Riley and Avery

Oh, yeah, the testing lady called back last night and we scheduled Riley's testing from 1-3pm on Wednesday the 22nd. She said that the testing can probably be done under two hours. If not, we'll make another appointment and if Riley poops out before the test is done, we can finish at a later time. I hate tests...

So, Avery's costume is done. Yes, that's 9 whole yards of tulle around her little waist. The size 2 skirt did turn out to be big, so I cinched it in more. It also turned out to be too long. I shortened it as much as the pattern would allow, and it just touches the floor. Perhaps with shoes on it won't drag too much. I did have to pull it up a lot. She'll be able to fit this skirt for years to come, if she wants. I didn't fully enclose the elastic in the waist, so it can be taken out easily and made bigger. All I have to do is put a hook and eye on to close the vest. Although she did put me on notice that she wants a blue princess hat. I'm pretty sure she's thinking of the damsel hats that she saw at the Renaissance festival. I'll have to figure that one out. Riley's costume came with a pattern for a witch had and I think I'll use that as a springboard for Avery's hat, just leave off the brim. Hmmm....I'll probably go through my quilting fabric and see if I have enough of any one blue fabric to make the hat. Of course, I'll have to buy interfacing, but I think that's cheap. Since Rudi's unemployment is up, we have entered into some leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeean times.

By the way, Avery's "princess smile" involved laying her head on her shoulder, apparently. Good thing she isn't really a princess, I'd imagine she'd have a terrible crick in her neck.

By bountiful, I mean two. One ripe and one semi-ripe. We have a few green ones left on the plant but we are supposed to get frost tonight, so I though it best to get the two that were passably ripe. Both girls picked one, ate one, and spit one out. They've never been tomato girls. There was one red raspberry on one of our berry bushes that Riley ate and liked. We aren't really supposed to get berries this year, maybe next, so one berry is not a disappointment. Next year, however, we will be getting tomato starters. There is just no time in Colorado to grow tomatoes from seed.

So, Riley had her appointment with the testing psychologist today. She was a nice lady, but not quite like the play therapist. Riley sat and drew while we talked. The psychologist said that Riley was really precocious in her drawings. She decided that Riley does need to be tested, so now we just have to wait for her assistant to call us back and schedule the appointment. Her assistant does the testing. It will be a standard pre-schooler IQ test. I wish there were an alternative, but there just isn't. She said that the test takes 2 to 3 hours, so they break it up into two or three sessions. Testing a four-year-old for giftedness just seems silly to me, but if that's the path I have to take to determine where she needs to be next year, then so be it. I'm starting to question whether Montessori is the right path for Riley. Don't get me wrong, no one is a bigger fan of Montessori than I am, I'm just not sure it's the right fit for Riley.

So, I'm looking into graduate school at UCCS for elementary education. It looks doable. I have enough VA benefits remaining to carry me through the program. They offer summer courses in education, so I can speed it up by taking summer classes. Incidentally, I found my teaching portfolio in a box upstairs and looked through it. I guess I do miss teaching. Just not the 7th graders. I can do without them. But I think this is the right decision. But it's making suffering through Business Organizations and Civil Litigation nearly impossible. Hopefully, this will all be decided soon. I think I'll make a trip up to the campus this week, preferably while Riley is in school to get things jump-started.

The girls and I are going to a performance at the philharmonic on Sunday. It supposed to be a family presentation, entitled "Classic Fairy Tales." We'll see. I have to go to a cultural event for my humanities class, so it was bound to happen. I swear, if either of the girls want to take ballet classes after this, I'll submit the bill to my humanities teacher.

There's a pumpkin festival on Saturday that we are going to try to squeeze in this weekend. There is a cooperative nursery school here and the children have been busy all year growing pumpkins from the seeds of last year's pumpkins in their garden and the day before they were to harvest them, they all got stolen. The community came together to donate pumpkins, but they were stolen again, along with the irrigation system for watering them. So now truck-loads of pumpkins are rolling into the school. Whole Foods is replacing the irrigation system for them, donating more pumpkins, and posting a security guard at the school every night until Halloween. Now, I'm no big fan of Whole Foods. In fact, I rather resent their shinning organic palace available only to the upper echelons of society, their aggressive corporate business practices that push smaller businesses out of business in a manner akin to that of Walmart. But what they are doing for this school is awesome. Now local businesses are donating baked goods for a bake sale to raise money for the school and teach the kids about community. So it looks like we have a free activity to go to. Sweet.

