conuly | Entries tagged with 'cdotes

With the exception of her spelling, which goes in her book anyway. She will get very upset if she cannot finish her packet on Monday, say, because she hasn't yet been taught the math that is part of Thursday's homework, crying that she ALWAYS gets it ALL done on MONDAY. (And then spends Tuesday through Thursday bouncing around and keeping Ana from doing HER work. There is only so much extra work I can give her and still have time to help Ana and make dinner!)

Last week we came home late Monday for some reason and were trying to cram in homework very quickly, and I told Eva to ignore the rest of her work and just do the stuff that's "due tomorrow".

Evangeline: But I want to do what's do today!
Me: Yeah, okay, just don't go overboard, you still need a bath. Get the stuff done that's due tomorrow.
Evangeline: Who cares about what's do tomorrow? Why can't I do what's do today?
Me: Because it's Monday...? Nothing is due today, it's the first day of the week! And if it were, you'd be late. Just do what's due tomorrow.
Evangeline: But if I do that, I'll be late! I need to do what's do today!

Yes, we went on like this for a while before we realized that Evangeline didn't know the word "due". Due, do, doo-doo - it's all so similar!

I had gotten to bed pretty early, but for some reason was still exhausted all day, so I spent some time napping while Ana used her Christmas gift to draw paper dolls.

So she comes in to me with her paper doll family all neatly taped on a piece of paper and asks me what I think. I thought it was great and said just that.

"No, Connie, I want to know what you really think."
"I really think it's great. Go make yourself a salami sandwich."
"Connie, tell me the *truth*."
"It's great. I really like it. Go eat lunch."
"No, no, I want your honest opinion."
"It's. Great. Now, go eat lunch."
"I said honest! Tell the truth!"
"Fine, Ana. I hate it. It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen. Go eat your lunch now."
"Oh, good. I'm going to give it to Michele, and I'm pretty sure she will like the exact opposite of you!"

And Eva Ibbotson does rock, right?

She's really very involved in this book. She cried for ten, fifteen minutes when the neighbor in the book died.

Today, I gave them, as I am wont to do, fifteen minutes to play before starting homework. As they played, I read. Suddenly, I was jolted out of my book by the strong and strident cries of LIAR!!! YOU ARE A LIAR!!

This came out of nowhere so I poked my head in to see what her sister had done to provoke this.

The answer was - nothing! Ana was furious at the actions of one of the book characters!

And Mama Cat was following us. When she does, the nieces comment on how spy like she is and make a point not to break her cover. At any rate, eventually she broke into the open and Evangeline mentioned "She's, like, invisible!"

Silly me, I replied that of course the cat isn't *really* invisible.

"I know. I said 'like'."

Which is delicious, and very easy. The nieces took some in to school today, and Ana reported back that her friends decided that it is "better than Three Musketeers", a statement that would be more flattering if I'd made this from scratch instead of from fluff.

I seem to recall making that stuff all the time in high school, but I don't think I've made it since. Well, until yesterday, that is. I'm not sure why I stopped making it.

The girls were very hyper all day, even before the fudge, and after dinner they had a stuffed animal fight with me. That is, they attacked me with stuffed animals, and I used Eva as a human shield. Or I tried to, but then she declared this "the hunger games", a book she most emphatically has not read ("I got it off a book, but all I know is it's about killing"), and I lost it. I got completely pummeled after I collapsed laughing.

After things calmed down I went to retrieve my phone, and they did... something. I'm still not sure what, but they had these unholy grins and giggles going on. I told them that as soon as I found out why they were grinning I would be sure to put them in time out, but they thought this was hilarious and I was the funniest person ever. Their laughter definitely did nothing to reassure me.

We also had a doctors appointment. Now, on the way to the appointment I spent all my time reminding them to stay out of the snow due to lack of boots. And today on the way to the boat I had to remind them frequently not to climb in EVERY fallen tree, nor to slide down EVERY bannister, nor to jump onto and off the benches at the boat. Eva jumped getting off the bus and got me the nose, and it really hurt and we were late because I had to sit down and cry. I sometimes think that they are the most rambunctious children I know. I look around, and other kids are not constantly jumping and running and spinning. They occasionally do other things! But when we get together with other kids those kids invariably adjust to the nieces energy level, not the other way around, so then I think I'm unobservant or the other kids are stifled. I can't figure out which it is.

