A night with the missionaries

Since the missionaries have been coming over to our house every other Sunday Faith is getting used to them. Last night, instead of her climbing all over me she shifted her attention to the elders. She pretended to give them her toys and then would quickly take them back with smile on her face. Sorta like, you want them? Here you go. Just kidding, I'm going to keep them. She ran over to me to tell me that one of them had tickled her and then another one had rubbed her head. Then we started talking about her hair and it being rubbed. I told her to do the same to him. I told her it was prickly like a porcupine. She said, "can't get me porcupine." as she ran into the other room. She climbed in and out of her car (box) and finally said, "missionaries, you are so funny." I wanted to crack up laughing. She is the one that is funny. She even told them thanks for coming when they left and sat still for a closing prayer. Who is this child of mine? I've never met a happier child. She just smiles, plays and laughs all day. Not a care in the world.

What color is that?

Faith is working on differentiating colors of the same color hue. Examples, red orange, blue green, turquoise, dark blue, marroon, etc... I guess she is picking up on the fact that there are many different variations of colors. Tonight Bud read to her and of course her favorite storybook right now is Reader's Digest Book of Animals. Bud decided to ask her what the color of the peacock's tail feathers were. Fully expecting an answer of blue and green, he was surprised when she said turquoise. "What did you just say?" he asked. Turquoise, she said. He said, "when did you learn what that was?" being quite blown away by this word and how well it was spoken. I asked him if that was what he was pointing to and he said yes. He then called her a smarty pants. It was really funny.

A day in yellow classroom

Yesterday since Faith was sick from school I had a chance to be in her classroom to teach. I had fun yet at the same time I realized just how different she was. I knew she was different in some ways compared to other 2's however I just didn't realize in how many until I was around them all day. Let me start with the fact that they don't have good manners; no please and thank you, no sorrys, no excuse me. I was flabbergasted. They don't follow the rules. They kick and scream and throw fits. They didn't know simple stuff like types of farm animals when presented with the action figures. They can't count unless they are being led in a song of 5 Little Monkeys. They have no interest in being read to. Their attention span is about the size of a flea. They put toys in their mouths. They snatch toys. They have no number or letter recognition. The 18 month old puzzles are hard to them. They still poop their pants and some will be 3 here in three months. One walks around with a blanket and binky in her mouth because they allow her to; she is Faith's age to a T. I couldn't understand anything they said and some are going to be three in a few months. Anyone who knows Faith can vouch that she is no way like this at all. Maybe I am one of the few that wants a respectful, smart, funny, kind daughter. I guess some think that is too much to ask from a two year old.

Counting and sorting

Faith and I have really been working on counting. Not just counting but counting objects and sorting things. This morning we made this coconut counting book based on the story Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. All the pages have the same words on it except for the number. It gives her a chance to feel like she is reading just by looking at the pages and counting the coconuts. I liked it alot. Last week we counted and sorted clay beads we made. Last weekend after we bought a whole bunch of Mentos for a soda fountain explosion we used the remaining ones for sorting and organizing. She does very well. Today I broke out some candy Sprees. She placed them all in their own containers and then counted the different colors afterwards. When I noticed she had a red candy in with a yellow candy I asked her what was wrong with that specific bowl. She pointed out that the red one did not belong in there. Then she moved it to the correct bowl. I think she had fun with it. I would like to continue to do this with not only colors but shapes and similar themed objects. For example, zoo animals vs. farm animals. Big vs. small. She knows them all but I know catagorizing is important in understanding the world around us.

Toilet paper craze

The last few days have been spent trying to get Faith to understand consequences starting with unrolling all the toilet paper. I really do not think that she does it on purpose. I think she unrolls the entire roll just to see it unroll and go down the trash can. So this morning we spent time rolling it up and then this evening I realized it was really quiet in the bathroom with her in it. I thought for a second and realized she was at it again. There she was trying to fix the situation. I turned around and decided to leave the bathroom and send Bud in for reinforcement. He did his best to explain it to her. However after careful consideration he decided to just throw the paper away instead of rolling it again. The consequence next time will be she won't be able to go by herself anymore. She will not like that because she is all for doing stuff by herself. We will see. She will probably forget about it by morning and we will start over again.

