It's A Date

Monkey and I went to a birthday party for her best friend at school. Friend's mom and I were talking. She told me a funny story.

Earlier in the week, her daughter brought home a piece of paper with five numbers on it and Monkey's name. She gave it to her mom and said that it was Monkey's number. Her mom was confused. It didn't look like an address, and there was not enough numbers for it to be a phone number. Her daughter insisted it was still Monkey's number and they are supposed to meet at Monkey's house to play.

During our conversation, the mother told me the numbers. 12345*. I just laughed. That was our house number. Monkey had given her friend our house number (no street) and told her to come over and play. They had it all worked out. They just had to figure out how to get the friend to our house.

If this is any indication of how things will go as she gets older, I am going to be a very busy mom.

Doing Homework

Bear recently lost his job. It has been a mixed blessing. On the upside it has given him the opportunity to go back to school. He can be a full time student and a part time stay at home dad. He is currently taking an art class. One of the projects he had to do was draw a picture that told a story. He chose to do a simple picture depicting trees and the changing of the seasons.

Monkey likes to do homework. She told Bear that she would help him do his homework. He politely declined. Because he has to turn this in for a grade, he didn't want Monkey messing with it. She asked again and said "but, I'm really good at coloring, Poppa." He again declined and this time told her that she couldn't help because his teacher wouldn't like it if someone else did his homeowork for him. She understood this and didn't ask again. Bear did draw up some circles for her to draw pictures in though. They sat at the table and drew and colored together.

These are the end results:

Bear's Homework



Angela's Picture

What Do They Say

Last week the girls and I were driving home from daycare. We had stopped off at the store to pick up a few things. One of the thinkgs that we got was a lion costume for Bug. It is a yellow pair of furry pants with a tail, and a puffy hoodie jacket. The hoodie has a lions face on the hood, and white on the chest/stomach area. So when she puts the pants on and zips up the hoodie, she looks like a little lion.

After we left the store, Bug was sitting in the back seat making lion noises. "RAWR!" This led into a round of "What sound does _____ make?" We ran through the usual suspects: cats, cows, chickens, roosters, dogs, lions, birds, and even fish. Then it got fun.

Me: "Bug, what sound do you make?"

Bug: "RAWR!"

Me: "What sound does Monkey (my daughter not the animal) make?"

Monkey: "Eeh Eeh Aah Aah!" (or however you spell the noise a real monkey makes)

Me: "What sound does Poppa (Bear) make?"

Bug: "Dinner!"

Me: "Poppa makes dinner?"

Bug: "Yup! At house! I hungee!"

Me: "What sound do I make?"

Bug: "No, Momma. No noise."

Monkey: "Tweet tweet!" (I'm Bird)

Monkey: "I'm done playing this game now mom, whats for dinner?"

Our conversation then moved on to dinner, chores, and what happened at daycare. My two year old helped me learn something new. Poppa makes the noise "Dinner!"

Princess Glasses

Monkey recently got tested at school for her eyes and ears. Her hearing is fine, but she needs glasses. I knew this day would come for one or both of the kids eventually. Bear and I both wear glasses. Most of my family (immediate and extended) wear them, and a couple on Bear’s side do too.

After receiving this news, I posted on Facebook that she needs glasses. To me, not a big deal. I post lots of stuff about the kids on there. A couple of weeks after I posted that, Monkey came in to talk to me in tears. “Why did you tell all your friends I need glasses?!” I told her that I did not think it was that big of a deal. She continued to cry because she felt like by telling my friends that she needs glasses, that I was somehow making fun of her. I told her all the people I knew that wear glasses. Friends and family alike. We also talked about people she knew in school (all different ages) that wear glasses. She started to calm down when I remembered something my mom and I talked about a few days before.

My mom recommended that I make up stories about princesses needing to wear glasses. Monkey LOVES princesses and if they need glasses, it wouldn’t be so bad for her to need them.

“Monkey, think about it this way. If Cinderella had had her glasses on, she would have seen when her glass slipper fell off, and she could have grabbed it and not lost it.”

This was not the exact story my mom recommended… hers was better. It was if Cinderella had worn glasses she could have seen the floor better and could have cleaned it faster. But I couldn’t remember it in that moment and went with the first thing that popped in my head.

After my Cinderella story, Monkey looked at me and said “Mom, Cinderella had to lose her slipper because the prince had to find it so that he could find her. That’s the way the story goes.” Monkey then hopped down off the chair she was sitting on and went off to play.

I got shut down by a five year old.

P.S. the fact that I am posting this story again here after her getting upset that I posted on Facebook is not lost on me. :)

Nursery Rhymes with Bug

Bug is still learning how to talk, but she LOVES to sing. At daycare she has learned a few nursery rhymes. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, ABC’s, and Patty cake, patty cake are her three favorites. Most days in the car on the way home she likes to sing those songs to me. She cannot stay focused on one while she is singing though. She has created her own nursery rhyme mash-up.

“Tinkle tinkle star

How-uh, how-uh, how-uh, how-uh.

A B C B A B A B

Patty cake, patty cake

Roll it. Pat it.

BABY! MOMMY! YAY!!”

Sometimes she adds other family members to the list after Baby and Mommy. That list has extended to include: Monkey, Bear, Cami (our dog), grandparents, uncles, aunts, her cousin, and friends from day care. She is very generous with wanting to share her cake with people.

The Conversation

Monkey is in kindergarten now. For the first few weeks we let her buy breakfast or lunch once a week. She decided that she liked it so much that she would just get lunch/breakfast whenever she wanted. This is the problem...

My husband or I pack her a lunch every day. On the off days that she is allowed to buy, we give her money. So, when she was getting lunch when she wasn't supposed to it created two problems. First, she wasn't eating what we packed for her. So in some cases, the food was getting wasted. Secondly, they weren't denying her the lunch or breakfast. Instead, they fed her (can't deny a hungry child) and she basically created a tab at the school. Now I owe the school money and look like scumbag parent for not giving her lunch or money.

Needless to say, when we found out, my husband and I were less than happy about her choice. Her rationale was that it was "free" because they would give it to her without her giving them money. We talked to her about it, she said she wouldn't do it again, and life moved on.

The very next week she did it again.

This time our discussion involved losing toys and such if she did it again. She said (again) that she wouldn't do it.

Three weeks later...

Monkey and I are sitting at the dinner table finishing up our meals. Bear and Bug are already done and off doing their own things. Monkey set her fork down, laced her fingers together, set her hands on the table and said "Mom I want to have a conversation with you." I asked her what it was about and she said buying lunches. I called Bear into the room and told him Monkey wanted to have a "conversation" with us.

It went like this:
"I would like to have a conversation with you about buying lunches again. I have been very good at doing my chores, not buying breakfast or lunch when I am not supposed to, and I have been behaving in school. I was wondering if I could start buying lunch once a week again"

It took every ounce of self control I had not to laugh. Not because it was funny, but I was just blown away at the level of maturity that she was showing. She isn't even six yet! I took a deep breath and told her that as long as she continued to do all of those things, she could buy lunches again. She said "Okay, thank you" and left the table to go play.

If these are the conversations we have with her at the age of (almost) six... I am scared already for the future.