She's finally learning to check her work as she spells. This doesn't necessarily translate to better spelling - the only two tests we've gotten back this year were a 40 and a 0, so... yeah - but she does now realize when words she's studied look wrong, and she does understand that she *should* review her words before handing her test in. So go her!

She also, I realize now, has become the master of the strategic mumble. Maybe this is what she was doing in class all last year? She was reading aloud the blurb of a book to me.... *dreamy flashback music*

Evangeline: After he kissed his elbow, did MumbleRumble become a girl?
Me: Wait, what did you say?
Eva: After he kissed his elbow, did MumbleRumble-
Me: Who???
Eva: *pause* Mumblerumble
Me: Can you try that again?
Eva: (slightly louder) mum
Me: Seriously? I know you're just mumbling so I won't know you didn't really read the word. Except I do know. What's his name?

Now, at this point, had I used that line on Ana, she would've acted huffy and upset and stormed that I don't know what she's thinking and she can do it herself without my help and basically done whatever she could to change the subject from her reading to... anything else! It's every bit as transparent as the mumbling! But Eva, you know, she knows when the game is up. (Edit: Although, to be fair, Ana probably wouldn't've tried the mumbling in the first place, even if she was having trouble reading it for some reason. I don't know what she would've done, since she's never had trouble reading aloud, but this doesn't seem like her style at all.)

Eva: Marvelrumble
Me: What's his first name?
Eva: Marvel.
Me: I don't think so. Let's chunk this into syllables. The first one is mar, what's the second? We'll cover the other word.
Eva: Vel.
Me: No.
Eva: V. I. L - oh, n. Vin. Marvin. Marvin Redpost!
Me: Thanks.

Other than that she swears she's *always* finishing before anybody else in the class and she's *always* bored. If this is true, we may send her in with some other work to do if she finishes first and has read her books, but things that she's not studying in school already. That would just exacerbate the problem, and we already *do* extra schoolwork at home. (Ana still isn't happy about that. She likes the results of doing math before she encounters it in school, but she doesn't like that this requires work.)

On the subject of homework, I'm finally enforcing the rule I should've been enforcing all along: I set a reasonable amount of time for Ana to do her work (an hour and 15 minutes, plus some time for reading), and when the timer goes off, she's done. I mean, I'm fair and if she only has two words left to write I'll let her do that, but whatever's not close to being completed gets put away and she can finish it in the morning if she wakes up on time but I won't have it eating up the entire evening. It's like when she was three and would dawdle all day over her breakfast. Now that she has a time limit, lo and behold, she's mostly fitting her homework within the time limit! Look, Ana, it *doesn't* take you three hours to do one spelling assignment, one math assignment, and a journal entry! And I don't need to sit on top of you and scream, either!

I knew I should've really done this at least a year ago, and I don't know why I didn't.

1. Prior to the movie that wasn't, we saw a trailer for Life of Pi.

Eva: I'd like to have a tiger as a pet.... (this was said while the tiger was snarling in the boat, of course)
Me: No. No, you wouldn't.
Eva: Yes I would.
Me: Not really.
Eva: Well, why not?
Me: You know how sometimes Mama cat, even though she likes you, will turn and scratch or bite you?
Eva: Yeah...?
Me: Imagine if she were a tiger.
Eva: I don't want a tiger as a pet. Maybe a kitten instead.

2. Today, I got attacked in bed by her.

Eva: Ew! Your breath is stinky! Stinky breath!
Me: I know you are, but what am I?
Eva: You're the one with the stinky breath! I'm rubber, and you're glue, and you have stinky breath.
Me: If you keep saying that, I'll have to breathe in your face.
Eva: STINKY BREATH! *buries face in my stomach*
Me: *huff*
Eva: You brothe on my head, not my face. I mean... breathed. You breathed on my - aaah!

(That's when I got her.)