I'm going to run because dinner needs attention...

Hmmm...I think I'm changing my mind. Actually, I think I changed my mind about mid-summer when I realized that if I go to work as a paralegal, I will miss every day of the summers with the girls. I had a panic attack while laying in bed when I belatedly came to this realization. I will get two weeks of vacation per year, and Rudi and I will probably argue about where to spend it. I will probably be able to go back to Maryland once every few years. So...

I'm seriously, very seriously, considering going back for elementary education and being a teacher...again. Not secondary education, that sucked. I think I'd enjoy working with younger children. I'd have summers off. In reality, I would make about as much as I would as a paralegal (especially considering that teachers work 9.5 months per year versus the 12 months that paralegals work). I could still go to Maryland, and other places too, every summer. I think that this is the best option for our family.

Just throwing it out there for opinions. I still have a lot of research and such to do, but I think if it all works out, I'll go for it.

Big girl on her big girl bike. Later that day she was riding through an old rain puddle (by old I mean full of road grime) and there was a pot-hole hidden at the bottom and she fell face-first into the grime puddle. She scraped her face up and had road grime all over her. That was fun. But she got back on her bike a little later with no problems. I really can't watch her ride her bike that much. They way she turns and maneuvers scares me. It's stressful to watch.

The chap stick girl. Oh yeah.



This is our first lapbook. We really had a blast making it. The "Predator" and "Defenses" are flaps that unfold and there are a few booklets in there about the monarch butterfly migration. She wants to do a lot more. Right now I'm working on getting library books on the solar system and tigers (a few of her requests) so that we can do more lapbooks. I also saw online that many homeschoolers to an Iditarod lapbook, and that looks like a whole lot of fun. There are free sites online where you can pick a musher to follow and help your child track their progress on a wall map. We can learn about the dogs, Alaska, the history of the race, and the basic needs of man and animal on the Iditarod trail. I'm all excited about that, but the Iditarod is not until February, I think. As Riley gets older, she'll be able to do more of the lapbook herself, but for right now it's a little time-consuming for me, looking online for resources to print out. I found a lapbooking yahoo group and there is a treasure-trove of info there so it's been a lot easier lately. Ack, I just googled the Iditarod and it's not 'til March. Poo. I hate waiting. They used to have dogsled races in Montana, and I'm wondering if they have them in Colorado. That would be a fun field trip. Hmmm...

Riley and Avery have developed a closer relationship, which is not always good. They have mastered the art of aggravating each other and pushing each other's buttons, but they also engage in spontaneous play together too. It's nice to watch them build a fort together and come up with imaginative scenarios.

I lost a whole long post and don't remember what I was posting about. Autosave on Blogger seems like a good idea in theory, but it always fails. Whatever.

I think that Riley is on the cusp of learning how to read. I think. She was lamenting last night about being afraid that she will never learn to read. She sounds out words as she's falling asleep. She writes random letters in her journal and on the chalkboard side of her easel, all neat and small. Like everything with Riley (walking, talking, riding a bike, and tying shoes) she seems to do things suddenly and all at once. Once she sets her mind to something, she will get it all within a short amount of time. I guess we'll just wait and see...

Avery can count up to 9. I guess she learned it from Riley. I certainly didn't teach her. Well, I would ask her to count up to three, I think. Mostly because she always wants three of everything. She also likes pushing the buttons on the microwave. I was reheating my coffee and asked her to push the "2" and she said "That's not a 2, that's an S." Ah, when they learn on their own...

I should be doing homework, so I'm going to run...

Okay, I can't resist. I am on a thread at MDC and a poster asked how to break it to a family member that her "famous" dish makes her and her family sick. That lead to 10 pages of horrible horrible terrible no good recipes. Seriously, you've gotta check these out!:
Sandra Lee's Kwanzaa Celebration Cake (you MUST read the reviews on this one! Hilarious! A $1000 vet bill?! Priceless!)
Paula Deen's Lady's Brunch Burger (and we wonder why there's a obesity epidemic?)
Paula Deen's Cheesy Ham and Banana Casserole (yes, you read that right, banana-pig casserole!)

