Nacho to come. Her only phone experience has been when we pass the phone to her, and we've showed her how to dial 911.

Altogether 10 minutes had passed and it was getting really late. Finally, Arantxa was our heroine and was able to push the door back in place. We rushed through breakfast and Arantxa got to buy lunch at school instead of taking from home. We got Lorena to Mia's house. She was SO excited, they were still in PJ's.

We were a bit late for picking up our carpool buddy, but still on time to arrive punctually at school.

All is well that ends well.

Who is making that noise?

Lorena is clicking her tongue frequently. Her teacher says she does it as a happy sound, when she is working on something else. For us, she mostly does it in the car. Oh, and she does it very loudly. Pablo and I don't like it, we can live with it though, but it gets on Ax's nerves, especially as it interferes with her car reading.
Yesterday, we were driving home and Ax was reading (I know, what a surprise!), Lo covered her mouth with one finger and began the clicking. She would stop and say, "Arantxa, stop making that noise, Arantxa, why are you making that noise with your tongue?" Pablo told her that we knew it was her, "no, it is not, it is Arantxa."

It was similar to last week. We went to one of those new water park/hotels (awesome!!), and we had to separate the girls into 2 beds since Lorena was not letting her sister sleep. The room was pitch dark, and we start hearing this big noise from Lo's side (thumping the mattress with her leg). "Who is making that noise? I can't sleep with that noise! Can you please stop that noise?" We told her to stop kicking the mattress. She then starts moving in the bed saying "what is that swishing sound? I can't sleep with that swishing sound?" I must admit she was right, the sheets were noisy ;).

The last 2 pee accidents

I know, who wants to hear about those? On the other hand, you really are no parent of a young child if those don't form part of your consciousness whether your kids have them or not.

TWO.
Lorena had been begging to have a play date with her best friends from school, Vivian and Grace for months. We finally got that to happen yesterday. She was even thrilled to have Blake (G's brother) over; she really has come a long way in accepting that boys form part of everyday life whether you like it or not.

Some of the kids were playing outside as I was making tea, I heard them running and screaming. At some point I realized Lorena was screaming, "I NEED TO GO POTTY!!!!" (in English). I came out puzzled and wondering why she called instead of coming. I found her sitting in one of those push cars, all buckled in and unable to free herself. By the time I got to her, she just said, "it is too late; it's coming out.."In no time she was back playing with a new set of clothes; clearly not the end of the world for her.

ONE.
A few weeks ago, we had returned home from school. I reminded Arantxa to go to the bathroom and off she went. I was washing clotes and running around doing things. Quite some time later, I hear Lorena frantically crying, "!!!Bañito, abre la puerta, necesito ir al baño!!!" (Potty, open the door, I need to use the bathroom!!!". I came running down, knowing EXACTLY what was going on. I asked Arantxa to unlock the door, and by the time she did, Lorena could not hold it and she had an accident in front of the potty.

So, what, you are wondering, was Arantxa doing and how did I know? She was lost in a story. This is the way I describe when she is making up a story and telling it aloud. She went into the bathroom, started thinking of a story, and, like the Energizer bunny, kept going and going... She just recently began locking the bathroom door. I ended up making one of those, not quite rules, but expectations. One of those you imagine is so specific, no one has ever needed to make that rule. Arantxa, from now, you can't lock the bathroom door and tell a story. Oh, and yes, you are supposed to make those into positives so it can go like this, Arantxa, if you are in the bathroom telling a story, the door has to remain unlocked. Pablo wanted to add that this only applied to the downstairs bathroom; it really is easy to make it to the other bathroom if you are upstairs. I say this is already too narrow as it is.

We lose Arantxa to her stories frequently... she is having dinner with us, and suddenly, she is off in her world, mumbling and so happy. Other times she goes to put socks on, and 15 minutes later, she is sitting in the floor of her room, folded socks in one hand, blah, blah, blah-bbing....

Turning volcanoes off and Arantxa shares about school.

Lorena loves to talk, chat, and visit with people. At 3, she is much better at holding phone conversations than Arantxa. Sure, it comes more naturally to her, but mostly she enjoys doing it. She is definitely a "people's person". She says "HI" and engages in little talk with the cashier, the parking lot attendant, etc. Her teacher ir probably hearing lots of random things about us, like we went to dinner at the Olive Garden. We should be carefull now not to do anything too embarrassing! However, the other side of this is that we also get to hear bits about other people. So we know, that Terri (teacher) also went to the Olive Garden last week ;).