Current Mood: amused

With lentils to stretch the beef. Because, you know, lentils make it healthy. (The fact that it's half veggies makes it healthy.)

The nieces love this meal, especially when I refrain from making the topping with sweet potato. (Parsnips all the way, baby!)

While we ate dinner, we played categories, specifically, "things you do during summer". ( Read more... )

At this moment, Jenn walked in, asking what was for dinner.

Evangeline: Sri Lankan food!
Me: Fried chicken!
Jenn: Okay. *walks out*
Evangeline: Um... does she really think it's fried chicken?

We never did finish this game.

This would be a very serious accusation, but I managed to get specifics from her today. Apparently, I'm nicer to Callie because I a. snuggle Callie all the time and b. give Callie everything she likes.

It's not that this reasoning is entirely false, but for comparison purposes, let's make a list. Maybe you can see the problem with it:

What Callie likes:

Playing fetch with her little foil cat toy
Catching mice
Her brother
Cat food
Sneaking food (and dead mice) out of the garbage
Yowling at the top of her lungs
Playing pounce-on-the-feet
Napping
Climbing on stuff and then jumping off
Being snuggled

What Ana likes:

Playing on the ipad
Reading
Her sister
Icies and potato chips
Hiding out so she doesn't have to do her homework (or clear the table)
Playing punch-buggy
Showing off how strong she is
Climbing on stuff and then jumping off
Never being snuggled ever again.

Seriously, she's been known to punch people. And by people I mean me. When I pointed this out, that she NEVER accepts a snuggle or a hug when I offer one, she said that, nevertheless, I snuggle Callie more than I snuggle her. I went to snuggle her. She kicked me.

Yeah, I'm not trying that again!

And she's also learned that by being still and calm, she'll encourage Callie to interact with her. Just today Callie came up to her and head-bumped her before running away! (It was huge, really.)

Ana's new knowledge only helps her a *little*, of course. A few days ago she accidentally locked Callie out in the back hallway. When she opened the door she decided, since Callie is scared of her, to open it in such a way as to not frighten the cat.

She hid behind the door.

( Read more... )

Ana: You know, I found out recently that Callie (the calico cat) really likes hunting. Even at night! Every night she's just literally "blargh blargh blargh" (said while frenetically waving her hands in vague clawing motions) all night and jumping on the bed and off the bed and on the bed!
Me: She actually SAYS "blargh blargh blargh"?
Ana: No, that's why I said literally.

Now, I don't usually get all up in the "literally means literal!" debate because, honestly, talk about your lost battle! But I couldn't let this one slide.

Me: Yes, literally. So she actu-
Ana: No! Literally! It means, you know, actually but not really!
Me: No, Ana, it actually means "actually, but totally really".
Ana: It does? Well, whatever, I'm using it that way. She literally does that!
Me: No, sweetie, she figuratively does that. She couldn't do that if she tried, her mouth doesn't work that way.

Later at bedtime, Ana was upset at me because I'd sent Evangeline to bed without dinner. This was because we got a note home about her behavior at school, and when asked Evangeline first lied about it, then continued to lie about it, then started screaming. And I wasn't even upset about the note! So she went right to bed tonight, because we can't have screaming children at the table. I said she could come out when she was ready to behave, and I guess she wasn't. So when Ana went to bed she made a point of telling me how much she'll never forgive me, because, after all, she holds grudges forever. (Newsflash, Ana, we already know this.)

To prove the point, she said she's still mad at this girl in her class in kindergarten, T, because one day in kindergarten T called her fat. And I couldn't help it, I started to laugh. If T called Ana fat, it only proves she had no idea what the word means, because T is quite honestly the chubbiest child I've ever met*, and Ana, well, isn't. Of course, when Ana found out why I found this funny she immediately leapt to the girl's defense, despite not being friends with her over this whole comment. "She's not fat! Well, not anymore. She lost a lot of weight!"

* Not that I normally would care, and even if I would children are constantly getting fat and then thin again, but the irony here was astounding.

I call it a rabbit, it's all blue and red and I think it's from Guatemala. Regardless, she's had it for a long time, and recently Evangeline glommed onto it.