Wow, Riley is making out like a bandit these past couple of days. Our neighbor Candace just gave Riley her daughter's old bike since her birthday is today and she is getting a new one. Sweet deal for Riley. It's the next size up, so what it that? A 16"? Either way, she's speeding around the neighborhood on it, as if she's been riding it her whole life. I haven't gotten a picture yet since this just happened like 10 minutes ago.

So, we picked up Little Sweetheart this morning after her spay yesterday. I tell you the incision is perhaps 1/3 inch, if that. Probably closer to 1/4 inch. It looks like a little knot. The nurse said that since LS (that's what I'm calling her on here from now on since I'm tired of typing "Little Sweetheart") is still really young she had teeny tiny little ovaries, and that the vets do spay and neuters all day every day and have gotten really good at doing it through minute incisions. I expected (was looking forward to) a sleepy cat, but LS has been up and at it since coming home. I gave her her pain medication pill without drama, and she went right to harassing the guinea pigs Thank goodness I've closed off the cage, so it now has a lid. The guinea pigs are obviously so much happier, but LS is so definitely not happy about the new arrangement. She moves a little stiffly, but seem no worse for the wear.

Oh, and because LS's stitches will dissolve, she cannot be bathed for 2 to 3 weeks. I guess we'll see if Riley is still allergic or if she's become accustomed to the cat. I have a feeling she's accustomed because LS likes to sleep on our necks or on our pillows and I'm sure Riley would have had some sort of reaction, in spite of the baths, but we'll see on that one. Fingers crossed.

So, the disc drive on my iBook has been on the fritz for a while and Riley really likes to play her math and phonics games on the computer, so....I bought her a used iMac for $60. Not too shabby. I know that kids play too many games and such, but she gets a very healthy amount of outside exercise so I'm really not worried about it. Additionally, playing computer games is the only time that she really shows what she knows. Otherwise, she tries to trick whoever she's speaking to. But on the computer, I can look over her shoulder periodically and catch a glimpse of what she really knows. She upstairs right now, over the moon, playing games I checked out of the library. Oh, yeah, for the past couple of hours I've been deemed the most awesomest mom in the world. Tomorrow I'll be back to sucking eggs, but I'll take what I can get.

Hmmm, what else is new? Oh yeah, Rudi went out an got new tires for his car yesterday. That was fun. He went to Sears and while he was waiting he went to the ATM and did some looking around the mall and then realized that he left his ATM card in the machine and it took it. So he called me, Avery was sleeping, and said "come quick, my car is almost done and my ATM card was taken by the machine!!" Oh, yay!

So we were going to have my windshield replaced (Rudi said the windshield was more important, although I voted to get my drivers-side window fixed and was vetoed) but then I notice, on my way home from school, that my brakes are squeaking and grinding. Oh, good. It's not so bad right now, and I can drive without making the brakes grind by braking slowly and gradually. They only grind when I am braking downhill right now, but I want to take it in right away before I need new rotors. Trying to keep it cheap. And safe, too, I guess. When it rains, it pours, right?

Just a short one to document the funny thing that Riley said last night. She usually starts talking to herself about random things as she is winding down, and sometimes I jump in:

Riley: We are meat-eaters, but we don't have sharp teeth so we don't hunt our prey. We get our meet at the supermarket. We make our own food, so we are not really a part of the food chain.
Me: Do you know what meat-eaters are called?
Riley: No. Oh, carnivores!
Me: Right. But we also eat plants. Do you remember what animal that eat both plants and animals are called?
Riley: No.
Me: They're called omnivores.
Riley: Om-ni-vores?
Me: Yup. Do you remember what animals that only eat plants are called?
Riley: Lawn mowers!

I think I just about died. Rudi thought it was hilarious when I recounted it to him later. Ah, Riley!

So, the kitchen window is open and I hear Matthew and Riley talking:

Riley: We can't have too many sprinkles on our cupcakes because sugar makes you fat.

Matthew: We just have to get a lot of exercise. That happened to my friend and he just had to get a lot of exercise because he ate too much.

Riley: Is that what happened to your mom? (gasp! His mom just had a baby!)

Matthew: No, my Mom had to eat like that because she was pregnant and she even had to eat things that were bad for her like chocolate and caffeine for breakfast.

Riley: Oh.

Just thought that was funny!