I can't complain about Arantxa, she does tell us a good deal about what happened at school. For instance, last time I picked them up, she was showing me who her "second grade buddy was". She and Bailey sometimes talk about what happened in school. Sometimes, Arantxa doesn't want to talk to Pablo about school, "because I already said that in the car". Now, at dinner, we are having a different problem; Lorena begins to relate all of Arantxa's school day! She really wants to talk and share that, and Arantxa, naturally, gets super upset about it!!! We have told Arantxa that the best way to avoid that is to tell things first. We are also explaining to Lorena that it'd be nice if she let her big sister do the talking. :) the kind of complicated sibling scenarios that we did not anticipate'.

On a different topic, Lorena and I were listening to a CD in the car, those personalized ones that include their names. "Cuando sea grande quiero ser..." (When I grow up I want to be a ...). We hadn't heard that CD in a while, so instead of saying "a mommy and a painter"; she asked what a soldier was (why didn't she ask about a journalist?). My lousy explanation could be summarized as "soldiers=war countries=bad". After stumbling on that, I realized that due to transitivity, my explanation had equated soldier with bad person. I then added that soldiers=help/natural disasters". One of my examples was setting sand bags for preventing flooding. After some thought she said "oh, and then they can throw sand inside the volcanoes!". No, I had to explain it doesn't quite work, but it does sound like a good idea ;). She then said, "well, then they can drop water in them".

Arantxa's summer reading

I had promised this list a couple of times. Halfway through the summer I thought it would be cool to see the books had read over the summer. We were keeping a loose record for a couple of summer reading programs (time for some, # of books for others). I decided to start a spreadsheet, thinking that many years from now she'd find it interesting. We printed her list to take to her new schoo's library. To my surprise, she loved reading her reading list!!

The list, I am sure, is incomplete, but not that bad I guess. The books on the list were read by her except otherwise noted. It includes only what she read after summer vacation had started and up until the first day of school. I think the list stopped around 150 books. I am jealous of her!!! A great deal of them come from the library, we'd be broke otherwise!

CHAPTER BOOKS
Bailey School Kids. Author: Dadey, D./Thornton Jones, M.
Elves don't wear hard hats
Ghosts do splash in puddles
Leprechauns Don't Play Basketball
Monsters don't scuba dive
Mummies don't coach softball
Pirates do ride scooters
Pirates don't wear pink sunglasses
Wizards don't need computers

Cam Jansen by David Adler.
Young Cam Jansen and the Spotted Cat Mystery
Cam Jensen and the summer camp mysteries (3 in 1 book)

Cobble Street Cousins by Cynthia Rylant.
A little shopping
In Aunt Lucy's kitchen
Some good news
Summer Party
Wedding flowers

Disney Fairies. (Different authors)
A masterpiece for Bess (Bergen, Lara)
Beck and the great berry battle (Driscoll, Laura)
Vidia and the Fairy Crown (Driscoll, Laura )
Fira and the full moon (Herman, Gail)
Silvermist and the ladybug curse (Herman, Gail)
Lily's pesky plant (Kirsten, Larsen)
Prilla and the butterfly lie (Richards, Kitty)
The trouble with Tink (Thorpe, Kiki)
Tink, north of Neverland (Thorpe, Kiki)
Rani in the mermaid lagoon

Elmer and the Dragon by Rutt Stiles Gannett. (Absolutely adored this simple and silly tale).
my Father's dragon
Elmer and the Dragon
The dragons of Blueland

Horrible Harry by Suzy Kline.
Horrible harry and the Dragon Wars Kline
Horrible Harry and the Purple People Kline

Little House early chapter
Laura and Mr. Edwards (Henson, Heather) co-read

Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne. (All co-read except for last one.)
Blizzard of the Blue Moon
Dragon of the Red Dawn
Hour of the Olympics
Monday with a mad genius
Night of the new magicians
Season of the Sandstorms
Dark Day of the Deep Sea

Nate the Great by MarjorieSharmat.
Nate the Great and the Lost List

Rainbow Fairies by Daisy Meadows. Her other HUGE obsession. Read and re-read all of them. she finished the series when we got the rest from the library after summer vacation was over.
Amber the Orange Fairy
Amy the Amethyst Fairy(Jewel)
Belle the Bunny Fairy (Pet)
Chloe and the Topaz Fairy (Jewel)
Emily, the emerald fairy (Jewel)
Evie, the mist fairy (Weather)
Georgia the Guinea Pig Fairy (Pet)
Heather the Violet Fairy
Hallie the Rain Fairy (Weather)
Holly the Christmas Fairy (special fairies)
India the moonstone Fairy (Jewel)
Inky the Indigo fairy
Katie the Kitten Fairy (Pet)
Kylie the Carnival Fairy (Special fairies ; 3 in 1 book)
Lucy and the Diamond Fairy (Jewel)
Megan the Monday Fairy (Fun days)
Molly the Goldfish Fairy (Pet)
Pearl the Cloud Fairy (Weather)
Penny the Pony Fairy (Pet)
Ruby the Red Fairy
Scarlett the Garnet Fairy (Jewel)
Sophie the Sapphire Fairy (Jewel)
Tara the Tuesday Fairy (Fun Days)