She calls it "Rabbi", a name I vehemently oppose for the obvious reason. So when I'm around now she calls it "Rabbie" or "Rat-eye" instead.

Not that these names are much better, but I can't really fathom her carrying around a decidedly non-kosher toy animal, throwing it up into the air, and calling it "Rabbi".

And as I explained my reasoning to her, again, that it's just coincidentally mildly inappropriate, her sister got in on the act.

Ana: It doesn't have to mean that!
Me: Well, it kinda does. There's only one word that sounds like rabbi, and that's rabbi, and...
Ana: It's also a disease!
Me: What? Okay, no, it's not.
Ana: Yes! Rabbis! It's a disease!
Me: Not that it'd be any better if it were a disease, but no. There's no disease "rabbis".
Ana: Yes there is!
Me: They're Jewish people! It's not a sickness!
Ana: Yes it is! You know, rabbis?

As she said the last I glanced over at her, very frustrated at this inanity, to see her waving her hands at her mouth.

Me: No it's - wait. Do you mean rabies?
Ana: RABBIS!
Me: R - a - b - i - e - s is rabies, sweetie.
Ana: Oh. Well, anyway, it doesn't matter!

Current Mood: amused

And first they whined about how to split the cookies evenly, but then they thought about it and worked out that 14/2 = 7 cookies each. So Evangeline carefully counted out her seven cookies, and Ana decided to have hers later.

A few minutes down the line, when Ana took the sleeve of cookies, Evangeline said, apparently totally seriously:

"Those are your cookies, but be careful, that's my crumb!"

On top of the stack of cookies there was one cookie crumb.

Ana: Your crumb?!?
Evangeline: Yes. That's my crumb.
Ana: YOUR CRUMB?!?!?!?
Evangeline: My crumb.
Ana: Your... CRUMB????
Evangeline: MY CRUMB!
My mom: What's all this about? Ana, you're supposed to share evenly!
Ana: Yeah, but she says that's her crumb!
Evangeline: It is!
My mom: Your crumb?
Evangeline: That's what Ana said!

Current Mood: sick

The girls had chipped in $12, and I agreed to make up any difference. (That really annoyed Ana, who had donated the bulk of that $12 and was hoping to get some change back!)

Anyway, we bought the present and headed home, where I left the present on Jenn's bed figuring we couldn't lose it that way. Ana found it there today and was VERY CONCERNED.

"Why would you do that? Leaving it on her bed? What were you THINKING, Connie?"
"That it's not that big a deal? It's wrapped!"
"What if Mommy saw it there, and got so tempted she couldn't help herself, and she opened it early?"
"You do realize your mother's a grown-up, right?"
"That's not the point. I'm going to put this away."

And she did, right on the same spot we always hide presents, the top shelf of the pantry.

But getting back to our story, on the way home Ana spotted an ad for Gatorade, and it really baffled her.

Ana: I just don't get it.
Me: Get what? Let's cross the street here.
Ana: The sign. How can a drink give anything to a family and the mailman?
Me: The what now? Guys, let's not hold hands, it's a little -
Ana: THE SIGN! It doesn't make any sense!
Me: - crowded on the sidewalk. Ana, I have no idea what you're talking about.
Ana: There's a SIGN. And it has a mom, and a dad, and two kids, and a mailman. And Gatorade!
Me: Gatorade?
Ana: Yes!
Me: That doesn't make any sense.
Ana: No! And I don't get it. The Dad is mad, but it doesn't say why, and the mailman is smiling -
Me: Wait, what? Oh. Oh, no -
Ana: and the mom is just looking embarrassed, and I don't get it.
Me: Well, now I *do* get it, thanks Ana.
Ana: You do?
Me: Yeah, but... I'm not sure I'm going to explain it to you. It's a little inappropriate.
Ana: Well, at least I have one clue. The sign says "Gatorade gives you energy".
Me: Yeah....

I didn't explain it to her at all. NO IDEA where to start!

Other things I didn't point out: The fact that the advent calendars we picked up with the birthday present change feature 17 children, every last one of whom is white. I knew we should've gone with penguins! I'm considering a firmly worded email to the company, but I'm not sure how to word it. Can't we try for a little proportion, people? (And I feel so silly, because it's just an advent calendar, but it's not unimportant, is it? Because it's not just this one thing or that one thing, it's every one of them piled up together in a big load of... I don't know.)