Let's all meet the zoo animals

This week is all about the zoo. So far Faith has learned about monkeys, toucans, zebras, giraffes, and elephants. Yesterday she came home sounding like a monkey as she dug her hands into her armpits and jumped on the bed. That may have had to do with the story Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the bed. She is enjoying painting monkeys, glueing toucans, galloping like zebras and singing zoo songs with puppets. Today she came home singing Five Little Monkeys swinging in the tree. It is a song about an alligator who comes and snatches them from the tree. It was cute. I love it that she can talk because I can't imagine her coming home like all of her other friends and not being able to tell me about all the cool things she did. She has also started using pronouns this week. She has used all these correctly... I, you, me, he, she. She is no longer Faith when speaking, she has became an I. She makes a very good narrator too because she narrates everything she does. And I mean everything.

Circle Time

Have I mentioned how much Faith loves circle time at school. Today we didn't get to school until 930am which fell right at the start of circle time. They had just done the welcome song and then Ms. Goff started this song about Tarzan and Jane. As I got ready to leave Faith had already left my side in order to quickly sit on the carpet to sing and dance. She followed the teacher's actions and just smiled the whole time. Ms. Goff is such a wonderful teacher. I am sad to hear she will only be there through August however maybe the little children will grow on her and she will decide to stay. Her teacher says that Faith's favorite time of day is circle time. She was singing Annie yesterday, Hi-5 this morning along with Jungle Book and Bibity Bobbity Boo. As much as she enjoys stories, singing, dancing and moving, it doesn't surprise me that she loves this special time in the morning and afternoon.

Imagination gone wild

Faith has this huge imagination and she can just go on for hours with it. I try my best to keep up with her but sometimes it is just exhausting. Last night it was a game of cowboys and bears. We both had cowboy hats on and she had her pink boots on again. Have I mentioned how much she loves those? She started off on her rocking horse but then realized she couldn't travel through the house so she hopped on her mop with me on the broom and we rode off into the sunset. Oh no, it's a bear she shouts. I hand Bud the huge bear and he chases her into the closet. She rides her horse all the way there only to get bucked off and fall down. After that close encounter she realized that her horse needed shoes in order to run faster. So she went to her workbench and brought back a hammer. She used her alphabet letters to act as horseshoes and hammered away. Then she hammered my feet with horse shoes and then Bud's because by this time he had become another horse too. She climbed on top of him and kicked him in the side. Giddy up. Let's go, she said. Somehow the horses were finished and then she got her push popcorn maker that she calls a vacuum. She vacuumed the house stopping occasionally to hammer the top because it was broken. Here comes the funny part. She was pulling Bud by one arm. He was her horse. Besides horses and cleaning she loves playing knights and princess. A friend got her a silver vest and she used it for armor, an old army hat for a helmet, and her ring stacker for a sword. She used two tiny princesses to save, her closet for the castle and played for probably 30 minutes. It is fun this age now. She directs me with how to play and what to do. What will today bring? Puppies, ducks, ballerinas, I don't know. But I'm sure she will have fun.

Funny saying of the week

It never fails, Faith never says anything funny until Tuesday at supper. Tonight as we were jumping from the clothes basket to the pillows she would land on her bottom and just laugh. As I was walking to the kitchen she continued to jump and then I heard this.
"Oh my!! That's so crazy!"
So I asked her to repeat herself and yes I heard her right. I called Bud up and asked if this is something I say often and he said no. I do call her crazy but I don't phrase it this way. So she is taking words she hears and making them her own. What a funny girl.

Why are some parents so dumb?

It is a question that has been stirring in my head for the past few days. Why are some parents so dumb? Not dumb as not being educated. Just dumb to be dumb and not safe. As we were pulling into a dump gas station the other day I noticed a family of 5 were all trying to pile into this 4 door Buick taxicab. Now had it been just the five of them it would have been ok but it gets worse. There were actually 6 of them if you include the taxi driver. One was a child of maybe three. The other was of the tender age of one. The last one was probably five. I looked with amazement as they all tried to pile into the car. Bud reminded me to mind my own business and not to stare. I usually stare because I can not believe my eyes. In addition to there not being enough seats in the car, the infant was not in a car seat nor was the three year old. The five year old had no booster seat and the mother held the infant in her lap in the front seat. I honestly feel that if people cannot take care of a child and keep them safe, they should NOT have children. I would just never forgive myself if something ever happened to Faith and it was preventable. She is my world.

So Bud reminded me that they may not have had the money to buy car seats. If I couldn't afford a carseat I would not be having sex....that is for sure. Do people think that they won't get pregnant from having sex? When number three pops out wouldn't you think that they would figure it out. Ok, now I want to be nice and not judgemental however it kills me to see these children not being cared for when I love my child more than life itself.