Frindle Clements, Andrew chapter

Wall-E (Junior Novelization, chapter)

Mercy Watson: princess in disguise (DiCamilo, Kate)

Nim's Island (by Wendy Orr) co-read
Nim at Sea
Nim's Island

My parents think I am sleeping (Prelutsky, Jack)

PICTURE BOOKS
Audio cuentos Disney
Blanca Nieves (Spanish)
La Bella y la Bestia (Spanish)
La Sirenita (Spanish)

Disney's Wonderful World of Reading. Longer picture books.
A Twist in Time (Cinderella III)
Aladdin
Back on track
Bambi
Beauty and the Beast
Blanca Nieves y los 7 enanos (Spanish)
Brother Bear
Chicken Little
Cinderella Spanish
Dumbo
Gift of the Magi
Goofy and the magic fish
Jungle Book 2
La bella durmiente (Spanish)
Lady and the Tramp
Lambert
Los 3 cochinitos Spanish
Pooh's Grand Adventure
Simba and Nala help Bomo
Sleeping Beauty Spanish
Snow white and the 7 Dwarfs
The Jungle book
The Lion King
The lion king 1.5
Tinkerbelle's Secret Adventure
Wall-E

Elephant and Piggie
I Love my new toy (Willems, Mo)
Today I will fly( Willems, Mo)

Charlie and Lola by Lauren Child
I am not sleepy and I will not go to bed
I am too absolutely small for school
Snow is my favorite and my best

Martina, the beautiful cockroach: a Cuban folktale (Agra, Carmen)
Each person pear plum (Ahlberg, Alan)
Previously (Ahlberg, Alan)
Cloudy with a chance of meatballs (Barrett, Judi)
Madeline in London (Bemelmans, Ludwig)
Little Gorila (Bornstein, Ruth)
Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel (Burton, Virginia Lee)
Clarice Bean, That is me (Child, Lauren)
Best best friends (Chodos-Irvine, Margaret)
Good night, pillow fight (Cook, Sally)
Ella the elegant elephant (D'Amico, Carmela and Steven)
Meet the Barkers: Morgan and Moffat go to school (De Paola, Tomie)
The boy who painted dragons (Demi)
Tell me something happy before I go to bed (Dunbar, Joyce)
Horace and Morris, but mostly Dolores (Howe, James)
Friends are Sweet (Liberts, Jennifer)
Baby bear, baby bear, what do you see? (Martin, Bill)
Blueberries for Sal (McCloskey, Robert)
Make way for ducklings (McCloskey, Robert)
The Kiss that missed (Melling, David)
Fancy Nancy's favorite words: from accessories to zany (O'Connor, Jane)
Backyard Bear (Rockwell, Anne)
Richard Scarry's a day at the fire station (Scarry, Richard)
The true story of the 3 little pigs, by A. Wolf (Sciezka, Jon)
Olivia the other Reindeer (Seibold/Walsh)
Brr! (Stevenson, James)
Disney Princess (Weinberg, Jennifer)
Falling for Rapunzel (Wilcox, Leah)
Waking Beauty (Wilcox, Leah)
Deep in the jungle (Yaccarino, Dan)
Big Black Bear (Yee, Wong Herbert)
Alice in Wonderland (longish Disney version)
MANY stories from Disney collections collection
The 3 Little Bears
Corduroy (Freeman, Don)

NON-FICTION
The Cat in the Hat's Learning Library On Beyond bugs! All about insects (Rabe, Tish)
Hellen Keller (Adler, David)
Owen and Mzee: the true story of a remarkabla friendship (Hatkoff, Isabella and Craig)
Grizzly Bears (Kendell, Patricia)
Baby Grizzly (Lang, Aubrey)
Runaway Jack (Lees, Stewart)
Tree (Llewellyn, Claire)
Bear: Watch me grow (Magloff, Lisa)
From Tree to Paper (Marshall, Pam)
Knights and Castles (Simon, Seymour)
Why don’t Polar bears have stripes (Smith, Katherine)

As you can see, she much more rather read fiction! She continues to read at a super fast rate, but with school she has less leisure time. She does, however, have car rides and she is able to read without getting car sick.

Her K class is participating in a Scholastic program. If the class reads 100 books, Scholastic will donate 100 books to kids that need them. I asked her to, this time, write her list by herself. It has been good practice. I think she came to 16. AT some point she had read 11 out of the 46 books in her class.