Current Mood: blah

Which I expected, as noted.

And on the train we read the third chapter of Frog and Toad Are Friends ("This book is not on her reading level!"), which Evangeline has never read before: The Lost Button. She stopped a few times mid-story to guess what would happen next.

And I asked Eva after the fact what happened...

Me: So, Evangeline, what happened in this story?
Eva: He lost a button and -
Me: Wait, wait. What happened first?
Eva: They went for a walk, Frog and Toad, and he lost a button. And he-
Me: Who he?
Eva: Toad, Toad lost the button. And he and Frog went looking for it, but they couldn't find it. And they couldn't find it, and then when Toad went home he found it.
Me: Why did Frog look for the button too?
Eva: Because he and Toad are best friends.
Me: Okay. And then?
Eva: And then Toad took all the buttons they found that weren't his, and put them on his jacket and gave them to Frog.
Me: Why? (This isn't stated in the story.)
Eva: I think he just thought maybe Frog was upset at looking for the button, so he wanted to make him happy.

This is pretty close to the synopsis I would've given. This is, as near as I can tell, what Evangeline's teacher thinks she can't do. Are first grade teachers looking for something different?

Evangeline also, I will note, is very careful when reading dialog to try to read it with the appropriate emotion. She'll actually go and re-read something if she started out "sad" and thinks it should have been "happy", or if she was "shouting" and the text says the character "wailed". I don't think I'm just doting when I say that *I* think this puts her ahead of many young readers, and, for that matter, many not-so-young readers who ought to know better.

I mean, here's the thing. I am starting to think, as I've said, that Evangeline may not be reading as well as it seems, that she relies on guesswork more than she ought. However - is she also just working incredibly sub-optimally in class? Because I can't figure this out at all!

Her spelling test didn't come back yet either. I'm quite annoyed.

Current Mood: cheerful

I just want to say that the nieces raved about this gumbo and said it is "Connie's best gumbo ever".

RAVED. ABOUT. IT.

Of course, they also rave when I make green beans, and that doesn't require a roux. So what do they know?

Today Evangeline said, as we walked towards her school "Sometimes I wonder how we all got made."

Me: How what all got what?
Evangeline: How everything got made. You know, the trees and people and, and, and planets and stars?
Me: Oh! Well, that's an excellent question. People have been asking that question for ages and ages. Too bad we still aren't entirely clear on it.
Eva: Well, Grandma thinks God just made everything.
Me: That's one answer, but I don't think it's a good one, because then you just have to ask-
Eva: WHO MADE GOD!

I swear, I didn't plant that statement. See, she's not even six, and even SHE can see the serious flaw in the argument there!

Anyway, we talked a bit about various peoples' creation myths, and I gave her a very brief synopsis of the Big Bang. VERY brief, as I find talk about the origin of everything to be boring and pointless* and so don't know that much on the subject.

*Extremely pointless. As far as I'm concerned, we're here, so obviously we exist, and if we didn't we wouldn't care, so why worry about it? I'm more concerned with my missing pint of ice cream. Anyway, the odds of getting a definitive answer (about the universe AND about my ice cream) within our lifetimes are impossibly slim, and unlike curing cancer or fixing poverty answering the question wouldn't help anybody in the here and now, so "impossibly slim" is as good a reason as any not to care. But I'm all for other people researching and thinking on the subject. Whatever makes you happy.

Current Mood: cheerful

Jenn has come across them discussing which one will have the kids and which one will be home! More recently, they seem to have decided they can BOTH have kids if they schedule their work neatly so they have equal days off during the week.

This, naturally, led to squabbles about how to divide seven days fairly between two children. Finally I stepped in and asked why they couldn't have, say, the respective dads watch the kids.

Ana: Dad? You mean, a boy? I'm not getting married. Ew! Gross! BOYS.
Eva: Wait. Could YOU do it? Could YOU watch the kids?
Me: Oh, yeah, sure, I guess *I* don't ever need to have fun and, y'know, a life. Or gainful employment of any sort....
Them: Yay!