I thought maybe it was just a fluke and not many other people are like this. WRONG!! Maybe here in Virginia that is how they do it. As I pulled up to the stop light this evening I looked out my window to see this white van. Was it junky? No, not at all. Let me tell you about what was wrong with this picture. As I looked into the van I seen the girl of about 6 was not buckled in her seat. The preschooler in the way back was in his carseat yet had no seat belt on. And last of all the third child was an infant of not more than 8 months facing forward in his carseat. Ok, yeah, I went to my prebirth classes but alot of it was common sense. For heaven's sake, the tag on the carseat reads, face your child backwards until atleast 20 pounds and 1 year old. The longer he can be faced backwards the safer he will be. Why is it that some parents don't think about keeping their children safe? I sit back and wonder about my kids at school and their lives. I think that Rainbow Station is the best place they have because I don't know how many get upset when their parents come to pick them up. "Mom, I'm not ready to go. Come back later. Can daddy pick me up?" I wish all people were as caring parents as we all are who read this.

Just caving around

I really just wanted to head to the Shenandoah Valley skyline drive yesterday but it started to rain. What fun would it be to be in the mountains if you couldn't see the magnificent view. So we decided to head to Skyline Caverns. Skyline is one of the youngest caverns in the United States. I could really tell because of the beauty that comes from older caves. More stalamites and stalagtite formations. Despite the smaller formations, they have formations not found in many places. They are called anthodites. They are extremely rare cave formations that form in limestone caves such as Skyline Caverns. Anthodites are named after it's Greek origin which means "flower-like" because of the thin crystal like segments growing from the base and they resemble stone flowers. Anthodites are extemely fragile and in places were they are publicly displayed, nets are placed to protect these rare formations. They had shown the four phases of this crystal and it was beautiful. I couldn't believe how sparkling it was. It is said that a vaccum has to be present to make these. They take an incredibly long time to grow too.

At first Faith was scared of the cave. I don't know, maybe it was the fact that we have been reading Going on a Bear Hunt. She thought she might see a bear. The guide turned off the lights as we went through an area to help stop the moss from growing due to the light. That scared her too. But as we ventured in she became more comfortable and eventually led the way in front of us. We saw a stream that was stocked with trout. I learned that if the trout are not given light they will eventually go blind. We even experienced complete darkness when the guide turned off the lights in the anthodite room. It was darkest I've ever seen.

Our new favorite book

Else Holmelund Minarik writes these wonderful little books that are just perfect for Faith. They are little chapter books with about 50 pages. What I like about these books are that they have more words than the child stories (board books). Since Faith loves books she will sit and read for a long time with us and these are perfect. They each have little pictures on each page but more words than pictures. Plus, they are I can read level 1 books which she will benefit from in a few years. The collection are stories of a little bear who is sweet to his mother and father, kind to everyone and a good friend to Cat, Duck and Hen. The mother is presented as all knowing, all loving and kind. Just perfect. I am anxious to get more of these books. They are wonderful.

The napper

At school instead of sheets and a blanket they ask the parents to buy what is called a napper. It is a quilted and padded sleeping sack with a pillow and attached blanket. When I order Faith's she informed me that she didn't like the cat/dog one and she wanted the princess one. All girls have princess stuff though. Boring!! The napper came in the mail yesterday and of course we opened it after supper. She loved it so much. She even had me lay in it and covered me up. "Goodnight mommy." she said. Then she asked for it to be put on her bed to lay on for storytime. Then before I knew it she had asked to sleep with it. No wonder kids take naps in these things. They are so comfortable. I would sleep in it. Plus now she has something to take along with her on trips to see family. Despite the fact that I thought she would get hot in it at night, Bud said she looked so comfortable and we shouldn't move her.

Funny saying of the week

So as Faith was sitting eating breakfast, we had made her favorite, pancakes. She must get that from her Andma. As she finished her 1st pancake and then continued to finish her banana, I asked her if she wanted another pancake. "Is your belly empty?" I said. She continued to lift up her shirt and say this to her belly.

"Do you want another pancake? Yes. Maybe have some more pancake. Says empty."
It was so funny because she could have just told me yes, she was still hungry but she had to ask her belly to see what it had to say.

Her other favorite saying is, "mommy whatcha doing?" Everytime I am doing something she is right there asking about it. It is cute but sometimes she just asks to ask. Then when I ask her what she thinks I am doing she continues to tell me exactly what I would have told her.

All is going well here. Just need to get things packed and no one seems to want to do it again. Not even Faith.