Riley and Avery

Riley helping with dinner. One thing I love about Montessori is that I can count on her using knives that most children can't use safely!

So I had the conference with the director of Riley's school yesterday. She said that Riley is doing Kindergarten level work now, and is doing so well in school. She said that Riley's brain is always working and she has so much stuff in her head that she wants to get out. She was really impressed by Riley's artwork. She also advised that we be very careful if we ever sign her up for art classes. She said that the teacher would really need to foster creativity, or Riley will lose the fabulous creativity that she has. This is the beef I have with Rudi. He has such arbitrary rules about art and art supplies, and wants her to take a class to "learn" some things. I think it would kill her creativity. Anyway...she said that Riley is such an important member of the school and really wants her back again next year. She also said that they would love to have Avery there as well. I had kind of resigned myself to the fact that Avery wouldn't go to preschool, and I'm still not sold on the idea. The director has done some work with Avery when we are there to pick Riley up and really delights in her. I'm not sure how she will behave in "school." She appears to be a "school minded" child, if that makes sense. I can see how Riley is, like, "other" smart, or "big picture smart" whereas Avery is "school smart." I know that both a really intelligent, but in such different ways. But I'll take one step at a time, and I don't really see any harm in 3 half-days a week. I also think that Riley and Avery in the same school would cement their relationship, which hasn't been that great lately. Oh, and the best part, I will work in exchange for tuition again, for both girls! Three mornings for Avery and three full-days and 2 mornings for Riley. So really, only one day of the week will suck, the one day a week that Riley has a full day and Avery has a half-day.

On a different note, the weather here has totally sucked. It snowed HARD yesterday evening, really picking up right before I left for class. About half-way there, I had serious doubts about driving in that weather, but didn't turn around. Turns out, only four people showed up for class and we got out early. It took me 45 minutes to get to class. Rudi took the girls to storytime at the library, only to be told as soon as they got there that they would be closing in 3 minutes :(

If I am unhappy with the weather, the spring Robins are definitely more miserable. They sit in the road puffed up and pouting. When I approach with the car, they are hesitant to move. Either they are too cold to get out of the way, or they are contemplating ending it all, asking for deliverance from their suffering under my car tires.

I made falafel last night with cucumber sauce. Rudi turned up his nose at it from the start, but turned out to really really really like them. Thank goodness, because I doubled the recipe and we have a ton left. The jury is still out on whether the children liked them or not. I'll try feeding them to Avery again today, but give her ketchup with it and see if that goes over better.

Now that we've been cooking more vegetarian meals, we are going through olive oil like it's water. Which is not making me happy because of how expensive it is. Nothing's worse than spending $8 of your $100 weekly food budget on one item. But yesterday as I was digging through the cupboard for dried bread crumbs, I find a HUGE bottle of high-quality olive oil, unopened. Score. I felt like I won the lottery. Crisis averted.

Well, today is the 2nd, and I've successfully kept Rudi from spending any money. This sounds silly to most, but it's a triumph for us. He usually goes on a spending spree on the 1st and lives like a king until we're broke on the 5th and he blames me for not handling the money well enough. Tides are a-changing!