It takes so little to make them happy.

Anyway, that dinnertime conversation somehow segued into talking about sex (it was the boys angle) and the girls were baffled that anybody would use birth control (such as condoms, it's never too early to indoctrinate children that using condoms is a GOOD IDEA) because, after all, why would ANYBODY want to have sex if they didn't want children? Go through all that? With a boy? For no good reason? Ew!

I declined to comment.

Current Mood: amused

Ana is, socially, doing much better this year. Every day she's bubbling over with something that happened in school. I think she just has a better group of kids (for HER, not that the others were terrible people) this year.

Two of her good friends, I won't name. I'm even changing their INITIALS. One of them, W is a girl, and the other, P is a boy.

And Ana told me the other day "W lied. She said she doesn't like P, or she only likes him THIS much (holding fingers apart a teeny bit) but then she told ME she likes him THIS much (holding her arms apart)".

Me: And did she ask you to tell him she really likes him?
Ana: Yeah! *giggles* And he's white, so his ears are white too, and when I whispered in his ears they turned BRIGHT RED! And he jumped.

Current Mood: amused

and told me in great detail why Beauty and the Beast (Disney version) doesn't make any sense:

1. There are no Beasts
1a. That is, not any that can a. walk b. talk c. wear clothes and d. turn into handsome princes
2. Princes don't turn into beasts and vice versa
3. Royalty doesn't really work like that or act like that
4. Neither do horses, and it doesn't make sense for a horse to get lost just so you have an excuse for matchmaking
5. All the things in your house don't really sing and dance
6. Roses don't really carry messages
7. There was no reason she couldn't've visited home or had her dad visit her sooner
8. It's a stupid story

which just about covers it, I think! She was quite adamant!

She also told me why there aren't REALLY any such things as vampire watermelons:

It's just the wind blowing around watermelons in the night, down hills or wherever, and everybody knows there's no such things as vampires there's only "dead people who go into the ground and turn into dirt".

Of course, as I pointed out, I never said there were such things as vampire watermelons, only that some people tell stories about vampire watermelons.

Ana, for her speaking part in this post, regaled me with the ending of The Birchbark House. Before we had a chance to finish it. Oh, I might never forgive her! What's the rule, kiddies? NO READING AHEAD!

Current Mood: cheerful

Better than Ana was at her actual age, but not quite as well as during the same part in her school career, if that makes sense.

Both of them had, at this point, a problem with guessing. But they guessed totally differently!

Ana, at this stage, would look at the first few letters and make a guess based on how they should all sound... even if it didn't make sense. So if she had a sentence that ran something like "We all live on the Earth" and she was tired by the end of it, she might read "Earth" as "earring" or "eats" or some nonsense word that sorta sounds right.

Evangeline, looking at that same sentence and being just as tired at the end of it, is much more likely to make a guess based upon the sense of the sentence. So HER guess might come out as "planet" or "world".

This has the result of making Evangeline sound like a much better reader, and the fact that she pays attention to what the words mean is very good... but in the end, I don't really want either one of them guessing at all. When they do (and they don't guess right), deep down I feel like shouting "STOP GUESSING! JUST READ IT! R E A D!"

But I try not to do that. I doubt it's helpful. I know, being able to figure things out from context is an important skill, and Ana, at least, is reading well above grade level, so why worry?

But it really annoys me. I mean, really.

Here's something else about reading, and I'm allowed to post this on the condition that none of you ever mentions it to anybody who might ever meet Evangeline, ever. You're swearing an oath by reading onwards!

When they read, they like to pretend they're characters in the books they're reading. (And to an extent they do this when watching TV too.) So if I read about how Omakayas felt bad because her sister Angeline teased her (we're reading The Birchbark House now. Good book, but it's about to get REALLY depressing), Evangeline will go "That's me, I feel bad!" or start to "cry" at the same time I'm reading because "My sister was mean to me". Evangeline especially listens very closely for any mention of HER chosen character in whatever book we're reading. (She was Diana when we read Anne of Green Gables. She still IS Diana sometimes.)